Global powers have shown little long-term interest in the Syrian conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Russia, preserving Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime and establishing air and naval bases served as a display of its return to global prominence. This maneuver indirectly dragged the U.S. into an unwanted crisis, giving Moscow more room to pursue its objectives in Eastern Europe and strengthen the so-called \u201cArch of Instability\u201d in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Obama administration worked diligently to avoid direct involvement in Syria. Despite repeatedly setting a \u201cred line\u201d on Assad\u2019s use of chemical weapons, Obama consistently found reasons to avoid intervention. After the CIA\u2019s costly and unsuccessful efforts to create and expand the “Free Syrian Army” using moderate Muslims and secular forces, Washington was left with one viable option for meaningful presence east of the Euphrates: the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). Although rooted in communist ideology, the YPG became a necessary ally under the circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This partnership placed the U.S. in direct conflict with its strategic ally in the region, Turkey. Rebranding the communist Kurdish forces as the \u201cSyrian Democratic Forces\u201d (SDF) and promoting their fight against ISIS for Western audiences may have been palatable internationally, but Turkey was well aware of the group\u2019s hidden agenda and refused to accept this alignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Turkey, U.S. support for the YPG, given its strategic ties to the PKK, was utterly unacceptable. The YPG represented a significant security threat to Turkey\u2019s urban areas in northern Syria. The lack of geographical barriers along Syria\u2019s eastern border with Turkey facilitated potential unification between Syrian and Turkish Kurds, a nightmare scenario for Ankara.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In response, Turkey demanded the establishment of a 32-kilometer safe zone along its border for two purposes: to secure its territory against terrorist operations and to house the influx of Syrian refugees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When trilateral negotiations between the YPG, Turkey, and the United States failed, then-President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region as part of a peace initiative, granting Erdo\u011fan control over the Syria-Turkey border\u2019s security. Trump stated, \u201cOur mission was to defeat ISIS. We never made an unlimited commitment to support Syrian Kurds.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s priorities were focused less on the Middle East and Russia and more on countering the growing Chinese threat in the Indo-Pacific. However, Turkey\u2019s incomplete response, due to its economic crises, and opportunism from other actors prevented a full U.S. withdrawal from the region. Around this time, Congress, with its Democratic majority, imposed sanctions on Turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Turkey, Assad\u2019s regime has never been the primary concern. Their top priority has been preventing the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish region east of the Euphrates. The fertile lands in this area, which account for over 50% of Syria\u2019s agricultural land, control over the Tabqa Dam (a major hydroelectric source), and access to oil reserves in eastern Syria all fuel Turkey\u2019s anxiety over potential Kurdish autonomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turkey\u2019s support for marginalized religious and displaced groups in areas like Idlib and Azaz on its western border has served as a contingency plan for any power vacuum in Syria. Turkey stands to benefit from three key factors: the increasing decline of Iran\u2019s influence in the region, political shifts in the U.S., and Russia\u2019s limited capacity to intervene. Together, these factors could enable Ankara to establish the long-desired \u201cSafe Zone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Global powers have shown little long-term interest in the Syrian conflict. For Russia, preserving Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime and…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[178],"class_list":{"0":"post-4462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-articles","8":"cs-entry","9":"cs-video-wrap"},"authors":[{"term_id":178,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"diyako-giv","display_name":"Diyako Giv","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinktank-iranian.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinktank-iranian.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinktank-iranian.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinktank-iranian.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinktank-iranian.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinktank-iranian.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4463,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinktank-iranian.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4462\/revisions\/4463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinktank-iranian.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinktank-iranian.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinktank-iranian.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinktank-iranian.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4462"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinktank-iranian.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}