The Way To Prevent Peace in Syria: Protecting the YPG*

Turkish journalists, including CNN Türk correspondent Yunus Paksoy, attend U.S. State Department, Defense Department and White House press briefings, and ask plainly and directly:

“The new Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader, Golani, also says that no armed groups will be allowed and all of them have to be dismantled. Do you have any plans at all [to “commit to disarming the SDF and disbanding them”]?

The press secretary, as if speaking to a child, responds, “It’s a great question,” and adds, “[R]ight now our focus continues to be on the defeat ISIS mission, so preventing a resurgence of ISIS. … [B]ut in terms of a particular mission focus or change, I don't have anything to announce right now.”

Essentially, what he was saying was that we won’t disband the extensions of the PKK, the terrorist organizations called the Democratic Union Party, the People's Defense Units*, and the Syrian Democratic Forces.* They formed the Islamic State and allowed it to expand so that one day a duty, a responsibility, to “vanquish” them might emerge. For this, they’ve had PKK leaders from Iraq form a party and then establish an army. Now, the U.S. Armed Forces have a duty to prevent the revitalization of the Islamic State Group, and to this end they’ll continue cooperating with extensions of the PKK.

Reporter Paksoy asked, “Alright, the Turkish defense minister says that ‘With three commando brigades we won’t leave any trace of ISIS; we can wipe them out in days.’ What do you say to this?” The response was again the same:

“I don't have anything to announce in terms of any changes in U.S. force posture or how we're approaching the defeat ISIS mission.” In Anglo-Saxon countries, they ask, what part of no don’t you understand when someone doesn’t understand a negative response. Is there such a thing as not understanding the one-syllable, one-sound word “no"? Could it be that when Turkey says “the PYD, YPG and all derivatives are terrorist organizations” that these Americans aren’t grasping the word “terrorist"? Is it that PKK members are terrorists in the Qandil Mountains, but become esteemed statesmen when they descend to the Syrian plain and take a seat at the supposedly autonomous administration you’ve established for them?

When the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, who sees everyone as an idiot and the world as clueless, stuck the word “democratic” onto the name of the SDF, didn’t he know that every last one of the people who formed the group was a terrorist wanted for a crime in Turkey, and that its parent organization, the PKK, is recognized as a terrorist organization by U.N. member nations including the U.S.?

The goal of the American authorities, grasping for excuses before reporter Paksoy, isn’t to defeat the Islamic State Group. For them, the Islamic State Group is a cover to prepare a protective umbrella: first dividing Iraq and then Syria, under the guise of Kurdistan, to create space for Greater Israel. Now they’ve seen that the HTS, which they’ve minimized as “jihadist,” has overthrown the 60-year dictatorship and is advancing just as rapidly toward a united, peaceful Syria with democratic elections. The way to prevent this, the sole way to divide Syria despite everything, is to perpetuate the Autonomous Kurdistan Region, that is, the SDF, the PYD, and the YPG. Otherwise, both the U.S. and the Zionist forces that still control it fully understand the words “terrorist” and “no.”

They know that Turkey will swiftly clean up whatever is being referred to as the Islamic State Group, the PKK, and all of its extensions. They know that, by restoring territorial integrity and erasing all traces of 13 years of Bashar Assad’s tyrannical regime and Ba’ath dictatorship, Turkey will create a homeland for the people where all Syrians, Arabs, Kurds, Sunnis, and Shias, can be safe and happy.

Through Germany, the U.S. is proposing that PKK elements should exit Syria, but that the SDF should remain. This is nothing more than throwing a new veil over terrorism and the idea of dividing Syria.

Could Donald Trump be a glimmer of hope? In 29 days, Trump, who has said he will withdraw all American forces not from only Syria but the entire Middle East, will regain the authority to carry out these actions. Trump gave the same order in 2018, but when faced with near military rebellion, from his Cabinet secretary to his special envoy, he was forced to retract it. An even more fiery Trump is coming this time, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to pay much mind to Cabinet members or the military. But this is Trump, after all! We must be prepared for a president who acts on ever-shifting whims.

*Editor’s note: The YPG is also known as the People’s Defense Units, a U.S.-allied, armed wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF.