The fruits of the collaboration of the Kurdish YPG/SDF leadership in Syria with Washington
By Yossi Schwartz, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 08.10.2019, www.thecommunists.net
Yesterday it was announced that the American’s troops will leave North Syria which will allow the invasion of the Turkish army in order to smash the Kurdish Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria known as Rojava. The region consists of Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij and Deir Ez-Zor. The Kurds in Rojava gained autonomy in 2012 during the counter-revolutionary war of the Assad dictatorship against the Syrian popular uprising.
Assad’s regime has not recognized the Kurdish autonomy despite the fact that the Kurdish militia known as the YPG not only fought on the side of the American imperialists but also collaborated in various forms with the regime as well as the Russia and Iran. While some young Kurds joined the Syrian Revolution at the beginning, the traditional Kurdish parties including the Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat (Democratic Union Party, PYD), which is a local branch of the PKK, was the most reluctant to join the revolution. In July 2012 the PYD took advantage of the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Kurdish areas to establish its autonomy.
The main opposition to the PYD’s is the small Kurdish party KPD, connected to the Iraqi Kurdish party of Masoud Barzani, and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq.
While the RCIT recognize the right of self- determination of the Kurds including their right to form their own state and we defended their right to have autonomy in Rojava, we have strongly opposed the reactionary leadership of the PYD/YPG. It betrayed the Syrian Revolution and preferred to have tacit agreements with the Assad tyranny. It offered itself as a servant for US imperialism in fighting ISIS.
In October 2015 Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was founded which is the main ally of U.S. imperialism in Syria and which is dominated by the PYD/YPG.
This collaboration with imperialists, like in many other situations when oppressed nations support the imperialists, has been a disaster for the Kurds that now the USA is deserting them.
This desertion of the American troops began ahead of a Turkish invasion that Kurdish fighters say “’will overturn the victory over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) armed group’. US forces ‘will not support or be involved in the [Turkish] operation” and “will no longer be in the immediate area”, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. ‘Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into northern Syria,’ said the statement. The withdrawal marks a major shift in US policy and effectively abandons an American ally in the battle against ISIL, which took over swathes of Syria before being defeated a year ago.” (1)
It is evident that the reactionary leadership of the PYD/YPG naively trusted U.S. imperialism. “There were assurances from the United States of America that it would not allow any Turkish military operations against the region,” SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel said in an interview with al-Hadath TV on Monday.
The SDF had been “completely committed” to a U.S.-guaranteed deal for a “security mechanism” for the border area, he added. “But the (U.S.) statement today was a surprise and we can say that it is a stab in the back for the SDF,” he said. (2)
As the poplar saying goes: ”Those who sleep with the dogs will wake up with flees.”
While we will side with the Kurds against Turkey, a member of NATO, in a war we say that the Kurdish fighters must get rid of their treacherous leadership which collaborates with the imperialists. It is urgently necessary to form a revolutionary party that will fight against Assad and his backers and again all imperialists. Only the victory of the Arab revolution in the entire region will help you to form an independent state – short of it the Kurdish aspirations even for autonomy will be smashed! One must learn from Lenin who said that for humanity to survive imperialism must die.
The new turn in Trump policy is also a message to Israel:”You are alone in a war with Iran”. This message also comes with the new approach of the USA and Saudi Arabia to Iran. Behind it is the expected role of Iran to repress the new wave of the Arab revolution that seems as possible in the near future.
* Throw out all the Imperialists!
* Oppose Turkey invasion!
* Iran out of Syria!
* Long live the Arab revolution!
Footnotes
1) Al Jazeera: US troops start pullout in Syria as Turkey prepares operation, 07.10.2019, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/white-house-turkey-military-operation-northern-syria-191007034354242.html
2) Haaretz Defying Pentagon, Trump Backs Turkish Operation in Syria Targeting U.S.-backed Kurds https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/defying-pentagon-trump
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Other recent articles by the RCIT on the role of the PYD/YPG:
Syria: The Shameful Alliance of the Saudi Monarchy and the “Left-Wing” YPG, 4 July 2019, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/shameful-alliance-of-saudi-monarchy-and-ypg-in-syria/
The Revelations of a U.S. General on Washington’s Allies in Syria. Another Blow to the Stalinist Myths about the Character of Syrian Liberation Fighters and the Role of the Kurdish SDF/YPG, 27.10.2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/revelations-of-u-s-general-on-washington-s-allies-in-syria/;
Kissing the Feet of the Saudi Chainsaw-Crown Prince. On the Shameful Response of the Kurdish YPG on the Killing of the Saudi Journalist Kashoggi, 20.10.2018, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/the-shameful-response-of-the-kurdish-ypg-on-the-killing-of-the-saudi-journalist-kashoggi/
The RCIT has published a number of booklets, statements, and articles on the Syrian Revolution that can be accessed on a special sub-section of this website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/collection-of-articles-on-the-syrian-revolution/. In particular we refer to:
RCIT: Save the Syrian Revolution! A call for international solidarity with the Syrian people in Idlib suffering from the barbarous onslaught by Assad and Putin! 04 June 2019, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/call-save-the-syrian-revolution/
Syria: The Fall of the Martyr City Khan Sheikhoun. Despite this setback, the struggle against the tyranny of the Assad regime continues! 22 August 2019, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/syria-the-fall-of-the-martyr-city-khan-sheikhoun/
Michael Pröbsting: Is the Syrian Revolution at its End? Is Third Camp Abstentionism Justified? An essay on the organs of popular power in the liberated area of Syria, on the character of the different sectors of the Syrian rebels, and on the failure of those leftists who deserted the Syrian Revolution, 5 April 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/syrian-revolution-not-dead/
Michael Pröbsting: Syria and Great Power Rivalry: The Failure of the „Left“. The bleeding Syrian Revolution and the recent Escalation of Inter-Imperialist Rivalry between the US and Russia – A Marxist Critique of Social Democracy, Stalinism and Centrism, 21 April 2018, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/syria-great-power-rivalry-and-the-failure-of-the-left/