Betraying the Kurds

The Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (sdf), Syria’s main Kurdish militia, signed a landmark deal January 18. It was effectively a surrender where the sdf agreed to merge with the government.

This followed Syria’s lightning offensive that captured almost half of the sdf’s territory. The sdf was the main opposition to President Ahmed al-Sharaa and his al Qaeda-affiliated group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (hts). Now that the government has defeated the Kurds, Sharaa more or less controls the whole country.

The Kurds have been some of America’s strongest allies in the Middle East for years. Surrounded by autocratic, anti-American governments, the Kurds have been a pro-American, pro-freedom bastion. Yet two days after the ceasefire, the United States announced it was considering a “complete withdrawal” from Syria.

Hanging the Kurds out to dry was more than a policy choice. It is a grave injustice symptomatic of a shattered will.

Background

The Syrian civil war started in 2011 as part of the broader Arab Spring. The conflict pitched Bashar Assad’s totalitarian socialist government against Sharaa’s al Qaeda jihadis. The Islamic State, meanwhile, expanded from neighboring Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians fled to Europe as refugees. The U.S. organized a coalition to fight the Islamic State, but it needed local partners to work with. Assad and Sharaa, at the time, were untouchable pariahs.

Kurdish groups, long persecuted in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, took advantage of the chaos to form their own government and take territory. Kurds are mostly Muslim but generally fight to establish a state based on ethnic and linguistic rather than religious lines. Most Kurdish groups are Westernized and want a state based on Western principles.

The sdf and other Kurdish groups became the U.S.’s main local ally in fighting the Islamic State. The U.S. sent billions of dollars’ worth of assistance to the Kurds. Kurdish and American soldiers fought side by side with American weapons. Kurdish prisons held tens of thousands of Islamic State prisoners on behalf of the U.S.

Because of their history, the Kurds have clung to outside powers willing to help their cause. When the Kurds don’t receive this help, they become vulnerable.

Offensive

The government’s offensive lasted from January 17 to 18. Sharaa’s forces blitzed through northeast Syria, taking the city of Raqqa on the banks of the Euphrates River before seizing much of northern Syria.

In the January 18 ceasefire, the sdf agreed to hand over the areas it controlled in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor provinces, effective immediately. The sdf now controls only a small section of land sandwiched between the Turkish and Iraqi borders.

https://twitter.com/criticalthreats/status/2016879189677281287

According to the ceasefire, the sdf has agreed to integrate its forces into the Syrian military as individuals rather than units. Syria claims to have offered Kurdish residents citizenship, language and cultural rights.

Sharaa declared similar protections for all minorities after gaining power in late 2024. Months afterward, Sharaa’s forces waged ethnic cleansing against Alawites, Druze and other minorities. The Druze massacres stopped only after Israel intervened.

Syria’s “government seeks a unitary, centralized state that is very similar to the structure of the Assad regime only led by Syria’s majority Sunni Arabs,” the Institute for the Study of War think tank wrote on January 18. “The government pays lip service to decentralization, but in doing so it usually cites Law 107,” a prerevolution law the Assad regime used to control local populations.

The sdf is not wholly clean. It conquered majority-Arab areas of its own and was willing to get its hands dirty to enforce its claims. But it is no genocidal, jihadist army. Its values are closer to Western ones, and it has depended on America for years.

Which makes America’s response all the more noteworthy.

Retreat

Two days after the ceasefire, the U.S. announced its official position. U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who also holds general diplomatic responsibilities for various Middle Eastern conflicts, posted on X that the events of the past few days create “a unique window for the Kurds” and that Sharaa’s centralization gives the Kurds their “greatest opportunity” as a society.

In the same post, he confirmed: “The U.S. has no interest in long-term military presence; it prioritizes defeating [Islamic State] remnants, supporting reconciliation, and advancing national unity without endorsing separatism or federalism.” He elaborated: “[T]he original purpose of the sdf as the primary anti-[Islamic State] force has largely expired.”

In other words, You’re on your own. Make the most of this while you have a chance.

The U.S. has about 1,000 troops remaining in Syria, mostly working in Kurdish areas. Citing “U.S. officials,” the Wall Street Journal claimed on January 22 that U.S. President Donald Trump “is considering a complete withdrawal of American troops from Syria.” President Trump had also considered this in his first term.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the War Department was surprised by the sdf’s lack of resistance. Because of this, “the U.S. officials see no reason for the American military to stay in Syria.”

That is reasonable. But Sharaa’s forces wouldn’t have moved forward if they thought America would protect the Kurds.

Betrayal

Since ousting Assad, the Trump administration has gone above and beyond to reintegrate the new Syria into the international community. It has removed sanctions on Syria and hts, allowed it to join the U.S. coalition against the Islamic State, and pressured Israel to normalize relations. All while Syria is governed by an offshoot of the same group that sent airplanes into the Twin Towers in 2001.

If Sharaa thought this offensive would have killed his relationship with Trump, he wouldn’t have done it, which makes this admission to the Wall Street Journal all the more remarkable: “One factor [of the planned retreat] is the difficulties posed by working with Sharaa’s army. The force is riddled with jihadist sympathizers, including soldiers with ties to al Qaeda and [the Islamic State] and others who have been involved in alleged war crimes against the Kurds and the Druze, two of the officials said.”

In other words, the U.S. government knows the Syrian government is dangerous. It knows working with it endangers Americans. It knows empowering the Kurds would leverage against Syria’s further radicalization. It knows the Kurds are in a vulnerable and dangerous position right now. And it still let Sharaa push forward.

“We lost many young men fighting beside the Americans who left us now to face this attack by those jihadists,” a Syrian Kurd told the Times. “Why did we sacrifice our men to fight [the Islamic state] with U.S. soldiers who are providing no security for us? I and many others from my village feel betrayed by what the Americans did to us.”

Reflections

This isn’t the first time the U.S. has abandoned the Kurds. During the 1991 Gulf War, President George H. W. Bush encouraged Kurds living in Iraq to rebel against dictator Saddam Hussein while the U.S. fought Iraq in occupied Kuwait. The Kurdish populations answered President Bush’s call, assuming America would come to help them. Instead, the Bush administration sat idly by while Hussein retaliated with chemical weapons.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry said the genocide against the Kurds was a “gigantic catastrophe caused by Saddam Hussein and America!” He labeled President Bush’s treatment of the Kurds “the greatest betrayal in U.S. history!”

Over the decades, Mr. Flurry has similarly condemned the U.S. sidelining Taiwan in favor of China, the lopsided ceasefire deals pressuring Israel to surrender to Palestinian terrorists, and other conflict zones. This isn’t because America must be everywhere at once, but it should support friends who look to the American system and desire the same kind of freedom.

God prophesied in Leviticus 26 of blessings and curses that would befall ancient Israel. These prophecies also apply to modern America. (Request a free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy, by Herbert W. Armstrong, for more information.) One of the curses for disobedience is succinctly put in verse 19: “And I will break the pride of your power ….”

“Saddam Hussein and Iraq should be on trial,” Mr. Flurry wrote. “But America may find itself on trial for this serious deed. All because we failed to win a war. America must come to see they are under a curse from God and repent of their sins. Only then will God’s blessings return.”

In 2003, America did go into Iraq and put Hussein on trial. Instead of victory, it was stuck in a quagmire of problems from the Islamic State and Iranian proxies. The same has happened in Syria. America went into Syria to fight the Islamic State. Today, the Islamic State is mostly gone, yet a different jihadi group has taken over. It seems America has cut its losses and hopes the revenge killings against its Kurdish allies won’t bring too much bad publicity.

Foreign policy is not supposed to be a lose-lose scenario. Leviticus 26 also says that if America would obey God, “ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword” (verse 7). God wants to bless America, and He wants it to be a blessing for the world.

But until America learns some hard lessons, the curses will keep coming. These curses will be more direct than merely abandoning a freedom-loving ally. Mr. Flurry said in 1991 that America’s treatment of the Kurds was a “preview of our future” (emphasis added).

To learn more, request a free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy.