Arabs and Kurds in Syria: Betrayal and Nationalism

The rapid unravelling of Kurdish autonomy in Syria has brought familiar narratives back into play. Nationalism and the language of betrayal have returned to the centre of regional politics.

• The Limits of Autonomy

• A Secular and Feminist Project

• The Politics of Betrayal

• A Nationalist Jihadist

Iranian photographer Mariam Ashrafi captured this moment of a Kurdish fighter looking over the ruins of Kobane after the defeat of ISIS in 2015.

The Syrian Kurds, their military wing the SDF/YPG and their political arm, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), have suffered a severe strategic breakdown over the past couple of weeks. A cascade of serious miscalculations, the fraying of key internal alliances, and a sharply transformed regional context combined to produce the swift loss of nearly 80 percent of their territory and the disintegration of their autonomy project.

As I have pointed out before, the main mistake was a misreading of the post-Assad moment. The Kurdish leadership underestimated al-Sharaa’s legitimacy bargain with the US and entered talks with the new Syrian government on rigid terms, while inflating the reliability of American backing and discounti…