Just before the start of the New Year, Turkey and Syria began what is sure to be a long process of reconciliation. Using Russia as an intermediary, Syrian and Turkish defense and intelligence ministers met in Moscow on Dec. 28 to discuss refugees, counterterrorism, border security, and the overall state of the bilateral relationship. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a main proponent of the Syrian opposition and one of the first regional leaders to isolate Syrian dictator Bashar-Assad during the onset of the civil war in 2011, is now musing about an in-person summit with the strongman.
For the United States, positive ties between Turkey and Syria is both a curse and a blessing. On one hand, such a development would bolster Assad’s position, undermine Washington’s attempts to pressure him into a political settlement, and further accelerate Syria’s reintegration into the Middle East’s diplomatic architecture. Yet better ties also have the potential of limiting additional Turkish military assaults into Kurdish-controlled areas and enabling a smoother U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria—saving the U.S. from embarking on another indefinite, undefined military mission in the region.
Such a change is sorely needed. Problems abound when it comes to Washington’s Syria policy. Foremost among them is murkiness and confusion about what the U.S. is trying to achieve. The original objective of the deployment was the elimination of ISIS’s territorial caliphate, but this was accomplished in March 2019, the culmination of a years-long military operation led by the U.S. and capable partners on the ground. The Syria mission has since morphed into something else entirely—an indefinite military campaign without an end state in pursuit of an ambiguous “enduring defeat” of ISIS.
In reality, all the U.S. force presence in Syria achieves is complicating the Syrian government’s ability to reclaim territory east of the Euphrates River. This strikes many in Washington as a worthy mission. Assad, after all, has demonstrated himself to be as ruthless and cunning as his father, Hafez, who ruled the country for three decades. The former ophthalmologist has relentlessly and systematically liquidated the bulk of the insurgency against him, destroying Syria’s economy and infrastructure along with it. Assad’stactics throughout the war have been barbaric.
Even so, due in large measure to Russia and Iran’s military interventions, morality shouldn’t cloud reality: the balance of power is solidly in the dictator’s favor. The war is practically lost for an armed opposition now dominated by jihadist factions. The Assad government currently controls roughly two-thirds of Syrian territory and most of Syria’s major cities.
Knowing Assad’s cruelty, it is naturally difficult to stomach his maintaining power and even more difficult to imagine the United States ceding such a position to him willingly. However, the United States cannot protect the Kurds in perpetuity and the Syrian Kurds themselves have little interest in fighting Syrian government forces with Turkey primed to strike from across the border.
Perhaps aware of America’s waning interest, the Syrian Kurds are reportedly in discussions with Damascus to merge into the regular Syrian army. The Turks are also in talks with Damascus about normalization with Assad in exchange for the Syrian army preventing the Kurds from establishing autonomy in the northeast. Many in the West would find both these propositions morally objectionable. It’s not hard to see why; either development would be something of a coup for Assad. Merging the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, numbering around 30,000, into the Syrian army would be a boon for the Syrian security force’s ranks, which have lost more than 158,000 personnel since 2011. Assad would also be able to make inroads into Syria’s oil-rich eastern provinces after essentially being persona non-grata in those areas for close to a decade.
But, ironically, the U.S. stands to benefit from its partner aligning with its adversary. While it’s true Assad would consolidate authority in a critical part of the country, reconciliation between Damascus and the Syrian Kurds, either through a Syria-Turkey agreement or a separate arrangement, would also ease Washington’s burden and subdue the emotional revulsion to withdrawing forces after seven years on the ground. Washington’s Kurdish partners would be afforded an alternate security guarantor against Turkish invasion—Assad and the Kurds disagree on many things, but both have a mutual interest in preventing Turkish operations on Syrian soil. The Turks might be amenable to avoiding another incursion if Damascus can do the same through diplomatic means.
Formalizing a reconciliation between the Syrian Kurds and the government in Damascus isn’t a new idea. When the Trump administration flirted with removing troops from Syria, the Syrian Kurds reached out to the Syrian army for protection against the Turkish military. U.S. officials were extremely frustrated at the news, and the idea died. The result was a Kurdish overdependence on the U.S., which now set itself up for two inopportune scenarios: an indefinite U.S. ground presence, or an eventual departure the Kurds would view as a betrayal.
Fortunately, the U.S. has the opportunity to escape this trap and do what it should have done years earlier: encourage, rather than block, a potential Assad-Kurdish arrangement. This arrangement would not be an alliance by any means, but rather a partnership based on shared interest against a mutual adversary. The Kurds could likely negotiate a return to their pre-war status – as well as maintain their self-defense capabilities in tandem with the Syrian Army in exchange for the regime’s protection.
Inevitably, striking an agreement both sides could live with will be difficult—and negotiations could always break down. But the United States will need to leave Syria eventually. The sooner the Kurds find alternative sources of security, the better – both for their safety as well as the safety of the American force presence still stationed in Syria.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune and Newsweek. Natalie Armbruster is a research associate at Defense Priorities. The views expressed are the authors' own.
