ANALYSIS: U.S. Withdrawal From Syria Hands Win to Assad, Putin

U.S. troops fire artillery guns in Northern Syria as part of Operation Inherent Resolve in 2017. (U.S. Department of Defense)

“Turkey is not doing what it agreed to. It’s horrible,” said a U.S. soldier serving with the Kurdish-Syrian forces. “We met every single security agreement. The Kurds met every single agreement [with the Turks]. There was no threat to the Turks—none—from this side of the border."

This reaction came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s October 9 authorization of Operation Peace Spring, a combination of airstrikes and a ground offensive against the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Turkey officially recognizes the SDF as a terrorist organization and claims the SDF sympathizes with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an internationally recognized terrorist group.

For the past eight years, the SDF-United States coalition countered the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and subdued the once-rampant Islamic State (ISIS). Now, with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, the SDF faces not only the pro-Assad Syrian forces and their Russian backers but also a new Turkish offensive—all without the United States, its only major supporter.

The Turkish incursion, resulting in the displacement of more than 100,000 civilians in just three days, represents an opportunistic play in the international system; as the United States withdrew from Syria, Turkey saw a chance to fill the void. Although the U.S. has criticized the attack, it has joined Russia in opposing a Security Council measure that would condemn Turkey. A spokesman for Erdogan even suggested an implicit American “green light” for Turkish influence, referring to “a phone call . . . [where] President Trump agreed to transfer the leadership of the counter-Islamic State campaign to Turkey.”

As the American presence in Syria recedes, the Turkish operations present a complex situation for Moscow, Assad’s longtime ally. A Russian-mediated resolution of the Turkish invasion in the immediate context of the American withdrawal would constitute a major international victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Russia is probably the only player in the room among the grown-ups who can talk with everyone in the room at the same time,” notes Chatham House research fellow Mathieu Boulegue. “Whether it's Israel and Iran, or with Kurdish forces and Turkey, or Assad and everyone else.”

Moscow, in fact, already sits at the table with the Syrians and the SDF, marking a fundamental shift in the focus of the Syrian crisis and in the direction that bullets fly. In a hasty deal brokered by Russia, the SDF allowed Assad—its principal enemy before the invasion—to enter its territory in a last-ditch effort to save the Kurdish people and their cities from the Turkish offensive.

At Moscow’s direction, Damascus and the SDF cooperate, at least for now. For the duration of the Turkish invasion, the two factions in Syria have agreed to fight alongside each other to expel the foreign force. Their temporary unity may indicate a fledgling sense of common national identity between the Syrians and the Kurds; however, it is more likely motivated by survival instincts. Once the Turks retreat, the two sides will likely return to their eight-year civil war, but as a result of the brokered deal, Damascus will have gained a strategic position within Kurdish territory as well as knowledge of the SDF military organization and its tactics. Ultimately, the indicator of Moscow’s real influence in the region will be how fast, or if at all, this devolution occurs, for Russia has long urged the two sides to make peace.

A prolonged Turkish presence in Syria, on the other hand, may be detrimental for Russia’s foreign standing. A continuous ground offensive from Turkey and the destabilization of the SDF means not only a weaker Syrian state but also a reinvigorated ISIS, as hundreds of ISIS detainees flee the abandoned Syrian-Kurdish prisons. Even Putin acknowledged that since “the Turkish army is going in, the Kurds are leaving these camps, and the [ISIS] fighters inside can just escape.” On October 13, just five days after the invasion’s start, nearly 800 ISIS prisoners escaped their camp in the northeastern Syrian village of Ain Issa.

For Russia to capitalize on the Turkish invasion, Erdogan’s forces must not damage the integrity of the Syrian government apparatus beyond repair. While the U.S. departure from the region may please Russia, and while Erdogan’s aggression opens the door for increased Russian influence as an intermediary, sustained conflict in Syria remains contrary to international interest. "The sooner this conflict situation is over, the better for everyone," said Russian Senator Andrei Klimov.

But by “everyone,” Klimov most definitely excludes the United States, whose retreat from Syria has shattered the painstakingly built relationship with the SDF that once held both Assad and ISIS at bay. Forcing the Kurds to choose between autonomy and survival in what would have become a two-front conflict against both Turkey and Damascus, the U.S. has driven the SDF to accept a peace deal with Assad on highly unequal terms. The commander of the SDF rationalizes, “If we have to choose between compromises and the genocide of our people, we will surely choose life for our people.”

Compounding matters for the U.S., Russia’s newfound diplomatic primacy in the region is emblematic of the international system’s larger shift from American leadership under Trump; in both abandoning its Kurdish allies and ceding influence to Russia, the U.S. has accelerated the diminishing of its international clout. In short, says the Guardian, “it has arguably been the worst seven days for U.S. foreign policy since the invasion of Iraq.”