One More Discarded Ally
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.
Log In
Email *
Password *
Remember Me
Forgot Your Password?
Log In
New to The Nation? Subscribe
Print subscriber? Activate your online access
Skip to content Skip to footer
One More Discarded Ally
Magazine
Newsletters
Subscribe
Log In
Search
Subscribe
Donate
Magazine
Latest
Archive
Podcasts
Newsletters
Sections
Politics
World
Economy
Culture
Books & the Arts
The Nation
About
Events
Contact Us
Advertise
Current Issue
January 28, 2026
One More Discarded Ally
The Kurds of Syria.
Azad Akın Arslan and Ronald Grigor Suny
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
Iraqi Kurdish demonstrators protesting the deployment of Syrian government forces in SDF-controlled areas, on January 22, 2026.(Shwan Mohammed / AFP via Getty Images)
President Trump’s tactic of “flooding of the zone” has focused much of the public sphere on issues and events generated by the president’s interests and whims, driving the suffering of millions of people into oblivion. Deserved attention is paid to Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, his intervention into Venezuela, the imposition of arbitrary and punitive tariffs on European allies, and the assault of ICE on Minneapolis. But the White House distracts and diverts attention away from the agony of Gaza and Ukraine, Trump’s undermining of the rule of law, the corruption and enrichment of his family and friends, and the crisis over affordability.
Trump’s comfort with strongmen and dictators and his hostility toward democrats, liberals, and socialists have distorted international affairs in fundamentally disruptive ways. A prime example—largely marginalized in the public sphere—is the fate of an ally of the Americans whom Trump is ready to betray once again: the Kurds of Syria.
As a scholar of nationalism and ethnic conflict who has written extensively on the history of Turks and Kurds, including the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians during World War I, and as a Kurdish teacher of philosophy deeply troubled by what is about to befall his people across the border not far from his hometown in southeastern Turkey, we are convinced that the impending tragedy awaiting the Syrian Kurds can be prevented—but only if the United States acts honorably to protect a people who have sacrificed their lives to carry out the US mission to defeat ISIS, the brutal jihadist movement that terrorized Syria, Iraq, and other parts of the Middle East.
The Kurds are a nation without a state of their own. Since World War I, the Kurdish people have repeatedly been used as a tool by global powers—supported when convenient, abandoned when no longer useful. Through a century of fragmentation and suffering, tens of millions of Kurds, divided across several states—Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Armenia, each with its own “Kurdish Question”—have been seen as a problem rather than a nation entitled to self-determination. Divided by state borders, oppressed by fellow Muslims, and unable even to study in their own native language in schools in Turkey and Iran, the Kurds have endured systematic erasure.
For generations, Kurds have tried every path offered to live freely on their own land and …
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.
Log In
Email *
Password *
Remember Me
Forgot Your Password?
Log In
New to The Nation? Subscribe
Print subscriber? Activate your online access
Skip to content Skip to footer
One More Discarded Ally
Magazine
Newsletters
Subscribe
Log In
Search
Subscribe
Donate
Magazine
Latest
Archive
Podcasts
Newsletters
Sections
Politics
World
Economy
Culture
Books & the Arts
The Nation
About
Events
Contact Us
Advertise
Current Issue
January 28, 2026
One More Discarded Ally
The Kurds of Syria.
Azad Akın Arslan and Ronald Grigor Suny
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
Iraqi Kurdish demonstrators protesting the deployment of Syrian government forces in SDF-controlled areas, on January 22, 2026.(Shwan Mohammed / AFP via Getty Images)
President Trump’s tactic of “flooding of the zone” has focused much of the public sphere on issues and events generated by the president’s interests and whims, driving the suffering of millions of people into oblivion. Deserved attention is paid to Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, his intervention into Venezuela, the imposition of arbitrary and punitive tariffs on European allies, and the assault of ICE on Minneapolis. But the White House distracts and diverts attention away from the agony of Gaza and Ukraine, Trump’s undermining of the rule of law, the corruption and enrichment of his family and friends, and the crisis over affordability.
Trump’s comfort with strongmen and dictators and his hostility toward democrats, liberals, and socialists have distorted international affairs in fundamentally disruptive ways. A prime example—largely marginalized in the public sphere—is the fate of an ally of the Americans whom Trump is ready to betray once again: the Kurds of Syria.
As a scholar of nationalism and ethnic conflict who has written extensively on the history of Turks and Kurds, including the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians during World War I, and as a Kurdish teacher of philosophy deeply troubled by what is about to befall his people across the border not far from his hometown in southeastern Turkey, we are convinced that the impending tragedy awaiting the Syrian Kurds can be prevented—but only if the United States acts honorably to protect a people who have sacrificed their lives to carry out the US mission to defeat ISIS, the brutal jihadist movement that terrorized Syria, Iraq, and other parts of the Middle East.
The Kurds are a nation without a state of their own. Since World War I, the Kurdish people have repeatedly been used as a tool by global powers—supported when convenient, abandoned when no longer useful. Through a century of fragmentation and suffering, tens of millions of Kurds, divided across several states—Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Armenia, each with its own “Kurdish Question”—have been seen as a problem rather than a nation entitled to self-determination. Divided by state borders, oppressed by fellow Muslims, and unable even to study in their own native language in schools in Turkey and Iran, the Kurds have endured systematic erasure.
For generations, Kurds have tried every path offered to live freely on their own land and …
One More Discarded Ally
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.
Log In
Email *
Password *
Remember Me
Forgot Your Password?
Log In
New to The Nation? Subscribe
Print subscriber? Activate your online access
Skip to content Skip to footer
One More Discarded Ally
Magazine
Newsletters
Subscribe
Log In
Search
Subscribe
Donate
Magazine
Latest
Archive
Podcasts
Newsletters
Sections
Politics
World
Economy
Culture
Books & the Arts
The Nation
About
Events
Contact Us
Advertise
Current Issue
January 28, 2026
One More Discarded Ally
The Kurds of Syria.
Azad Akın Arslan and Ronald Grigor Suny
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
Iraqi Kurdish demonstrators protesting the deployment of Syrian government forces in SDF-controlled areas, on January 22, 2026.(Shwan Mohammed / AFP via Getty Images)
President Trump’s tactic of “flooding of the zone” has focused much of the public sphere on issues and events generated by the president’s interests and whims, driving the suffering of millions of people into oblivion. Deserved attention is paid to Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, his intervention into Venezuela, the imposition of arbitrary and punitive tariffs on European allies, and the assault of ICE on Minneapolis. But the White House distracts and diverts attention away from the agony of Gaza and Ukraine, Trump’s undermining of the rule of law, the corruption and enrichment of his family and friends, and the crisis over affordability.
Trump’s comfort with strongmen and dictators and his hostility toward democrats, liberals, and socialists have distorted international affairs in fundamentally disruptive ways. A prime example—largely marginalized in the public sphere—is the fate of an ally of the Americans whom Trump is ready to betray once again: the Kurds of Syria.
As a scholar of nationalism and ethnic conflict who has written extensively on the history of Turks and Kurds, including the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians during World War I, and as a Kurdish teacher of philosophy deeply troubled by what is about to befall his people across the border not far from his hometown in southeastern Turkey, we are convinced that the impending tragedy awaiting the Syrian Kurds can be prevented—but only if the United States acts honorably to protect a people who have sacrificed their lives to carry out the US mission to defeat ISIS, the brutal jihadist movement that terrorized Syria, Iraq, and other parts of the Middle East.
The Kurds are a nation without a state of their own. Since World War I, the Kurdish people have repeatedly been used as a tool by global powers—supported when convenient, abandoned when no longer useful. Through a century of fragmentation and suffering, tens of millions of Kurds, divided across several states—Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Armenia, each with its own “Kurdish Question”—have been seen as a problem rather than a nation entitled to self-determination. Divided by state borders, oppressed by fellow Muslims, and unable even to study in their own native language in schools in Turkey and Iran, the Kurds have endured systematic erasure.
For generations, Kurds have tried every path offered to live freely on their own land and …
0 Comments
0 Shares
46 Views
0 Reviews
