Despite his mercurial style, we probably can tell a lot about the new Donald Trump administration’s (Trump 2.0) approach to Rojava and the Kurdish issue by simply looking at the first Trump administration’s (Trump 1.0) style. When we do so, the first thing we note is that despite Trump’s non-stop bluster and threats, the man disdains war and did keep the US at peace. Thus, the new, second Trump administration is not likely to use actual military force to support the Kurds in Rojava (northeastern Syria) against Turkey, ISIS, or the new Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government in Damascus. The Syrian Kurds are basically on their own.
However, not completely! Trump does like to use economic force and even the implied threat of military power. In October 2019, when Turkey and its proxy Syrian/Islamist allies drove the Syrian Kurds off parts of their mutual border—seemingly with Trump’s approval—Trump’s advisors quickly managed to walk him back into keeping just enough US troops in northeastern Syria to deter Turkey from totally eliminating the Syrian Kurds. Similarly today, despite his rhetoric about completely withdrawing, Trump has already stationed, by some reports, up to 2,000 US troops near Kobane to deter an all-out onslaught by the Turkish proxy militias usually known now as the Syrian National Army (SNA). Trump’s motive is less sympathy for the Syrian Kurds and more desire to protect US geostrategic interests in barring Iran from dominating the region (a goal which coincides with Turkish interests) and protecting northeastern Syria’s oil for US interests. In the past month, the SNA has already taken Tel Rifaat and Manbij from the Syrian Kurds (SDF/YPG/PYD). Currently, the two are contesting the strategic Tishreen Dam and near-by Qara Quzak Bridge on the Euphrates River.
The second thing we should remember is that again, despite his frequent barbs against Turkey and its authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump appreciates and values Turkey as an American NATO ally, and Erdogan himself as a fellow populist, strongman ruler. This would suggest that Erdogan should play a patient, even waiting game regarding Rojava, because, in the long run, Trump is likely to let Erdogan have his way with the Syrian Kurds. As former US secretary of state, the late Henry Kissinger infamously declared about the Iraqi Kurds on an earlier occasion in 1974, “covert action should not be confused with missionary work.” Or, more recently, as another Kissinger maxim pronounced, “no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”
As Trump’s new secretary of state, Marco Rubio has emphasized, the focus of the US is to advance US national interests as defined by President Trump. Whatever it takes “to make American great again,” as Trump himself has explained. Mike Waltz, Trump’s new national security advisor, surely agrees with all this. If he or Rubio begin to find fault with Trump’s approach, they quickly will find themselves bereft of employment as their predecessors Secretaries of State Rex Tillerson,and Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense Jim Mathis, and National Security Advisor John Bolton, among many others in Trump 1.0, did.
However, again, all this is only up to a point. The Syrian Kurds have been and are going to have to continue to accommodate Turkey, but not to the point of giving up everything they have gained in the way of semi-autonomy since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. For one reason, in the long run, the new Syrian HTS government of Ahmed al-Sharaa will certainly seek to protect Syria’s territorial integrity against any ambitious Turkish territorial overreach into northern Syria. While this bodes ill for the Syrian Kurdish hopes of semi-autonomy in the long run, at least in the short run, it protects the Syrian Kurdish existence, which will then have to be negotiated with the new rulers in Damascus, more of which below.
At this point, however, one must also consider the now lesser but continuing roles of Russia and especially Iran, which both still maintain important long-term interests in the fate of Syria and the Syrian Kurds. Despite currently being tied down in its miscalculated war in Ukraine, Russia still will seek to maintain its Syrian Mediterranean warm water naval port in Tartus and its near-by air base in Khmeimem. Although weakened by the Israeli strikes against its air defenses in October 2024 and the defeat of its major proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, by Israel, Iran remains a formidable player in the region and will certainly challenge the new Trump 2.0 administration. The new HTS Syrian government in Damascus is likely to abide Russia’s and Iran’s interests if only to balance them against Turkish, US, and Israeli pressures. It is and will continue to be a very complicated game!
However, the new Trump administration’s main interlocutor in Syria will clearly be the new HTS government in Damascus. Already, this new player has begun seeking to bring the Syrian Kurds back into the greater Syrian fold. Indeed, its ultimate aims are to fold the Syrian Kurd’s SDF/YPD militia into the greater HTS Syrian army. Obviously,this HTS goal is diametrically opposed to the Syrian Kurds’ determination to maintain their semi-autonomy by retaining their own independent militia. It remains difficult to see where a compromise could be reached on this, and easy to foresee how fighting between the two might eventuate. Clearly, the entire issue will present the new Trump administration with continuing challenges. However, in the end, the new Trump administration is more likely to let matters evolve without actively intervening because, again, Trump disdains war in general and, in his own words, considers Syria in particular to be but “death and sand.” As for the Syrian Kurds, Trump has dismissed them unworthy of US support because they did not support the US on D-Day when the US and its other allies invaded Nazi Europe on June 6, 1944. With hindsight like this, what valid predictions of foresight are possible?
Finally, of course, there is Israel, which has already taken advantage of Syria’s disunity and weakness by destroying much of what was left of its military and also moving even further into southern Syrian territory bordering on Israel proper. Unlike Syria and the Kurds, Israel is a big deal. So, whatever happens to Israel, the new Trump administration will be heavily involved. Indeed, this might bring Trump to expand his earlier initiative on the Abraham Accords to mediating between his supposed Turkish ally and existential Israeli one over their potential differences in Syria, including the Syrian Kurds.
No doubt too, Trump 2.0’s apparent decision to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID)’s international development and humanitarian assistance program, withdraw from the World Health Organization, possibly launch a world trade war by imposing onerous tariffs on such US allies as Canada and Mexico, among many other possibilities, and even threaten US allies like Panama and Denmark about seizing their territory will have negative blowback precedents for the entire Middle East as well as Rojava and the Kurdish issue. The new Trump administration has a full diplomatic plate to digest.
