Edward Hunt writes about war and empire. He has a PhD in American Studies from the College of William & Mary.
The US government claims to be supporting the Syrian Kurds in the fight against ISIS. But it is attempting to bring a more moderate leadership to power in a bid to weaken the Kurds’ revolutionary project in Rojava. Washington will never be a friend of self-determination.
Trump has settled on a cynical strategy in Syria: use the Kurds to try to promote regime change. He doesn’t care about the democratic aspirations of Kurdish revolutionaries.
The revolution in Rojava — founded on principles of anticapitalism, Kurdish self-determination, and women’s liberation — is at risk of being wiped out. And the Trump administration may just turn its back.
Will the most promising democratic experiment in the Middle East be allowed to survive? The answer increasingly depends on the geopolitical whims of the Trump administration.
Donald Trump came to Washington vowing to take on the foreign policy establishment. But Beltway elites have mostly gotten their way.
The foreign policy establishment remains confident it can steer the US into a new age of global hegemony.