
Brandon Turbeville
'L'Angleterre, ah, la perfide Angleterre,
que le rempart de ses mers rendoit inaccessible aux Romains,
la foi du Sauveur y est abordée. ----Jacques-Benigne Bossuet
It has been said by RPI advisor John Laughland that “it is better to be an enemy of the Americans than their friend. If you are their enemy, they might try to buy you; but if you are their friend, they will definitely sell you.”
Regardless of whether or not one can apply such logic to every interaction with the United States, it is a lesson that the YPG Kurds are learning in Syria.
The YPG have long been considered as one of the warmer forces in terms of its relation to the United States. While certainly not the equivalent of the Iraqi “Barzani” Kurds who are closely connected to the NATO intelligence apparatus, the YPG has been willing to accept help from any who are interested in defeating ISIS, be that the Syrian government or the United States.
Whether the YPG was unable to see that U.S. assistance in the “fight against ISIS” was nothing more than a smokescreen for American support of the organization or whether the YPG was willing to work with the United States because it believed by doing so it would
eventually seize a Kurdistan in Northern Syria is not fully known at this time. Regardless, the YPG seems to have outlived its usefulness to the United States.
The YPG has already seized much of the border with Turkey and effectively cutting off ISIS supply lines coming from Turkish territory except for a small corridor now known as the
Jarablus corridor one of the only areas ISIS supplies and terrorists can funnel their way into to Syria. Yet, even after having made a number of attempts to forcibly keep ISIS supply lines open – the implementation of a No-Fly Zone, the insertion of American soldiers
into the Jarablus “safe zone,” and a Turkish air war on the Syrian Kurds , the United States seems to be out of covert ideas and is now moving to an overt operation against fighting forces who are not only fighting ISIS but are having significant victories against them and who, only weeks ago, were considered allies, even if they were held at arm’s length.