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Bottom line: the fact that post-conventional victory problems are arising b/n Kurds & Arabs is not evidence that US policy on this point was just ignorant. It was a policy adopted eyes-wide-open with the knowledge that there were no good Sunni Arab alternatives.
#Update: so there were many responses to my short thread on Saturday. I shall here add a few posts to expand, clarify & caveat the original comments. Starting with....
FWIW, I was sympathetic to intervention in the early years, circa 2012-13, bc following events I could see the secular defecting officers still had a major role but the Islamists were gaining. By no later than 2014, probably late 2013, Islamist dominance was overwhelming.
I would suggest "Ghost Wars" & "The Main Enemy" to anyone who wants to see the mistake we made in the 1980s in Afghanistan. We never supported AQ directly as some claim, but we helped built a good environment for them. https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=ghost+wars&qid=1560781440&s=gateway&sr=8-1 …https://www.amazon.com/Main-Enemy-Inside-Story-Showdown/dp/0679463097/ref=sr_1_2?crid=26BGUTVTJ1J8T&keywords=the+final+enemy&qid=1560781519&s=gateway&sprefix=final+enemy+%2Caps%2C253&sr=8-2 …
The US began programs arming Sunni Arab rebels in the south in 2013 (maybe a bit before) & the north in 2014. The southern front had a little success & the north was a total disaster. Turkey played the same role as Pakistan in the 1980s, ensuring that Islamists would dominate.
Thus pulling back from supporting a Sunni Arab Islamist-dominated opposition was a case of learning from history. Eastern Syria circa 2016 was somewhat different but there was no credible reason to think the Arabs would have been as effective as the PYD.
1/3 Analytical clarity requires description of the conflict in ethnosectarian terms bc in fact the Syrian war is an ethnosectarian civil war to the core. There are exceptions on both sides, but esp post-2013, Sunni Arabs dominated the armed opposition.https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/1140047190741704704 …
2/3 While the PYD must be described as "Kurdish" & the armed opposition as (nearly 100%) "Sunni Arab" for accuracy, what I specifically have criticized is Westerners who become advocates of these ethnosectarian sides. I find this practice very weird.https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/1140047190741704704 …
3/3 You are correct on this first point: I was in fact referring to a hyper-crazy paper written by someone other than you. You weren't intended. BUT... many including yourself, w/o sectarian framing, continue to argue for the Sunni-dominated opposition.https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/1140047190741704704 …
3/3(a) It is this last point that gets to the crux of the matter. I see no evidence the secularists you talk about can defeat either the Islamists or Assad much less both. Islamists have dominated whenever the US aided the rebels. Why would that change? @Charles_Lister
3/3(b) I find it awful to have to say that Syrians will just have to live under Assad's fascist regime because their revolution failed, bc Assad's backers were more competent than theirs. But that is better than Syria becoming the next base of jihad. @Charles_Lister
I think this is a good summary. I don't think anyone in official US circles thought east Syria was going to be a model after we empowered the Kurdish PYD to support our ends. Eastern Syria was always going to be a mess.https://twitter.com/LizSly/status/1140057353351569408 …
I do not think there was any "decision" to keep Assad, but the result of Assad's forces & their backers being resolute & organized while Sunni states backing the opposition worked at cross-purposes. + US lacked a vital interest in decisive intervention.https://twitter.com/seeinginfrared/status/1140065319383392257 …
In my time in the region I've never heard that either, but Iraq's Shia militias don't call themselves "Shia militias" & Turkey or KSA don't say they are backing "Sunnis," but they do. These categories are real, but individuals don't ID themselves as such.https://twitter.com/Um_Samira/status/1140165168409825280 …
Both these statements are true in a formal sense, but I think de facto US policy indisputably has empowered the PYD, & the PYD, which has been ruthless in excluding Kurdish critics, is the dominant power, so for short-hand on Twitter they are "the Kurds."https://twitter.com/Um_Samira/status/1140164240357150720 …
Thank you and yes, the US decision to back a PYD-dominated umbrella group was a cold, hard decision based on US interests. I think the Kurds merit sympathy for what they've suffered in Syria, but that is not a good reason for US military intervention.https://twitter.com/KaderAriz/status/1140201278926196736 …
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