Syria's Kurds are Losers in Post-Assad Scenario!

"... three other factors account for why the Kurds have not joined the Sunni majority in the bloody effort to bring down Assad. 

First, Syria’s Kurds are deeply fragmented politically. With an estimated population of 2 million, Syrian Kurds make up the smallest Kurdish community in the Middle East. Yet, a plethora of organizations and parties claim to represent their interests in Syria. This severe fragmentation has hindered the Syrian Kurds’ ability to realize their full political potential as a significant minority in the country....

Second, Syria’s Kurds have been further weakened by the meddling of external Kurdish actors, which has exacerbated factional infighting among them. Kurdish actors in Iraq and Turkey have contributed to their fragmentation by either setting up or funding numerous break-away groups among the Syrian Kurdish opposition. Although these splinter groups often couch their actions in pan-Kurdish nationalist discourse, they are largely motivated by parochial considerations or the geopolitical interests of their patrons, as a change in the status quo in Syria will have direct or indirect ramifications for Kurds in Iraq, Turkey and Iran, as well as on the intra-Kurdish rivalry for leadership. But just as Iran, Iraq, Syria and, to a lesser degree, Turkey have tried for decades to use the Kurds as leverage in their own regional rivalries, more-powerful Kurdish actors in Iraq and Turkey have also used Kurdish organizations in neighboring countries as political pawns. 

The PKK deserves special attention in this regard, as it has set up offshoots in Syria, Iraq and, lately, Iran to ensure the organization’s survival in a regional security environment that has seen a number of other Kurdish organizations annihilated or severely marginalized. What is distinctive about the PKK, however, is its relentless quest for leadership among Kurds across the Middle East. The PKK has relied on pan-Kurdish nationalism to mobilize Kurds and gain a foothold in Syria, Iran and, less successfully, Iraq, where it is constrained by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Recently, however, Syrian Kurdish opposition groups claimed to have been attacked by PKK followers when staging protests against the Assad regime. If true, these attacks would undermine the PKK’s calculated image as a pan-Kurdish nationalist movement, but would hardly be surprising. The PKK has determined that regime change in Syria would strengthen Turkey, so it is likely to take further measures to prevent Syrian Kurds from joining the Sunni Arabs against Assad, and to limit the KRG’s effort to influence the Kurds in Syria, if recent reports are any indication.

The third factor behind Syrian Kurds’ reticence to join the broader Syrian uprising pertains to the Syrian Kurds’ own strategic outlook. Though never explicitly stated, the Kurds fear the Sunni majority and have no reason to assume that the Sunnis, should they take power, would treat them any differently than the Assad regime does. Moreover, some Kurds have entertained the idea that the Assad government, as a sectarian minority-based regime, could conceivably be persuaded to accommodate Kurdish demands for citizenship and linguistic rights, as well as some form of local autonomy, if its concerns about Kurdish separatism could be assuaged. They see a model in the regime’s alliance with Syria’s Christian minority, an alliance that is motivated by a desire to compensate for the regime’s narrow popular base in Syrian society and to balance the Sunni majority. With the Sunnis in power, Kurdish strategists fear, any future government would have even less incentive to accommodate the Kurds.

Adding to this fear is the Kurds’ unease with Turkey’s influence over the Syrian National Council, the rebels’ Istanbul-based government-in-exile. As long as the Kurdish issue in Turkey is not resolved and decades-old fears on the part of the Turkish political establishment of a pan-Kurdish drive for independence are not ameliorated, Syria’s Kurds cannot look upon Ankara’s role favorably. Absent unequivocal guarantees from Syria’s Sunni elites, the Kurds in Syria appear to have concluded that it would be irrational to back the council wholeheartedly. ..."