When we connect the dots, Putin is playing 3 dimensional chess while both Trump is played, along with Erdoğan, and the Kurds are pawns. Putin wants the oil under Rojava, and he was willing to manipulate both Trump and Erdoğan into creating genocide in order to get it.
Rojava was created in the vacuum of the Syrian Civil War. They created a confederacy within a nation-state torn apart by rebels fighting Assad, and ISiS creating a Caliphate.
On September 3rd: Foreign Policy reports, that while it seemed like Erdoğan was playing Trump, it was more like “Putin Plays Erdogan Like a Fiddle.”
In a recent article in Foreign Policy, my colleague Steven A. Cook argued that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was playing Washington like a fiddle. With a combination of bluffs, threats, and bluster, Erdogan managed to convince the United States to come up with an arrangement in northeastern Syria to prevent a Turkish invasion—an arrangement that comes at the expense of the Kurds, who have carried the brunt of the fighting against the Islamic State. Whatever one thinks of the Kurds, their determination and sacrifice should be treated as an international public good; they have stopped and destroyed one of the most dangerous and homicidal groups the modern world has known. The Turks by contrast have contributed nothing to this endeavor.
If Erdogan has succeeded in manipulating Washington, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in turn, has played him to the hilt. Erdogan has just completed a visit to Moscow, where a savvy Putin demonstrated to the much-impressed Turkish strongman the latest in Russian military hardware, including the SU-35 and the SU-57 air fighters, of which the latter is heralded as Russia’s answer to the next-generation U.S.-NATO F-35 aircraft.
October 6th: Trump, in that infamous telephone call, tells Erdogan that he can invade Syria.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin discussed in a phone call Turkey’s planned operation into northeastern Syria, the Turkish presidency said on Wednesday, as Ankara gears to launch its cross-border offensive.
In the call, Erdogan told Putin that the Turkish incursion will contribute to peace and stability in the country and open the way for the political process to resolve the conflict, the presidency said in a statement.
Again, I’ve written a lot about Rojava. Here are, once again, the 3 Pillars of Democratic Confederalism in Rojava:
Revolution in Rojava
The three pillars of Democratic Confederalism
WOMEN'S LIBERATION
No free society without free women: the millenia-long fight against the oppression of women is at the heart of the struggle of the Kurdish liberation movement. Women were the first slaves of humanity. Their enslavement and the emergence of the first forms of domination and exploitation paved the way for the development of hierarchical systems in human societies. Any movement beyond exploitative and oppressive systems will necessarily come through the release of women.
ECOLOGY
The domination and exploitation of nature followed the emergence of hierarchies between humans. The relationship of a society with its natural environment depends on the way it is organized and the mentalities that accompany its ways of producing and distributing goods. There can therefore be no solution to ecological problems without social change. The destruction of our planet is largely caused by a criminal economic order that favours a small number and that survives only by uncontrollable growth and unbridled exploitation. In order to build a society in harmony with nature, we must first get rid of the entire system of oppression and exploitation between humans.
GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY
Democratic confederalism rejects the model of the nation-state, which has proved incapable of increasing the freedom of the peoples. Instead, it proposes democratic organization from below. The basic unit is the communes and the free confederation between them. Decisions are taken by the people at popular assemblies, neighborhoods or villages, through the system of direct democracy.
Trump can’t read this, but if he did, he would be horrified that these were his allies for as long as they were. Erdogan thinks they are terrorists. Assad and Putin would sneer at these notions.
Yet now these brave souls from Rojava told the Americans that they are now forced to turn to Assad, to fight against Turkey — with Russia, led by the guy who bought Erdogan his ice cream.
Yet, even so, here is the one thing that Antifa, Lindsey Graham, Pat Robertson, Chuck Schumer and Marco Rubio all agree on: America can’t abandon the SDF, the army of Rojava, if only because they are our allies. Were our allies. No ally will ever be able to count on us again.
BEIRUT/QAMISHLI, Syria, (Reuters) - The Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been holding negotiations with Russian participation, a Syrian Kurdish politician said on Sunday, expressing hope for a deal that would halt a Turkish attack.
Trump abandons the Kurds, and who are they forced to go to so that they don't get slaughtered? Assad, who's backed by Russia.
Of course, there is something in it for both of them. Assad hopes to take back the third of Syria that is Rojava, and Putin wants the oil.
"Most of Syria’s major oil assets are located in the Kurdish-controlled northeast. Further exploration could lead to the discovery of off-shore gas reserves, given that giant deposits were found in Mediterranean waters farther south near Egypt, Israel and Cyprus."
Putin manipulated Erdogan to play Trump, who allowed Erdogan to start his genocide, which forced Rojava to turn to Assad (and Russia) to help, so that Putin can get access to Syria's major oil assets.
Back in the 1970’s novelist Ursula Le Guin read a series of essays, and decided to put the ideas within them in print, using science fiction as a means to convey the ideas and the society that embraced them. In order for her to have her egalitarian communal utopia exist, she had to situate it on a fictional moon. She called it Annares. The book was Post-Scarcity Anarchism, written by Murray Bookchin. It could not possibly exist on earth.
But a Stalinist revolutionary was captured by Turkey, and only kept alive because the EU banned executions. So Abdullah Ocalan was able to ask his lawyers for books, and he became enamored with the work of Bookchin, he turned away from Stalinism and towards a democratic confederalism. He implored his followers to read Bookchin. It fit in well with the folklore and make-up of the Kurds.
Xwinda, 17, a soldier in training with the People’s Protection Units.CreditLynsey Addario for The New York Times
So this idea of what a society, a people, can be, which could not exist on earth, does, at least for now. Rojava is a laboratory of liberatory, egalitarian, ecumenical ecological, feminist, face-to-face, participatory democracy. It also has a fierce and powerful army — two of them, male and female. It does not have, alas, an airforce. And so the the hashtag was, suddenly, #noflyzone4Rojava, and #Riseup4Rojava.
Four years ago, I noted in my first article on this amazing revolution:
Yet, a revolution has its moment. Whether it is the Arab Spring, or the Occupy Movement, or Ten Days That Shook the World, there is a time when a spark hits some kindling and a time, or place, ignites. Whether the flame becomes strong, or withers without additional fuel, or gets put out, violently, always remains to be seen.
And so, now, we have Rojava. A man serving a life sentence in Turkey found one of Murray’s books, decided to read them all, and then convinced his followers to create a real-life laboratory of liberatory expression. In a most difficult historical situation, in a most remote region, surrounded by enemies on all sides, this egalitarian exercise could almost be on a fictional moon. But it is real.
Then again, Marx did not foresee Russia as the ideal place for his revolution, either....
Sadly, we are watching the flame flicker. When the dust settles, and Assad with Russia control the territory, I am hopeful, though not optimistic, that the flame still shines. If not, then it will always be an example of what is possible. If so, then they will be triumphant.
In the meantime, they deserve and need all the help we can give them.
And, doesn’t it always seem to be about the oil?
UPDATE: My friend Debbie Bookchin, daughter of Murray Bookchin, tweeted this last night: