Turkish Invasion of Syrian Kurdistan: Continued Clashes Among Regional and World Imperialism

As many expected, the occupation of the city of Afrin in Syrian, or Western, Kurdistan by the Turkish Armed Forces, and their Syrian National Army proxies, better known as the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army, following a short battle that took place between 20 January – 24 March 2018, was only the beginning of the Turkish offensive against the Syrian Democratic Forces, the military alliance controlled by the Democratic Union Party, the affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party in the region. Since the occupation of Afrin, Turkey had its eyes on the rest of the territory controlled by the Kurdish nationalists and their allies. The Trump administration, who had supported the SDF against the Islamic State, was opposed to such a move and proposed a 30 kilometer deep buffer zone into Syrian Kurdish territory to appease Turkey, though it was uncertain who would enforce it. The SDF protested, as most of the major urban areas they controlled would fall within the buffer zone. Eventually, the Erdogan government sent its troops alongside their FSA proxies, supposedly to enforce the buffer zone on 9 October 2019.

The Turkish government is careful to portray its war effort as just a military operation. Yet President Erdogan aims to resettle the occupied territories with the refugees of the Syrian civil war who live in Turkey, numbering nearly 4 million. Moreover, the Turkish State and companies have been providing services and fulfilling contracts in the occupied regions. In other words, Turkey is essentially planning to annex all the territories it conquers until the Syrian civil war is resolved. Besides, organized religion in the country, controlled by the State, have mobilized to spread propaganda of a glorious conquest. Turkish capital, including the staunchly pro-Western Turkish Industry and Business Association, the regime union confederations, and mainstream opposition parties such as the Kemalist and social democratic Republican People’s Party and the Good Party, their far right allies have all came out in favor of the war effort. In particular, the RPP has called on Erdogan to immediately get in contact with Assad, citing that no one, other than the Turkish and Syrian States, have described the Syrian Kurdish nationalists and their allies as terrorist.

Nevertheless, there are many, ranging from the left wing of the RPP to the Kurdish social democratic Peoples’ Democratic Party with ties to the PKK, from the Stalinists to the Trotskiysts, and including left-wing union confederations such as the Confederation of Public Workers’ Unions and Confederation of Progressive Workers’ Unions and engineers’ and doctors’ professional associations, who are opposed to the invasion. Their reasons vary: some are more interested in the territorial integrity of the Syrian State; others are declaring support for the Kurdish nationalists; all of them, however, basing their opposition to war on a democratic idea of peace. Nevertheless, Erdogan government takes opposition seriously, and has went on to arrest over a hundred social media users for their posts against the war.

No one among the international community of bourgeois States other than Pakistan, Qatar and Azerbaijan openly supports the Turkish invasion. The EU is the most major amalgamate of imperialist powers to oppose the invasion, followed by the Arab League. Turkey, a regional imperialist power, feels confident enough in its position to threaten the EU that if the EU calls Turkey’s operation an invasion, the 4 million refugees will be allowed to go to Europe. It should also be mentioned that local powers such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Iraq and the Syrian government itself have condemned the Turkish invasion.

The US on the one hand threatens extreme economic sanctions, pushed by the most major bipartisan parliamentary effort in Trump era, while withdrawing its troops from SDF held territories and emphasizing the friendship between the two countries, in effect giving the Turks the green light. Indeed, the SDF are merely tactical allies of US imperialism against the Islamic State, whereas Turkey, a member of NATO, is a long term strategic partner. Even if Turkey and the FSA destroys the SDF completely, the Americans will still be on the table, this time through Turkey.

The Russian State, the other major imperialist power active in Syria, is also happy about the situation, hoping it will strengthen the Assad regime’s hand. Early on, the Russians expressed that they will be working towards an agreement between the SDF and the Assad regime. Soon, an agreement was reached, and the Syrian army started moving north. The cost of this alliance for the SDF remains to be seen since the Syrian government wasn’t offering them desirable terms in earlier negotiations. This being said, the Assad regime had given military support to the SDF in Afrin by sending the National Defence Forces militia, and according to PYD sources, has offered generous military terms, including the closure of the airfield to Turkey, positioning soldiers in key areas in the border and, after repelling the Turkish attack, working towards taking back Afrin without taking over cities from the PYD affiliated democratic assemblies.

The tradition of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or the PKK, is the dominant political tendency of the Kurdish national bourgeoisie in Northern, or Turkish, and Western, or Syrian Kurdistan. The most powerful Kurdish nationalist military organization of Eastern, or Iranian Kurdistan also belongs to this tradition, along with a minor party in Southern, or Iraqi Kurdistan which is under control of the conservative Kurdistan Democratic Party and the social democratic Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The ideology of the PKK has officially changed from Stalinist national liberation to democratic confederalism, giving up the 150 year old Kurdish national aspiration of independence in favor of autonomism.

The PYD didn’t come to power in Western Kurdistan through a revolution: it was handed power by the Assad regime who withdrew from Kurdish areas to fight the civil war. Especially as they and their multi-ethnic allies advanced out of the Kurdish areas in their fight against the Islamic State, they opted to promote themselves as North and East Syria instead of Western Kurdistan.

At the same time, the PYD regime, ever respectful of private property and capitalism as declared by its constitution, tortured and killed dissidents, opened fire on protesters, and engaged in repressive policies against Arabs, Assyrians and other minorities. The fact that the SDF is under attack by a regional imperialist State which overpowers them is no reason to support what is in essence an anti-proletarian regime.

The proletarian attitude against the Turkish invasion of Syrian is not an abstract call for peace, but a call for revolutionary defeatism, for the workers in arms to fraternize and turn the imperialist war into revolutionary civil war.

This call can only be made by a powerful and truly revolutionary Communist Party, which unfortunately exists neither in Turkey nor Kurdistan yet.