Rojava with Andrew

Summary

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It Could Happen Here – "Rojava with Andrew" (April 14, 2026)

Episode Overview

This episode of It Could Happen Here features Andrew Sage (also known as Andrewism on YouTube) and frequent contributor James Stout discussing the past, present, and uncertain future of Rojava (the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, or AANES). The conversation traces Rojava’s unique experiment in bottom-up governance, the obstacles it has faced—from ISIS and Turkish invasions to international betrayals—and its recent collapse in the wake of Assad’s fall and the rise of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government. The episode explores both the revolutionary promise of Rojava and the complexities, internal contradictions, and external threats it faced.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Rojava’s Origins and Ideology

• Diverse Beginnings:
  • Rojava began as a Kurdish liberation project but evolved into a multiethnic, pluralistic society incorporating Syrians, Arabs, Armenians, Yazidis, and others. The official administration moved away from the term "Rojava" to de-ethnicize the project but hosts stick with it for clarity. (02:58–04:38)
• Democratic Confederalism:
  • Heavily influenced by Abdullah Öcalan’s reading of Murray Bookchin and others, the region experimented with democratic confederalism: grassroots self-organization, direct democracy, pluralism over nationalism, secularism, gender liberation, and ecological sustainability. (05:32–11:00)
  • “We had the opportunity to see people living without gods or masters, people building democracy without the state.” – James (04:51)
• Women's Liberation:
  • Rojava implemented gender quotas in governance, established women's councils, banned honor killings and child marriage, and became internationally renowned for the all-female YPJ (Women’s Defense Units). (10:00)
  • “Woman Life Freedom. Such was the slogan of the women’s movement considered key to the project...” – Andrew (02:58)

2. Complexities: Internal Politics, Criticisms, and Solidarity

• Not Purely Anarchist:
  • While admired by anarchists and leftists globally, hosts clarify that Rojava wasn’t doctrinally anarchist—solidarity doesn’t equal perfect ideological unity. (11:00–12:02)
  • “What they're doing is not anarchism. It's kind of its own thing. It's democratic confederalism.” – Andrew (10:51)
• Critical Solidarity:
  • Acknowledgement of credible allegations against SDF, including forced displacement and child recruitment—emphasizing a need for critical, not blind, support. (13:15–17:51)
  • “Solidarity doesn’t imply you keep your mouth shut... That is the best way to engage these projects, not to just close your eyes and follow.” – Andrew (18:02)
• Movement Diversity:
  • The revolution wasn’t monolithic—comprised diverse ideologies, motives, and affiliations, from Marxist-Leninists to pragmatic self-defenders. (16:33–17:39)

3. Geopolitical Entanglements and Betrayals

• Web of Alliances:
  • Rojava juggled alliances, not just with the US (which treated SDF as a “partner force” against ISIS only), but with Iraq, Iran, Russia, and sometimes even Assad, always as a pawn in bigger geopolitical games. (22:29–26:09)
  • “Rojava has been seen and treated as a chess piece essentially by both global and regional powers.” – Andrew (22:29)
• US Withdrawal:
  • US abandonment in 2019 resulted in Turkish assaults on Kurdish areas, widespread displacement, yet also heightened global attention to the struggle. (24:00–25:05)
  • “It is disgraceful to abandon these people… but it is also what we should expect from the United States.” – James (26:10)
• Yazidi Rescue:
  • Personal account of the Kurdish forces risking all to save Yazidis encircled by ISIS at Mt. Shengal, highlighting Rojava’s broader commitment to regional minorities:
    • “With their bodies, with their blood… If they had done nothing else since 2012, that would be reason enough for us to stand in solidarity with them.” – James (27:34–29:42)

4. Recent Upheaval: Fall of Assad, Rise of HTS, and Rojava’s Collapse

• Assad’s Fall & HTS Takeover:
  • In 2024, Assad’s government collapsed. HTS (an offshoot of al-Qaeda) took over large swaths of Syria, was quickly integrated into the international system (with Turkish and Western approval), and initiated brutal repressions, especially toward minority communities. (29:50–31:49)
• Siege and Ethnic Cleansing:
  • Kurdish and minority neighborhoods (especially in Aleppo, Raqqa, Hasaka) were besieged, infrastructure destroyed, and mass displacement ensued.
  • “For days, coordinated attacks targeted Rojava itself, threatening not only the survival of Kurdish government, but with the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians...” – Andrew (30:56)
  • Example of deliberate erasure: A statue of a fallen Arab, female YPJ fighter (who liberated her community from ISIS) destroyed by local men—signaling the reversal of Rojava's social gains. (33:36)
    • “A whole group of men destroying a statue of a woman, a woman from that community who had fought to liberate that community from the Islamic State... when that context is deliberately excluded, that tells us an awful lot.” – James (33:36)

5. Final Surrender & Uncertain Legacy

• Collapse and Absorption:
  • SDF retreated, signed over territory and agreed (under duress and with Western countries acting as “guarantors”) to absorb governance and security structures into the new Syrian government. The fate of many SDF fighters, especially women and international volunteers, remains perilous. (42:25–44:47)
  • “By the end of January, the autonomous administration had lost roughly 80% of the territory it once governed... SDF formally announced a ceasefire and accepted a framework for folding both their military structures and civilian administration into the Syrian state.” – Andrew (43:32)
• Paper Promises:
  • The agreement included token recognition of Kurdish language, festivals, and limited local rights, but hosts are skeptical about implementation, emphasizing ongoing risks of betrayal and repression. (44:47–45:56)
• Enduring Spirit:
  • Despite the crushing losses, both hosts stress that the struggle will continue and Rojava’s revolutionary aspirations will inspire future movements—if not in name, then in spirit.
    • “It remains to be seen what happens with them, but also remains to be seen what happens with us, what we decide to do to push our way forward... All power to all the people. Peace.” – Andrew (46:27)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On pluralism and solidarity:
  • “We are fighting for a world in which many worlds exist—and so are they.” – Andrew (11:00)
• On the dangers of mythologizing revolutions:
  • “We should engage with the Spanish Civil War as it was, not as we wished it to be. That way we could learn from it and get better as opposed to just creating a hagiography.” – James (15:00)
• On US betrayal:
  • “The SDF was a US partner force… The US was not there in solidarity with the revolution. They were there fighting alongside them in this one specific thing.” – James (25:05)
• On the erasure of social gains:
  • “It was a whole group of men destroying a statue of a woman, a woman from that community who had fought to liberate that community from the Islamic State.” – James (33:36)
• On geopolitical chess:
  • “The blame lies in this game of geopolitical chess, this ability of imperial powers to treat the people of the region as a whole as tools to be used and discarded.” – Andrew (46:27)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Rojava’s foundational history and democratic confederalism – 02:58–12:02
• On critical solidarity (warts and all) – 13:15–18:32
• Complex regional alliances and US abandonment – 22:29–26:09
• Personal account: The Yazidi rescue at Mt. Shengal – 27:34–29:42
• Rise of HTS and the siege of Rojava – 29:50–33:36
• Crumbling of the SDF and absorption into the new Syrian state – 42:25–46:27
• Closing reflections on revolutionary spirit and geopolitical blame – 46:27–48:34

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Conclusion & Takeaways

This episode is a nuanced, timely discussion about Rojava’s legacy, the realities of revolutionary struggles, the dangers of both romanticization and cynicism, and the crushing weight of regional and global power politics. Andrew and James chart the movement’s remarkable social gains, the solidarity it inspired worldwide, the betrayals it endured, and the renewed necessity for grassroots, critical internationalism. Their sober hope is that, though the social experiment known as Rojava has been violently curtailed, its vision—and the lessons learned—will endure.

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All power to all the people. Peace.
– Andrew (48:33)

Transcript

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[Jacob Goldstein]

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[James]

Callzone Media.

[Andrew Sage]

Woman Life Freedom. Such was the slogan of the women's movement considered key to the project of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava. Though originating in the Kurdish liberation struggle, the project quickly became polyethnic. There are Syrians, Arabs, Armenians, Yazidis and other groups involved in that project. And in fact, the internationally recognized name Rojava has fallen out of use by the project administration in an effort to de ethnicize the project. I'm going to keep using Rojava simply because it's quicker to see than Daanes or Denys or any other combination, but just wanted to put that disclaimer out in the beginning. So. In the midst of the Syrian civil war, the region gained its de facto autonomy in 2012 and pursued a somewhat unique political experiment for grassroots governance and social legal reforms that have attracted significant international favour and support. Though not recognized internationally as autonomous except by the Catalan Parliament for obvious reasons, for the past decade plus, the people in the region have fought fiercely for independence from isis, patriarchy, Turkish incursions and other Syrian opposition groups. But recent events led to the newly minted Syrian government having seriously jeopardized the autonomy of the project. Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Andrew Sage, Also Andrewism on YouTube and I'm joined once again.

[James]

It's me, it's James.

[Andrew Sage]

Yes, And I had to talk to you about this because I know that you have contacts there, you have experience with that project, with the people involved, and yeah, we're here to discuss the fate of Rojava.

[James]

Yeah, I'm always excited to talk about Rojava and I think it's super important that we talk about it right now. Yeah, there's a lot of bad stuff happening currently, but this is really bad. In Rojava, we had the opportunity to see people living without gods or masters, people building democracy without the state. We had the opportunity to. And we have the opportunity. Right. So Rojava's not gone, but like Anakism didn't have to be like an ideological construct that only exists in our little punk houses. It existed in an area where millions of people lived and. Yes. So we should talk about how we can be in solidarity with them in this very difficult time.

[Andrew Sage]

Right, right. In fact, as we're on that topic, I think it's useful to have a brief explanation of the history and ideology behind the Java project before we talk about what's happened most recently. So, in brief, the project really began in Turkey, where the Kurdistan Workers Party, or pkk, was banned and some of its supporters moved to Syria and founded the Democratic Union Party, or pyd. Now, this party shared an ideological foundation with the PKK and its founder, Abdullah Uchalan, with the ideology of democratic Confederalism, which I'll explain in a second. Rojava came into being following the Arab Spring of 2011, as various factions of Syrians rose up against President Bashar al Assad. And in such a climate of conflict, ISIS rose to prominence to threaten the region as a whole. So while Assad was dealing with other opposition groups in Damascus, he withdrew forces from North Syria, which left the region vulnerable to ISIS and Turkey. Kurdish groups in North Syria then formed the Kurdish National Council to secure the area. But after an ideological split, the project of Rojava would emerge as a polyethnic polity composed of the cantons of Afrin, Jazira and Kobani. The PYD operates Java within a political coalition called the Syrian Democratic Council, or sdc. The ypg, or People's Defence Units, and the ypj, or Women's Defence Units, are the paramilitaries forming the bulk of the political assembly's military coalition, which is called the Syrian Democratic Forces, or sdf. I know it's a lot of acronyms being thrown at you at once, but.

[James]

Yeah, it's an Alphabet tube. I think until relatively recently, the bulk of the SDF forces were Arab. You have ideological groups that are allied. Right. The Northern Democratic Front, a Jaishal Fuwar at one point. And then you have these groups which are more tribally based. And those groups had allied to the SDF to fight the Islamic State.

[Andrew Sage]

Right, yes.

[James]

Yeah. They always want to push back on it being a majority. It is now, but that's a creation of the last eight weeks.

[Andrew Sage]

Right. Okay. I remember reading that they were the ypg and YPG were forming a good chunk of the sdf. I suppose maybe that was more recent information that I had seen then.

[James]

Yeah, I think it probably would have been. Or like, you will see that published in broadsheet newspapers and have done for decades. Like, it's just wrong. But there was this tendency in the. I guess the Western press. Right. And some of this is somewhat orientalist. In a way. Like, they referred to the SDF as the Kurds, because Kurds were somehow seen as closer to European people than Arabs. And like, it attempted to sort of, I guess, to make it more palatable to an audience.

[Andrew Sage]

Right. A kind of a racial elevation of some kind.

[James]

Yeah. And I think the friends. We can talk about friends versus whatever else later, but would push back on that. They would. They would tell you that SDF was majority Arab, certainly at the time it fought the Islamic State. And of course there were Assyrians and Armenians and Yazidis and international volunteers as well.

[Andrew Sage]

For sure. For sure. So you had the Syrian Democratic Council or the sdc, led primarily by the pyd, right?

[James]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

They were taking on the task of both fighting the Islamists while engaged in an ideological project to bring democratic confederalism into practice in North Syria. So democratic Confederalism is a transitional political movement that tries to move beyond the nation state by refusing to seize state power. Instead of organizing society through the state, they seek to organize society through local assemblies that manage their own affairs while coordinating action through confederations. Democratic conferralism emphasizes pluralism over nationalism and secularism over religious government and restorative justice, gender liberation, ecological sustainability, cooperative and communal economic forms. Democratic and federalism was seen as a. Seen as a pragmatic way of building collective self organization within the purview of the existing dominant state model of the world while gradually undermining its authority. Now, the gender liberation component in particular has received a lot of international attention thanks to the PYD's efforts to put it into practice. They established gender parity quotas in all administrative, political and decision making bodies and leadership roles. They established women's councils to address women's issues. They established the Women's Protection Unit, or ypj, which is an all female army, which is very popular. And they established laws to ban honor killings and child marriage while strengthening the divorce rights of women. So these efforts and others within Rojava have garnered worldwide admiration for the project, and many international volunteers have visited Rojava to help them fight. And if you're in a lot of online anarchist circles, you've probably heard a lot about Rojava and solidarity with the liberation. But I think it has created a misconception that the solidarity that anarchists feel with Rojava is equivalent to one to one ideological alignment. Yeah, right. What they're doing is not anarchism. It's kind of its own thing. It's democratic and federalism.

[James]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

And this has been abandoning solidarity with the People, of course, but it just means, you know, being clear that we are fighting for a world in which many worlds exist and so are they. And we are just willing to stand with and observe that project and, you know, wish for the best and hope for the best and see what comes of it.

[James]

Yeah, There are anarchist formations within the sdf, right. Takosina, it means anarchist struggle. It's like a more doctrinally anarchist formation. And the way that they would phrase their participation is that they are there in solidarity. And like you say, we want a world where many worlds can exist and so they can offer. And if you go to Rojava, people will ask you to offer feedback. Right. The Curtis Wallace Tech Mill report or feedback. They are willing to hear an anarchist critique and engage with it. That doesn't mean that they are anarchists, but it doesn't mean that they are like opposed to anarchists either.

[Andrew Sage]

They're more willing to engage with anarchism than most.

[James]

Yeah. Than almost anywhere else I've been in the world, maybe aside from Myanmar. But yeah, they, they will engage with and have these discussions and they're on an ideological journey. Right. That the movement began within what they would call the. The nation state paradigm.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah. I mean the, the PKK was originally Marxist.

[James]

Lenness and Orjilan thinking has very much been like his journey, has led the movement on a political philosophy journey, I guess. And there are different interpretations of different movements in different parts of Kurdistan that, that draw on his political philosophy. But as his thinking, while he was detained in Turkey, moved towards this democratic Confederalist outlook, influenced by reading Murray Bookchin among others, the movement also moved. And I think it was very well placed when the Assad estate withdrew to try and implement this, like you've mentioned. Right. Self governance, brotherhood of peoples, all these things. But it wasn't always there. And it, it has been willing to change and willing to move its ideology over time.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's the thing. We, we don't look at people and projects and judge it based on where we are and our position and our ideological alignment. Because none of us necessarily started off as anarchists. Right. And while we may wish that as an anarchist, I would wish that, you know, these projects would move closer to anarchy and would pursue and explore and experiment with that ideal and that idea. Everybody's on their own journey and you know, at this stage in capitalist global dominance and status global dominance, we have to let whatever experiments exist or explore the different angles. You know, there's no one. Right. We quite yet or There may never be, you know, as one. On the topic of disclaimers, I suppose I think it is important to address that, you know, the SDF is not all sunshine and roses. You know, there have been allegations of war crimes, including the recruitment of children and the allegations of forced targeted displacement. Now, not all of these allegations have been conclusively verified and there are a lot of actors that have been involved in Syria over the years that are pushing narratives and counter narratives that have to be scrutinized on a case by case basis. Some of the war crime allegations, for example, have been made by Turkey, which is pretty suspect considering their track record of both hostility towards Rojava and the Kurdish autonomy and also their practice of war crimes on a still regular basis themselves, you know. Yeah, but still hypocrisy, as said, I think it is important to not turn a blind eye to these kinds of problems and allegations when they are made.

[James]

Yeah, totally agreed. Like if people are being compelled to do things through violence, that is what the state is, right. And that is what we want to stop. And so if that is happening, then we should condemn it. Right. Be that where they're being compelled to fight or compelled to leave their homes. Like that is a thing that we are opposed to. Inherently. Right. And it doesn't matter who's doing it. It's the action itself is something that we are opposed to. And yeah, we should. Again, we should look at this not through Rose to. I know I talk a lot about this, but I translated a piece from French a couple of years ago from an anarchist who had fought in Spain, and it was called Refuting the Legend. And the main thesis of the piece was that we should engage with the Spanish Civil War as it was, not as we wished it to be. And that way we could learn from it and get better as opposed to just creating a hagiography and like a, you know, like Saints lives. Exactly. Same applies here, I think.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah. Because the anarchist experiments have been, you know, few and far between, unfortunately. The major experiments, that is the massive ones, the ones that make historical headlines. And I think there is a temptation to, as you're saying, construct a hagiography to glorify and venerate these attempts. I think it's very important for us to treat them with scrutiny, you know, to hold them up to certain standards and to evaluate them missteps and to highlight their missteps even more than we highlight their successes. Because that's the only way we're going to succeed in the future is if we're Willing to address and engage with those mystiques.

[James]

Yeah, absolutely. I think on that point, the way that I see what's happening in Rojava is not in a monolithic way. There are tendencies and organizations within the revolution. Right. There are some who are probably operating in a paradigm that is not that far from the like ethno nationalist or kind of nationalist Marxist paradigm. There are some that are operating closer to an anarchist paradigm. There are some who are somewhere in between those two things. Right. And there are some who would just want the Islamic State or the new Syrian state or the Assadist state to go away and leave them alone. And that's why they picked up arms and that's what they're fighting for. And like. Yeah, again, right. We shouldn't, we should be suspicious of a movement which is entirely homogeneous. We should be concerned about, and I have concerns about the way some dissenting voices have been treated in the AANES in the past year. We should raise those concerns. But like, it would be inaccurate to view this movement as a monolith.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing. It's important to raise concerns. It's, it's sad that this phrase has been bastardized because it's a useful phrase. Right. That is, you know, critical support.

[James]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

Or critical solidarity. It's been taken by certain Internet actors to, you know, to propagate apology.

[James]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

For atrocities and erasure of state violence. But it is a useful way of, I think, framing the way we should engage these projects. That solidarity doesn't imply that you keep your mouth shut, that you don't seek to learn, that you don't respectfully criticize. That is, I think, the best way to engage these projects. Not to, you know, close your eyes and just follow.

[James]

Yeah, absolutely.

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[Andrew Sage]

Getting back to, I suppose what's been happening more recently, Things have not been easy for the movement really since the beginning in 2012. It has for a long time been caught in a web of conflicting and converging interests. In addition to fighting ISIS and other jihadist groups, Rojava managed to receive backing from the US out of a coincidence of interests and tactical necessity, as I would put it, which is confused in some circles with the idea that Rojava is a US designed puppet through and through, right? So after the SDF liberated Raqqa, they began taking more heat from Turkey, which saw the YPG as inseparable from the PKK and thus a threat. Remember, the YPG is the defensive army, the protective services rather, and the PKK is the Kurdish party in Turkey. So they launched several military operations to prevent the Kurdish regions from linking up and having territorial continuity within Syria. At the same time, Rojava faced economic blockades, restricted movement, and strained relations with their fellow Kurdish political groups in Iraq that were aligned with Turkey and aligned with the PYD's political rivals, which had lost influence since the establishment of Rojava. Then you also had the occasional alignments with Russia as a strategic leverage against Turkey, and similar coincidences of interest with the governments of Iraq and Iran, and even cooperation between Rojava and Assad's government. It's interesting to me that the US alignment is what receives the most attention when it seems to me the Rojava had quite a roster of affiliations of convenience. Not to say that those partnerships or affiliations necessarily benefit them in the long run, but it's important to place those affiliations in context. Rojava has been seen and treated as a chess piece essentially by both global and regional powers as they attempt to put out a voice of their own and eke out their own autonomy. So Just before the 2019 Turkish invasion, the US abandoned Rojava entirely withdrawing its troops and certainly leading to the tragic fall of several settlements to Turkey and Turkish aligned groups. However, that move to withdraw also raised the international profile of the Rojava struggle, as people on both sides of political spectrum were pointing out this American decision to abandon its allies in the Middle East. So before we get to the fall of Assad, is there anything critical that

[James]

you'd say I missed I think pretty good summary. I've literally written a book about this, so there's always things I want to say. I was there during a time when Turkey was bombing. Right. In addition to going to report on them, I just saw places as I was going about my day to day life that had been bombed the night before. Right. I think there's this misapprehension that America is. And by America, I'm using that incorrectly. The United States is allied with the pyd. That's not the case. The SDF was a US partner force, specifically in what's called Operation Inherent Resolve, which is the operation against the Islamic State. Right. While I was there, the US shot down a Turkish drone because it flew too close to their bases. They also didn't shoot down the dozens of other Turkish drones that killed little children while I was there. Right. And I don't think anyone would reasonably expect them to because the US was not there in solidarity with the revolution. It was there fighting alongside them in this one specific thing.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[James]

And while that doesn't take away the fact that it is disgraceful to abandon these people who gave 10,000 plus of their children alongside the United States. Right. That is shameful. It is also what we should expect from the United States.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[James]

People that use the word haval, which means friend. Right. As opposed to like the way a Marxist movement might use comrade. Their friends there understood the terms of their agreement with the US doesn't mean that they were not disappointed. Doesn't mean that they would not ask for assistance when their children are dying. Of course they would. But those are the terms on which the US was allied with them and certainly the US did not ideologically influence them. Perhaps the opposite is the case. There are certainly some people in the US military who went over there and came back seeing the world differently. Turkey actually called the US government because some of the US soldiers were wearing Abdullah Oshilan patches at one point and raised complaints about it. But yeah, I think it's important to understand the terms of the arrangement between them. Otherwise I think that's a pretty good precis of the way things were. Do you have anything about Shanghai?

[Andrew Sage]

No, I don't.

[James]

I'll do my potted People can read my book if they'd like to hear more about its operation. I've sent one to you, Andrew. Hopefully it's making its way across the ocean.

[Andrew Sage]

Awesome.

[James]

So Shanghal, the sacred mountain of the Yazidis. Right. The Yazidis are a group of people, an ethno religious group whose religion is probably Closest to Zoroastrianism. They have like a peacock angel. The Islamic State targeted the Yazidis because it considered them to be apostates and it subjected them to genocidal violence. Right. This is the Yazidi genocide. The states of the world largely abandoned the Yazidi people. They tried to defend their communities, but they were overwhelmed by the Islamic State and they gradually fell back to Shangol, which is their mountain, and they went to the top of their mountain to make their last stand, I guess. Right. Like that was their. Their place where they had always gone back to. And there were some US Special forces on the mountain and from what I understand, also some British Special Forces. But it was the friends from Kurdistan who decided to go. It should be noted that they're like fighting the Islamic State at home at this time. Right. Their own villages, their own towns are being subjected to the same violence. They went onto the mountain and they built humanitarian corridor to extract the Yazidi people. Right? With their bodies, with their blood. And if they had done Nothing else since 2012, that would be reason enough for us to stand in solidarity with them. Right. Like in that moment when the world letting the Yazidis die. Right. When Obama and the United Kingdom and everything else was letting these people be subjected to genocide. It wasn't a military superpower who went to their assistance. It wasn't the French or the British or anyone else who was willing to risk. Again, there were small numbers of special forces, but it was regular folks from Kurdistan with Kalashnikovs who went to save them. And I think at this time, when Western analysts who perhaps either don't have a proper grasp of what's happening in Syria or do and are just willing to lie about it, are condemning the AANES as some kind of Kurdish ethno nationalist project, we can point to this, and we shouldn't forget the sacrifice that those people made at that time.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, that's an important event that I didn't come across in my research, but thank you for sharing.

[James]

Yeah, of course.

[Andrew Sage]

So I suppose we are now approaching the critical moment in Rojava's recent history. Assad's government collapsed at the end of 2024, and the Hayat Tarir al Sham, or HTS, an Islamist militia with roots in Al Qaeda, stepped into the vacuum and rapidly took control of large parts of the country. Then HDS leader Ahmed Al Shara was recast on the international stage as Syria's new president. Welcomed by regional and Western powers, received in diplomatic capitals, and rewarded with the lifting of many Sanctions. Turkey emerged as its strongest backer as they were pretty cold with Assad and they aggressively lobbied on behalf of the HDS government, reframing it as a stabilising partner. And not long after the fall of Assad, in fact, Abdullah Uchlan himself called for the PKK to disarm. The sdf, which is only loosely affiliated with the pkk though said, well, you know, not us, we will continue to fight.

[James]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

So Western governments, particularly the United States and its allies, appeared willing to accept this transformation of the hds. They calculated that a fragmented and internally weak authority could be more easily steered to serve their long term geopolitical interests. So the HDS Syrian government had a little press tour, but within Syria they moved pretty predictably, engaging in violent repression, displacement and massacre of the Alawite, the Druze and the Kurdish communities in Syria. And for the Kurdish initiated project of Rojava, the rise of the HDS government would mark the beginning of an end, greater isolation and a renewed pressure from within and outside of Syria's borders. After consolidating power, the HDS government pushed into the Kurdish regions and encircled Kobani, the historic border city that once symbolized resistance to isis. So for days, coordinated attacks targeted Rojava itself, threatening not only the survival of Kurdishov government, but with the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians as food, water and electricity were deliberately cut off and the city placed under siege. The violence had been especially devastating in Aleppo. From early January, the Kurdish districts of Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafiyya became the focus of sustained assaults by Turkish backed militias and units aligned with the Syrian Transitional Government.

[James]

They would tell you that Sheikh Maqsood was a diverse district and I've probably used described it as Kurdish as well, but they were pointing out that Yazidi people and a lot of the indigenous Christian peoples of the region who lived in Aleppo tended to live in Sheikh Macsood as well.

[Andrew Sage]

Right, right. Okay, thanks for that context.

[James]

Yeah, of course.

[Andrew Sage]

So civilian infrastructure was systematically hit and homes, schools, mosques and public buildings being shelled while abductions, torture and executions were reported near medical facilities. The bombing of Zaleed Fakir Hospital devastated the local healthcare system and with mounting casualties, an entire neighbourhoods emptied. Local councils in the SDF agreed to a ceasefire and withdrawal on 11 January 2026 to allow evacuations. More than 300,000 people fled, many seeking refuge in areas still controlled by the autonomous administration. But fighting expanded eastward. Jihadist forces began targeting Raqqa, Deir, ez, Azzor, Hasaka and critical infrastructure like the Tishran Dam. Prisons holding thousands of jihadist detainees were located in these areas. And amid the chaos, Islamist fighters escaped, ISIS symbols reappeared and memorials to Kurdish fighters were destroyed.

[James]

There's one example which I think is particularly revelatory. It was consistently cast once again by like think tankers who either know that they're talking, speaking things that aren't true. I was going to say something else there. Or they just don't know and they're being paid to pretend they know. But though the one in Tabka that was destroyed, it was a statue of a YPJ fighter, but she was an Arab. It was portrayed as like local people celebrating their liberation from the sdf. But it was a whole group of men destroying a statue of a woman, a woman from that community who had fought to liberate that community from the Islamic State. Right. And I think that like when that context is deliberately excluded, that tells us an awful lot.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, that's. That's an extremely critical point, I think.

[James]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

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[Andrew Sage]

So as the Syrian forces pushed further east, some non Kurdish villages in the region defected from Rojava to the new Syrian government.

[James]

Yeah, mostly in like Deir Ezor. Right. Which is an area where you have this long standing. They're referred to as tribal communities like that. I guess that's a fine phrase, but sometimes the word tribal I think is used in a derogatory way in the west. So I want to be clear that's not what I intend to mean here. Just so they have a different form of political organizing, right?

[Andrew Sage]

Of course.

[James]

And like there had not been among those communities buy in, I guess to the AANES project there was to the SDF as a military force, but not, not so much to the project. And it was those communities that switched their allegiances. Right. This happened even in Aleppo and we can look at various economic and political and social reasons for that and maybe at some point we should, but I don't think like now is the time we're concerned with ongoing struggle there, but, yeah, especially in Deir EZ Zor, what really saw the SDF frontline crumble was that people who were in the SDF suddenly became allied with the stg, Syrian Transitional Government. Syrian government.

[Andrew Sage]

Right, right. And so these defections and with this onslaught of violence, Al Shara delivered an ultimatum to the Kurds and to the other groups involved in the autumn administration of Northeast Syria, which was to dissolve the SDF and submit to incorporation under his command or face annihilation. So in response, the SDF commander, Masloom Abdi, appealed outward, calling on the support of anyone who might be within to assist. And this is something that particularly made headlines. The anyone included Israel, which had previously intervened in Syria for the claimed justification of aiding the Jerusalem community. I think the way that question was posed to the SDF commander was definitely leading like they were fishing for a headline. For sure, from what I saw of that exchange. But in the context of the Palestinian genocide and the world's awareness of that genocide, I think that even with that desperation for survival in mind, that statement was, I think, a misstep.

[James]

Yeah, we constantly see, like, this allegation that the SDF specifically is like some kind of Zionist force or funded by Israel that's been around for decades. Right. I will say a couple of things. First of all, like in the early Kurdish freedom movement, Kurds died for Palestine. Right. With their Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine at Beaufort Castle. If the Israelis were genuinely allies of the Kurds, no one would dare touch them. We have seen what Israel is prepared to do to Muslim countries. They don't need much excuse. They would do the same in Syria. Furthermore, Israel has continued to invade Syria and has held Syrian territory for decades and has continued to take more of it under Ashara, and Al Shara has not done anything about it. So I find the idea that he's eliminating Zionism to be very frustrating when the IDF is literally inside his country, invading it. And the Kurdish freedom movement as a whole has been pretty forthright about the genocide. So on October 7, 2023, I was in Kurdistan and we watched what happened first in Israel and then in Palestine. Right. And they were pretty forthright about that. No one should be killing civilians. And as the genocide in Gaza began, they were forthright about calling it a genocide. And I think they didn't have to. No one was particularly asking them in 2023. Right. And they did. And they made statements about it. I think seeing them somehow ideologically inclined towards Israel when it largely wasn't Israel who was fighting the Islamic State. Right. It was largely them in the us. I think it's just people understanding the politics of the Middle east in terms of Marvel movies. There can only be two sides. And I'm sure at the time when they were facing genocide themselves, they would have welcomed any support. But that doesn't mean that they support the murder of civilians in Gaza. They have been extremely clear about that for an extremely long time.

[Andrew Sage]

Absolutely. I don't think that should be called into the question just because of the statement of one commando.

[James]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

So after much fighting, the SDF signed agreements relinquishing control over Raqqa, Deir Azor and remaining territory west of the Euphrates, retaining only Hasaka and Kobane after withdrawing from the Tishrin Dam. But even after conceding so much, government forces violated ceasefire terms. So the SDF declared general mobilisation across the Kurdish regions of Syria and neighbouring states as a last desperate attempt to rally resistance. By the end of January, the autonomous administration had lost roughly 80% of the territory it once governed. The SDF was forced to retreat almost entirely into Hasaka governorate. And on 30 January, the SDF formally announced a ceasefire with the Syrian government and accepted a framework for folding both their military structures and civilian administration into the Syrian state. Syrian authorities set timelines on this agreement. Within a month, they would retake control of border crossings, oil and gas infrastructure like Krmilane and Al Suwaydi, detention camps holding ISIS members and their families, and strategic sites such as Qamishli International Airport. Interior Ministry units were scheduled to deploy to Hasaka and Qamishli almost immediately. And Syrian security forces would oversee the absorption of the Kurdish internal security apparatus, the Asaish, into the state's policing structures. Militarily, the SDF is stated to be absorbed under the Syrian Ministry of Defense, but on an individual vetted basis. Up to now, the fate of the female fighters and non Syrian fighters within the SDF is unknown. And on the civilian side of things, the institutions created by the Rudjav administration are to be absorbed as well. Kurdish officials have thus far secured the governorship of Hasaka and limited command roles within the military. In exchange for their surrender, the Kurds gained some recognitions. On paper, the government claims to affirm national civil and educational rights, promised the return of displaced populations and issued decrees recognising Kurdish as a national language taught in schools, declared the Kurdish celebration of Nowruza public holiday and reversed decades old citizenship policies that stripped tens of thousands of Kurds of their citizenship thus far. Most of these promises are on people, as I said.

[James]

Yeah, I think they'd see it as like a rebranding, not a surrender, as an agreement. Like from what I understand, the epic Gates still see themselves as the epic. The YPG still see themselves as the ypg. The YPJ very much still see themselves as the Women's Defense Force. And so like, as you say, like all of this is a paper agreement currently and we will see how. I mean there are now Syrian Ministry of Interior forces in Hesaka and in Kamishlo. But like some of that has come to pass. But what this means, talking to my friends there, like we will continue to see exactly like what extent they still have autonomy in and to what extent they are integrated into a state which has in some instances banned women from wearing makeup, for instance.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, yeah. So the US and France co signed this agreement and pledged to oversee its implementation. And the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq has also welcomed this agreement. But it still remains to be seen what happens next.

[James]

Yeah, did see a hundred people who are non Syrian Kurds. I would imagine they would mostly be Turkish. So from northern Kurdistan had withdrawn from Syria and gone to Kandil, which is kind of the stronghold of the various other parts of the Kurdish freedom movement. So that's in southern Kurdistan or Iraq. It's near the border with Iran. But I saw that a number of them had withdrawn post disagreement. That was probably on the 10th of February or somewhere around there.

[Andrew Sage]

So yeah, sadly this is an outcome of the imperialist world order that empires and regional actors will crush any threats to their power or will attempt to crush such threats. And as long as such power remains concentrated in these states and militaries and ruling classes, whether they are secular or nationalist or Islamist or anything else, none of us can be free. Yeah, we could sit around on our armchairs and speculate what moves or Java could have done differently. Whether it be a failure to advance further, whether it be insufficient integration of and buy in of other groups into the project, whether it be the alliances or agreements or affiliations that they engaged in. We can also sit around and look at all the limitations they faced. Some they managed to overcome and others not so much. But the blame does not lie in their failures to play this game of geopolitical chess as ruthlessly as other powers in the region. I think the blame lies in, in this game of geopolitical chess, in this ability of imperial powers to treat the people of the region as a whole as tools to be used and discarded. In the end, I continue to hold to the position that only a shared uprising from below, one that refuses compromise, one that cuts across nationalist lines, has the potential to create a new world. And that fight must happen both within Syria and beyond, around the entire earth. The fight is not over in Rojava. I find it hard to believe that a people engaged in such a project would let go of that instinct and that drive toward greater and greater freedom. It remains to be seen what happens with them, but also remains to be seen what happens with us, what we decide to do to push our what's one way forward. And that's all from me for today. All power to all the people. Peace.

[James]

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

[Andrew Sage]

For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,

[James]

Visit our website coolzone media.com or check

[Andrew Sage]

us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple

[James]

Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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