Has the Kurdish struggle in Syria always been an imperialist side project or was it once revolutionary and co-opted by imperialist for their gain?
Has the Kurdish struggle in Syria always been an imperialist side project or was it once revolutionary and co-opted by imperialist for their gain?
Ive read so many conflicting things about modern Rojava/the Kurdish part of Syria and this aspect seems vital. Are these long term imperialist allies? Generally I see it discussed in the context of the modern occupation of Syria, where the YPG is helping the US steal Syria's oil. I really don't know much about it outside of my country's current occupation and my interest was sparked by that True Anon guy who went and fought there. At that point I thought it was just imperialist but when he started talking against the US propaganda against Assad, fake gas attacks, etc it made me think there may be more to it, and perhaps not another Kosovo/Yugoslavia type situation.
I have not read much about the Kurds in Syria, but the Baath party in Iraq recognized the Kurds as a nation deserving self determination. Like many artificial countries, they preferred to work together with them to build Iraq, rather than split along ethnic lines. The Baath knew that foreign influence was getting in the way of working with Kurds, and so was history, but they still wanted resolve the Kurdish National Question peacefully.
They speak about this in Chapter 4 Section 3 of their report on their revolution here: https://www.marxists.org/history/iraq/baath/ch04.htm