Syrian Kurds: Choosing the Lesser of Two Evils

The Democratic Union Party (PYD) has been in control of the Kurdish areas of Syria, known as Rojava, for almost two years. Critics say that it wasn’t PYD’s bravery that took these areas. Bashar Assad handed it over to them voluntarily, they argue. But these critics overlook the undeniable fact that the PYD’s policy has saved tens of thousands of lives.

While Syria is infested with armed groups that roam the country, bent on terror and murder, the PYD has managed to keep Rojava as the safest and most stable part of the entire country. It doesn’t matter whether or not the PYD is in league with the Assad regime. In fact, if there is such an agreement, it is fully justified. By not joining the Syrian Arab opposition and by not provoking Assad’s regime, Rojava has escaped the death and destruction that has reduced the rest of Syria to rubble.

The Syrian so-called revolutionaries have brought their people nothing but fear, displacement and starvation. They speak of getting rid of dictatorship, but are not any better themselves. They accuse Damascus of imprisonment, torture and cruelty, but apply the same methods in their own fight. All their promises and slogans turned out to be empty revolutionary rhetoric. It is a religious war they are fighting. They are not fighting Assad because he is a tyrant. They fight him because he is a Shiite. Their war is to replace him with a Sunni regime that would expect all other minorities, including Kurds and Christians, to follow obediently or face the same treatment.

At least the Syrian regime has one army and one agenda. The rebels, on the other hand, are divided over many groups, battalions, factions, bands and mobs. All under Islamic names and mottos. How can one trust them or not tremble at their name? These groups have shown to the world their true nature. A few minutes on YouTube are enough to understand who they really are, and what Syrians should expect if one day they came to power.

The leaders of these groups appear in the Arab media and beg the world to stop Assad’s air force. They decry the barrel bombs that Syrian helicopters and jet fighters drop on them. But what is the difference between a barrel bomb and a group of rebels executing people? Killing is killing, no matter how it is done.

At least the Syrian army, despite its cruelty, practices some discipline and restraint. Often they round up people, question them and transfer them to prisons. But the rebels do not have such qualities. They have death squads who go from village to village, line up people against walls and execute them without a question. Assad agreed to destroy and hand over his chemical weapons. It is doubtful the rebels would have done the same.

No one denies that Bashar Assad is a monster, as was his father. Syrian Kurds know this better than anyone else. They have lived in his shadow all their lives. But now, it turns out, the Syrian rebels are monsters, too. They are as terrifying as Assad, if not more. In fact, they surpass him in many ways. Apart from killing innocent people and hapless soldiers who surrender, they also destroy mosques, shrines, orchards, farms and thousand-year-old heritage sites.

There is no longer such a thing as a Syrian opposition fighting for freedom. It is an amalgam of Islamic extremists, Arab nationalists, army deserters and criminal bands who have no agenda and certainly no regard for human life.

It is this dark reality that makes the Kurdish neutral stance most logical. The Kurds know very well that the Syrian regime is no angel. They haven’t forgotten decades of inhumane treatment practiced against them by Damascus. But at the same time they are wise enough to know that Bashar Assad is the lesser of the two evils.