On September 16, 2014, the Islamic State began its siege of Kobane, Syria, a largely Kurdish city abutting the Turkish border. Kurdish forces faced almost impossible odds, especially since Turkish border guards allowed Islamic State fighters to transit the border to outflank the Kurds. Videos from the time even show Islamic State terrorists firing from inside Turkish territory at the Kurds fighting to break the siege. The recognition within Washington that Turkey, its diplomatic denials aside, was surreptitiously supporting the Islamic State led the Pentagon to begin its partnership with the Kurdish forces. After four months, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units won. The U.S. alliance with the Syrian Kurds became the archetype of a successful partnership between an industrialized military and an indigenous force.
Today, Islamist forces under the flag of the Syrian Army and guided by Turkish intelligence again besiege Kobane.
I visited Kobane after the Kurdish victory. Part of the town abutting the Turkish border remained in ruins. This was both partly a memorial to educate the next generation about the true horror of the siege and partly practical, since Turkish snipers still fired across the border at men, women, and children of the city. A bit further south, however, Kurds, Christians, and Arabs had rebuilt the city. Elementary and middle-school girls walked home from classes alone, a sign of the full security that locals enjoyed.
The Kurdish cemetery was well tended with the graves of hundreds of men and women—many still in their teens—who had died not only to protect Kobane, but Syria and the liberal order against those like the Islamic State who would replace it with a caliphate modeled on the Medieval order.
Today, Islamist forces under the flag of the Syrian Army and guided by Turkish intelligence again besiege Kobane. While Tom Barrack, President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, may talk about the virtue of unity, unity under an Islamist order that subjugates women and minorities provides not stability but the kernel of insurrection. Trump, Barrack and Secretary of State Marco Rubio should be embarrassed and ashamed to call allies the Syrian forces who now throw women from buildings, behead prisoners, and cut off the braids of girls and the ears of men.
Shame is increasingly a lost concept in Washington, but it is not too late to mitigate the damage Barrack’s decisions have wrought. Syrian forces now besiege Kobane. President Ahmed al-Sharaa, his Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham cohort, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan understand the import of reversing the Kurdish victory at Kobane. More than 150,000 Kurds, Arabs, and Christians are once again under siege. Once again, Turkish-backed forces block aid, gas, and food. While Israel and the international community shipped humanitarian supplies into Gaza throughout Israel’s war with Hamas, today Kobane starves. Four children have already frozen to death. Eighty percent of Kobane’s residents lack clean water. Syrian shelling and power cutbacks mean hospitals and medical centers operate below 10 percent capacity. Further exacerbating the crisis is the arrival of 18,000 civilians fleeing the jihadist takeover of Raqqa and Tabqa.
While Israel and the international community shipped humanitarian supplies into Gaza throughout Israel’s war with Hamas, today Kobane starves.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is organizing some emergency convoys—once again proving the real impact of the U.S. money invested in that organization—but it is essential to create a more permanent, institutionalized corridor. Gaza had procedures for inspections and humanitarian transfer that, despite the polemics fueled by some progressive groups and Qatari-funded journalists, ensured not only the absence of hunger in Gaza, but also near continuous supply. President Joe Biden even constructed a floating pier to offload supplies.
The situation now in Kobane is far worse than Gaza ever was. The question then is why not institutionalize a humanitarian corridor to allow UNHCR to deliver emergency supplies. If the goal of al-Sharaa and Erdoğan is not simply to starve Kurds and Christians, they should not object.
Trump and Rubio have spoken out against the targeting of Christians in Nigeria. Turkey and al-Sharaa now do that in Syria as well. The situation is bad. The question is whether Trump and Rubio will act to clean up Barrack’s mess, or whether they will own his legacy and allow Kobane to become the Syrian Srebrenica.
