In August 2025, the House Armed Services Committee directed the Pentagon to develop a sustainable defense partnership framework with Syrian actors. The report referenced integrating the Syrian Democratic Forces into a federal security structure, signaling a preference for preserving organized local forces rather than dissolving them into a centralized army. Congressional planners appear to view decentralized security as stabilizing rather than destabilizing.
That framework is now under pressure. In January 2026, U.S. Syria Envoy and Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack advocated for individual integration of fighters into a centralized Syrian military. Framed as diplomatic pragmatism, the approach contradicts both congressional guidance and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s willingness to integrate entire units of foreign fighters who migrated to Syria during the civil war into his new army in their existing structures.
Breaking forces into individual recruits weakens the security architecture that Washington relied on to defeat the Islamic State.
Barrack ignores precedent. His prescription is not new but, in other post-conflict situations, it weakened capacity and created vacuums that insurgent networks exploited. The difference between integrating units and absorbing individuals shapes command authority, cohesion, and long-term governance. Integrating intact formations preserves institutional continuity and local legitimacy. Breaking forces into individual recruits weakens the security architecture that Washington relied on to defeat the Islamic State.
This push toward centralization reflects a persistent assumption inside U.S. diplomacy—that strong centralized states produce stability. Regional history suggests otherwise. Partnerships with centralized authoritarian regimes shaped Washington’s most costly Middle East interventions. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq collapsed under repression and power concentration. Syria was never a U.S. ally, but its Ba’ath Party produced the same outcome, monopolized authority, mass displacement, and state collapse. In both cases, centralization accelerated instability. The pattern holds true elsewhere. Turkey’s centralized political system, built on the denial of Kurdish political rights, has generated persistent internal tension. Iran’s challenge to U.S. interests likewise stems from ideological central power concentration. Libya and Sudan reinforce the same lesson: Hyper-centralized governance produces brittle states.
Yet U.S. diplomacy continues to treat centralization as a shortcut to order. In Syria, this translates into pressure to dismantle local security institutions in favor of untested centralized structures. The result may appear orderly on paper but recreates the vulnerabilities that enabled insurgency. Security federalism offers an alternative. It preserves local legitimacy, distributes security responsibility, and prevents power monopolization. In northeastern Syria, this model is the architecture that defeated the Islamic State and created security in its wake.
The push toward centralized authority is unfolding alongside what Damascus portrays as political reform. On January 16, 2026, al-Sharaa issued Presidential Decree No. 13, framed as minority inclusion. The decree avoids recognition of Kurdish national, political, or administrative rights and lacks constitutional legitimacy. Its authority derives from Syria’s 2025 constitutional declaration, produced without popular mandate. Governance by decree reflects authoritarianism rather than constitutional rule.
Time is a factor. Kurdish leaders face a narrowing window. The Pentagon must submit its Syria partnership framework to Congress by mid-February 2026. That deadline limits Kurdish leverage to insist that integration occur at the organizational level rather than through force dissolution.
Congress remains the Kurds’ strongest institutional backstop. Senator Lindsey Graham’s statement that the “powers of the Senate are real” signaled continued legislative involvement. Sustained engagement with congressional offices remains the clearest path to preserving structural autonomy.
The model emerging in Rojava will shape security debates across Kurdish regions, particularly in Iraq.
Absent full federalization, Kurdish negotiators are exploring alternative legal frameworks. One option mirrors national guard models in decentralized systems, where regional forces retain territorial security responsibility while remaining administratively linked to central defense ministries. Iraq’s constitutional recognition of the Kurdistan Regional Guard offers a relevant precedent.
Developments in Syria will not remain isolated. The model emerging in Rojava will shape security debates across Kurdish regions, particularly in Iraq. President Donald Trump’s envoy to Iraq, Mark Savaya, has emphasized the need to “strengthen state authority,” language interpreted in Erbil as encouraging centralization at the expense of the Kurdistan Region’s constitutional autonomy. At the same time, Barrack has rejected federalism as a viable governance model for the Middle East, framing decentralization as instability rather than resilience.
If Syria dismantles Kurdish security institutions, the precedent will affect the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Baghdad actors advocating greater central control will gain leverage, while constitutional protections for the peshmerga, Kurdistan’s militia, would face renewed pressure. For Erbil, the outcome in northeastern Syria is consequential.
Washington faces a choice. It can align executive diplomacy with congressional security planning or repeat earlier mistakes by prioritizing short-term accommodation over institutional stability. For Kurdish forces, the stakes are immediate. The coming weeks will determine whether they retain structured military autonomy or are absorbed into a system that erodes operational cohesion.
