Image Source: Ecrusized – CC0

In one of its final moves in office, the Biden administration is trying to secure U.S. influence over Rojava, the Kurdish-led region of northeastern Syria.

Now that Rojava is being attacked by Turkish-backed militias and faces a possible Turkish invasion, the Biden administration is reinforcing U.S. military positions in Rojava, making it more likely for the Kurds to maintain control over northeastern Syria. Despite the possibility that President-elect Donald Trump may bow to Turkish pressure, as he did when he facilitated a Turkish attack on Rojava during his presidency, officials in the Biden administration are trying to safeguard Rojava and prepare the Kurds to play a major role in Syria’s future.

“We need to stand with the Kurds, and President Biden intends to do that,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said last month.

For the past decade, the United States has partnered with the Syrian Kurds. In the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the U.S. military aided the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which did the bulk of the fighting on the ground in Syria. U.S. military officials repeatedly praised the Kurds for their courage, calling them the most effective fighters against ISIS.

“We’ve worked alongside the SDF for some time,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin acknowledged last month. “We have a good relationship with them and I think it will remain.”

At the same time that the SDF fought ISIS, the Kurds carved out an autonomous region in Rojava, where they organized the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES). Although the United States has not........

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