Using Kurds as a ground force will not bear results.

Washington’s challenge in the Middle East is not only that it builds hollow armies. It is that it treats entire peoples as disposable instruments—nowhere more clearly than in its long, uneasy relationship with the Kurds.

For years, U.S. officials measured progress in Iraq by the number of troops trained, units stood up, and equipment delivered. Billions of dollars later, the Iraqi army collapsed almost instantly when ISIS swept across northern Iraq in 2014. Soldiers abandoned U.S.-supplied vehicles and fled. This was not an unforeseeable shock but the predictable outcome of a strategy that mistakes money and metrics for legitimacy and will.

Rather than rethink that model, Washington pivoted to a new wager: if Arab partner forces were brittle, perhaps Kurdish fighters could be the reliable edge of American power. That gamble has again betrayed its limits—politically, strategically, and morally.

The Long Allure—and Long Risk—of the “Kurdish Card”

For decades, some policymakers in Washington have viewed Kurdish groups as a potential source of leverage in a region where the United States often struggles to shape events. Kurdish populations span Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, and certain Kurdish parties have longstanding tensions with Tehran. This created a perception—sometimes quietly encouraged in Washington—that Kurdish networks could offer intelligence, influence, or pressure in dealings with Iran.

But this vision carried an unspoken contradiction. Hinting at support or protection without any intention of guaranteeing it left Kurdish partners exposed while creating expectations Washington was unwilling to meet. It also ignored a deeper truth: building a patchwork of proxies is not a strategy—it is a gamble with a long record of blowback.

The Unmitigated Consequences of Proxy Warfare

The United States has repeatedly turned to proxies as a shortcut to regime change or regional influence, and the results have often been catastrophic. During the antiSoviet war in Afghanistan, Washington empowered networks that later produced Osama bin Laden and alQaeda. In Iraq, the collapse of state institutions and the empowerment of sectarian militias created the vacuum in which ISIS thrived. In Libya and Syria, fragmented rebel coalitions—some backed by the United States—accelerated state collapse and empowered armed groups capable of terrorizing entire regions.

These are not isolated miscalculations. They expose a structural flaw: proxies raised for one purpose evolve into actors with their own agendas, especially when Washington withdraws or shifts priorities. The costs of these choices have been borne not only by Americans but by millions of civilians across the Middle East.

Syria Made the Pattern Impossible to Ignore

When ISIS surged across eastern Syria, it was Kurdish-led forces—the YPG and later the Syrian Democratic Forces—that became America’s indispensable ground partner. U.S. airpower enabled their advance; Kurdish fighters absorbed the casualties. The implicit understanding was simple: fight our common enemy, and we will stand by you.

That partnership produced results Washington had failed to achieve elsewhere. But when Turkey moved against Kurdish-held areas, the political calculus in Washington shifted. The same fighters once hailed as heroic allies were suddenly treated as liabilities. Long-term questions about protection, recognition, or political status were left deliberately vague.

The message was unmistakable: Kurdish forces were valuable enough to fight ISIS and, in the eyes of some strategists, potentially useful in shaping regional dynamics with Iran—but not important enough to risk a confrontation with Ankara or to anchor a durable political settlement.

The Cost of Treating Partners as Tools

Iraq and the Kurdish experience are not separate failures; they are variations of the same one. Whether building national armies that crumble or relying on stateless fighters whose aspirations remain unaddressed, Washington keeps pretending that power can be separated from politics.

You cannot rely on Kurdish groups for regional leverage without deciding what future you are willing to support for them. You cannot ask them to clear ISIS from Syrian cities and then look away when they are displaced or forced into lopsided deals with hostile neighbors. That is not strategy. It is opportunism dressed up as counterterrorism.

And it carries another risk: partners who feel abandoned do not simply fade—they adapt. The Kurds have been used and discarded by great powers before. If they conclude that Washington will once again leave them isolated, they will pursue their own interests with the same cold pragmatism. That may mean turning to rival powers, cutting deals that undercut U.S. goals, or building capabilities that Washington cannot control.

Proxies are not static assets. They are political actors with memories—and incentives.

The Strategic Consequences

This pattern corrodes more than America’s reputation. It undermines the very partnerships Washington claims to need. Potential allies watch Iraq and Syria and draw the obvious conclusion: U.S. support is deep in the short term and shallow in the long term. It is generous with weapons and stingy with guarantees. Under those conditions, rational actors hedge, cut side deals, and treat American assurances as temporary conveniences rather than foundations for their future.

Credibility is not only about deterring adversaries. It is also about how a country treats those who fight beside it.

A Moral Failure with Strategic Costs

In Iraq, the forces the United States built dissolved. In Syria and across the Kurdish world, the fighters it relied on discovered that Washington’s definition of “ally” was not theirs. The lesson is not that the next trainandequip program needs better metrics. It is that using people as instruments without taking responsibility for the political realities they face is a moral failure—and, ultimately, a strategic one.

The United States cannot keep stitching together proxy forces as a substitute for coherent policy. History shows that such patchwork arrangements unravel—and sometimes explode. The Kurds have been partners in the fight against ISIS, but they are not immune to the logic that has shaped every other proxy relationship Washington has built. If left isolated again, they will act accordingly.

© Eurasia Review