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Guest Essay

By Asli Aydintasbas

Ms. Aydintasbas is a fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of the institution’s Turkey Project.

Fighting this month between the Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the United States’ former partner against ISIS, ended in a decisive defeat for the Kurds. Much of the territory they had governed since 2014 with American military and financial support is now out of their hands.

This was more than a tactical setback. It marked the end of the Kurds’ daring, if improvised, experiment in self-rule — a utopian model that combined leftist ideas and women’s........

© The New York Times