By: Dr. Adnan Bozan
A friend asked me: What conclusions have you drawn from the integration and dissolution of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) within the new Damascus authority? And is it enough for an ancient Kurdish people, living on their historic land in Syria, to be told that their national rights are reduced to education in the Kurdish language, at their own expense?
I will answer frankly, and perhaps harshly, because this is no longer a time for pleasantries.
Despite the many years I have spent in the Syrian and Kurdish political movements, I still find myself unable to understand the logic behind the actions of some of the politically limited Kurdish parties. Not because politics is an obscure science, but because when politics loses vision, purpose, and the means of exerting pressure, it becomes crisis management rather than the making of the future.
In political science, there is no such thing as mercy from an adversary, nor can the rights of peoples be built upon good intentions. Politics is about balances of power, interests, negotiating leverage, and the ability to transform power on the ground into political, legal, and constitutional gains that can be protected and sustained. It is not enough for your cause to be just; what matters is whether you possess the ability to protect that justice and turn it into reality.
This is where the real question begins: What did the Kurdish people in Syria actually gain politically, constitutionally, and legally in return for the cards and leverage that Kurdish forces possessed?
If the outcome is merely recognition of the Kurdish language or permission to provide education in Kurdish, while Kurds are then left to bear the costs of educating their children in their own language, then this is not a solution to the national question. Rather, it reduces that question to a limited cultural right that can be withdrawn. Language is a right, and education is a right, but both are only part of the issue, not the whole of it.
The broader issue concerns recognition of the Kurdish people, their constitutional status, their political, cultural, and administrative rights, their participation in governing their own regions, and the legal guarantees that protect their identity, language, and existence. An entire people cannot be reduced to a school, a homeland cannot be reduced to a textbook, and a national cause cannot be reduced to a language lesson.
This does not mean that the solution is war or the rejection of negotiations. Mature politics knows when to negotiate, when to make a tactical retreat, when to stand firm, and when to employ law, alliances, and balances of power. But the problem begins when concessions are made before obtaining firm guarantees, and people are then asked to regard those concessions as a victory.
Political victory is not measured by statements, conferences, or photographs of leaders. It is measured by a simple yet harsh set of questions: What did you possess? What did you give away? What did you gain? And what guarantees did you secure to ensure that it cannot be taken away from you tomorrow?
Peoples do not live on promises; they live on rights, institutions, and guarantees.
Therefore, I do not believe the real question is whether we are with Damascus or against it. That is a superficial question. The real question is: What is the Kurdish project in the new Syria?
Is it merely cultural recognition? Is it decentralization? A federal arrangement? Or a form of local administration with broad powers? And what are the tools for achieving this project? Who guarantees it? And what is the alternative if the other side rejects it?
That is politics.
As for abandoning your cards first and then searching for gains afterward, that is gambling with the future of a people. The political vacuum never remains empty. When you abandon your position, someone else will fill it. When you lose a negotiating card, no one will return it to you simply because you later discover its value. And when you lose the power you once possessed on the ground, obtaining recognition of your rights becomes far more difficult.
The Kurdish political movement has repeatedly made mistakes by treating certain political moments as though they were the end of history. An agreement is presented as a historic achievement, and then years pass before we discover that it has not become a binding constitutional provision, a firmly established institution, or a genuine guarantee, but merely a temporary truce awaiting a shift in the balance of power.
For this reason, accountability must be political, not emotional.
The greater danger is that the entire scene becomes nothing more than a reshuffling of positions rather than a change in the underlying equation: the names of institutions, leaders, and frameworks change, while the essence of the problem remains intact—a people demanding its rights and a central authority retaining the keys to decision-making.
Peoples are not laboratories for political parties to conduct experiments. The history of an entire people cannot be subjected to the logic of: “Let us try this path; if it fails, we will try another.” Leaders change, parties fragment, and alliances shift, but it is the people who pay the price for these mistakes for decades.
That is why I fear something greater than the success or failure of any particular agreement: I fear that political leverage will be lost before it is transformed into rights.
I fear the aftermath of the thunder and lightning more than the thunder and lightning themselves. Usually, heavy rain follows thunder and lightning, and after the rain may come floods; floods do not ask anyone about their political affiliation before sweeping them away.
In the end, the problem may not be the strength of the adversary alone, but the inability of Kurdish forces to transform the strength, legitimacy, and sacrifices they possessed into a coherent political project.
The Kurdish cause in Syria does not need more slogans; it needs a new political mind—a mind that understands that negotiation is not surrender, resistance is not suicide, compromise is not betrayal, firmness is not heroism in itself, and political realism does not mean abandoning rights.
Above all, it needs leadership that understands the difference between a tactical concession and a strategic concession. The former may save a project; the latter may bury it.
Ultimately, history will not judge this stage by what the leaders said in their statements, but by what remains for the Kurdish people after the storm has passed:
Was this a moment of transition from power to politics, and of transforming political leverage into rights? Or was it yet another moment in which the cards were lost before they could be transformed into historic gains?
This is the question that must be asked without fear, without sanctifying political parties, and without showing deference to their leaders.
Parties change, leaders depart, and alliances shift; but peoples remain—and they are the ones who pay the price for everyone’s mistakes.