46 MOTHER JONES |^ JULY / AUGUST 2019
and terrorists on the territories that they already occupy,
not wait for them to come to our house.” In retrospect,
Gordon says, the Russian move wasn’t a shock, consider-
ing the United States’ expanded involvement. “It was the
logical continuation of what we had already seen, which is
that the more that we intervene, the more they intervene,”
he says. The war had turned another corner: It was now
all but certain that the Assad regime would survive.
Inside the Obama administration, a consensus started
to form on what Moscow’s actions meant for the future
of the American role in the war. “Those people who had
been arguing for a bigger, more direct intervention felt
like, well, we have been checkmated,” the senior State
Department official says. “Once the Russians intervened,
the notion that we were going to be able to push Assad
into his own demise, I think that went out the window,
and so we basically adopted a totally different approach,
with totally different objectives.” Other officials thought
Russian intervention would prevent the Assad regime
from collapsing and leaving a dangerous power vacuum;
they also hoped it might dilute Iran’s influence in Syria.
Meanwhile, as the United States directed its attention
to isis, Turkey presented an obstacle. The Americans
had been sharing intelligence with Ankara about the
flow of isis fighters and weapons across its frontier withSyria, and US officials had pressed Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to tighten border security. “The
Turks wouldn’t do anything,” a senior White House of-
ficial involved in negotiations with Turkey tells me. “You
eventually start to draw a conclusion that these guys are
playing rope-a-dope and Erdoğan doesn’t really give a
shit about isis.” While the Turkish government had no
love for isis, it was reluctant to throw itself into the fight
so long as isis’s territorial gains put pressure on Kurdish
militants, Turkey’s longtime foe.
In September 2014, thousands of isis fighters assaulted
the heavily Kurdish city of Kobanî, near the Turkish border.
As isis took parts of the city, the ypg contacted Kurdish of-
ficials in Iraq, who reached out to their American military
contacts to ask for weapons and aid for the Kurds. According
to a senior White House official, Turkey opposed American
support for the ypg’s defense of the city, but Obama con-
vinced Erdoğan to relent. During the four-month battle,
the United States dropped ammunition and provided air
support to the Kurds until isis was forced to retreat.
Kobanî was the United States’ first clear victory in Syria,
says Brett McGurk, the presidential envoy to the anti-isis
coalition. And in the ypg, the Pentagon had found the local
proxy force it had sought all along: The Kurdish fight-
ers weren’t religious extremists; they worked well withUSRussiaBoth2015 2016 2017Russian
Roulette
US-Russian clash and
cooperation in SyriaThe United States and Russia are
on opposite sides of the Syrian
conflict. Except when they’re
not. While Washington backed
anti-government rebels, Moscow
rode to the rescue of Bashar
al-Assad. But they’ve also worked
together to push a peace process
and defeat isis.President Obama says Russia will end up in “a
quagmire” in Syria. The US-led coalition calls
on Russia to end strikes on non-isis targets.US special forces and their Syrian
allies defeat attackers including Rus-
sian mercenaries outside Deir Ezzor.The State Department says Russia may be moving
away from the UN peace process to one that
“might be easier for the regime to manipulate.”The US and Russia set up a
“deconfliction” hotline to
prevent encounters between
their jets over Syria.The US and Russia reassert their goal of
ensuring a UN-led political transition in Syria.After establishing an air base in Latakia, Syria,
Russia launches strikes against “terrorists.”The Syrian government retakes Aleppo
with help from Russian planes.Russia signs a deal to keep bases
in Syria for 49 more years.