Why the “Save the Kurds” Act Is a Strategic Necessity
American disengagement has a pattern. It begins with fatigue, proceeds through optimism about local arrangements, and ends with surprise when fragile political structures collapse under pressures that were visible all along. Syria today sits squarely at the most dangerous point in that cycle. The Save the Kurds Act, authored by Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, was introduced because recent events in Syria have made it increasingly clear that the current trajectory threatens core United States security interests. It reflects growing recognition that Syria is entering a phase of instability more dangerous than open warfare because it combines political fragmentation, ideological radicalization, and militia entrenchment under the appearance of state authority.
Over the past year, the post ISIS security equilibrium in northeastern Syria has eroded in visible and measurable ways. Most recently, Kurdish administered areas have been subjected to sustained pressure through sieges, road closures, targeted violence, and coercive campaigns aimed at undermining civilian governance. These actions disrupted humanitarian access, weakened local security capacity, and forced Kurdish forces to divert resources away from counterterrorism and detention operations. The purpose was not merely harassment. It was to demonstrate that Kurdish autonomy and safety remain contingent and reversible without binding legal protections.
These security pressures coincided with a shift in United States diplomatic engagement that emphasized rapid political consolidation under Damascus without first securing constitutional guarantees for Kurdish and minority rights. Washington increasingly treated recentralization as a prerequisite for stability, assuming that rights and political inclusion could be negotiated after authority was reestablished. In Syria’s environment, this policy ordering has proven destabilizing. Restoring central control without enforceable minority protections does not produce legitimacy. It concentrates coercive power in the hands of actors whose authority rests on force rather than consent.
This logic underpins the framework associated with Tom Barrack’s approach to Syria and explains why recent events alarmed lawmakers. By prioritizing political consolidation before rights, this approach assumes that minorities will accept reintegration into a system that has historically marginalized them. For the Kurds, repeated sieges, physical attacks, and broken assurances confirmed that reintegration without legal safeguards is indistinguishable from subjugation. Trust in Damascus was already low. Recent events have made it lower still.
The dangers of this approach are magnified by the fragility of the central authority itself. President Ahmed al Sharaa’s hold on power is narrow and heavily dependent on Turkish backing. His military is not a unified national force but a collection of armed factions announced as integrated into state defense structures. Integration has not dissolved militia identities or command chains. It has formalized them.
Among the most prominent factions incorporated into this framework are former Syrian National Army components. The Sultan Suleiman Shah Division, commonly known as al Amshat, operates as a disciplined militia with its own leadership hierarchy and enforcement practices developed outside any professional military tradition. The Hamza Division functions similarly, retaining internal command structures and economic networks that predate nominal incorporation. The Sultan Murad Division and the Levant Front represent additional armed blocs with localized power bases and histories of coercive governance.
Alongside these groups are factions formerly associated with the National Front for Liberation, including Faylaq al Sham, Ahrar al Sham, Jaysh al Nasr, Jaysh al Ahrar, Suqour al Sham, and the Free Idlib Army. Each brings a distinct ideological legacy. Some espouse governance models explicitly hostile to pluralism and minority autonomy. Their integration into state structures does not moderate those views. It legitimizes them.
This militia mosaic creates an environment more dangerous in some respects than the ISIS era. ISIS was centralized and hierarchical. These factions are fragmented, competitive, and embedded in local power structures. Several promote ideological enforcement through social control rather than mass casualty attacks. This form of extremism is harder to detect, harder to disrupt, and more resilient. It spreads through governance rather than spectacle.
Understanding this transformation is essential to understanding why a narrow focus on ISIS alone is insufficient. The extremist threat in Syria has evolved, but policy has not fully adapted.
This is why focusing exclusively on ISIS as the primary extremist threat is a strategic mistake. The Trump administration’s emphasis on ISIS as the main metric of success risks ignoring the broader ecosystem of radicalization now taking shape. Groups that are rivals of ISIS can still amplify extremist ideology, normalize coercion, and generate recruitment pipelines. Eliminating ISIS commanders through airstrikes does not address this problem. Airpower cannot dismantle belief systems or rebuild political legitimacy.
The limits of airpower are most apparent in the ISIS detention problem. Kurdish led forces until recently remained the primary custodians of thousands of ISIS fighters and affiliates. Their ability to secure detention facilities depended on manpower, legitimacy, and sustained support. As Kurdish authority has been eroded through political pressure and security threats, the risk of prison destabilization has increased, resulting in a recent breakout. Although the US ultimately decided to transfer the remaining 7000 prisoners to Iraq to stand trial, even these limited escapes are likely to energize sleeper cells, validate extremist narratives, and accelerate recruitment across Syria and beyond. Rivalry between ISIS detainees and al Sharaa aligned factions does not mitigate this danger.
The consequences of this dynamic extend beyond Syria’s borders and place immediate pressure on neighboring states central to United States regional strategy.
The Jordan Spillover Scenario
According to a former senior intelligence officer in Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate, Jordan’s concern about Syria is rooted in regime stability, border control, and internal cohesion. After more than a decade of absorbing refugees, smuggling, and extremist pressure, Amman now faces a more dangerous phase of Syrian instability. The threat is no longer sporadic violence but sustained pressure generated by militia fragmentation and ideological radicalization along Jordan’s northern frontier.
Armed groups operating in southern Syria increasingly move not only weapons and narcotics but people, ideology, and operational expertise. Jordanian security services understand that destabilization does not require mass infiltration. A small number of ideologically motivated actors can generate disproportionate effects through lone actor attacks and targeted recruitment. The convergence of smuggling networks and extremist ideology has transformed the northern frontier into a persistent security challenge, prompting Jordan to adopt preemptive measures to prevent deeper destabilization.
Jordan’s predicament mirrors another front where Syrian instability is already reasserting itself.
The Iraq Spillover Scenario
As the Iraqi spy chief noted, Iraq faces a parallel but equally severe threat from Syria’s deterioration. Although Iraqi security forces have degraded ISIS since its territorial defeat, Iraq’s internal balance remains fragile due to political fragmentation and militia competition. Syria’s instability provides strategic depth for ISIS remnants and affiliated networks that exploit porous borders to sustain recruitment and logistics.
The primary danger is gradual regeneration rather than dramatic resurgence. Even limited cross border movement allows extremist cells to survive and periodically strike, eroding public confidence in the Iraqi state. Ideological transmission reinforces narratives that legitimacy flows from force rather than law. This threat is magnified by the presence of ISIS detainees now on the lam in Syria, many of whom are Iraqi nationals. The recent breakout now forces Iraqi forces to divert resources from stabilization toward emergency containment.
Taken together, these spillover risks demonstrate that Syrian chaos is not containable. It damages United States regional relationships by forcing partners like Jordan and Iraq to militarize borders, pursue unilateral security measures, and hedge against abandonment. American influence becomes reactive rather than strategic.
The comparison to Afghanistan is unavoidable. There, narrow counterterrorism metrics masked political decay until collapse became inevitable. Syria is not Afghanistan, but the structural lesson is the same. When minority protections and political legitimacy are deferred, security gains evaporate.
Kurdish distrust of Damascus should be understood through this lens. After sieges and physical attacks, Kurdish communities are even less likely to trust any agreement lacking constitutional enforcement. Continued unrest is not ideological defiance. It is a rational response to insecurity.
If President al Sharaa fails to deliver prosperity, security, and genuine inclusion, Syria will fragment further. In that scenario, Kurdish governance structures and their experience in maintaining order remain among the last barriers preventing Syria from deteriorating into a failed state. Their role in countering extremist militias, suppressing ISIS sleeper cells, and administering territory is foundational.
The Save the Kurds Act addresses this reality directly. By conditioning United States engagement on constitutional protections for Kurds and other minorities, it treats minority rights as a security instrument rather than a moral concession. It recognizes that rapid political consolidation without rights fuels extremism, that airpower cannot substitute for political order, and that ideological radicalization is the most dangerous long-term threat emerging from Syria today.
This legislation does not call for endless military involvement. It calls for strategic discipline. The cost of prevention is far lower than the cost of reintervention after collapse. The United States still has leverage. The Save the Kurds Act is an effort to use it before Syria’s fragmentation becomes irreversible.
Irina Tsukerman is a U.S. national security lawyer, geopolitical analyst, President of Scarab Rising, Inc., a security and geopolitical risk strategic advisory, and Board Member of The Washington Outsider Center for Information Warfare.