Why they say kurdistan or rojava is a us made up thing to use the kurds to get rid of isis?
Executive summary
Critics call “Kurdistan” or “Rojava” a U.S.-made construct because Washington’s tactical partnership with Kurdish forces against ISIS amplified Kurdish autonomy while stopping short of formal recognition or state-building—creating the appearance of a U.S.-engineered instrument for a narrow military goal rather than a genuine, permanent guarantor of Kurdish statehood [1] [2] [3]. Advocates counter that Kurdish self-rule emerged largely from local political organization and wartime opportunity—Assad’s withdrawal from the north and Kurdish institutions on the ground—so U.S. support was enabling and opportunistic, not dispositive or wholly created in Washington [2] [4].
1. Why the “made-up” narrative sticks: partnership without recognition
The United States partnered closely with Kurdish forces—most visibly the YPG and the broader SDF—providing air power, training, equipment and special operations support to defeat ISIS, while explicitly avoiding formal recognition of an independent Rojava or a Kurdish state, a gap that feeds the claim that Rojava is a U.S. instrument rather than a sovereign polity [1] [2] [3].
2. A marriage of convenience: tactical necessity, not nation‑building
U.S. policymakers pursued a low-risk approach after 2014: rely on effective local ground partners to avoid deploying large U.S. ground forces, meaning the Kurdish-led SDF became the principal anti‑ISIS ground partner by virtue of battlefield effectiveness rather than a U.S. plan to found a state—hence critics see a utilitarian “use” of Kurds for a narrow mission [5] [6] [1].
3. Local agency and political roots that predate U.S. involvement
Rojava’s autonomous administration grew from local political projects—“democratic confederalism” and councils, and organizational links with PKK networks—that organized governance after Assad’s forces pulled back in 2012; these local foundations complicate claims that Rojava was invented in Washington [4] [2].
4. Turkish framing and regional rivalries that amplify the US‑proxy story
Ankara’s long-standing hostility to PKK-affiliated groups and fear of a Kurdish polity on its border drive a powerful counter-narrative: Turkey labels the PYD/YPG as extensions of the PKK and depicts U.S. cooperation as deliberately fostering a hostile Kurdish entity—an explanation with clear political motives and international resonance [7] [8].
5. What U.S. policy actually did: enable, deter, but not endorse statehood
Washington’s actions—sustained military support against ISIS, occasional protection of Kurdish-held areas, but public refusal to formally recognize autonomy or create institutions in U.S. law—produced a paradox: security and territorial gains without diplomatic guarantees, which observers read either as cynical exploitation or cautious enabling depending on their viewpoint [3] [9] [10].
6. Competing interpretations and hidden incentives
Supporters argue the U.S. partnership preserved a bulwark against ISIS and helped build pluralistic local governance in northeast Syria; skeptics see geopolitical calculation—using an effective force to defeat ISIS while keeping Washington’s exposure low and preserving options with Turkey and other regional powers—so both assessments reflect different weights attached to Kurdish agency versus U.S. short‑term interests [11] [6] [12].
7. Bottom line: neither wholly U.S. creation nor purely indigenous miracle
The most defensible synthesis is that Rojava emerged from local political organizing and wartime openings, and the United States elevated and enabled that project instrumentally to defeat ISIS without committing to its permanence—an arrangement that naturally fuels the accusation that Rojava was “made up” by the U.S. to use the Kurds against ISIS, even as that claim overstates Washington’s role and understates Kurdish initiative [2] [1] [4].