An Analysis of US Strategy towards Syrian Kurds Based on Rational Choice Theory

During the internal crisis of Syria, a geopolitically and geo-strategically significant country in West Asia, the behavior and measures of the local, regional and international actors emerged differently. America, as a superpower seeking global interests, tried to serve its interests as well as those of its regional allies through an interventionist approach to the Syrian crisis. Initially, it sought to overthrow the Assad regime and hit its allies by supporting the Syrian Arab opposition. With the Syrian government's legal request of Iran and Russia to enter the country and disrupt the balance of power in Syria, the Americans failed to achieve their primary goals. The feebleness and defeat of the Arab opposition against the Syrian government and its allies pushed the Americans closer to the Kurds so that they could make use of Kurdish interests in Syria for supporting their own interests. The main question of this research entails the components of US strategy and goals in relation to the Kurds in the events of Syria. The hypothesis answering the key question proposes that US foreign policy toward the Syrian Kurds is rationally developed to disturb the balance of Iran-Russia-Syria alliance and the resistance axis and prevent Turkish excessive ambition. This is a descriptive-analytical research using library resources for data collection. The results indicated that America's proximity to the Kurds has been successful in establishing a Kurdish entity and employing it for encountering the mentioned threats since the alliance until 2019.