The project of the Autonomous Administration is facing an existential question. It has lost the governorates of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor and has retreated to Hasakah and Kobani, areas of Kurdish demographic concentration, following the collapse of negotiations between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian authorities. In response, Syrian Kurds declared general mobilization and an “existential battle” of self-defense. But what are the chances of Kurdish survival in such a zero-sum battle? Are we witnessing the complete end of the Autonomous Administration project, and of the “democratic nation” derived from the concept of the “brotherhood of peoples” in Abdullah Öcalan’s writings?
Since its establishment in 2012, the Autonomous Administration has expressed two parallel projects.
The first was a vehicle for Kurdish political aspirations in Syria.
The second was a Syrian political wing seeking to participate in power and to act as a regional player.
With the entry of the international coalition into Syria and the formation of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the second project came to dominate the first. The project expanded beyond Kurdish aspirations, attempting to position itself as a balanced actor in the Syrian equation. This rise, in turn, granted the Autonomous Administration greater legitimacy and representation among the Kurdish public. Yet, upon closer examination, the project suffered from multiple contradictions, with its shortcomings often outweighing its advantages. This article does not seek to weigh pros and cons, but rather to examine its internal structure and the consequences of its collapse.
“Direct Democracy”
The Autonomous Administration was built on the idea of communes: small communities, or local councils, in neighborhoods that in turn form committees. In managing institutions, it relies on a system of co-chairmanship between men and women, granting women an active role through a quota that can reach fifty percent.
Notably, the administration prioritizes formation and gradual refinement over efficiency. It does not usually emphasize high professional competence or polished outputs, but rather belief in the idea itself. The idea is based on dividing every society into highly decentralized micro-cells that manage their own affairs, relying on a system of “direct democracy” to resolve issues and arbitrate disputes, and on the “brotherhood of peoples” as a model for ethnic and sectarian pluralism through cooperatives.
However, this model faced numerous obstacles in practical application, in translating Öcalan’s modern ideas developed over the past decade, and in convincing many local constituencies of its viability.
In Arab areas in particular, the project faced a double dilemma. The first stemmed from its nature as a Kurdish project adopting the ideas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its founder, Abdullah Öcalan. In this sense, it was perceived as an external, separatist project with an occupation-like character, especially given the presence of PKK members, whether Syrian Kurds who had volunteered years earlier and returned to Syria, or non-Syrian Kurds who joined in building the project and laying its foundations.
The lack of internal familiarity with Öcalan’s theoretical concepts, combined with a permanent state of war that fostered nationalist sentiment, produced an authoritarian, non-listening form of governance. Through it, the party marginalized political rivals and ruled with clear unilateralism. Despite relative development during the period of US intervention, maintaining a reasonable degree of civil peace during a highly sensitive phase, and attempts to build a balanced governance system, militia-style practices did not cease. These included arrests, violations, forced conscription, and enforced disappearances.
Clashes With Some Tribal Communities
The second problem lay in the fundamental clash with tribal societies that did not accept ideas they considered Marxist and progressive, and alien to their social fabric. Numerous reports and studies documented Arab communities’ rejection of the SDF on multiple levels. Communities repeatedly complained of what they described as the SDF’s “incitement” of women and girls against their husbands and families. Familial pressure often forced many women and young women affiliated with the Autonomous Administration’s institutions, whether civilian or military, to withdraw under social pressure from tribe and family.
Rejection of the educational curricula was also notable, alongside teachers’ protests, not only because of the administration’s ideological content but also due to what was described as incitement to atheism. Similarly, there were objections to banning polygamy and to women’s protection institutions that receive complaints of domestic violence.
Signs of this rejection became evident with the recent advance of “tribal fighters” and soldiers of the Ministry of Defense in Damascus into Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, and with some residents toppling a statue representing the first Arab woman killed in battles against ISIS, “Hebûn Arab,” which can be translated from Kurdish as “the existence of the Arab.” She was the fighter Rahab al-Salmo from the Tel Hamis area south of Hasakah, considered the first Arab woman to lose her life confronting ISIS after four years of joining the fight.
This fighter represented many women who suffered under ISIS rule and brutality, not merely the SDF. It is no secret that women endured compounded violence under the “Islamic State,” in addition to the structural violence against women in these societies. The symbolism of destroying the statue goes beyond targeting a political symbol. As shown in several videos, it reflects mockery of women’s rights, which the SDF claimed to champion, and raises serious questions about the fate of women in this region under the rule of the authorities and their aligned armed groups.
Since its arrival, the interim authority has instrumentalized tribes as a social or militarized dimension, a parallel alternative to extending full state control over the country. The authority does not distinguish between tribes, presenting them as a homogeneous mix under a single label, “Arab tribes,” stripping them of internal differences and specificities.
Many anthropologists, from Edward Evans-Pritchard and Marshall Sahlins to Hanna Batatu, reject treating the tribe as a society devoid of political interaction or relations with the state. Yet today, the Syrian authorities refuse to engage tribes outside a single framework: Sunni Arab tribes supporting the state. In the Jazira region, tribes are diverse. The al-Shaitat, who confronted ISIS and suffered some of the worst massacres, differ from the Shammar tribe in Hasakah, which is deeply intertwined with Kurdish communities.
While these tribes may not have had the final say in sovereign decisions within the Autonomous Administration project, they became social and political actors within civilian and military institutions. They managed their relationship with “authority” according to their differences, not as a single tribal body. Thus, the claim that all tribes reject the SDF’s methodology and secularism is an elitist discourse employed by the authorities since their arrival to mobilize Arab nationalist and religious sentiment.
The authorities also hastened to appoint Abdul Rahman Salama as governor of Raqqa. He is presented as someone with economic project-building capabilities and as the head of a real estate company. Notably, Salama was previously close to Jabhat al-Nusra and does not belong to the governorate. This signals a celebratory return of the two governorates to state control as sources of resources, without regard for their local communities.
The Zero-Sum Scenario
With the Kurdish Autonomous Administration shrinking to Hasakah governorate, the project returns to its original structure of representing the Kurdish street. The SDF has effectively collapsed, leaving the People’s Protection Units (YPG) at the forefront. Amid popular fears of potential massacres, which Syrians have endured over the past year, Syrian Kurds are now rallying around the SDF as the representative and protector of their political aspirations, and indeed of their survival against genocidal campaigns.
It should be noted that the Kurdish public and most political forces did not seek to dismantle the project since its inception. There was broad acceptance of it and of its ability to spare the region from civil war as much as possible. However, calls for broader political margins and greater participation persisted despite confrontations.
Since the fall of Assad, the administration sought first to preserve its social gains. It presented a striking social contract, in which women appeared in a better position than in many Middle Eastern countries. For Kurds, this was the first model approaching their dream of living as Kurds with their national identity, as political beings, achieving security and peace amid a surrounding landscape of massacres.
For the Autonomous Administration, the collapse of negotiations does not mean surrendering weapons and integrating into a sectarian, ideological army that has committed massacres. Rather, it is a moment of clinging to the dream of living with an authentic identity. An identity not realized through Decree 13 issued by transitional president Ahmad al-Sharaa on the eve of declaring war on their areas, which returns them to the pre-2011 status quo. For Kurds, the SDF’s weapons protect these gains, not only from extermination, because the alternative to the Autonomous Administration project, which Damascus demands to dismantle entirely in its new draft agreement, is a political vacuum and the absence of political agency.
It can be said that the Autonomous Administration will reconstitute itself among those of its supporters who remain alive, even if after some time. This is because the core of the project is not limited to an armed force seeking power, namely the SDF, but to a human collective seeking political agency and defending its existence, embodied in the Autonomous Administration and the YPG.
The continuation of a zero-sum battle, the worst-case scenario, could mean a fate similar to that of Suwayda and the coastal regions. This would further isolate the Kurds from Syria, just as other components and groups rejecting the authorities have been isolated, pushing events toward multiple Syrias rather than a single Syria, stripped of any real capacity for political interaction.
