Behold the latest chapter in the perennial anthology of American perfidy. In a move that surprised absolutely no one with a functioning neocortex, the United States has once again demonstrated that its 'enduring partnerships' have the shelf life of an open carton of milk in the Mesopotamian sun. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), those plucky, misguided souls who spent the last decade doing the heavy lifting against the Islamic State so that American politicians could take victory laps in air-conditioned studios, have finally hit the ceiling of their utility. They have been 'pivoted'—a delightful corporate euphemism for being left to face the incoming storm with nothing but a few rusted AK-47s and the bitter realization that they were merely the geopolitical equivalent of a summer fling.

To the Kurds, I say this: Your naivety is almost as staggering as your courage. In what fever dream did you imagine that a partnership with Washington was anything more than a transactional convenience? You were the 'boots on the ground' when the American public lost its appetite for body bags, the 'stalwart allies' when the headlines needed a hero, and now you are simply an 'encumbrance' to the new reality. You have been ghosted on a planetary scale. The Trump administration hasn’t just shifted gears; it has thrown the entire vehicle into reverse, backing over its former friends to make room for the new Syrian government, a collection of opportunistic survivors who have managed to inherit the ruins of a country we helped dismantle.

The logic of the American 'pivot' is a masterclass in transactional sociopathy. It treats geopolitics like a used car lot where the previous model is traded in the moment a shinier, albeit more authoritarian, version becomes available. The new Syrian government, once the pariah of the 'civilized world,' is suddenly the belle of the ball. Why? Because the United States is bored. We are a nation with the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel and the moral compass of a roulette wheel. The strategic thinkers in D.C. have decided that the Kurds are 'last year’s fashion,' and like a discarded pair of flared jeans, they are being tossed into the donation bin of history.

Let us not forget the performative outrage from the political classes. The Left will wring their hands and weep crocodile tears about 'human rights' and 'betrayal,' conveniently forgetting that their own administrations have a long, storied history of using local populations as disposable tissues. They love the optics of being 'protectors' until the check actually comes due, at which point they suddenly discover the virtues of 'non-intervention.' Meanwhile, the Right will frame this as 'America First' realism, a euphemism for being too cheap and too lazy to honor a debt of blood. They call it 'strategic withdrawal'; I call it a cowardly exit from a mess of our own making, leaving the bill for the locals to pay in perpetuity.

This isn't just about one abandoned ally; it’s about the fundamental vacuity of Western foreign policy. We arrive with promises of democracy and stability, hand out a few thousand rifles and some vague assurances of 'support,' and then act shocked when the vacuum we created is filled by the very monsters we claimed to be fighting. The SDF spent years bleeding to hold back the caliphate, and their reward is to be told that the 'situation has evolved.' It’s the ultimate gaslighting. 'It’s not you, it’s the geopolitical landscape.'

The historical parallels are so numerous they’ve become a cliché. From the Hmong in Laos to the South Vietnamese to the Afghans who clung to the wheels of departing C-17s, the American exit strategy has always been a variation of 'Every Man for Himself.' We are the friend who borrows your car, crashes it into a ditch, and then complains that the upholstery was uncomfortable. The Kurds were never 'allies' in the eyes of the Pentagon; they were a cheap alternative to a draft, a way to outsource the carnage to people whose deaths don't affect the midterm elections.

As the new Syrian government consolidates power and the SDF fortress crumbles, the world watches another cycle of futility complete itself. The 'good guys' are losers, the 'bad guys' are the new partners, and the United States remains the same fickle, narcissistic entity it has always been. We don’t have friends; we have temporary arrangements. And the moment those arrangements require more than a press release or a drone strike to maintain, we vanish into the night, leaving our 'partners' to wonder how they could have been so stupid as to believe a single word we said. It would be tragic if it weren't so predictably pathetic. Welcome to the new world order: same as the old one, just with less pretending.