This is a relatively succinct (if you watch it on 2x) coverage of the collapse of the Syrian Kurds. For some reason, I can’t find a simple written piece that accomplishes the same things. I would like to note that from my reading the influence on US and Turks on the whole affair has been overstated. Yes the Turks wanted the Kurds to lose and provided support that end and yes the US did not supply real support to the Kurds. But from what I read the real factors were the Arab hate of the draconian communism of the YPG (briefly mentioned in the below video but very much underplayed from what I understand from other sources) and the general competence of Ahmed al-Sharaa and the crew around him.

Everyone wants to reduce things to big powers playing games but the big powers were playing games to no results for a long time before al-Sharaa. He is using them as much as he is being used and Turkish support would have accomplished nothing if his group was not competent. The Turks were trying to do in the YPG for a long time with no success before he came along. And sympathy for the Kurds tends to cause people to down play how ideologically committed communists the YPG is (as well as the PKK) and to what extent that turned the Arabs in their areas against them when at first they were happy for YPG protection. The Kurdish parties in Iraq are different and not so ideological for the most part and that further confuses people who can’t tell the various Kurdish groups apart and so don’t realize what a cult the YPG is.