Almost a week after US President Donald Trump told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the United States would not stand in the way of a Turkish military incursion into northeastern Syria, a near-global chorus condemning both men has emerged.
Even Trump's closest allies in the US and abroad, including former ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have decried the move as a great betrayal of the Kurds and a gift to Iran, Russia and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) armed group.
Erdogan, they claim, was given the green light to ethnically cleanse Kurdish allies who valiantly fought alongside US forces against ISIL. Although Trump's decision was clearly another example of his callous and erratic nature, these voices are obscuring the reality of what is happening in Syria and how we got into this situation.
Certainly, abandoning anti-ISIL partners is a shameful episode for the US, mainly because it made the wrong decision in the first place by partnering with a group that is not representative of the majority of the Syrian people, that is at odds with the objectives of the revolution and that is too closely associated with the enemies of a NATO ally.
It is important to recall that the conflict in Syria did not begin when Turkish troops entered the northeast. It started in 2011 when the people of Syria rose up against the 40-year dictatorial rule of the Assad family. Their calls for freedom and dignity and the regime's violent response to it - with the help of Hezbollah, Iran and Russia - killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions and created a vacuum that enabled organisations like ISIL to emerge.
Another important fact that seems to be conveniently overlooked is that the overwhelming number of Syrians currently being murdered and cleansed are in Idlib province, in the northwest of the country.
Three million people - half of whom have already been displaced at least once - are enduring incessant attacks by the Syrian and Russian air forces. While any action that harms civilians anywhere should be prevented, the deafening silence regarding what is taking place in Idlib and what has taken place in other parts of Syria before, leads one to question the motives of those who are now suddenly so heartbroken over what is happening in the northeast.
Furthermore, casting the People's Protection Units (YPG) as representatives of all Syrian Kurds is dubious. Most Syrian Kurds do not belong to the organisation or its political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and have at times chafed under its "democratic confederalism".
Many Kurds who oppose it have been arrested or driven into exile. Moreover, the YPG has a well-known record of coordinating with the Syrian regime against the opposition, as it did during the siege of Aleppo.
Finally, in a 2015 report, Amnesty International detailed "a wave of forced displacement and home demolitions amounting to war crimes carried out by the Autonomous Administration" led by PYD/YPG.
Although the YPG has moderated its stance in order to secure US support, including repackaging itself as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and recruiting non-Kurds to join its military forces and to co-administer localities, it maintains outsized control over those bodies. It also never allowed displaced Arabs to return to their towns and villages in areas it controls.
This is not to say that the Syrian Arab opposition has not committed its share of violations or that it has not had associations with problematic groups; it has, for example, fought side-by-side with al-Qaeda's Syrian branch al-Nusra Front. But the current whitewashing of the YPG's recent history is disingenuous and will not get us any closer to peace in Syria.
From the beginning, the decision to arm the YPG was problematic because it shares the same command structure and ideology as their Turkish counterparts, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). It also holds goals that are at cross-purposes with the aims of the Syrian revolution, which require a change in Damascus.
The US bet on the YPG because it provided a short-term fix to ISIL without risking a confrontation with Russia or Iran, who backed Bashar al-Assad. But this strategy was only going to work as long as Turkey was willing to ignore the perceived threat at its southern border.
The time has come to reassess that strategy and to consider realistic options that preserve the NATO alliance with Turkey, protect Syrians and prevent ISIL from reemerging. This is still possible but the window is closing.
The US-led anti-ISIL coalition can and should immediately deploy more assistance to areas south of the "safe zone" Turkey is seeking to establish. It should send military, diplomatic and assistance advisers to credibly deter anyone from encroaching on those areas and to ensure that ISIL does not re-emerge there.
The coalition should also augment efforts to watch the more than 11,000 ISIL prisoners and their families currently held in prisons and camps in the region. The foreigners among them should be repatriated to either be prosecuted or released in their home countries.
NATO should spend less time bashing Turkey and more time stressing the importance of the alliance, of which Turkey is a crucial member, irrespective of who rules it. It should engage in quiet (not Twitter) diplomacy with Ankara to ensure that the "safe zone" does not extend beyond the 30km limit.
The UN should consider sending observers into the "safe zone" after the military operations come to an end to keep an eye on any human rights violations or forced displacement and to ensure that no Syrian refugees are forcefully repatriated to that zone.
It should also support any and all efforts aimed at helping Turkey resolve its long-running war with the PKK. A peace agreement with the Kurdish armed groups means a peace agreement with the YPG.
Finally, the international community should also rededicate itself to denying Assad and his henchmen an outright victory in Syria. It must protect and invest in areas currently outside his control, including in Idlib. This cannot be done if Assad and Russia are allowed to bomb them.
The alternative to taking immediate and bold action is before us: allies and partners fighting, adversaries gaining ground and, worst of all, a growing humanitarian crisis and increasing ethnic and sectarian tensions spilling over into the entire region.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
