By Karam Khalil
Senior Advisor, Stand Up America US Foundation – Middle East
The rapid developments east of the Euphrates were not a passing military shift, nor the result of sudden battlefield superiority. They were the culmination of a political–strategic decision taken outside the field, a decision that terminated the function of one of the most prominent local proxies in northeastern Syria. That function had been exhausted, its utility depleted within broader strategic calculations.
What unfolded in Raqqa, Tabqa, Deir ez-Zor, and Deir Hafir cannot be understood in isolation. It reflects a clear transition in U.S. policy—from managing proxies to consolidating the state. The state, in this context, is not a moral preference but a lower-cost, more controllable instrument in the post–Assad phase, where stability has become a functional requirement rather than a political slogan.
The wide-scale withdrawals of the SDF and the handover of strategically and economically significant areas, without major battles or notable civilian losses, do not indicate military weakness. They indicate a political decision to halt confrontation. Within hours, the Syrian Army extended control over Deir Hafir, al-Jirah airbase, Tabqa, the Euphrates Dam, and several oil and gas fields—sites that had remained outside state sovereignty for years.
This pattern of “silent collapse” is not produced on battlefields. It is engineered in negotiation rooms. When a confrontation ends before it truly begins, it is not because capability disappeared, but because the authorization to fight was withdrawn.
The American role at this stage was neither loud nor declarative, yet it was decisive. Washington did not publicly announce an abandonment of the SDF, but it effectively closed its function through concrete measures: restricting the use of U.S.-supplied weapons, the absence of air cover at the decisive moment, the withdrawal of political protection from any direct confrontation, and firm pressure to implement the March 10 agreement as an orderly exit framework.
Through this shift, the SDF moved from being a useful tool to a political liability. The message was unmistakable: the coming phase will not be managed through armed proxies, but through states capable of controlling territory and resources.
The timing of this decision sits within a broader regional and international realignment. The curtailment of Iranian influence in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen; the prolonged exhaustion of Russia in Ukraine through a costly war backed by Europe; the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, dealing a direct blow to a strategic ally outside the region; and the tightening of U.S. control over energy routes and global maritime chokepoints—all point in the same direction.
This coincides with escalating internal unrest in Iran that threatens the foundations of its ideological regime. In such a context, Washington no longer requires a semi-military entity operating outside Syrian state authority. It requires a centralized, functional state that can be integrated into a new balance, free from prolonged chaos.
The agreement signed between Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharʿ and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi was not a balanced compromise. It was a carefully designed dismantling roadmap. The SDF’s military structure was dissolved, fighters were integrated individually into the Ministries of Defense and Interior, resources and border crossings were handed over, non-Syrian PKK elements were removed, and any autonomous administrative or security entity was terminated.
As a result, the SDF lost its three pillars of power: weapons, territory, and resources. It ceased to be an armed actor with independent decision-making and became a collection of individuals within state institutions.
The success of integration is measured not by agreements on paper, but by execution. The operational challenges are real: security vetting and layered loyalties after years outside state control; command-and-control coherence during the transitional phase; management of salaries and benefits to prevent fragmentation or mutiny; and the neutralization of non-national networks that could reproduce parallel structures.
These challenges are not insurmountable, but they require firm central management, not symbolic settlements or political appeasement.
The end of the SDF does not only signify the collapse of its own project. It marks the breakdown of an entire web of bets tied to it. Former regime remnants who sheltered within its structures, attempts to engineer separatist corridors linking the Euphrates to Suwayda, and expectations of indirect Israeli backing have all suffered a decisive setback.
The equation here is straightforward: Israel does not sacrifice major regional settlements or secured strategic gains for fragmented, weak local forces incapable of defending themselves. Its guiding principle is strategic return, not identity-based accommodation.
The Islamic State remains the most complex unresolved file. ISIS is not merely a military organization; it is a platform of intersecting interests operating through finance, borders, and political vacuums. Its dismantlement cannot be achieved through a single decision, but through a cumulative, sustained process.
The difference today is that the new Syrian state, within a genuine international coalition, possesses legitimacy, territorial control, and security partnership. This makes the defeat of ISIS a matter of time and structured effort, not one of capability.
Residual risks are known and manageable. Economic sabotage remains a possibility but can be contained through securing energy fields and crossings. Sleeper cells pose a moderate threat requiring proactive intelligence work. Tribal politicization is limited and can be addressed administratively and securely. External disruption carries low probability but high impact and must be handled through precise regional understandings.
What occurred east of the Euphrates is not a tactical victory. It is the closure of a strategic file. The era of the armed proxy has ended, and the phase of the functional, controlling state has begun.
Those who fail to grasp the logic of this transformation will understand it too late—
when they realize their role was closed quietly, without a battle.
