If the US attacks the regime without a strong commitment to see the conflict through to a resolution, Russia, Iran and the Assad government might be antagonized into targeting the Kurdish-led entity as an “enemy within”. In that scenario, Russia could even give the green light to Turkey to pursue its long-held objective of dismantling the Kurdish-led autonomous entity altogether, as it did with Turkey’s recent invasion of Afrin in northwest Syria.

The US-led coalition failed to strongly condemn Turkey’s capture of Afrin, and Trump has since hinted that the US will withdraw its forces from Syria “very soon”. That generated a huge amount of anxiety among the Kurdish leadership in Syria, and raised the specter of their worst fear: that once the IS threat is completely eliminated, their crucial alliance with the US could come to an abrupt end.