How Putin Is Wooing America's Closest Syrian Allies

President Obama’s bid to exert more influence in the Syrian civil war may be too little, too late. Stung by Vladimir Putin’s military intervention, Obama last week foreswore his previous refusal to put boots on the ground, announcing he’s sending a small contingent of U.S. special operations commandos to help America’s close allies, the Syrian Kurdish rebels. But to scant notice, the Kurds are receiving increased support from Russia as well—and are about to open an office in Moscow—in what has become a high-stakes poker game for influence in the region.

While previously the Kurds sought closer ties only with the U.S., now “we welcome a strategic relationship with both the U.S. and Russia,” Sherzad Yazidi, a representative of the Rojava administration living in Sulimaniya, told me on a recent trip to the region. “One wouldn’t be at the expense of the other.”