Khalid Al-Bari

There is no doubt that the decision by General Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to dissolve the forces is a historic one. This is because it steers the Kurds away from a path of bloodshed and similarly removes other Syrians from that same trajectory of confrontation with their Kurdish brothers.

There appears to be an implicit international consensus to end the era of transnational groups. Following ISIS and al-Qaeda, the turn has come for Iran's proxies, which - led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) - have become a global threat. Here lies the global turning point that neither the IRGC nor its factions recognized: over the past half-century, the IRGC did not pose a threat to energy or international supply chains.

Consider chess. The board is indispensable if you are to make out the paths of the pieces within the game's laws and rules - their positions at the starting point and what moves they can and can’t make. You draw on the varied capacities of the queen and the knight, you recognize the limits of the pawn, and you take account of your opponent's moves. Some moves are forbidden by the laws of the game, and some we abstain from by choice, in view of how the match is going.