The Foreign Service Journal, May 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2021 51 projects completed over past decades. Coalition forces bent on cutting off ISIS forces in the city from reinforcements or escape routes had systematically targeted themwith airstrikes. Destruction of the bridges cut Raqqa off from its northern and western provincial hinterlands, the agricul- tural engine on which the city’s economy depends. Like characters in Dante’s Inferno , who board ferries across the river Styx, residents of Raqqa have had to make their way across the river amid a disorderly fleet of dhows, fishing boats and other barely river-worthy craft, spewing diesel fumes and ferrying residents and visitors into and out of the city. The wrecked bridges are also emblematic of the isolation that Raqqa citizens articulated, a feeling of being cut off from an international community that will- fully ignored the city’s destruction and need for greater help with rebuilding. Mixed in with concerns about isolation, Raqqa’s predomi- nantly Arab citizens also articulated a range of fears about their future. Despite the complaints about Kurdish influence and a heavy-handed SDF security presence, they expressed fear that Kurdish-dominated SDF would abandon them prematurely, because the Kurds sought a “separate peace” with the Syrian regime to lock in autonomy for the Kurdish heartland farther east. (This has not happened; SDF commander General Mazloum Abdi, a Kurd, has made clear his intention to continue providing security to these Arab areas.) While sometimes blaming the U.S. for destroying their city and refusing to help rebuild it, most I spoke with nonetheless expressed satisfaction with the continuing U.S. military presence in the northeast and voiced fears about the U.S. not staying the course. The Syrian regime’s propaganda remained aggressive. Some residents, confronting what they viewed as the unavoidable prospect of an eventual American withdrawal from the region, contemplated the painful choice—as they articulated it—between a future dominated by the Syrian regime or Turkey. Like Dante’s interlocutors, who urged him to bear witness to their suffering, many I spoke with asked that their fears—and resentments—be communicated to Washington. Those fears were exacerbated in October 2019 when, in the wake of Turkey’s Opera- tion Peace Spring military action, U.S. military forces withdrew from Raqqa and the rest of the western half of northeastern Syria. To date, the SDF has maintained its presence in these areas and pushed back against Russian and Syrian regime efforts to assert control of the areas fromwhich the U.S. withdrew. Finding the Words As I struggled to articulate for Washington the cluster of fears, resentments and contradictions and half-contradictions I had heard about the future of Raqqa, I thought of Dante’s concern that he would not “find words … [or the] harsh and grating rhymes to befit that melancholy” place. In his 14th-century poetic vernacu- lar, Dante underscored the need for objective, fact-based report- ing: “May the muses help my verse … so that word not diverge from fact, as it takes its course.” He and Virgil emphasized the importance of experience, of seeing the world as it is, not distorted by preconceptions. Dante also understood the power of narrative; (Right) William Roebuck, at center with microphones, and tribal sheikhs in Busayrah, Deir al-Zour province, in August 2018, during a visit to hear local views and ensure continued cooperation in the fight against ISIS in northeastern Syria. (Left) The author with U.S. military, on a visit in the Deir al-Zour area in 2019.