President Trump on Wednesday suggested that the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK terrorist group, “is probably worse at terror, more of a terrorist threat in many ways, than ISIS.”
It’s a ludicrous comment.
Still, under fire for his precipitous abandonment of YPG-aligned Kurdish units in Syria — groups with varying degrees of ties to the PKK — Trump is desperate to distract from his decision. Trump hopes that if he can present his abandonment of the Kurds as somehow justified, he’ll be able to cool the criticism he’s now enduring. But Trump’s observation is not consistent with the facts.
The PKK is a neo-Marxist terrorist group, yes. But its ambition ends with the creation of a Kurdish state in northern Syria and southern Turkey. This is not to say that the PKK is a legitimate organization deserving of our sympathy, but unlike ISIS, you won’t find its adherents plotting or trying to inspire shootings and bombings in the West.
ISIS leaders believe and tell the world that they are on a divine mission to establish a global caliphate. Yes, ISIS and the PKK seek control over a similar area of northern Syria, but ISIS’s territorial seizures are only a means to a much grander end. The group’s caliphate in Iraq and Syria was only supposed to be a stepping stone to broader global conquest, not an end in itself.
Meanwhile, whereas PKK targets Turkish military and government interests, sometimes catching civilians in the crossfire, ISIS’s tactics involve maximal civilian bloodletting. This distinction is important. The PKK, much like the IRA, ETA, and other comparable socialist ethno-nationalist terror groups, sees its violence as a means to a political solution in which Turkey must yield to its demands. ISIS, in contrast, sees its violence as a means to subjugating all humanity under Islamic rule.
Not all terrorist groups are created equal. Measured either by attack plots, ideological underpinnings, or tactics, there’s no question that ISIS is a greater terrorist threat to America and to the world than the PKK.
