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Hello, I'm Matthew Price.

Welcome to Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4.

Every day we ask one big question about one big story.

Today did Trump kill the Kurdish dream?

So it's not just the end of the year, it's the end of the 2010's end of a decade and

one of the stories that is bound to feature in any look back that you see over the

next couple of weeks is how idealistic jihadis were drawn into Syria to fight for

an Islamic caliphate.

But there's another group of idealists that likely won't make it in. They've also been fighting to set up

their own state in Syria and elsewhere in the region. They're kind of the

mirror image of the Islamic State actually. They're a group with a crack unit of

women fighting on the front line. They're the Kurds. An ethnic group living in the north of

Syria and in neighboring Iran, Iraq, Turkey.

Now, since Syria's conflict started almost nine years ago,

they've been fighting to take control in northern Syria.

And the US decided quite early on that they were useful.

They were good fighters, they could help them defeat ISIS.

So America worked with the Kurds, they armed them, they supported them in the war until President Trump a few months ago

announced that he was going to pull US troops out of Syria, leaving the Kurds high and dry.

We have done them a great service,

and we've done a great job for all of them.

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