The United States is fighting DAESH in Syria and Iraq, but very few people know about the exact character of this fight. In addition, DAESH keeps gaining territory, which is provoking many questions. The U.S. says it is definitely not backing the forces of Bashar Assad in its fight against DAESH, but it does support the militants of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party's (PYD) People's Protection Units (YPG), along with what people call the moderate opposition, i.e., the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The problem is the FSA and YPG do not support one another. In other words, there is not a unified anti-DAESH front to support.

In the meantime, a number of European countries that keep saying they are against DAESH, too, seem to be only worried about the fate of Syrian Kurds. Most of them prefer to wait, as they intend to take a position only when we know who the winner is in the Sunni-Shiite struggle.

Russia, too, says it is against DAESH. And Russia's efforts against DAESH are more easily identifiable. Moscow openly supports Assad's forces, Iran's local allies and, even if that is not 1 percent sure, some Kurdish groups. It seems that Russia and its allies are not that powerful either, as they have proven incapable, until now, of eradicating DAESH, despite all this fighting and bombing.

On the other hand, Russia seems to have abandoned Iraq to the U.S. Maybe they implicitly say that Washington is the number one actor responsible for the situation there, so it has to clean up its own mess. This, of course, indicates that Russia and the U.S. have already come to an agreement on a number of issues. Both agree that the current governments in Baghdad and Damascus should stay in power until they find a long-term agreement. In the meantime, they both oppose Islamists coming to power. In other words, the two leading powers support the current governments to prevent DAESH from seizing power. The DAESH threat has oddly become a legitimizing factor.

Both powers are not against one and other's presence in the region with the U.S. present Iraq thanks to Kurds and the Russia in Syria thanks to Shiites. They will both keep their military bases and local allies. This is helpful to keep Europeans out of the equation, by the way.

The problem is that the U.S.'s fight against DAESH is full of ambiguities, and these are damaging the U.S.'s relations with its allies. Turkey has no problem whatsoever with the U.S. supporting the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Northern Iraqi. Russia accepts that as well. When the U.S. tries to establish a similar relationship with the Syrian Kurdish PYD, however, Russia is not happy. Turkey, too, opposes this vehemently.

The U.S. probably believes it should win over the Syrian Kurds before Russia does. The problem, of course, is the Syrian Kurds' relations with the PKK. As long as the PKK keeps attacking Turkey, the latter cannot have a normal relationship with the YPG. And that is the reason why the U.S. has a hard time establishing a full-fledged partnership with the YPG, as even the existing cooperation is causing trouble in U.S.-Turkish relations.

Perhaps that is its intention. Perhaps a number of players are using the PKK to prevent Turkey from contributing to the YPG-U.S. cooperation. If this is correct, then one could speculate that the PKK's operations in Turkey are in fact damaging U.S. interests. It would not be surprising that the PKK aims to sabotage the U.S.-Russian agreement on the Middle East, which includes keeping Europeans out. It is high time for the U.S. to determine what exactly it wants in the region, otherwise the war will continue for a long time to come.