 A premature US withdrawal and a Turkish invasion will mean three things. It will mean that the Kurdish people and all the peoples of North and North-East Syria face ethnic cleansing and a potential genocide. It will mean the re-emergence and the resurgence of ISIS and it will mean the crushing of one of the most inspiring and progressive political experiments in the region, a system that is based on direct democracy, ecology and women's liberation. And actually, Turkey has already invaded Syria. In January 2018, the Turkish army, allied with jihadi forces on the ground, invaded the peaceful city of Afrin, a city home to almost a million people that had been one of the most peaceful places during the Syrian civil war. And while the fight was neck to neck, in January 2015 the tide was turned and the YPJ and the YPJ liberated the city of Kobane, during which Erdogan made no secret of his support for ISIS and the crushing of any Kurdish gain in the region. During the fight against ISIS, the Kurdish-led Syrian democratic forces lost 11,000 fighters. And this includes eight brave British YPG and YPJ volunteers, including Mehmet Aksoy, Jack Holmes and Anna Campbell. The world owes a huge debt of gratitude to these brave people who fought the evil of ISIS and defeated them and protected humanity and the whole world. But still, why should we care about this in the UK? Firstly, the UK has a huge colonial legacy in the region. A hundred years ago, through the Sykes-Picot agreement, the UK carved up the region and divided the Kurdish people into four nation-states, Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, which has only fuelled sectarian conflicts for a hundred years. Secondly, the UK has a long history of arms trade deals with Turkey. For example, in 2016, Theresa May signed a £100 million fighter jet deal with Erdogan, which came almost straight after Erdogan raised entire Kurdish cities and towns in the southeast of Turkey to the ground. Thirdly, the UK still maintains a special relationship with the US and is a coalition partner in the fight against ISIS, so allowing a Turkish invasion and a Kurdish massacre in the region will leave the British parliament and government with even bloodier hands than before. But perhaps one of the most important reasons we should care about northeast Syria is the political and social system being built there, based on the ideas of Kurdish freedom movement founder Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned on an island off the coast of Turkey since 1999. This system, which is working towards building a peaceful Middle East, ecological justice, direct democracy and a cooperative economy all based on women's liberation. It would be an absolute tragedy for this inspiring experiment to be crushed by a Turkish invasion supported by US and British imperialism. So what do we do? People will be mobilising all across the country. Look out for your local Kurdish community or local solidarity group and get involved in the mobilisation and the demonstrations. Follow the hashtag rise up for Rojava and check out their website for more material. We need to act now.