It's been just over week since Turkey began its long-threatened operation against the US-backed Kurds in northeast Syria. In that time, things have already reached a point that few could have predicted, drastically shifting the alliances of the Middle East.

The current crisis began with a call between US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Oct. 6. The White House that night declared that though the US wouldn't support Turkey's assault on the Kurds, who make up the bulk of the Syrian Democratic Forces, it would move its forces out of harm's way. Since then, the UN has estimated that 160,000 people have had to flee the fighting, the US's former Kurdish allies have turned to Russia and the Syrian regime for assistance, and Washington has placed economic sanctions on high-level officials in Turkey, which is also a US ally.

In the interest of sussing out just how much worse things could get, BuzzFeed News asked a wide range of US-based experts the same two questions: What's the worst-case scenario you can see in Syria after Trump's decision? And is there anything we can do to stop that scenario from coming to pass? Almost unanimously, they agreed: We're looking at the worst of all worlds, and there's not much that can be done to halt what's coming.

The haphazard way that ISIS captives, which were being guarded by the Syrian Democratic Forces, are now being handled is at the forefront of worries for Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. According to the New York Times, the US could not secure many of the most high-priority detainees ahead of the Turkish assault.

"The American withdrawal has made it easier for ISIS to once again threaten countries in the region, Europe, and possibly the United States directly," Cook told BuzzFeed News in an email. "I don't think anyone should put much stock in reports that the Syrian regime will take responsibility for these people. It may for a time, but [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] has a very bad record when it comes to encouraging extremist violence when it is in his interest."



And unless Erdogan just decides to declare victory and head home — which, according to Cook, seems unlikely — there's a strong chance that Turkey finds itself in a lengthy, grinding conflict. "Any way it plays out, Washington is greatly diminished and there are a lot more dead Kurds, Turks, and Syrians as a result," he wrote.

It's a view experts at both the liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) and the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) share as well. Jonathan Schanzer, the senior vice president for research at FDD, listed a multitude of horrors that were already ongoing, including groups allied with Turkey committing possible war crimes and jihadists escaping from Kurdish detention centers. He also noted the damage that the US betraying a key ally, even a flawed one, will have on the region in the future.

"Many of the players in the region have been wary of American shifting allegiances for some time, owing to the wild pendulum swings of party politics," Schanzer told BuzzFeed News in an email. "But this one will leave a deep scar."