For almost two years, Syrian Kurds, with American weapons, air cover and training, have fought and died in battle against the Islamic State. They have taken pride in their status as the United States' most faithful proxy in the fight against the militant group, and they have hoped their effectiveness as warriors would lead to American support for Kurdish political gains inside Syria.
So, many Kurds shuddered when Turkish tanks and soldiers recently rolled into northern Syria, with American support, to push back against Kurdish gains. They saw it, perhaps prematurely, as a replay of a century of betrayal by world powers, going back to the end of World War I, when they were promised, then denied, their own state in the postwar settlement.
"The Kurds are going to scream betrayal at every turn when they think things are not going to go their way, because they've had a century of it," said Joost Hiltermann, the program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, and a longtime expert on the Kurds.
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Drawing on history, Kurds see themselves as the playthings of world powers, used in proxy fights when it serves someone's interest and then discarded.
The United States, on balance, has arguably been a great friend to the Kurds, coming to their aid after the Persian Gulf war in the early 1990s and helping to establish an autonomous region for them in Iraq, safe from Saddam Hussein's brutality.
However, the United States also figures prominently in that historical memory of betrayal. In 1975, after the C.I.A. worked with Iran to supply weapons to the Kurds to fight Mr. Hussein's regime, Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger abruptly pulled the plug after a reconciliation between Tehran and Baghdad.
"In 1975, the same betrayal of the Kurds happened," said Hasos Hard, a Kurdish journalist in northern Iraq, when asked about his reaction to the American support for Turkey's Syria incursion.
Many analysts, though, as well as Syrian Kurdish fighters on the ground, say the accusations of betrayal are not quite right - at least not yet.
There is little sign that the United States has abandoned the Syrian Kurds. American officials have worked to negotiate a truce on the ground between the rebels backed by Turkey and the Kurdish militia, known as the People?s Protection Units, and fighting has calmed in recent days.
But many Kurds say they now see the writing on the wall and worry that once the Islamic State is driven from its capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the United States will sell them out.
