Recently, a small town on the border of Syria and Turkey called Kobani has become a sort of symbol for the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). This is because Kurdish warriors, aided by American air bombers, were successful in pushing ISIS extremists completely out of the town earlier this week. Despite the enormous amount of military effort ISIS put forth, the Kurds were able to protect their ground.

It’s an inspiring story: a triumph over a massive, threatening, evil power by unassuming-looking underdogs — a sort of win seemingly comparable to that of David over Goliath. It’s thus tempting to celebrate, to congratulate ourselves as “the free world” for this success, to use Kobani as a symbol of hope. With such a symbol, it’s easier to believe that the fight against the extremist state can actually be won. It can cause a sense of relief: At least we’ve got this small victory, so things must be going somewhat well.

However, leveraging Kobani as a symbol of hope for the fight against the Islamic extremist state is inappropriate and unproductive. In fact, doing so could be harmful to ultimately winning the fight.

It is inappropriate to characterize Kobani as a symbol of hope because of the huge costs that were incurred in order to gain this victory. Some of these costs were monetary: The U.S. airstrikes alone on the town cost millions of dollars each day.

Primarily, though, Kobani should not be characterized as that which gives us hope in the fight against ISIS because of the cost of the destruction resulting from the fighting. It is true that technically, the Kurdish fighters succeeded. However, their success is of a specific, limited sort: They were able to remove ISIS fighters from the city.

They did this, though, at a cost that was not insubstantial. The city suffered so much destruction that there’s very little even left. Buildings have been destroyed, as has the economy, and there is no electricity. In addition, the city’s citizens are now living as refugees and could remain that way for quite some time.

The destruction also included high death tolls. Thousands of people were killed and more injured. The bodies of some of the jihadist fighters are left in the streets in varying states of decay. Generally, such death and destruction would not be indicative of a shining beacon of hope.

It also doesn’t make much sense to view the situation in Kobani as something that should generate hope, because according to some sources, it doesn’t look like the outcome of the battle for Kobani will have much effect on the fate of the rest of Syria. This would indicate that the reclaiming of Kobani is more of an isolated incident than a shift in the tone of the fight against the Islamic extremists.

Referring to Kobani as a symbol of hope could even be harmful to the overall fight against the Islamic State. Pausing to consider this as a victory allows the enemy extra time to continue planning retaliation and further attacks elsewhere. Given more time, ISIS fighters could figure out different ways to attack towns that would minimize danger from air strikes, which militants cite as the primary reason for their withdrawal from the border town.

Additionally, terming this victory a beacon of hope seems to minimize all the damage done and the lives lost. The casualties in this battle were not few, and it seems disrespectful to ignore them simply because it is convenient and it feels better to do so.

The amount of hope that Kobani seems to be generating could also be detrimental to fund allocation to the fight against ISIS. The logic could look like the following: If the rebels were able to win out this battle, perhaps not as much aid is needed, so we can allocate fewer funds and less strategic energy to the fight against the Islamic state. This sort of thought, however, is flawed, because the moment that any sort of leisure is taken, they will surely leverage that to their advantage as much as they possibly can.

If we want to actually eventually defeat ISIS, it’s more useful to see the battle at Kobani for what it actually is: a small win at a huge cost. To keep moving forward, we need to latch on to bigger wins that are much less destructive.

Contact Mina Shah at minashah ‘at’ stanford.edu