Tag Archives: middle-east

A beautiful wonderful victory in Syria?

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Photo: OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AFP/Getty Images

The sudden and ignominious collapse of Bashar al-Assad revealed an utterly bankrupt regime so hollowed out that its army would not fight for it, its Russian and Iranian supporters could not save it, and it prepared for its own collapse by reportedly transferring $250mn to Moscow. Its passing is no cause for mourning, but it is no cause for rapturous celebration either.

The overthrow was achieved mainly by the reactionary Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and other militia groups, including the Turkish-sponsored Syrian National Army (SNA).  HTS is the previous al-Qaeda affiliate in the country and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, is still subject to a bounty of $10mn by the US while the HTS is considered a terrorist organisation.

This hasn’t stopped western imperialist governments from swiftly moving to recognise the regime.  Why wouldn’t they, since they did so much to enable its victory?  Unlike some simpletons on the left who have welcomed the fall of the Assad regime, the imperialist powers recognise that this involves putting someone else in his place.

Now the Western media is questioning the designation of HTS as terrorist and Abu Mohammed al-Jolani as a wanted man.  The BBC has carried articles – ‘From Syrian jihadist leader to rebel politician: How Abu Mohammed al-Jolani reinvented himself.’  In reality, reinvention is only possible with the connivance of the Western media, such as the BBC itself.

The state broadcaster was only following its government, which has promptly raised the possibility of taking HTS off the terrorism list.  The US also moved quickly to claim that it had made “direct contact” with HTS, as if this was something new, as a start to securing the stability of imperialist interests. The EU announced it would meet the new government to ensure “it goes in the right direction” while threatening Georgia (which has actually had elections) with possible sanctions. It appears some elections are bad and some terrorists are good.

The reported role of Ukraine in assisting the Islamist victory is a pertinent reminder of its role as an ally of Western imperialism, previously in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Mali.  This may seem unsurprising, but it hardly corresponds to the pretence of the country as an innocent bystander, forced into a purely defensive war.  If Russia is successfully expelled from Syria, how will this advance the particular interests of Ukraine? Where might all the expelled Russian forces be deployed to?

The role of Ukraine is also a reminder how quickly and successfully western imperialism kisses the frog and makes a handsome prince.  In Ukraine the neo-Nazi Azov movement, subject to US sanctions, became freedom fighters when they received US weapons.  HTS is well on the road to such beatification.

Most importantly, the role of Ukraine illustrates the overthrow of Assad as an episode in a wider inter-imperialist conflict that is setting light to different hot wars that threaten to escalate into a single world-wide catastrophe.  On one side, Western imperialism illustrates its ‘progressive’ credentials through support for Islamist reactionaries while, on the other, ‘anti-imperialist’ certificates are endorsed by support for a vile dictatorship, the establishment of military bases on the Mediterranean, and facilitating the robbing of the country by the fleeing dictator.

The left supporters of a ‘multipolar’ world have the inevitable results of this project thrown in their faces – a world of competing and antagonistic imperialist rivalries in which war is inescapable.  Syria is dramatic demolition of the illusions contained in support for a multipolar world within which there are unipolar states.  The multipolar dismemberment of Syria is the multipolar world writ small.

Yet somehow, compared to others on the left, even these illusions seem half sane.  For these others, this world-wide inter-imperialist conflict is so circumscribed and defined by their support for Ukraine that it becomes no more than background noise.  Their effective capitulation to Western imperialism arrives via the road of bourgeois democracy, or the claims made for it, that they extol even as its content is evacuated in reality.  This now reaches grotesque levels in their support for the overthrow of Assad that in linear fashion tail ends Western imperialism.

Even the ideologues of imperialism offer a more accurate and honest view of the HTS than this left.  Foreign Policy notes that they are “cut from the same cloth as Assad” and that protesters against their regime in Idlib who described Jolani as a “tyrant . . . were directed to mass graves of those killed inside prisons—eerily resembling allegations against the Assad government.”

“In Syria it is kind of a monster-versus-monster conflict,” said Aron Lund, fellow with Century International. “Ordinary Syrians don’t have any choice in regard to who rules them. Groups come to their area with guns, and people just have to get along. Depending on who you are and where you are, either Assad or HTS may have pockets of support, but neither side allows any real free expression or elections.”

HTS success was achieved with the assistance of its many foreign Jihadi fighters and was at least partly the result of Turkish and US sponsorship.  It was accompanied by and enabled another invasion by the Zionist state with massive destruction of the weapons and military facilities of the Syrian state.  All this leaves no room for repeating false phrases about ‘self-determination’ as employed in support for Ukraine.  Neither can Islamic fundamentalism be held up as some sort of democratic movement of any kind.

An interview with a Swiss Syrian, Joseph Daher, posted by this left, notes that “We have to face the hard fact that there is a glaring absence of an independent democratic and progressive bloc that is able to organize and clearly oppose the Syrian regime and Islamic fundamentalist forces.”

He goes no to say that “Looking at HTS and SNA’s policies in the past, they have not encouraged a democratic space to develop, but quite the opposite. They have been authoritarian.”

Yet on Facebook, two of the pro-war and pro-Ukraine left said this about the events in Syria:

“Assad is gone! Victory beautiful wonderful victory to see a tyrant crushed like that. Damascus is under the control of the rebels.” 

And:

“The butcher Assad’s departure to Moscow is a great day for the Syrian people and it is hard to conceive of a new government which could be more brutal, reactionary and corrupt. The hope is that the urban movement which nearly brought down the dictatorship is able to take power.”

A “beautiful wonderful victory” for Islamic fundamentalism, one sponsored by Western imperialism and accompanied by another invasion by Israel! 

“A great day for the Syrian people” –how more wonderful could it be?  How greater a day could the Syrian people enjoy than to be subject to the rule of Islamic fundamentalists?

In the interview, Joseph Daher says that ‘Only the self- organization of popular classes fighting for democratic and progressive demands will create that space and open a path toward actual liberation” but that “the main obstacle has been, is, and will be the authoritarian actors, previously the regime, but now many of the opposition forces, especially the HTS and SNA; their rule and the military clashes between them have suffocated the space for democratic and progressive forces to democratically determine their future.”

So where does the “hope” come from that “the urban movement which nearly brought down the dictatorship is able to take power” as a result of this new “main obstacle”?

Daher goes on to say something that the left supporters of Ukraine, and now Islamist rebels, have set themselves against: “To choose one imperialism over another is to guarantee the stability of the capitalist system and the exploitation of popular classes.”

There are many ways of arriving at this, but celebrating the victory of HTS throws all the light you need in order to see the even greater betrayal involved in supporting Ukraine and its war to join NATO.

Iran falls into the trap?

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A couple of weeks ago at an anti-war meeting in Belfast a number of speakers remarked that the state of Israel had exposed itself through its open espousal of genocidal intentions and that the Western powers were similarly damned through their support for it.  And this is true as far as it goes, which isn’t nearly far enough.

I made the observation that the open threat of genocide was a double-edged sword.  The point I made was that the ability to openly threaten such a thing was dangerous and particularly when it is then carried out! The full-blooded support of the Western powers has not even been dented either.

The renewed threat of a wider regional war has now come to the fore following Iran’s attack on Israel with hundreds of drones and missiles.  The immediate action of the US, Britain, France and a number of Arab countries has been to come to the aid of the genocidal state.  The large number of drones and missiles has reportedly not killed anyone and it is pretty clear that this was not far from the Iranian intention, given that their attack was hardly a surprise and most of the weapons used were unlikely to breach Israeli defences.

Previously, I agreed with a large number of observers that Iran would be falling into a trap by reacting to Israel’s provocations, but it obviously believes that the repeated attacks on leading figures were going to continue; that this was damaging to its standing and that sooner or later some provocation would be too damaging to pass over.  However, none of this is enough to explain its attack, while its statement that it has concluded its actions and will stop there is designed to draw a line under the exchange.  Whether it believes this, given the purpose of the Israeli provocations, must be open to some doubt.  It must therefore believe that it can weather a war with Israel or its action is a better alternative to continuous offences and accumulation of injuries.

On the Israeli side, the attack on the Iranian diplomatic facility in Syria was a clear provocation, or an invitation to attack it, to put it another way.  It must be assumed that this is because a war with Iran will serve its purposes and it believes it can win, which is the common view of most commentators. The claimed 99% success in downing the drones and missiles is held up as evidence of Israeli military superiority, which needed only a casus belli for the Zionists to seek to impose it, one which its western imperialist supporters would immediately endorse regardless of the hypocrisy in defending the right of the genocidal state to self-defence while denying the same to Iran.

Supporters of Russia in their on-line channels have raised doubts about the more or less complete blocking claimed by both the Israeli state and Western media and have pointed to the success of the most advanced Iranian missiles in penetrating Israeli defences, while also arguing that the Iranians did not obviously seek to maximise casualties but to demonstrate intent and capability.  They argue that this explains to some degree the weakness of the impact while also pointing out the benefit of the intelligence gained in observing the response to the attack and the huge cost of Israeli success.  They also note the contribution of the Zionist state’s imperialist allies, which they claim is not certain to continue.

Whether Iran has greater offensive capacities is something that will be demonstrated should the conflict escalate.  What almost all the commentary has claimed is that Western imperialist support is conditional and that its contribution to the attack by Iran is leverage for the widespread calls to Israel by Western leaders that there should be no escalation.  And this is where the narrative stops making sense.

The Western imperialists, foremost the US, is supposed to be trying to pull Israel back from too aggressive a response to a regime it wants to overthrow.   The same US that has armed and defended Israeli genocide is suddenly resisting its attack on Iran.  Haven’t all the Western powers spent the last six months claiming to be deploring or holding back Zionist genocide?  To what effect?

We are to believe that repeated Israeli provocations have not been approved by the US.  How credible is this?  Israel is more dependent on the US now than it has almost ever been but we are supposed to believe that it went ahead and triggered a potential war with Iran without getting the ok from the US?

Is the immediate defence against the Iranian attack not evidence of support for the Israeli stance, and is the failure to denounce its provocations only the result of embarrassment at Israeli actions?  When the Biden regime once again declared its four-square support for Israel, was this a lie?   Why would the US support provocations that can only lead to war if it was not going to back Israel when it would arrive?  

The argument in response is that the US does not want another ‘forever war’ and that Biden will not want another one as he seeks re-election. But have those putting forward this argument not noted that the US has already provoked a war in Ukraine and is desperately seeking to keep Ukraine in the game, to keep the war going, and have they not also noted that a war by Israel against Iran will be more popular domestically than genocidal slaughter in Gaza, from which it might serve to divert attention?  It may seem perverse that the US, with Israel, may seek to claim the moral high ground by commencing another war but they have already done so in Ukraine and Gaza.

It is impossible to ignore that just as Ukraine is a proxy for US imperialism in its rivalry with Russia and China so is Israel a proxy in its rivalry against Russia’s Iranian ally.  The prospect of war between Israel and Iran has immediately involved Western imperialism directly and such continued support would make more obvious the reality of a world heading to a conflict between the old imperialist hegemonic alliance led by the United States, with its mostly European satraps, and the new capitalist rivals headed by China and Russia, supported by Iran and North Korea.

The duty of socialists is to oppose these wars and oppose the dynamic to a world conflagration. We should therefore oppose the drive to war by Israel and its imperialist sponsors and point out their prime responsibility for the current escalation.  In doing so we must oppose the old imperialist hegemonic alliance and also oppose the claims of its rivals. These claims are not those of liberation but of their right to carve out their own ‘fair share’ of the wealth of the world created by its workers, who they both compete in exploiting.

This is a lesson forgotten by those ‘leftists’ who either support Ukraine or Israel and, on the other side, those who think themselves ‘anti-imperialist’ for supporting the new upstart capitalist powers in the shape of China and Russia. There is no ‘fair sharing’ involved in capitalist competition, not with the workers exploited or with rivals.  What there is is permanent instability and conflict that inevitably erupts in war that working people pay for with their lives.  Such are the lessons of history.