By Ellen Isaacs
Assad is now in Moscow, and an Islamist coalition has taken over all the major Syrian cities. The great powers, Russia and Iran, which had propped up the Syrian state since 2011, were no longer in a position to do so. For the moment, Israel, the US and their allies are happy.
What the result will be – a government run by as yet uncertain parties or just chaos – remains unknown. But it does not seem that a system run by and in the interests of ordinary Syrian workers will prevail as there is no organized left in Syria now.
What we do know is that an Islamist group, Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS), is the main faction in control in the capital Damascus after taking several other cities in rapid succession. HTS began as part of ISIS in 2012, and then split to join Al Qaeda a year later. In 2017 they severed that relationship and partnered with several smaller Islamist groups. A number of smaller Islamist groups also joined with HTS to form the National Front for Liberation (NFL) since 2018. The far northwest of Syria is controlled by the Kurds, a group that also has members in Turkey and Iraq and hopes to establish its own state.1 Some speculate that HTS had support from Turkey, as evidenced by their sophisticated weaponry and display of the Turkish flag, and Turkey welcomed the opportunity both to rid itself of the three million Syrian refuges living within its borders and to attack the Kurds.2
The rebels have been preparing their offensive for at least a year, but the recent weakening of Assad’s allies Iran, Hezbollah and Russia, because of the conflicts with Israel and Ukraine, gave them their opening. Russia had been the main prop for Assad in order to maintain control of its naval base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast and a military air base. But in this conflict they provided only a few weak sorties, while the Syrian army of underpaid conscripts collapsed quickly.3
Israel had long learned to live with Assad, while keeping control of the Golan Heights on the Syrian border which it captured in 1967. They have had a nonaggression agreement with Syria since 1974, the Separation of Forces Agreement. As the Syrian army abandoned the border buffer zone today, Israel sent in its troops.4 They also bombed a chemical weapons storage and missile sites to keep these weapons out of the hands of the insurgents. There is some evidence that Israel coordinated some planning with Turkey in support of the coup.2
The US and its Western and Mideast allies – Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, even Turkey – have been involved since 2013 in a successful alliance to defeat ISIS after it began seizing Syrian territory. Trump tried to withdraw all American troops during his first term, but was prevented from doing so by adversaries at home. The US kept about 900 troops in the area, that continued to fight remnants of ISIS and Iran-backed militias. Neither Biden or Trump wants to get involved in a major conflict, 5 but on Dec 8 the US carried out a series of large air strikes on ISIS bases in northern Syria.6
China has had a relationship with Syria since the start of the civil war. It has interests in the ports of Tartus ad Ltakia, which are key to its Belt and Road trade initiatives with Greece, Israel and Lebanon. They also want to avoid Uygur rebels in China’s west forming any alliances with jihadists in Syria.7 Since 2019, China was Syria’s chief economic partner, with Syria exporting soap and oils and China sending machines and fabrics.8 They certainly are not happy to see their major allies of Russia and Iran lose influence in the area.
Is There a Syrian Workers’ Movement?
After the 1967 War, leftist political parties formed in the defeated nations. In Syria, there were many Marxist discussion circles in universities and unions, even the army. The League of Communist Action was founded in 1976 and the Labor Communist Party in 1981
From the beginning these groups were repressed and were driven out of existence by the 90s. Some activity re-emerged in the early 2000s, but mainly by individuals or small groups. After the 2011 uprisings no independent left group emerged. Some progressives even formed an alliance with conservatives like the Muslim Brotherhood to oppose the Assad regime.9 If there are any tiny groups or individuals now who wish to fight for workers’ power with a class perspective, we do not know.
Who to Support?
It is very tempting to pick sides as conflicts rage around the world, to have someone to root for and support. If a group of workers is being persecuted and killed, as in Palestine, of course we support those being attacked. However, many so-called leftists think one must not look upon any leadership opposed to the US with a critical eye. Thus Hamas, an Islamist group that has not treated Gazans well and has led them to slaughter, is even lionized.
If a bad guy like Assad is overthrown, it is tempting to greet the victors with enthusiasm, before we know their program or which imperialists may be behind them. If we recognize the imperialist rulers of the US as the main evil in the world today, it is easy to just declare that all who oppose them are our friends. Many even supported Assad on this basis. It seems too complex and maybe not kind to disparage not only the world’s imperialist rulers but the leaders of groups and nations who are against them.
But it really is not that difficult to see our way clear if we keep in mind that the fundamental conflict in the world, everywhere in the world, is class conflict. No matter what nation we are considering, no matter if that nation is colonized or a colonizer, it is divided into classes and the working class is suffering. The suffering is always greater in oppressed nations, but it is certainly not absent in wealthy ones. In the US, the world’s wealthiest country, over 11 % of the population lives in poverty and over 600,000 are homeless. When imperialist nations go to war, it is the poorest workers who are asked to fight and die in their name. Meanwhile, civilians are killed in the hundreds of thousands in colonized nations, whose rulers are often in league with imperialists.
Thus our task is to build a class conscious anti-capitalist movement wherever we are, whether in an imperialist country or an oppressed one. We must build a movement that unites workers across race and nationality, in order to fight for a communist world. And to do that we must investigate and acknowledge the mistakes at previous attempts in the Soviet Union and China. We must learn that intermediate steps like socialism, that maintain wage and privilege differentials and private property, and that nationalism and making compromises with liberals are fatal. We can do better. We must if we are going to survive in this world now heading towards World War 3 and climate disaster.
Ellen Isaacs is a retired physician, anti-racist and anti-capitalist activist and co-editor of multiracialunity.org. She can be reached at eisaacs66@gmail.com
2. https://www.stimson.org/2024/what-turkey-hopes-to-gain-from-the-hts-offensive-in-syria/
3. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/world/middleeast/syria-opposition-forces-domination.html
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rAVMUoZWa0
5. https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-syria
6. https://www.airandspaceforces.com/us-b-52-f-15-a-10-massive-airstrikes-isis-syria/
8. https://mepei.com/the-relationship-between-china-and-syria-in-the-context-of-bri/
9. https://syriauntold.com/2020/10/30/syrias-labor-communist-party-a-rich-political-history-2/
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10 December 2024
Source: countercurrents.org