The regime of Bashar Al-Assad has ended, putting an end to 15 years of
massacres perpetrated with the complicity of all the imperialists in thename of the "war on terror". It is time to unite to challenge it and
overcome the political divisions born around the conflict. ---- Four
years ago, Bashar Al-Assad seemed to win his bet and emerge victorious
from the Syrian civil war, thanks to a shrewd political calculation,
playing on internal and external rivalries: on the one hand by
presenting himself as the protector of the Alawite or Christian
minorities against jihadism, on the other by playing on the rivalries
between his Russian ally and the West, leading them all to cooperate
with him in the war against Daesh. This is how Bashar Al-Assad justified
the repression of the Syrian revolution in the name of the war on terror
and in the name of the fight against Islamism.
In the Middle East, each state and each imperialist camp is waging its
"war on terror" against its enemies: Israel against the Palestinian
resistance and Hezbollah, Bashar against the Syrian revolutionaries,
Turkey against the Kurdish movements. The armed resistance movements,
beyond their ideology, are caught up in imperialist agendas and are
forced to depend, with more or less autonomy, on the rival states and
imperialisms of their "main enemies" to supply themselves with weapons
or obtain military and political support. They therefore find themselves
caught between alliance and vassalization: the Syrian revolutionaries
with Turkey, Hezbollah with Iran and the Syrian regime, the Kurdish left
with the international coalition. It is not easy to understand the
issues at stake: have the armed groups become cannon fodder for the
states, or even quasi-mercenaries? If vassalizations exist, they cannot
sum up on their own the reasons leading populations to enter into armed
struggle. This paternalistic vision makes invisible the social,
political and even ideological issues of these movements. This
complexity is aggravated here by colonial reading grids of a conflict
reduced to simple ethnic and religious rivalries, also polluted by the
Manichaeism of Western propaganda which designates the good and the bad
(orientalist Kurdophilia and opportunism of Bernard-Henri Levy or
Caroline Fourest, identity defense of the "Christians of the East" among
others by the extreme right thus justifying support for the Syrian regime).
The French left and the Syrian conflict
What political assessment can be drawn from the Syrian revolution, for
us here? Bashar ultimately lost his bet: his safeguard due to his
Russo-Iranian alliances only held as long as his external allies held.
With Russia occupied in Ukraine and Hezbollah occupied by Zionist
aggression, there was no one left to support the tyrant internally. As a
result, he ridiculously fell in a few days in the midst of popular
jubilation. There was support from the left for the Syrian regime to
remain in place, because of its support for the Palestinian and Lebanese
resistance, but some also because of Islamophobia and alignment with the
international coalition (like almost the entire far right). The dominant
trend in the French left has been, since 2015, the necessary support
given to the Kurdish left and its project of democratic confederalism.
But this has become the only issue, crushing the rest and leading the
French left to abandon the Syrian revolution perceived as essentially
recovered by the Islamists. However, it has also created alternative
revolutionary experiences such as the self-administration of Aleppo,
between 2012 and 2016, before the city fell back into the hands of the
regime[1]. Having an essentially ideological prism of the Syrian
revolution is thus problematic and can lead to the same Manichaeism as
that of our States, the same one that leads the left to have difficulty
supporting the Palestinian resistance because of its Islamist component.
If it was essential to support the Kurds, we must do the same for the
Syrian revolutionaries.
The fall of the Assad regime opens a new era for Syria, between hopes of
democratic reconstruction, internal power struggles and interference
from foreign powers.
Ahmed Akacha
The new phase we are entering brings new tensions. Turkey and Israel
have already advanced their predations in Syrian territory. The coming
months will depend a lot on the choices of HTS either to respect the
different components of the Syrian population and its democratic and
social aspirations, or to an authoritarian and fundamentalist headlong
rush. In both cases, it is a question of its capacity to preserve Syrian
territory from imperialist interference and calculations. A major
project that also requires our support for the progressive components of
the Syrian revolution.
A normal evolution of states
This conflict raises strategic questions. How to position ourselves when
populations with legitimate aspirations and resistance seem to oppose
unsavoury actors, while respecting the choices they consider necessary
from a place where they risk their lives? Is it possible, for example,
to support the Lebanese resistance against Israel, embodied by
Hezbollah, while denouncing the latter when it saves the Bashar regime?
As uncomfortable as it may be politically, this is what must be done. We
can only support popular attempts to defeat states and their armed wings
and develop "Vietnamese syndromes" so that each failure and quagmire
dissuades the imperialist aggressor from starting again, or others from
imitating it[2].
We can also target the system that has allowed the development of these
wars and the repressions that result from them: the war on terror. All
imperialisms and all states have this doctrine in common, a true
imperialist and counter-revolutionary system and a belt of fascisation
of our societies. This doctrine is a normal evolution of states, a
logical consequence of the wicked laws that targeted anarchists or the
repression of anti-colonial struggles in France. We must go beyond the
divisions of the anti-imperialist camp and target here the political,
legal and material mechanisms of the "war on terror", as in a certain
way the BDS campaign[3]allows. France has been militarily involved in
more than 11 countries in the last 20 years, without much reaction from
the left. These wars against peoples, when they are tolerated, can
spread everywhere.
Nicolas Pasadena (UCL Montreuil)
Validate
[1]A brutal siege and incessant bombings caused 21,000 civilian deaths
and almost total destruction of an eastern part of the city, leading to
a major military defeat for the Syrian revolution. "What is happening in
northwestern Syria?", La Cantine Syriene de Montreuil, December 2, 2024.
[2]Gilbert Achcar, "Anti-imperialism today and the war in Ukraine.
Response to Stathis Kouvélakis", Contre-temps, March 9, 2022.
[3]For "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions", a campaign that aims to put
pressure on the State of Israel to end its occupation and the massacres
in Palestine.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Syrie-Quinze-ans-de-guerre-au-terrorisme
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