The Fall Of Syria

The Collapse Of The Assad Government Is A Setback For Anti Imperialist Forces

The resignation of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and the handing over of Damascus to US backed terror gangs is a victory for US imperialism. They have long sought to subjugate all of Syria and now they think they have the opportunity to do so. There are those who call themselves “socialists” who are celebrating the fall of the Syrian government and the end of the Syrian Arab Republic but as soon as it was declared that Assad had gone into exile the US and Israeli war planes started bombing runs all over the country and the Israeli regime began to annex more Syrian territory. The US led war on Syria began in 2011 in the period referred to as the “Arab Spring” where mass street protests broke out in Tunisia and then Egypt which saw two longstanding leaders aligned with the US forced out. The US and its imperialist allies responded quickly to the situation and began to actively manipulate protests in countries including Syria and Libya. The aim was to rapidly escalate peaceful protests that did occur into violent confrontations spiralling into civil war that could then be used to justify “humanitarian” intervention from the US. This is what was done in Libya and has had horrific effects on the Libyan people with the nation now being divided in two with open slave markets appearing in Tripoli. In Syria the US unleashed a giant cover action campaign which was codenamed ‘Operation Timber Sycamore’.

This consisted of a huge programme of arming gangs of extremely reactionary fundamentalists who at various times went under the names of Al Qaeda, ISIS, Syrian National Army, Jabat Al Nusra and now Hayt-Tahrir Al Sham. All of these different names disguise who is (at root) the same group which has been working with the US in many countries since at least the time of the Afghan war in the 1980s. Their way of war is always the same and it involves mass killing of civilians and countless other war crimes that the US pretends to oppose. Along with this campaign of mass terror came the sanctions, which may have been more devastating than the actions of the terror gangs. Since 2011 Syria has had sanctions placed on it which have severely prohibited its ability to even do basic tasks such as feeding the population. Even after intervention by the Russians and Iranians in support of the Damascus government over 1/3 of the country remained controlled by the Al Qaeda type groups in the north east of the country and the Kurdish forces (also aligned with the US) in the north east. The US also occupied the major oil and wheat producing areas. The aim of this was to create a state of siege on the country and the aim of any siege is break the will of the opponent to resist by making life for this in the besieged land as unbearable as possible. This is what has been done to Syria since 2011 and it was done in order to replace the government led by Bashar Al Assad with one that is totally subservient to US dictates. What happened over the course of the last few days was that the years of siege warfare appear to have finally paid off and the Syrian army began to refuse to fight the latest incursion from the HTS led forces which are backed by the US and Turkey.

The cumulative effect of the siege warfare seems to have finally broken the will to fight of many in the Syrian army and Assad himself left the country as part of a deal with the US backed forces. Now Syria is a country with no functioning state, no army to defend it and no allies. It is being bombed continuously by the Israeli regime and the US, its territory is being seized by Israel in the south and there is a high likelihood of a direct Turkish invasion of part of the north. Thirteen years of war, hundreds of thousands dead and millions turned into refugees. This is the legacy of the US war on Syria and now they have won their grim victory it is likely that only chaos and more destruction awaits the Syrian people. The question must be asked, why then did so many on the British left support this war? Why did the likes of Owen Jones, Paul Mason, Aaron Bastani, Zarah Sultana and so many other leftist luminaries support the destruction of this country?

The answer lies in the fact that all of these leftists are rabid supporters of US imperialism and whether the war is on Russia or Syria the British left will line to either support it justify by hiding behind dumb phrases like “Assad is a dictator”. Such people will move on and forget this war as Syria is torn to pieces by the rabid dogs of imperialism. The lesson for us is that when this war was first being pushed by David Cameron back in 2011 a much more serious anti war campaign should have been waged. Instead the pro-imperialist left agreed with much of the propaganda being pushed by the imperialists and ended up doing little or nothing to mount any real opposition to the 13 year long siege and destruction of a nation. It is yet another shameful episode of collaboration by the British left with our class enemies.