Recent developments in Syria, with the collapse of Assad’s regime and the occupation of Damascus by HTS, a Turkish-backed jihadist group, represent yet another step in the ongoing escalation of war in the Middle East and further bolster the U.S.-E.U.-NATO imperialist bloc’s and Israel’s positions in the region.
Once again, we are confronted with a tragic truth: we live in a world that is rapidly sinking into the abyss of an increasingly generalized imperialist war, whose price, as always, is being paid by the peoples.
The events in Syria are set against the backdrop of the Palestinian people’s massacre, Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, threats to Iran, and the fierce imperialist competition over the control of markets, resources, energy and trade routes, gas pipelines and infrastructure. This competition is also taking place in the Middle East, involving world and regional capitalist powers -such as the U.S., E.U. and NATO countries, Russia, China, Israel, Iran, Turkey and Gulf monarchies- in the increasingly dangerous scenario of a redefinition of spheres of influence, with the possibility of a change of borders and the dismemberment of Syria.
Since 2011, we have clearly expressed our position on the Syrian “civil war” in all contexts. In the context of the so-called “Arab Springs,” Syria has been the target of an imperialist aggression orchestrated and financed by the U.S., Turkey, Israel and E.U. countries, enacted through an outright “proxy war” waged by disparate Islamic fundamentalist militias; a war in which Russia and Iran have intervened in defense of Assad’s regime and their own economic and military interests linked to it.
In the weeks leading up to the fall of Damascus, the situation in Syria saw the military occupation of the northwest of the country by Turkey, in open support of jihadist forces in the city of Idlib and near Aleppo; the significant U.S. military presence in the northeast of the country, controlled by the Kurdish separatists, and in the Homs Governorate, with the At-Tanf base in the area controlled by the Free Syrian Army; thousands of Russian military personnel in support of Assad’s regime, including the Khmeimim air base and the Tartus naval base.
The events of the past week are a continuation of these developments. The Syrian people continue to pay the price for the plans and negotiations that take place at their expense, in a world characterized by stark inter-imperialist competition, which tends to become polarized into two main capitalist blocs, whose harsh opposition multiplies military conflicts.
The facts have confirmed that in 2015 Assad’s regime would have collapsed without the military support of the Russian Federation and Iran. In an international context characterized by the war in Ukraine between the Russian Federation and the U.S.-E.U.-NATO bloc, as well as Israel’s war against the Palestinian people, Lebanon and Iran, Russia and Iran withdrew their support in the face of a large-scale military offensive by Turkish-backed jihadist forces and, most importantly, given the Syrian regular army’s unwillingness to resist. The forces closest to the U.S. and Israel, such as the Kurdish militias and the so-called “Free Syrian Army,” announced their readiness to cooperate, along with parts of the collapsed state apparatus, for the territorial integrity of an already dismembered Syrian state.
European governments, media and mass media outlets are now trying to conceal the real nature of the war in Syria by portraying islamists as “rebels” and “liberators,” the fall of Assad’s regime as a hope for the “return of democracy” in Syria, adopting the same rhetoric that was used to justify support for islamist forces and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, imperialist interference in Libya, and so on. The hypocrisy of the media and governments is such that they justify their support for fundamentalist forces by referring to Assad’s “bloody regime”,while they pretend they are unaware of what is happening on a daily basis in the regimes of neighboring countries allied to them, such as Saudi Arabia.
The Syrian people had and have the right to fight for their aspirations, for freedom and social justice, against their condition of exploitation and poverty. Our solidarity and support for the Syrian people never wavered when, despite the distance and differences between communists and the bourgeois regime of Bashar al-Assad and the Ba’th Party, we denounced the plans of big monopolies, of NATO and the governments of the U.S. and of the E.U. countries for the exploitation of Syria as a reservoir of energy resources and transit territory for major oil and gas pipelines through the violation of its sovereignty and imperialist interference in its internal affairs, aimed at its dismemberment and enacted at expense of the people.
We once again emphasize that those who today celebrate the current events “from the left” as a victory for the Syrian people are wrong, and by no small margin. It is crystal clear that it was not the Syrian people who overthrew Assad’s regime, but a military operation, long prepared, coordinated and supported by imperialist forces, notably the U.S., Turkey and Israel, in a paradoxical embrace between the Israeli government and jihadist fundamentalism, with the blessing of the outgoing Biden administration. The strengthening of the jihadist cutthroats’ power in Syria is a new trap for the Syrian people and facilitates the implementation of Syria’s “balkanization,” i.e., its dismemberment, despite hypocritical appeals to maintain the country’s territorial integrity. Instead of leading to the pacification of the country, the seizure of power by fundamentalists takes existing contradictions to a higher level and adds new ones, with the real risk that they could quickly escalate into a new “hot war,” with the involvement of global and local foreign powers in a broader armed escalation throughout the Middle East region.
We are well aware that these developments will adversely affect the situation in Palestine and may quickly push the Palestinian politico-military forces, formerly allied with Baathist Syria, to give in and accept previously unacceptable compromises in cease-fire negotiations, with the real possibility of a further tightening of Israel’s occupation regime of the Palestinian territories. The new Syrian authorities have already announced the closure of training camps for Palestinian forces, which where historically hosted by Syria and now risk being “pushed back” into refugee camps. The new Syrian leadership and Israel have been sending each other important signals of appeasement on the very same days as firefights between HTS and some Palestinian formations were reported.
We denounce the hypocrisy and irresponsibility of the Italian government, the parties that support it and the “opposition” forces who are lying through their teeth today, presenting the collapse of Syria, the advance of jihadists and the most reactionary and obscurantist forces as a victory for “democracy” and a hope for peace. This hypocrisy is being promoted today by the same political forces that are complicit and co-responsible for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, Italy’s involvement in the war in Ukraine, the strengthening of Italy’s imperialist plans in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans, as well as Italy’s positions in NATO’s imperialist plans.
At the same time, we reject as misleading the positions of those who consider the collapse of the Baathist regime the fall of an alleged “bulwark of anti-imperialism,” overlooking the capitalist economic nature of that regime and the free-market reforms, introduced precisely by Bashar Al-Assad, that opened the door to Russian and Iranian capital.
We reiterate that the struggle against poverty and misery, against imperialist war, against the oppression and repression of peoples’ rights, can only truly succeed if the proletariat and the people clearly identify their real enemy, namely the capitalist system, which generates war and oppression.
The current events refute two widespread, apparently opposing, “leftist” approaches, which are both based on the same surrender of revolutionary principles.
The first is the approach of those who, in the name of a generic “progressivism,” have sought to put on a pedestal those Kurdish political forces who are taking part in the imperialist plan of aggression against Syria by cooperating with the U.S., E.U. and NATO, and who now say they are willing to be integrated into the new capitalist administration of the Syrian state.
The second is the approach of those who believe that, since the balance of power is unfavorable, there is no alternative to the dilemma between an “imperialist democracy” and an “anti-imperialist bourgeois dictatorship,” disregarding the legitimate aspirations of the peoples and proletariat of capitalist countries that are not subordinate to the Euro-Atlantic bloc, such as Assad’s Syria. This approach implies that the function of communists can be limited to supporting allegedly “anti-imperialist” bourgeois governments, thus surrendering their political autonomy.
We remain convinced, and we think Syria proves it, that it is possible to win only by establishing a strategy that is independent from all bourgeois factions, from all capitalist blocs or poles that seek to exploit popular discontent in opposing countries to their own advantage, thus turning peoples into pawns to be maneuvered according to their own imperialist plans. A revolutionary strategy does allow for tactical flexibility, but not for the surrender of the fundamental principles that act as a watershed between those who stand with one class and those who stand with another.
The Communist Front and the Front of Communist Youth express their solidarity and support to the Syrian people and communists, who have before them the enormous challenge of resistance to imperialist plans, to reaction and obscurantism. The best hope for the peoples, in Syria, the Middle East and around the world, lies in the strengthening and new advance of the labor movement and communists.
