U.S./NATO hands off Syria!

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POLITICAL COMMITTEE

F or revolutionaries in the United States, there is no question that our primary responsibility in regard to solidarity with the workers and peasants of Syria is the need to organize against U.S. intervention. No other task is so crucial to ensure self-determination so that Syrians can win their battle for democracy, social justice, and genuine independence. It is only within that context that revolutionaries can take the next step and present to radi­ calizing workers in this country an analysis of the roots and prospects of the Syrian uprising.

The Marxist method is predicated on what Marx liked to call the “all-sidedness” of phenomena, the way in which all factors bearing on a situation need to be taken into account, both in and of themselves and in their in­ teraction with each other. Nowhere is this method more needed than in the current case of Syria. Even after clear­ ing away the lies of regime supporters and of the impe­ rialists, the complex class structure of the country, the maneuvers of the regime at home and abroad, the diverse array of political forces on both sides of the dispute (as well as straddling the fence) makes facile sloganeering even more useless than normally.

We start from three basic premises in relation to the up­ rising: 1) The economic exploitation of Syria’s workers and peasants by its ruling class, a class subservient to global capital, and the horrific oppression and murderous poli­ cies of the Syrian regime to enforce that exploitation, mean that we stand with the Syrian masses in their up­ rising against the regime. We take note of their heroic steadfastness, repeatedly mobilizing tens, often hundreds of thousands, despite the sure knowledge that dozens will be shot dead each time they rally. 2) Syria today is ruled by a heinous dictatorship. The defense of the Syrian people against that dictatorship must begin with supporting their right to self-determina­ tion. This means that we oppose any and all imperialist threats of intervention, blockades, embargoes, and sanc­ tions, not to mention the imposition of “no fly zones” or “humanitarian corridors.” The U.S. has no interest in the rights of the Syrian people, and the results of any inter­ vention can be foretold by looking at the horrific misery now seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Haiti, and other countries where “humanitarian” interventions have oc­ curred. Our support for self-determination gives us the standing to damn the Syrian dictatorship while pointing to the only forces that can truly free Syria—the Syrian masses themselves—forces organized independently of imperialism and its native supporters inside Syria. 3) We support the self-organization of the Syrian mass­ es and encourage the revolutionary elements of the mass movement to build and strengthen organs of mass mobi­ lization and decision-making. We encourage the forma­ tion of a revolutionary party to provide leadership and develop a program that can reflect the wishes and needs of the masses, a program that channels their potential to lead a successful revolution, and opposes both outside 6 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2012 of Syria!

AP (Left) Mourners in Idlib, Syria, carry body of rebel killed in fighting with government troops, Feb. 12. resemblance to that of the Spanish Civil War when the Republic had an opportunity—one unfortunately neglected, given its bourgeois leadership—to paralyze the fascist forces by granting Moroccans the right to self-deter­ mination.

Foreign intervention The Syrian uprising originated in the same interaction of resentment at economic suf­ fering, and at tyranny imposed brutally to prevent revolt against such exploitation and inequity, that has been seen throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Anyone with the slightest familiarity with the economic policies of the U.S. and Euro­ pean ruling classes, and their enforcement of IMF-dictated poverty and austerity programs around the world, would realize that Assad’s neoliberal economic policies are perfectly fine with the West—as is the dictatorship used to enforce it. Yet Washington and its al­ lies obviously consider that there would be advantages in putting an end to the Assad regime. As in Libya, what the imperialists desire is not jobs or justice for the masses but an opportunity to get more “boots on the ground” in a region rife with revolution since the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt broke out. In this they are wholeheartedly supported by their favorite cli­ ent regimes in the Gulf Cooperation Council—i.e., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, etc.

Imperialism also gains some advantage by the fall of a regime in Syria, which, like other right-wing populist regimes in the region, has specialized in anti-imperialist and Zionist rhetoric, and even occasionally provided material support to carefully selected resistance groups. Such aid has been given with strings attached, of course, to ensure that resistance groups limit themselves to iso­ lated attacks divorced from the kind of mass mobiliza­ tion that would not only threaten imperialist and Zionist interests but those of the Syrian and similar regimes as well. Such “resistance” credentials, which have fooled all too many middle-class and Stalinist observers from afar, are but a cruelly duplicitous vestige of mass upheav­ als from the 1950s and 1960s, upheavals prevented from reaching consummation in full-blown revolutions by the seizure of power of such tyrants as Assad’s father. Nor do Russia and China, which fund and supply Assad and are providing his main diplomatic cover, have any more interest in the rights and needs of the Syrian masses than Washington and its allies. They too are simply ma­ neuvering for power, influence, and resources. The danger of open, full-scale military intervention, as manifested in threats from Washington and its allies and puppets, has grown sharply in recent weeks, so much so that most observers expected the result of the Feb. 24 conference of “Friends of Syria” to be a bloodthirsty threat of armed force against the regime. These “Friends” include all the major imperialist powers, one of whom, France, has been pushing for weeks for the creation of “humanitarian corridors,” i.e., areas of Syria to be con­ quered by troops from imperialist countries and/or from client regimes in the Gulf, ostensibly to allow free pas­ sage of food and medicine, but obviously designed to al­ low an imperialist army with a thin cover of “Free Syria Army” officership to roll into Damascus.

The traitorous heads of the Syrian National Council and the FSA went to Tunis to try to convince U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her ilk to invade and to rec­ ognize them as the “legitimate” leaders of the country. In these maneuvers, the “Friends” and their quisling allies have been greatly aided on the diplomatic front by the Arab League, the council for region regime heads. But in the event, Washington was resigned to a final declaration from Tunis simply repeating its demand that Assad stop firing on his citizens and allow aid and medi­ cal relief into the country. In both an editorial and a news article the day after the conference, The New York Times claimed that both Washington and its allies “have ruled out military intervention.”

A post-conference analysis by Egyptian Nasserist poli­ tician Abdelhalim Qandil claimed that the U.S. “may even prefer the situation as it is: the Arab Syrian army worn out in a bloody war against the people. And the Syrian regime challenged and undermined, but not over­ (continued on page 7, in “Victory to the working people”)