Victory to the working people

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intervention and the derailing or betrayal of the revolu­ tion by homegrown bourgeois forces.

Revolutionary socialists support the right of the mass­ es and revolutionary groups to mobilize, and indeed, to arm themselves against every dictatorship and especially against the well-armed Bashar al-Assad regime of tor­ ture, detention, and murder. We encourage the mass or­ ganizations to turn individual or small group defection into a consciously organized splitting of the army, with radicalizing rank-and-file soldiers and lower-rank of­ ficers joining neighborhood and workplace-based com­ mittees to form self-defense squads for the revolution. These squads would unite not only to oppose the regime but also to prevent the consolidation of the “Free Syr­ ian Army” (FSA) as a tool of imperialism, a goal being earnestly pursued by traitorous high-ranking officers in cahoots with the U.S. government.

We also note that a central motivation of Washington’s desire to manage Assad’s ouster either by diplomacy or by arms is to prevent the anti-Zionist policy that would surely result from regime change resulting from a popu­ lar uprising. For all of its rhetoric denouncing Assad’s supposed anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism, and com­ plaints about his links to Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, Washington knows that he (and his father) could be trust­ ed not to mount a serious challenge to the key U.S. ally in the region, Israel. The Syrian regime even refused to try to reclaim the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied in 1967.

Revolutionary socialists also stand for the right of self-determination for Syria’s Kurds, as we do in every coun­ try where this oppressed nation is denied its rights. Our support for the right of self-determination means that we leave it to the Kurdish nation to decide whether they wish to remain within the state of Syria (and Turkey, Iraq, Iran), or to set up a separate state.

In Syria, the Assad regime has repressed the Kurds and engaged in ethnic cleansing in Kurdish areas. Tiny concessions by the regime in the area of citizenship rights have not stopped Kurds from taking part in the mass demonstrations.

And as in other countries with Kurdish minorities, we note the danger of imperialist manipulation of their jus­ tifiable hatred of the regime that oppresses them, and note that this is an opportunity for the opposition to win the Kurds over politically by supporting the right of the Kurds to self-determination—up to and including sepa­ ration. In that sense, the situation in Syria bears some

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(continued from page 6: “U.S./NATO hands off Syria!”) thrown, because the West does not know exactly where Syria would be going after Bashar.” Qandil noted cor­ rectly that “the first to benefit from the demand for a foreign intervention is Bashar’s regime itself. An inter­ vention harms the cause of the revolution and stains the reputation of its supporters.”

It’s not yet clear whether Washington’s relative rhetori­ cal restraint in Tunis was simply cover for an inevitable military assault, or instead a genuine reflection of the strategic difficulties it faces given Russian and Chinese opposition and its own difficulties in ongoing wars else­ where, current or pending. Naturally, opponents of war against Syria cannot afford to count on the latter. Certainly, the U.S. government would love to have its hands free for an armed intervention—especially as the uprising is beginning to secure a permanent presence in the city’s major cities. The weekend before the Tunis conference, hundreds of thousands mobilized in Damas­ cus for the funeral of a man killed by the regime. It is just this type of mobilization, which if prolonged will mean the certain death of the regime at the hands of the masses, that Washington hopes to forestall in favor of a “controlled” change of regime that securely places its puppets in power.

The need for intervention in Washington’s eyes is heightened by the fragmented and undependable state of the FSA. Rather than a coherent, disciplined fighting force, The Wall Street Journal noted, “Syria’s armed reb­ els appear to have only nominal unity under the umbrella of the so-called Free Syrian Army. Last year in Libya, by contrast, rebel fighters appeared to answer more directly to that country’s National Transitional Council. “Though the FSA says it represents a mushrooming group of defected soldiers, opposition activists concede that several armed fighters—including local militias— are aligning with the dissident army by name only.” An SNC spokesperson admitted to The Journal that it need­ ed help “to focus on reining in armed factions under the umbrella of the FSA. The responsibility of the SNC is to ensure that the groups on the ground are connected with each other and come under an integrated command.” In a similar vein, on the eve of the Tunis conference, The New York Times ended an article on divisions in the opposition by noting that “exiled Syrian Army officers who formed the Free Syrian Army, based in Turkey, have stayed aloof from the council, and even they do not really control the many local militias that adopt the army’s name alone.”

And in Al Jazeera, Nir Rosen, who has interviewed armed anti-Assad forces, noted in mid-February that there is “no central or unified leadership for the armed revolution.” The FSA, he claims, is a name endorsed by “diverse armed opposition actors throughout the coun­ try, who each operate in a similar manner and towards a similar goal, but each with local leadership. Local armed groups have only limited communication with those in neighboring towns or provinces—and, moreover, they were operating long before the summer” when the main­ stream media began to claim that the FSA was becoming a significant force and that defections from Assad’s army were swelling.

Rosen claims that the armed fighters are not Salafis or members of the Muslim Brotherhood or al-Qaeda. They are devout, he says, but are fighting to defend their friends, their neighborhoods, villages or province. “Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood ideologies are not im­ portant in Syria and do not play a significant role in the revolution,” he claims.

Conflicting reports about the respective armed strengths and presence on the ground of the military forces of the regime, the opposition, and of external powers can be seen in a Feb. 9 report by Voice of Russia radio exam­ Tomas Muñuta / NY Times ining claims by the Israel-based Debka Report. Debka had claimed that Qatari and British special forces were already aiding Syrian rebels. The VR account detailed claims, counterclaims, rebuttals and denials by all par­ ties to the conflict about the presence of such forces, and noted the possibility that the claims were misinforma­ tion spread by the regime to excuse its poor military per­ formance, or alternatively, were perhaps spread by the imperialist powers to justify more massive intervention. Debka had even upped the ante by claiming that the presence of foreign special forces in Syria—and not just from Qatar and the UK, but from Israel, the U.S., and France as well—is an “open secret” and that they’ve been there since August of last year.

The political constellation of the opposition The diversity of the FSA is a reflection of an even more diverse array of forces in the opposition, both internal and in exile. While the mainstream media’s claims that the internal opposition is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood seem unfounded (especially as it has had little organizational presence inside the country since the 1982 Massacre in Hama), the Brotherhood does seem to be the largest force in the mostly-expatriate Syrian National Council.

But it must also be kept in mind that just as claims of “Islamist” domination of Egypt’s revolution were designed to oppose its progress, in Syria such claims (including allegations that al-Qaeda has a presence) are used to justify outside intervention. What’s more, such claims parrot those of Assad, who has stepped up the policies initiated by his father of divide and conquer, pitting all the country’s sects and religions against each other—policies which led the Local Coordinating Com­ mittees (LCCs) from the start to stress their nonsectarian character. Of course, the longer the conflict drags on, the greater the danger of real sectarian divisions appearing (which, as in Iraq, would suit Washington just fine). Inside Syria the repeated mobilizations, and material, medical, and self-defense support for them, are still in the hands of the LCCs, which, while they are in informal contact with each other, have yet to produce a national structure, much less speak with one political voice. In a Nov. 2 statement the LCCs stated their opposi­ tion to outside intervention, a policy that apparently has not been dropped. (In contrast, at a talk on Feb. 22 at Columbia University, a representative of the Network of Arab-American Professionals claimed—in language eerily reminiscent of the rhetoric before the invasion of Libya—that grassroots forces inside Syria were clamor­ ing for the SNC to secure imperialist intervention. The NAAP rep further justified such calls by denouncing the alleged presence of Russian and Iranian forces in Syria and their material aid to the regime and its military.) There is also some presence of the revolutionary left inside the country, including Trotskyists as well as exMaoists, but it is unclear how big or influential such revolutionary forces are. One group from this milieu, the Syrian Revolutionary Left Tendency, whose de­ clared purpose is to unite such forces, issued a statement in December 2011 hailing the call for a general strike. The Tendency called for the strike to be the occasion for unifying all opposition forces in action committees and Bulent Kilic / AFP / Getty Images (Left) Gov’t soldiers secure area near Damascus for visit of Arab League observers, Jan. 26. (Right) Free Syrian Army member, Feb. 18.

noted: “The future of our people and of its country can only be decided on by the masses of our country. The mass general strike will lead there.”

The Tendency also counterposed such unified organiz­ ing to outside intervention, ending its appeal with the slogan, “Long live the Arab permanent popular revolu­ tions!”—the very thing that Washington and its allies and clients fear most.

Against intervention and for the uprising Repeating their stance vis-à-vis Iran, Iraq and Libya, some on the left in the U.S. have claimed that opposition to Washington’s war drive against Syria requires silence about, or even denial of, the crimes of Assad. This stance has been eloquently refuted by progressive Arab authors and activists and by the Arab masses themselves in prouprising rallies throughout the region.

Bassam Haddad, in his jadaliyya.com column, “An Idiot’s Guide to Fighting Dictatorship in Syria while Opposing Military Intervention,” wrote that claims that opposition to the regime reflects “outside interests” are “empty and an insult to our intelligence.” He noted that calls for intervention came mostly from outside forces such as the SNC, not those inside Syria. Haddad re­ counted the presence of Syrian flags in Egypt’s Tahrir Square during the one-year anniversary rallies on Jan. 25—flown to indicate support for the uprising. In an interview with International Viewpoint, radical economist and activist Adam Hanieh stated that “in the case of Syria, it is clear that the Western states, Israel, and the Gulf countries want to see a more pliant regime, and this is partially motivated by a desire to undermine Iran’s regional influence (connected of course to Hizbul­ lah in Lebanon).”

But he added, “The overall anti-imperialist sentiment remains strong among the Syrian population and the at­ tempts by parts of the Left to smear the entire uprising as a stand-in for imperialism belies a Manichean world­ view that badly misunderstands the country’s history. I don’t see any contradiction in opposing intervention and simultaneously being against the Assad regime—which, we need to remember, has embraced neoliberalism and consistently used a rhetoric of ‘anti-imperialism’ to ob­ fuscate a practice of accommodation with both the US and Israel.”

Another eloquent voice against such Manichean (or what we today call “campist”) worldviews is Colum­ bia University Professor Joseph Massad, who in his Al Jazeera column, “Imperialism, despotism, and democ­ racy in Syria,” wrote: “Like Saddam, the Assad dynastic regime has been an ally of the Saudi theocracy and its junior Gulf partners, and an agent of U.S. imperialism in the region, especially in its major intervention in Leba­ non in 1976 at the invitation of the Christian fascist forc­ es who called the Syrians in to help them crush the left­ ist revolutionary movement in the country, including the PLO. … Moreover, the Assad regime again proved most helpful to its U.S. and Saudi sponsors when it joined the imperial coalition to invade the Gulf in 1990-91 under the U.S. flag. On the Zionist front, the Syrian regime proved as pliant as the Jordanian one, ensuring the se­ curity of Israel’s “borders,” which Israel conquered and established inside Syria’s and Jordan’s own territories. Socialist Action could not agree more with those who, while mobilizing in broad united coalitions against im­ perialist intervention, look eagerly toward a revolution by Syria’s workers, peasants, students, and women. Without a revolution that puts political and economic power firmly within the hands of Syria’s working peo­ ple, building a genuinely anti-imperialist, pro-social jus­ tice society is impossible. n SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2012 7

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Supporting Syria’s right of self-determination means opposing all imperialist threats of intervention.