Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: The revolution in Syria is rooted in popular uprising

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=29191
 
 
The revolution in Syria is rooted in popular uprising
 
The past few days may have seen the balance of forces tilt decisively 
against Bashar al-Assad and his regime. Paradoxically, a significant 
section of the Western left seems to have tilted as decisively in their 
favour.
 
Take, for example, a widely circulated interview with Tariq Ali, where 
he claims that the struggle in Syria is part of “a new process of 
recolonisation”. Although I have great respect and affection for Tariq, 
I think this is nonsense.
 
Undoubtedly, the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 did lead to the 
country’s temporary recolonisation, under a “Coalition Provisional 
Authority” headed by a Washington-appointed neoconservative.
 
But the resistance to the occupation meant this project badly rebounded 
on its authors. The new regime created by US military power ultimately 
forced it to withdraw its forces from Iraq.
 
The idea that Syria is being “recolonised” implies that it is a 
long-standing Western priority to remove the Assad regime. But there is 
no evidence of this. Under Bashar’s father Hafez, the Syrian state 
established itself as a brutal but reliable capitalist manager.
 
Undoubtedly the outbreak of the Syrian revolution has encouraged the 
regime’s regional opponents to seize on the opportunity to replace it 
with something more congenial.
 
This is particularly true of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose Sunni Muslim 
rulers dislike the Assads’ roots in what they regard as the heretical 
Alawi sect and Syria’s alliance with Shia Iran.
 
There is plenty of evidence that the Gulf states have been supplying 
arms to some of the forces fighting the regime. And the West has stepped 
in to call for Assad’s removal.
 
But the chances that the US and Britain will follow this up by sending 
troops to Syria, or even providing air cover to the rebels as they did 
in Libya, are remote.
 
Debacle
 
This is partly because they are scared of repeating the Iraq debacle. 
But it is also because of the support Russia is giving the Assad regime, 
its last ally in the Middle East.
 
Elsewhere in the interview Tariq says that the Syrian people want 
neither the Western-backed Syrian National Council nor the Assad regime. 
I think this is probably true, at least of the majority.
 
But where is this majority? There is considerable evidence that very 
large numbers of people are demonstrating against the regime, and 
sometimes fighting it, but don’t call for Western intervention.
 
In recent weeks the revolution has spread to the two biggest cities, 
Aleppo and Damascus. Rebel fighters have tried unsuccessfully to seize 
the centres of both cities.
 
Are Tariq and those who agree with him sure that these are all puppets 
of the US and the Gulf reactionaries? If so, they are being betrayed by 
their masters, since the regime's forces have been able to beat them 
back because they lack tanks and heavy weapons.
 
Nevertheless, the evidence is that the regime is now taking heavy 
casualties—and not just thanks to spectaculars such as last week’s bomb 
that took out several of Assad’s top cronies.
 
The fighting bears all the hallmarks of an improvised and desperate 
armed rising. We can argue over whether it was wise politically for the 
rebels to militarise their struggle so quickly. We may regret the 
absence of the independent working class action that has been so 
important in the Egyptian revolution.
 
But the way that its Syrian counterpart has so rapidly developed into a 
civil war doesn’t alter the fact that its roots lie in popular revolt.
 
One thing the Arab revolutions have revealed is that much of the left in 
the region is politically dead. The best evidence is provided by those 
elements in the Egyptian Communist Party who backed the military 
candidate, Ahmed Shafiq, in the recent presidential elections.
 
Those in the Western left who allow a reflexive and unthinking 
“anti-imperialism” to set them against the Syrian revolution are simply 
confessing their own bankruptcy.
-- 
Namib
 
Necessaria sunt immutabilia (A. G. Baumgarten)

 
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=29191
 
 
 "in britain"... 'annamo bene!
 
Ciao!
 
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 confessing their own bankruptcy.
 
Il tentativo di tirare dalla parte dell'imperialismo capitalista 
statunitense, e di quella confessionale delle monarchie del golfo, è 
puerile.  Solo menti deboli come certi pseudo comunisti possono dargli 
credito e supporto.
 
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Sostieni Rete ECO
 
http://rete-eco.it/it/sostienici.html