The hated government of Bashar al-Assad collapsed, alas not by the force of a revolution or popular uprising, but by the unopposed advance of armed groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The emerging new Syrian government does not bode anything better for the workers and people of Syria.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham ( HTS ) originated from Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, while its leader al-Jolani himself previously operated under the leadership of the then-future leader of ISIS al-Baghdadi. Funded and supported by the Gulf monarchies, Turkey and Western imperialism, a constellation of reactionary armed organizations under the ideological mantle of Sunni fundamentalism had quickly turned the righteous uprising of 2011 into a civil war reactionary from both sides. The re-branding and moderate mutation of HTS was more a declaration of loyalty to Western imperialism than a signal of any change in its bourgeois reactionary, misogynistic and religiously sectarian character. Having ruled the Idlib region for years, HTS has already shown the dark signs of its governance. Its administration was based on the seizure of natural resources, authoritarianism and murders of political opponents, and it is no coincidence that it has recently been faced with mass protests. The celebrations of a large part of the Syrian population for the fall of Assad are understandable. But the willful blindness and the embellishment of the rebels by overly optimistic currents of the Left is, however, inexcusable.
The fact that no one came to the defence of the Assad regime is not surprising. An authoritarian president who has been associated with bloody repression, corruption, and mass murder, deserves no support and no tears. The Assad regime, initially led by Hafez al-Assad, father of Bashar, historically emerged from successive coups against the most radical wing of the secular Arab Socialist Baath Party. Having replaced the original socialist proclamations of the Baath with liberal economic policies for decades, the Assad single-party regime had nothing progressive to show. Its policy towards the imperialist powers has always been opportunistic, utilitarian and contradictory. Support for the Palestinians and opposition to Israel were also relative: the regime tolerated Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights for 50 years. In the face of Israel’s ongoing genocidal attack on Gaza, it did practically nothing. Assad’s Syria has never been part of any supposed “axis of resistance,” as other leftist currents imagine.
The Assad regime has proved non-viable, not even for a single day, without its external foreign support. Russia, a key factor in the temporary stabilization of Syria around Assad, has turned its attention and forces to Ukraine, given the new Trump term, which seems to favour its plans. Iran’s influence has been significantly weakened by the successive strikes suffered by Israel and the US, starting with the execution of Soleimani, the architect of its intervention in Syria. Hezbollah is trying to regroup itself after the ruthless Israeli attacks on Lebanon. It was in these circumstances that HTS found its opportunity. This entire mosaic of forces at the local and international levels strongly indicates a transition that is not completely controlled by any side and leads to chaos rather than some stabilization.
Imperialist allies, of course, are never stable and given to anyone, they change their chosen ones and proxies based on their short-term interests, and they are willing to negotiate with any side to secure them. In exchange for its only base in the Mediterranean, in Latakia, Russia would be willing to tolerate the new Syrian leadership. The Western imperialists, who until yesterday denounced, at least publicly, HTS as jihadists, are hailing its victory, preparing one after the other, to remove it from the list of terrorist organizations and restore diplomatic relations with Syria. Moreover, the first thing al-Jolani made sure to state is that HTS does not threaten the West.
Amid assurances from the new Syrian leadership that it has no intention of clashing with Israel and its decision to disarm Palestinian organizations present on Syrian territory, the Netanyahu government grabs the opportunity to advance deep into Syrian territory and double down its military presence in the Golan Heights. Israel is securing its perimeter, to continue unabated the dismantling of the Gaza Strip. Erdogan is threatening the areas controlled by the Kurdish leadership of the PYD, which have already been attacked by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army ( SNA ), formerly known as the Free Syrian Army. The American protection so far, and al-Jolani’s willingness to avoid, for the time being, any confrontation with the Kurds are questionable as to how long they will remain in place, amid ongoing reshuffles.
The Kurdish national movement, in its struggle for existence and independence, is probably the only objectively progressive factor in the Syrian chaos, despite the sectarian and opportunistic policy of the PYD leadership, which has largely turned it into a pawn of Western imperialism, especially the US. The prospect of an independent Kurdish state seems to be fading, as the Kurds, like the Palestinians, find themselves hopelessly alone. At the same time, the interruption of Hezbollah’s supply routes by Iran is a crucial blow to its ability to maintain its forces, with implications for the Palestinian people’s ability to resist.
As for the Greek government, it also has some appetites of its own. Mitsotakis is announcing a “more active presence” in Syria and underlining the role that the EU can play. The protection of Christian populations may be a convenient pretext. The active presence of Greece, after all, a bastion of Europe-fortress, has already been experienced by hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees at the borders, with interceptions, illegal advances and murders in the waters of the Aegean. The EU and Greece have the opportunity to strengthen their borders further and harden their racist policy, declaring Syria, after the fall of Assad, as a safe country, closing the borders even more, and denying asylum to everyone.
Like their Assadites predecessors, HTS and their allies only have woes in store for the working class, the oppressed, and the ethnicities of Syria. No matter how fiercely the international left currents celebrating the victory of the opposition and those lamenting the fall of Assad are opposed to each other, they share something in common: the naive and short-sighted trust in the alien to the people and workers of the country bourgeois reactionary leaderships. The popular front approach of the slogan “Let’s all together bring down Assad, and then we’ll see” shares its logic with the popular front approach of the slogan: “Let’s all together support Assad against the fundamentalists, and then we’ll see.” The only way out, and the only hope in Syria is the reconstruction of workers’ organizations, unions, and formations of popular self-organization, independently from one or another bourgeois leadership, from one or another imperialist. The logic that working-class tasks apply only to the West, while the situation in the East lies far behind, is nothing but shameful Orientalism. The chaos of the Middle East is not pre-capitalist – it is precisely the result of modern capitalism, at the stage of imperialism. The particular way Syria, as well as other states in the region, integrate into the international division of labour is reflected in the atrophy of the local bourgeoisie and the lack of strong mass workers’ organizations. This does not mean that the workers and the peoples should have reduced expectations, but that, on the contrary, a new revolutionary leadership is urgently needed. It is a bet for the working class and the oppressed to exploit any cracks caused by the chaotic collapse of the regime and the, at least temporary, power vacuum to build their independent organizations. Needless to say, the reactionary nature of the newly formed power does not leave much room for hope and makes this task particularly difficult.
Only through the self-reliant action of workers and oppressed groups, independently and against the new rulers, can democratic freedoms be won in Syria. The prospect of a social revolution may today seem fantasy. Nevertheless, it is the only logical conclusion of a systematic struggle, starting from the most elementary measures of democratization through the reconciliation of the ethnicities in the region.
From our perspective, the main tasks are practical solidarity with the peoples of Syria, first and foremost by blocking any involvement of the Greek state and its imperialist camp in the region and by imposing open borders for every refugee and immigrant. We connect the movement for the liberation of Palestine with the struggle to defend the peoples of Syria from every imperialist. We support, by all means, the independent organizations of the workers and the oppressed of Syria. We strengthen internationalist cooperation with the revolutionary political organizations of the wider region, such as the Socialist Workers’ Party ( SEP ) of Turkey, which is mercilessly persecuted by the Erdogan government, precisely because it fulfilled its internationalist duty, unequivocally denouncing the intervention of “its own” state.
22 Dec 2024
