NOVANEWS
HANDS OFF SYRIA
Readers of Joseph Massad’s recent editorial on the defeat of the struggle for democracy in Syria may have felt chagrined at where it left the genuine Syrian opposition. Should they simply give up? Or rather, how can they retrench and position themselves well for the next stage of the struggle for liberation in Syria, one that does not rely on opportunistic or straight-up compromised leadership – like the Syrian Ikhwan and its accompanying coterie of liberal opportunists – and simultaneously protect themselves from the repression that could occur in the aftermath of accepting a partial defeat in the current stage of the struggle for freedom?
This important International Crisis Group report [PDF] offers some suggestions that are more productive than the nasty shrugs at the inevitability of “civil war” – given the balance of forces, it would only be a “war” if NATO or Turkey decides to enter the fray – that have been popping up in the darker corners of the net in recent days. The proposals from the ICG, like those coming from elsewhere, are for dialogue, a “historic reconciliation,” and planning for some kind of transition away from the current dance of demonstration, militarized adventurism, and repression. What ICG opposed and what everyone should oppose are economic sanctions. Sanctions are not a principle and not an abstraction. They tend to harden support for the target regime, make the construction of an oppositional civil society impossible by making the population reliant on the regime for support, and have the odd externality of tending to kill children (see: Iraq). They are not acceptable.
But did I say militarization? Yes, that same militarization to which the Assad regime both responds and also uses as an excuse to repress peaceful demonstrations.
So I wonder why leftist writers rightly condemn the al-Assad’s regime’s brutal repression of demonstrations within the country but have nothing to say about the killing of the Assad regime’s soldiers. According to the Syrian military, which might not be so interested in lying about this, 10 of its personnel were killed in an attack on Thursday on an air force base outside of Homs. Question: who benefits from the militarization of the uprising? The Syrian people? Or outside actors seeking to destroy the Assad regime (possibly a worthy goal) and replace it with a more pliant regime which will serve NATO and the GCC far more ably (a disgusting goal)? Who will benefit from a sectarian civil war – Hezbollah, Iran, and the Arab peoples? Or the Gulf countries, Israel, and America, who seek to rule over a shattered and dysfunctional Middle East, unable to coalesce politically, socially, or economically?
If the answer is the latter and not the former, no matter anyone’s opinions of the al-Assad regime, they should be opposing the militarization of the uprising, and not just braying hysterically about everything being “al-Assad’s fault.” When governments are attacked violently, they respond violently. People condemn the violence of Hamas – less defensibly – on similarly utilitarian grounds. Not that they don’t have a right to it but that it doesn’t work. For whom works the Syrian National Army’s (or Turkey’s) attacks on the Syrian military?
Mohammad Riad Shaqfa, the leader of Syria’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood recently said, “If other interventions are required, such as air protection, because of the regime’s intransigence, then the people will accept Turkish intervention.” So many peoples in Syria, it’s wonderful that this schizophrenia affords one of the self-anointed voices of the people the authority to call for foreign invasion. The Jordanian MB appears to have signed onto this program, bristling when planning for an anti-intervention demonstration in Amman seemed to be converging on a slogan saying, “Hands off Syria.” They insisted that the slogan be, “No to American Intervention in Arab Affairs,” the reason why the very clever GCC has been managing the regional counter-revolution for its bigger partners in the management of global capitalism – the United States and the European Union. Putting a melanin-rich Arab face on imperialism has been a respected mode of regulation of the peoples of the Middle East for decades.
That the MB is signing onto this agenda is also a signal, another in a long line of signals, that it’s ready to start fulfilling its role as the empire’s regional lieutenant. Meanwhile the Syrian National Council is reaching out to the fanatic reactionaries in Libya for support: “The Libyans are offering money, training and weapons to the Syrian National Council,” said Wisam Taris, a human rights campaigner with links to the SNC. And you are telling me the leadership is not compromised, that the use of the word, “hijacked,” is offensive? That it’s some form of Stalinism to point out that the demonstrators in the video above oddly have a banner inked in English, so as to appeal to propagandized Americans and Europeans, as opposed to Arabic, so as to appeal to the natural allies of revolutionaries, the other Arabs of the Middle East?
Please find someone else to accept these lies.
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