Subject: [SocialistWorker.org] A turning point in Syria?
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http://socialistworker.org/2012/05/31/turning-point-a-syria
Analysis: Yusef Khalil
======== A TURNING POINT IN SYRIA? ===========================================
Yusef Khalil looks at the dynamics of the Syrian revolutionary movement--and
the regime's effort to drown the resistance in blood.
May 31, 2012
THE LATEST massacre in Syria--which killed more than a 100 men, women and
children in their homes in the city of Houla--is only the latest of the
horrors that Syrians have been living through after they dared rise up
against the 40-year dictatorship of the Assad family.
The question for the movement now is how to withstand the increasingly brutal
repression and take the struggle forward.
The slaughter in Houla led to an international outcry, and the UN Security
Council condemned the killings. Several Western countries expelled Syrian
diplomats in protest, and advocates of U.S. and European military
intervention seized the moment to call for air strikes against Syria. Yet
despite the terrible human toll, international intervention in Syria will not
make things better. The Syrian people do have the power to liberate
themselves--and only they can do so.
To understand the road to the Houla massacre, it's useful to step back and
look at the course of the struggle.
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THE SYRIAN Revolution has been going on for 14 months, with large
demonstrations in every part of the country, and entire cities falling out of
the regime's control, only to be attacked and taken back by the armed forces.
The Syrian military has used heavy weapons, tanks, bombs and artillery to
destroy entire civilian neighborhoods. Estimates put the dead at more than
12,000, with 40,000 wounded. Tens of thousands have been detained or
disappeared, and hundreds of thousands displaced.
Despite the enormous toll, the Syrian people have not backed down. As soon as
one area is subdued by the regime, another erupts. But what began as mostly
unarmed demonstrations has, in response to the intense government repression,
turned to arms to defend the protests from the military and the regime's
thugs.
In response, more and more soldiers began to defect from the regular army
because they were no longer willing to shoot down their own people. The armed
opposition started to organize itself under different names: the Free Syria
Army, independent groups and individual brigades. These fighters increasingly
clashed with government forces. This shifted the focus of the revolution from
mass protests to armed struggle.
Meanwhile, groups claiming to represent the Syrian Revolution appeared on the
international scene. The best known is the Syrian National Council (SNC)
formed by Syrian exiles, and heavily favored by the West. The SNC focused on
establishing connections with other countries (most notably, the U.S. and
European nations) to get them to support the revolution and put pressure on
the regime by imposing travel restrictions on Syrian officials and economic
sanctions.
The SNC also called for some sort of foreign intervention to help the
beleaguered Syrian people. SNC leaders have variously called for humanitarian
intervention, international protection, humanitarian corridors, safe areas,
no-fly zones and all kinds of others names that, in reality, come down to one
thing: a military attack by outside powers on Syria.
At first, Western powers turned a blind eye to the Syrian regime's
atrocities, concluding that a stable Assad regime was in the best interests
of Israel, the U.S. and Europe. But as the struggle has continued, they
started looking for ways to at least appear to be supporting the Syrian
revolution. They held international conferences; formed the Friends of Syria;
discussed arming and funding the rebels; slapped economic sanctions on the
regime; and tried to pass resolutions at the UN Security Council.
There seemed to be an international consensus that something needed to be
done about Syria, but then Russia and China stepped in, and vetoed any UN
Security Council resolutions that are too harsh on the regime. For their
part, the U.S. and the main European countries remain reluctant to conduct a
Libya-type military intervention, which would have to be far bigger and
bloodier given Syria's more powerful armed forces and the country's dense
population.
Rather than intervene directly, the U.S. has allowed Saudi Arabia and Qatar
to support armed struggle carried out by Islamist groups. Meanwhile, another
U.S. ally, Turkey, allows the Free Syrian Army and other armed groups to
operate from its territory--but so far has refused to provide heavy weapons
and or other key resources. As a result, Russia has emerged as the key player
among the imperial powers.
- - - - -
BUT THE world's governments aren't the only ones that are split on the Syrian
Revolution. The "Arab street," the left and progressives also have different
views.
The two dominant points of view can be summarized as follows:
1) The Syrian people have bravely stood up to the Assad dictatorship, but
have not been able to overthrow it, so the world has a responsibility to
protect them. Yes, the U.S. and NATO have not always played a positive role,
but in this case, they are the only ones that can save the Syrian people. If
your support for the Syrian revolution means anything, then you need to
support foreign intervention.
2) The U.S. has always wanted regime change in Syria, because the Syrian
regime is allied with Iran and has stood up to Israel and to U.S.
imperialism. The U.S. is behind much of the unrest in Syria, and is funding
or arming groups to destabilize the regime--therefore, this revolution is not
genuine. Anything that weakens Syria will weaken anti-imperialism in the
Middle East, and will allow the U.S. a freer hand in the region. We should
oppose foreign intervention /and/ also oppose the Syrian revolution.
Both of these positions are wrong. They both underestimate or ignore the
power of the Syrian people to change their own conditions. They fail to
understand the internal dynamics in Syrian society and how the regime has
accommodated imperialism at the expense of the Syrian people. And, of course,
the U.S. is not the pro-democracy force it says it is.
To understand that, we need to take a look at U.S. imperial plans in the
Middle East.
Despite being forced to pull out of Iraq after a horrific war and occupation,
the U.S. intends to remain the dominant power in the region. A new U.S.
Department of Defense document, "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership," [1]
makes that clear. In 2009, Gen. David Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central
Command, explained in Senate testimony [2] that the Middle East is critical
to the U.S. because the area "encompasses the world's most energy-rich
region, with the Arabian Gulf region and Central Asia together accounting for
at least 64 percent of the world's petroleum reserves, 34 percent of its
crude oil production, and 46 percent of its natural gas reserves."
The Arab Spring last year destabilized U.S. plans for the Middle East.
Millions of Arabs suddenly came out in massive demonstrations and
participated in actions to overthrow dictatorships. They showed the world
that they are sick and tired of living under tyrants, but also that ordinary
working people--through their organization, their creativity and their
solidarity- -have the power to paralyze the strongest security state and chop
off its head.
The Arab revolutions started in Tunisia and forced out a U.S.-allied
dictator. It then spread to other countries in a matter of weeks--most
importantly, to Egypt, where the people overthrew dictator Hosni Mubarak, a
pillar of American policy in the Middle East for the last 30 years. Everybody
was amazed at the outpouring of humanity into the streets as every repressive
measure by the regime was met with more determination, more organizing and
greater numbers by the Egyptian people. It literally seemed that anything was
possible.
After Tunisia and Egypt, the revolutions spread to Bahrain (an American ally
and home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet), sections of Saudi Arabia (another U.S.
ally), Yemen (still another U.S. ally) and other countries. It was crushed in
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain with U.S. approval, but the existing balance of
power had already started to fall apart.
The U.S. tried to counter this trend by intervening militarily in Libya to
reassert its role in the region and roll back the idea that ordinary people
can act on their own. Essentially, the U.S. hijacked that revolution.
When the Arab Spring hit Syria, the U.S. also tried to cultivate
relationships with sections of the Syrian opposition, like the SNC, and to
derail the struggle to its advantage. But Russia and China also moved in to
protect their own imperialist interests in the region.
Russia is the main supplier of arms to Syria, which hosts Russia's only naval
base on the Mediterranean Sea. Russia is also protecting its own role as the
dominant supplier of natural gas to Eastern Europe. Russia doesn't want
alternate energy routes going through a future U.S.-friendly Syria. Thus,
Russia has led the international effort to block any UN Security Council
resolutions that are too harsh on the Syrian regime.
Russia could have successfully vetoed those resolutions alone. But it is
noteworthy that China also exercised its veto twice in matter of weeks,
despite using that power just six times in the last 40 years. This was a
clear message from Russia and China to the U.S.: "You'd better share this
pie, or we'll fight over it. You're not going to take it alone."
Another strong supporter of the Assad regime is the Iranian regime, which has
continued to supply the Syrian security forces with weapons and expert
advice. Iran, after all, also has its own regional interests in a conflict
with the U.S.-backed and American-armed Gulf monarchies. And Washington is
frustrated that Iran has become the dominant foreign player in Iraq,
following the pullout of U.S. troops. So a big part of U.S. policy in the
Middle East is to contain Iran and even threaten war over its alleged pursuit
of nuclear weapons.
All this explains why the U.S. and other imperial powers are trying to shape
the outcome of the Syrian revolution to suit their own interests. But that
doesn't mean that the Assad regime is anti-imperialist.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE SYRIAN state, under both Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez, has
accommodated with imperialism at the expense of the Syrian people and has
negatively impacted the anti-imperialist struggle in the Arab world.
A number of leftists buy into the claim that since Bashar--like his father
before him--positioned Syria as the "fortress of resistance" against Israel
and the U.S., then the regime is justified in crushing any internal
opposition.
To be sure, Syria has refused to sign a peace treaty with Israel unless the
occupied Golan Heights are returned. Syria has also given support to Lebanese
and Palestinian resistance movements against Israel. And Assad positioned
Syria in an alliance with Iran as an obstacle to some U.S. and Israeli
interests in the region.
Yet the Syrian regime only supports resistance against Israel from outside
Syria's borders. It doesn't allow any arms smuggling or attacks against
Israel directly from Syria. Even when it does support anti-Israel forces, the
Syrian government demands a monopoly on the resistance. In Lebanon during the
1970s and 1980s, for example, the Syrian regime marginalized and sometimes
violently repressed any resistance groups that were outside its control.
The Syrian state even joined the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq in the 1991
Gulf War. It was rewarded handsomely: the U.S. gave Syria the green light to
occupy Lebanon, where it remained for a decade and a half until massive
protests forced the Syrian military out in 2005. The Syrian regime also
cooperated with the U.S. "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks. The
most infamous example is the torture of Syrian citizen Maher Arar after the
U.S. handed him over to the Syrian authorities as part of its rendition
program.
The Syrian regime's accommodation with imperialism also extends to the
economic front, when it turned sharply towards neoliberal economic policy in
the last decade.
These policies removed state subsidies on certain staples, lifted price
controls on basic commodities and allowed investment capital to flow in. The
result was skyrocketing prices, with inflation rising by 10 percent per year.
Wages didn't keep up, and the working class was impoverished.
At the same time, the removal of tariffs on imported goods destroyed local
industries. Less attention was paid to agriculture, and following a severe
drought, there was a big migration of poor peasants into city slums. Poverty
rates shot up to 40 percent, with unemployment above 20 percent. Government
services like health care and education were cut.
Where did all the money go? To the "anti-imperialist" Assad family and the
ruling elite who had absolute control over the political system. The family
and its cronies partnered with foreign companies to plunder Syria. It did
such a great job that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund were
quite pleased with the privatization and cuts to subsidies and social
services.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THIS SOCIAL crisis explains the persistence of the Syrian revolution, and why
people will not go back to their old way of living. This isn't just a
political struggle against a dictator. The whole system didn't work for the
majority of Syrians. The workers, the poor, the unemployed and the farmers
see the call for democracy as a means for them to improve their lives.
The areas where the revolution started and spread are working-class and poor
neighborhoods. It is these neighborhoods that the regime's security forces
have been pummeling. It is these neighborhoods that have refused to back
down.
But the revolution has run into serious problems. There is a growing
realization among sections of the population that the armed struggle has
overshadowed the street protests and civil disobedience that has been
continuing across Syria, but not reported about in the media.
In some ways, the armed resistance to the regime is taking on a life of its
own, sometimes in contradiction to the aims of the revolution. The fighters
often operate without a political strategy that ties them to the coordinating
committees--the neighborhood-based groups that organize the street protests
and function as the heart of the revolution.
At the same time, the counterrevolutionary Gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia
are arming sectarian Sunni Muslims groups that have no links to the
revolutionary forces. The Saudis see this effort as part of their regional
competition with Iran.
The deeper problem is that a military confrontation with the revolutionaries
is actually what the regime wants, because the Syrian state has the odds on
its side in that area.
This isn't to say that all armed struggle in Syria is wrong-headed. When arms
first appeared in the revolution, it was to protect the demonstrations. But
somewhere along the line, arms started being used offensively, taking the
initiative away from the street. This led us down a dead end, which in turn
emboldened government forces to be more and more brutal.
The armed opposition has now alienated a lot of the people who started the
Syrian revolution, and their voices were drowned out. There is a recognition
of this among the revolutionaries, who also realize that guns are now a fact
that can't be wished away.
Further, Western military intervention, called for by some in the SNC, will
necessarily mean /more/ civilian deaths, not fewer. No country is going to
put planes in the air if they can be shot down. So U.S. and/or European
planes would first bomb missile sites and radar installations, as well as the
command-and-control networks in Syrian cities, which means a large number of
civilian casualties.
Under this scenario, a popular revolution would turn into a full-blown war.
Ironically, the regime would gain legitimacy because it would be fighting a
true foreign invasion. Such a conflict would last longer than the
intervention in Libya, as it draws in other international powers, all the
while sapping power away from the revolution.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BESIDES DEBATING whether to call for foreign intervention, the Syrian left is
also discussing strategies to reach out and organize more people into open
opposition.
Syria is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. The ruling family is
Alawite, a minority sect of Islam, and has made sure to place other Alawites
in all-important positions in the government and armed forces. The government
is also playing on these religious and ethnic differences to pit Arabs
against Syrian Kurds, and to scare Alawite and Christian minorities into
believing that the revolution would bring Sunni Muslim fundamentalists to
power. More recently, the regime has painted the whole revolution as the work
of Sunni terrorists--and the regime's repression is designed to whip up
sectarian hatred.
This is why many Syrian revolutionaries are raising their voices to reach out
to all the minorities--members of which are active in the revolution--to
assure them that they will not be blamed for what a small ruling elite has
done in their name. These minorities have a place in a future Syria. The
revolution cannot win without the participation of minorities and other
hesitant layers of the population.
As noted earlier, the revolution is centered in the working class and
impoverished areas of Syria. Workers have borne the brunt of the regime's
economic policies before the revolution. Now, they are the backbone of the
revolution--and their determination is the reason that it hasn't been crushed
yet. This shared experience and common struggle can cut across sectarian and
ethnic lines, and provide the unity necessary to defeat the regime.
The regime, of course, doesn't allow any independent workers' organizations.
Yet even the "official" opposition, the SNC, avoids "divisive" discussions
about the economy, because it actually agrees with the regime's economic
policy and wants to continue it. The SNC is afraid of unleashing the power of
the working class, because it fears it won't be able to control workers after
the revolution.
But you can't separate the democratic struggle from the struggle for social
justice. You can't overthrow the regime without bringing maximum power to
bear against it. The lesson of the Egyptian Revolution, where a working-class
strike wave delivered the decisive blow to the Mubarak regime last year, is
key for Syria.
In fact, in the past few months, Syrian workers have engaged in sporadic
strikes and showed that they are just as capable and creative in fighting for
their freedom and dignity, while resisting the most severe forms of state
repression. These strikes can show a way out of the current impasse. They can
become tools to build independent unions and organizations capable of
advancing the struggle and uniting the Syrian working class.
Other important revolutionary forms of organization that have evolved are the
popular councils that run some cities and towns in Syria in the absence of
the state bureaucracy. The future of the Syrian revolution depends on these
popular councils, local coordinating committees and working class
organizations regaining control and leadership of their revolution from those
who have led it down the path of foreign intervention or collaboration with
this or that imperial power.
The revolution will be won by Syrians themselves or it won't be won at all.
/This article was based on a recent presentation given at a meeting in New
York City./
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[1] http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf
[2] http://www.centcom.mil/from-the-commander/commanders-statement-to-senate-armed-services-committee-april-1-2009
