The menace
of imperialist intervention looms over Syria as tensions increase between the
regime of Bashar al-Assad and the Western powers and their Middle Eastern
surrogates. On June 22, the Assad government shot down a Turkish airplane that
was conducting a reconnaissance mission in Syrian airspace. Despite an apology
from Assad, the Turkish government (which is a member of NATO) responded by
amassing more F-16 fighter jets and other military forces on the Syrian border.
The
mounting tensions occur in the context of more violent attacks perpetrated by
the Assad regime against the Syrian opposition. The Houla massacre of May 25,
in which over 100 civilians perished in unclear circumstances, and the continued
bombings outside of Damascus have stirred calls in the West for
“regime change.” In the meantime, repression by the Syrian army and its
associated militias has been met by increased attacks by the armed opposition,
which has seen a steady rise in foreign aid.
While the
Assad regime has received military assistance from Russia, the Syrian opposition has been
accepting arms and equipment from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar—as well as from the United States. The New York Times recently
confirmed that the CIA has been involved in smuggling arms to select militants
from the opposition. And Time magazine reported in its issue of June 25 that
the U.S. State Department has budgeted over $72 million to train armed Syrian
dissidents in encryption, hacking, and video production.
Foreign
ministers from the United States, France, Great Britain, Russia, China, and several other nations met in Geneva on June 30 to broker an agreement
for a transitional government in Syria. No Syrians were represented in
these negotiations, which were supposedly seeking to achieve “an inclusive
Syrian-led political process to address the legitimate aspirations and concerns
of the Syrian people.”
The West
has been silent on how a “Syrian-led political process” could develop without the
input of the Syrian masses. Nonetheless, the imperialist powers could not come
to an agreement during the conference, which resulted in an undefined plan to
create a transitional government. Russia insisted that the arrangement would
not specifically exclude Assad from any transitional regime. Elements from both
the Syrian opposition and the Assad government have denounced the plan brokered
at the Geneva meeting.
The Syrian
National Council (SNC), a group of Syrian elites in-exile who have positioned
themselves as the head of the opposition movement, has repeatedly called on the
West to intervene militarily to oust Assad and end the violence that is tearing
the country apart. In the week leading up to the Geneva conference, it was reported that
800 people were killed in fighting between Assad’s forces and the Syrian
opposition. Heightened imperialist intervention, however, like the one
conducted by NATO in Libya, would only result in more civilian
casualties and deaths.
The fate of
the Syrian revolution lies in the hands of the workers, peasants, and oppressed
minorities struggling for their freedom. These forces must seek to maintain
their political independence and take the opposition in a different direction
than what is proposed by the Syrian National Council. This includes opposing
imperialist intervention, which will only seek to co-opt the movement and bend
it to the interests of foreign capital.
To this
end, we call for the formation of a revolutionary party based in the working
class and oppressed communities. Such a party must have a political program
capable of uniting the Syrian people in their aspirations for freedom,
democratic rights, and economic justice. Moreover, the Syrian people will only
know true freedom when they overthrow the exploitative capitalist system, cast
out their oppressors, and reshape society to one that is based on grassroots
democracy, with the goal of meeting human needs instead of private profit.
No to
imperialist intervention! No to the Assad regime! Victory to the workers,
peasants, oppressed communities, and youth of Syria!
> The
article above was written by Daniel Xavier, and is reprinted from the July 2012
print edition of Socialist Action newspaper.
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