Only anti-imperialism can unite the peoples of Syria

Scenes of jubilation erupted following the collapse of the hated Bashar al-Assad regime. While the dictator is now gone, many fear for what is to come next. The experiences of Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan show that the collapse of a hated regime does not automatically lead to progress. In the case of Syria, even the most optimistic of observers doubt that there is much truth to the democratic promises of the new government led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist militia originally affiliated with Al Qaeda. How to advance democratic and social conditions in the present situation? This is the crucial question facing the progressive and working-class forces in Syria today.

There are some who foolishly believe that the road to democratic progress lies through the US and EU providing sanctions relief and assistance. This is a dangerous delusion. Western imperialist powers are responsible for Syria and the entire region being engulfed in perpetual conflict. Their rhetoric about democracy and civil rights has never been anything more than a thin veneer for their real interest: to ensure that no state or coalition can stop the plundering of West Asia’s resources.

Again and again, they have followed the same divide-and-conquer playbook, using the short-term interests of one religious or national faction to foster broader conflict and keep the region internally divided. This is no secret, and it should be obvious that social progress in the Middle East will only occur at the expense of the US and its Zionist attack dog. But reality is always more complicated than theory. The problem is that with a region so internally divided and poor, there is always a foe to be presented as a greater immediate danger than a distant foreign power.

This is what has made the Syrian conflict so intractable. Corrupt domestic cliques and foreign actors exploit the legitimate aspirations, fears and grievances of certain segments of the population to advance their own reactionary interests. The oppression of the Kurds by many states in the region is used by the US and Israel. The hatred for Assad and Western oppression is used by various Sunni Islamist forces. As for Assad, a key pillar of his regime was the legitimate fear of Alawites and other minorities that they would suffer retribution for the historic oppression of Sunni Muslims.

To unite the peoples of Syria and genuinely bring the region forward it is not enough to shout democratic and socialist platitudes into the wind. It is necessary to provide a programme which can untie the sectarian knots and regroup the genuinely revolutionary and progressive forces across religious and national lines. This will not be done through supporting whichever force is deemed to be the least reactionary at a given moment. Rather, what is crucial is to split the progressive impulses in each faction — Alawite, Sunni, Arab, Kurd, etc — from the reactionary forces exploiting these impulses to advance their own self-interest. This is not the easiest road, but it is the only one which offers a future for the peoples of Syria and the region.

The reactionary Baathist regime

In 2011, protests erupted throughout Syria, reflecting the democratic aspirations of a population which had lived under the dynastic dictatorship of the Assad family since 1970. The regime answered by unleashing a wave of brutal repression, gradually transforming a protest movement into a civil war. To understand this evolution, it is necessary to look at the basic characteristics of the Baathist regime, led by Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian Baath Party rested on the pan-Arab project of uniting the various peoples in the region in a common national modernising project. At times the regime took a socialistic colouration, nationalising large swathes of industry. However, as in many Arab and Muslim countries, the social basis of the regime essentially rested on the military brass and narrow circles of the cosmopolitan business elite. While these layers in some way embody progressive aspirations towards secularism and modernity, their ultimate class interests are narrowly self-interested and stand in conflict with those of the impoverished mass of the population. In fact, the Assads’ anti-imperialism was always very thin, entering the Lebanese civil war with tacit American-Israeli approval, joining the Gulf War in 1991 and collaborating with Bush’s “War on Terror” in its early years.

Given that regimes like that of Assad hide behind secular and even socialist trappings to oppress their people, the opposition to them generally takes form along religious and sectarian lines rather than class ones. This was the case in the 2011 Arab Spring, where the popular revolts which started in urban centres against the dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere increasingly took the character of a religious struggle by the oppressed Sunni masses against the secular military elites. In Syria this dynamic was compounded by the fact that the Assad regime is narrowly based on the Alawite sect, representing only a small proportion of the Syrian population, which is over 70 per cent Sunni.

This meant that when protests erupted, Assad could only count on a very small base of support within society. To maintain his grip on power he could only use the fragments of the Syrian army whose loyalty was unquestionable. Thus, as discontent spread, government forces resorted to increasingly bloody tactics, which would spare manpower. The regime’s troops heavily bombed urban areas, particularly targeting Sunni neighbourhoods. These actions, and the meddling of foreign powers, actively worked towards transforming the popular uprising into a sectarian civil war.

There is no denying that the US and its allies sought to undermine and ultimately topple the Syrian government. Not only did they impose crushing economic sanctions on the country, but they also armed, trained and financed various rebel groups. The defenders of the Assad regime point to these facts as arguments to support it as a lesser evil to the sectarian pro-imperialist forces that constituted the rebellion.

It was certainly necessary to oppose the aggression of Western imperialism against Syria. But the regime was not at any time waging a war of national defence against imperialism, and it was not in the interest of the working class to defend it. Despite the pan-Arab pretensions of the Baathist regime, it never constituted a true national government. The war it waged was not to unify the Arab people against foreign aggression. Rather, it was always a war to maintain the small clique of corrupt Assad loyalists resting on the Alawites. At bottom, it was the sectarian and dictatorial foundations of the regime, more than money, weapons or sanctions, which undermined and ultimately led to the collapse of a centralised Syrian government.

By oppressing the Sunni Arabs and Kurds, by denying basic democratic rights and by leeching off the wealth of the country, the Assad regime cleared the way for imperialists and regional powers to take advantage of the situation and push their own reactionary agendas. The regime was not to be defended, because it was not helping the defence of Syria against imperialist plunder but undermining it. As for the interventions by Russia and Iran in support of Assad, they were self-interested and reactionary, not anti-imperialist.

Many in Syria and internationally supported the Assad regime, not out of corrupt self-interest, but because they saw it as the only bulwark against religious reaction and the dismemberment of Syria. Many Alawites and other minorities supported the regime not out of love for Assad, but because they feared they would be the target of revenge if he lost his grip on power. To these layers, it was and remains necessary to show how national unification, the long-term safety of minorities, as well as social and democratic progress, could only happen in opposition to the Baathist regime. Others, including Hezbollah, militarily assisted the regime, fearing the ramifications of its collapse for the struggle against Israel. For these elements, it would need to be demonstrated that Assad’s sectarian divisions weakened this regional struggle.

This all goes to show that the task was not to defend the Assad tyranny, but to overthrow it in a progressive way. However, this is clearly not what happened.

The failure of the democratic revolution

How did the movement against Assad, which started as a spontaneous uprising for democratic rights, become increasingly dominated by reactionary Islamist forces and an open playing field for foreign powers? We have already seen how the Assad regime itself contributed towards this evolution. But this is only half the story. To get the whole picture, it is also necessary to look at the dynamics and failures within the opposition and various rebel groups.

In countries governed by dictatorships that are antagonistic to the West, there is a strong tendency among progressives to look to imperialist democracies as a counterweight. The example of the Syrian civil war shows just how fatal a mistake this is. At bottom, it is faith in Western democracy more than anything else which explains why Assad was eventually overthrown by obscurantist Islamist forces rather than by a movement representing the revolutionary democratic aspirations that initially roused the peoples of Syria.

As Assad deployed his security forces to brutally crush discontent, local militias sprung up to defend communities. Eventually defections started to spread among government forces. Throughout the civil war, socialist and working people needed to stand in defence of communities under the threat of sectarian massacres. However, what started as heroic movements of self-defence eventually became a military campaign against the government, subordinated to Western imperialist interests. This not only brought about military disaster but betrayed any hope for a democratic and social revolution in Syria.

A 2016 report by Félix Legrand of the Arab Reform Initiative details some of the reasons for the marginalisation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the main rebel force in the initial stage of the civil war. The first thing the report notes (but can’t explain) is how political fragmentation paralysed the FSA. This is because the FSA represented two self-contradictory forces. On one hand the popular aspirations for democratic and social progress and on the other the interests of foreign powers.

Because of its subordination to imperialism, the FSA was never going to be able to unite the working people of Syria in common struggle against the economic interests of the elite and for democracy. After all, the US and its allies are all absolutely opposed to the emergence of a strong, democratic — much less socialist — Syrian state. And so, the democratic programme of the FSA was ultimately incoherent and only on paper. In contrast to this, both Islamist and Kurdish forces could unify around a common project, religious for the former, national democratic for the latter.

In the conclusion of his report, Legrand notes that:

Sure enough, as the civil war evolved it became more and more obvious to all that the FSA did not represent any kind of movement to liberate the Syrian people but was a tool of Washington. This was most clearly seen in the fact that it was forced multiple times to cease hostilities against Assad in favour of asserting more pressing interests for the US, whether it was the fight against ISIS or securing the Jordanian border.

This docile subservience was rightly branded as treachery by the Islamist forces and contributed to large-scale defection in the ranks of the FSA. As the civil war unfolded, the FSA became increasingly irrelevant, and Islamist forces more and more became the only real military opposition to Assad.

What then was the correct course for those hoping for a social and democratic revolution in Syria? Continue to support the “democratic” FSA and lobby for more Western support? No. The support the West gives is never worth the price of political subservience demanded in return. Much less was it correct to call for direct military intervention, as many did. That would have only meant enslavement of Syria to imperialism — an outcome even worse than the one we confront today. What about the Islamist forces? Was it necessary to support them as the only force objectively carrying forward the struggle against Assad? Obviously not. Their victory no more represents progress than the continued rule of Assad. Those who doubt it will see for themselves soon enough.

What was necessary, but absent throughout the conflict, was a real fight among the democratic forces for a total break with subordination to the US. Accepting weapons from wherever one can get them is one thing, but becoming a slave to the most reactionary powers in the world in the process is another. A clear and principled opposition to the US and its proxies would have made it possible to make the fight against Assad a component part of the liberation of the entire region from imperialism. On the one hand this would have undercut the appeal of the regime, which presented itself as the only defender of Syrian national independence. But it would also have contributed to making the conflict a true democratic and national uprising, providing the basis to polarise and split the various sectarian and religious factions.

Ultimately, the key lesson is that it was only in opposition to the US and Israel that a radical democratic, socialist, solution could emerge in Syria.

The Kurdish question

For many, especially in the left in Türkiye and Western Europe, the Kurdish forces led by the People’s Defence Units (YPG) represent a true revolutionary and democratic alternative in the Syrian civil war. It is true that the national democratic uprising in Rojava had the potential of being a real beacon for national liberation and social progress throughout West Asia. However, no less than the FSA, the Kurdish forces regrouped in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have become subservient to the US and have thus been playing an overall reactionary role.

It was one thing to accept help from the US and be in an objective alliance when faced with the threat of ethnic extermination. This was the case in the 2014 siege of Kobane by ISIS forces. And it was a sterile and reactionary absurdity to deny a people the means to defend themselves however they can in such a situation¹. However, it was quite another matter to launch a joint offensive with US troops in territories inhabited overwhelmingly by Arabs, as was done by the SDF.

Of course, ISIS represented an extremely reactionary force and was a threat to all religious and national minorities in the region. However, their strength lay first and foremost in the brutal oppression of the Sunnis following the US invasion of Iraq. The military defeat of ISIS did nothing to tackle the root of the problem. Quite the contrary; the large-scale devastation brought down on cities like Raqqa by the US, with the help of Kurdish forces, will only foster more resentment.

From being a potential beacon for revolutionary anti-imperialist resistance, the YPG and Kurdish forces are now seen as agents of the US by many in the region. For example, they are directly responsible for the plundering of Syrian oil for the Americans. Nothing shows the bankrupt position of the Kurdish leadership more than their tiptoeing around the Palestinian genocide in Gaza so as not to offend their allies. The Kurdish national movement has been conspicuously absent in the international struggle against Israel since 7 October and has recently engaged in diplomatic dialogue with Tel Aviv. While the Palestinian question could be the perfect bridge towards uniting the cause of the Kurds with those of the rest of the region, including in Türkiye, the lack of concrete action by Kurdish leftist organisations in defence of Palestine once again isolates the Kurds, making them more vulnerable to future attacks and more dependent on the US.

It is urgent that the Kurdish national movement break the alliance with the US on its own terms. This is not only essential for the liberation of the entire region from the clutches of US imperialism, but for the national and social liberation of the Kurds themselves in Syria and beyond.

What next?

The collapse of the Assad regime has created a certain vacuum and openness for political debate. This opportunity will probably not last very long and must be seized to organise struggle against the new regime and bring about a political realignment. What has been lacking throughout the civil war is a genuinely anti-imperialist, democratic and socialist alternative. The task we face is to build such an alternative, drawing from the lessons of the civil war.

First, only through opposition to imperialist oppression of the entire region can we begin to unite the peoples of West Asia. Workers and peasants, from Türkiye, Kurdistan, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq are all oppressed by the international system ruled by the US. The starting point must be to oppose the economic and military predation of the US and its allies, notably Israel which is expanding its conquest of southern Syria and Lebanon.

Second, true unity against foreign oppression can only be achieved through recognition of the democratic rights of religious and national minorities. The imperialists designed the region to divide its people; only genuine self-determination can heal these wounds. We must fight for a Palestine and Kurdistan free from national oppression. We must fight against state imposition of religion and for the emancipation of women.

Finally, if there is one thing that the Syrian civil war and Palestinian conflict have shown, it is that the ruling elite in the Arab and Muslim world are corrupt traitors who will sacrifice the liberation of their people for short-term economic or political gain. Any struggle for democracy and freedom from imperialism will be waged against this social class, no matter how anti-imperialist they may sound on a given day. The future of the Middle East and Syria lies in the hands of its working people, not the elites. Unite against US imperialism and its lackeys — for a socialist federation of West Asia!