Syria stands defiant, US imperialism stands exposed
Under imminent threat of an
external air war being unleashed against Syrian territory, the progressive
government of Syria is pressing on with its campaign to deal with the
Western-fomented internal rebellion, on the one hand engaging in a systematic
mopping up operation against rebel forces in Aleppo and Damascus, and on the
other launching a pre-emptive airstrike against insurgents holding to ransom
the Northern Syrian town of Azaz.
With the Annan Plan now comprehensively scuttled by
Washington and its partners in crime, the truly bestial face of imperialist
aggression is exposed for all to see. Let any communists, socialists, anti-war
activists or democrats who hitherto doubted the real intentions of the armed “opposition”
and its Western backers now open their eyes and rally in support of the brave
and beleaguered people of Syria and their anti-imperialist leadership.
The Annan Plan
Enraged at the continuing failure to secure regime
change in Damascus, the warmongers achieved the pyrrhic victory of regime
change back in New York, where former UN chief Kofi Annan finally buckled under
intolerable pressure and opted to quit his post as mediator over the Syria crisis.
The fact that he was charged with this
responsibility in the first place can only be explained by the circumstances
attending the launch of the Annan Plan. As a lifetime career diplomat at the
UN, Annan has on occasion fallen foul of Washington. In 2003 he recognised the
illegality of the US and British invasion of Iraq, and last year he criticised
NATO’s actions in Libya as going beyond what was mandated by the Security
Council. These reproofs, though pathetically mild in their expression, were
enough to ensure that Annan would not be Uncle Sam’s first choice to put in
charge of any serious piece of international diplomacy, let alone one that
potentially interfered with the supposed God-given right of the USA to choose the government of any country on earth. There are flunkeys and flunkeys, and
we can assume that Washington would have preferred one less prone to drifting
off-message.
The fact is that Annan’s six-point plan for
political reconciliation occupied a diplomatic space carved out by just two
forces: the patriotic resistance of the Syrian masses themselves and the
steadfast refusal of both Russia and China to aid and abet intervention against
Syria. Without the interposition of the Chinese and Russian veto, Washington had every hope of keeping the diplomatic initiative and using the UN as a
springboard for aggression, just as happened over Libya. The United States, Britain, France and the other imperialist powers had no interest whatever in a
diplomatic solution which was not predicated on the ouster of the country’s incumbent president and the violation of
its sovereignty, and were aghast to see the diplomatic initiative wrested from
the West.
Right from the outset Washington and its allies did
everything possible to undermine the Annan Plan, geeing up their proxy fighters
to trample over the ceasefire arrangements and running their own ‘Friends of
Syria’ circus sooner than accept the lead given by Russia and China in the
Security Council and at Geneva. Whilst servile in his efforts to be “even-handed”
(between aggressor and victim, be it noted), Annan could not hide his growing
irritation with America’s combination of faint praise for “his” Plan and
active assistance to the rebellion on the ground. He blurted that “criticism
of the international community’s failure to negotiate a political solution has
too often focused on Russia” and further ruffled yankee feathers by
maintaining that “all these countries say they want a peaceful solution, but
they undertake individual and collective actions that undermine the very
meaning of Security Council resolutions”.
In his resignation speech he said he had embraced a
“sacred duty” but “did not receive all the support that the cause
deserved,” complaining that “continuous finger-pointing and
name-calling” at the UN Security Council had undermined his efforts.
As if in confirmation of his gloomy assessment, Western diplomats queued up to
tell Ban Ki-moon why he should not bother finding a replacement for Annan.
Whilst Russia, China, South Africa and Pakistan all see the urgent necessity
for a replacement to keep open the diplomatic track, according to Reuters on
8 August, “the Americans, council diplomats say, see little point in
replacing Annan. They had grown increasingly frustrated with the veteran
diplomat’s refusal to step aside… ‘The Americans gave up on the Security
Council route back in October after Russia’s first veto and have
unenthusiastically supported the European push in New York since then,’ one
council envoy said on condition of anonymity. ‘They also feel Annan took too
long to concede failure.’” The belated decision to shuffle former Algerian
diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi into the post is merely intended to give the Annan
Plan a quiet burial.
Washington wades deeper
into blood
With the West now virtually micromanaging the
rebellion themselves and burying diplomacy as fast as possible, the aggression
is naked and the democratic mask cast aside. At a recent council of war
convened by Hillary Clinton with the Turkish foreign minister, Clinton spoke
openly about imposing “no fly zones” over Syrian territory, the same
form of words which was used when NATO unleashed eight months of aerial
bombardment upon Libya. Clinton announced that “We have been closely
coordinating over the course of this conflict, but now we need to get into the
real details of such operational planning. It needs to be across both of our
governments.” To this end she announced the establishment of a working
group in Turkey to increase the involvement of the intelligence services and
armed forces of both countries, making Ankara’s pretensions to an independent
foreign policy look even shakier. To give a “humanitarian” sounding
gloss to US support for rebel base camps on Turkish territory, Clinton also
announced an extra $5.5 million assistance for Syrians displaced to Turkey. (America’s true sentiments regarding genuine refugee relief may be judged by the
treatment reserved for Mexicans who dare cross into the USA in search of work, escaping from the wreckage of a home economy trashed by NAFTA.)
Nor has Obama been content to let Clinton bag all
the warmongering ‘glory’, warning of “enormous consequences” should Syria choose to defend herself with the full range of her military options. Obama’s has
threatened military action should Damascus exercise her right to deploy her
defences as she sees fit – “a red line for us is if we start seeing a whole
bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized”. Lest anyone
should doubt the scale of the “enormous consequences” Obama dreams of, a
bevy of administration officials is on hand to colour in a scenario for Channel
4 News in which, in addition to massive aerial bombardment, “tens of
thousands of ground troops” would “go into Syria to secure chemical and
biological weapons sites following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s government.”(21
August, ‘Obama warning to Syria on chemical weapons’)
So it is that, maddened by its own economic crisis,
US imperialism appears hell bent on persisting in its fascistic designs against
the Syrian nation, even if that risks (a) suffering a humiliating rebuff from
the patriotic forces of Syria and from her allies, and (b) testing to
destruction the willingness of its fellow imperialists to remain in lockstep
with a military adventure so uncertain in outcome and so utterly devoid of any
legitimacy under international law. The issue is already producing ructions in France, with Sarkozy going head to head with his social democratic successor in the Elysee.
The timing of the US denunciation of the British Standard Chartered Bank for
allegedly circumventing US sanctions against Iran, a denunciation which wiped
millions off its share values, suggests interesting limits to the vaunted “special
relationship”. It is significant that that relationship, founded to a
degree on a community of interests (guns and oil), should start showing
fracture lines in the context of US war plans in the Middle East.
Patriotic resistance
versus sectarian provocations
Throughout all this, the resistance of the Syrian
nation persists. The Syrian armed forces, described by writer and US war veteran Colonel Doug Macgregor as the most competent and disciplined in the Arab world, have
been making life very uncomfortable for the rebels in Aleppo and elsewhere.
Unable to prevail on the battlefield, rebel forces
are taking revenge upon helpless civilians. In Jandar village near Homs it is reported that rebel fighters attacked a housing compound inhabited by workers
at a power company, killing 16 Syrian civilians, mostly Alawite and Christian
by faith. Japanese and Iranian workers in the same compound were reportedly
untouched. Another Alawite, a film director called Bassam Mohieddin, was
recently murdered near his home in the suburbs of Damascus. Such sectarian
outrages are consistent with sightings of many foreign fighters seen in Aleppo, including Al Qaeda affiliates.
Another target of sectarian hatred has been Shia
pilgrims from Iran, 48 of whom were kidnapped by ‘Free Syrian Army’ (FSA)
terrorists as their coach was on the way back to the airport. So outlandish are
rebel claims that the ‘pilgrims’ represented some kind of military
threat that in embarrassment an opposition source hastily briefed Al Jazeera,
to the effect that the gunmen were in reality “an extremist Islamist group
whose religious discourse is based on inciting hatred against Shias and
Alawites,” and supposedly “has no links with the mainstream FSA”
(emphasis added).. The source claimed that the terrorist’ video “was just a
cover-up for the fact that this operation was carried out in order to target
Iranian Shias.” In trying to salvage the reputation of the sectarian
butchers of the FSA, Al Jazeera only succeeds in confirming the foul
reactionary essence of the rebellion. Coming on top of the abduction of eleven
Lebanese pilgrims back in May, this outrage against Syria’s close neighbours
can only strengthen the resolve of their friends to stand by Syria in her hour of need.
The Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi pointed
out that Iran has no armed forces in Syria, none having been requested by the
Syrian government. After all, reasoned Vahidi, “Syria has a powerful
military and also enjoys popular support. The Syrians can handle the adventures
that foreigners have created in their country.” But the continuing refusal
of China and Russia to aid and abet the violation of Syrian sovereignty,
coupled with the neighbourly solidarity coming from Iran and the Lebanon,
should serve to stiffen the resolve of the Syrian nation – and give pause to
the warmongers in Washington, London, Tel Aviv and Paris. It can only
fill these circles with gloom to hear Saeed Jalili tell President Assad that Iran and Syria form one single “axis of resistance” that Teheran will not allow to be broken.
“Press freedom”
Meanwhile, whilst the warmongers routinely berate Damascus for its supposed suppression of democracy, their friends in the opposition death
squads are busy demonstrating their respect for the freedom of the press. On 10
August gunmen kidnapped three Syrian TV journalists and their driver who were
covering violence on the outskirts of Damascus: their whereabouts are still
unknown. A day later someone heading up a department of the Syrian news agency SANA was assassinated in Damascus. Not only are all such journalist deaths the inevitable
consequence of the civil war conditions imposed by Western meddling, but on
closer examination it turns out too that losses amongst Western journalists are
sometimes the direct responsibility of rebels as well. The chief
correspondent of Channel Four News, Alex Thomson, reported how he and his crew
were intentionally directed by rebels into a zone where their presence would be
misconstrued and invite a lethal response from security forces. Having narrowly
escaped with his life, Thomson was terse about the near-fatal propaganda trap
into which he had fallen. “My point is,” he blogged, “dead
journalists are bad for Damascus.” Then came the demise of French
journalist Gilles Jacquier. Whilst all the headlines were screaming that the
Syrian army was to blame, fellow journalist Georges Malbrunot pointed to insurrectionist
fire, a judgement backed up by France’s own intelligence services who concluded
that Jacquier had actually been killed by an 80mm mortar fired from rebel
lines.
Despite all the unsubstantiated and slanderous
opposition twitter “reports” and dodgy mobile phone rushes, endlessly churned
around and amplified by the imperialist media in lieu of news, the steadfast
resistance of President Assad, the secular coalition government over which he
presides and the vast mass of patriotic Syrians which stands behind them cannot
be hidden and presents a challenge to all those who identify themselves as
anti-imperialists. Support Syria in her hour of need, or forever hang your
heads in shame.
Stand with the Syrian
nation!
We congratulate the Syrian army for the strenuous
measures it has been undertaking in Aleppo and elsewhere against the armed
rebellion and its foreign auxiliaries. We applaud the steadfast refusal of both
Moscow and Beijing to aid and abet the West’s criminal adventure in Syria, and congratulate them on having decisively wrested the diplomatic initiative from
the warmongers, now leaving imperialism with no scrap of a fig leaf to
camouflage its warlike intentions.
Now that Iran’s envoy Saeed Jalili has declared
that Iran stands with her neighbour in an “axis of resistance” which
cannot be broken, let us do the same. Let British workers now stand shoulder to
shoulder with Syria in their own unbreakable “axis of resistance”. Let
us refuse to cooperate with the criminal aggression against Syria, whether by fighting directly, making or transporting arms, or assisting in the
broadcast of slander and lies demonising the Syrian leadership. Be assured that
victory for Syria will in turn weaken imperialism’s own axis of oppression,
a welcome setback not least for our own British imperialist ruling class.
Victory to Syria!
Victory to President Assad!
Death to imperialism!