Syrian Revolution Commentary and Analysis
By Michael Karadjis
In extraordinary developments, the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan have launched a joint air war, on Syrian territory, with the full support of the Syrian tyranny of Bashar al-Assad, on the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS).
There are plenty of good reasons to oppose any US war in any circumstances; and in this case, a war that is targeting only the Sunni-sectarian ISIS, yet sparing the viciously anti-Sunni Assad regime, indeed collaborating with the regime, which is responsible for a hundred times more massacre and destruction than ISIS, with which it has long collaborated in any case, is likely to boost support for ISIS among a large section of the poverty-stricken, dispossessed Sunni majority.
However, ISIS is so reviled that it was just possible a very well-targeted war on ISIS may have won some hearts and minds. Certainly, even…
View original post 4,232 more words
`Likewise, if last year’s proposed (in my view imaginary) US attack on the Assad regime had become reality, it would have been necessary to oppose the war without giving a skerrick of “defense” to the genocidal regime that had just gassed hundreds of sleeping children to death with sarin.’
That is how the neo-Stalinist StWC justified its demonstration in London arm in arm with Assadists. What would have been necessary for the revolution would have been not to oppose `the war’, which despite the empty protestations does mean defending the genocidal regime, but to take advantage of it. The forces of the National Democratic Revolution would have had to push on with its struggle with Assad, secure its lines and even make advances. Far from wating their time protesting with the degenerate Western left they would have been morally obliged to up their game. That does not however mean we have any illusions in Western imperialism as anything other than a self-serving, rapcacious social formation that is largely to blame for the mess in the Middle East in the first place. We would have said: Advance! But beware false friends. Their ultimate agenda is to restore a more compliant semi-colonial tyranny that isn’t quite so open in its barbarity. I’m afraid that this piece can join many others in the pantheon of neo-Stalinist double talk when it comes to Syria or indeed Ukraine.
Comment by David Ellis — September 25, 2014 @ 3:01 pm
“That is how the neo-Stalinist StWC justified its demonstration in London arm in arm with Assadists”. Really? I would have thought the part you quoted from me said the exact opposite of that. That in no circumstances can we have anything whatsoever to do with Assadists. But I think you know that. You’re simply saying that anyone who doesn’t agree with you, that US bombing must be supported, is part of the “neo-Stalinist pantheon.” That’s a somewhat narrow and self-righteous view, don’t you think David?
Comment by mkaradjis — September 28, 2014 @ 2:03 pm
David believes that military action is the primary means of extending the revolution, whether it be in the Ukraine or Syria. One would have thought that the Bolshevik experience in Poland in 1920 would have disabused him of this notion. The CCP experience from 1937-1949, whereby military and political strategies were carefully interwoven, is apparently unknown to him.
Comment by Richard Estes — September 29, 2014 @ 4:21 pm