Editorial: The change of rulers in Syria (2025)

Editorial from the January 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the brutal 50-year tyranny of the Assad dynasty collapsed last month, people danced in the streets in many parts of Syria as they contemplated an unprecedented new beginning. Joyous crowds looted the Presidential palace, while the titular head of the Ba’ath party dictatorship skulked off to Moscow.

The fall of the secular Arab nationalist dictatorship alters the balance of power between the various states in the region, with Turkey and the United States the winners and Iran and Russia the losers. The winners took quick advantage of the initial power vacuum. Turkey sent its proxies to attack the Kurdish nationalists who control a large part of Syria including the oilfields. Indeed, Turkey must have given the victorious Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamists the green light to march on Aleppo and then down to Damascus.

The United States benefits from a weakened Iran, the main threat to its current domination of the wider region and the oilfields and the trade routes out of it.

Israel, too, wasted no time in exploiting this tense, multiplayer Game of Thrones scenario, by bombing Syria’s navy to the bottom of the sea, as well as a host of other targets, and pressing forward in the Golan Heights. Their reasoning is obvious. One or other group is eventually going to take power in Syria. If it’s a group that hates Israel, they can hate Israel without missiles and a navy. In a world where relations between states is based on ‘might is right’, Israel wants another weak neighbour like Lebanon.

What was surprising was the rapidity with which the dictatorship collapsed. Its conscript army was reluctant to fight and the general population, suffering from increased economic hardship due to Western sanctions (the cruel way the West employs to undermine a dictatorship it doesn’t support) was ready to welcome a change of regime

HTS seems keen to solicit international recognition, which means making some concessions to capitalist liberal democracy, but it has been designated a terrorist organisation by the West, and there’s a $10m price on the head of its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, aka Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. Indeed this former al-Qaeda and ISIS fighter has publicly praised the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and faced home-turf protests that his Sharia-law regime in the province of Idlib was as bad as Assad’s. But he has also faced protests by Islamic hardliners who think he’s not fundamentalist enough.

The political direction of travel is not obvious at the time of writing, and any spark could set off civil war. For the sake of the people of Syria, newly released from a tyranny that looked eternal, we can only hope not. As for the long-term future, it would seem almost churlish to point out that, if the country doesn’t go into meltdown, they’ll get the wage-slavery and the limited political ‘rights’ that workers have in many other capitalist countries, while a new privileged Syrian ruling class exploiting them emerges. That, unfortunately, is the best-case scenario, in the absence of an imminent global socialist revolution. The worst-case scenario doesn’t bear thinking about.

Socialist Sonnet No. 174: The Unmasking of Tyranny (2024)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog 

The Unmasking of Tyranny

 The tyrant feels secure in his redoubt

Amidst his cabinet of sycophants,

Where all his cold calculations and rants

Are applauded. He has the power to flout

Even pretences of democracy.

None oppose him who’re generously treated,

The few who do are swiftly deleted,

Or at least they’re detained indefinitely.

Yet aquifers of resentment and fear,

Build pressure, underground initially,

While the surface seems superficially

Stable, a violent rupture’s always near.

The brute once felled, might circumstance recruit

Not a liberator, but another brute?

 D. A.

Islam: sigh of the oppressed (1987)

From the June 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The bloody conflicts of the Middle East have complex causes — economic, strategic, religious and racial. But there has been little attempt by the western media to try to understand the whole picture. Instead there is a tendency to attach simplistic labels — "extremists", “fanatics”, "terrorists"— But those labels tell us very little. They offer nothing in the way of explanation. Instead we are given partial pictures of the bits of the Middle Eastern conflict that it is assumed are of interest to the west — the humanitarian efforts of medical workers in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon; the naive attempts by Terry Waite to get western hostages released; the covert attempts by the American government to do deals with the Iranians.

But we are given very little that enables us to understand why Palestinians were under siege in refugee camps; why Israel invaded southern Lebanon; why armed groups are holding westerners hostage; why Islam is such a potent force throughout the Middle East; why Iran and Iraq are still engaged in a bloody war.

The Sword of Islam

Islam is the world's fastest growing religion. Five times a day 900 million Moslems turn towards Mecca and kneel down to pray. It is a religion closely related to both Christianity and Judaism. Indeed Mohammed is seen as the last and greatest in a line of prophets that includes Moses and Jesus. Until the resurgence of fundamentalist Islam it was a religion of no more political importance than any other. As Islamic countries developed economically there was increasingly a separation between religion and politics. Religion, as was the case in most developed countries. was something separate from business, trade and politics, an anachronism that fitted uneasily with the demands of modern capitalism, to be paid lip service to only on high days and holidays.

The Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 changed that. Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran by exploiting the thwarted aspirations of the poor who had seen Iran grow rich under the Shah but were excluded from a share in that wealth. The Shah's close ties with the west — especially America — meant that it was easy for the Ayatollah to shift the blame for the poverty of the Iranian people on to the effects of western involvement in Iran. According to Islam westerners are infidels; according to the Ayatollah America is the "great Satan". In place of the huge disparity between rich and poor and decadent western culture the Iranian people were offered a revolutionary Islamic programme that combined religion with politics, the establishment of an Islamic republic with the Ayatollah at the helm. All Iran's problems would be solved, it was claimed, if there was strict observance of Islamic law. The inevitable failure of the regime to deliver the social justice that had been promised could easily be blamed on the vestiges of American imperialism.

Iran-Iraq Bloodbath

In 1980, shortly after the Iranian revolution, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq took advantage of the turmoil in Iran to settle outstanding Iraqi territorial claims (as well as historic Arab grievances against Iraq's Persian neighbour). Iraq invaded Iran at a time when Iran was weakened by purges of the army, minority uprisings and internal chaos, with the aim of recovering land along the frontier as well as regaining control of the strategically important Shatt al-Arab waterway. But what is essentially a territorial conflict has been hugely complicated by longstanding racial and religious hostility between the two countries.

Iraq is controlled by the Ba'ath party under Saddam Hussein. Ba'athism is a secular pan-Arabist ideology which has very few supporters inside or outside Iraq. Hussein maintains his position through the activities of ruthless internal security services. And the opposition is hopelessly divided: Kurdish rebels pursuing their own nationalistic goals in the north; disaffected Shias who are more in sympathy with the Iranian "enemy" than with the Ba'athist regime but who nevertheless fear the consequences of an Iranian occupation.

Iraq's intention was to administer a swift, sharp blow to Iran. Almost seven years later it is now obvious that the Iraqi regime seriously miscalculated the strength of the Iranian resistance. For Iran has managed to turn it into a "holy war" and has made slow but inexorable advances into Iraqi territory.

Despite Iraqi weapons superiority, Iran has managed to fight back by sending thousands of young Iranian fighters to the front in wave after wave. And there seems to be no shortage of volunteers willing to die a martyr's death and thus be assured a place in heaven. Khomeini has successfully used the war and the revolution to justify each other. But he has also painted himself into a corner. Iran is now seriously weakened economically by the war. There is a strong case for ending it. However, the Iranian leadership has consistently sought to justify the bloodshed as being a necessary sacrifice in a fight to the death in a holy war. It would be difficult for the Ayatollah to now enter into negotiations to end the war without doing serious damage to his credibility as a religious and political leader.

The American Arms Connection

Another problem that the Iranian regime faces is access to weapons. Prior to the revolution America had been Iran's main arms supplier. Now Iran gets weapons from Israel (despite the regime's official anti-Israeli stance), South Korea and Taiwan. And, as has become apparent in recent months, there have also been covert arms deals between Iran and America in return for the release of western hostages held in Beirut.

For the American administration. Iran's need for weapons was a weakness which they hoped to exploit in order to open up a channel of communications with Hojatolislan Hashemi Rafsanjani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament and likely successor to the Ayatollah. He is seen by the west as a "moderate” with the potential to give the Americans a way back in to this economically and strategically important area. As we now know, American attempts to "normalise" relations with Iran went badly wrong. Not only has Reagan's credibility been badly damaged by the "Irangate" affair, but so too has that of the Iranian regime. If people in the west were scandalised at the hypocrisy of an American government which used emotional rhetoric about not doing deals with terrorists, then in Iran too there is a scandal in the making about the regime there doing deals with the "Great Satan". This has made it even less likely that the Iranians will risk further loss of face by negotiating a peace treaty with Iraq. In fact Khomeini has recently declared that his objective is to overthrow Hussein and the Ba'athist ruling party and also to capture Basra and the "holy" city of Karbala.

Flashpoint in the Lebanon

The seeds of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians are well known. The consequences of that conflict have been bitter and wide-ranging but in recent years have focussed increasingly on Lebanon. Many Palestinians, dispossessed of their land, entered the Lebanon as refugees. Their presence in the south of the country and Israel's allegations that they were using bases there to launch guerrilla attacks on Israeli settlements in northern Galilee provided the justification for the Israeli army to invade Lebanon in 1982 with the declared aim of forcing the Palestinians out of southern Lebanon.

When the Israeli army entered the region Shia Muslim villagers welcomed them as liberators. For when the Palestinians had arrived from Jordan, they had taken effective control of the area. PLO checkpoints had been set up, taxes imposed and land taken away from the local people. The Shias also feared that the presence of Palestinians would lead them into conflict with Israel — a conflict which they didn't want. At first Shia villages had taken the Palestinians in as refugees. But by the time the Israeli army arrived the Palestinians had alienated the villagers who felt as dispossessed as the Palestinians themselves.

The Israeli army drove the PLO north as far as Beirut where they were trapped and finally surrendered; 14,000 Palestinian fighters went into exile. The Israeli army stayed on with consequences for the whole region.

Shia Resistance

The presence of an Israeli army of occupation in southern Lebanon and the brutality that was meted out to Shia villagers quickly turned the initial welcome into hostility and hatred. The Israelis raided their villages and Shias were killed. For them occupation by the Palestinians had been replaced by occupation by the Israeli army who maintained order with an iron fist, fearful that if they left the Palestinians would move back in.

In Beirut too, the Shias were caught up in the war between Israel and the PLO. Before they went into exile the PLO was holed up in the western part of the city. The Israelis indiscriminately blew up apartment blocks, killing PLO fighters as well as Shia civilians who had stayed in the war-torn city for fear that if they did not their homes would be taken over by Palestinians displaced by the bombing of refugee camps.

Israel had hoped that by eliminating the PLO from Lebanon their allies, the Christian Phalangists, could be restored to power in Lebanon. In fact in September 1982 the Christian President-elect. Bashir Gemayel, was assassinated. The new pro-Phalangist government of Amin Gemayel could only hang on to power with the support of the American-led multi-national peace-keeping force. But it was too late for them to wield effective political power — by this time Lebanon had disintegrated into a series of armed factions battling it out for political control.

By the time that Israel was finally driven out of Lebanon at the beginning of 1985 Lebanon had become a disaster area. The Israeli ruling class had realised none of their objectives: Israel's northern border was, if anything, less secure than it had been prior to the invasion. The PLO had been driven into exile in Tunisia but the Israelis now had a new enemy in southern Lebanon — the Shias; the Christian Phalangists had only nominal power and Israel's alliance with them had been discredited as a result of the horrific massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatilla by Phalangist forces, which the Israelis had done nothing to prevent. But it has been the resistance by the Shia militia, Amal. which has had the most lasting effect.

In their fight against the Israeli army of occupation the Shias in Amal have shown the same willingness to sacrifice themselves as had the soldiers in the Iranian army. Their tenacity had driven back the Israelis, inflicting the most significant defeat they had ever known. Furthermore, by 1984 Amal had taken to the streets of Beirut and had entered the battle for power between the Moslems and the Christians. Amal won control of West Beirut.

The influence and example of Iran on the Shia resistance is obvious as teenage boys and young men throw themselves willingly into the bloody street fighting around the Green Line which separates Christian East Beirut from Moslem West Beirut.

But for some Amal was not religious enough. They joined Hizbollah, the 'Party of God", the most extreme of the Islamic sects, which is fighting for an Islamic republic along the lines of that in Iran. Not surprisingly Hizbollah receives massive funding from Iran. It consists of small semi-autonomous groups which use a variety of different names, each taking responsibility for their own kidnappings and murders. Their attitude towards the west and Israel is uncompromising. It was Hizbollah which was responsible for the suicide bomber who drove into the American marines base killing 240 Americans and prompting their withdrawal. Since then there has been no shortage of willing volunteers for similar missions — young men willing to die as martyrs for the Islamic cause, Hizbollah, unlike some of the other Islamic groups, is not nationalistic. Its aim is nothing short of the creation of a world Islamic republic.

Syrian involvement in Lebanon

Syria has for a long time been a key factor in the Middle East. The regime of President Hafez Assad has an interest in keeping Lebanon divided. That way, it is hoped, it can be turned into a Syrian puppet state. As a result the Syrian government has cynically exploited the divisions, offering support to first one side, then another. Syria first intervened in Lebanon in June 1976 to prevent a coalition between the Palestinians and left-wing Lebanese which would have enabled them to secure an outright victory in the civil war.

The PLO has been based in Beirut since the late 1960s and, for the last 20 years, Syria has tried to curb Palestinian aspirations for independence while at the same time giving them support in their war against Israel. The Assad regime fears a fully independent PLO for two reasons. Firstly, they are scared that such a development might provoke Israel into attacking Syria. Secondly, they fear that the PLO might make a separate peace with Israel that would leave the Syrians out in the cold. For the Syrian ruling class, the "Palestinian Question" is much too important to be left to the PLO alone.

Syria withdrew its forces from Beirut in June 1982 — after reaching a ceasefire agreement with the invading Israelis. From then until Syria's return to Lebanon this year Assad had tried to achieve Syrian objectives there by means of support for various of the armed groups. In particular Shia Muslim groups are given logistical support by Syrian intelligence and Amal was encouraged to subdue and take control of the Palestinian camps. It was their failure to achieve this objective which led to the return of the Syrian army this year.

The War of the Camps

The Palestinians in the refugee camps of south Lebanon were those who had been left behind when the PLO was forced into exile. They include many women, children and old people. As the Israelis withdrew and the civil war continued, they were caught in the crossfire between the rival militias fighting to secure control of the rubble that was once Beirut. Amal's control of the area around the camps and their long-standing resentment towards the Palestinians led to the camps being laid siege to. The inhabitants were forced to live in appalling conditions of squalor and starvation, risking being shot at if they left the camp in search of food. It was this worsening situation which led to the return of Syrian troops. The refugees in the camps had no option but to accept the protection of the Syrian army.

The Bloody Reality of the Middle East

It is necessary to describe the shifting alliances, political manoeuvrings and shady deals of the ruling class in the Middle Eastern countries for an understanding of the complex web of war and politics in that region. But to do so gives little insight into the millions of lives that have been blighted through war, poverty, insecurity and fear or into the future of children who are growing up in an atmosphere of racial and religious hatred and bloodlust. Each piece of the complex Middle East jigsaw represents millions of scarred lives.

• The Iran-Iraq War is still going on. Hundreds of thousands of lives have already been lost; millions of people have been maimed for the sake of a small stretch of strategically important water and the political credibility of the leaders of the two countries. For this, ordinary workers are being sent in wave after wave to the front as cannon fodder.
• The Israeli invasion of Lebanon achieved nothing even in terms of the objectives of the Israeli ruling class. As well as lives being lost on both sides, the experience of life under yet another army of occupation has driven still more people into the bloody arms of Islam. And Israel continues to launch raids on South Lebanese villages claiming they are "terrorist" strongholds. It is often civilians — women and children included — who are killed.
• The PLO, newly reunited under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, is likely to launch a new campaign in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Guerrilla attacks in those areas will be met by mass arrests, detentions and deportations of Palestinians and pre-emptive and retaliatory strikes by the Israeli air force across the Lebanese border.
• Lebanon continues to be torn apart by civil war. Palestinians in the refugee camps are protected for the moment by Syrian troops, but the Syrians have no control over Hizbollah which is not fighting for control of West Beirut but for a world Islamic republic.

It is tempting to see the Middle East as inhabited by religious fanatics willing to die for causes that we have no understanding of. let alone sympathy with. But fundamentalist Islam has grown out of the same roots as evangelical Christianity in the United States and similar reactionary religious movements elsewhere in the world — discontent and alienation. That so many young people are willing to die as martyrs in the hope that they will then have the key to paradise says something about the misery of their lives here on earth. For the very countries where militant Islam has the most adherents — Iran, Egypt. Lebanon — are the very same countries where the ostentatious wealth of the minority is on display in the cities while the vast majority live in grinding poverty. It is not difficult to understand the anger and resentment that is caused. Neither is it difficult to see how that wealth and opulence, and the decadence and corruption that often go with it. comes to be identified with "the west". It is often the multi-nationals who own and build the luxury hotels that the poverty-stricken workers who built them will never have the opportunity to enter; foreign companies that exploit them in factories, mines and oilfields. And the ruling class is quick to adopt western lifestyles. Little wonder then that the poor are attracted to a religion that portrays the west as "the Great Satan" — bleeding the workers of the Middle East, imposing "their" alien and decadent culture. Little wonder that the deceptively simple solution of the establishment of an Islamic republic which promises justice and a restoration of traditional values and codes of behaviour, should seem attractive. As Marx wrote:

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world and the soul of soulless circumstances. It is the opium of the people.

But Islam, unlike opium, will not numb the pain caused by years of bloodshed.

Janie Percy-Smith

Blogger's Note:

Janie Percy-Smith's article also included the following informational material reproduced below in separate, standalone boxes.

Egypt

Although the Islamic revolution in Iran was successful, there had been similar rumblings in Egypt in the 70s. Ever since then Islamic fundamentalism has been on the increase, especially among the young, who are disillusioned with a system that has failed them and who harbour a deep-seated resentment which goes back to Nasser's accession to power in Egypt. Moslem militants helped him to power but, in his bid to create a modern state, Nasser crushed Moslem militancy. That resentment was increased by Egypt's defeat in the 1967 war against Israel. Moslem leaders saw that defeat as a punishment for the country's desertion of Islam.

Nasser was succeeded by Anwar Sadat who trod a tight-rope between his aim of building a modern capitalist state with the help of western investment, and his image as a devout Moslem, largely put on to placate the Islamic militants. A few Egyptians got very rich, but at the same time people were leaving the countryside which was no longer able to support the rapidly expanding population. They entered the cities in search of waged work and were condemned to live in poverty and squalor alongside the wealth that their labour had created. Islam seemed to provide a means for understanding their situation.

In 1977 Sadat cut subsidies on basic foods in an attempt to deal with the country's worsening economic situation. There were riots and Sadat was forced to back down Instead he took a gamble — to sign the Camp David Agreement with Israel — the enemy of Islam and the cause of Egypt's humiliation in the 1967 war. Under the agreement Jerusalem, which contained the third most important Moslem shrine, was to remain in Israeli hands. In return for the agreement America promised increased aid. But this did little to appease the fundamentalists who protested at what they saw as a sellout. Sadat responded by cracking down on the Moslem Brotherhood — the main Islamic group. As a result Sadat was assassinated in 1981.

Since then there have been no concessions made to the fundamentalists by Sadat's successor, Mubarak. Their protests have been met by repression which has served only to harden their determination. Islamic self-rule as in Iran is increasingly seen as the solution to all their problems and some groups, at least, are willing to use any means at all to achieve that objective.

The PLO

In April this year, while the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were still under siege in the camps in Lebanon, the Palestinian National Council (the highest policy-making body for the 4-5 million Palestinians scattered around the world) met in Algiers. In recent years the PLO has been divided by internal dissension and leadership battles. But Yasser Arafat, leader of the mainstream Fatah movement, and a shrewd political operator, successfully reunited the PLO under his leadership. However, in order to secure his position he had to make concessions to hardliners like George Habash, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. These concessions include the distancing of the PLO from Egypt's President Mubarak, considered to be too soft on the Israelis, an escalation in the armed struggle against Israel and the demand that the PLO have the sole right to represent the Palestinian people at any future international peace conference.

These concessions will make the holding of such a conference unlikely. Israel will not agree to sit down at a negotiating table with the PLO. Relations with Jordan — one of the prime movers behind the proposed conference — are now strained because of the more militant stance adopted by the PLO. Both Jordan and Egypt have already agreed that the PLO will not be invited to an international conference unless it first endorses UN Security Council resolution 242 which implicitly recognises Israel's right to exist. The PLO is unlikely to do this.

Israel

The invasion of Lebanon by Israel was a disaster not only in military terms but also in political terms. The official justification for the invasion defence of Israel's northern borders was not considered sufficient by many Israelis. The national consensus on defence, which had existed since the founding of the state of Israel, was broken. For the first time there was a significant number of Israelis who were willing to accept the consequences of being conscientious objectors in a highly militaristic country. There were demonstrations against the war and some of the demonstrators were army officers appalled at what they had seen in Lebanon. The news of the barbaric massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps and Israel's connivance in it increased the revulsion of some sections of the population against the war

But, while some Israelis are at last asking questions about whether "secure borders" are really worth the cost in human lives, there are others who are motivated by a religious fanaticism that bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the Islamic fundamentalists. It is these right wing Jewish militants who regard Jewish settlement on the West Bank as necessary — whatever the cost. The Kach movement, led by Rabbi Meir Kahane, is a racist political movement which wants to expel all Arabs from the Jewish state. The right wing are a minority — but a minority that is increasingly attractive to many young Israelis disillusioned with the failure of the political solutions so far offered. Just as Islam offers its adherents certainty in place of ambiguity, simplicity instead of complexity, and a morally superior cause for which to fight, so too does right wing Judaism offer its adherents absolutes as well as a "Promised Land" of milk and honey instead of poverty and insecurity.

And that insecurity looks set to continue. For the last 30 months Israel has been ruled by a coalition government made up of the Labour Party under Shimon Peres, currently Foreign Minister, and the right wing Likud Party, under Yitzhak Shamir, currently Prime Minister. That coalition looks more and more fragile and is likely to break up over the question of an international Middle East peace conference as proposed by the United Nations. Peres is broadly in favour of participation in such a conference. Shamir is opposed. Like the population as a whole the government is divided on the question of “land without peace" or "peace without land". Those who defend the idea of a "Greater Israel" — including the right — are opposed to the idea that any of the land captured in 1967 — the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights — should be given back. The Palestinians are unlikely to agree to a solution which did not include at least this.

Tiny Tips (2023)

The Tiny Tips column from the November 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Princess Diana’s sweater featuring a black sheep among rows of white ones has sold for $1.14 million (£920,000) at an auction by Sotheby’s in New York. (tinyurl.com/398cssps)

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Over 330 million children worldwide living in extreme poverty. (tinyurl.com/5xxyysyr)

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Iranian women face 10 years in jail for inappropriate dress after ‘hijab bill’ approved. (tinyurl.com/bdhy6c52)

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Six out of 10 young South Africans are jobless and more than half of the country’s 60 million residents live in poverty, according to the World Bank. Furthermore, South Africa’s murder rate is one of the highest in the world, with around 25,000 victims per year. Since Apartheid, more than half a million people have met a violent death…’We live in the most unequal society in the world, and the divides are growing wider and wider’ says Notywala. ’It has become even more unequal since the ANC has been in power. Liberators? Don’t make me laugh!’ . (tinyurl.com/mr2mbff8)

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A Kurdish-dominated militia moved to solidify its control over resource-rich parts of eastern Syria on Thursday after suppressing an Arab tribal insurgency with US support. Fighting in the area has diminished after the Syrian Democratic Forces on Wednesday entered the Diban stronghold of a tribal leader who had challenged Kurdish control of the east without resistance. The centre of Syria’s oil and wheat production lie in the region. (tinyurl.com/ra2jxv37)

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Almost nine out of every ten Ukrainian draftees who enlisted in the army a year ago have either been killed or injured in combat, Ukrainian media reported on Friday citing a senior conscription officer in the Poltava Region. (tinyurl.com/yc3zbhyw)

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Zelensky also said in the interview, published on September 10, that anyone who is not supporting Ukraine is with Russia. ‘If you are not with Ukraine, you are with Russia, and if you are not with Russia, you are with Ukraine. And if partners do not help us, it means they will help Russia to win. That is it,’ he said. (tinyurl.com/5cr9yven)

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The TUC, writes Fred Leplat, has voted overwhelmingly to back Ukraine’s right to self-defence against Russia’s invasion…’No peace deal should be imposed on Ukraine. As long as the Ukrainians are prepared to fight, we should be in solidarity with them’. (tinyurl.com/ydcrtkap)

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Equality of opportunity is a phrase commonly used by our politicians, even for those too scared to talk about equality more generally. Yet for decades we’ve been moving in the wrong direction. A recent report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that where you are born in the UK, and the income and wealth of your family, now matter more than ever in defining life outcomes, with social mobility at its worst in more than 50 years. (tinyurl.com/4vjrtkct)

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Last year, the CEOs of the Big Three automakers received staggering pay packages, fuelling workers’ ongoing push for better wages and benefits. Ford’s Jim Farley took home around $21 million, Stellantis’ Carlos Tavares pocketed nearly $25 million and General Motors’ Mary Barra — the highest-paid of the group—brought in roughly $29 million. (tinyurl.com/y6s4fhup)

After Hezbollah, war with Iran? (2006)

From the September 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Was Israel’s attack on Hezbollah part of preparations for a coming US attack on Iran?

As we go to press, a serious and already escalating crisis can be expected to go into overdrive the instant the Iranian government, at the moment under a UN deadline to stop uranium enrichment by 31 August, tells the UN what it can do with its resolution.

Sanctions will no doubt be announced, but to what effect and with what response from Iran remains to be seen. Iran has already intimated it would spark a global oil price crisis in response to UN sanctions, and it is unclear whether China and Russia – each with vested oil interests in Iran – will go along with any sanctions. The worst-case scenario is that the US will express feigned frustration at Iran’s unwillingness to cooperate and use the rejected resolution as a chequered flag to attack Iran militarily.

It is against this backdrop that we can begin to set the present Middle East crisis in context, particularly the recent Israeli attack upon Lebanon. This latest act of Israeli aggression was not about capturing back the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped on 14 July but was rather, it would seem, about oil and the securing of other resources and about preparing for any wider conflict against Syria and Iran.

Planned in advance

There are numerous claims that the war in Lebanon had been planned in advance by Israel. Reporting from Tel Aviv for the San Francisco Chronicle (21 July), Matthew Kalman wrote: “More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to US and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail.”

Speaking to CNN, veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh said: “July was a pretext for a major offensive that had been in the works for a long time. Israel’s attack was going to be a model for the attack they really want to do. They really want to go after Iran.” (Guardian, 14 August).

In bombarding Lebanon and the Gaza strip (Gaza is still being bombed) the objective was to neutralise two opponents of Israel – and the US – Hezbollah and Hamas. Hezbollah’s fire power and missile capabilities needed to be tested. Israel was unsure of the number of rockets in the hands of Hezbollah (some said 20,000) or indeed their range. Now they know. The Israeli bombardment of key roads and bridges and passage to Syria can serve no other function than to cut of the weapons supply route to Hezbollah. By striking pre-emptively Israel seems to have planned to destroy as many Hezbollah weapons as possible in advance of any rocket attack on Israel resulting from any US-allied bombardment of Iran.

Oil and water

Widely unreported in the Western popular media and brought to a wider audience by Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian economics professor, on the Global Research website was the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline. This links the Caspian Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, and was opened one day before Hezbollah’s kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers that ostensibly started the recent war in Lebanon.The BTC pipeline is anticipated to carry a million barrels of oil a day to Western markets. In attendance at the inauguration ceremony were BP’s CEO Lord Browne and senior officials from the UK and USA, along with Israel’s Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Binyamin Ben Eliezer, accompanied by a delegation of top Israeli oil officials.

The BP-dominated pipeline skirts the Russian Federation, cutting through new pro-US states Georgia and Azerbaijan, countries allied with NATO and with a standing military pact with Israel. Israel already gets 20 percent of its oil from Azeri oil fields and this new pipeline is set to increase Israeli imports from the Caspian basin. Israel is now tipped to be a key player in the East Mediterranean oil transport protection racket.

Officially, the BTC pipeline will be channelling oil to Western markets. What is not admitted, however, is that some of this oil will be redirected towards Israel via a proposed underwater pipeline from Ceyhan in Turkey to the Israeli port of Ashkelon, and from there via a pipeline system to the Red Sea. The plan not only seems to serve Israeli oil consumption needs, but also plays a part in the US’s wider game of global-politics.

Oil channelled from Ashkelon to the Red Sea will then be re-exported from the Red Sea port of Eilat to Asian markets. This will help undermine the inter-Asian energy market eventually weakening the position of Russia in Central Asia and cutting off China from Central Asia’s oil reserves. In April of this year Ankara and Tel Aviv publicised their intention to create four pipelines which would bypass Syrian and Lebanese territory. As the Jerusalem Post (11 May) reported:

”Turkey and Israel are negotiating the construction of a multi-million-dollar energy and water project that will transport water, electricity, natural gas and oil by pipelines to Israel, with the oil to be sent onward from Israel to the Far East.”

The scheme further envisages a pipeline to carry water to Israel from upstream Anatolian rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Not only is this plan catered for in the recently-announced military pact between Israel and Ankara, its implementation will be devastating for Syria and Iraq. The execution of this joint Israeli-Turkish venture requires that land and sea routes between the Ceyhan border, through Syria and Lebanon, and to the Lebanese-Israeli border, be militarised.

Michel Chossudovsky asks in his article ‘The war on Lebanon and the battle for oil:’

“Is this not one of the hidden objectives of the war on Lebanon? Open up a space which enables Israel to control a vast territory extending from the Lebanese border through Syria to Turkey.”

Israel is keen to play a more dominant role in the Middle East and seeks to achieve a degree of economic autonomy by becoming a key player in oil politics. Its military programme is increasingly looking like being tailored to the region’s strategic oil pipelines and by the Western oil companies commanding the pipeline passages. Of course to punch above its weight it needs outside help, hence alliances with the US and more recently with Turkey and NATO.

Chossudovsky’s oft-cited piece “Triple Alliance”: The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon details the alliances and agreements which apparently underpin the war with Hezbollah.

“We are not dealing with a limited conflict between the Israeli Armed Forces and Hezbollah as conveyed by the Western media. The Lebanese War Theatre is part of a broader US military agenda, which encompasses a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean into the heartland of Central Asia. The war on Lebanon must be viewed as ‘a stage’ in this broader ‘military road map’.”

Significant, for Chossudovsky, is the Turkey-Israel alliance which involves military and intelligence sharing on Iraq, Iran and Syria, as well as joint military exercises and training.

Pepe Escobar, writing for Asia Times, stresses Israel’s water needs as partly behind the recent war in Lebanon. : “There’s also the all-important matter of the waters of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. Israel might as well prepare the terrain now for the eventual annexation of the Litani. Beyond Lebanon, Israel is mostly interested also in Syria. The motive: the all-important pipeline route from Kirkuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to Haifa. Enter Israel as a major player in Pipelineistan. So Israel wants to grab water (and territory) from Palestine, water (and territory) from Lebanon and oil from Iraq. This all has to do with the inevitable – the 21st-century energy wars.”( Link.)

Seeking greater independence and an enhanced role in the Middle East, the smell of profits all around, Israeli aggression now becomes more understandable.

Long war

Tel Aviv recently announced it was in for a “long war” – clearly not with Hezbollah. It has been stockpiling weapons for several years and was re-supplied throughout the war with Hezbollah by the US. On top of its arsenal of 200 nuclear warheads it has in excess of 500 bunker-busting bombs, only a few, by all accounts, used recently in Lebanon. Clearly Israel is preparing for a widening and intense conflict. Speaking of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: “We need to make clear to Syria and Iran that there is a choice: come into the international community and play by the same rules as the rest of us, or be confronted.”

Can this hypocritical statement be interpreted as anything other than a serious threat ofviolence to those Middle Eastern countriesthat would stand in the way of profit-hungry masters of war and their ambitions for global domination of the planet’s vital resources?

Seymour Hersh has repeatedly asserted that President Bush ordered all-out war against Iran shortly after his re-election in 2004. Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative, amongst other sources, sides with Hersh in arguing that vice-president Dick Cheney has drawn up a war plan for Iran inclusive of the possible use of nuclear weapons.

US Defence Secretary Don Rumsfeld has placed US forces on alert and Lieutenant-Colonel Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force acknowledges: “We’re now at the point where we are essentially on alert. We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes in half a day or less.”

Dan Plesch (Guardian, 8 August) suggests President Bush has at his disposal: “200 strategic bombers (B52-B1-B2- F117A) and US Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles. One B2 bomber dropped 80,500lb bombs on separate targets in 22 seconds in a test flight. Using just half the available force, 10,000 targets could be attacked almost simultaneously. This strike power alone is sufficient to destroy all major Iranian political, military, economic and transport capabilities.”

Dangerous times

We live at a dangerous stage of human history, in which the greatest crime a country can commit is to have more than its fair share of resources in a world in which the leading superpower is seeking full-spectrum dominance. Iran’s real and unforgivable crime – leaving aside its refusal to halt its uranium enrichment programme – is to have enviable oil and gas reserves, to control access to the Persian Gulf , which is a vital oil and gas transhipment route to Europe, Japan, and the rest of the world, and to have contemplated oil deals with a serious rival for US supremacy, China. With China expected to have oil demands similar to US levels within 20 years, already consuming vast resources of coal, iron and steel, not to mention almost 70 percent of the world’s cement supplies on a single dam project, the panic button has clearly been pressed.

As Socialists we are naturally fearful as we watch events unfold; fearful for our class, our fellows throughout the world and for whom we hold no ill feelings. As always, we refuse to take sides in conflict, seeing all war as rooted in the desire to make profit, and viewing workers, wherever they are, united as one class with the same basic needs and common interest, diametrically opposed to the interests of those who would urge them to kill each other.

 Before the slaughter begins again, we once more take the opportunity to declare our heartfelt solidarity with the workers of all countries, and their true common cause. We appeal to workers to organise consciously and politically and to use the power at their disposal to head off the threatening bloodshed, and secure the space we need in order to build a world of peace and stability. As ever, we appeal to the workers of all lands to join with us in campaigning for a system of society where there are no leaders, no classes, no states or governments, no borders, no force or coercion; a world where the earth’s natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled and where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all; a world of free access to the necessaries of life. A world without waste, or want, or war.

John Bissett

World View: New times for Syria? (2000)

From the July 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rarely are constitutions changed so quickly. On 10 June, the corpse of President Hafez al-Assad had hardly cooled when the powers that be in Syria changed the age at which ministers are allowed to hold office from 40 to 34, thus enabling his son Bashar to be named as perhaps the sole presidential candidate in a referendum to be held within 90 days.

As is the norm when a president dies, the condolences and tributes flow in. Whilst Israel newspaper Yedioth Abronoth could announce they were “not too sorry over Assad’s death . . . we are happy”, the Western line was that he had been “a great statesman”, and whilst Hafez al-Assad was remembered as “the Lion of Damascus”, the obstinate stance he maintained in the Middle East peace process and the missed opportunities he notched up over thirty years of autocratic rule were enough to earn himself the title “the Donkey of Damascus”.

All things considered, Hassad was no first-rate statesman. Never democratically elected, he came to power during a bloodless coup d’état in 1970, was the leader of a quasi-military dictatorship, with a corrupt Ba’athist political faction—religiously an Alawite minority elite who dominated all aspects of Syrian society—whilst overseeing a parlous command economy and a country noted for internal repression and scant civil rights.

In the perennial game of Middle Eastern politics, Hassad upset as many Arab states as he won friends, whilst siding with both superpowers as needs dictated. As well as Israel, neighbouring Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Turkey came to view Hassad’s Syria as a thorn in the side of Middle Eastern peace. His implacable position on the US brokered round of talks resulted in constant hold-ups with the present round of discussions having been on the back burner since January, with Syria demanding land at the foot of Golan and access to Lake Galilee. Whilst Israel might have contemplated such a move, it was widely viewed in Israel to be part of a wider Syrian game plan to get Israel to withdraw beyond the 1967 borders, and in this respect Israel could no more sell the idea of a Golan withdrawal to its people than Hassad could coerce the Alawite elite into accepting they had no hopes of retrieving this strategic gem.

What path Bashar heads down remains to be seen. Up until now he has held no official party post, though he has been delegated policy briefs such as Lebanon and the rooting out of high-ranking corruption. Whilst he can generally depend upon the support of the military, it is probable his anti-corruption drive against those in power—the chief culprits being those loyal to his father—will make him enemies. Studying ophthalmology in Britain before he was called back to Syria to begin his grooming for leadership, he is said to be “modest, considerate and intelligent”, keen on new technology and with ideas on reform and political change, such as more representative forms of government, that will undoubtedly sicken Syria’s old guard—an elite made up of the security services, the army and the Ba’athist party hierarchy.

And it remains to be seen just how much of his father’s baggage Bashar will inherit. Hafez was after all a staunch anti-zionist, still maintaining 35,000 troops in Lebanon—in which he held sway over the guerrilla movement Hizbullah—after the Israeli withdrawal, reluctant to concede Israel an inch, cautious about investing in new civil and military technology or to reform the country’s clannish hierarchy.

Bashar, though, comes with the full backing of British Foreign Minister Peter Hain—which perhaps amounts to little, bearing in mind Britain’s track record on giving its support to bloodstained dictators for 30 years—and with hopes in Washington that he can make some headway in the Middle East peace process and in time for the US Presidential elections in which the Clinton clique will be aiming to present some foreign policy success to US voters.

Waiting in the wings—though at a distance—is uncle Rifaat, younger brother to Hafez and the former vice-president; the same disgraced vice-president who once ordered the bombardment of the town of Hama (a Sunni Muslim Brotherhood haven) killing 40,000 inhabitants and who attempted a coup d’état when Hafez was ill in 1983. Presently in exile in France with an entourage of 30 bodyguards and threatened with arrest the moment he enters Syria with presidential ambitions, Rifaat has a fortune of $2—$4 billion, looks after 100 companies, controls two newspapers and is therefore more than capable of buying many strategically placed allies. Rifaat maintains that Bashar’s ascension to the throne of Syrian power will be “illegal” and many anticipate he will mount some challenge.

Safeguarding interests

The chances are, however, that Bashar will be the sole presidential candidate, if for no other reason than his father’s Alawite cronies will close ranks to ease his political ascendancy and safeguard their own interests. And whilst some equate his reformist ambitions with an Israeli/Syrian peace, it does seem unlikely that in the foreseeable future he will advocate the concessions that Middle Eastern peace is claimed to necessitate. If politics is difficult to predict in the West, then it is nigh on impossible to make any forecast as to how events will unfold in this part of the world, where the number of competing factions is only matched by the number of religions, where there are numerous strategic and mineral interests to be fought over and in which the West continue to manoeuvre their pawns as if playing on a gigantic chess board.

No leaders

Of course, as socialists, we side with no leaders or any Middle Eastern faction, taking no sides in their wars over territory; for we have the insight to see where disagreements over resources, such as oil and water, and artificial borders lead and in whose interests such conflicts are waged. Our thoughts lie with the exploited majority of the Middle East—the common folk—who continue to pay the price of power politics, and eagerly await the day when they have the chance, along with their counterparts the world over, to at last vote for themselves and, more, in their own interests, a world devoid of Assads, Saddams and Ayaltollahs and the misery their games bring.

John Bissett

By The Way (1919)

The By The Way Column from the September 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have for several months now been hearing with wearying monotony that the panacea for the country's ills is work, more work, and still more work. The fact that there are 350,000 demobbed soldiers who cannot find employment does not, it seems, trouble the master class, the idea clearly being to try and persuade those workers already engaged in production to work a little harder and, incidentally, of course, provide their masters with swollen profits. On the other hand, those who are clamouring for a job being unable to obtain one, will have some "incentive" to join up again in the "voluntary" army and "see the world and be paid for doing so." Beautiful idea, this !

While we workers are being urged by labour leaders and other capitalist hacks to increase production, and are daily treated to liberal doses of chatter about reconstruction, our masters see to it that they religiously abstain from such an undignified task themselves. Are we not termed workers, and they—well, just a simple word—shirkers ?

Take a cursory glance round and see the strenuous life they lead. Look how hard they work during the season. They attend the Eton and Harrow, the Oxford and Cambridge matches, visit the operas and the beauty spots of the world, and generally enjoy the good things of life. As we struggle in overcrowded trains and trams in a frantic endeavour to get work, as if this were the be-all and end-all of our existence, I read that—

  During Ascot week the London and South Western Railway ran 74 extra trains, saloon and first class only, at special fares ; and 63 extra trains of first and third class mixed, with ordinary first class fares and special third-class fares. —"Daily News," July 23rd, 1919.

After this off to the moors for a little shooting, and all at the very time when we are informed that without increased production we shall go headlong to ruin and disaster. What swank! Is it not time the workers awoke, rubbed their eyes, and proceeded to inaugurate a social system wherein all the physically fit adults contribute their quota of labour for the social good—where all engaged in healthy work and none were overworked ?

--0--

For four years we were enjoined to hate Germany and all things appertaining to it, at the same time being told that after hostilities had ceased some time must elapse before we could stretch out our hands or to have intercourse with our late "enemies." In a few words they were to be treated as moral lepers. How soon these things have been forgotten by those who uttered them is evidenced by the following extract: 

  It is reported that German bankers have been discussing with bankers over here the loan of £100,000,000—we to lend the money. . . We have no very great faith in the patriotism or unselfishness of cosmopolitan financiers ; and we certainly hope that Parliament will not let this loan slip through by default. Unfortunately, cosmopolitan finance is not without its strong supporters in this present House .of Commons, to say nothing of the House of Lords. " —"Reynolds's," August l0th, 1919.

No doubt the general upheaval caused by the war, coupled with the spreading of what is often termed Bolshevism, has tended to widen the outlook of some sections of the capitalist class, and in order to preserve their interests they are prepared to eat their own words. We now read of the allied and associated powers considering the wisdom of granting loans and once again entering into trade relations with the "enemy."

--0--

The glories of war. "Dr. Williams, tuberculosis officer for Flint and Denbigh, told the Flintshire Insurance Committee yesterday that the death-rate from consumption had increased enormously since the war, and we were back in the position of 25 or 30 years ago."—"Daily News," August 15th, 1919.

--0--

Not long since there was a great hullabaloo in connection with the trip of the R34 airship from England to the United States. It is strange indeed that one should read in the columns of a paper which, makes the claim that if you read it in that journal "it is so," such a belittling announcement as the following. Says Horatio Bottomley :

  It is not generally known that the R34, which has recently so distinguished itself in its cross-Atlantic flights, is an exact replica of one of the German super-Zeppelins captured by us. "—"John Bull," July 27th, 1919.

--0--

"Unto him that hath shall be given." While Tommy and Jack may think themselves lucky on receiving a few paltry pounds for "saving the country," and incidentally spending three or four years of their lives in muddy trenches or on the ocean waves, not to mention stopping bullets and shells, the master class see to it that the "big men" are well rewarded for services rendered. Now I might expatiate on so interesting a subject, but I forbear. I should be biassed. Rather, therefore, would I quote from a capitalist authority. So here you are:

  Parliament has been pleased to grant from £100,000 to £10,000 to eighteen leading soldiers and sailors. The nation does not wish to be niggardly to men who have served it so well; but we doubt whether there is anything like general satisfaction at this separation of the sheep and the goats. General Blank and Tommy Atkins both did their duty, and offered their lives and their energies to the nation. One, already receiving high pay, gets some thousands of pounds ; the other, receiving very low pay, gets twenty-nine shillings a week unemployment dole if he cannot find work, and nothing if he can."—"Reynolds's," August 8th, 1919. 

--0--

The lower cost of living "foretold" by G. H. Roberts, the Food Controller, and the Prime Minister is well illustrated by the following : 

"Official figures supplied by/the 'Labour Gazette' show that the cost of living this month has advanced 5 per cent. on the previous month, or 115 per cent. above the pre-war cost.
Just before the armistice (Nov. 1918)   120 per cent.
June, 1919         105    ""
July, 1919         110  ""
August, 1919                 115  "" 

The worker may well ask himself if his wages have increased in proportion.

--0--

In order to demonstrate to the Germans our intense dislike of militarism "a salute of 19 guns was fired on the river front of the Hohenzollern Bridge," so we were informed, on the occasion of the visit to headquarters of the Secretary for War, The Right Hon. Winston Churchill. It is to be hoped that they are now duly impressed by this pompous military reception.

--0--

The following item of news makes interesting reading in the light of what has been said and written, concerning England's late "chief enemy."

  An article has been published in the Moscow "Investia" showing (according to the Bolshevik wireless message) to what extent the "supposed German Republic has become an agent of the Entente, and affiliated to the House of Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Wilson and Co.
  "The chief objects of this honourable house," says the article, "is the struggle against Bolshevism." —Star, August a6th, 1919.

From which I gather that the much-hated "Hun" is useful if only to assist the Allies in their fight against the Bolsheviks.

--0--

We have heard during the late war quite a lot of talk about the blood of Frenchmen and Englishmen, which has been so freely shed, cementing the ties of friendship between the two nations. But now the question of the division of the spoils is coming to the fore the pretty prattle of yesterday vanishes into thin air. Concerning this interesting question a Paris newspaper ("Soir") comments thus on the question of Syria:

  The continuity of British territory from India to Cairo may be an advantage to our Ally, but we regret the animosity which it has evoked in this matter.—"Star, " Aug. 26th, 1919.

Further information with regard to the Paris newspaper and the French Economic Commission, just returned from Syria, tells us that "the interview, portions of which have been deleted by the censor, consists of a review of the economic position in Syria, and gives a very pessimistic impression of the outlook for French trade, industry, and finance in consequence, mainly, it is stated, of the activities of the British."

Again, later, we are told—

  Regarding the alleged incidents in Syria the "Homme Libre" states that for some time past friction with Great Britain has increased only too much.
  The "Liberté" says: British officials are convinced that our exclusion is necessary to the security of the British Indian Empire which to their mind, ought to stretch from Calcutta to the Cape by way of Cairo.
  At most they will consent to leave us, like a bone thrown to a dog, the narrow band of the Lebanon coast, just as in the eighteenth century they left us Pondicherry and Chandernazor. They have only forgotten one thing, and that is that then we were conquered and enemies, and to-day we are conquerors and Allies. —"Daily News," September 3rd, 1919.

All this reminds me of the old saw of our school-boy copy books—"When thieves fall out honest men come by their own." More information on this subject can be gathered from the secret treaties first published by Trotsky, the existence of which was then denied by our truthful Government, but which, owing to the occasional jars in the allied camp, have now become accepted facts.

--0--

Once again the attitude taken up by our party in opposing the gentry of the Labour Party (and all other anti-working class candidates) who batten and fatten on the political ignorance of the working class, is justified.

In connection with the contest just closed at Widnes, the following extract throws a flood of light on the worthless character of the ''labour" candidate.

  The Liberal Association of the Widnes Division met this evening, and having considered the political situation in reference to the election now pending; passed a resolution recommending the Liberal electors of the division ‘to vote for the Labour candidate and to support the candidature of Mr. Henderson in every possible way, and thus unite the progressive forces.’" —"Daily News," August 20th, 1919.

The workers of Widnes have been asked to vote for this nominee of capitalism, who was prepared to accept office in a capitalist ministry, went to Russia at the time of the collapse of Tsardom to do the bidding of a capitalist government, and at most is prepared, like any Liberal, to tinker with and endeavour to patch up the awful mess created by capitalist society. 

The folly and futility of such procedure has been exposed time and time again, and even Lloyd George himself has said that as soon as one sore is removed another breaks out. Study Socialism, and then vote fox it.

The Scout.

Material World: Proxy warring in Syria (2020)

The Material World Column from the April 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month’s Socialist Standard focused upon Turkey’s policy to grab a share of the Eastern Mediterranean gas fields. Turkey, once called the ‘sick man of Europe’, is endeavouring to confirm its role as a regional power. In the chaos of Syria, Turkey has been an active participant.

Recently there have been incidents where Turkish troops suffered numerous casualties caused by the Syrian government, which led to Turkey retaliating.

It was clear that working people in Syria started the uprising against the Assad regime because of the lack of freedom and social justice, the prevailing corruption and discrimination. Life for the majority was dismal with low incomes, a rising cost of living, homelessness, and unemployment, which all served to spark Syria’s ‘Arab Spring’. However, foreign powers and various Islamic jihadists became involved and changed the direction of the people’s uprising. The popular protests were diverted by neighbouring rulers into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Turkey with the support of the US and Western nations on one side with Assad’s government, Iran and Russia on the other. The Syrian civil war proceeded to develop into a series of sieges.

Way back at the beginning of Syria’s civil war, Turkish authorities facilitated the involvement of the Islamists by permitting the infiltration of jihadists into Syria via its borders. It also allowed commandeered oil that financed ISIS/ISIL operations to be transported through Turkey to be sold on the world market.

As the Syrian situation escalated it resulted in the mass movement of refugees, with Turkey hosting millions of displaced Syrians fleeing for safety. Turkey is also the route for refugees to reach Europe and it entered into an agreement with the EU to stem the flow of refugees. These desperate and vulnerable people have now become political pawns used by Turkey with Greece now ignoring international law and slamming the doors shut in the faces of refugees.

At first the Kurdish independence movement tried a third way in that it would side neither with the regime nor with the opposition. It would defend itself, but it would not wage war. Starting in mid-2012, various places in the Kurdish areas were one by one freed from Assad control. When Kurdish separatists created an autonomous region, Rojava, this was seen as a direct threat to the rule of Turkey and it led to a direct invasion of Syria to neutralise the PYG/PKK (Kurdish People’s Protection Units/Kurdistan Workers’ Party). It meant a military stand-off with the US who inserted its forces within the Kurds’ defences to assist the Kurds in combating the Islamist terrorists. This ended when Trump re-deployed US forces to secure Syria’s oil fields and it left Turkey along with Syrian mercenaries with a free rein to launch an assault against the Kurds who quickly then looked to the Syrian government and its Russian mercenaries for protection.

Added to this complex situation is the current Syrian regime’s advance to retake the last rebel-held territory in the country, the province of Idlib which is under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former al-Qaeda affiliate. Turkey is backing these anti-Assad rebels. This has brought Syria and Turkey into direct conflict and created a possible confrontation with Russia. If the Syrian government is victorious, there will be a new flight of refugees fleeing towards the safety of Turkey increasing the refugee burden Turkey already carries.

But Turkish military expansionism has not stopped the UK from selling Turkey weaponry. The UK has licensed sales of military equipment to Turkey worth more than £1bn since 2013, according to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, principally aircraft, helicopters, drones, grenades, small arms and ammunition. Leading armament manufacturers BAE Systems and TAI were awarded with an Open General Export Licence that makes the flow of weapons to Turkey easier. It wasn’t until October 2019 that the UK government halted new sales of weapons to Turkey while still honouring existing arms contracts.

In fact the world’s arms traders – the ‘merchants of death’ – are literally making a killing out of this war, with those in Turkey and Russia being able to test their weapons under battlefield conditions.

ALJO

Rear View: Can’t pay, can’t have (2019)

The Rear View Column from the November 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Can’t pay, can’t have

 ‘The [US] “Ending Homelessness Act”… would give an additional $13.27 billion over five years to create an estimated 400,000 affordable housing units. The funds would go to supportive housing, including homeless shelters and transitional housing, as well as housing vouchers for low-income families and local outreach services to homeless residents’ (huffpost.com, 3 October). Socialists have been saying for the past 115 years that there will never be a solution to the ‘problem’ of homelessness under capitalism. The mountain of evidence supporting our position is ever-growing. ‘Almost all two-bedroom homes available for rent across England, Scotland and Wales are too expensive for families on housing benefit… We contacted almost 200 landlords across the country. Half of them told us flat out that they would not let to anyone on benefits. Of the rest, most of them wanted further conditions fulfilled, including six months’ rent in advance, or a guarantor – conditions many of those facing homelessness would find it impossible to meet’ (huffingtonpost, 4 October). There is no legislative solution, brutal or otherwise: ‘Officials in Bakersfield just announced that they will be solving their homeless problem by throwing people in jail. Under the plan, homeless people would be rounded up under the ostensible charges of misdemeanor drug offenses or potential trespassing and thrown in a cage’ (activistpost, 4 October).

War & want

‘The official poverty measure is a very poor indicator of economic hardship in this country. In 2018, the Federal Poverty Level for a family of four in the mainland United States was $25,100 – – abysmally low standard of living. The problem of people living with poverty and struggling to make ends meet is far more widespread than the official poverty rate — measured with a 50-year old yardstick — would indicate… The truth is, millions more low-income people — defined in many official programs as those living at between one and two times the official poverty level — still hover at the edges of poverty, just one illness or divorce or job loss away from disaster’ (thehill.com, 19 September). The article in question is titled Millions of us are living in poverty – we need investments to raise the standard of living, but one endemic feature of capitalism will not be ended by diverting some funds, as the author suggests, from another – the mighty US war machine. Capitalism cannot be reformed so as to work in the interests of the class of wage and salary earners. It is a class system that can only work for those who own the means of production. As Warren Buffett said: ‘there’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.’ He is correct: the top 0.1 percent of American households hold the same amount of wealth as the bottom 90 percent and every 38 seconds a U.S. citizen dies of poverty and poverty-related social conditions.

Making a killing

  ‘This summer, a pair of Syrian brothers journeyed across Europe. Their story did not begin with a rubber dinghy afloat on the Aegean and a scramble for safety on to a Greek island: a well-worn route for many Syrian refugees fleeing a conflict that has lasted eight years and taken an estimated half a million lives. Instead, these brothers landed in Cannes; their transportation, a plane, then a pair of Ferraris;… Mohammad and Ali are the sons of Syria’s richest man, Rami Makhlouf, who also happens to be the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s cousin and childhood playmate. “There is a new class of wealthy war traders,” said Mazen, an Aleppo businessman from an old industrial family… These individuals have made fortunes picking clean the carcass of the country’s economy… Their dramatic rise to fortune has also helped the regime to survive by keeping trade going, oil flowing and helping to fund pro-regime militias, even as the country lies in ruins around them’ (ft.com, 3 October). We have to take from the capitalist class the means of producing wealth in the use of which they no longer take part, and use it as common property for the satisfaction of the needs of society. Until we do that, all our struggles will be in vain. If in the meantime one section of the capitalist class, the section which is primarily interested in exploiting us, asks us to defend its wealth against another section, act in accordance with the interests of our class, and let them fight their own battles. Join the struggle for socialism against them and their apologists and defenders.

Syria: Bashar Lives Up to His Name (2012)

From the April 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anybody can claim to be an opponent of the present Syrian government, but what kind of a regime is it proposed to establish in its place?

They have been calling it “the Arab Spring”. Various dictators around the Mediterranean have been overthrown, and successor regimes, more or less distinct from the ones that went before, have been installed. Tunisia’s dictator was thrown out first, to be followed by the dictators of Egypt, Libya, and the Yemen. Now there is a more or less open rebellion in Syria, aimed at overthrowing Bashar al-Assad, the local despot.

The lands stretching across from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf were among the earliest areas to develop what is often called “civilization” – that is, human beings living en masse in larger and larger cities. The Syrian city of Aleppo, for example, has been continuously inhabited for at least five thousand years, and Damascus probably for nearly as long. Several religions trace their origins to this part of the world. Fervent believers in the book of Genesis have often speculated that the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, the talkative serpent, and the extremely fertile tree which produced “knowledge” as well as apples were located somewhere in the vicinity. This move to city-dwelling was the result of the spread of the idea of private property, where the land and trading concerns, and anything else which produced wealth, belonged to a small upper class, while the rest of the population, virtually propertyless, worked for the benefit of this group of owners.

Separate states came into being, each ruled by a group of owners. Inevitably, violence became common as people tried to seize economic and political power for themselves within a state, and as each state tried to impose its power on neighbouring states. And so the human race began to know organized warfare. As societies based on private property became more common there was more strife and more violence, and the lands to the east of the Mediterranean became the scene of repeated conflicts. Surrounded by great land masses – Asia to the east, Africa to the south-west, and Europe to the north-west – invading forces came repeatedly from all directions; great armies murdered, looted, raped, and destroyed; empires rose and fell. The result was a great hotchpotch of peoples, each believing themselves to be racially different from those around them, and having different and hostile religious beliefs and loyalties.

Imperialist carve-up

A hundred years ago, this area was part of the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Turkey. Then came the First World War of 1914-18, which the allied powers claimed was to protect the rights of small nations, but which turned out in the end (as you might have expected) to be more about extending the rights of big nations – or the rulers of those nations, at any rate. The Ottoman Empire was on the losing side in that war, and so was carved up at the end of it for the benefit of the victors. The lands between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf were shared between two of the victorious Allies, Britain and France. Britain got (for example) a stretch of territory which it divided up into three separate states, Iraq, Transjordan, and Palestine; and France divided up its share into Syria and Lebanon – the latter was kept separate because it seemed it might well have a Catholic majority (like France).

After the share-out at the Treaty of Versailles, both Britain and France had to deal with rebellions in the newly acquired territories. Iraqis who objected to the British take-over were bombed into submission. One Arthur Harris was a young squadron-leader there.  He had found how effective (and risk-free) it was to bomb obnoxious tribesmen on the North-West Frontier in India, and now he did the same in Iraq, helped by the fact that the rebellious Iraqis had no aircraft or anti-aircraft defences. The young airman is supposed to have said, “the only thing the Arab understands is the heavy hand.”

Bomber Harris was able to put these lessons to good use in the Second World War when he organized the carpet bombing of working-class areas in German cities – that was where the factory workers lived; the houses were smaller and closer together, and of course bombing richer areas would not kill or injure so many of the people who actually did the work. The French had the same problems in Syria as the British did in Iraq; Syria saw a widespread revolt in 1925-7. Fortunately the French were able to bring in troops with much better modern armaments against the lightly armed Syrians, so they were able to establish their superiority.

Coups and counter-coups

Then came the Second World War, which revealed that both Britain and France had now fallen into the ranks of second-class powers, and neither was able to keep up its colonial empire. Iraq became independent, and so did Syria. The prize of forming the government of Syria and ruling it on behalf of its native upper class was vigorously contested. Coups and counter-coups were constant: in the ten years between 1946 and 1956 there were twenty different governments and four newly-drafted constitutions. The same story of violent take-overs continued, even including a “union” with Egypt in 1958, which fell apart in 1961. But such regular upheavals are not good for business; and in 1963 the so-called “Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party” took over. It was not Socialist at all, of course; it had a programme under which the state would run industries and would enforce stability without bothering too much about free speech and so forth.

For a time the fighting for office continued, but now the hostilities were between factions within the Ba’ath Party. A new group seized power in 1966. One of the successful plotters, Hafez al-Assad, became Minister for Defence. After four years and a final capture of authority: Hafez al-Assad became President, and, in fact, dictator. (The two leading members of the former government went to jail.) Hafez was an Alawite, that is, a member of a Shia Muslim sect, and before long Alawites were put in positions of control in the army and in every government body. This was particularly necessary, because most Muslims in Syria are Sunnis, and many Sunnis regard the Alawites as heretics. Any opposition was dealt with as every dictator deals with it: imprisonment, torture, death. Hafez is accused of carrying out thousands of extra-judicial killings. An attempted assassination in 1980 failed: the machine-gun missed. Within hours, 1,200 Islamists held in jail had been slaughtered in their cells at Tadmor Prison by armed groups led by Rifaat al-Assad, the dictator’s brother. But after the confusion and uncertainty of the previous decades most of the Syrian upper class was happy to go along with the new regime. As for the ordinary Syrians, with Hafez, now in control of the newspapers, the radio, and every other means of information, was able to create a nationwide feeling that stability was better than the disorder and constant shifts of the past and began building up his own personality cult. As the Russians had been propagandized into supporting Stalin and the Germans brainwashed into supporting Hitler, so the Syrians were now conned into supporting Hafez.

There was still trouble from some malcontents, especially from those who fancied becoming the rulers themselves. In 1982 there was an insurrection in the city of Hama led by the Muslim Brotherhood who wanted to establish a stricter form of Islam. Hafez ordered the troops in – picked formations commanded by his brother Rifaat – who bombarded Hama, destroying much of the old city and killing (estimates differ) between 15,000 and 40,000 Syrians, nearly all civilians. Rifaat, it seems, later boasted that he had killed 38,000 people in Hama. Two years afterwards Rifaat tried a coup of his own, aiming to replace his brother; it failed, and Rifaat now lives in exile in London. But being the brother of the dictator he had been able to assemble extensive business interests, and he now lives in some comfort in a ten million pound mansion off Park Lane. If you kill one person you will probably end up in jail; but killing thousands seems to have fewer repercussions.

Hereditary despot

Like many dictators, Hafez wanted to be the boss even after he was dead. He had several sons, and the eldest, Bassel, was groomed to succeed him. His second son, Bashar, was allowed to go his own way, and he became a doctor. In 1992 he came to England and studied to become an ophthalmologist – an eye specialist. Then in 1994 Bassel was killed in a car crash. Without asking the Syrians or (apparently) even his own family Hafez now decided that Bashar would have to be the next strong man. And when Hafez died in 2000 the tame Syrian parliament that had previously passed an Act to say the President had to be at least 40 now hurriedly passed another Act to say that he had to be at least 34, which, by great good luck, was exactly Bashar’s age. So Bashar was promoted to field-marshal, which is a rank not many eye doctors have reached, and took over as dictator. There was a “vote”, of course, in which Bashar was the only candidate, and it was announced that 97.3 percent of the Syrians had voted for him. (An improbable result: in our discordant society it is unlikely that 97 percent of voters would agree what day of the week it was). He ruled for seven years, and then another “vote” was held.  This time the officials in charge thought it would be a good idea to claim an even better result, so they said that 97.6 percent had supported the dictator.

Bashar has proved to be a chip off the old block: dissent is dealt with by torture, imprisonment, and death. When early in 2011 a big demonstration was held against his rule, the demonstrators were chased away by the security forces. The regime announced first that there had been no demonstration, and second that there had been a demonstration in favour of Bashar. Protests continued in many towns and cities across the country; soldiers began deserting and taking their guns with them.  Now Syria appears to be on the brink of civil war, with the army moving in to kill any who oppose Bashar and bringing up artillery to pound any supposedly disloyal areas. Districts regained by government forces are decorated with corpses, either with their throats cut or decapitated. Some estimates of the dead put the total as high as 8,000. Many other countries have decided that Bashar cannot survive and regularly issue statements deploring Bashar’s excesses, though Russia and China, in both of which democracy is a rude word, cannot apparently see anything wrong with Bashar’s dictatorship. It is curious to hear the American government, rulers of a country which killed at least 100,000 Iraqis (many think the death toll was at least half a million, or even a million) claiming how shocked they are by a death toll so much smaller than the one they have achieved.

Some people in Syria still support Bashar. They include Alawites, since the privileged position they have held since Hafez took power may provoke revenge if Bashar falls; the Druze, an unorthodox Muslim sect; and the Christians of half a dozen different denominations. All of them fear that if Bashar is succeeded by a Sunni government extreme Islamists may persecute minorities. And, of course, Bashar’s close friends and relatives back him to the hilt.  Bashar’s wife is called Asma. Her parents were Syrians living in London, and she was brought up in England.  And while Bashar’s trusted soldiers and militias polish up new ways to torture and murder the regime’s opponents, Asma has been ordering luxury goods from Paris, including a £10,000 consignment of chandeliers and silver candlesticks.  Why shouldn’t Bashar’s inner circle champion him?

The opponents of Bashar are from every point in the political spectrum, including some who, if they gained power, might well establish a regime compared with which Bashar would look like Little Bo Peep. Those who opposed Stalin included loathsome dictators like Hitler; those who opposed Hitler included loathsome dictators like Stalin. Anybody can claim, probably with absolute sincerity, to be a zealous opponent of the present Syrian Government; but a much more significant question is this – what kind of a regime is it proposed to establish in place of Bashar’s? There are those who think that if Bashar was killed out of hand like Gaddafi of Libya, or hanged like Saddam Hussein of Iraq, or put on trial like Mubarak of Egypt, or chased away into exile like Ben Ali of Tunisia, then democracy with free speech and free elections would miraculously appear fully formed. That may, to say the least, be over-optimistic. No one knows exactly what the future holds; but it is certain that at the present time anybody or any group replacing the present rulers of Syria will continue to run Syrian capitalism for the benefit of the Syrian capitalists, whatever cosmetic reforms they may think it necessary to make.

Alwyn Edgar