by Simon Assaf
The barrage of bombs on the Syrian city of Homs is a desperate attempt by Bashar al-Assad’s regime to crush a ten-month long uprising against him
Assad is presenting this uprising as part of a plot sponsored by “foreign powers” to destroy a country that has resisted imperialism
Meanwhile Western forces and their Arab allies see an opportunity to hijack the revolution
The United Nations (UN) has tried to ratchet up the threat of foreign intervention and sanctions, although Russia and China vetoed this move
This is not because the UN sympathises with the suffering of ordinary people in Syria. It ignored repression in Western-friendly Bahrain
It is because Western leaders are following a strategy to isolate Iran and Lebanon’s Hizbollah
Syria has always played a contradictory role in relation to imperialism
The Assad regime hosted the Palestinian Hamas organisation (which has since abandoned the regime) and helped to arm Hizbollah’s resistance to Israel in southern Lebanon
But it has failed to challenge Israel’s occuptation of the Golan Heights, and supported US imperialism in its war on Iraq
Syria worked with the West to crush the Lebanese National Movement and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in the 1970s and 1980s
For decades many Syrians thought that any internal dissent could fatally weaken resistance to imperialism in the region
But the fall of Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak has removed this burden from their shoulders
It is difficult to gauge the extent of the crisis facing Assad’s rule through the cloud of secrecy surrounding it
But the regime is certainly weakened. Tensions within the army are growing, as are the numbers of defectors
Soldiers on home leave are refusing to return to their posts. Others have been executed for refusing to fire on civilians
Rescued
Some have formed the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which has pledged to protect neighbourhoods
Many in the opposition Syrian National Council argue that the revolution has failed to break the hold of the security forces and must be “rescued”. They advocate military intervention by Qatar or the US
But the future of the revolution lies with Syria’s working class
Some had hoped that the merchant families of Aleppo and Damascus would come over to the revolution. But this class was doing well under Assad’s neoliberal reforms, and has too much to lose
The illusions in this class evaporated as the nature of the uprising began to change
The Local Coordination Committees sought to win over Aleppo and Damascus, both vitally important cities
Their working class neighbourhoods had been quiet during the early months of the rebellion.
Palace
The suburbs of Damascus have now slipped out of regime control. Assad now faces armed rebels just a kilometre from his presidential palace.
In Aleppo the revolution that grew out of the universities has now caught hold of the city’s vast working class neighbourhoods
The regime strategy for such areas has been to invade, make mass arrests and terrorise the population, before moving on
This repression has not broken the back of the uprising. It has become an endless task of moving fewer and fewer loyal troops around the country. No sooner have security forces departed, the areas rise again
Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia was widely seen as a guarantor of Syria’s resistance to Western imperialism. Little has changed in that relationship, but Russia’s interests are no longer seen as “promoting socialism”
Now Russia is seen as a rival power, fighting with the US, Turkey, Britain and France for influence in the region
The disagreements in the UN are the expression of this struggle between competing global powers
The interests of the people of Syria lie in neither camp, but with the revolutionaries of Egypt, Tunisia and across the Arab world
On the anniversary of the 25 January revolution in Egypt, the Syrian revolution flag was carried through Tahrir Square
.For those who made Egypt’s revolution, support for Syria’s uprising remains unquestioned
Source: Socialist Worker- issue 2289
هيئة التنسيق الوطنية لقوى التغيير الديمقراطي 