The stark choice between a fascist or an imperialist course in Syria should be discarded for a third and better course.
AN EXCELLENT COMMENT
Joseph Massad
Al-Jazeera
"....Like Saddam, the Assad dynastic regime has been an ally of the Saudi theocracy and its junior Gulf partners, and an agent of US imperialism in the region, especially in its major intervention in Lebanon in 1976 at the invitation of the Christian fascist forces who called the Syrians in to help them crush the leftist revolutionary movement in the country, including the PLO. The role played by the Syrian regime (in conjunction with Israeli advisors) in the horrific Tel al-Za'tar massacre in 1976, when thousands of Palestinians were slaughtered at the hands of fascist Maronite forces abetted by the Syrian army, is now the stuff of history.
Moreover, the Assad regime again proved most helpful to its US and Saudi sponsors when it joined the imperial coalition to invade the Gulf in 1990-91 under the US flag. On the Zionist front, the Syrian regime proved as pliant as the Jordanian one, ensuring the security of Israel's "borders", which Israel conquered and established inside Syria's and Jordan's own territories. Internally, the regime has used and continues to use draconian measures to suppress, repress, and oppress the Syrian people mercilessly (though still not to the extent of Saddamist repression, which no Arab regime has ever reached). By calling for imperial military intervention, the Syrian exile opposition invokes, without originality, the very same puerile yet insidious choices presented to anti-imperialist and pro-democracy Arabs and non-Arabs by the erstwhile bankrupt Iraqi and Libyan exile oppositions, namely, that there is only one choice to be made: for or against Assad.
These are false choices not only ideologically but also, and more importantly, historically. The monumental loss of Iraqi lives and the destruction of their country as well as the ongoing destruction and killings in Libya belie the Syrian exile opposition's call for imperial invasion of Syria as the way to peace, democracy and to stop the ongoing carnage in the country. One wonders why the Bahraini and Yemeni oppositions have never called for an imperial invasion of their countries to liberate them from their equally despotic rulers. Nor have West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, languishing under the despotic boots of the Israeli occupation army for almost half a century, ever demanded an imperial invasion to liberate them from Israel. In fact, when the Palestinians deigned to request UN peace forces to protect them from the deadly power of the Israeli occupation army, the US balked in utter horror and disgust.
Those cowed into silence by this old and tired rhetoric of the Iraqi, Libyan, and now Syrian exile oppositions should reconsider the imperial pedigree of the stark choices they present. Anyone acquainted with the history of American imperialism in the Arab world and with the record of local despotism knows that these choices are designed to block a third and central choice.
Unlike Fred Halliday and his pro-imperialist Arab and non-Arab acolytes, we need never choose between imperialism and fascism; we must unequivocally opt for the third choice, which has proven its efficacy historically and is much less costly no matter the sacrifices it requires: fighting against domestic despotism and US imperialism simultaneously (and the two have been in most cases one and the same force), and supporting home-grown struggles for democratic transformation and social justice that are not financed and controlled by the oil tyrannies of the Gulf and their US imperial master."
AN EXCELLENT COMMENT
Joseph Massad
Al-Jazeera
"....Like Saddam, the Assad dynastic regime has been an ally of the Saudi theocracy and its junior Gulf partners, and an agent of US imperialism in the region, especially in its major intervention in Lebanon in 1976 at the invitation of the Christian fascist forces who called the Syrians in to help them crush the leftist revolutionary movement in the country, including the PLO. The role played by the Syrian regime (in conjunction with Israeli advisors) in the horrific Tel al-Za'tar massacre in 1976, when thousands of Palestinians were slaughtered at the hands of fascist Maronite forces abetted by the Syrian army, is now the stuff of history.
Moreover, the Assad regime again proved most helpful to its US and Saudi sponsors when it joined the imperial coalition to invade the Gulf in 1990-91 under the US flag. On the Zionist front, the Syrian regime proved as pliant as the Jordanian one, ensuring the security of Israel's "borders", which Israel conquered and established inside Syria's and Jordan's own territories. Internally, the regime has used and continues to use draconian measures to suppress, repress, and oppress the Syrian people mercilessly (though still not to the extent of Saddamist repression, which no Arab regime has ever reached). By calling for imperial military intervention, the Syrian exile opposition invokes, without originality, the very same puerile yet insidious choices presented to anti-imperialist and pro-democracy Arabs and non-Arabs by the erstwhile bankrupt Iraqi and Libyan exile oppositions, namely, that there is only one choice to be made: for or against Assad.
These are false choices not only ideologically but also, and more importantly, historically. The monumental loss of Iraqi lives and the destruction of their country as well as the ongoing destruction and killings in Libya belie the Syrian exile opposition's call for imperial invasion of Syria as the way to peace, democracy and to stop the ongoing carnage in the country. One wonders why the Bahraini and Yemeni oppositions have never called for an imperial invasion of their countries to liberate them from their equally despotic rulers. Nor have West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, languishing under the despotic boots of the Israeli occupation army for almost half a century, ever demanded an imperial invasion to liberate them from Israel. In fact, when the Palestinians deigned to request UN peace forces to protect them from the deadly power of the Israeli occupation army, the US balked in utter horror and disgust.
Those cowed into silence by this old and tired rhetoric of the Iraqi, Libyan, and now Syrian exile oppositions should reconsider the imperial pedigree of the stark choices they present. Anyone acquainted with the history of American imperialism in the Arab world and with the record of local despotism knows that these choices are designed to block a third and central choice.
Unlike Fred Halliday and his pro-imperialist Arab and non-Arab acolytes, we need never choose between imperialism and fascism; we must unequivocally opt for the third choice, which has proven its efficacy historically and is much less costly no matter the sacrifices it requires: fighting against domestic despotism and US imperialism simultaneously (and the two have been in most cases one and the same force), and supporting home-grown struggles for democratic transformation and social justice that are not financed and controlled by the oil tyrannies of the Gulf and their US imperial master."
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