U.S. rulers are hypocritically decrying the slaughter raging across Syria while they seek to intervene there in the guise of “humanitarianism.” But Syria’s regime has a history of savagery that stretches back decades, and it never seemed to bother Washington before. Now that their Russian rivals are backing Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. rulers suddenly care. Why? They see an opportunity to strike a blow against their Russian adversaries in this oil-rich region.
There’s a general consensus among U.S. imperialists that ousting the Syrian ruler would deal a heavy blow to his allies in the Iranian ruling class and their regional ambitions. This would help safeguard both Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the crown jewels of U.S. bosses’ energy-based empire.
But U.S. ruling-class politicians, think tanks and media disagree on how best to profit from Assad’s bloodshed. Their options include “diplomacy” (which, after it failed, could justify an invasion), arming the opposition, or direct, Libya-like military action (another “humanitarian” invasion).
While we can’t predict exactly what Obama will do, any of these scenarios will prove deadly for workers. Thousands of our class brothers and sisters in that region will be killed, not to mention U.S. GI’s. U.S. workers will be attacked with more cutbacks to pay for yet another war. Muslim workers in the U.S. will inevitably be targeted with racist attacks.
An attack on Syria also has strong potential to widen U.S. oil wars to global dimensions, given the sharpening conflict with Russia as a Syrian ally.
U.S.- and Saudi-led war-making interests recently sent former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on a deliberately doomed UN-Arab League mission to Syria. Royal Military College professor Houchang Hassan-Yari said, “I’m not really sure if Annan is going to be successful.... [T]he UN Security Council is paralyzed with Russia and China using their vetoes to block a resolution condemning the regime. If new attempts to reach a resolution fail and the Syrian government continues its violent crackdown, there may be no other avenue to go down except military” (Canadian CTV, 3/10/12).
How Far to Go for Regime Change?
A “hit now” faction in Congress is already looking down this avenue. On March 6, Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham urged: “The United States should help organize an international effort to protect civilian population centers in Syria through airstrikes on Assad’s forces....This will first require the United States and our partners to suppress the Syrian regime’s air defenses in at least part of the country.”
But Stratfor, an influential global intelligence group, counsels waiting: “The situation in Syria — whether through the loss of territory, massive defections from the regime or the loss of Russian support — will have to change before Washington implements any of the plans it has prepared.” Stratfor’s analysts gained increased credibility of late when a cyber-hacking attack revealed that Exxon Mobil and the Pentagon are among the firm’s major clients.
A more urgent recommendation for U.S.-driven regime change comes from the Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Jonathan Tepperman, managing editor of CFR’s Foreign Affairs magazine, wrote in the New York Times (3/8), “The only sure way to quickly stop the killing and replace the Assad regime with something better would be to do what few have been willing to advocate so far: start a serious military operation to topple the government.”
Syrian Invasion No Piece of Cake
Tepperman leaves unsaid the vast anti-Russian mobilization that would be required by a “serious” operation. The Kremlin supplies sophisticated fighter planes and anti-aircraft batteries to Syria. It maintains a naval base at Tartus on its Mediterranean shore, facing Israel. Invaders also would have to contend with a Syrian army of 330,000.
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s newly re-elected strongman, bluntly promises retaliation if U.S.-led Syrian initiatives run counter to his plans to restore the Russian empire. “No one,” says Putin, “should be allowed to employ the Libyan scenario in Syria...I hope very much that the United States and other countries will...not pursue the use of power in Syria without UN Security Council sanctions.”
Putin refers specifically to U.S. economic grabs in the global imperialists’ sharpening rivalry: “It appears that with the Arab Spring countries, as with Iraq, Russian companies are losing their decades-long positions in local commercial markets and are being deprived of large commercial contracts. The niches thus vacated are being filled by the economic operatives of the states that had a hand in the change of the ruling regime” (RIA Novosti, 2/27/12).
Back in the U.S., war hawk Paul Wolfowitz — a primary architect of Bush, Jr.’s attempt to run the Iraq slaughter on the cheap — claimed that arming Assad’s opponents could work: “Strengthening the Syrian opposition is not an obstacle to a peaceful end to this conflict. To the contrary, it may be the only way to achieve one” (Wall Street Journal, 3/6/12).
Another Blowback?
But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had reservations: “We really don’t know who it is that would be armed. Are we supporting Al Qaeda in Syria? Hamas is now supporting the opposition. Are we supporting Hamas in Syria?” (CBS News, 2/26/2012). She pointed out that both Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri and the leaders of the Islamic resistance movement in Palestine expressed their support for the Syrian rebels. Clinton and other U.S. ruling class operatives remember that arming anti-Soviet “insurgents” in Afghanistan led to the emergence of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda and resulted in a Taliban takeover.
But regardless of their differences, all U.S. presidential candidates (with the exception of the unelectable Ron Paul) are backing one form or another of anti-Syrian war-making. All of them are ready and willing to escalate tensions with Iran and Russia en route to a broader war. Our class cannot support any of these capitalist factions. We must strive in all of our mass organizations to expose all the bosses, both liberal and right-wingers, whose wars kill millions of workers. We must link the class struggle in all areas to the need to eliminate the entire capitalist class.
Only communist revolution can end imperialist war, mass unemployment, racism, sexism and the horrors that the profit system visits on our class. That is what PLP fights for. Join our Party!