Syria, geopolitics and the left

First published in Spanish at publico.es on December 12. Translated by Art Young for LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal. Subtitles and footnotes added by translator.

I am going to be very harsh: there is something morally nauseating about Western hypocrisy, which has always killed civilians or let them be killed everywhere in the name of democracy and human rights. But there is something no less repugnant in the hypocrisy of the self-styled “anti-imperialist” left, which effectively manages to smother the dreams of liberation of many ordinary people under a mountain of pontifical studies looking on “balance of forces”, “capitalist interests” and “foreign manipulation”. Curiously enough, these studies always present the United States or one of the “pawns” it has manufactured in CIA laboratories as the central actor. These left analysts always know everything, no matter what is happening or where. They apply their 20th century schemas to an increasingly complex and elusive reality, and scorn all those who are “deceived” into struggling and dying by Evil, which only ever has one name and one goal.

Samuel Johnson said “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels”. The same could be said of “geopolitics”: it too is the refuge of the lazy, the fanatics and, in general, the conspiracy theorists. To be sure, it is an unfortunate fact that no one can avoid geopolitics; it is impossible to understand anything about what is happening in the world today without meticulously analysing the situation on the ground. But the hypocritical and sectarian nature of certain leftists’ geopolitical obsession is revealed by the fact that the more they focus their attention on the Great Game or World Chess, the more factors they ignore. One after the other, they proceed to ignore any factor that does not fit their monotheistic version of history; the most important of which are the very peoples in whose name they claim to be acting. When something happens somewhere in the world that they cannot fit into their schemas (be it Maidan in Ukraine or the “Arab revolutions”), the first thing that they do is abandon the most inconvenient actor: the people. They do this with a dehumanising contempt whose nihilism competes with that of the European far right. Implicitly or explicitly, this contempt has entailed supporting [Russian president Vladimir] Putin in Ukraine and [former president] Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

The role and bias of this geopolitical obsession becomes very clear as soon as one compares, for example, their different attitudes toward Palestine and Syria. When it comes to Palestine, Palestinians have the right to fight the occupation by any means necessary; but the same does not apply to Syrians who are fighting tyranny. When it comes to Palestine, the left invokes human rights, international law and even the United Nations with its international courts; the rest of the time it disdainfully denounces these same norms and institutions. On the other hand, when it comes to Syria, the left has justified bombings and massacres in the name of the same “war on terrorism” it rejects elsewhere, and rightly so. When it comes to Palestine these leftists do not raise the issues of Hamas’s Islamism or the intervention of the Iranian theocracy; instead they speak of Israel’s crimes and the Palestinians’ right to sovereignty. When it comes to Syria, on the other hand, all the talk has been and remains focused on HTS’s Islamism, Turkey’s long hand, or US interests, and never the crimes of the regime or those of its international allies (Russia, Iran, Hezbollah). Of course they also ignore the Syrian people’s right to a little bit of that freedom that we feel is being threatened here in Spain. Palestinians are never prevented from defending themselves against their executioner on the grounds that a free Palestine might become another Arab dictatorship or fall into the hands of jihadists. Yet Syrians are told they are not allowed to overthrow their own executioner on the grounds that Assad’s replacement might be worse (worse for whom?). Palestinians are victims and we rightly and passionately demand they be recognised as subjects. Syrians are just pawns of the US or sub-pawns of the US’s Islamist pawns (just like Ukrainians who defend their land against Russia are “Nazis”). In short, in Palestine the focus is always on humanity; in Syria (and Ukraine) the focus is always on context.

‘Anti-imperialist’ hypocrisy at work

As I noted in a previous article: Western hypocrisy focused its attention on Ukraine; “anti-imperialist” hypocrisy focused on Palestine. No one focused on Syria. In the end, all three peoples have lost out. During this past year it has often been pointed out, correctly, that the Palestinian ordeal did not begin on October 7 with the war crimes committed by the Islamist resistance; that it all began in 1947, if not before, and that in recent years Israel continued to uproot trees, demolish houses, torture children, plunder territory and regularly bomb Gaza, while the mass media looked the other way. Yet the same thing can be said of Syria: it did not all start on December 1, when an Islamist organisation that very few people knew anything about took over the city of Aleppo. If we do not want to go all the way back to Hafez al-Assad’s coup d'état in 1971, we can start in March 2011, when a peaceful people’s revolution first demanded reforms and then, in response to brutal repression, the overthrow of his son and successor, Bashar. Since then, 320,000 civilians have been killed, mostly at the hands of the regime and its allies, and until this week there were 100,000 prisoners and missing persons. They too were victims of that atrocious regime whose fall many of us are celebrating today. Moreover, since 2016, after Russia’s and Iran’s intervention reversed the balance of forces to the benefit of the dictatorship, bombs had continued to fall in areas that Damascus did not control, such as Idlib. Russian bombings destroyed bakeries, hospitals and schools, just like in Gaza (and Ukraine). But this never bothered the self-styled “anti-imperialists”, who, on the contrary, distrusted the revolution as long as it was peaceful and rejoiced in its militarisation, radicalisation and Islamisation. This allowed them, and Assad, to treat all opponents as “terrorists”. They never supported, not even rhetorically, all those Syrian activists who, had they been Spanish, would have been protesting in the squares during the 15M movement1, but instead ended up in mass graves in Hama or Homs. They never found anything to admire in the hundreds of democratic councils that, for a certain period, managed the liberated cities, including Aleppo itself. Even today I still hear some friends (yes, friends!) talk about the destruction of Syria ... by the US, even though President Obama — I do not forget — allowed the Assad regime to use chemical weapons against civilians in 2013, and its only intervention in Syria has been against ISIS and in support of the Kurdish Communists (which, I openly confess, pleased me).

Now, after Assad’s overthrow, not only are these same “anti-imperialists” not happy to see prisoners freed from jail — the slaughterhouses of the dictatorship — they also fail to join in the joy of the families who have been reuniting after years of separation, or the relief and enthusiasm of the majority of Syrians without whose help the unexpected triumph of this ultra fast military offensive would have been impossible. On the contrary: as some of the messages I have received show, these people are hoping that the very evil jihadists, according to them, who have liberated Damascus will immediately start chopping people’s heads off and imposing sharia. They do not like the fact that the new authorities, whether they are hypocrites or not, have avoided reprisals, are making inclusive speeches and are negotiating with all forces on the ground, including sectors of the regime who have not fled the country and without which a transition would be impossible. It is not that these leftists are waiting for things to go wrong (it certainly could); this is precisely what they want to happen.

Syria: The first mass slaughter broadcast in real time

Like with Palestine today, everyone could see everything that was taking place in Syria between 2011-16. It is not true that the slaughter we are witnessing today in Palestine is the first in history to be broadcast in real time. The same thing happened in Syria at the start of the last decade. In fact many Syrians, like my friend Leila Nachawati, naively thought that the visibility of Assad’s crimes, which a legion of activists and journalists broadcast live, would have served to halt them or, at least, reduce their number and intensity. “Today,” she thought back then, “what happened in Hama in 1982 cannot happen again,” referring to when the Assad family secured control of the country for three decades by killing between 10-30,000 Syrians in the dark. Alas, she was wrong and admitted so in her excellent novel, Cuando La Revolución Termine (When the Revolution Ends). The characters in the novel painfully express the extent to which international indifference increased the suffering and despair Syrians were already experiencing. Indeed, we were all living witnesses to the massacres perpetrated by the regime, just like today with Palestine, and we did nothing about it back then. Well, actually, some people did do something: they supported Assad in the name of anti-imperialism (just like they support Putin in Ukraine today) in much the same way the global far right supports Israel against the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people.

Another geopolitics is possible

Another geopolitics is possible. This was demonstrated a few days ago, when no one could imagine the imminent collapse of the Syrian tyranny. Nachawati published an excellent article that lays out all the complexities, endogenous and exogenous, that have emerged in the region and which therefore rule out any magical revolutionary solution for Syria, just as there is none for Palestine. However, this complexity should not prevent us from now joining in the hopes of millions of Syrians who have reasons to contemplate the future with reservations, but also to celebrate the overthrow of Assad, his mafia family and his autocratic allies. They know this step is a minimum and necessary condition, although perhaps not a sufficient one, for the construction of a more just and democratic future in their country and throughout the world. Is this not what we want for Palestine? There, Hamas’ crimes on October 7 did not prevent us from standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people, nor from being aware of the complexity of their just struggle against Israeli Zionism; a complexity that, in their case, would not prevent us from rejoicing if, even in a new undemocratic world order (or with the unimaginable support of the US and the European Union), they were to achieve their liberation. For we also know that there is no future for Palestine and for the world without the defeat of genocidal Israeli Zionism.

At this point in an earlier draft of this article, written five days ago [December 7] when the rapid fall of Damascus could not yet be foreseen, I recommended a very beautiful text by Ayham Al Sati, a Syrian refugee in Spain, in which the author laid out, in remarkable Spanish, a lacerating combination of fear and hope that one of the most afflicted people of the planet has endured for decades. I am retaining that recommendation in this version as a tribute to those Syrians who have suffered as much as he has and who share his viewpoint; and who, like him, feel a little less fear and a little more hope today. Please let the Syrians enjoy this historic Sunday without spoiling their celebration by questioning the legitimacy of their joy from our Olympic distance, acting like card sharks who move pieces around on a geopolitical chessboard from the last century.

Another geopolitics is possible: complex analysis, simple principles; context and humanity. This is the opposite of what self-styled “anti-imperialists” have done during these years with regards Syria and continue to do with Ukraine, applying Occam's razor2 to suit their nihilistic ideological blinkers, thereby abandoning peoples on the ground who rise up against dictatorships if they are not “on our side”, or those who defend their land from invaders, unless they are Palestinian. Everything is much more complex than what these geopolitical chess fanatics — who are actually playing checkers — claim is the case; everything is also much simplier. We have to read more and study more. We must also ask people more questions, directly or indirectly.

The Syrians themselves have shown us the way: we can — yes we can — support Palestinians, Ukrainians and Syrians all at the same time. We do not know what will happen after tomorrow. Syrians are very diverse and many international interests are entwined in the region, but the extremely rapid collapse of a bloodthirsty regime that, with Russian and Iranian collaboration, seemed to have consolidated its power (and that was about to normalise relations with Europe) shows that the fall of Damascus was not on anyone’s agenda. For that very reason, it should oblige us to scale back the arrogance of all our schemas. As was the case during the Arab revolutions, many actors will be forced to adjust their strategies. They will have to begin by recognising the relative autonomy of local forces (the Islamists, Kurds, SNA (Syrian National Army)3, the democratic opposition, and the remnants of the regime). Above all they will have to take into account the unexpected existence (after so many nightmarish years) of the common people, their aspirations and their powers of resistance.

Every Syrian has won and every Syrian has lost. Whoever wants to rule Syria will have to rely on all the forces that the HTS offensive itself has brought to light, thereby reducing its hegemony. In a situation where no one can claim victory for themselves and where everyone feels that they have lost something — or a lot or everything — in recent years, an agreement might perhaps be more feasible. Suddenly, there is a possibility (unimaginable only a week ago) that Syrians might be the ones who decide their own fate. We must therefore let them explore. Today, in any case, let us allow them to bury their dead, pay homage to their heroes, welcome their friends released from the dungeons, reunite with their mothers, return from exile and dance in the liberated squares, caressing in their head and hands the Syria that these years had stolen from them. Whatever happens from now on, no one can deny that Syria is a better country today. We could go further and say: in contrast to the suffering of the past decades, for a few hours Syria is and will be the freest country in the world.

• 1

  An anti-austerity movement that began in Spain on May 15, 2011.

• 2

  A problem-solving principle that suggests the simplest explanation is often the best one.

• 3

  Despite its name, the SNA is not the army of the Syrian state. It is one of a number of armed coalitions that opposed the Assad regime, which was mainly based in northern Syria and is backed by Turkey.