Over recent months, people across the Middle East have been hit by an intensification of conflict in Syria and Iraq. That escalation has been sponsored both by global imperialist powers – chiefly the USA, Russia and European countries – and regional imperialist actors including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iran. These conflicts are the product of two distinct forms of counter-revolution: local dictatorships and counter-revolutionary regimes on one hand, and reactionary Islamic forces like Daesh on the other. The determination of major international and regional powers to impose their political and economic hegemony over the region is also a central cause of the current tragedy.
In Syria, the first form taken by the counter-revolution is support for the Assad regime. Russia’s deadly raids and the intervention of Iran, Hezbollah and sectarian Iraqi militias champion this profoundly reactionary, anti-democratic project. Assad is fuelled too by the mistrust Western powers routinely demonstrate towards democratic and revolutionary forces in Syria, including Kurdish forces.
Those fighting for a democratic and socially just future are the first targets of the Syrian regime, imperialists and their allies in the region. Syrian democratic forces are also the target of Islamic forces playing a counter-revolutionary role, supported at one time or another, directly or indirectly, by the Gulf monarchies and Turkey.
As always, women are the first victims of war. Rape, abduction and even the sale of women are gruesome outgrowths of the conflict.
What is Daesh? It is the creation both of international and regional imperialist aggressions and of the dictatorial, sectarian nature of regimes in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria. The rise of sectarian tensions in the region is also the consequence of this deadly compound of domestic repression and external aggression.
It is in this context that we should understand the recent attacks in Ankara, Beirut, Paris, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, and the attack on the Russian aircraft in Egypt. These attacks only strengthen the evil that spawned them – state terrorism.
The rhetoric of the “War on Terror” finds material expression in the ramping up of authoritarian state security policies, in war and in racism. Racism, particularly Islamophobia, has increased exponentially and has become state policy across Europe. Imperialist powers have used the rhetoric of counter-terrorism to justify their support for dictatorships and their restrictions on freedoms, while regional dictators have used the same language to defend their own repression.
Now it is this same overarching worldview that unites France, Russia, the US, Turkey and the Syrian regime – though each has its own particular interests – such that they coordinate, directly or indirectly, their strikes and military manoeuvres in Syria.
In the name of a war “against terrorism”, today the French state demands the power to terrorise. In the name of so-called “French values”, freedoms are being attacked. In an authoritarian headlong rush, François Hollande bombs Syria and Iraq while all the talk of war and noble “values” is unable to provide answers to the political and social aspirations of the French working classes. Meanwhile, undocumented migrants, refugees, Muslims, veiled women, the Roma, foreigners and others are all prone to being designated “enemies within”.
Throughout the wider Middle East, state repression of political opponents and social movements is on the rise; in Egypt and elsewhere, hundreds of death sentences have been issued in recent months.
In the face of the temporary demobilization and disorientation of large sectors of the oppressed, we must step up to the challenge with constructive initiatives. In practice that means:
Revolutionary Left Current – Syria
Socialist Forum – Lebanon
Revolutionary Socialists – Egypt
Workers’ Left League (LGO) – Tunisia
New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) – France
Socialist Workers Party (SWP) – Britain
revolutionary socialism in the 21st century (rs21) – Britain
The Editors, Salvage – Britain
Revolutionary Communist League-Socialist Workers Party (LCR-SAP) – Belgium
SolidaritéS – Switzerland
International Socialists Scotland (ISS) – Scotland
French and Arabic versions of the statement are also available
This is shared from revolutiontary socialism in the 21st century