An Internationalist Position on the Fall of Assad and the Crisis in Syria
After nearly 25 years in power, Bashar al-Assad’s government has collapsed. On December 8 Assad fled to Russia as Islamist militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other groups such as the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army entered Damascus. This rapid offensive came just 12 days after the capture of Aleppo by these same forces. Since Assad’s fall, Israel has bombed Syria more than 500 times and has dispatched ground forces and tanks into its territory. Turkey and the United States are also seeking to capitalize on the new situation and the future of Syria is uncertain.
Assad assumed the presidency of Syria in 2000, succeeding his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had seized power in the 1970s through a coup. The Bonapartist Ba’ath Party regime consolidated its power with a combination of social policies and strong repression and was therefore heavily dependent on the army and the secret services. Bashar al-Assad, himself a member of the Alawite minority, continued the oppression of other religious and national groups, while at the same time introducing a series of neoliberal reforms. Workers’ organizations were brought under state control and the Communist Party, which rejected the mass mobilizations of 2011 as an “imperialist conspiracy,” was co-opted by the regime. Even before the civil war, there were legal restrictions on the right to organize trade unions, and the General Confederation of Workers’ Trade Unions (GFTUW) depended on the Ba’ath Party. At the same time, the oppression of the Kurdish nation has intensified during the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad.
The Assad regime was completely reactionary and repressive and oversaw the murder and torture of thousands of Syrians in prisons across the country, including the notorious Saydnaya prison, which was known as the “human slaughterhouse.” Syrians everywhere have celebrated Assad’s departure and the opening of these prisons.
Such joy at the fall of a hated regime like Assad’s is understandable; unfortunately, we cannot share in this joy, given that the forces that have overthrown Assad are also deeply reactionary. Their victory does not bode well for the majority of the Syrian population who have been decimated and torn apart by 13 years of a terrible civil war and successive imperialist interventions.
The events of the last few weeks have shown that the Syrian army is very weak, both materially and in terms of morale, a fact that had only been exacerbated by economic sanctions, the flight of millions of people from the country, and the destruction of cities and infrastructure, which have condemned the population to famine and terrible suffering. Under these conditions, during which time the regime increased its repressive mechanisms, Assad was unable to consolidate his domination. Assad’s regime survived all these years mainly thanks to the support of Russia and Iran; however, he lost control of several territories in Syria and these weaknesses could no longer be offset by his allies—Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah—who were unable or unwilling to protect him. In this scenario, his opponents took advantage of Assad’s fragility to defeat him.
The forces that overthrew Assad and seized power in Damascus are a heterogeneous collection of Islamist factions and militias backed by Turkey. These groups, which were based in the northwest and north of the country, are led by two major organizations. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, the Levant Liberation Organization)—led by Mohammed al-Julani—is a splinter group from Al-Nusra, the Syrian affiliate of Al-Qaeda. Recently, the group has attempted to publicly distance itself from Al-Qaeda and present itself as a more moderate political force. It has been the de facto ruler of the Idlib region since 2017, where it manages public services, education, health, justice, infrastructure, and finances. Various organizations have denounced extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests, and illegal detentions of civilians committed by HTS. The organization maintains its goal of establishing an Islamic state in Syria, although it has said recently that it will not repress other religious groups.
The Syrian National Army is an umbrella organization of various militias backed by Turkey. In addition to confronting Assad, its aim all along has been to fight the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance made up of Syrian Kurds and others, which controls northeast Syria and is backed by the United States.
Other factions and militias have also joined the offensive against Assad, such as the Druze forces from the province of Sueida. Other forces that participated in the overthrow of Assad were the Islamists and Salafists of Ahrar Al Sham, linked to the Afghan Taliban. In the eastern steppes there are militias of the Islamic State (IS), which, although they did not participate in the capture of Damascus, could take advantage of the moment to expand their territories. This is what the United States fears, which is why it is carrying out bombings in the region.
HTS’s Bashir has assumed what he calls an “interim government” in Syria, and several countries including Turkey, Israel, and the United States are attempting to influence the “transition,” though it is far from clear how it will play out.
From the Arab Spring to the long hell of civil war
In 2011, a popular uprising broke out in Syria, as part of the revolutionary process of the Arab Spring, a wave of popular rebellions, uprisings, and mobilizations that unevenly spread throughout the Middle East, from Tunisia to Egypt, via Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, and Syria. In Syria, protesters demanded the democratization of the regime and improvements in the living conditions of a population that had been impoverished for decades. In 2010, almost 30 percent of the country’s population lived below the poverty line due to neoliberal policies and 55 percent of young people were unemployed. The events began with a popular uprising that started in Daraa in March 2011. The arrest of several young people who had written graffiti against the Assad government sparked widespread protests. Anger erupted against high fuel prices and against poor living conditions in the coastal town of Banyas, where unemployment was high. Calls mounted for the resignation of the governor of Homs, known for repression and corruption. At the same time, supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and some other radical Islamist groups, long organized underground in Syria, took to the streets. Within a short time, they took control of the squares with their organized forces. However, these protests were drowned in blood by Assad. In September 2011, the regime killed more than 1,500 people to crush the protests, with more than 5,000 killed by the end of that year, according to the United Nations. Assad’s violent repression and the interference of regional powers such as Turkey and various imperialist powers led to the regimentation of the resistance through its militarization. This process undermined the autonomous and mass character of the protests, prevented the continuity of the revolutionary process from unfolding, and gave power to reactionary movements and their foreign sponsors. In this way, the Syrian Spring was defeated, giving way to a reactionary civil war on several fronts that left hundreds-of-thousands dead and millions displaced.
During the first years of the civil war, Assad’s regular army—with the support of Iran and Russia—faced various militias and factions; the latter in turn clashed with each other and were sponsored by regional powers—Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar—and financed by the United States.
The proclamation of the caliphate by the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014, with the Syrian city of Raqqa as its capital, opened a new period (the caliphate came to occupy 30 percent of Syria and 40 percent of Iraq.) The United States intervened directly at the head of a coalition against the Islamic State in both countries, an intervention that would last for years. Although the caliphate was defeated in 2019, the United States maintains a military presence in eastern Syria (in addition to the financial and military support it provides to the Kurds) and has recently bombed several positions of the ISIS militias.
Russia began a direct military intervention in Syria in 2015, when it came to the aid of the Assad government. It established a military base in Latakia, in addition to the one it already had in Tartous; provided special and private forces, including soldiers from the Wagner Group; and carried out air strikes that made the reconquest of Aleppo possible in 2016. Iran also intensified its intervention at this time, providing funding and weapons to Assad, including the support of pro-Iranian Hezbollah militias in Syria. This was key to the survival of Assad, but Hezbollah’s support of the hated regime weakened it politically in Lebanon.
Throughout this period, Turkey was another key player in the conflict, intervening with proxy militias and direct incursions, although it failed to achieve its ultimate goal of toppling Assad. Operation “Euphrates Shield” in 2016 was aimed simultaneously at ISIS and the Kurds. In 2018, it carried out Operation “Olive Branch,” with the aim of occupying the Kurdish region of Afrin with airstrikes and ground troops. Turkey has virtually occupied Afrin as its own enclave. It destroyed Kurdish democratic structures, ceded political representation to Islamist groups, expelled part of the Kurdish population, and looted local possessions and property, such as the olive oil harvest.
These 13 years of civil war and imperialist interventions have taken a devastating toll on the Syrian people and have led to the destruction of entire cities. Historic Aleppo was reduced to ruins in the course of the civil war and became a mass grave for thousands of Syrians. The population continues to lack food, medical care, and security. In Al Yarmouk, Palestinian refugees were bombed and starved by the Syrian army. According to various estimates, at least 500,000 civilians have died in the conflict, including tens-of-thousands of children. In this period, more than 12 million people have been displaced, and 5.2 million Syrians have sought refuge in nearby countries—Turkey hosts 62.3 percent of them. Assad’s atrocities following the Arab Spring, the destruction inflicted by the Islamist militias of ISIS, the attacks against the Kurds by forces commanded by Turkey, and the bombings by the international coalition led by the United States, have plunged the population into an endless hell.
Turkey, Israel, and the imperialist powers seek to control the
“transition” and reorganize the Middle East in their favor
The State of Israel is taking advantage of the situation to expand its regional dominance, while continuing the genocide in Palestine and keeping troops in Lebanon. The Zionist army has already announced that it considers Syria to be its “fourth front” of war, along with Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. While bombing several regions, it entered the territory with ground troops, moving tanks from the Golan Heights. This area borders Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, making it an important strategic position. In addition, it provides almost a third of Israel’s water. Israeli forces occupied the region during the Six-Day War in 1967 and then unilaterally annexed it in December 1981. Donald Trump formally recognized Israeli control of the Golan Heights in 2019. Now, Israel intends to consolidate its annexation, extending the buffer zone.
Netanyahu sees the fall of Assad as an expression of weakness on the part of Hezbollah and Iran and therefore as an opportunity to develop the project of creating a “greater Israel.” He is coming off important tactical successes in his dispute with Iran, having decapitated Hezbollah (although the results of his ground invasion are limited) and severely hit Hamas. And for the first time, Netanyahu has exchanged direct military attacks with Iran. With Trump’s return to the White House, he hopes to be able to capitalize on these successes in a new regional balance that is much more reactionary than the previous one.
Iran’s response to the offensive in Syria is still unclear, particularly whether the country will continue with its “contained response” or whether it will accelerate the development of nuclear weapons. The Iranian regime is weakened and has become quite unpopular and internally divided. Netanyahu’s domestic position is also complicated, having to testify in court on corruption charges pending from his previous government. A new war front is also a way to reassert his power. But the Zionist state could not carry out the brutal genocide against the Palestinian people and its offensive in the region without weapons sales and financing from the United States and the European states. That is why “Genocide Joe” and “Israel bombs, USA [and Europe] pays” are common chants in demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian people in New York, Paris, London, and Madrid.
Turkey is also trying to reap the benefits of Assad’s fall. President Erdogan has geopolitical ambitions to decisively influence regional reorganization, and internally he is seeking conditions to force his re-election. Shares in Turkish construction and cement companies rose after the announcement of Assad’s fall, showing that several Turkish companies hope to play a strategic role in the country’s reconstruction.
Following the fall of Assad, the Kurdish movement has shown itself willing to engage in dialogue with the ruling HTS, but they are under attack. In recent days, the Turkish-controlled Syrian National Army has entered Manbij and is committing war crimes. Looting has taken place in the town against the Kurdish population and houses have been set on fire. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have agreed to a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, meaning they must withdraw from the region. The multi-ethnic canton of Manbij had been liberated from the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) by the SDF and the YPJ women’s defense units in 2016 with U.S. support. Erdo?an repeatedly announces his country’s intention to occupy a 30-kilometre-deep strip along the border in Syrian territory. The next target would be Kobane, a city that became world famous in 2015 when ISIS tried to take the city for several months, although it failed due to Kurdish resistance. near
The Kurdish movement justifies its cooperation with the United States as a “military tactic,” but it has subordinated the struggle for self-determination to an alliance with the largest imperialist power on the planet, and we cannot ignore the mechanisms of dependence that have arisen from this. The Kurdish political-military leadership presented its imperialist “partners” as “protection” from Assad and especially from Erdogan. And although this allowed them a temporary respite, it does not represent a fundamental or long-term solution. Compromises with Western imperialist states—in particular with the United States—to obtain recognition of “autonomy in Rojava” have hindered both the self-determination of the oppressed Kurdish people and the possibilities of profound social change. The current situation, in which the Kurds are being cornered again, shows that those who have presented the imperialist states as protectors or even allies of the oppressed nations have left the Kurdish people tied up, without a strategy of class independence and anti-imperialism.
Racist and imperialist Europe wants to expel Syrian refugees
With the end of the Assad regime in Syria, a racist debate about deportations has quickly developed in European countries. Governments are preparing for mass deportations to Syria. In Germany, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has suspended all asylum applications from Syrian refugees with immediate effect. But the situation in Syria is by no means safe.
Some refugees will certainly want to return home. After all, they have rarely found the protection they expected in Europe. Instead, they have mostly faced racist violence, hate campaigns in the media, and unsafe living and working conditions. However, there is also a significant number of them who want to stay. There are tens-of-thousands of children of Syrian refugees who are in school, doing internships, or already working. Whether Syrians want to return to their homeland or stay in Europe should be their own decision.
Faced with the extreme right, which stirs up Islamophobia and racism, all imperialist governments adopt their reactionary agenda. But Syrian and other refugees are fleeing wars and misery caused by the interventions of these same imperialist powers and their allies. The working class in its entirety must fight the racism and xenophobia that the capitalists use to divide and fragment it. We must take up the fight for full rights for all immigrants, the closure of foreign detention centers, the repeal of immigration laws, and the breaking of all EU pacts with regimes such as Turkey, Libya, Tunisia, or Morocco that ensure they act as “border patrol” for the EU.
An increasingly turbulent world
The fall of Assad cannot be understood outside of a turbulent global scenario, in the context of the crisis of the world order under U.S. hegemony. The war in Ukraine has exacerbated militarism and clashes between the great powers. The Western imperialist powers of NATO have been acting by proxy, supporting the Ukrainian army in its confrontation with Russia, which has the support of Iran, China, and North Korea.
The conflict has escalated in recent months. The Ukrainian army’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region was followed by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France authorizing the launch of long-range missiles from Ukraine into Russian territory. Russia responded by launching experimental ballistic missiles into Ukraine.
The war has meant a huge drain on Ukraine and Russia’s economic and military strength. In Putin’s case, although he was better positioned than Zelensky in Ukraine in the event of a negotiation, the efforts in that war seem to have made it impossible to continue supporting Assad’s weakened army in Syria, opening a flank for the advance of Turkey, Israel, and the United States in the region. Assad’s fall is a hard blow for Russia and its geopolitical ambitions, considering the importance of the region as an exit route to the Mediterranean and for its projection in the Sahel, but also taking into account that the Russian intervention in Syria allowed it to pressure the Western powers on other issues, especially the post-2014 crisis in Ukraine.
The arrival of Donald Trump to the White House on January 20 only adds uncertainty to the world situation. Any negotiation in Ukraine will be very difficult and new escalations cannot be ruled out. In Europe, the imperialist countries have made progress in imperialist rearmament, but the Franco-German axis is undergoing serious political and governmental crises. If Trump raises tariffs as he promises, the European economies will be strongly affected, with recessionary tendencies, as is already evident in Germany.
The changes in the regional scenario are affecting the Ayatollahs’ regime like never before. Iran has entered a phase of deep uncertainty characterized by numerous factors both exogenous and endogenous to the national political system. The fall of Assad and the weakening of Russia and Iran are also bad news for China, which is seeing its Middle East strategy derailed. China had given significant support to Bashar al-Assad, who visited the country in 2023 to announce a “strategic partnership” with Beijing.
Everything indicates that the most convulsive tendencies of the international situation will deepen.
An internationalist and
anti-imperialist position
Faced with the intensification of the clash between powers and the escalation of crises, the vast majority of the Left at the international level tends to take “campist” positions, subordinate to different capitalist and imperialist sectors. In the face of the war in Ukraine, reformist sectors such as Die Linke, or even much smaller organizations such as the International Workers League—Fourth International (LIT-CI) or the International Workers Unity—Fourth International (UIT-CI), aligned themselves with the NATO camp and Zelensky’s army. Similarly, some today present the fall of Assad at the hands of jihadist and pro-Turkish militias, with the approval of the United States and Israel, as the result of a “triumphant democratic revolution,” as if the emancipation of the Syrian masses could somehow be ushered in with the help of imperialism and reactionary military militias.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, sectors of the populist or neo-Stalinist Left lament the fall of the Assad dictatorship. They present it—along with the rest of the “Axis of Resistance” led by the reactionary Iranian regime—as a progressive and anti-imperialist alternative. Some argue that the enemies of our enemy should be our allies, because they challenge “Western hegemony.” This completely ignores the class character of these powers. Rather than supporting the Palestinian cause or that of other oppressed people, these forces seek to oppose the reordering of the region for the further benefit of Israel and the United States because that would push them to the margins; at the same time, they reconcile themselves with the pro-imperialist monarchies of the Gulf.
For our part, from the Trotskyist Fraction—Fourth International (FT-CI), we have maintained an internationalist, anti-imperialist, and class-independent position in the face of major events in the world situation.
We repudiate all imperialist aggression in the region, such as the sanctions and attacks carried out by Israel—with U.S. support—against Iran, Lebanon, and now Syria in the name of “self-defense.” We fight against the Zionist enclave of the State of Israel and for the expulsion of imperialism from the Middle East. But we do so without placing the slightest political support in the bourgeoisie of the region, or in the reactionary regimes allied with Iran.
The Balfour Declaration in 1917, in which the British pledged to promote the Zionist colonization of Palestine, as well as the Sykes-Picot Agreements between France and Britain in 1916, put the region firmly under the boot of imperialist oppression. The origins of the modern nation-states of Syria and Iraq, for example, lie in the division of the former provinces of the Ottoman Empire into zones of influence for each imperialist power; this brought together different ethnic, national, and religious groups. The stateless Kurdish people were divided into four parts following agreements between the imperialist powers. Since then, the Kurdish question remains unresolved in four countries (Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran) and Kurdistan is therefore denied the right to self-determination. The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 consolidated imperialist presence in the region—in particular that of the United States. More recently, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dramatically increased the suffering of the masses and accelerated processes of fragmentation and government crisis; at another level clashes between Sunni and Shiite sectors of Islam have re-emerged, as a reaction to the domination of regional powers and imperialism. In these wars, our position has been rooted in the necessary defeat of imperialist aggression.
As the tendencies towards war and crises of regime grow, only the struggle of the working class—together with the peasantry, women, and youth—can offer a progressive solution to the crises in the Middle East. Today, more than ever, we defend the right of Syrian refugees to decide whether they want to return to Syria or stay in Europe with full labor, political, and social rights—we stand firmly against the forced deportation of immigrants. Hand in hand with this is the need to continue developing the solidarity movement and struggle to end the genocide in Palestine and dismantle the State of Israel in the perspective of a working-class and socialist Palestine where peoples of all ethnicities and religions can live together in peace. We demand clearly: the imperialist powers, Israel, and Turkey must keep their hands off Syria. We fight for the self-determination of the Kurdish people.
The struggle for bread, for freedom, and for an end to war is linked to the struggle against imperialism and the reactionary regional bourgeoisies. It is a struggle for workers’ governments, based on democracy by and for the working class and the poor, a federation of socialist republics in the region.
—Left Voice, December 16, 2024