Down with the Butcher Bashar al-Assad… Stop the War on the Syrian People

Statement by the Revolutionary Socialists

Events have unfolded over the past few days, once again highlighting the Syrian tragedy. The butcher Bashar al-Assad, backed by military and financial support from Putin’s Russia and Iran, is carrying out new massacres against the Syrian people using poisonous gases. Meanwhile, yesterday, American warships bombed airbases belonging to Assad’s army under orders from Donald Trump. The same Donald Trump, the racist, anti-Muslim president who bans Syrian refugees fleeing the horrors of war from entering the U.S., is now ordering strikes on Bashar’s forces, claiming to defend the lives of Syrian civilians from Assad’s tyranny. Meanwhile, the U.S. supports the killing of civilians in Yemen at the hands of its Gulf allies!
Of course, neither the American bombing nor the prior Russian bombing nor the military interventions by Turkey and Saudi Arabia on one side and Iran on the other have anything to do with protecting the Syrian people. What’s really going on here is a conflict of interests among these nations over the future of Syria. The ones benefiting from this conflict inside Syria are none other than Bashar al-Assad’s regime on one side and the extremist ISIS factions on the other.

The Syrian people are paying the price for the defeat of the Arab revolutions, with the Syrian revolution at its core. We must remember that the Syrian revolution began with demands, protests, and sit-ins that united different Syrian sects against the Ba’athist dictatorship. Only when Bashar’s regime succeeded in turning the conflict into a sectarian one—creating rivers of blood to divide the Syrian masses into warring sects—did the nightmare begin. The massacres by the regime, which seems willing to exterminate the entire Syrian population just to stay in power, coupled with the rise of extreme reactions like the violence of the ISIS factions, marked the beginning of the Syrian catastrophe. It was only after the defeat of the Syrian masses’ revolution that Syria became an open battlefield for global powers and regional forces, each fighting for influence in our region.

American missiles will not save the Syrian people from Bashar’s crimes; they are just another chapter in the ongoing struggle between great powers for domination and control. Anyone who believes that Donald Trump and his allies—like King Salman of Saudi Arabia, the Egyptian military regime, and Erdogan’s Turkey—have any interest in peace or goodwill for the Syrian people is entirely misguided. Just look at previous military interventions in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya to understand the real motives behind these actions.

We are all paying the price for the defeat of our revolutions: in Syria, it’s death, displacement, and war; in Egypt, it’s repression, tyranny, and poverty; and in Libya and Yemen, it’s destruction, civil wars, and imperialist interventions by Russia and America.

The solution to the Syrian tragedy does not lie in waiting for foreign military intervention, whether to remove Bashar’s regime or eliminate ISIS. These interventions will only lead to more destruction, death, and division. Anyone who truly seeks a solution to the Syrian tragedy must work on rebuilding mass opposition in our region to confront both military dictatorships on one side and hateful sectarian alternatives on the other. The struggle against the dictatorships of Bashar, Sisi, the Al-Sauds, Erdogan, the Iranian mullahs, and others will only be won by the people of the region through the revival of mass movements and the revolutionary spirit that erupted in 2011. Of course, this is extremely difficult and will require significant effort, time, and sacrifice, especially after the defeats and counter-revolutions plaguing our countries. However, this difficulty should never lead us to lose hope in the masses or revolution, nor should we replace that hope with reliance on “international powers” or any regional force. Such reliance will only help prolong the lifespans of these dictatorships.

Down with the butcher Bashar al-Assad and his criminal regime

No to American and Russian imperialist wars on Syria

Down with Arab and regional dictatorships
All power and wealth to the people