The New Worker
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 31st August 2012
THE SYRIAN army may have chased the Nato-backed rebels out of Aleppo and Damascus but the imperialist hate campaign remains in top gear as the leaders of the capitalist world plan their next move in the war to topple the Assad government.
Though the imperialists will once again return to the United Nations Security Council to seek another mandate to sanctify open aggression, Russia and People’s China have made it clear that they will use their veto for the fourth time to defend Syrian independence.
So the Americans are once again talking up a plan for “no-fly” zones and raising the spectre of “weapons of mass destruction” to justify open Nato intervention on behalf of their willing tools in Syria with or without UN sanction. France is calling on the reactionary Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the Al Qaeda gangs that are spreading terror and destruction across the country to form a “provisional government” in exile. This has been echoed by the Cameron government, which these days goes along with everything Washington and Paris want in the Middle East, in the belief that there will be some pickings for British imperialism if Syria falls.
No doubt the imperialists and their feudal Arab lackeys are quite capable of cobbling together some sort of “provisional government,” which they will then proceed to recognise as the “legitimate” government of Syria. But it is equally clear that all they’re going to get is a motley band of traitors and religious bigots already on their payroll, who have little credibility in Syria itself and even less on the broader Arab street. While that did the job last year to pave the way for the overthrow of the Gaddafi government they won’t be able to play the same trick twice.
We only have to look at the tragic experience of Libya to see the fate of the Syrian people if the imperialists get their way. The cheer-leaders of imperialism predicted that the outcome of regime change in Libya would be some sort of bourgeois democratic Arab paradise.
But the only “paradise” that exists in Libya today is that of the big oil corporations who have resumed their plunder of the country’s immense oil reserves, pushing production back up to 1.5m barrels a day.
All the Libyans got was fraudulent elections that produced a phantom government led by nonentities unable to quell sectarian and tribal violence even if they wanted to. Forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi’s family are stepping up their attacks while tribal and militia leaders settle old scores amongst themselves in the heart of the capital, Tripoli.
While the health, education and social services that once made Libya a beacon for Africa have collapsed, religious fanatics spend their time demolishing mosques and persecuting Muslims deemed to be heretical by Al Qaeda and the other militias armed and funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The Assad leadership and the newly elected government in Damascus are determined to see that this never happens in Syria.
The Stop the War Coalition is calling on all its groups and supporters to campaign against further war in the Middle East. Public meetings and other events are being organised around the country in September and October. The campaign points out that the ultimate goal of US intervention in Syria is an attack on Iran and that any intervention in Syria will have huge regional and global consequences; the conflict is already spreading to Lebanon and Turkey, and could spark a sectarian war involving Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq and Iran.
Communists must rally in support of the renewed anti-war campaign to stop any British involvement in any new imperialist war against the Arabs and halt all existing support to the “Free Syrian Army” and the other terror gangs operating in Syria. At the same time we must work to build solidarity with Syria and Syria’s communist movements which are supporting the Assad government’s efforts to end the fighting through genuine reform and reconciliation.