We Can End The US War On Syria

by Kevin Zeese 

Co-Written by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

The US war against Syria was one that people almost stopped. President Obama was unable to get Congress to authorize the war in 2013, but the Pentagon and foreign policy establishment, who have long wanted to control Syria, pushed forward with war anyway.

It has been a disaster. The war has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries as well six million people displaced within the country and five million people who have fled the country.

The people were right, and the military was wrong. The war on Syria never should have happened and now must end.

President Trump announced withdrawal from Syria this week. This creates an opportunity to end the war on Syria. We have work to do to make peace a reality.

Peace Insurrection on Capitol Hill 2013, CODE PINK. Photo by Cool Revolution.

The People Almost Prevented the US War in Syria

In 2013, amidst highly-doubted, unproven allegations of a chemical attack by Syrian President Assad (debunked a year later), the threat of war escalated, and so did opposition to the war. Protests against an attack on Syria took place around the world. In the US, people were in the streets and speaking out at town halls. Obama was forced to bring the issue to Congress for authorization.

Congress was barraged with a Peace Insurrection encamped outside its doors, sit-ins in Congressional offices, and a massive number of phone calls with 499 to 1 opposing the war. Obama could not get the votes to support the war. Harry Reid surrendered to the public by never holding a vote.

The other superpower, the people, had stopped a war. Obama became the first president to announce a bombing campaign who was forced to back down by the people.

But the victory would be temporary, neocons and militarists continued to pushfor war. Based on new fake terror fears, and false chemical attack allegations, the ‘humanitarian’ destruction of Syria proceeded.

WSWS described how the war escalated under Obama, writing, “The illegal US occupation of Syria, begun under the Obama administration in October 2015 without authorization from either the United Nations or the Syrian government.” There was a shift from CIA support for Al Qaeda-linked militias to war to bring down the Assad government. US troops coordinated a campaign of airstrikes that reduced the city of Raqqa and other Syrian communities to rubble. Amnesty International, after conducting field investigations, reported the US has committed war crimes in Syria. Vijay Prashad described the US creating “hell on Earth” in Syria.

Despite this, the US was losing the war in Syria. With Russia coming to the aid of its ally, Assad was not going to be removed.

Trump escalated and drove the US deeper into the Middle East quagmire betraying the non-interventionist base who elected him. The corporate media praised Trump as ‘becoming president’ for bombing Syria based on another unproven chemical attack. Later, even General Mattis admitted there was no evidence tying Assad to chemical attacks.

Early this year, the Trump administration was announced a permanent presence in one-third of Syria with 30,000 Syrian Kurds as the ground forces, US air support, and eight new US bases. Protests continued against the bombing of Syria throughout the spring in the US and around the world.

Now, as Andre Vltchek describes, the Syrian people have prevailed and most of the country is liberated. People are returning and rebuilding.

Boston Anti-War Protest: ‘Hands Off Syria! No War! Nov. 21 2016 by ShaunaDorothy in Socialist.

Trump Announces Withdrawal

President Trump’s announcement that he is withdrawing from Syria over the next 60 to 100 days has been met with a firestorm of opposition. Trump tweeted on Wednesday, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”

Russia is drawing down its military activities with Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu reporting Russia was carrying out 100 to 110 flights per day at its peak and now they do no more than two to four flights per week, chiefly for reconnaissance purposes. Putin agreed that ISIS had been defeated and supported Trump’s decision but cast doubt on Washington’s plans, saying, “We don’t see any signs of withdrawing US troops yet, but I concede that it is possible.”

There has been very little support for withdrawal from elected officials. Many Republicans and the corporate media are criticizing Trump. The first two Democrats to step forward to support the removal of troops were Rep. Ted Lieu, a frequent Trump critic who applauded the action, and Rep. Ro Khanna. But, the bi-partisan war Congress opposes Trump.

Secretary of Defense Mattis resigned after Trump’s announcement. In his resignation, he expressed disagreements with Trump over foreign policy. The media is mourning the exit of Mattis, neglecting his history as a likely war criminal who targeted civilians. Ray McGovern reminds us Mattis was famous for quipping, “It’s fun to shoot some people.”

Mattis is the fourth of “My Generals,” as Trump called them, to leave the administration, e.g. Director of Homeland Security and then Chief of Staff, John Kelly, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. This leaves neocon extremist John Bolton and pro-militarist Mike Pompeo as the biggest influences on Trump’s foreign policy.

Popular Resistance supports the withdrawal of troops from Syria and applauds Trump’s decision.

We are not alone in supporting Trump’s withdrawal announcement. Medea Benjamin of CODE PINK described the withdrawal as “a positive contribution to the peace process,” urging “all foreign powers that have been involved in Syria’s destruction, including the United States, take responsibility for rebuilding this nation and providing assistance to the Syrian people, including the refugees, who have suffered so tragically for over seven years.”

Veterans for Peace supports the withdrawal saying the US has “no legal right to be [there] in the first place” and describing the brutal destruction caused by US bombs.

Black Alliance for Peace supports the withdrawal writing  the war “should have never been allowed in the first place.” They denounce the corporate press and members of the political duopoly for opposing the withdrawal. BAP also recognizes that the foreign policy establishment will fight this withdrawal and promises to work to end all US involvement in Syria and other nations.

New York Times reports the coup which overthrew the country’s democratically elected government. Stephen J. Meade, the U.S. assistant military attaché who was also a CIA officer, worked with the Syrian chief of staff, Husni Zaim, to plan a coup. The US was concerned about Syria’s stance on Israel, border disputes with Turkey, and oil pipelines, and worried that the left was growing in power and that the government was growing friendlier to the Soviet Union.

Will the Long History Of US Regime Change In Syria End?

Trump is being fought because the US has a long history of trying to control Syria dating back to the 1940s. Controlling Syria has been a consistent policy objective. CIA documents from 1986 describe how the US could remove the Assad family.

While the bulk of destruction of Syria occurred during the Obama administration, plans for the current war and overthrowing Assad date back to the George W. Bush administration. A State Department cable, “Influencing the SARG In The End Of 2006”, examines strategies to bring about regime change in Syria.

This is not the first time President Trump said the war on Syria would be ending. He did so in March, but in April, Mattis announced expanding the US military in Syria. As Patrick Lawrence writes in Don’t Hold Your Breath on US Troop Withdrawal from Syria, “By September the Pentagon was saying . . .U.S. forces had to stay until Damascus and its political opponents achieved a full settlement.“

In response to Trump’s newest announcement, the Pentagon said it will continue the air war in Syria. They would do so at least for as long as troops were on the ground, adding “As for anything post-US troops on the ground, we will not speculate on future operations.” The Pentagon has not given any details on a withdrawal timeline, citing “force protection and operational security reasons.”

As Trump’s removal of US troops from Syria challenges the foreign policy establishment, which seemed to be planning a long-term presence in Syria, the movement must support Trump to end the war.

Stop Endless Wars from the Anti-War Committee.

The People Must Ensure the End of the War on Syria

The peace movement should do all it can to support Trump’ call for withdrawal because he needs allies. Patrick Lawrence describes the experience thus far during the Trump administration:

“As Trump finishes his second year in office, the pattern is plain: This president can have all the foreign policy ideas he wants, but the Pentagon, State, the intelligence apparatus, and the rest of what some call ‘the deep state’ will either reverse, delay, or never implement any policy not to its liking.”

We saw this scenario play out earlier this month when Trump complained about the Pentagon’s out-of-control budget and pledged to cut it. As Lawrence points out, just days later the president met with Mattis and the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee and announced that the three had agreed on a 2020 defense budget of $750 billion, a 5 percent increase.

Trump has made no progress on North Korea since the first meeting and has been prevented from making progress on positive relations with Russia. The foreign policy establishment of the Pentagon, State Department, Intelligence Agencies, weapons makers and Congressional hawks are in control. Trump will need all the help he can get to overcome them and withdraw from Syria.

We should urge Trump to be clear that ALL troops are leaving Syria. This should include not only the troops on the ground but the air force as well as private contractors. The CIA should also stop its secret war on Syria. And the US should leave the military bases it has built in Syria. Similarly, the movement should support Trump’s calls to withdraw from Afghanistan.

The US has done incredible damage to Syria and owes restitution, which is needed to help bring Syria back to normalcy.

Syria and Afghanistan join the list of failed and counterproductive US wars. These are more signs of a failing empire. The people of the United States must rise up to finish the job we started in 2013 — stop the war on Syria, a war that never should have occurred.

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers are directors of Popular Resistance

Syrian reforms re-defining political environment despite limitations

By Abbas Fadl Murtada

Since he became president last July, Bashar al-Asad of Syria has initiated a process of political and economic reform. Asad has issued a series of decrees and submitted several draft laws to the country’s People’s Assembly (parliament) dealing with various aspects of Syrian political and socio-economic life. These moves are rightly viewed with scepticism by many people, who notice the continued restrictions on the Islamic movement; in recent weeks, a number of activists, and businessmen accused of supporting them, have been arrested and interrogated. Nonetheless, these moves are a considerable change in Syria’s political environment.

Asad has pardoned 600 long-serving political prisoners, closed the notorious Mazzeh prison (long a byword for the repression of the Ba’athist state) and submitted a draft law for a general amnesty covering a wide range of common-law crimes. Encouraged by this atmosphere of openness, advocacy groups such as the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Syria, which have long been active underground, have come into the open.

The ruling Ba’ath party has also decided to allow the six legal political parties that are its partners in the Progressive National Front (PNF) to issue their own newspapers. This is a significant departure from previous practice, allowing constituent parties of the PNF, which was formed in 1972 as a coalition between the Ba’ath and political groups of a communist or Arab nationalist complexion, to distribute their publications openly. A ministerial committee has drafted a new law ending the government’s monopoly of the press. The draft empowers the cabinet to issue newspaper licences to individuals and authorized political parties. Ali Farzat, a well-known cartoonist, has applied for a license to issue a satirical paper. This would be the first such publication to be issued independently since the Ba’ath seized political power in a military coup in 1963.

Work on a multimillion-dollar network for internet communications is underway. The network will be run by a company in which the state-run Syrian Telecommunications Foundation will hold a 25 percent stake; private Syrian and Arab investors will own the remaining 75 percent. Under the new network, access to the internet, currently the privileged domain of public administration, companies and universities, will become available to the public.

Like the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, after he launched perestroika (‘openness’), Asad has come to realize that political freedom cannot be withheld indefinitely from all quarters of society or sociopolitical life. Indeed, Asad’s ‘perestroika’ has awakened civil society. Civil society associations and forums have mushroomed since he became president. Limits to such freedoms are emerging, however: organisers of new political discussion-groups in Damascus reacted in dismay when vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam warned the discussion-salons not to cross certain lines.

The fact that such salons exist at all, however, is a start. So too is the growing outspokenness of some intellectuals. Last September a group of respected Syrian intellectuals issued the so-called “Petition of 99,” demanding among other things the release of all political prisoners. In January some thousand writers, artists, professionals, businessmen and academics signed a Basic Document calling on the president to introduce wide-ranging political reforms. The Document, drawn up by the Committees for the Revival of Civil Society, urged Asad to end the state of emergency and martial law, release all political prisoners, allow the return of political exiles, ensure the independence and integrity of the judiciary and, most notably, end the Ba’ath party’s monopoly of political power by enacting a law for elections to be held under the supervision of an independent judiciary. Among the prominent figures who signed the document are independent member of parliament and businessman Riyad Sayf, ultra-secularist and anti-Islamist philosopher Sadeq Jalal al-’Azm, writers Khayri al-Dhahabi and Mayya al-Rahbi, researchers Michel Kilo, Walid al-Bunni, ‘Arif Dalila, Najati Tayyarah, Ihsan ‘Abbas and Jad al-Karim Jaba’i, and cinematographer Nabil al-Maleh.

Later in January, 70 lawyers issued a statement demanding political reforms, particularly public freedoms and the end of the state of emergency and martial law. They also demanded legislation that would guarantee the neutrality of the state in the conduct of elections, thus paving the way for the rotation of power through the ballot-box.

In an interview with the daily al-Sharq al-Awsat (February 8, 2001), Asad raised the prospect of allowing new political parties alongside those in power under the umbrella of the Ba’ath-led PNF. “There is an idea to develop party activity in Syria; all possibilities are open, including that of having new parties,” he said.

Such a development might well unleash a storm of change. So far the constituent parties of the PNF have behaved more like extensions of the Ba’ath party than independent bodies. Since they joined the PNF these parties have led a semi-clandestine existence. Their role in public political life has been limited at best. Their positions have always been barely distinguishable from the government. Their membership is estimated to have ranged between 300 and 10,000, with the two wings of the Communist party, the Bakdash and Faysal wings, being the most active and effective among them.

The reforms seem to suggest that the democratic sentiments expressed in Bashar al-Asad’s inauguration speech, which referred to transparency, respect for opposing views and pluralism, might be a little more than rhetoric. But they are also inspired in part by internal and external pressures. Syria’s social, economic and cultural life atrophied during the 30-year rule of Hafez al-Asad. There is a large and widening gap between the rich and poor. More importantly, the burdens of underdevelopment are not shared equitably, with an island of affluence surrounded by a sea of poverty and destitution. Economic benefits are allocated largely through a system of clientelism and patronage feeding voraciously at public expense.

The system of government instituted by the Ba’ath party is in many ways a carbon-copy of the one that prevailed in the former ‘eastern bloc’. It is a largely centralized and authoritarian system in which there are few legitimate mechanisms by which the population can complain against public officials or influence the policymaking process. The state became monolithic: the security agencies enjoy wide, largely unchecked, powers, instilling fear in the people. The new president seems to have realised, even before coming to power, that such a system is an anachronism. The internal pressures for accountability and participation were also compounded by the challenges of globalization, economic integration and the conflict with Israel.

The rejuvenation of civil society currently under way might lead eventually to a radical change in the basis of governance. Since it came to power in 1963, the Ba’ath regime has justified its rule by a glib and superficial “revolutionary legitimacy.” It made the institutions of civil society irrelevant to the country’s governance, and transformed the institutions of state into spoils to be distributed among chosen nomenklatura. The Ba’athist hegemony effectively depoliticised Syrian society.

If carried to their logical conclusion, Asad’s reforms would shift the legitimacy of political power from “putschist-cum-revolutionary legitimacy” to “constitutional legitimacy,” thus making the state an instrument of the rule of law. But it is safe to say that it will not be easy to push reforms against the existing network of vested interests and entrenched bureaucratic habits, even if Asad genuinely desires to do so.

In his recent interview with al-Sharq al-Awsat, he said: “The important thing is to move forward in a measured fashion “as all development needs discussion.” That effecting change should be a gradual affair is understandable in the light of opposition from entrenched power centres, the natural impulse being to ensure that the floodgates of reform will not sweep the regime away altogether. It is also important to preserve internal stability, which was established after long years of turbulence. Asad faces the “Gorbachev dilemma”: preserving stability and the regime is conditional on prosperity and change, which in turn are hard to bring about without social and political stability.

There has been growing pressure from within some government circles against the movement toward reform. But the old guard may well realise that, although the age of overt military coups in Syria ended long ago, the age of undeclared, non-military coups might just have started.

Abbas Fadl Murtada