U.S. Military Escalation in Syria...Yet More Horrors in Store for the Syrian People
by Larry Everest | June 17, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On June 13, the Obama administration announced it was escalating U.S. military involvement in the war in Syria by openly and directly supplying the Syrian opposition with weapons and military equipment for the first time, and by positioning more U.S. military forces in neighboring Jordan.
The U.S. has been intervening in Syria, in one form or another, since the uprising against Bashir Al Assad's reactionary regime began in March 2011. After initially hesitating, the Obama administration declared that Assad must go, not because he's a butcher, but because the U.S. calculated Assad's fall could strengthen the U.S. position in the Middle East by weakening its main adversaries—Iran and its Shi'ite fundamentalist allies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Fueling a Reactionary Slaughter
What has this intervention by the U.S. and its allies accomplished so far? It's helped fuel and prolong a horrific, reactionary slaughter. Nearly 100,000 Syrians have been killed, one million more driven from the country, and another four million driven from their homes inside Syria. According to human rights agencies, both sides in the conflict—including the forces the U.S. is seeking to cohere and shape into a new regime—have carried out kidnapping, torture, and summary assassinations of their opponents and civilians. Tens of thousands in Syria have died, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.
The current situation is a humanitarian crisis on top of already existing humanitarian crises. Tens of thousands of people who fled Iraq during and in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion and occupation ended up seeking refuge in Syria. Today they are being forced to flee again, back to Iraq where they face conditions the UN describes as "high rates of unemployment, dismal basic services and ongoing sectarian strife." What little possessions they fled Iraq with have been lost, and they are being pushed back out of Syria traumatized, desperate, broke, and homeless.
And conditions for the half-million Syrian refugees in camps in neighboring Jordan are so bad that many are returning to war-wracked Syria, which a UN report called the "best bad choice." One refugee who lives in the Za'atari camp where 120,000 people try to survive in tents and caravans in the middle of the desert said, "Life is too expensive outside Za'atari, but unbearable in the camp." The UN reports that in this camp, "Riots occur almost daily over perceived injustice in distribution and general frustration over insufficient help." (See "For some, the best bad choice: Returning from refuge to Syria" at irinnews.org.)
And what does this latest U.S. move of giving some "rebels" military assistance have to do with alleviating this humanitarian nightmare? Nothing. So why should anyone expect this, or further imperialist involvement, would do anything other than more of the same—fueling a slaughter?
U.S. Aims and Interests
The U.S. claims they are escalating their aid because the Syrian regime is using chemical weapons. First of all, international agencies with any credibility have found at least as much evidence that the U.S.-backed forces are using chemical weapons. But beyond that, the U.S. is not motivated by, and escalating U.S. intervention is in no way justified by, whatever crimes are being committed by the Syrian regime. The motives of the U.S. have nothing to do with the use of nerve gas, much less the interests of the people of Syria.
Those fighting against Assad are a mixed bag of reactionary Sunni religious fundamentalists, including jihadists, and wannabe U.S. clients. (There are perhaps 1,000 different militias operating in Syria.) Nonetheless, for over a year, the Obama administration has been supplying these pro-U.S. elements with materiel, intelligence, and training, while trying to shape and control their politics. U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey have supplied weapons to them.
Voices in the U.S. ruling class have raised concerns about the dangers for U.S. imperialism in being drawn into a quagmire. But the U.S. is driven to escalate its intervention by recent military setbacks for the opposition, as well as perceived need by the U.S. to exercise more control over the political agenda of the opposition. In fact, the U.S. may be cynically arming the Syrian opposition, not in hopes this will turn the tide, but mainly to drag out the fighting and weaken and tie down Iran and Iran's ally, Hezbollah, which have sent fighters and military support to the Assad regime.
And the decision to openly and directly arm the Syrian "rebels" may only be the tip of the iceberg of U.S. military escalation. The Obama administration is reportedly stationing F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missile batteries in neighboring Jordan and may be preparing to impose a "no fly zone" over Syria. With Russia and Iran also increasing their support for the Assad regime, this U.S. action may turn out to be a very ominous turn, along with moves by Iran and its allies, turning the Syrian conflict into a regional conflict, with very dangerous and unpredictable consequences.
U.S. actions in Syria are the latest episode in the horror film we've been watching for the last 12 years. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan, then Iraq, escalated threats against Iran, built up its regional enforcer Israel, intervened in Libya, and escalated drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, while continuing to back brutal tyrants in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey, and across the region. All these are pieces of one overarching campaign to violently maintain U.S. control of the vast swath of the planet from West Africa through the Middle East to Central Asia—a geographic crossroads with over 60 percent of the world's energy reserves—that is a crucial component of the U.S.'s global empire of exploitation. All this to maintain a regional order that has already brought decade after decade of misery, oppression, and death.
The fact that in large part the U.S. is confronting, and is confronted by, reactionary Islamic jihadist forces does not in any way mitigate the nature of what the U.S. is doing. In fact, many of these jihadist forces are direct offshoots of things like the CIA arming Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviets during the Cold War. And every time a U.S. missile blows up a village, from Afghanistan to Yemen, these actions drive people into the arms of such fundamentalist forces.
Opposing U.S. Aggression, Fighting for Another Way
People in the U.S. cannot simply stand back and look on with horror at what's unfolding in Syria and the Middle East. Active, visible political opposition to this U.S. escalation—and all U.S. and Israeli crimes in the region—is called for!
As Revolution wrote recently, "Such visible opposition—even if small at first—can be a very positive and dynamic force on the terrain as events unfold. The more resistance to the U.S. and Israel is informed by the orientation of opposing both reactionary Islamic Jihad and U.S. imperialism—and let's be clear that it's the U.S. that has been responsible for the lion's share of death in the Middle East—the more there is an inspiration and basis for people around the world, including in Syria, to be part of bringing forward another way, beyond the reactionary 'alternatives' fighting it out on the ground in Syria today."
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