Daily Times

As the dark clouds of another war and imperialist aggression loom large on the horizon of the Middle East, the hawks of imperialism and strategists of capital are baying for President Bashar al-Assad’s blood. In its last issue, The Economist’s editorial is titled “Hit him hard”, with the pictures of coffin-draped corpses piercing through Assad’s face on the cover. The editorial ends with the sentence: “If an American missile hits Mr Assad himself, so be it. He and his henchmen have only themselves to blame.” On the other hand, there is a palpable reluctance and hesitation culminating in desperation on the part of President Barack Obama. The US right-wing press is fuming at the policy of ‘limited strikes’. They want Obama to launch an all-out war and spread an unforeseen conflagration in the whole region.

An article in The Washington Post says: “Limited strikes could actually work in Assad’s favour…it is true that US credibility is at stake given Obama’s redline on Syria’s use of chemical weapons. But the purposefully weak response Obama is planning — one he has telegraphed weeks ago in advance, allowing the Assad regime to move assets out of harm’s way — will do nothing to salvage US credibility…If Obama can’t or won’t — if all he plans to do is (in President George W Bush’s immortal words) ‘fire a two million dollar missile into a ten dollar empty tent and hit a camel in the butt’ — then the Congress should refuse a feckless symbolic strike on Syria…(it) will embolden our enemies, weaken our security and makes the United States the world’s laughing stock.”

Barack Hussain Obama won the election in 2008 on a ticket pledging the ending of all foreign wars and pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan. If he goes ahead with the attack on Syria he will be the first leader in history with a Nobel Peace Prize to launch a war and such a devastating one at that. It might shame the Nobel Prize committee (if they have any shame). In a recent interview Obama is reported to have said, “I assure you nobody ends up being more war-weary than me.” This collapse of confidence and morale of the leader of the mightiest imperialist power in history reflects the malaise that has set in due to the severe economic and social crisis of US capitalism. There is just nine percent support for a strike without the approval of the UN and other institutions.

The masses in the US are suffering more than any time since World War II. One percent of the super rich own 50 per cent of the wealth and 50 percent of the population has a share of less than 10 percent of the country’s wealth. Proper healthcare and other basic facilities are becoming elusive for the vast majority of Americans. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have depleted the US treasury and it has gone from the biggest creditor nation to the biggest debtor nation in the world. Another disastrous and bloody adventure of the imperialist bosses will wreak havoc for the country and the working classes of the US.

Apart from the sharply rising internal dissent and the expanding anti-war movement, US imperialism faces an unprecedented diplomatic isolation internationally. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he sees “no NATO role in an international reaction to the (Syrian) regime.” The defeat of David Cameron’s ‘war launching’ resolution in the House of Commons in the British parliament was a body blow to Obama’s war plans. Angela Merkel, terrified of a backlash from the German proletariat and the youth, abandoned the coalition right at the start of this campaign. The Arab League, which is a non-serious assemblage, opposed the endorsement of an attack without the approval of the UN. Russia and China are opposed to it.

France’s ‘socialist’ President François Hollande initially supported the discourse but the sharply mounting opposition of the masses has put the participation of France in doubt. The Saudis, Qataris and other reactionary monarchies in the Gulf have been actively supporting the religious mercenaries in Syria, which has resulted in the surge of the al Qaeda-affiliated group Al-Nusra. The Economist wrote, “Mr Assad’s regime has become more solid, while the rebels…dependent mainly on the Saudis and Qataris, have become more Islamist, with the most extreme jihadis doing much of the fighting. An uprising…has kindled a sectarian civil war.”

There is also a ferocious internecine war going on between different factions of the Islamic fundamentalist groups supported by the Saudis and the Qataris. Syria has become a battleground of the proxy war between these two despotic reactionary regimes vying for regional supremacy, influence and hegemony. This, in turn, has enabled the Assad regime to widen its support base amongst ordinary Syrians who are terrified of these reactionary bigots. The venomous hostility between the Qataris and Saudis was exposed when the Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al Saudi spilled his spleen in a statement: “(Qatar is) nothing but 300 people…and a TV channel.”

The real cause of this impending imperialist aggression is that Assad is winning this war. If the Assad regime were overthrown the alternative would be a calamitous inferno devouring this ancient civilisation. Oil has become a curse and a tragedy for the people of the region. The western imperialists plagued by the worst domestic crisis of capitalism in recent history are blundering into insanity by threatening to decimate Syria and possibly Iran. After the humiliating defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan, the fate of the imperialists in the Syrian conflict will be much more disastrous. Trotsky wrote decades ago: “US imperialism was a colossus with feet of clay.” This is unfolding in the horrendous drama being staged in the Middle East. There is an unprecedented opposition to imperialist war amongst the masses across the globe. If the attack is launched, the catastrophe would be of nothing less than a Holocaust for the masses of the region and beyond. This is the only life and future capitalism can offer to the ordinary people of this beleaguered region. But it has also been proved more than often that revolutions arise from the womb of wars. The Arab revolution can erupt again with a tremendous power and scale. With a revolutionary party and leadership it can overthrow this vicious system and put an end to this savagery of bloodshed, misery and wars. It will be history’s retribution against this inhuman system.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com