Syria and the Antiwar Tradition | The Bullet No. 1324
This is a very clear analysis of how leftists should relate to the
horrifying mess that is Syria, examining both sides of the debate and
weighing their arguments. Though it appears in a socialist publication,
the logic expounded should appeal to anyone who opposes the evil twins
of militarism and imperialism, and wants the best possible outcome for
Syrians.
David Bush:
The slogan of "the main enemy [is] at
home" does not say we don't care about your plight, rather it says our
responsibility to internationalism is to stop the imperialism of our own
ruling class, precisely because no one else will do it. To frame
opposition to war in the abstract – the main enemy is whoever is causing
the most amount of death – is actually to shirk the political
responsibility for what you can effectively alter, your own government's
actions.
Both Smith and Oakley ultimately confuse the act of
building a solidarity movement with the act of building an antiwar
movement. The former is about bringing awareness and material support to
a group of people. The latter is about stopping your own government's
drive to war. Both are acts of solidarity, but they differ in focus and
strategy. ...
ISIS is a product of the American invasion and
occupation of Iraq. The generations of Western imperialism in the region
have laid the basis for the entire mess that is the Syrian war. More
Western intervention is not just unlikely to solve the issues, it is
almost assuredly going to make everything much worse. The anti-Assad
forces have degenerated from a popular rebellion into a quagmire of
political military forces that in no way resemble the array of forces in
revolutionary Spain.
The actual history of the Spanish Civil War
and the revolution also has little in common with the situation in
Syria. The international left supported their comrades on the ground
resisting Franco and fascism by raising funds and organizing volunteers
for fighting. The leftist response in Spain and abroad was not to call
for British and French intervention, but for those forces to ease the
blockade, which was aimed at suffocating the revolutionary forces in
Spain (for instance Britain and France went so far as protecting
Franco's naval fleet).
If the British and French intervened it
would have not resulted in a victory for Spanish workers, more likely it
would have meant an even speedier destruction of the revolution. ...
When the left in the West prioritizes a perspective that the main enemy
is Russia, this all too easily leads down the road of bolstering
nationalism and the rightwing. It creates the conditions for further
imperial adventures and even opens the door to military confrontation
with Russia.
There are some on the left (as well as on the right
such as Boris Johnson) who argue that the key now is to protest outside
Russian embassies. But given the heightened tensions and renewed
anti-Moscow bent in the U.S., UK and Canada, what positive outcome would
that have? Can we seriously argue that Western leftists have the
ability to stop Russian bombs? Protests outside the Russian embassy
would surely be used by the right to increase the drive to war, not
lessen the crimes committed. They would also play into Putin's hand and
make it harder for Russians to build an anti-war movement linked to
those in the West. ...
In the run-up to the Iraq war, the
rightwing and liberal media tried to paint the anti-war movement as a
group of people uncaring or wilfully unaware of Saddam's brutal crimes.
People in the movement were routinely called Baathist apologists.
Despite these routine slanders a perspective that focused on uniting
around opposing the war, not on any other questions, allowed for mass
participation in the movement. The terms of the movement were simple: do
you oppose the war? If yes, then let's join forces on that question and
debate other political perspectives along the way (this was also the
same formula that anti-war movement adopted during the Vietnam war).
What has been lost in the debate around the war in Syria is precisely
this perspective.
Imperial involvement always has some sort of
humanitarian justification whether that be protecting democracy and the
free world in Vietnam or stopping a bloodthirsty tyrant with WMD's in
Iraq. Those on the left who advocate for selective intervention for
“humanitarian” reasons fail to realize they don't direct state policy or
war aims – those who put the troops in the field and conduct war have
very different reasons for doing so. The drive to war has its own logic
and aims, which are very much coloured by the needs of capitalism and
the interests of the economic and political elites. The left's call for
intervention only provides political cover for the ruling class.
