The Fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: What it Means AND U.S. Out of Syria!

 https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/12/09/the-fall-of-syrias-bashar-al-assad-what-it-means/

and

https://www.codepink.org/syria2024?recruiter_id=1125356

The Fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: What it Means

Syrian rebels celebrate the toppling of Bashar al-Assad. Youtube screenshot.

The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, marking the end of more than 50 years of the Assad dynasty (1971 – 2024), is a dramatic event in the Middle East. It is difficult to make definite short- and long-term predictions in the wake of such a momentous event. But it deserves a brief comment about what may lie ahead.

In a country of 25 million with almost 75 percent Sunnis and only about 15 percent Alawite Shia Muslims, the Assad regime of the Alawite minority was sustained over half a century by brutal repression. Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad, was a significant Arab leader along with Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. Together, they were close allies of the Soviet Union, and formed the anti-Western front in the Arab world. Syria’s Assad dynasty, above all, was particularly shaky. It ruled with an iron fist, creating both fear and resistance which exploded into full-scale civil war in the early 2010s.

Other Arab regimes and much of the world found the Assads awkward to deal with. Once the Soviet Union had disintegrated, the United States sought the overthrow of the Syrian ruling order. The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Obama administration openly declared that “Assad must go.” However, the Islamic State at the time posed a greater threat to regional and Western interests. And America’s drive to remove the Assad dynasty failed, because the opposition was disunited, and it was convenient for the US-led Western powers to let the Syrian military fight ISIS.

Significant changes have, however, occurred in the geopolitics of the Middle East since October 7, 2023. With America’s backing, the Israeli military now dominates the region. Israeli war tactics in Gaza, where at least 45,000 Palestinians are known to have been killed, have been widely condemned by international courts, NGOs, human rights organizations, and activists. However, no country or agency can take enforcement action in the face of the American veto in the UN Security Council. Hamas and other Palestinian groups in Gaza and the West Bank have been severely weakened, as well as the Shia militia Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Israel’s multi-front war in the region, Iran, Yemen, and Syria have all been hit. And to protect Israel from enemy missiles, American warships, and air-defense batteries are deployed in the region.

The outgoing US president, Joe Biden, is a longtime close friend of Prime Minister Netanyahu and an ally of Israel. Biden is counting his final days in the White House. The President and his officials often speak about the Middle East, but hardly anything meaningful for mediation. The incoming president, Donald Trump, awaits his inauguration on January 20, 2025. Trump is even more aggressive. When it comes to America’s policy in Middle East, there is little difference between Democratic and Republican administrations.

In this perplexing scenario, how can the United States policy be explained? The American experience in previous conflicts offers some clues. The lessons of the Vietnam War ending in America’s withdrawal in the twentieth century were repeated in the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq in the twenty-first century. Washington has developed great aversion to sending American troops to fight wars in distant lands as a consequence of the loss of American lives and moral capital in those conflicts. Having learned those lessons, America’s new military doctrine is about deploying Israel to fight for itself, and for the United States using the latest American weapons. This doctrine makes Israel both an ally and a proxy of the United States to keep the Middle East in control.

In the latest events in Syria, America’s foe has been overthrown. Syrians celebrate in the streets of Damascus. Crowds take down statues and murals associated with the deposed ruling dynasty. Government buildings are set on fire. The erstwhile rebels who have won the war against the dictatorship are in charge. The victors belonging to the Sunni Islamist movement, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Organization for the Liberation of the Levant), are a mix of various armed factions led by Islamist commanders. HTS has roots in al Qaeda, which the United States regards as a terrorist group. Will Syria after Assad see stability? Or will the country become another Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya? Such questions may be answered as events unfold.

Deepak Tripathi, PhD, is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. He blogs at Reflections. Among his latest books are Modern Populism: Weaponizing for Power and Influence (Springer Nature, September 2023) and Afghanistan and the Vietnam Syndrome: Comparing US and Soviet Wars (also Springer Nature, March 2023).

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U.S. Out of Syria!

The U.S. is once again escalating violence in Syria. Now more than ever, with the Biden lame duck and an incoming Trump admin, we need to say NO to U.S. intervention in Syria. Let Syrians chart their own course!

Help us get 10,000 signatures so our team in DC can deliver this petition to the State Department next week! Sign the petition to demand an end to the bombing, halt U.S. military actions including the removal of U.S. troops, lift sanctions and push for diplomacy over destruction. The situation is escalating by the hour and we need urgent action NOW!

If your organization would like to endorse this letter, please fill out this form. 

President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin,

We, the undersigned, vehemently oppose U.S. intervention in Syria and demand the U.S. immediately stop bombing Syria, remove U.S. troops, and lift U.S. sanctions which are exacerbating an already difficult situation for the Syrian people. The U.S. has sowed chaos in Syria and the entire region for years and the Biden Administration ordering ongoing airstrikes is a disappointing sign that you have no intent on reversing your deadly policy of interventionism. 

The recent airstrikes are a reckless escalation in a region already destabilized by decades of harmful U.S. policies. It is imperative that the U.S. ceases its destructive role in Syria and refrains from further military action.

U.S. interventions in Syria are entirely undemocratic. We’ve witnessed Syrian political prisoners — some of them children — being released from prisons, and Syrians exiled from their country imagining returning home for the first time ever. The Syrian people, who have been living under the tyrannical Assad regime for decades, deserve to chart their own course and decide their own future just as much as the rest of the world. U.S. intervention only creates more unrest, robbing Syrians of their ability to do so. 

The U.S. cannot continue to act as an unchecked force of militarism in the world.  Its attacks serve no justifiable purpose other than perpetuating endless war and expanding U.S. militarism. Syria does not need more bombs — it needs diplomacy, reconstruction, and an end to foreign interference. We’ve seen what U.S. interventionism has done to Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan – nonsensical destruction, death, and instability. 

Hands off Syria NOW. Stop the strikes, end the militarism, and lift sanctions that have devastated the daily lives of the Syrian people.