Vol. 77/No. 34      September 30, 2013

The U.N. released a weapons inspectors’ report Sept. 16 confirming that rockets filled with toxic sarin gas were responsible for the deaths of some 1,400 in opposition-controlled suburbs of Damascus Aug. 21. Details of the rockets, launchers and trajectory point to the Bashar al-Assad regime being responsible.

Meanwhile, Assad has stepped up the murderous campaign against those resisting his rule.

Washington, backed by Paris and London, looks to play a role in eventually cobbling together a new government in Syria without Assad, drawn from some forces currently part of the Assad regime and certain opposition figures. Their goal is to establish a semblance of political stability with a government more in line with imperialist interests and capable of keeping a lid on the struggles of workers and farmers.

Assad has informed the U.N. that the Syrian government is applying to sign on to the treaty banning chemical weapons.

President Barack Obama hailed the deal with Russia Sept. 15 in an ABC news interview with George Stephanopoulos, saying it could lead to a political settlement of the civil war. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that representatives of Russia, the U.S. and the U.N. would meet Sept. 28 in New York to discuss possible steps toward a “negotiated solution.”

Obama credited the threat of U.S. military strikes in Syria with producing the deal with Moscow and added he was leaving a consort of battleships in the area should it go sour. Leading up to Moscow’s offer, Kerry suggested in a supposed off the cuff remark that the only thing that would avert a U.S. strike would be if the Syrian government were to agree to declare and dismantle its chemical weapons through a process overseen by the U.N. Obama provided time for a deal to come together by seeking congressional approval and multilateral support.

Regime launches attacks on workers
Assad took advantage of the shift to resume attacks against opposition forces and civilians. Rockets and missiles have started raining down again on Damascus suburbs and other urban areas. On Sept. 11 regime warplanes bombed one of the main hospitals in the north of the country in Al-Bab, near Aleppo, killing 11 people, including two doctors. Over the course of the war, Assad has targeted schools, hospitals and food supplies for repeated attack, shattering many cities. Over 6 million Syrians have been driven from their homes, more than 2 million out of the country.

The Syrian government is also receiving aid from Iran and thousands of fighters from Hezbollah, the Tehran-backed Lebanese militia. Iranian Revolutionary Guards are reportedly running a training center for foreign combatants to fight alongside the Syrian army.

The civil war continues to spill outside the country’s borders. On Sept. 16 a government helicopter flew into Turkish airspace and was shot down, landing back inside Syrian territory. The next day a car bomb exploded at a major border crossing checkpoint between the two countries, killing seven.

Inspired by the massive protests in Tunisia, Egypt and other places in the Middle East and North Africa, working people and others in Syria began demonstrating in 2011 for political rights and increasingly for the end of the Assad regime. The growing actions were met with furious repression, space for public demonstrations closed, and some forces began armed resistance.

These forces are divided between groups led by Syrian bourgeois opposition factions, many with ties to ruling circles in Saudi Arabia or Qatar, and deeply reactionary Islamist-jihadist forces, some linked to al-Qaeda.

The al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the two main al-Qaedist groups, pose a serious threat to toilers in Syria. They have attempted to take control of territory where they can set up operations and reap funds by demanding payment at border checkpoints and through sales of crude oil and other “spoils of war.” Increasingly, the Lebanese Al Akhbar reports, these groups are coming into conflict with each other.

Debate over Obama foreign policy
Obama has won some bipartisan backing for his decision to make a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It’s hard for anybody to pooh-pooh the idea that we may be on the way to a diplomatic solution,” said Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, another Republican, said the U.S. now has the opportunity to “parlay” the deal into broader efforts to find a political end to the civil war.

Other politicians and bourgeois commentators argue that U.S. power and credibility is being weakened by the Obama administration’s course to cut the size of the U.S. military, pull U.S. troops from wars abroad and avoid military engagements through negotiations on terms that appear to diminish U.S. power.

“U.S. policy is not to oust the Assad regime or even to encourage the Syrian people to do so,” Douglas Feith, U.S. undersecretary of defense under George W. Bush, wrote in the Sept. 17 Wall Street Journal. “Assad must stay, not go, for he is needed to negotiate and implement an arrangement to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons.

“The victims of chemical weapons shake in agony,” Feith added. “Assad, Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Ali Khamanei shake with laughter.”
 
 
Related article:
Washington backed use of gas attacks in Iran-Iraq war
 
 
 
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