Vol. 79/No. 23      June 22, 2015

Moscow and Tehran back the Syrian regime to the hilt. Washington, while nominally seeking a diplomatic road to replace Assad, relies on Damascus and Tehran to help stop the advance of Islamic State and stabilize the region in the interests of U.S. imperialism. This is an important element in President Barack Obama’s recent shift toward closer relations with Iran and Russia.

“‘Assad must go’ was never a serious U.S. policy,” wrote Aaron David Miller in a March 15 “Think Tank” column in the Wall Street Journal. “The rise of Islamic State all but cemented Mr. Assad’s presidency.”

Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria are effectively countering Islamic State while opposing Assad’s rule. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have forged alliances with Arab, Christian and other groups in these ground battles.

Their advances have inspired struggles by Kurds in Turkey. This was reflected in recent elections, where for the first time the Kurdish-based People’s Democratic Party (HDP), a left-wing bourgeois party, surpassed the 10 percent threshold to enter parliament.

The Kurds — some 30 million people living in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria — are fighting for a homeland and against centuries of national oppression.

The struggle in Syria began in March 2011 with mass popular protests demanding an end to Assad’s rule. Opposition forces took control of Syria’s largest city Aleppo and other parts of the country. The regime responded with a relentless war that dealt blows to the rebellion and devastated much of the population through starvation sieges and deadly barrel bombs.

More than 220,000 people have been killed since the civil war began. Almost half of the country’s population of 22 million has been forced to flee their homes. Under these conditions, reactionary groups such as Islamic State have been able to seize territory.

Last month Islamic State took control of Palmyra in central Syria, putting nearly half of the country’s territory, mostly desert, under its control. In March forces aligned with the Islamic Front coalition, which opposes Assad and Islamic State, together with the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front captured the provincial capital Idlib in northwestern Syria from the government.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said June 2 that his government will back Assad’s rule “until the end of the road,” reported IRNA, Iran’s state news agency. Tehran recently sent 15,000 fighters to Syria with the aim of helping reverse recent government defeats, according to the Daily Star, a Lebanese newspaper.

Meanwhile, Islamic State, aided by Syrian government airstrikes, has made advances against several rebel groups fighting against Assad north of Aleppo. At least 59 civilians were killed in the town of al-Bab May 30 when the Syrian air force dropped barrel bombs at a market there, reported Reuters.

Since liberating Kobani from Islamic State forces in January, the YPG has successfully fought to free many areas throughout the region from Islamic State control. In May Kurdish forces and their allies launched an offensive from Hasakah province in the Kurdish region, taking back the strategic Abdul-Aziz Mountain along with 221 Kurdish and Christian villages that were held by Islamic State, reported the Washington Post. They’re currently fighting to drive Islamic State out of Tel Abyad, a commercial center near the Turkish border. In early June Islamic State launched attacks against government forces that control part of the provincial capital of Hasakah. “Half the city is under our control in the north and northwest,” YPG spokesman Redur Xelil told Reuters. When Islamic State “reach the borders of our area they will receive a stiff response.” The YPG has said it does not coordinate operations with the Syrian military.

The Islamic State’s seizure of the city of Ramadi in Iraq May 17 exposed once again the combat weakness of Iraqi forces. According to Politico, Iraq’s armed forces may have as few as 5,000 “effective troops” under its command, despite U.S. training and airstrikes. Baghdad is increasingly reliant on Shiite militias backed by the Iranian government.

Those most combat ready and determined to hold their ground are the 160,000 Peshmerga troops of the autonomous Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq. But they’re not getting the heavy weaponry they need. Washington sends supplies to Baghdad, which provides very little to the Peshmerga to avoid strengthening the Kurds’ fight for independence.

“They [Islamic State] target us with weapons that were abandoned in Ramadi,” Kurdish Minister for Peshmerga Affairs Mustafa Sayid Qadir told the Journal. “Wouldn’t it have been better if the Iraqi army had given them to us instead of giving them to ISIS?”
 
 
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