Vol. 80/No. 25      July 11, 2016

 
(front page)

State Dept. rift shows US imperialism’s
Syria quandary

 
A rift within the U.S. government became public in mid-June when an internal State Department “dissent channel” memo disagreeing with President Barack Obama’s course in Syria was leaked to the press. Signed by 51 diplomats, the memo calls for using missiles and airstrikes against the Bashar al-Assad regime.

The Obama administration’s course has been to direct U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State, give limited aid to Kurdish forces in northern Syria — who have been the most effective force against Islamic State — and to rely on cooperation from Moscow to rein in the Assad regime.

Obama’s 2012 declaration of a “red line” in Syria if the regime used chemical weapons, turned out to be a bluff. Instead, viewing Assad as the lesser evil to Islamic State, Washington under Obama has collaborated with Moscow and Tehran, which back Assad, to try to bring some stability to the country.

The memo says, “A more muscular military posture under U.S. leadership would underpin and propel a new and reinvigorated diplomatic initiative” and that Washington should take measures to ensure that the Syrian “regime’s warplanes are grounded.”

The release of the memo, the number of diplomats who have signed and its criticism of the course of the commander in chief of U.S. imperialism in the midst of a shooting war is unprecedented. Washington’s has more than 4,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq and 300 special forces in Syria.

Secretary of State John Kerry, former CIA Director David Petraeus and former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton all argued for a similar approach presented in the memo.

In an interview with CBS June 20, Vice President Joe Biden reiterated the administration’s line that Assad’s rule is the lesser evil. Pointing to the ouster of Libya’s President Muammar Gadhafi through military operations by U.S. and other imperialist powers that has led to chaos there, Biden drew the analogy to Syria. “He’s gone. What happens? Doesn’t the country disintegrate?” … “Tell me what we’re going to do.”

The next day Kerry met with eight of the 51 dissenting diplomats. The New York Times description that “the session was an unusual one,” is accurate both for Kerry’s personal views and that the meeting took place at all. Paraphrasing the conversation, the Times reported that Kerry told the diplomats, “What would happen if American forces came into an accidental confrontation with the Russian Air Force, which has defended Mr. Assad? What if American pilots were shot down?”

The State Department split comes from the inability of U.S. imperialism to put in power an alternative to the Assad regime no matter what tactics are tried.

The more than five-year-long civil war began after the Assad regime — based on a narrow layer of capitalist families, mostly from the Alawite minority, a branch of Shiite Islam — attacked massive protests demanding political rights and the end of his dictatorial rule. In the absence of any working-class leadership, Islamist and secular groups — based among the Sunni Muslims who make up 75 percent of the country — began competing for territory and fighting government forces. At the same time Kurdish fighters have taken advantage of the conflict to establish an autonomous region in the north.

Nearly half a million people have been killed. More than half of Syria’s 23 million people are displaced, with millions in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, and hundreds of thousands seeking refuge in Europe.

According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the Assad government has killed many times more civilians than has the reactionary Islamic State.

As part of a Washington-Moscow brokered cease-fire agreed to in February that rapidly fell apart, the Assad government agreed to allow food deliveries to some areas besieged by Syrian government forces. Food was delivered for the first time in four years to Daraya, a rebel-held town outside of Damascus June 10, but the same day Syrian military aircraft bombed the town, hampering distribution of the aid.

U.S. forces expand role in Afghanistan

The Obama administration in early June approved a more aggressive use of U.S. troops and airstrikes in Afghanistan in battles against the Taliban, who now control more areas of the country than at any time since the 2001 U.S. invasion.

There are about 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the majority of whom function as part of NATO operations there. The White House had previously announced plans to reduce its forces by nearly half this year, but is now reconsidering this, according to Reuters. In mid-June NATO decided not to go through with a troop reduction and closure of bases there.  
 
 
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