The heroic uprising against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has been met with one of the bloodiest counter-revolutionary wars in living memory. Now, the Syrian revolution is facing possible air strikes by the US, with or without support from its allies. It is vital that the left in the West reject dictator apologists, support democratic uprisings and oppose all imperialist meddling.

Reject US intervention

While the levels of death and destitution in Syria have risen over the last two years, the US had declared that the use of chemical weapons would be a “red line” beyond which the Assad regime could not step. Clearly, the deaths of some 70,000 people and the displacement of nearly 5 million did not cause Obama and his cronies much lost sleep.

The current tears over civilian losses stink of hypocrisy. John Kerry, for instance, despite his recent branding of Assad as a “thug and a murderer”, wined and dined this self-same dictator in 2009. More recently Kerry argued for closer relations between Assad and the USA as a counterweight to the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions.

Some commentators are resurrecting the ghost of Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction scandal. But Syria 2013 is not Iraq 2003. The US has to contend with a much more volatile situation in the Middle East. The Arab Spring has changed the game.

The successful democratic uprisings against the seemingly unshakable regimes in Tunisia and Egypt inspired millions across the region to struggle against economic injustice and for political freedom. All the major imperial forces have been left scrambling to regain a foothold.

In Syria, US strategy aims at the mutual destruction of the contending forces. The US hopes that both sides will bash each other into submission. It wants to undermine the genuinely democratic movement and foment sectarian division. To this end, the US has been walking a fine line in an attempt to achieve an outcome most favourable to its interests. As George Friedman, CEO of US ruling class think tank Stratfor, said: “The United States had a strategic interest in neither faction taking power in Syria – its Lebanonisation. That is brutal, but it is true … The president tried to walk a tightrope between regime change and inaction (or a small action that left the regime in place).”

To this end, the US has maintained toothless sanctions against Assad while allowing US allies to supply the regime with the ingredients for chemical weapons. On the other hand, it has been offering limited funding and support (in the form of small firearms) to the least democratic elements of the resistance.

This is a calculated strategy. The US ruling class does not concern itself with destroyed lives. It treats war as an imperial chess game, shifting pieces around the board attempting to shore up its own power. If the US bombs the country – and this looks likely – it will not be motivated by a passion for justice and a thirst for democracy.

While it is vital for the left to take a stand against any US strike, it is also important to be clear about the basis for such opposition. We should oppose US intervention because it would strengthen repressive forces in Syria, while inflicting more death and destruction on an already devastated population.

Assad apologists

But opposition to US intervention should not lead us to champion Assad and the bloc of countries (Russia and Iran) and forces (Hezbollah) that support him.

The anti-intervention camp is deeply divided. Some are using US threats to defend the regime. At recent demonstrations in Melbourne and Sydney, supporters of Assad dominated, and supporters of the Syrian revolution were threatened with physical violence if they came and put the position “No to US intervention, down with Assad.”

Shamefully, some on the left have offered intellectual cover to the Assad regime in the name of opposition to imperialism. For these people, Baathist anti-imperialist rhetoric is enough to declare the regime legit once and for all.

In Australia, one of the most prominent figures in this camp is Sydney academic and organiser of the “Hands off Syria” rallies Tim Anderson. He wrote in September of last year:

“The ‘consensus’ from March 2011 was that President Bashar al-Assad was a ‘brutal dictator’; the Syrian people had risen up against his regime as part of the Arab Spring’s democratic awakening; Assad’s minority Alawi group was repressing the majority Sunni group; and a rebel force had been formed from army defectors and outside forces were only helping them defend a civilian population. In my opinion, virtually every element of this picture was false.”

To call into question Assad’s dictatorial credentials is to spit in the face of those who suffered under the regime for over 40 years and the tens of thousands who were killed in 1982 in the Hama massacre. It is to deny those who have been fighting for land reform and trade union freedoms for decades. To question the motivations of the millions who came into the streets because their lives were made a living hell, not just by the political repression but by class injustice, is an insult. More than a third of the Syrian population lives below the poverty line. The urban and rural poor are the social base of the revolution against Assad. And they are motivated by an entirely justified rage.

Anderson also slanders the whole of the movement against the regime by suggesting that they are puppets of Western imperialism. To make such a claim is to deny the very real democratic struggles being waged by revolutionary forces. It ignores the significant structures of self-organisation, especially in parts of the country where the regime has withdrawn.

These initiatives include the voluntary provision of emergency medical and legal support, food distribution and the turning of houses into field hospitals. In some parts of the country, local councils have taken over the running of whole towns. Despite dire war conditions, they are holding democratic elections.

‛A popular revolution’

An article compiling the experiences of some of these local councils was published in issue number 13 of the newspaper Al Khatt Al Amami (Front Line) of the Current of the Revolutionary Left in Syria. They argue:

“This is a genuine popular revolution; the driving social forces are the workers and more broadly the impoverished urban and rural social strata … They have created structures of self-organisation and coordinating bodies, as well as embryos of self-government, local councils and civil advice bureaus. These forms of control and administration from below are more developed in the Syrian revolution than in any other process in the countries of the region.”

None of the revolutionary left forces deny divisions among the opposition. The Free Syrian Army lacks material and financial support, while the reactionary Islamist forces such as Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant are being funded by Gulf countries.

The militarisation of the struggle has had a negative effect on the politics of the movement and makes it more susceptible to imperialist meddling. But the taking up of arms was necessary, imposed by the violence of the regime. As one Syrian revolutionary put it: “Whoever has lived under the same conditions as Syrian citizens, and witnessed all this repression and murder, and was forced to pick up a weapon, knows they will look for weapons from anywhere.”

Historically, many movements have received their arms through one imperial source or another. Consider the Irish national independence movement (which obtained guns from Germany) or the armed wing of the South African ANC, Umkhonto We Sizwe, which was supplied guns by the USSR. While it is necessary to consider the political ramifications of such support, we can hardly condemn resistance movements for attempting to defend themselves.

It is true that some sections of the movement are calling for US intervention. It is also clear that some forces are getting weapons via Western gun runners. Neither factor indicates universal capitulation on the part of the rebels; neither means we should support Assad.

On 31 August, a coalition of left wing organisations in Middle Eastern countries – the Revolutionary Socialists (Egypt), Revolutionary Left Current (Syria), Union of Communists (Iraq), Al-Mounadil-a (Morocco), Socialist Forum (Lebanon) and League of the Workers’ Left (Tunisia) – released a statement, “We stand behind the Syrian people’s revolution – no to foreign intervention”.

In it, they take issue with the political complexion of some sections of the revolution against Assad and point out the imperialist meddling from all sides of the globe, saying that the aim of the Gulf states is to “control the nature of the conflict and steer it in a sectarian direction, distorting the Syrian revolution and aiming to abort it, as a reflection of their deepest fear that the revolutionary flame will reach their shores. So they backed obscurantist Takfiri groups, coming, for the most part, from the four corners of the world, to impose a grotesque vision for rule based on Islamic sharia.”

These revolutionaries nonetheless maintain opposition to Western bombing and argue for international solidarity with the democratic movement in Syria. So should leftists in Australia.