An Interview with a Syrian radical

Joseph Daher is a Swiss-Syrian academic and activist. Originally from Aleppo, Daher is a staunch opponent of the Syrian Ba’ath regime. He maintains the website Syria Freedom Forever, which is dedicated to building a secular and socialist Syria. In his latest book Hezbollah: The Political Economy of the Party of God, Daher takes apart the misconceptions around Hezbollah and its role in Lebanese society.

In the years since the Arab Spring began the international left has become increasingly divided over Syria, particularly as the revolution turned into a civil war with plenty of interference from outside. As a result, the left has diverged into at least three main camps: those who see Western imperialism as the main foe, and others who claim Western intervention is vital for the Syrian rebels to triumph. But these two postures are not the only positions available.

There is another strain on the left, those who see no hope and no justice in either American or Russian involvement. Rather the case for Syrian emancipation requires a critical account of the different international forces at work in the civil war. Not just Russia and the United States, but also the roles played by the Gulf powers, Turkey and Iran. This is the premise of every serious analysis. And this is a vital part of Daher’s standpoint.

The following Souciant interview with Joseph Daher examines the poison gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun in the context of the civil war, as well as the interventions of foreign powers, the class character of the Assad regime and the politics of the Syrian opposition.

The gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun stirs memories of the Ghouta attack in 2013 for a lot of observers. Why do you think the Assad regime resorts to such measures?

First of all, I would like to say that since the chemical attacks Eastern Ghouta in 2013 until the gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun, many attacks with chemicals occurred and on a regular basis since 2013. This despite the fact Assad declared in June 2014 that chemical weapons had been removed from Syria to be destroyed. These kinds of attacks have become so frequent in Syria that most have not made it to the international news headlines.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has actually documented 167 attacks using a toxic substance since the first U.N. resolution in September 2013. Forty-five of those attacks were carried out after August 2015, when the U.N. passed a resolution establishing the Joint Investigative Mechanism to identify perpetrators using chemical weapons in Syria. In 2017, SNHR documented 9 attacks using toxic substances by regime forces.

The chemical attack was another step in the murderous campaign to destroy what is left of the popular opposition to the Assad regime.  After putting under siege and destroying Eastern Aleppo, the most important center of the popular and democratic opposition, and forcing the survivors as well as the survivors from other besieged opposition areas to go to Idlib, the regime is now concentrating its forces on bombing the civilian population in Idlib and Aleppo provinces. Syrian regime has actually focused its use of poison gases on opposition-held areas where 97% of its chemical attacks targeted opposition-held areas while 3% of the attacks were carried out in ISIS-held areas.

The objective of chemical weapons is clearly to instil terror in people, while there are few ways for civilians in liberated areas to protect themselves. This also showed the impunity with which the regime conducts its war against the Syrian people.

Many people have called for a military intervention against the Assad regime and we’ve just seen the US bomb a Syrian government airbase. What’s your view of Trump’s missile strike in response to Khan Sheikhoun?

I think we need to understand why for some sections of Syrians, especially within the country, were satisfied or happy at US bombing of a regime’s military base from which the chemical attack was launched.  After more than 6 years of a constant war and in total impunity of the regime against the Syrian people, this was the first time a military base of the regime was targeted for its murderous actions.

This said, no kind of optimism or illusions should be put in US administration in bringing anything positive to the Syrian people to achieve democracy or relieve even their pain. Many Syrians in liberated areas also understand this very well, as we can find many testimonies saying for example that the strikes were not to punish Assad too harshly, but to make him understand that he must not cross the “red lines”, in other words the use of chemical weapons, while it is okay that its military forces continue to use barrel bombs, vacuum rockets, cluster bombs, phosphorus weapons, etc.

Residents of Khan Sheikhoun actually suffered from regime’s bombing few days after the chemical attack on Saturday, 8th of April, which killed one woman and wounded several other people. Regimes and Russian warplanes also bombed last weekend various provinces, resulting in the deaths of new civilians.

The USA have not changed their strategy in Syria: the priority is still “the war on terror”, in other words Daesh, and try to reach stability in Syria in maintaining the regime, with at its head or not Assad. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is expected to visit Moscow on April 12 for talks with Russian officials, actually said on ABC’s This Week program there was “no change” to the U.S. military posture toward Syria.

The way also the US bombing occurred showed that they did not want to hit too “hard”, to say the least. Moscow officials confirmed that they received advanced warning from the U.S. about its strike on Syria, while according to some testimonies, regime soldiers were prepared for the 35-minute strike and, in advance, evacuated personnel and moved equipment out of the area. Within 24 hours of the strike, regime’s warplanes were actually again taking off from the bombed Shayrat air base. So for the moment, a change of strategy of the USA is still to be seen, although we also have to be careful as well as Trump is unpredictable, as he likes to say.

In addition to this, recent American airstrikes in Mosul, Aleppo and Raqqa, which are supposedly aimed at stopping ISIS, have also brought about large civilian death tolls.  They have been some of the deadliest since U.S. airstrikes on Syria started in 2014. On Saturday 8th of April, At least 15 civilians, including four children, were killed in a suspected US-led airstrike on Saturday near the city of Raqqa. This shows that greater U.S. military intervention in Syria will only lead to more death and destruction. According to Airwars, during the month of March alone, as many as a thousand civilians have been killed by U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in the name of the “War on Terror”.

In general, since coming to office, the Trump administration has given every indication that its goal is to promote authoritarian, racist, sexist Arab leaders and strengthen the repressive environment of the Middle East. These realities not only reveal the Trump administration’s motives but also compel us to condemn all the states that are carrying out wars against innocent civilians in the Middle East:  The Syrian and Iranian regimes, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, all the other authoritarian regimes in the region, IS, Al Qaida, and other religious fundamentalist movements, as well as Russian and Western military interventions. 

These moves are all part of an imperialist logic and the maintenance of authoritarian and unjust systems.  They all oppose the self-determination of the peoples of the region and their struggles for emancipation. Hence, anti-war activists whether in the Middle East or the West need to address all forms of repression and authoritarianism, and condemn all forms of foreign intervention against the interests of the people of the region, instead of limiting their criticisms only to the West and Israel.

Clearly, no peaceful and just solution in Syria can be reached with Bashar al-Assad and his clique in power.  He is the biggest criminal in Syria and must be prosecuted for his crimes instead of being legitimized by international and regional imperialist powers.

Some people on the left have tried to defend the Syrian Ba’ath regime as a ‘lesser evil’ to Islamic State and jihadi rebels. How would you describe the character of the Assad regime and its role in the region?

This perception of these sections of the left is completely wrong and destructive of the “lesser evil”. The solution to struggle against Islamic fundamentalist movements does not lie in the collaboration with authoritarian regimes like the Assad regime, quite on the opposite. When it comes to the IS and similar organizations, it’s necessary to tackle their root causes: authoritarian regimes and international and regional foreign interventions.

IS emerged as the result of crushing the space for popular movements linked to the 2011 uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. The interventions of regional and international states have contributed to ISIS’s development as well. In addition to this, neoliberal policies have impoverished the popular classes, together with the repression of democratic social and trade union forces, have been key in providing ISIS and Islamic fundamentalist forces the space to grow.

The left must understand that only by getting rid of these conditions can we resolve the crisis. That means we have to side with the democratic and progressive groups on the ground fighting to overthrow authoritarian regimes, defeat the counter-revolutionary Islamic fundamentalists, and replace neoliberalism with a more egalitarian social order in Syria and the region. Without addressing the political and socio-economic conditions that allowed and enabled the development of the IS, its capacity of nuisance or that of other similar groups will remain.

The solution is therefore of course to oppose the IS and other reactionary and jihadists forces, which as a reminder the Ba’ath regime has encouraged their developments at the beginning of the popular uprising in Syria by liberating the worst jihadist and Salafist personalities from its prisons, while killing and repressing democratic and progressive forces, but also and especially the barbaric, criminal and authoritarian regime of the Assad family.

The Assad regime is the main responsible of the disaster in Syria and of the exile of millions of Syrians. Both actors are barbaric and they feed themselves and are therefore to be overthrown to hope to build a democratic, secular and social society in Syria and elsewhere. This requires the support of democratic and popular movements that oppose these two counter revolutionary forces (authoritarian regimes and Islamic fundamentalist forces) and different forms of international (United States and Russia) and regional imperialisms (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel and Turkey) that are all fighting against the interests of the people in struggle in the region.

The Assad regime is an authoritarian, capitalist and patrimonial state using various policies such as sectarianism, harsh repression, tribalism, conservatism, and racism to rule, very far from being anti-imperialist and secular as presented by some of its supporters. The patrimonial nature of the state means the centres of power (political, military and economy) within the regime were concentrated in one family and its clique, the Assad, similar to Libya and Gulf monarchies for example, therefore pushing the regime to use all the violence at its dispositions to protect its rule.

In the economic sector, for example, following the accession to power of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian regime engaged in an increased and accelerated process of implementation of neoliberal economic policies. The latter have benefited in particular a small oligarchy, which had proliferated since the era of his father, because of its mastery of the networks of economic patronage and their loyal customers. Bashar al-Assad’s cousin, Rami Makhlouf, the richest man in Syria, perfectly embodied this Mafia-like process of privatization conducted by the regime in favour of its owns. Makhlouf controlled huge sectors of the economy directly or indirectly, according to some nearly 60%, thanks to a complex network of financial holdings.

In addition it has played a destructive role regionally, collaborating with various imperialist forces. We shouldn’t forget that Assad’s regime collaborated with the second gulf war in 1991 with US led coalition. Syria participated in 2001 in the war on terror working with US security officials. In 1976, Syria intervened in Lebanon to crush the Palestinian resistance and the Lebanese national movements, a coalition of nationalist and leftist forces. The regime has also historically instrumentalized and cooperated with jihadist groups after the Iraqi invasion by the USA in 2003 or Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon in 2007, while liberating most of the jihadists and Islamic extremists in the various amnesty calls at the beginning of the Syrian revolutionary process.

In what ways does the regime headed by Bashar al-Assad differ from the way his father ran the country?

The structures and core of the Ba’ath regime were built by Hafez al-Assad at its arrival in power in 1970 and they have rivalled by their murderous repressive campaigns. This being said some real changes did take place.

From 2000, Bashar al-Assad strengthened the patrimonial nature of the state in the hands of the Assad family and relatives through a process of accelerated implementation of neoliberal policies and the replacement of sections of the old guard by relatives or close individuals to Bashar al-Assad.

The first years of Bashar al-Assad in power were actually concentrated on establishing himself as the main decision maker and marginalizing the centers of power within the regime challenging this aim. This process was achieved as we have seen in 2005 with the resignation and then departure of Abdel Halim Khaddam in exile in 2005. It is at this period that the social market economy strategy was launched. It constituted in many ways the culmination of at least two decades of regime-bourgeoisie reconciliation.

The social market economy strategy led to a shift in the social base of the regime constituted at its origins of peasants, government employees, some section, with at the heart of the regime coalition were the crony capitalists – the rent-seeking alliance of political brokers (led by Bashar’s mother’s family) and the regime supportive bourgeoisie. It was this bourgeoisie that funded 2007 Assad re-elections and the one that expressed its support for the ruling regime by propaganda and proclamations in the first months of the revolution when demonstrations of support for the Assad regime were still a pressing need for the regime, in addition to funding after militias loyal to the regime.

This shift was paralleled by disempowerment of the traditional corporatist organizations of workers and peasants and the co-optation in their place of business groups, while a new labor law ended what the regime’s section pushing for neoliberal policies called overprotection of workers. The corporative and fierce nature of the state under Bashar al-Assad was even more weakened than at the time of Hafez al-Assad, relying exclusively in coercive policies as the corporative organizations were undermined considerably. In other words, the reconfiguration of authoritarianism under Bashar did not strengthen it but on the opposite limited even more its popular basis.

Large section of the society left out of the liberalization process, particularly from villages to medium sized cities, would be at the forefront of the uprising. The policies of the regime were opposing the interests of the popular classes and serving and benefiting a small minority of crony capitalists linked to the ruling class. This is the principle contradiction the Syrian popular masses had and have to face until today.

In terms of foreign policy, the major change was the deepening of relations with Iran and Hezbollah, not only considered tactical allies, which we can use on some occasions, but strategic ones.

The absence of democracy and the growing impoverishment of large parts of Syrian society, in a climate of corruption and increasing social inequality, prepared the ground for the popular insurrection, which thus needed no more than a spark.

It’s often said that the Syrian political opposition differs from the military front. To what extent have Islamists taken over the frontline in the struggle against the state? Does this pose a problem for the revolution?

We should remember first that the Syrian grassroots civilian opposition was the primary engine of the popular uprising against the Assad regime. They sustained the popular uprising for numerous years by organizing and documenting protests and acts of civil disobedience, and by motivating people to join protests. The earliest manifestations of the “coordinating committees” (or tansiqiyyat) were neighborhood gatherings throughout Syria.

The regime specifically targeted these networks of activists, who had initiated demonstrations, acts of civil disobedience, and campaigns in favor of countrywide strikes. Their qualities as organizers and their democratic and secular positions undermined the propaganda of the regime, which proclaimed that “armed Islamic extremists” constituted the entire opposition. Large numbers of dissidents were imprisoned, killed, or forced into exile on the back of this lie.

Despite this Syrians continued to play an important role in the ongoing revolution and led various forms of popular resistance against the regime. By early 2012, there were approximately 400 different tansiqiyyat in Syria, for example, despite intense repression from regime security forces. On top of this, Syrian revolutionaries would later endure the authoritarianism of various religious fundamentalist forces (like IS, Al-Qaida, Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham), which enjoyed wide expansion across the country and attempted to co-opt the revolution or crush its democratic and inclusive message.

Activists also established popular organizations and put together democratic, social, educational, and cultural activities. Local radio stations and newspapers sprang up. Many campaigns opposing both the regime and Islamic fundamentalist forces emerged. All the while, activists and grassroots organizations strove to deliver an inclusive message against sectarianism and racism. These organizers challenged some armed groups’ authoritarian practices and opposed Islamic fundamentalism.

Tragically, each defeat of the democratic resistance strengthened and benefited the Islamic fundamentalist forces on the ground. The rise of Islamic fundamentalist movements and their dominations on the military scene in some regions was negative for the revolution, as they did not shared its objectives (democracy, social justice and equality).

These movements not only acted as a repellent for the far majority of religious and ethnic minorities, and women with their sectarian and reactionary discourses and behaviors, but also to sections of Arab Sunni populations in some liberated areas where we have seen demonstrations against them, more especially to large sections of the middle class in Damascus and Aleppo. They attacked and continue to do so the democratic activists, while they often tried to impose their authority on the institutions developed by locals in areas liberated from the region, bringing often resistance from local populations against their authoritarian behaviors.

As I understand it, the Syrian revolution established democratically elected councils to run public services and provide water, food, education and health-care in the areas under rebel control. How do these councils relate to the armed struggle?

By the end of 2011 and toward the beginning of 2012, regime forces started to withdraw, or were expelled, by opposition armed groups from an increasing number of regions across Syria. In the void they left behind, grassroots organizations began to evolve, essentially forming ad-hoc local governments.

On many occasions, popular and local coordination committee activists were the main nuclei of the local councils. In some regions liberated from the regime, civil administrations were also established to make up for the absence of the state and take charge of its duties in various fields, like schools, hospitals, water systems, electricity, communications, welcoming internally displaced persons, cleaning the streets, taking the garbage away from the city center, agricultural projects, and many other initiatives.

Local councils were either elected or established on consensus. In addition, some local councils encouraged campaigns of activists around democratic, artistic, educational, and health-related issues. It is important to note that many popular youth organizations were established throughout the country, as well free media outlets such as newspapers and radios.

These local councils represent democratic alternatives in Syria, free from the regime and reactionary movements, which is precisely why the areas in which they operate are often the most targeted by the regime and its allies. At the same time, this does not mean that problems and contradictions did not exist in some Local Councils, such a lack of women’s participation or a lack of representatives from minority communities. Still, it was impossible to ignore the way that popular power flourished in even dire conditions.

However, all the cities and neighborhoods in which there was a popular, democratic, and inclusive alternative were targeted, such as Eastern Aleppo or the city of Daraya in the province of Damascus. They are in fact still being targeted along with the civilian infrastructures on which these experiences are based. Between March 2011 and June 2016, 382 medical facilities were attacked, killing more than 700 medical workers. Assad and Putin are responsible for 90 percent of these assaults. They have also bombed other civilian institutions, including humanitarian workers, as well as bakeries, schools, and factories.

It estimated that around more than 250 valid local councils in the opposition-held areas are still operating. In mid January 2017, elections were held for the first time in Idlib to elect a civilian council of 25 representatives to manage their city, nearly two years after it was overrun captured by an armed coalition called Army of the Conquest (Jaysh al-Fateh), led by Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. Until then, it was a committee appointed by the Army of Conquest that had run the city’s affairs.

These examples of popular and democratic self-organizations are the elements most feared by the regime since 2011.  Since 2011, the regime has most feared these democratic organizations, even with all their imperfections. Assad worries much less about the corrupt and exiled official opposition and the Islamic fundamentalist forces. After all, the regime’s authoritarian and sectarian practices encouraged and fostered ISIS’s, Jabhat al-Nusra’s, and other similar organizations’ development — better to have a Islamic fundamentalist foe than one that could capture widespread international solidarity and popular legitimacy at home.

The relation of local councils with armed opposition groups depended from the equilibrium of forces between these two and if the opposition armed groups had a good relation with local civilians. This said, often problems occurred between these two entities, while at the same time some relations were models to follow such as Darayya before it was recaptured by the regime in 2016 and its population displaced.

In the town of Darayya, the FSA factions were under the direct authority of the Local Council and any military operation had to be coordinated with it. The city also disposed of only one financial treasury, which managed the donations and financial assistance given to the city.  The local council was in charge of distributing the funds, which were allocated to various services such as the support of the FSA factions, relief and humanitarian operations and the distribution of daily aid to the besieged population in the city. The Local Council also ordered them to avoid any kind of human rights violations and any extremist sectarian discourse or behavior.

This article was originally published by Souciant Magazine.

Tell me lies about Syria

We're told that the Syrian civil war is just a proxy conflict between various powers: Bashar al-Assad is the face of an axis of resistance forged by Iran and Russia, while the US and its allies are backing the Islamist rebels as they try to takeover Syria bit by bit. This wrongheaded narrative has become incredibly powerful. The Syrian revolution has been subsumed into a geopolitical analysis of regional players.

The agency of armed groups in Syria has been supplanted for the flows of arms from the Gulf states and the US, the role of Turkey, the militias organised by Iran and the air campaign of Russian fighter jets. The context of the Arab Spring is completely lost, and the left-nationalist character of the uprising is concealed from public view. Instead, the Syrian civil war is just another senseless event, or the proxy struggle between the West and its anti-imperialist foes.

Through this narrow lens the use of poison gas in Khan Sheikhoun is either a false flag operation or just the symptom of the spiralling chaos of war. It looks like the Assad regime and its Russian patrons have resorted to poison gas out of exhaustion. The target is primarily civilian because the basis of the revolution were the elected councils fostered in rebel-held territory. This democratic alternative had to be snuffed out.

At the same time, the Western powers - the US, Britain and France, in particular - have not done much at all to support the Syrian opposition and the cause of a democratic Syria. The political support for the rebels only meant limited supplies of arms and funds, while the US has been happy to collaborate with Russia in bombing Syria. France and Britain have too taken to bombing the country. Yet the West has failed to provide air drops of food aid and take responsibility for the humanitarian fallout.

Although I oppose the West bombing Syria, don't mistake me for a fool who thinks Assad is worth defending. The Syrian regime is responsible for the bulk of deaths and suffering in the country, and it has a long record of collusion with the United States. The Assads sided with the US against Iraq in 1991 and the 'rendition programme' of torturing terror suspects after 2003. There's a reason the Blair government considered bestowing an honorary knighthood on Bashar al-Assad.

Don't tell me the Syrian Ba'ath regime is "anti-imperialist". Hafez al-Assad seized power from Salah Jadid in late 1970 after dragging his heels over the Syrian intervention on the side of the PLO in Jordan. At the time, the PLO was fighting to bring down the Hashemite monarchy and takeover the country. Perhaps fearing a rival Arab nationalist regional power, Assad was not eager to support Yasser Arafat. This is also why Syria would invade and occupy Lebanon in 1976.

The Assad regime sought to clip the wings of the PLO and prevent the Lebanese Left from taking over Lebanon. The Syrian occupation would converge with American and Israeli interests in keeping the Christian Maronites in power and expelling the PLO from Lebanon. Later, Syria would support the US military response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. This would help bring the Lebanese civil war to an end, as the Iraqi regime would withdraw support for its allies in the war.

The Syrian Ba'ath regime was no more "anti-imperialist" than its rival in Iraq. Both Saddam Hussein and Hafez al-Assad were Soviet clients for many years, before defecting to the American camp. Iraq invaded Iran with full US approval, whereas Syria was more than happy to side with the US when Iraq went off the reservation. Meanwhile Syria has not challenged Israel since it lost the Golan Heights in the Six Day War and failed to recapture the territory in the 1973 war.

As for the claim that the Ba'ath regime is a secular socialist government, Hafez al-Assad rewrote the Syrian constitution to ensure that the president would always be a Muslim and constructed an alliance between the Alawite military leadership and the Sunni capitalist class. The state acted as a means of economic organisation and established a patronage network to sustain itself. This may have meant that the Syrian regime was willing to nationalise industry, but it was also willing to privatise these assets later on.

People continue to claim that the mixed nature of the Assad dynasty means that the state is the only non-sectarian alternative to Islamist barbarism. This fails to take into account the extent of violence and discrimination by the state against the Sunni working-class. Not only has the economy depended upon the exclusion of the Sunni urban and rural poor, the state has routinely repressed non-violent protest and tortured activists. The armed uprising was made inevitable by the regime because the Syrian security forces thought they could win easily.

When faced with an armed resistance the Syrian regime opened its prisons and released thousands of Islamists. Saddam Hussein did the same when faced with the US invasion. The Islamists have played a dual role: providing a strong front line for the rebels, but also acting as a counter-revolutionary agent. These militants may have been the toughest fighters, however, their actions have undermined the support for the revolution. This is all true even without taking into account ISIS and its monstrous actions.

It's hard to see how the civil war could end on just terms. As long as the Assad regime stands its ground, the hope of democracy and freedom in Syria is blighted and the reasons why the uprising happened go unchanged. In many ways, the Syrian opposition has more reason to keep on fighting than to settle in negotiations. The immense suffering in the country is down to the Syrian regime and its allies Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. For this reason, I suspect and fear that the war may continue to rage for years to come.

Western Hypocrisy Over St. Petersburg Attacks

It was a welcome change to hear the Western media acknowledge that the St. Petersburg bombing might have something to do with Russian foreign policy: the interventions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria. Yet you will never hear such an angle raised when its an atrocity carried out in an American or a Western European city. In such cases any attempt to explain terrorism would be dismissed as making excuses for violence.

This moral blackmail was not deployed over St. Petersburg. What do we know about the attack? The main suspect Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Kyrgyz national, is accused of killing 14 people and injured 50 others in detonating a bomb in the St. Petersburg underground. Six people have now been arrested. They have been accused of recruiting for ISIS. The suspects are all from Central Asian states. This would fit with the analysis that the bombing was staged in reaction to Russian aggression.

Not only was Central Asia dominated by the Soviet Union, the region was on the frontline in the war in Afghanistan. Once the USSR had invaded Afghanistan, the war aims quickly changed to building a new society and occupying the country for the time being. The United States and its regional allies - particularly Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - established a network of jihadists to fuel the Afghan resistance to the Red Army.

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan would come to a close by 1989. Gorbachev oversaw the withdrawal and warned the West that the forces they had mobilised in Afghanistan would come back to haunt them. Of course, the network behind Osama bin Laden and the attacks on the World Trade Centre had their origins in the Afghan struggle. The war itself would create a space for Eastern European dissidents to challenge regimes backed by the USSR. This combined with economic factors would bring down the Eastern bloc.

Events in Chechnya would be even more crucial for the terror factor in Russia. As the USSR was dismantled in 1991, Chechen Ichkeria declared independence under the nationalist leadership of Dzhokhar Dudayev. Growing instability and tension in the region would lead to the eruption of armed conflict in North Ossetia, the Chechens feared the presence of the Russian armed forces would be the first stage of mission creep. Dudayev imposed a state of emergency after Russia deployed troops to the border.

At the same time, Dudayev was facing a groundswell of opposition in the fledgling state. This opposition would turn to armed force in 1994. Boris Yeltsin pledged Russian support for the attempt to overthrow the Dudayev government. Yeltsin was desperate to bolster his domestic support in the midst of his disastrous economic reforms. The instability in the Chechen region offered an opportunity. The Russians backed the opposition in order to overthrow Dudayev and crush the example of independence.

However, Dudayev held his own from October to November against the forces Yeltsin had mobilised. Russian armed forces would play a clandestine role, but the Battle of Grozny left the Russian government humiliated after the Chechen independence forces captured a large number of military vehicles and personnel. It was meant to be a swift operation to topple the government. Faced with this, Yeltsin sanctioned the invasion of Ichkeria ostensibly to restore the territorial integrity of Russia.

The Russian army began bombing the Chechen air capabilities and within ten days the invasion was underway. Just as Brezhnev had mistakenly thought the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan would be successful within weeks the Russians now thought the Grozny government could be toppled. The war would rage for two years before a ceasefire was signed on Russian terms. Dudayev was assassinated in an 1996 airstrike.

With American help, Yeltsin would survive the Presidential elections of 1996. Estimates of the people killed in the first Chechen war range up to 100,000, along with 500,000 people displaced, in just two years of fighting. A new war would start in 1999 following the apartment bombings in Moscow and the rise of Vladimir Putin. The second war was waged by Russia and its Chechen allies to kill off independent Ichkeria and snuff out the emergent Islamist movement in the Northern Caucasus.

The first aim was secured, but an insurgency continues to this day. Russia has been struck by numerous bombings by Chechen Islamist fighters, and a key reason for the Russian intervention in Syria has been partly to extent the war against those same Chechens - now fighting in Syria alongside the mainstream rebels and an array of jihadist groups. Of course, the main reason has been to back the Assad regime - the only Russian ally in the region.

An honest look at the situation finds that the Russian government relies upon the Islamist threat to  justify its aggression in Syria. Even though Russia has been motivated partly by counter-insurgency in Chechnya, the main targets of Russian bombing have been the Syrian opposition and the civilians living in their territory, not Islamic State or al-Nusra. This in turn is a key factor in the continued threat of terrorism in Russia.

Catastroika: Are the Russians Leaving?

Apparently, the Russians are leaving. Seemingly out of nowhere, Vladimir Putin declared that the operation had “largely achieved” the desired aims and Russian forces would be winding down operations in Syria. Not that this means the Russian military base will be dismantled. Far from it, the Russian invasion (yes, we shouldn’t mince words here) has entrenched the influence over the Assad regime, which it has strengthened. Out of 60 aircraft, the Russians have withdrawn 30. The picture is more mixed than the announcement of the mission’s ‘success’.

Of course, it’s not true that Islamic State has been decimated by Russian actions, however, the real aim was to defend the Assad regime and crush rebel groups. This may have meant bombing Islamic State’s positions, but it mainly meant striking at groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Army of Conquest and the Free Syrian Army. These efforts gave the Syrian regime an advantage over the rebels. While it left Islamic State as a more distant foe. Keep in mind Bashar al-Assad can use ISIS to justify his own position.

If it is a choice between Islamism and Ba’athism, many would turn to Assad for order and security over chaos and terror. This falls apart when you look at the record. Assad has far more blood on his hands than anyone else in Syria. Many liberal and even leftist commentators have turned to argue for tactical and critical support for the Ba’athists. But this means, as long as the regime remains intact, the Arab Awakening will not have reached its conclusion.

Meanwhile the problem for liberal interventionists is precisely the lack of any credible force in Syria. Who do we need to defeat more? If we bomb ISIS, we help Assad and vice versa. Can we defeat both simultaneously and birth a secular democracy? Unlikely, as it may be, the only just outcome would be a democratic opening. Western intervention has served prolonged the conflict, whereas Russian involvement has consolidated the gains of the Assad regime.

At the same time, the Russian withdrawal sends a clear message to Assad. There are no blank cheques, or free passes, for the Syrian regime and Russian support may not be unconditional. Putin cannot do everything for Assad. The Russian army obviously cannot sustain a long-term occupation in Syria. Even the Soviet Union could not occupy Afghanistan for as long as the US has done. In fact, the Soviet experience in Afghanistan is particularly relevant to the Syrian intervention.

Defeated in slow-motion

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan came in 1979 after Hafizullah Amin organised the death of Muhammad Taraki and seized the reins in Kabul. Officially, the Soviet army intervened to aid the leftists in their struggle with the Mujahideen. Yet the true purpose of the intervention was take control of the country and restore order.

The People's Democratic Party came to power in 1978 with the violent overthrow of President Daoud. Once at the helm, Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin declared a revolution and proceeded to try and transform the country by breaking apart the remaining feudal structures. They declared women equal, abolished shariah, criminalised arranged marriages and began redistributing land. The new regime began converting opium production towards agricultural development. But these reforms would bring unforeseen consequences.

Prior to this upheaval, the Soviet Union was more than comfortable with the Afghan monarchy, which guaranteed stability, even as it pursued modernisation programmes. Afghanistan itself is valuable as a source of natural gas, but also as a route for pipelines. The revolution threw them off and provoked rebellion in the countryside, where the leftists were carving up the land. This would be the beginning of the Islamist revolt. What the Soviet leaders feared most was that this instability would engulf Central Asia.

After all, the region was predominantly Muslim and a valuable cluster of buffer-states between Russia and China, Iran and Pakistan. Much like the Eastern bloc, the hold on energy-rich Central Asia helped the USSR stand tall as a superpower. This is exactly why the US moved to back the insurgents. The day Soviet forces crossed the border, officially, national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote to President Carter: “We now have the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam War”.

It's not that the Soviet leadership was ignorant of this factor. Alexei Kosygin was opposed to sending troops to Afghanistan precisely because of the example of Vietnam. In Kosygin’s view, the new regime should be able to hold its own against the rebellion, as North Vietnam had triumphed over the South and even against American aggression. Yet the balance of forces in the Soviet leadership still favoured intervention. In the end, Leonid Brezhnev was persuaded to back the intervention after Hafizullah Amin had Taraki smothered with a pillow.

Of course, financial support for the Mujahideen was already under way even before the invasion was launched. The CIA, with the help of Pakistan and Saudi, had set out to built a vast network of Islamist militants. This gave Arab regimes the opportunity to rid themselves of these troublesome elements. Far from harbouring any regrets, Zbigniew Brzezinski says he would do it again if he could go back. As Brzezinski personally told Islamists in the mountains: “Your fight will prevail... because your cause is right and God is on your side.”

Without any institutional framework for government, the country descended into civil war as the informal networks of power, both communal and tribal, were easily fractured and broke apart. This process would destroy the fabric of Afghan society. The US considered the reversal of social progress in Afghanistan as a necessary part of the efforts to defeat the Soviet-backed regime. Later the journalist Alexander Cockburn would read out a portion of a document seized during the Iran Hostage Crisis on the eve of the NATO-ISAF war in 2001:

The United States’ larger interest would be served by the demise of the Taraki-Amin regime despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reform in Afghanistan. The overthrow of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan would show the rest of the world, particularly the Third World, that the Soviet’s view of the socialist course of history being inevitable is not accurate.

Although the Soviet intervention came with few humanitarian illusions, the occupation would soon take the shape of the civilising missions launched by European empires. Babrak Karmal, the leader of the Parcham faction, was installed as leader, while the USSR set about shaping the country in its image as it waged a brutal counter-insurgency campaign. The new narrative would be that the occupation was necessary to defend the rights of women from the reactionary forces mobilising against the regime.

Realpolitik was not enough in the end. The brutality of the Soviet occupation had to be dressed up as an expression of solidarity justified by socialist internationalism. As the years passed it became more and more evident that the occupation could not be sustained. Gorbachev would initiate an exit strategy concluding in total withdrawal in 1989. Just as the US would invade Afghanistan in 2001 in an act of vengeance - against the same network it helped to establish years earlier - only to discover the cause of women's rights. In both cases, the invaders were defeated in slow-motion.

Life after defeat

Members of the CIA would later claim the Soviet collapse was a result of endogenous factors. It fell apart like a house of cards because it was a house of cards. The political system was bankrupt and no longer functioned. So this had little to do with US policy. If anything, observers like Archie Brown have argued the Cold War helped preserve the USSR and not bring it down. But this was not the view taken by the Mujahideen. Many of the Islamists believed that they helped to bring down the USSR. They are not alone either.

Journalist Robert Fisk takes this view. It can be argued that the defeat of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan became so costly, it opened up a space for dissidents to win major battles in Eastern Europe. This was clear by 1981 when KGB chief Yuri Andropov (Putin’s hero, incidentally) persuaded Brezhnev not to intervene in Poland. It was evident that the system could not sustain such adventurism. In other words, the USSR could not repeat the actions it took in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and in Hungary in 1956.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian foreign policy has been primarily concerned with national sovereignty. This was the basis of Boris Yeltsin’s postures over Serbia and Chechnya. The brief war with Georgia, and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, also fits this pattern. Although Syria shares no borders with Russia, the civil war could well have implications for Chechen jihadists. It’s easy to sell the intervention as ‘defensive’ within Russia. Despite the economic problems Putin can still bolster support through jingoism.

The key question for Putin is how long can this last? Oil prices remain low and the sanctions are hitting the government and its oligarchs. Putin’s credibility is at stake. He is widely credited with ending the economic chaos of the 1990s. The military adventures are incidental, whether it’s Chechnya or Syria. If the economic problems facing the country cannot be resolved, there may be more trouble on the horizon.

This article was originally published at Souciant.

Catastroika: Putin's Syria Policy

So Russia is now an active participant in the Syrian civil war. The pretext is standard: Islamic State must be defeated at any cost to the Syrian people. Yet the bombs are falling on other rebel targets - al-Qaeda's Jubhat al-Nusra, no doubt - and civilian targets are not out of bounds. Russian bombs have already hit hospitals and medical centres. These incidents will only increase as the bombing continues and the war continues to hurtle onward.

As I wrote before the Russian army began bombing Syria, Vladimir Putin has a more coherent strategy than the Western powers - which still cling to the hope that Islamic State and Assad can be defeated at once. Putin begins from a different premise: Assad's regime is the most legitimate force in the war. This may be a key strength, but it doesn't guarantee victory - nor does it justify itself. Four years of war have left 250,000 people dead, maybe more, and displaced millions.

No one power seems capable of destroying the other. But this could quickly change. Bashar al-Assad could be ousted by his generals. Islamic State could takeover a major city and declare a new capital, which would be a tremendous blow. That's why Assad has been so desperate to cling onto Aleppo. If the Alawite-Sunni alliance, on which the Syrian regime depends, collapses then there will be a strong power vacuum.

The endless war

In this case, Syria will fall into the abyss, as if the conflict wasn't already bad enough, imagine total chaos. It's plausible external powers would back whichever factions they can to try and regain control over the situation. There are a hand full of countries where this has happened: Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya and now Syria possibly. It's not pretty, to put it mildly.

Russia has been here before. In December 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, first to topple Hafizullah Amin, who it found untrustworthy and unstable, then it set about trying to turn the Parcham wing of the People's Democratic Party into the centre of power in the country. Babral Karmal was its Menshevik front man. The Mujahideen, backed by the US and Pakistan, was its adversary. In the end, the Soviet Union was humiliated.

Today Russia cannot afford to reenact this catastrophe. Despite this historical lesson, the Putin government has not been deterred from de facto invading Syria on the side of the Assad regime. Up to now, Putin was playing the distant game. In early 2013 Putin made his stance clear at the UN Security Council and stood in unanimity with China. When it looked like the US was getting ready for 'punitive bombing' in August 2013 Putin was sending arms to Assad.

Now Putin has 'little green men' flying over Syria to dump explosives on the rebels. There has been a dramatic shift since 2013 and it may come down to one country: Ukraine. The Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea provoked outrage in the West and led the US and the EU to impose sanctions on the Russian Federation. As wrong as it was for Russian troops to march into a sovereign nation-state, the most outraged squeals came from war criminals.

As the Russian economy faces bleak prospects - thanks to the collapse of oil prices, never mind the sanctions - the Ukrainian crisis is being felt in the homes of ordinary Russians. If Putin cannot stabilise the economy he could face serious domestic opposition. The boost in popularity over Ukraine could easily disappear. The end of the Yeltsin years left Putin with a great deal of credibility. He appeared as a necessary force providing order and stability.

High-risk strategy

According to financial journalist Andrew Critchlow, Putin is playing a high-risk strategy to drive oil prices up. To undermine the Russian economy, the US and Saudi Arabia have repeatedly slashed oil prices. This has hit Russia hard, but it also threatens to destabilise the Saudi dictatorship. Rather than back down Putin has moved to confront his enemies via the Syrian civil war. He has moved to strengthen the Syrian regime and the Iranian government, which pose serious obstacles to Saudi Arabia.

By invading Syria, Russia can throttle the jihadi rebels mobilised by Saudi and Qatari petro-dollars. It might be the means to exhaust the Saudi royal family. King Salman can't afford to face chaos at home either. If the House of Saud feels its position threatened by the Syrian civil war it may back down. In this case, King Salman may cut oil production to allow prices to rise. This would help ease the strain of the Russian economy.

Along these lines, as Critchlow's theory goes, the Syrian civil war could threaten the ruling order in the Saudi Kingdom and the Russian Federation. If Putin's gamble leads all sides to push harder, then it's possible everyone would lose out. Even in that case, it's likely oil prices will have to stabilise in the end. In the meantime, as the civil war reaches new suicidal heights, the Syrian people are the real losers.

If the Russian air strikes can weaken the rebels, the Syrian regime can hold onto its gains and may be even expand its reach. This could force the Western powers to accept new terms of negotiation. In this scenario, Putin will have won and the US will have been humiliated. If Putin can do this and force the Saudis to raise oil prices this victory will be twofold. But the stakes are high and the war is far from cold.

This article was originally published at Souciant.

Libya slips into a new civil war

In the midst of the ongoing civil strife, Libya’s Parliament fled to Tobruk in August and now resides aboard the Elyros, a Greek car ferry, on the eastern coast of Libya. Tobruk is a stronghold for the coalition of forces behind Operation Dignity, a counter-terror offensive launched in May by General Khalifa Haftar. Since the offensive was launched there has been sporadic fighting and instability as nationalist forces collided with Islamist militias in Benghazi.

The Islamist takeover of Tripoli and Benghazi may be understood as a reaction to this campaign. In July, Ansar al-Sharia declared an Islamic emirate in Benghazi, while fighting continues in Tripoli. Major foreign powers such as the US, the UK and France have withdrawn their diplomatic staff from the country. All of less than three years since the Libyan uprising turned into a revolution and then a civil war in which NATO intervened on the side of the Benghazi rebels.

An important factor could be the fear of a repeat of General Sisi’s coup in Egypt last year. The Sisi government has set out to repress the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt and similarly the secular nationalists of Libya oppose the influence of the MB in their country. General Haftar has attempted to overthrow civilian rule on more than one occasion in the recent past. As such, the possibility of a coup in Libya is not at all far-fetched given the country’s history and the fragility of its civil institutions.

Libya’s body politic is dislocated as the General National Council (GNC) was disbanded last month in favour of the Council of Deputies, the latter being dominated by liberals and federalists, the former remaining predominantly Islamist. The GNC has continued to act as a power centre in spite of the fact that it has been officially disbanded and lacks UN recognition. The elections to the Council of Deputies left Islamists isolated and this may be an important factor leading up to their takeover of Tripoli.

Voter turnout in the Council of Deputies election in July 2014 came to just 18%, down from 60% turnout in the 2012 elections. "I didn't bother to register this time around, and that should tell you everything," said Mohammed Abu Baker, a Libyan student. "My friends were killed in the revolution, we paid in blood for this democracy, but what was the result of the election?"

In early August, Libya appointed its sixth post-Gadaffi head of state, Aguila Saleh Issa, and by the end of the month Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani resigned in a bid to quell the power struggle. The recognised legislative body of Libya moved its proceedings to Tobruk as it became untenable to remain within reach of the Islamists. Meanwhile the GNC claims its own President Nouri Abusahmain and Prime Minister Omar al-Hasi. Neither claims are recognised internationally, but the centre of power remains contested.

Last week, Sheikh Sadiq al-Ghariani, the Grand Mufti of Libya, fled the UK amidst accusations that he had influenced the Islamist takeover of Tripoli International Airport from his home in Devon via his website. He had been appointed Grand Mufti in 2011 for the religious support he had lent to the revolution against the Gaddafi regime. He has since taken the side of the Islamist militias, in particular the Libya Dawn coalition, against the civilian government and competing factions.

This seems to signify a common problem facing the Maghreb in particular and the Arab world more generally. Arab nationalism has ceased to be the leading political force, leaving the ground clear for alternatives such as political Islam. The revolutionary wave of 2011 has as yet brought little in the way of new politics to the region, instead creating a vacuum where nationalism once was. Now that vacuum has opened the door for another civil war.

This article was originally published at The World Weekly on September 11, 2014.

What is happening in Libya?

At the weekend there were clashes in major cities in Libya. On Sunday fighting broke out between rival militias vying for control of Tripoli international airport, leaving six people dead and 25 wounded before order was restored. The same night, in Benghazi, the security forces fought militias in a battle that claimed the lives of five people.  Fighting continued on Monday as militias resumed efforts to take the airport. The clash left a security guard dead, six people wounded and forced the airport to be closed.

In response to the violence, the UN announced it is withdrawing its staff from Libya. The country’s second-largest airport in Benghazi has been closed for two months and Misrata airport also closed on Monday. According to Al Jazeera, 36 people were wounded on Sunday in what were the worst clashes seen since November 2013 when 40 people were killed in fighting between militias and armed residents. The most recent clashes were between the Zintan brigade and the Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room.

The Zintan militia controls Tripoli airport and still holds Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the second son of the deceased dictator, who it captured in November 2011. The Zintan brigade controlled Tripoli international airport since 2011 and has alliances with nationalist groups. Originally comprising many groups founded in Zintan and the Nafusa Mountains, this coalition can muster five brigades. The militia also runs a satellite TV channel called Libya al-Watan. The Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room, an Islamist organisation, held official power in Tripoli from 2011 to 2013, but lost it after briefly kidnapping Prime Minister Ali Zeidan in October 2013.

It’s clear to observers that the country remains unstable three years after the Gaddafi regime was toppled by NATO and rebel forces. Ali Zeidan would later resign as Prime Minister in March 2014 after he failed to block an oil tanker, seized by an armed group, from leaving the port of Sidra. The tanker was later intercepted by US Navy Seals. Zeidan was succeeded by Abdullah al-Thani, who in turn resigned in April claiming gunmen had targeted his family. From May to June there was an interim government led by disputed Prime Minister Ahmed al-Mateiq and al-Thani has since returned to his post.

Many of the militias claim to be maintaining law and order and the security of the borders at a time when the government still seems weak. Each of the groups has its own regional, tribal and ideological commitments. The Zintan brigades are loyal to General Khalifa Haftar. It was after the attempt to wrestle Tripoli airport from the control of the Zintan group that the attack on Islamist bases in Benghazi was launched. The attack in Benghazi was launched by security forces aligned with Haftar. Haftar has the loyalty of the Libyan National Army, as well as the al-Saiqa forces, composed of Libya’s elite army units.

A secular nationalist, Khalifa Haftar was an ally of Muammar Gaddafi in the 1969 putsch against King Idris, which began the Colonel’s four decade reign. He later led the Libyan campaigns into Chad in the so-called Toyota war and was captured in 1987. At this point Gaddafi distanced himself from Haftar, who was later freed in negotiations by the CIA. For more than 20 years, Haftar lived in Langley Virginia, where the CIA’s headquarters are also situated, returning to Libya in 2011 to join the rebel forces fighting to bring down Gaddafi. He was eventually put in charge of Libya’s ground forces.

In February 2014, General Haftar appeared on television and denounced the General National Council (GNC) as “corrupt” and called for an uprising. The uprising never came. Months later, General Haftar launched Operation Dignity against Islamist fighters in the country, in particular Ansar al-Sharia, a Salafist militia, allegedly involved in the the torching of the US consulate in September 2012. Not long after the operation was launched there was an attack on parliament in an attempt to overthrow the GNC and the Libyan government. The armed men who carried out the attack were aligned with Haftar and included Zintan forces.

At the same time the country remains wracked with political instability and the Libyan economy faces contraction. Libya once exported 1.25 million barrels of oil a day. Its oil exports have slowed considerably as the major eastern ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider have been closed for nearly a year. The two ports exported 500,000 barrels a day each. Oil production is now 600,000 barrels a day, when it was once 1.4 million barrels a day. Four out of five ports in the country are under militia control. While Libya may have slipped out of the headlines since Gaddafi’s fall, it is clear the country’s problems are not over and it is not yet the stable democracy the West would like it to be.

This article was originally published at The World Weekly on