The Tragedy of Syria

It is cruelly fitting that one of the acknowledged cradles of civilization is now a showroom for the cruelties, irrationalities, and injustices of the modern capitalist world. 

At various times, Syria was part of the lands that were widely admired for their enlightened governance, tolerance, and economic development. 

Today, Syria is a wasteland, divided into parcels, and occupied by alien forces that show no regard for the country's legacy or the unity and well-being of its people. 

After four hundred years of reasonably stable, tolerant, and peaceable existence under Ottoman rule, the people of the country now known as Syria experienced the heavy hand of European imperialism. With the Sykes-Picot agreement, Syria became the “responsibility” of France after World War I, existing essentially as a French colony with its artificial boundaries established by European powers.

Understandably, the colonial subjects resisted. As it always does, the anti-colonial struggle provided the impetus for consolidating a nation in a space where a country never existed. As with the seminal anti-colonial victory in what is now the US, the fight against the French was an essential condition to the forging of the Syrian nation-state. Nation-building emerges from and advances from the struggle against domination, for independence.

But it was not a sufficient condition. After World War II, when France proved unable to maintain its colonies, the new Syria had to fulfill other difficult conditions of nation-building. Decolonization left the scars of oppression-- social, political, and economic backwardness.

Without independent political organizations and well-established institutions, the military-- made up of anti-colonial fighters, tribal militias, even former French collaborators-- served as a unifying force. Politics was conducted through the often-violent clash of military factions. Countering this chaos was the impact of Arab nationalist and Arab socialist secular trends emerging throughout the Middle East. Ba’athism and Nasserism were two progressive influences tempering Islamic fundamentalism, tribalism, and the complacency of feudal and primitive capitalist economies.

Concurrent with aid from the Soviet Union and the guarantee of Syrian sovereignty against imperialist aggression, the alliance of the military, the Ba’ath Party, and the Communist Party consolidated and took a leftward turn, strengthening their hand against the backward elements. This progressive development in the energy-rich Middle East did not go unnoticed by the United States and its then-designated local police agents: Israel and Iran. 

In the ensuing years, Syria continued to struggle for national unity, agrarian reform, and modernization under the 30-year presidency of Hafez Al-Assad. Assad brought a measure of stability and peace, while imperialism encouraged and materially supported the Muslim Brotherhood and other fundamentalists to undermine these secular developments. 

Typically, European and US ideologues railed against the fragile state, condemning its failure to embrace modern capitalist institutions while these same ideologues were encouraging feudal jihadists to rebel against secularism. 

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the death of the elder Assad, the tenuous progress of Syria, its independence, and its unity were weakened. Under the leadership of the younger, less visionary Bashir al-Assad, without any powerful allies, and with active and determined plotters in Washington, the future of Syria was in doubt. Assad’s flirtation with market economics and privatization brought his regime no respite from imperialist machinations.

In 2011, protests against Assad’s rule were co-opted by foreign security services. Through the auspices of the CIA, through its vast network of ready and willing jihadists, and armed with weapons shipped from the overthrown government of Libya, a brutal proxy war was launched. Neo-Ottoman Turkey threw its own jihadists into the fight. And the US armed and unleashed Kurdish nationalists to further pressure the Assad government and serve US interests.

What the mainstream media called “a Revolution and the Syrian Civil War” was, in fact, a conflict of proxies and of foreign intervention. In response to Turkish and US meddling and to the arrival of hordes of foreign jihadists, Hezbollah militias and Iranian and Russian forces came to the assistance of the weak Assad government forestalling the chaos that follows forcible regime change.  

As the war reached somewhat of a stalemate, Assad stood in Damascus, ruling the little that was left of the country’s infrastructure, housing, economy, and territorial integrity. US Marines occupied a portion of Syria with its oil resources. Kurds ruled in another part of the country under US protection. The US’s NATO ally, Turkey-- hostile to the Kurds-- ruled in another part of Syria, supporting their favored brand of head-chopping jihadists. Israel took advantage of weakened foes and occupied a large slice of Syria nearer to Damascus, while destroying all Syrian military assets in Southern Syria. 

If this reverse of nation-building, this nation-degrading process seems familiar, it should. It resembles all too well the willful, post-Cold War, systematic destruction of fragile states constructed around multiple ethnicities and enjoying a measure of national independence. Without the international leverage of a socialist bloc, led by the powerful Soviet Union, the imperialist bloc disposed of contrarian states like Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya, usually by fomenting ethnic strife or supporting elite demands. Failing states throughout Africa and Asia bear similar scars, inflicted by great powers bent on strengthening their spheres of interest, as France attempts in sub-Saharan Africa. 

In late 2024, Turkey unleashed its own stable of radical, fundamentalist head-choppers, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, against the Assad regime from its lair in Idlib province. The demoralized, spent forces of Assad’s military were swiftly overwhelmed. Despite designation as a “terrorist group” by the UN (and the US), HTS was heralded by most of the US and European mainstream media as victorious freedom fighters. Reporters flocked to Damascus-- after staying far away for years, while reporting from Beirut and the US embassy-- to “prove” the evil of the Assad regime. Easily duped by local opportunists, much of the reportage collapsed as facts and evidence came forward.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of HTS anointed himself the new Syrian head of state, adopted a proper Western suit, shaved his beard, and pronounced a new era of peace and harmony, while outlawing political parties, postponing a new constitution, and cancelling elections until far off in the future. Such is the new Syrian Democracy.

But public relations cannot restrain the blood lust of the fundamentalist head-choppers. In 2025, HTS elements began a vengeance campaign against Baa’ath cadre, former military leaders, and religious “infidels,” killing and attacking civilians in Alawite and Christian villages. 

Understandably, a new resistance is emerging. Bizarrely, EU authorities blame the massacres on those resisting HTS.

No doubt at the urging of its foreign sponsors (especially the US), HTS and the Kurds were herded into a cooperative agreement in March that includes the merging of its “military institutions” -- a move that hopes to strengthen their hand against future Syrian resistance and present an image of unity to the rest of the world. The Kurds give the US greater influence at the expense of the Turks.

The last pages of the Syrian tragedy are yet to be written.

There are lessons to be learned.

The post-Soviet era has emboldened a ruthless, cruel imperialism. Without the threat of Soviet power to present a counterforce, the US, NATO, and other powers are free to impose their will on other states, including taking their own rivalries to the brink of World War. Few remember that the then-real threat of Soviet intervention, stopped the Israelis from passing beyond the Golan Heights and marching to Damascus during the Six Day War-- a principled act of international solidarity.

As a corollary, it is impossible to fail to note that there are no similar counterbalancing forces today. There have been no political, economic, or military powers demonstrably committed to a principled defense of weaker states threatened by imperialist aggression since the Cuban and Soviet defense of Angola and the defeat of South African apartheid aggression in the 1980s.

That reality is not only a tribute to the socialist internationalism of the past, but a sobering message to those on the left who interpret the realignment of great powers-- the so-called tendency to multipolarity-- as a new kind of anti-imperialism. The experience of Syria-- left on its own to defend its integrity and sovereignty against the agents of backwardness and great-power interests-- speaks to the impotence of the so-called BRICS block. Issuing protests, resolutions, and condemnations is no substitute for action or material aid. Russian support, once so vital to Assad’s defense, failed to rise against HTS and is now offered shamelessly to its former foe. 

Capitalist alliances around spheres of influence or temporary common interests are far removed from principled anti-imperialism, a stance only possible apart from the logic of capitalist competition. Anti-imperialism is a principle, not a self-interested calculation.

Greg Godels

zzsblogml@gmail.com

Why Class Matters

After the last election, Democratic Party functionaries were puzzled that voters-- usually attuned closely to the economy-- failed to show proper appreciation for the Biden economic miracle. They cited the billions in federal money flowing toward economic growth; they repeated aggregate growth figures more robust than other advanced economies; they showed that consumer spending continued to show surprising vigor; they noted that aggregate incomes grew faster than inflation; and they reminded us of the often-mentioned markers of rising stock market and housing values.

Baffled by the voters who shunned Bidenomics and complained about the economy, Democratic Party pundits are convinced that voters are simply ignorant of the facts.

Today, perhaps more than ever, the failure to recognize social-class divisions produces ill-informed, arrogant judgments like those prominent within Democratic Party circles. While aggregate numbers may tell one story, they fail to tell the story of the economic well-being of the classes and strata that make up the aggregate, even the by-far-largest segment of that aggregate. Could it be that Biden’s economic victory was a victory for the wealthiest, the most generously compensated among the US population, while leaving the majority of US citizens (and voters) in the rear-view mirror?

The answer is an unequivocal ‘yes.’

And the answer comes, not from a left-leaning think tank, but from Federal Reserve data by way of Moody’s Analytics and summarized in The Wall Street Journal.

As reported in the WSJ, the top 10% of “earners” -- those households reporting $250,000 in income or more-- are responsible for 49.7% of consumer spending. In other words, nearly half of all consumer spending is accounted for by those in the top 10% of all those reporting their incomes. This is the largest share for this elite segment since the Federal Reserve began tracking in 1989. In just three decades, the top 10%'s portion has increased from over a third to nearly half of all consumer spending.

According to the WSJ:

Taken together, well-off people have increased their spending far beyond inflation, while everyone else hasn’t. The bottom 80% of earners spent 25% more than they did four years earlier, barely outpacing price increases of 21% over that period. The top 10% spent 58% more…

Between September 2023 and September 2024, the high earners increased their spending by 12%. Spending by working-class and middle-class households, meanwhile, dropped over the same period.

Democratic Party consultant James Carville likes to say “it's the economy, stupid!” that decides US elections. If he is right, the celebration of Bidenomics was widely off the mark. During the Biden years, for 80% of US voters, their economy was stagnant, at best. In that light, the election results are far more understandable as reflective of pocketbook issues.

US economic growth is often portrayed by the major media as driven by household consumption (around two-thirds of gross US economic activity comes from household consumption). However, these reports are deceptive if they fail to acknowledge that nearly all of the consumption growth impacting GDP growth comes from the wealthiest 10% of the population. Arguably, so-called luxury spending is the driving force behind economic growth in the US in our time.

Thus, the widely heralded mantra of capitalist apologists that “a rising tide lifts all boats” has it backwards. In fact, the privileged 10% of all boats that rise constitute the tide.

Economy 101 preaches that working people spend nearly all that they make (or need to borrow more to make ends meet). That same conventional wisdom tells us that the rich reinvest or save most of their earnings. Both may be and are true, though inequality of income has grown so much that the richest 10% can save and reinvest while spending lavishly and conspicuously.

Since late 2021, the excess savings of the bottom 90% has dropped from about $1.1 trillion dollars to $300 billion at the end of 2024. In roughly the same period, the uppermost 10% has maintained an excess savings of about $1.3-1.4 trillion, according to Moody’s Analytics. Clearly, the bottom 90% was forced to draw down savings over the last four years in order to get by. It is important to notice that the concept of the “bottom 90%” masks the reality that each successive lower decile of household income below the top 10% has fewer means and lesser savings to meet a reasonably adequate standard of living. In short, the pain induced by a system maintaining such vast income inequality grows more acute as the level of income declines.

While not a proper class analysis of US society (not to be expected from official government statistics), the Federal Reserve data, as interpreted by Moody’s Analytics, provides a material basis for understanding the most recent US election.[i] As opposed to dire conclusions of a fascist mentality sweeping the country or wild celebrations of the revival of a mythical conservative past, the economic unraveling of the last period fed the electorate's profound thirst for change, any change.

In the wake of a deep economic collapse in the first decade of a new century-- a crisis unlike any seen for generations-- US voters turned, at that time, to a fresh-faced Democrat promising change. He won voters with his earnest, unbounded hope. He produced little change, but more of the same blindness to inequality.

Now, in the wake of the economic stagnation and hardship for the majority 90% struggling through the Biden years, another snake oil salesman returns, capturing one of the two decadent parties with another message of change-- Make America Great Again.

And again, voters act out of desperation.

Don’t blame the voters, blame the bankrupt two-party system and the economic system dominated by and for the rich and powerful.

Greg Godels
zzsblogml@gmail.com

[1] A proper economic class analysis will not evoke income or wealth-- simply contingent, quantified signifiers of inequality-- but qualitative indicators of socio-economic position or status. For Marxists, class is defined by an agent's function within a particular mode of production with regard to the economic relation of exploitation. Thus, under capitalism, class is a division between exploiters-- capitalists-- and the exploited-- workers. One class commands the means of production, the other class sells the former its labor power.

Of course, there are strata within and outside of the two classes: the haute and petit bourgeoisie, the ‘labor aristocracy,’ industrial workers, lumpen-proletariat, etc.

In general, income and wealth inequality are a result of class division and exploitation under capitalism and not its cause.