- Re: Tim Hayward on Syria was better, probably? Archived Message
Posted by Subhi
on November 8, 2019, 1:00 pm, in reply to "Tim Hayward on Syria was better, probably?"
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Fisk is linked to the Hariri anti-Syrian clique in Lebanon whose line he generally follows in some way with all the necessary genuflections towards whatever is the current 'western' point of view. Stephen Gowans "Washington's Long War on Syria" provides a deal of detail and perhaps a somewhat more realistic assessment of the forces at play. here he is interviewed by BlackAgenda "The Syrian government, under the leadership of Bashar al-Assad, is part of an Arab nationalist movement that has historically been guided by three goals, expressed in the movement’s motto: unity, liberty, socialism. Specifically, the goals are overcoming the religious, sectarian and other divisions of the Arab world, transcending the Arab world’s domination by foreign powers, and using state intervention in the economy to overcome underdevelopment. The United States’ goals are antithetical to those of Syria’s Arab nationalists. Where the Arab nationalists seek to overcome the sectarian divisions of the Arab world, Washington seeks to inflame them to prevent Arabs coalescing as an independent political force capable of challenging US control of the Arab homeland. Where the Arab nationalists seek an Arab homeland free from foreign domination, the United States, since World War II, has sought hegemony in the petroleum-rich region, in order to enrich US oil corporations. Lastly, where the Arab nationalists seek to incubate national industry with subsidies and tariff barriers, and to bar foreign investment in strategic parts of the economy, Washington insists on an open door to US exports and investments. “The Islamists’ anti-imperialism is vastly different from that of the Arab nationalists.” As for the Muslim Brotherhood, historically the major Sunni Islamist organization in Syria, its goals, like those of the Arab nationalists, are anti-imperialist, but the Islamists’ anti-imperialism is vastly different from that of the Arab nationalists. Like all fundamentalist reactions against foreign domination, the Islamist program amounts to a turning back to an identity that existed prior to the region’s submission to outside control. The Islamists seek to recover a ‘pure’ Islam that they believe was repressed and negated by Western imperialism. They believe that if they can recuperate the world that existed prior to Islam’s encounter with European colonialism, they will have overcome Western imperialism. We know readers will learn a lot from your book, but what do you hope readers will un-learn? In other words, is there a particular ideology you’re hoping to dismantle? One of the main things I would hope they unlearn is the idea that liberal democratic institutions are a possibility for all states, including those confronting public emergencies brought about by Western aggression. Since the 1950s, if not earlier, Syria has been in a permanent state of crisis and emergency. The crisis begins with the first of four of what we might call Zionist colonial settler wars, beginning with the war in 1948 that produced the Nakba, the disaster of Zionist expulsion of Arabs from their homeland, through Zionist colonial settler wars in 1956, 1967, and 1973, culminating in the settlers’ occupation of a part of Syria, namely the Golan Heights. Syria remains in an official state of war with Israel, an aggressive, war-like, and expansionary state that is nuclear-armed and many more times powerful than Syria. The crisis continues with Islamists vowing an unending struggle to the death with the secular Arab nationalist state, accompanied by a series of bloody rebellions beginning in the mid 1960s and continuing to today. The emergency is exacerbated by US efforts, dating from the 1950s, to overthrow Arab nationalist influence in Damascus. These efforts intensified in 2003, when the Bush administration contemplated an armed invasion of Syria as a follow-up to the invasion of neighboring Iraq. The plan was abandoned as too ambitious and was succeeded by a program of sanctions—which even prior to 2011 prevented the government from providing essential services in some parts of the country—and White House meetings with Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood. Today, three hostile foreign powers—Israel, Turkey and the United States—occupy parts of Syria in defiance of international law" https://www.blackagendareport.com/bar-book-forum-stephen-gowans-washingtons-long-war-syria |