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Vol. 80/No. 7 February 22, 2016
(front page)
1,000s flee Moscow’s bombings, assault on Aleppo by Syrian regime
AP Photo/Bunyamin Aygun
Syrians seeking refuge from Assad regime’s assault on Aleppo halted at
Turkish border Feb. 6.
BY MAGGIE TROWE
Tens of thousands of Syrian workers and farmers fled toward the Turkish
border over the last week during a brutal assault by Russian warplanes,
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces and Iranian and Hezbollah
troops on Aleppo in northern Syria, who pounded opposition forces that
have held the city for four years.
Reinforced by Moscow’s massive bombing, Assad has reversed gains by
opposition groups, strengthening his position in any negotiations on the
country’s future. Aleppo was a center of popular mobilizations against
the Damascus regime in 2011. They were violently crushed by Assad,
leading to the ongoing civil war.
Washington has forged a bloc with Moscow and Tehran, seeking to
establish a cease-fire in Syria, to achieve some measure of stability
for U.S. interests in the region, and carry out united moves against
Islamic State.
The assault on Aleppo marks another devastating blow to Syrian working
people. The war has claimed the lives of a quarter of a million people
and displaced more than half of the country’s population.
Human Rights Watch reported Feb. 8 that Moscow’s planes have dropped
cluster bombs — anti-civilian weapons that detonate in the air, shooting
out lethal shrapnel — at least 14 times in five provinces in the last
two weeks.
Secretary of State John Kerry said Feb. 5 that the bombing “has to
stop.” But for some time he has led Washington’s increased collaboration
with Tehran and Moscow as the 20th century imperialist-imposed borders
and stability in the region crumbled and Islamic State seized large
areas of Syria and Iraq.
While Washington has given lukewarm verbal support and paltry aid to the
capitalist Syrian opposition, none of its components are anywhere near
strong enough to stabilize the country.
As a result of decades of betrayal by the Stalinist Communist Party of
Syria, which promoted collaboration with Assad’s Baathist Party and
other bourgeois forces, there is no revolutionary working-class movement
that can chart an independent road to power. This vacuum, along with the
brutal civil war, opened the door for Islamic State.
The Barack Obama administration’s nuclear accord with Iran allows Tehran
to resume trade on the world market and escape imperialist sanctions.
Washington’s goal is to cement the broader political deal they are now
working to consolidate.
Assad and his allies threaten to impose a starvation siege on those
remaining in Aleppo, as they have in dozens of places across the
country. By Feb. 8 more than 35,000 Syrians were massed near the Turkish
border, hoping to enter Turkey. Ankara closed the border some time ago,
but the next day Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said 10,000 refugees
had been allowed to cross.
Indirect negotiations between Assad and opposition forces started Feb. 1
in Geneva under the auspices of the U.N. Security Council, but blew up
after two days as the regime’s offensive advanced. Members of the
opposition delegation said the Saudi and Turkish governments pressed
them to pull out.
Seeking to push Obama to back away from Moscow and Assad, the
governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates offered to
provide troops if Washington would lead an expanded ground war in Syria.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem ridiculed the offer Feb. 6,
saying they would “return home in wooden coffins.”
More refugees flee to Europe
Capitalist leaders in Europe have reacted with alarm at the continuing
flow of refugees from Syria. German Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to
Ankara Feb. 8 to press Turkish leaders to keep them from heading to Europe.
Capitalist governments in northern Europe are pushing for Greece to be a
holding pen for refugees, threatening to send more border guards, and
possibly troops, to “hermetically seal” Greece’s border with Macedonia.
Islamic State’s territory and armed strength in Syria and Iraq is being
shrunk by growing unpopularity in areas they rule, U.S. bombings, and
ground attacks by Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and
Iraqi special forces. The reactionary group carried out a suicide car
bomb attack that tore up a police officers’ club and vegetable market in
Damascus Feb. 9, wounding dozens and killing at least eight people.
Washington is no friend of the Kurdish people’s aspirations for an
independent homeland, but depends on YPG units to push back Islamic
State. After Ankara’s determined insistence, Kurdish representatives
were excluded from the Geneva talks. In an effort to assuage the
exclusion, Brett McGurk, Obama’s envoy for the “Global Coalition to
Counter ISIS,” met with Kurdish leaders in Kobani, a town in northern
Syria where heroic defense by YPG forces drove off IS attackers in
January 2015.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacted angrily. “Am I your ally
or are the terrorists in Kobani?” he said Feb. 5.
Erdogan has stepped up its military assault in Turkey’s majority Kurdish
southeast since December, targeting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
and terrorizing the population. Thousands fled the Sur district of
Diyarbakir, the largest city in the region, Jan. 27 after government
authorities expanded a stifling 24-hour curfew.
In a Feb. 7 editorial, the Wall Street Journal referred to Obama’s
actions in Syria as a “let-it-burn policy.” But the U.S. capitalist
rulers have no interest in getting caught in a new Middle East ground
war. Whoever wins the presidency in 2016 is unlikely to stray from the
current course.
Related articles:
Rallies in France demand ‘End state of emergency!’
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