Betrayed but not derailed

“The British are entitled always to mistrust other people”, AJP Taylor once wrote “but others are not entitled to mistrust the British. That is why England is known or was known abroad as ‘Perfide Albion’, because the British have two standards, one for themselves and one for other people”.

After the end of the Second capitalist War, when the financial bankruptcy forced the Britain to become American poodles, their successors embraced the entitlement with same vigour but not without giving it a Biblical twist of “with us or against us”, as they assumed the imperialist role conceded by the British.

For the US the division of the Middle East and Africa carried out by the British-French nexus was not enough. Hence, it decided to fragment the entire region called MENA (Middle East-North Africa) into small pieces favourable in fulfilling its imperialist designs. Initially ignoring both Israel and Pakistan, the massive US military-industrial complex whose lethality was alluded to by none other than the former US president Eisenhower decided to adapt these entities almost simultaneously and it immediately started paying the dividends.

Today, the entire world is watching in awe how contemptuously, a Zionist settler-colonial entity carved out in the heart of the Middle East to serve the dominant power’s interests flouting all the international laws and undermining the decisions of the International judicial courts brazenly is engaged in committing the genocide of Palestinians, bombing Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and has successfully dismembered not only a war-torn country but a civilization with the help of Erdogan, Netanyahu and Jihadi nexus led by Gollani, a declared terrorist, not only by Ankara, but by the UN and the American administration that kept a bounty of USD 10 billion on his head.

The entire tragedy could not have happened without the active collusion of Erdogan who like Netanyahu is seeking Lebensraum to expand the borders of his country to reinvent a caricature of an eclipsed Ottoman empire, a dream that will become a nightmare sooner than later. To push back the Kurdish forces in Syria allied to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was Erdogan’s other interest. To his dismay the Kurdish forces are beseeching the US to stay on in Syria to save them from their arched enemy. Israel is relishing this situation of having a buffer non-Arab state between its ever expanding borders and those of Arab countries.

Even Erdogan who unleashed his US backed Jihadis (HTS) on Syria did not imagine the instant crumbling of the Assad regime. However, for a critic Assad’s capability of keeping a highly sanctioned, economically unviable country besieged by the imperialist forces, intact for nearly 12 years, was a miracle. One can blame Assad of ruling with dictatorial powers, of corruption — as if the entire west especially the US president is elected without the money laundered by the AIPAC, a symbol of corruption.

Miriam Adelson alone provided a hefty sum of 100 million to Trump’s campaign to annex West Bank — of not improving the economy, providing a lowly pay of $40 per month to its generals and $7 to his soldiers, and so on but he was half as corrupt as MbS of Saudia. And one should not forget how valiantly Assad withstood and fought against the onslaught of the US, the biggest imperial power, for more than a decade.

To be honest Syria had long been turned into a ragtag state. Damascus was regularly bombed by the Israeli aggressors.

A large swathe of its Northern part was controlled by the Turkish army since 2016. In the Eastern Syria US troops occupied the area in al-Haskakah and Deirez-Zorgovernate on the pretext of securing oil and gas from the Jihadis whom they are overtly supporting now.

The illegal control of Syrians’ oil was not the only tragedy that marred the people of Syria but the US also controlled the area producing grain for its starving population.To add injury to the insult the US-occupied territory was teaming with the Jihadis of Al-Qaida origin, recently rebranded as HTS which have been given the reins of Damascus as the puppet masters of three imperial states.

The oil sold to the Jihadis affiliated with Al-Qaida/Al Nusra by the US was smuggled and resold to Turkey and the Erdogan family was one of the beneficiaries of this smuggling. The same oil was carried to the refineries in Malta and once refined it reached to its final destination, Israel.

To sustain Syria as a semi-viable state, Iran sent thousands of barrels of oil daily to Syria, while Russia not only maintained its military squad and bomber but also supplied Syria with thousands of tons of grain. Not to mention the soldiers of Hezbollah guarding Syrian borders and fighting to maintain the Assad government for the last decade.

Once Syria fell all the mana stopped falling and many cities in Syria are in literal darkness without the provisions of light and food.

Since Israel has annexed almost all of Gollan heights Syria will be deprived of its water resources as well. “When” imperialism comes, it comes not in single spies but in battalions, Shakespeare was succinct since imperialism and sorrows are synonymous. The plights of the wretched Syrians seem unending.

Now the onus to keep Syria afloat is on Turkey, Israel and their godfather the US. Will the US give up or at least release the stolen Syrian oil and grain to be used by the Gollani and co to improve the dire situation in Syria? Will Turkey send some financial aid to the starving Syrian children or does any country of the west has spine to send medial aid to the dying people? No, these are pipedreams.

It was necessary to weaken the axis of resistance and forcing Syrians to kneel before the hegemonic forces’ knees instrumental for this purpose. More importantly, it served as a distraction for the entire world from the continued, unending genocide of Palestinians by the Zionists.

What Gollani is running is a combination of diverse groups; the only thing common in them is savagery. With Salafi background it is hard to think that a plural Syrian society comprising Shiites, Druze, mystic Sunnis and Nestorian Christians will be able to avoid the Salafi wrath for long especially when history narrates a different story about them.

The gory stories of decapitation, torture and rape of all those refusing to obey the Salafi version of Jihadis, are still reverberating in people’s minds. Recently, the occupied Syrian citizens protested against the Jihdis, and strangely contrary to the new ruler the Israeli forces opened live fire on them. Enough to know who rules the roost.

Hulegu Khan was unnecessarily blamed for destroying the Levant. Albeit the US-Israel nexus have taken a leaf from his book but they have surpassed him long ago by inflicting all kinds of previously uninvented atrocities on the people of the Middle East, including the imposition of tin pot dictators upon them.

Gramsci has helped us categorise the difference between the US Empire and its coattail entity Israel. “For it is very clear,” he says, “that all victors desire to destroy the vanquished. But men being very hypocritical and false do not say outright “I wish to conquer to destroy’” but say instead: “I wish to conquer to civilize”. This is the mantra of the Americans when they invade any country in the name of enforcing democracy and liberalization-based freedom.

While for Israeli fascists even this jargon is not necessary. They are far worse than Romans, the latter Gramsci says, “Were content with binding their vanquished opponents to their triumphal chariots—then they made the defeated lands their provinces.

But now the victors would like all inhabitants of the colonies to vanish, to make room for the new ones”, especially for the Jews whose entire population is not more than 10 million in the entire globe.

Coming back to a tremendous setback the resistance will have to face in the shape of downfall of Assad’s government, but certainly it is not the end of the world for the freedom fighters. That is the only victory Israel can show to its hegemonic allies and that too wasn’t possible without the help of the US and its proto-fascist ally, Erdogan.

Who can save Syria from the destiny of turning into another Libya? Libya did not share borders with Israel, but Syria does. The anarchy in Syria will soon start hurting the US-Turkey-Israel nexus. If devastated Iraq can become a constant headache for the American why not a Syria divided in three parts for its respective conquerors?

Slaughtering the innocent masses and turning the countries into rubble with American war planes and 2000k borrowed bombs, more than what Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined suffered, is no victory. Despite all the hell broken out on Gaza and Beirut both Hamas and Hezbollah are intact and resisting the might of entire global north. That is why the battle is not between Palestine and a settler colonial entity but between global south—largely sleeping—and global north. They say that every commodity in the market wears a tag of being made in China but courage alone wears the tag of Palestine for it isn’t a commodity and a coward Israeli army cannot purchase or borrow it because Americans have none either.

For those who think that Israel has won the war do not know what Gramsci has stated “revolutionaries who see history as the product of their own actions made up of uninterrupted series of wenches (tugs) executed upon the active and passive forces in society and prepare for the final wrench (revolution)” invariably win the last battle. This is what Palestinians, and the axis of resistance, are fighting and preparing for, making history by their actions.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024