In response to the unfolding crisis in Syria, the Communist Party USA expresses its solidarity with the Syrian people and strongly condemns U.S. and NATO intervention in Syria and the Middle East.

Beginning with the public demonstrations against the Assad government in 2011, NATO and the United States have continuously interfered in the affairs of the Syrian people. The Obama administration’s policy of training, supplying, and providing diplomatic support for elements of the Syrian opposition exacerbated the domestic crisis, empowering sectarian forces and escalating violence toward civilians. These efforts culminated in the displacement of millions of Syrians and the continuous occupation of sections of Syrian territory by the U.S. military (beginning in 2014 and continuing to the present) under the guise of opposing the Islamic State via “Operation Inherent Resolve.”

The conditions that enabled the Islamic State’s rise were primarily the byproduct of the chaos and devastation caused by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, along with U.S.-led attempts to force a pliant regime on the free and sovereign people of Iraq. These efforts to strong-arm the peoples of the Middle East into U.S. and European imperialist arrangements have brought decades of death and suffering to the region. This current exploitation of Syria’s political situation follows a similar script.

Influenced by NATO and U.S. imperialism, the Israel Defense Forces have moved to stake their claim over Syria’s future in the wake of the Assad government’s collapse. The IDF has already launched an invasion of Syria from the illegally occupied Syrian Golan region and continues its seizure of land along the Syrian border with Lebanon, marking another escalation in its genocidal campaign. We stand with our fraternal parties and the people of the Middle East in condemning these atrocities by the U.S.-backed forces of Israel.

Ultranationalist forces in the Turkish government have used the political chaos in Syria to further entrench and expand its occupation of territories along Syria’s northern border. These events pose a particular danger not only to the Syrian people broadly, but to Kurdish and other minority populations in the region facing targeted repression by the Turkish state. Turkey has repeatedly leveraged its strategic position within NATO to influence U.S. foreign policy toward its own ends. The Trump administration accommodated Turkish incursions into Kurdish-majority territories in 2018, with no meaningful change in posture occurring during Biden’s tenure.

Brought about by sectarian and jihadist forces, many of which are under the influence of U.S. and NATO imperialism, the collapse of the Assad government will not resolve the profound political, economic, and social crises faced by the Syrian people. The only solution lies in the aspirations of Syrian progressive forces toward peace, true self-determination, and defiance of imperialist aggression. This objective is paramount, and toward this end, we express our resolute solidarity with the people of Syria, with our fraternal comrades in Syria, and across the Middle East. We vow to continue the struggle against U.S. imperialism at its source.

Image: Syrians demonstrate after U.S. missile attack by Fathi Nizam (tasnimnews.com)

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