SYRIAN President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks on the improving situation in Syria in Moscow on Tuesday.
The talks were a victory in themselves, since the situation in Syria is now secure enough to allow Assad to travel to Moscow without fear of the consequences. Putin praised the heroic Syrian people for ‘almost alone … resisting, fighting international terrorism for several years. They had suffered serious losses, but recently have been achieving serious results in this fight.’
During the talks, Putin told Assad that Russia is ready to contribute not only to the fight against terrorism but also to finding a political solution to the crisis in the Arab country. He stressed that ‘The decisive word, without any doubt, must belong solely to the Syrian people.’
Assad responded that all the Syrian people wanted to participate in deciding the future of the country, and that ‘The only aim for all of us should be what the Syrian people want as a future for their country.’
Putin pointed out that Russian intervention was self-defence since ‘at least 4,000 citizens from the former Soviet Union are fighting along with terrorists in Syria,’ adding, ‘We can’t let them appear in Russia. We cannot permit them – once they get fighting experience there and ideological training – to turn up here in Russia.’ He obviously knew that the defeat of Assad would see all of these Islamist forces transferred to the Caucasus.
After the setbacks for ISIS in Syria, the leaderships of the major Iraqi parties have now written to the Iraqi PM and the Iraqi general staff proposing that Iraq should invite Russia to play the same role in Iraq that it is in Syria, since the US efforts against ISIS were at best very half-hearted.
This move has driven Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, into a fury. He said US officials had spoken with Iraqi leaders and were assured that no Russian assistance has been requested. Dunford, however, says that he told the Iraqi leaders that they would have to choose between the US or Russia. Dunford related to reporters: ‘I said it would make it very difficult for us to be able to provide the kind of support that you need if the Russians were here conducting operations as well.’
The valour of the Syrian people allied to Russian intervention, which was defensive in nature, has created a new situation in the Middle East, and also in the relations between imperialism and the oppressed nations and Russia. The 2008 worldwide banking crash drove the imperialists to try to get out of the crisis by imposing crushing austerity at home and regime change abroad.
In 2011, they managed to organise Islamists to overthrow and murder Gadaffi in Libya, and then proceeded to engage in a look-alike operation in Syria, financed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with the manpower provided by Islamists being permitted to travel to Syria from all over the world.
They met with huge resistance, but did manage to drive millions from their homes.
In 2014, the imperialists were more successful in Ukraine with the fascist-organised coup to overthrow Yanukovych whose crime was that he was not willing to allow Ukraine to become a dependency of the EU. This coup was resisted by the workers of the Donbas who have fought the fascist bands to a standstill.
And now the imperialist assault in Syria has run into a brick wall. There is not the slightest doubt that the survival of the Assad regime will be hailed by the masses of the Middle East as a colossal victory and will encourage tens of millions to get rid of the imperialist stooges who run their countries, and to liberate occupied Palestine from the boot of the US- and UK-backed Zionist regime.
It is also very clear what the contribution of the British workers must be to this liberating struggle. It must rise up and bring down the Cameron government and bring in a workers government and socialism, putting an end to British capitalism and imperialism.
This is the way forward to the victory of the world socialist revolution!
