IMPERIALISM is in disarray. Tens of thousands of Islamist fighters – initially assisted by western governments, such as the UK government, and their secret services, following the overthrow of Gadaffi in Libya, to go to Syria to help with the campaign to smash the secular Baathist regime of President Assad – have turned on their masters with their plan to establish a 10th century Caliphate in the oil rich Middle East.
That the Islamists made no secret of their desire, not just to kill the Baathists but to wipe out the Christian and other minorities in Syria (traditionally defended by the Baathist regime), did not cause the western governments to lose a wink of sleep.
However, the Assad regime stood fast, and governments like the Cameron government in the UK were unable to force through their parliaments a fully fledged imperialist invasion of Syria.
It was this strategic failure that turned the Islamists to go further afield and to try to establish their state in northern Syria and Iraq, where the US puppet Maliki regime had completely discredited itself and lost the support of the millions that make up Sunni Iraq.
Now the imperialists are screaming (some of them semi-hysterically) at the Frankenstein monster that their destruction of Iraq, Libya and their attempted destruction of Syria, has created.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said about the ISIS – ‘They are tremendously well funded. This is beyond anything we have seen.’
That is because Saudi benefactors have been pouring billions into their coffers to help establish a ‘Trojan Horse’ state in northern Iraq under the control of Saudi Arabia, as the US well knows.
Hagel added: ‘They marry ideology and a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess.’
The reason for this is that they get their ideology, including removing heads from bodies, from Saudi Arabia, and their military prowess has been acquired in the special training camps the imperialist powers have set up in Jordan and Turkey.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has asked ‘Can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organisation that resides in Syria? The answer is no,’ he said.
So the US, which is allegedly opposed to putting boots on the ground (except for special forces), wants to carry the war from Iraq into Syria.
In the UK, the former Chief of the General Staff, Lord Dannatt, seems to have become the acting PM with his orders that parliament must be recalled. Dannatt added to the Today programme: ‘The old saying, “my enemy”s enemy is my friend”, has begun to have some resonance with our relationship in Iran, and I think it’s going to have some resonance with our relationship with Assad.
‘I think whether it’s above the counter or below the counter, a conversation’s got to be held with him. Because if there’s going to be any question of air strikes over Syrian air space, it’s got to be with the Assad regime”s approval.’
Oh how the mighty have fallen! Those that were sure that they were going to destroy Assad are contemplating a humiliating restoration of relations with him.
In fact, all that is being revealed in the current crisis is the weakness of the imperialist powers and their completely callous nature.
After stoking up a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, they think that just a few words on the sidelines with Assad will put everything right.
In fact, the working class of the world is disgusted with the US-UK ruling classes that can swallow no end of Israeli brutality, can cause the deaths of huge numbers of Syrians and then think that a chat on the sidelines will settle it all!
The truth is that the imperialist powers have greatly underestimated the combativity of the masses of Palestine and Syria and the working people of the world.
The way forward for the working class of the world is the organisation of the victory of the world socialist revolution. This requires the building of sections of the Fourth International in every country.
