THE TORIES have damned the Starmer government for a foreign policy ‘shambles’ as political parties throughout the western imperialist nations grapple with coming to terms with events in Syria.
The initial reaction from the US, UK and fellow allies was one of jubilation at the removal of democratically elected Syrian president Bashar al-Assad by a cluster of militia groups – the most prominent being Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) whose leaders emerged from Al Qaeda Islamic terrorists.
Indeed, HTS is designated as a terrorist organisation by the US and UK and, according to the latest news, Labour prime minister Keir Starmer and his foreign secretary David Lammy are still wrestling with whether or not to lift this designation.
The shambles engulfing Labour foreign policy is not confined to the UK government.
Across the world, governments and their security agencies are tying themselves in knots over the ‘unexpected consequences’ arising from the downfall of Assad, despite the fact that the imperialist nations have been organising, arming and protecting HTS and the other assorted militias that have seized Syria, for decades.
Yesterday, the Telegraph reported that security sources have told them that the UK ‘is at risk from British jihadists’ returning from Syria as prisons in northern Syria could be shut down and the jihadists freed to return to the UK.
A further article in the Telegraph was even blunter, declaring ‘Jihadi terrorists now rule Syria’.
In the US, outgoing president Joe Biden was reported as holding secret talks with HTS despite the fact that it is a proscribed terrorist organisation whose leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, has a $10 million bounty placed on him by the US authorities.
Of course, terrorist atrocities don’t count when they are carried out for the benefit of imperialist regime change and reflect the direct interest of the US to dominate and control the world and all its resources for exploitation by American capitalists.
In the same way, the genocide being conducted daily by the Zionist regime headed by Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza is dismissed as ‘Israel’s right to self-defence’ and if that right leads to at least 44,758 Palestinians killed and 105,835 wounded since October 7th, 2023, then that is the price imperialism is prepared to inflict.
Despite genocide and a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon the Zionists and their US masters have failed to crush Palestinian resistance.
Reeling from his failure, Netanyahu has now seized the opportunity to extend the bombing in Syria – supposedly targeting alleged chemical warfare plants – while Israeli troops have crossed the border and advanced, it is claimed, to within 15 miles, of the Syrian capital Damascus.
Yesterday, Israel launched hundreds of air strikes on Damascus – the Zionists, backed to the hilt by the US – are going for all-out war to seize and occupy Syria.
With the US conducting similar mass bombing raids across Syria, the country, and along with it the entire Middle East region, is immediately facing imperialist war and slaughter where tens of millions will suffer as the genocide being carried out in Gaza is extended across the countries and peoples of the entire region.
Imperialist slaughter is not confined to the Middle East.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday confirmed that over 400,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed or injured during the conflict with Russia.
This massive number of casualties had been a closely guarded secret by the Ukrainian regime out of fear that they would seriously undermine ‘public morale’ especially at a time when support for Zelensky’s fascist-supported regime is crumbling amongst Ukrainian workers and youth.
In its death agony the imperialist nations are determined to drag the world into war in an attempt to restore the domination of capitalism across the globe.
The working class internationally has the power and strength to end imperialist war and slaughter by taking power and consigning capitalism in its final death agony to the dustbin of history.
The burning issue today is the building of sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to provide the revolutionary leadership necessary to organise mass action by workers and youth to take power in the capitalist nations bringing in socialism with the victory of the world socialist revolution.
There is no time to lose.
