Syria

US must withdraw troops, end support for insurgents and pay reparations.

The Syrian war has been in a long stalemate for several years, but it is not over. Washington still occupies territory in the east and south of the country. It still arms and protects insurgent militias, particularly under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces. It encourages the separatist aims of their political factions. It uses their de-facto rule over eastern Syria to engage in the looting of oil and grain resources. This is all, of course, illegal, a crime of aggressive war.

Washington’s NATO ally, Turkey, still occupies a large portion of Idlib province in northwestern Syria. On paper, it’s there as an “observer,” but it’s really there to protect what remains of the insurgent army it helped build. This is, of course, also illegal.

The aggressive destabilization of Syria led to the rise of Daesh, or Islamic State. Washington, Ankara, and other aggressors share responsibility for the brutal crimes of that organization. Washington even used Daesh as a cynical pretext to invade and occupy vast parts of the country. But it has no intention of eliminating Daesh; it still wants to overthrow the Syrian government. And it wants to make proxy war against Russia and Iran, both of whose militaries are in Syria legally.

American bureaucrats form these misguided goals for many reasons. Prominent among them is to advance and protect the interests of Israel. That genocidal regime also supported Syrian insurgents, and even now regularly launches attacks on Syria. It justifies these attacks with claims the targets are “Iranian,” but the attacks are still, of course, illegal. Washington, too, regularly talks of “Iran-backed militias” to justify its ongoing invasion.

Why is the cold war vs Iran still going on? It’s been more than 40 years since the US puppet strings were severed. There is no particular reason to fear an Iranian attack by the US; it is merely a threat to Washington’s “interests,” i.e. hegemony. But Washington’s overseas dominance has only helped US elites at the expense of the common people. The government controlled by these imperialists increasingly invades our privacy, suppresses our speech, and drives us into poverty through economic chaos. We should be glad to see the empire collapse. Rather than fearing it, we should prepare a smooth transition.