The Syrian regime is fighting for its survival.  I have no sympathy for it, and will welcome its consumption in a revolutionary overthrow.  The struggle in Syria is fundamentally - not exclusively, and not in a crude, unmediated fashion - a class struggle.  It is an open war of movement between, for the most part, the most advanced sections of the popular classes and a narrow state capitalist oligopoly which has always dealt with the surplus of political opposition by jailing it or killing it.  In that struggle, inasmuch as it matters what I think, I situate myself on the side of the popular opposition.  Not in an undifferentiated manner, and not without confronting the political problems (of eg sectarianism, pro-imperialism etc) that will tend to recur amid sections of the opposition to any of these regimes.  But without conditions or prevarication.  

Yet imperialism has its own reasons, of which reason knows a little, for seeking a different kind of ending to the regime: one which does not empower the currently mobilised masses.  And I really think the chances of an armed 'intervention' in Syria under the rubric of the UN have noticeably increased.  And how we orient ourselves to that situation politically is, I suspect, going to be an important problem in the coming months.  The following pleonastic stream of head-scratching and arm-waving is my contribution to securing that orientation.

***

For what it's worth, this is how I read the international situation with respect to Syria at present.  The revolutionary wave that was unleashed over one year ago has reverberated through every major social formation in the Middle East.  Because it broke the Mubarak regime, which was a regional lynchpin of a chain of pro-US dictatorships, its effects could not be localised.  The response of the US was one of confusion and fright, followed by the bolstering of some of the ancient regimes and simultaneously a very cautious 'tilt' toward some mildly reformist forces (in general the most right-wing and pro-capitalist forces).  The Saudi intervention in Bahrain was an instance of the former.  The invasion of Libya was an improvised policy along the latter lines.  And the position within Yemen has been somewhere between these two, with the US attempting to manage a replacement of the leadership without empowering the actual popular forces calling for its downfall, some of whom were conveniently vaporised by US bombing raids.  

In general, I think the liberal imperialists have won the ideological argument that the US must be seen to be on the side of reform, because today's insurgent forces are potentially tomorrow's regimes, and the US will have to deal with them on oil, Israel, and so on.  However, the political argument as to what concretely to do about it is much more in the balance.  The realpolitikers have dominant positions in the Pentagon, while the lib imps seem to have a strong voice in the State Department.  It's schematic, but nonetheless a reasonable approximation of the truth to say that the former are very cautious about any Middle East wars, especially wars fought on a liberal (rather than securitarian) basis, while the latter are much more bellicose.  Obama's 'state of the union' address, which undoubtedly had its share of theatrical sabre-rattling, made it clear that he would see the overthrow of the Syrian regime as a logical corollary to the overthrow of Qadhafi, which he boasted was made possible by ending the occupation of Iraq.  Moreover, his administration has continued to ratchet up pressure on Iran, through sanctions, and we are beginning to hear serious arguments in the bourgeois media in favour of a war.  I am not saying that an attack on Iran is likely in the short or medium term.  But any escalation regarding Syria could not but be linked to the escalation against Iran.

Obama and Clinton are also highly responsive to pressure from the European Union and particularly France.  Sarkozy is naturally leading the EU's response to the Middle East crisis.  He may not have a triple A credit rating, but he does have nuclear weapons, a large army with extensive imperialist experience, and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.  (Merkel, who has none of these, is taking a much more passive role.)  And since the Sarkozy administration has been embarrassed and damaged by the extent of its relations with dictatorships in the Middle East, its 'tilt' toward potentially pro-EU reformist forces has been all the more pronounced.  Britain, consistent with its imperial past in the Middle East, its adjusted but continuing role as a subordinate partner of the US, and the warmed over 'liberal interventionism' embraced by Cameron and Hague, has tended to align with France over both Libya and Syria.

***

Another important actor is the Arab League, and within it the prominent figure of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).  In the latest Socialist Register, Adam Hanieh points out the strategic centrality of the GCC to the region as far as imperialism is concerned, due to its pivotal role in the region's capitalist development, its hold of enormous oil resources (a quarter of future production), and its articulation with the world economy.  Three GCC states have experienced their own uprisings - Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman - all of which have been repressed with military force and marginalised in the ideological apparatuses.  Even so, it is the GCC monarchies which have been most stable in the context of the global recession, and the most active in managing the fall-out.  So, while the Arab League has not adopted a single, coherent policy response to the regional uprisings, GCC states have played a key role in manouevering the League to support selective interventions, monitoring missions, sanctions and so on against regionally awkward regimes.  The League's support for the intervention in Libya was a decisive factor in enabling it to come about.  Saudi Arabia, which has coordinated many policy initiatives to contain the region-wide uprisings, has involved itself deeply in the Syrian context.  The involvement of Arab League monitors, received with some scepticism by the Syrian local co-ordination committees, was driven by Saudi Arabia; their recent withdrawal has also been triggered by Saudi Arabia.  The subsequent lobbying for a UN resolution calling for the Assad regime to step down and supporting some form of UN intervention, has been led by Britain and France, but strongly supported by the Arab League.  Russia is at present the only obstacle to the resolution, due to its long-standing relationship with Assad.  

Finally, there is the Syrian opposition.  The pro-imperialist bloc, the Syrian National Council (SNC), largely led by exiles based in France and Turkey, has not thus far been representative of the sentiment among the rank and file of Syrian opposition members.  There is a left and nationalist contingent to the revolt, moreover, that complicates any attempt to simply annexe the revolt to the wider regional strategies of imperialism.  Further, even in Libya, where no left or labour movement existed prior to the overthrow of Qadhafi, and where the revolt was quickly disfigured by a racist component, the opening of the political space subsequent to that overthrow has created a window in which germinal popular forces have been able to assert themselves.  A political strike in the oil industry took out a pro-Qadhafi chairman, while unrest in Benghazi has resulted in a serious rift with the governing 'transitional council'.  The ongoing struggles in Egypt, which is strategically central to the whole region, can also swiftly make calculations made on an ad hoc basis, moot.  Nonetheless, complications and problems in a line of development do not necessarily mean that the line will be impeded.  Were the Syrian opposition sufficiently crushed, I think it would be more likely that a pro-intervention 'line' could gain ground, and this would tend to divide the left-nationalist contingent.  This has to be the assumption because, as Bassam Hassad has pointed out in his critique of the SNC and various pro-Assad types, the existing support for imperialist intervention is itself already the result of brutalisation, mediated by certain types of politics, (generally both liberal and Islamist).  

There is also the problem of sectarianism.  As far as I can tell, the majority reject any explicit political appeal along sectarian lines.  The banners saying 'no to sectarianism' reflect a popular sentiment.  The local co-ordination committees have explicitly opposed sectarianism in the movement.  Every substantial report I have encountered indicates the strength of the determination to overcome sectarian politics.  Nonetheless, the regime has a sectarian basis and has reinforced sectarian divisions as a technique of statecraft - not fundamentally dissimilar to a protection racket.  Even though many of the Christians and Alawites supposedly protected by the regime are among the protesters, it would be astonishing if some sections of the opposition were not themselves driven by sectarian politics.  It is noticeable that commentators dismissing the revolt as mere sectarian intrigue tend to focus on the role of the salafists.  They exist as a subordinate stratum in the revolt, and they are among a number of forces which are against the regime on sectarian grounds.  Far from constituting the main political current in the uprising, they nevertheless represent a problem and a weakness for the opposition.  Such divisions are, moreover, always manipulated and amplified whenever imperialism is involved - Iraq, anyone?  

Finally, there are divisions over the use of armed force against the regime.  The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is a large army of defectors from the regime's armed forces, perhaps including tens of thousands of soldiers - at least 15,000 on recent estimates.  This exists, to put it crudely, because the Israeli occupation exists.  These soldiers, trained to defend Syria from Israeli aggression, are now defending Syrians from state aggression.  But their remit has expanded.  While their initial rationale was to defend communities against the security forces, they have consistently engaged in military attacks on the regime's infrastructure.  The risk of doing so, of course, is that it brings down the regime's repressive apparatus.  There is gossip and speculation to the effect that the FSA represents an imperialist conspiracy.  I see little proof of this.  Despite representing a layer of military defectors, it looks to have gained real support among the oppressed and exploited.  The problem is that most of the movement's organised core has insisted on keeping it peaceful, on tactical grounds: the terrain of violent struggle is not where the regime is weakest.  Yet, in some parts of the country, particularly the poorest, the regime is not leaving that option open.  So, tactical divisions underpinned by geographical disparities and the regime's tactics of selectively striking out at opposition strongholds, are also a potential weakness.  Now since the FSA is loyal to the Syrian National Council, which supports an imperialist intervention, there's an obvious dynamic that could come into play here.  That is that in the event of the popular movement being crushed or at least severely set back, the armed component comes to the fore and substitutes for the masses; and in the event of a UN-sanctioned intervention, the FSA becomes an auxiliary of NATO, and alongside the SNC forms the nucleus of a post-Assad regime that is not representative of Syrians. 

There is not an immediate move to bomb or invade Syria.  There is, however, mounting external pressure to create the conditions that would allow this to happen fairly quickly and expediently.  It would be a mistake to assume that because such a path would be riddled with problems, it would not be pursued.

***

With all that said, I intend to elaborate further in an abstract manner before coming up for air.  From a marxist perspective, the most fundamental antagonism in the capitalist world system is class antagonism.  These, of course, cut through the dominated regimes in the imperialist hierarchy just as much as they do in the dominant regimes.  As such, in a popular struggle against these regimes, marxists start from the position of supporting those struggles.  To be more specific, in various direct and indirect ways, these antagonisms are amplified by imperialism, inasmuch as the ruling classes of the imperialist chain benefit from the exploitation of workers and popular classes in the dominated societies.  This is a fundamental cleavage which, arising from the outward extension of capitalist productive relations from the core, separates the dominant from the dominated formations. As a consequence, marxists also start from an axiomatic position of opposing imperialism.  It is not simply that imperialism retards the social development of these societies, but that it constitutes an additional axis of exploitation and oppression.

Within the class and state structures of such societies, moreover, the domination of imperialism is reproduced in various ways, such that the modes of domination within those states cannot be extricated from the question of imperialism.  As a consequence, popular movements arising against them will tend to have two targets: a domestic and international opponent.  Their struggles will also have a tendency to be internationalized, and to have global effects.  By the same token, where you have a national bourgeoisie that has developed in resistance to imperialism, that resistance will also be inscribed in its forms of class rule and in the state through which its political domination is secured.  Its legitimacy will depend in part on the national bourgeoisie's promise to organise the society in its self-defence.  It follows that where there is a break-up of the regime's social control, the issue of imperialism will be to the fore in its ideological and political strategies for retaining its dominant position.  This isn't merely manipulation, nor can it be wished away.  It poses a particular challenge to popular movements aiming to depose the regime, which is why the role of the anti-imperialist pole in the Syrian uprising is so critical.

But the reality is that these dying regimes can't effectively resist imperialism.  The republics organised under the rubric of Arab nationalism have rarely, even in the rudest health, fared much better against Israeli aggression than the old monarchies, and have often been available for opportunistic or long-term alliances with imperialism.  This is even true of partially resistant regimes.  Hafez al-Assad's support for Falangists against the Palestinians provided the occasion for Syria's initial invasion of Lebanon.  Assad senior was also a participant in the Gulf War alliance against Iraq.  His son, Bashar al-Assad, has always notched up plaudits from Washington as a neoliberal reformer - the liberalisation of the economy along lines prescribed by the IMF has been one of the causes of the polarisation of Syrian society, and the narrowing of the regime's social base - and leased some of his jails to Washington during the 'war on terror' to facilitate the torture of suspects.  The Islamic Republic has a similarly chequered record with regard to imperialism.  So, if the regime's raison d'etre is partially that it is an anti-imperialist bulwark, the obvious answer is that it isn't even very good at this.

So how do we orient to this situation, politically?  It seems obvious enough that the greatest bulwark against imperialist intervention in societies like Syria is the fullest and most active mobilisation of the masses themselves.  Their defeat at the hands of their regime would represent a green light to those pressing for intervention.  This is not the main reason why I think marxists should support these rebellions, but it is a very strong reason for doing so.  Second, the organised opposition are for the most part, the most politically advanced sections of the popular classes in both Syria and Iran.  They are the ones who, however they represent it, are responding to the class antagonism in a way that we would want the most radical workers in Europe, the United States and beyond to do.  For this reason, arguments along the lines that both regimes continue to have a popular base and shouldn't be written off are fundamentally wrong.  They do have a popular base, but it is not predominantly organised around any claims or values that the left, especially the revolutionary left, has a stake in.  So, one must hope for that base to erode, and rapidly.  Third, the same basic political grounds on which one opposes an undemocratic capitalist regime and supports its downfall are those on which one must oppose the regime of US imperialism, and work toward its downfall.  Anti-imperialism is an indispensable and not merely occasional aspect of emancipatory politics.  

These problems cannot, of course, be resolved with such abstract formulae: but such formulae have a role in reminding us of our political coordinates.  In concrete struggles, socialists in the imperialist societies would be trying to maintain relations with the opposition to these regimes, linking with exile groups and supporting their protests.  But at the same time, they would be the first to oppose military intervention, and would try to assemble the broadest coalition of forces to stop it.  Even if the deep political logic of events suggests that there is a confluence of these positions, in the real time in which such practices are developed it means negotiating some potentially fraught alliances.  Serious disagreements over the issue of imperialism are bound to emerge in any solidarity campaign; just as there will be sharp disagreements over the regime in any anti-imperialist campaign.  Socialists would have to manage these tensions carefully, while being the ones to consistently argue that the two goals are mutually necessary, rather than opposed.

Le Monde carried an article on Saturday bearing the headline ‘At the intersyndicale, hardliners lose ground (A L’intersyndicale, la ligne dure perd du terrain)’, an analytical report direct from the meeting of the various French union centrals by Claire Guelaud. Apart from the interesting journalistic point I could make that such illuminating industrial reportage, once a prestigious ‘beat’ (the Industrial Correspondent), particularly in the UK and latterly almost extinct, is vital for any informed citizenry, the article more importantly shows how far from adhering to the stereotype we have beyond France (and even domestically) that the French are incorrigible ‘greve-ophiles’, ready to descend into the street at the drop of a beret, the movement is heading toward a defeat consciously constructed by a majority of the union leadership, who are petrified at a ‘debordement’, or overflow of the struggle beyond their control.

The unions have called for two further days of action - one of strikes and demonstrations on 28 October, during the week of a parliamentary vote, and a second of ‘mobilisations’ on 6 November, ahead of the promulgation of the law by the president. All of which might on the face of it suggest the union leaders remain committed, and that the movement will continue. Le Monde’s reporter describes how the union leaders are conscious that the persistence and strength of actions since the beginning of the autumn “renders impossible a premature halt to the movement.”

The mobilisations will continue both during the coming week’s All Saints holiday that Sarkozy has hoped would interrupt and drain the energy of the movement - particularly of students and pupils - and afterward. All the ‘reformist’ unions (Le Monde’s term for the more conservative unions, not mine) - the CFDT, the UNSA, the CFTC, and even the ‘tres reservé’ CFE-CGC - have all called on their troops to keep up the pressure.

However, as the journalist accurately notes, “the centre of gravity has shifted and the hardliners have lost ground.”

The FSU and Solidaires union centrals, both of which had wanted earlier days of action, and Force Ouvriere, which continues to call for a general strike, did not win the day. (The latter two did not sign the resulting intersyndicale communiqué, but the FSU did.)

The crucial quote in the article is the one from Marcel Grignard, the ‘number two’ in the CFDT, the union central close to the Socialist Party, which quietly, and not so quietly in the form of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF and frontrunner to be the party’s presidential candidate next time around, has supported the pensions reform.

Grignaud: “Our responsibility as trade unionists is to construct compromises that make sense, and not to threaten the legitimacy of parliament or politics.”

The intersyndicale communiqué reminds that the mobilisations will continue “respecting property and people” and makes no mention of other actions and strikes concurrently underway, making links with other confrontations and thus generalising the movement.

Finally, reading between the lines, the UNSA and CFDT have already signalled their surrender, so long as Sarkozy is able to complete passage of the law, saying in essence that this would end the current level of industrial action.

“We will stay together for as long as the parliamentary debate lasts and the imposition of this reform,” said Jean Grosset of the UNSA.

“For the CFDT, the closure of parliamentary debate and the promulgation of the law will create a new situation,” said Grignard.

The CGT, the union close to the Communist Party, for its part has effectively done the same. In the words of Nadine Prigent, a member of the CGT executive: “We demand the immediate opening of negotiations. We will see what the head of state decides and will proceed step by step.”

The reporter is clear to say that none of this suggests a progressive “atterrisage” or “landing” of the movement: What direction the leadership of the CGT takes to manage the various internal tendencies within the union is crucial in the coming days, such as signs of a “wise prudence” on their part. She notes that the desire on the part of the CGT to maintain a unity of action with the more moderate CFDT weighs heavily: “The CGT knows that the the unitary character of the movement is decisive,” remarked Prigent on Thursday night.

“Given these conditions,” writes the reporter, “6 November could be the last day of mobilisations and demonstrations.”

All of this is less important for what occurs in France as far as this particular law goes than for the rest of Europe in the face of the imposition of austerity. The markets, the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the IMF, and Berlin, the invigilator of EU member-state fiscal policies, are all watching the balance of forces in two member states in particular: France and Greece, where opposition forces are the most organised and politicised.

Last week, the IMF and the Greek government began to tentatively discuss an extension repayment of Greece's €110 billion loan. While Brussels and Berlin immediately rejected the idea out of hand, Costas Lapavitsas, a Greek economist at the University of London, told the EUobserver, the EU affairs online newspaper, that he believes that this opening of the discussion on Greek debt repayment is actually an indication that the Greek government and the IMF are beginning to feel more confident that the austerity shock measures are working.

"This is basically signalling a new phase of the crisis. They believe that they are meeting success in stabilising the deficit. The recession is still unfolding and is pretty serious, but the government believes that this is looking like it will be within what the IMF expects for this year," he said.

He also said that a second crucial factor behind the comments is that the IMF and Greece have managed to push through the programme without stirring massive popular opposition to the extent that was originally feared.

"There has been discontent, to be sure, but not in an organised or decisive fashion that could threaten the political situation."

Elites feel, with some justification, that they have held the line in Greece. Thus it is not even that the failure of the French popular movements to halt Sarkozy’s pension reform will only add to their overall confidence, but that it will send a signal to them that they can push through anything.

The struggle in France is pivotal. The state of the struggle across Europe hinges upon what French grassroots forces beyond the trade union leadership are able to achieve in the republic in the coming hours and days.

***

For additional information and perspective, see the following pieces: "The Revolt Shaking France", and "France: a key moment as unions meet to consider next move".

So, I don't know if you saw it or not, but there's apparently this huge crisis in the capitalist system right now. No kidding. One hears from various sources that this has to do with the 'animal spirits' of workers, investors and consumers. Would it not, then, be possible to revive the whole system by simply bucking ourselves up? Could we not just gaily dance through the streets, en route to frenzied economic activity, while singing "I have confidence in sunshine! I have confidence in rain! I have confidence that spring will come again! Besides which you see, I have confidence in me." But these spirits are so maddeningly unaccountable, and unyielding. Would that there were some way to take them into public ownership.

Beyond which mysticism lies a material question. Necessarily, capital is seeking to use this crisis as an opportunity to enhance its power. The bosses want answers to the crisis which transfer public assets to them, especially pensions and social security. They want answers that reduce the bargaining power of labour, on the pretext that a more 'flexible' and less costly worker is eminently more employable. And, why, if unemployment persists, this only means that the worker is excessively greedy, or lazy, unwilling to supply an advantageous exchange to the industrious wealth-creator. They want answers that reduce regulations overall (not necessarily in the financial sector), on the grounds that such regulations strangle businesses in a time of crisis. All of this is actually being pushed by neoliberal administrations at different paces, depending on the tempo of resistance. So, the question becomes: what are you going to do about it? Or, "what is to be done?", or something like that.

In this context, it is only fitting that this blog should note, if belatedly, the recent consummation of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA). Given that left disunity during the last election squandered the opportunity to capitalise on the successful campaign against the EU Treaty, and given that the rightward lurch of the Socialist Party (PS) is dragging others down in its wake, this is an important step. Launched earlier this month amid general strikes and mass protests both in France and in the Carribean colonies, and with a starting membership of 9,123 hommes et femmes (this editorial mentions a figure approaching 12,000), and a leader who happens to be more popular than either Sarkozy or the blur slightly to his left, the NPA is in a position to make serious gains. The buzz about the party has been hard to ignore: the French media is in a tizzy, torn between zoological fascination with this exotic creature and dread. The English language press is equally trapped between disdain for the uppity "Trots", and admiration for the ways of those eccentric grenouilles.

One of the strangest criticisms of the NPA is that it doesn't have any solutions, just slogans. This is rather cheeky. Political discourse has been degraded by politicians and the commentariat into sentiments and soundbites for some time. What the NPA proposes is actually a concrete set of measures. They propose to support demand by raising the minimum wage an extra 300 euros a month, and that can be paid for by taxing the profits of the most lucrative companies on the Bourse de Paris. They propose to stabilise the financial system by expropriating the banking and insurance industries and running them as a single public concern. Given that the financial system is already toppling into public ownership in the worst way, in a chaotic fashion that leaves power and wealth in the hands of those who have used it in such a lethal way in the past. They would meet the demands of the strikers in Guadeloupe and Martinique by making the uber-rich CAC 40 pay. And they intend to support employment through new legislation to make sacking workers far more difficult. They also propose to defend immigrants against racist state policies, at a time when racism could prove a deadly force in European politics. These are indeed solutions, not slogans. They just don't happen to be the solutions that either the UMP, the PS, or the bourgeois media happen to support. The only policies which tend to qualify as 'solutions' are, as a rule, those which are possible within the narrow spectrum of an extremist doctrine known as neoliberalism. It is not exactly an unfamiliar situation to us rosbifs.

The NPA is not the only party emerging to challenge the PS from the left. The Left Party (PG), a breakaway from the Socialists claiming 4,000 members under the leadership of former PS Senator Jean-Luc Mélenchon, represents the electoralist left's attempts to replicate the success of the German Linke. Mélenchon has explained that his model is Oskar LaFontaine, while his juniors express the party's difference with the NPA in terms of the PG's preference for the ballot-box and roots in the reformist socialism of Jean Jaurès. But the Linke was always, even in its inception, a much broader formation than the Parti de Gauche appears to be. As a consequence of which, in addition to elements of the left union bureaucracy and left-wing parliamentarians, it has included a radical and far left pole that has maintained an orientation toward the rank and file. The Linke currently has over 76,000 members and 53 deputies in the Bundestag. It has consistently been ranked the fourth largest party in Germany. It is doubtful that the PG is going to replicate that feat in its current state. The risk is that the PG will be drawn into the orbit of the PS, just as the Greens and the PCF have become sattelites of that imploding pole star. Nonetheless, there is a possibility that in order to fight the Socialists from the Left on the electoral terrain at least, the PG, the NPA and the much-diminished Communists will form a 'Left Front'. What gives the NPA its best chance of making an impact, however, is the militant struggle against sarozysme, and the profile that Besancenot et al have acquired from supporting the recent strikes.