While the ‘anti-war’ left in the West— including anti-Assad groups like Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)— furiously denounced President Trump’s airstrike on an evacuated regime airbase, the reaction by revolutionary Syrians was overwhelmingly favorable and in some cases critical that Trump did not go far enough.

These diametrically opposite reactions resulted in a clash in the streets between the two opposing camps at a British Stop the War Coalition (STW) demonstration when a Syrian refugee and Assad torture victim criticized STW’s faux outrage at the plight of Syrians:

This man subsequently issued a statement about the incident viaTwitter since STW shamefully shouted him down in true Trumpian fashion:

Syria will continue to trip up Western leftists and put them on the side of open counter-revolutionaries, fascists, the nativist Alt-Right, and Assad apologists like Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard so long as they mistakenly believe that the key principle at stake in the struggle in and over Syria is opposition to imperialism or interventionism and not opposition to fascism (both the fascisms of Assad and Islamic State [ISIS]).

Consider the following:

Consistent opposition to U.S./Western intervention into the Syrian war leads logically to the conclusion that Trump’s State Department should cut tens of millions of dollars in U.S. funding to desperately needed first responders, democratic councils, and civil society organizations in rebel-held war zones since this unquestionably violates Syrian sovereignty. (Gabbard has introduced legislation under the guise of ‘anti-terrorism’ to do exactly that.) It also leads logically to the conclusion that the U.S. should cut aid to anti-Assad anti-ISIS rebels, the Syrian-Kurdish YPG, and the elected Iraqi government all of whom are waging necessary and just wars and none of whom could continue fighting effectively without U.S. military support. Supporting humanitarian aid and diplomacy exclusively (as DSA does) means failing to address the cause of the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe: massive and systematic violence perpetrated by the regimes of Assad and ISIS against tens of millions of people opposed to their rule. Opposing ‘all imperialisms’ in Syria (Russia, Iran, U.S., the Gulf State, Turkey, Saudi Arabia) is even worse than supporting humanitarian aid and diplomacy only because empty sloganeering is not going to feed, house, or clothe even one refugee for one minute much less defeat the forces that are making them refugees in the first place. Furthermore, Turkish withdrawal from northern Syria today would spark a new wave of refugees fleeing renewed combat operations by the regime and ultimately result in a major victory for Assad’s backers, Iran and Russia.

Consistent opposition to Assad and ISIS leads logically to very different — and genuinely progressive — political conclusions. Exploiting contradictions between rival imperial powers to weaken and/or defeat Assad and ISIS is not frowned upon but becomes obligatory. U.S. aid and military support for rebels, YPG, the Iraqi government, and civilians in rebel-held areas should be boosted, not reduced. Airstrikes hitting mosques full of innocents are condemned as war crimes while airstrikes hitting legitimate military targets — like regime airports where barrel bombs and chemical weapons destined for civilians are loaded onto jets and helicopters by war criminals — are not. The establishment of safe zones free of war, conflict, barrel bombs, and chemical weapon attacks where hospitals and schools can be built and institutions of democratic governance set up is something to be welcomed, not opposed.

Viewing the war in Syria as a struggle to defeat fascism(s) (rather than imperialism) does two things for the Western left: