The Revelations of a U.S. General on Washington’s Allies in Syria

Another Blow to the Stalinist Myths about the Character of Syrian Liberation Fighters and the Role of the Kurdish SDF/YPG

By Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 27.10.2017, www.thecommunists.net

At a recent press conference US General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a significant revelation. He said: “At one point [he refers to the year 2015, Ed.] I think we had identified about 175 partners in Syria that we had trained and some hundreds that were available to fight - now we now have 50,000 partners on the ground.” (1)

This statement is interesting for two reasons. First, it confirms once more what the RCIT and other Marxists have said for years: the Syrian liberation fighters who started to fight against the terrorist Assad dictatorship in March 2011 have never been “agents of US imperialism”, despite the slanderous denunciations of all those cynical Stalinist supporters of Assad and Putin as well as numerous centrist muddleheads who later dropped support for the Syrian Revolution! (2)

According to this high-ranking General, US imperialism had no more than “175 partners in Syria” and “some hundreds that were available to fight” by 2015. This is a miniscule minority among the mass of 150-200.000 liberation fighters which existed at that time. So let us take note that a leading representative of US imperialism, who is boasting about the influence of Washington in Syria, has to admit that it hardly had any Syrian allies on the ground two years ago.

The second, highly interesting, aspect about General Dunford revelations is about the current U.S. allies in Syria. As the General says the situation has substantially improved for the biggest imperialist power. Today, Dunford claims, they have “have 50,000 partners on the ground.” Who are these partners? They are the SDF/YPG which is dominated by the petty-bourgeois Kurdish nationalist PKK movement. In addition, there are some treacherous FSA factions affiliated to the U.S., mostly in the North as part of the SDF as well as some others in the South near the Jordanian border. However, as all observers stress, these Arab allies have only little independent military strength and the main force among the US's allies are the Kurdish YPG.

Again, this statement confirms the analysis of the RCIT and other Marxists who have characterized the role of the Kurdish YPG forces in the recent past as foot soldiers of US imperialism.

Hence, let us not forget to remember all the praise which nearly all Stalinists, centrists and liberals were singing for the Kurdish Stalinist nationalists in the last years. In numerous cases they do so even today! These enemies of the Syrian Revolution denounce the liberation fighters because of the prominent role of petty-bourgeois nationalists and Islamists. At the same time they cheer the Kurdish YPG forces despite the fact that they are serving as lackeys for the US American Great Power. What a confirmation of the rotten character of these pseudo-Marxist muddleheads!

Authentic revolutionaries must neither lend support to the foot soldiers of Russian imperialism, the Iranian regime and Assad nor to the lackeys of US imperialism. They have to continue supporting the heroic liberation struggle of the Syrian workers and oppressed – despite all the setbacks it suffered by the combined efforts of Assad’s regime, the Great Powers, Iran, Turkey as well as Daesh/ISIS! (3)

Footnotes

(1) Lucas Tomlinson, Jennifer Griffin: What comes after Raqqa for ISIS? Fox News, 2017-10-26, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/10/25/what-comes-after-raqqa-for-isis.html

(2) See on this the collection of the numerous documents and articles of the RCIT on the Syrian Revolution which can be accessed at the link below.

(13) For an overview of our view of the developments in the Syrian civil war in the past weeks we refer readers to the following articles of Michael Pröbsting: Syria: Assad's Army and ISIS Act Hand in Hand against the Liberation Forces. Assad's Republican Guard marches undisturbed through the Daesh/ISIS pocket in North Hama so that it can attack the free Syrian areas in the North), 25.10.2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/assad-s-army-and-isis-act-hand-in-hand-against-the-liberation-forces/; Russia’s Air Force supports Daesh against Syrian Liberation Fighters. Another instructive episode how Russian imperialism helps Daesh/ISIS to attack the Liberation Forces in the North of Syria, 23.10.2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/russia-s-air-force-supports-daesh-against-syrian-liberation-fighters/; Syria: A Very Instructive Episode. Counterrevolutionary ISIS/Daesh collaborates with Assad’s Army (as well as Erdoğan and Putin) in Attacking the Syrian Liberation Fighters in Idlib, 10.10.2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/a-very-instructive-episode-in-syria/; Syria: The Turkish-Russian Invasion against Idlib has begun! All out to defend the Syrian Revolution against the Astana Conspirators! For an anti-Assad, anti-imperialist and anti-capitulationist united front, 07.10.2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/the-turkish-russian-invasion-against-idlib-has-begun/

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For the RCIT’s analysis of the Syrian Revolution, we refer readers to our numerous articles and documents which can be accessed at a special section on our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/collection-of-articles-on-the-syrian-revolution/