The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria is a major victory for the Euro-Atlantic alliance. Western governments have welcomed the new regime, made up of members of the jihadist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and led by formed Al-Qaeda member Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa.
Already the US and EU have eased sanctions on Syria and have met with HTS officials. Although Western officials cloak their support for the new regime in the language of human rights, it is important that we examine the real reasons for this support.
During the war. sanctions on Syria as well as high tariffs imposed by the regime kept western products out of the Syrian market. Now with the fall of Assad, western products have already begun flooding the Syrian market once again.
One Financial Times article describes a Damascus supermarket where now ‘an entire wall [is] dedicated to Pringles’. The new regime has also pledged to remove the last remnants of the social democratic economy. This economy, characterised by state planning and public ownership, was created by the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party in the 1960s.
Although numerous reforms intended to privatise the economy were undertaken by Assad, elements of public ownership remained. The new foreign minister has already declared that the new government intends to privatise the remaining state-owned ports and factories and encourage foreign direct investment. While these measures will undoubtedly exacerbate inequality and suffering for Syrians, it presents a great investment opportunity for western monopolies.
Perhaps most importantly, the fall of Assad has decisively shifted Syria into the western sphere of influence. Russia and Iran were Assad’s closest allies, with the intervention of both in the civil war turning the tide in Assad’s favour. In return Syria hosted Russian air and naval bases.
Already the new regime has reportedly cancelled the Russian Navy’s lease of the Tartus port, which is Russia’s only naval base outside of Russia. The status of other Russian bases in Syria appears up in the air at the moment. The loss of these bases, which act as staging posts for Russian operations in the Middle East and Africa, would be a major loss for Russia and a major victory for the west.
Iran has similarly lost out, with shipments of weapons that previously travelled through Syria to Hezbollah now being seized by the new regime. The governor of Damascus, speaking on behalf of the HTS government, stated that it doesn’t ‘want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security’ and that it ‘cannot be an opponent to Israel’. Thus the west has succeeded in picking off a member of the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ alliance against Israel.
Despite assurances from the west that the new government represents an improvement in human rights, it appears that the new government has moved to enforce restrictive Islamic fundamentalism.
Previously one of the most secular countries in the middle East, the new government has begun the process of ‘Islamising’ the educational curriculum. Videos have also resurfaced of the newly appointed Justice minister ordering the public executions of two women for prostitution in 2015.
The Syrian people have been and continue to be the victims of the imperialist conflict in their country. Whether it be the oppression of the Assad regime, the crushing western sanctions imposed on the country or the massive destruction of the war, the Syrian people have paid a heavy toll.
However to say that the new Islamist government represents liberation for Syria, or that imperialist conflict in Syria is finished, is false. The dishonest attempts of the West to whitewash the new regime are carried out purely in order to secure the West’s interests in Syria and the broader Middle East.