Stand by Syria!

Andy Brooks, Theo Russell and Kamal Majid

By New Worker correspondent

NEW WORKER supporters heard detailed reports on the crisis in the Middle East at a meeting in central London last week. Prof Kamal Majid, the vice-president of the Stop the War Coalition and New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks both talked about the recent successes of the Syrian armed forces against the Nato-rebels, victories that may have decisively shifted the balance against US-led imperialism and their Arab lackeys who have been trying to overthrow the Assad government for the past three years.

            The meeting was chaired by Theo Russell from the NCP London District, which has sponsored a number of New Worker public meetings at Euston’s Cock Tavern over the past few years.

Prof Majid, a communist who writes on current affairs in the Arab media, covered the efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda to spread terror and sectarian division across Syria as part of the imperialist plan to replace the Syrian government with a puppet regime that would do the bidding of the Americans and Zionists.

Prof Majid said the imperialists wanted regime change in Syria to install a puppet government that would recognise Israel and Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, which supplies the Zionist entity with over 15 per cent of its water supply. This would then open the door to the big oil corporations to grab the Syria’s recently discovered oil and gas fields.

The second objective was to kick the Russians out of the Tartus naval base in Syria, which would effectively prevent the Russian Navy from operating in the Mediterranean and the third was to break the arc of anti-imperialist resistance than starts with Iran and through Iraq passes to Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.

Though the Syrian army now had the upper hand Prof Majid said that the civil war could, and would, continue for as long as US imperialism was prepared to sustain it.

Andy Brooks agreed but was more optimistic about the eventual outcome. The NCP leader said that divisions within the feudal Arab camp and the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt had reduced the funding and disrupted the arms flow to the rebels, who now can only rely on the corridors through Turkey to get their money and guns.

The NCP leader also spoke about the growing strength of civil society in Syria through the existing Baathist-led popular front government and the local ceasefires that have led to the growth of local People’s Committees comprised of local leaders and former rebels committed to reconstruction and national reconciliation.

Both speakers talked about the role of communists in Syria and across the world movement and this was, naturally, taken up by the comrades in the audience during the discussion.