Imperialist hands off Syria!

The threat of a new imperialist intervention in Western Asia, aimed at seizing and controlling the resources of this energy-rich region, grows daily. The newest target of this land and resource grab is the Syrian Arab Republic.

Such an intervention is a threat to the well-being of the 23 million Syrian people. It also threatens the organizations that at this time best represent the masses of Lebanese and Palestinian people. In addition, it opens the door to the imperialists and to the Israeli expansionist state for aggression against Iran, and threatens an even more horrendous war in the region.

The latest news is a stab in the back to the Syrian people from the so-called Arab League in this mostly Arab region, which is also home to Kurds and smaller minority ethnic groups. So-called, because the 19 regimes that voted on Nov. 27 for unprecedented sanctions against Syria and its people are the furthest thing from true representatives of the Arab and other masses in the region. They instead represent, in most cases, the 1 percent of the 1 percent — whose wealth comes from a cut of the profits of the energy resources and who are completely dependent on their close and subservient relations with world imperialism to keep their hands on the power of the local states.

The hypocrisy especially of Arab League members such as Saudi Arabia, the six Gulf kingdoms and emirates is boundless. These states have cooperated in the bloody suppression of the popular revolt in Bahrain and the police repression of their own people. Added to them are the Egyptian military regime currently gassing and shooting young people in Tahrir Square; the Yemeni regime battling a popular revolt for the past eight months; along with the new puppet Libyan regime.

The Turkish regime, with Turkey a NATO member, has seconded the Arab League sanctions, bringing the region one step closer to war.

Only last March an Arab League vote opened the door to U.S.-NATO’s eight months of terror bombing and puppet invasion of Libya that destroyed that country’s sovereign state and infrastructure, killed tens of thousands of people and opened up the country to raw and unrestricted imperialist pillage. The new “deals” announced between Libyan puppets and European and U.S.-based corporations have exposed the phony “humanitarian” intervention in Libya as a 21st-century replay of 19th-century colonialism.

It is telling that President Nicolas Sarkozy of France preceded the Arab League’s vote by demanding “humanitarian corridors” in Syria to allow untrammeled imperialist penetration to the centers of opposition to the Syrian government. Disguised as a mission to bring “humanitarian” aid, such corridors would allow — at a minimum — a free introduction of arms to promote a civil war within Syria. It was Sarkozy who opened the military assault on Libya last March, with French imperialism getting the full backing of Washington and the logistic and technological support in destruction that only the Pentagon can provide.

There is no way that an imperialist intervention can create a situation where the Syrian people can independently decide the nature of their government and state.

For anti-imperialists and progressives in Europe and North America, the first duty in any situation of civil conflict in a developing country like Syria is to stop the imperialist intervention. That means to oppose any imperialist aggression against Syria, whatever form it takes.

No imperialist sanctions against Syria!

No NATO intervention in the region!

U.S., Europe, out of the Middle East!