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Clearing the FOG with co-hosts Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese
Ajamu Baraka On The US-Backed Coup In Syria And Anti-Anti-Imperialism
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On December 8, the United States and Israel, with support from Turkey, succeeded in overthrowing the Syrian government using Islamic jihadist militants as proxies. Some people in the United States are claiming this as a victory for the Syrian people...
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Ajamu Baraka
If you knew what they were saying when they think you cannot hear if you understood what they do if for you it was so clear if you knew they shut down the factory in an economic ruse if you could kiss the cheek of the child in the sweatshop that made your shoes Every time we went to war to fight our evil foes, they told you we were really fighting for the good of CEOs if you could feel the hunger of the many, see the riches of the.
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Junkyard Empire (Singer)
Few if they told it like it.
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Ajamu Baraka
Is, what if you knew?
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Margaret Flowers
You're listening to Clearing the Fog Speaking Truth to Expose the Forces of Greed with Margaret Flowers Clearing the Fog is a project of popularresistance.org you can subscribe to it on Apple, SoundCloud, MixCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play. You can also find Clearing the fog@popularresistance.org and while you're there, check out our store. You you'll find great clearing the fall gear like T shirts, bumper stickers, tote bags and water bottles. While you're@popularresistance.org you can also subscribe to the Free Daily Digest. Each morning you'll receive an email that has summaries of the articles posted the day before. This is a great way to keep up with movement news and analysis. This week I spoke with Ajamu Baraka. Ajamu is the chair of the Coordinating Committee of the Black alliance for Peace, and he's an editor and contributing columnist at Black Agenda Report. And I spoke to Ajamu about what's happening in Syria right now, how that impacts the people of Syria as well as Palestinians, the impact on the region, particularly on Iran. And we also talked about the confusion that is occurring about whether this is really a liberation of Syrians or is this a coup? What does it mean altogether? So I hope you'll stick around for that interview. Before I get to that interview, I'll talk about a few things that are in the news and some good news. As you may remember, I spoke with Chairman Omalley Yashatella last week. Chairman Omalley as well as Penny Hess and Jesse Neville. The Uhuru three had their sentencing hearing this morning and the government which was charging them with thinking about becoming foreign agents, something they had no proof for, but this. They couldn't charge them with anything else because they haven't committed any crime. But the government was seeking prison time. But fortunately this morning the judge did not sentence them to prison time. They were given three years of probation, 300 hours of community service. But this is A victory for them. And I know they'll be appealing the charge against them. And so hopefully we will see this punishment ended for them with that appeal. In other good news, a federal court recently blocked the merger of two major grocery store chains, Kroger's and Albertsons. This was an antitrust case. And the importance of this is that if they were allowed to merge, they would have greater control over the grocery market. And this would have an impact on them being able to raise prices for shoppers as well as to not pay their employees well or provide good benefits. Having those two store chains separate means they have to compete for workers, compete for prices. So that is some good news. And then the President of Colombia has formally asked President Biden to pardon a prisoner in the United States. He's a Colombian, a former guerrilla fighter, Simone Trinidad. And he was sentenced to 60 years in prison, served in the United States. He's in Colorado. And the President of Colombia, President Petro, makes the point that returning Simon Trinidad to Colombia is an important part of the peace process that they have right now. Colombia has something called the Total Peace Policy. They've been trying to work with organizations such as the farc, revolutionary organizations. There's been a lot of violence in Colombia for years and they are trying to end the conflict and to provide reparations to the victims they need Simon Trinidad to testify to so that they can get more information about people who need reparations. Four students at the University of Rochester are facing up to seven years in prison. They were charged with a second degree criminal mischief for their connection to some wanted posters that were put up around the campus. These posters accused a few of the faculty members of enabling genocide and supporting the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza. This is part of the students free speech, but this is being claimed to be an anti Semitic act. Although not all of the professors targeted are Jewish, the organization Jewish Voice for Peace is circulating a petition calling for the charges to be dropped. And the students who are impacted say that it's been very difficult for them to get support from other students on campus because of the university's new policies. After they did an encampment there last spring, they've cracked down on what students can do and now students have a big fear. And then at the San Jose State University on December 5, a long term professor, Rochelle McLaughlin, sent a letter of resignation to the leadership of the university. She's been a professor there in the Department of occupational therapy for 20 years. She's an alumnus of San Jose State University. And in her letter she writes Quote, I have been teaching here for the past 20 years, and I can no longer ethically or morally consent to use my labor in any way that supports an institution that, that is explicitly manufacturing consent for the unrestrained, illegal, apocalyptic, ongoing series of calculated genocides to destroy the people of Palestine. End quote. Professor McLaughlin cites the activism on campus over the past 14 months and the university's repressive response to that activism. She states that other universities in the California system have engaged in dialogue with the students who are requesting that the university divest from Israel, divest from supporting genocide. And she urges San Jose State University to do the same thing. And then I want to talk about a new bill that is very concerning. It passed through the House, in Congress. It's expected to pass through the Senate and to be signed into law. It's called the Crucial Communism Teaching Act. And this is a law that would put a lot of federal dollars toward redesigning the public school system curriculum around the ideology of anti communism. And what's interesting is that this move to censor education and to propagandize our students comes when there's a lot of people who are looking towards socialism and, you know, are upset about the economic system, the capitalist system in the States and how that has impacted their lives materially. And so this is just more of the ruling class trying to work against those sentiments and not allow people to learn about these ideas. It's also viewed as a tool for more propaganda against China, which of course, has a communist government, and through that communist government has been able to lift all of their people out of poverty and improve the lives of people in China.
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And then finally, the new Trump administration.
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Is talking about bombing the nuclear facilities in Iran. There's no proof that Iran is trying to make any nuclear weapon, but both the United States and Israel are threatening to attack Iran's nuclear energy infrastructure. And a lot of this is coming about because of the coup in Syria, the overthrow of the Syrian government. Syria, of course, has been an important part of the axis of resistance in West Asia. And the Trump administration is talking about increasing the US Military presence in West Asia, as, of course, President Biden has already been doing. So there's a lot to be concerned about, and things have been shifted very quickly in West Asia. And Ajamu and I talk about that. So I'll stop here and we'll move to that interview with Ajamu Baraka.
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You're listening to Clearing the Fog, Speaking Truth to Expose the Forces of Greed with Margaret Flowers. And now I turn to my guest, Ajamu Baraka Ajamu is chairman of the coordinating committee of the Black alliance for Peace and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. Ajamu serves on the executive committee of the U S Peace Council and leadership body of the U S Based United National Anti War Coalition and he's on the steering committee of the Black is Back coalition. Ajamu, thank you for being a guest with me today.
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Ajamu Baraka
Oh, my pleasure, Margaret. Glad to be back.
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Margaret Flowers
Yeah.
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So we last spoken in September after your trip to Iran. Today we're going to be talking about Syria. There's a lot to clear up on that. But before we get to that, Today is Monday, December 16, and the Uhuru Three had their sentencing hearing in Florida for the FBI charge of thinking about being foreign agents, something they had no evidence for. But can you talk a little bit about the sentencing hearing this morning and what the outcome was?
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Ajamu Baraka
Well, we just heard about an hour or so ago that of course the hearing was this morning and of course they were facing up to 15 years but the judge decided to sentence them to probation, no fine. And I think it was 200 hours of community work or community service, which is interesting because that's what they do normally anyway, you know, so it's, it was a, I think a blow to the, to the Biden Department of Justice. Of course, this was the department that brought these, these bogus charges and with this weird consequence of the 3 being found not guilty for being foreign agents but yet guilty of conspiring to be a foreign agent, which is pretty weird. So then of course they were to be sentenced today. And I think it's a reflection of the kind of skepticism that we detected from the judge from the very beginning. It's important to point out, I was at the trial the first couple of days. It's important to point out this was a Trump appointed judge who in, in his positions, his questioning seemed to be somewhat sympathetic to the defendants. He made some interesting comments regarding the kind of nature of the, of the charge, of course, that being too biased or openly biased. But it was quite clear that he appeared to recognize the overreach of the state of the government and the fact that these charges seem to be more oriented toward a prosecution of thought and action than anything else. So we're happy, I mean Chairman OMANI Yestertilla is 83 years old. It was really unfortunate that he was facing the possibility of, of spending the last few years of his life in prison. But as he has said himself, these are the kind of things that one has to confront as a, as a revolutionary. So I'm sure he was mentally prepared by nature. I know he was being with him during the first part of that trial. So we're happy that they're not going to prison and that they will be allowed to continue to do the work that they do. And o' Malley can continue to provide the kind of insightful, cutting edge analysis that he's been giving for the last 60 odd years.
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Margaret Flowers
Yeah, yeah, I know the prosecution was really pushing for prison time. So this is a victory for the Uhuru 3 and for the movement because this would have set a very dangerous precedent. So let's talk.
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There's a lot happening in the world.
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Ajamu Baraka
And before you move to that, can I make one more last comment about this trial? And of course, and the kind of examples that it made. One of the things that we were very concerned about was the relative lack of support that the Uhuru 3 received. We know there were a number of people, including yourself and others, that attempted to raise the visibility of the case who recognize the importance of the threat that it posed for all of us who are engaged in anti imperialist work. But for the most part, large sectors of the so called left in the US did not pay much attention to it, did not do much work to highlight it, and did not really take a visible stance with the Uhuru 3. And that's important because I know we're getting ready to talk about Syria and we see the same kinds of contradictions, the same kind of abandonment of principles related to what has happened and what's unfolding in Syria coming from the so called left in the US and in Western Europe.
- [15:16]
Margaret Flowers
Right, right. And I think that's something that we've talked about, I've talked about on the show. The level of kind of political sophistication in the United States is weak compared to other anti imperialist nations and social movements who understand the, what the state is trying to do when they go after organizations and people and the importance of showing solidarity with them and, and not being misled by the misinformation. Of course, even the first article I saw on this on the Uhuru hearing, a local newspaper in Florida, you know, painted them as national security threats who got off with probation. So we have to be working to counter that misinformation.
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Ajamu Baraka
Exactly.
- [16:00]
Margaret Flowers
So let's talk about Syria for the listeners. Just to begin, if you could talk a little bit about what happened on December 8 when the Assad government was ousted in a couple. Can you talk a little bit about what happened then? And then we can get into more of the what's gone on since and what it means.
- [16:24]
Ajamu Baraka
Well, it's interesting in your, your question that you are one of a few people, myself included, that actually raises the question of to what extent did we see a military takeover, if you will, or a military defeat of the Syrian forces, or did we in fact see a coup d'? Etat? My perspective is that what we saw was in fact the result of some insidious agreements that took place that helped to explain what happened with the fall of Damascus and with the ending of the government of Assad. What it generated was not only the, a blow to the, what people refer to as the axis of resistance, right, that grouping of forces, state and non state, involved in attempting to try to put a break on US and Israeli agendas in West Asia, in the so called Middle east, but also that support to resistance being provided to the Palestinians by these forces. With the collapse of the Syrian state, it really is going to pose a serious challenge to the resistance in Palestine. Even though we have seen other points in Palestinian sending history where the lack of external support did not undermine the ability to resist. Even though that resistance in most cases did not take a open military form, but it was in fact still effective resistance. I suspect that with the, a pending reoccupation of Gaza, if they're not, if the Israelis are not successful in ejecting the Palestinians from Gaza, we will see a similar kind of resistance redeveloping in Gaza. But it is a very significant blow to the Palestinians and it's a significant blow to Lebanon.
- [18:56]
Margaret Flowers
Right?
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Ajamu Baraka
That was the host of the forces of Hezbollah that's involved in its own struggle against the, the agenda, the expansionist agenda of the Israelis who have a, an objective to expand their, their territorial control into southern Lebanon. And the only force that was really preventing that from occurring was in fact the forces of Hezbollah. And so this ability to starve off the, the agenda, the ambition of the Israeli state is going to be very challenging with the collapse of Syria and the land bridge between Iran and Lebanon now being compromised. So it's a very serious situation of very serious development in West Asia. It's clear that both the Israelis and the US intend to redraw the politics of the region. But for anyone who believes, and this is what we talked about in my article, that this is the end of the struggle against Assad and a new beginning of prosperity and peace in Syria, they're going to be sadly disappointed because this is just the beginning of the chaos, the replay of a situation that we saw unfold in Libya because chaos and the dismemberment of the Syrian state was always an objective of both US and Israeli policymakers. And that's what we in fact have today.
- [20:43]
Margaret Flowers
Right. And I think, as you point out in your recent article in Black Agenda Report, this is an effort by the United States that's been ongoing through successive administrations, beginning under the Obama administration, continuing under Trump and, and then under a Joe Biden. It makes me think a lot about also what happened in Ukraine, because the United States was very involved in, in the coup in 2014 in Ukraine. Of course, you didn't hear about that in the media. A lot of people in the United States aren't even aware that there was a coup in Ukraine. And then once that power was cemented in Ukraine, they immediately turned against the ethnic Russians in the country and waged war on them for the next eight years of terrorizing them.
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Ajamu Baraka
You know, Margaret, one thing that's interesting about what unfolded in Ukraine in 2013, 2014 and what's unfolding today is when you look at the Syrian situation and when it first was started developing in 2011 under the Obama administration, the sort of neocon influence hadn't yet been fully consolidated. You know, that there was a migration of neocons from the Republican Party into the Democrat Party and sort of a convergence was taking place between neo cons and what we refer to as the sort of liberal interventionists. But because of that consolidation not being complete, when you look at what was unfolding with the Obama administration's policies on Syria, there was still pushback from Obama and from other forces around the idea of going full fledged against the Assad government and attempting to overthrow that government. But what unfolded was some of the nefarious influences and ability of the intelligence agencies to create certain realities on the ground and to construct a narrative that would narrow the options for the Obama administration that went beyond the possibility of some kind of diplomatic or nonviolent change in government to one in which the military was front and center in terms of the strategy. And we see that taking place, we see some of the reluctance of Obama, because remember now, 2011, the US had just in essence completed or in the process of destroying Libya. And there was real concern about taking on this other opportunity, as some people saw it, in Syria. But there were some very powerful forces, of course, in the government that like today, saw that they had a historic opportunity to redo the entire so called Middle East. And so they were pushing the Obama administration. And I'm not making an argument that Obama wasn't some, that he was a reluctant warrior. To a certain extent he was in the sense of, of the strategies that were being presented to him. But he also, because of his own naivete and perhaps inexperience, played right into the hands of those forces when in August of 2011 when he said that the Assad government just needed to go. That provided a tremendous opportunity for those forces pushing for military intervention to really accelerate their activity. So that by basically 2012 and definitely into 2013, it was full blown military intervention, arming and training, in essence, jihadists and others, the so called moderate elements in Syria, which were few and far between. And in essence, we had the beginning of the disaster that ended up being played out this month here in Syria. Disaster for the Syrian people, but in some ways a strategic victory for those militant forces inside both the Israeli and the US Governments.
- [25:23]
Margaret Flowers
Yeah, that's what's really disappointing about it. But before we, we get into that.
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Let'S take a short musical break and then we'll come back with more of the interview with Ajamu Bear.
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Junkyard Empire (Singer)
Oh, you tell me that there's danger to this land you call your own and you watch them build the war machines Right beside your home and you tell me that you're ready to go marching to the war oh, I know you're set for fighting but what are you fighting for? Before you pack your rifle and sail across the sea Just think upon the southern part of land that you call free oh, there's many kinds of slavery and we found many more Yes, I know you're set for fighting but what are you fighting for? And before you walk out on your job and answer to the call Just think about the millions who have no job at all see and the men who wait for handouts with their eyes upon the floor I know you're.
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Margaret Flowers
I wanted to talk a little bit about HTs, the, the new formation of Al Qaeda, al Nusra, this guy Jelani, who is on the terrorist list by the United States, but now suddenly he's this liberatory hero. That kind of also echoes back to what happened in Libya where these, you know, kind of radical terrorist groups were used as a tool. Can you talk a little bit about who HTS is and what that means? You know, in terms of he's being portrayed now as this moderate who's kind of seeing that he needs to pursue a different path. Can you talk a little bit about that?
- [27:15]
Ajamu Baraka
Yeah. And it's reflective of the kind of lessons that they will learn from, from the past. From those first years in Syria and from what happened in Libya also, and what that suggested to his handlers, and we have to refer to those forces, both in the US and even in Israel, as the handlers of these jihadist terrorists, understanding the importance of, of the public narratives. And so when they began to intensify the military aspect of the struggle in Syria, they discovered that they had a problem with the support that was being leaked to the so called jihadist. And that is that these groups were in fact connected to their old friends in Al Qaeda. Now it was clear that there were elements of the US intelligence agencies that were quite willing to in fact strike up that relationship. In fact, they used that to undermine Libya. So they were more than happy to make the transfer to Syria. In fact, we see that there were elements of the Libyan Islamic fighting forces that were in fact physically brought over to Syria. And so they wanted more of that because as Obama said himself, the political opposition, made up of doctors and lawyers and other elements of the petty bourgeoisie, didn't have the strength to engage in a sustained military confrontation with the Syrian state and to be successful. But they could in fact rely or revolution rely again on these jihadist forces. And that's exactly what they did. But at the same time, they recognized that the U.S. population and the Western European population would not be too happy with those, with that kind of open collaboration. And so they started going through a process of rebranding. The grouping that was connected to Al Qaeda was in fact our newsroom front. And this was of course Al Qaeda and some elements that were legitimate nationalist elements, if you will. But because of that connection and the legal implications of being involved in providing resources to groups that have been identified as terrorist organizations by the U.S. they started going through this process of rebranding. And the Hyatt Tariq Al Sham HTS was one of the main rebranding of the, of the Al Nusra Front. So they had the same politics, really the same objectives, but now they had a new name with the possibility of a new, new rebranding. Right now, with their apparent victory right now we see, as you said in your question, the same kind of process of sort of cleaning up Muhammad Al Jalani as the leader of this group, rebranding him as a so called moderate. There's discussion now in Congress around removing the terrorist designation and of course the $10 million bounty that was on his head. And that seems to be a serious kind of movement. Same kind of thing that happened with Ukraine. As you said in your question, that you had this process of cleaning up the political opposition that was responsible for being the ground forces for the coup in Ukraine in February 2014, in which also when the government was formed, you had clear, literal Nazis and white supremacists occupied at minimum four of the major ministries in that government. And before that, all of the condemnation and critical reporting that was taking place in the west regarding the role of Nazis and the extreme white radical elements in Ukraine, all of that sort of was marginalized. And there was this process of, of rebranding these people as legitimate and moderate forces even as they were turning against their own citizens in Ukraine. The very same thing that they criticized the Assad government for, their allies in the Ukrainian government was doing that and even more.
- [32:05]
Margaret Flowers
Right, right. So what does this mean now for, you know, people in Syria? This, these are, you know, extremist groups that have now taken power. I think it may have been Craig Murray who wrote in one of his articles that, you know, you may be able to, the west may be able to control Jelani to some extent, but they're not going to be able to control the thousands of jihadists underneath them. And so what are we already seeing the Syrian people facing?
- [32:34]
Ajamu Baraka
Since December 8, there's been reports, credible reports coming out that there are, there are retaliations being enacted by many of these groups that are not completely under the control of HTs against Syrians who they have identified as being open to be killed or ejected from certain territories. So we expect to see more and more of that along with that kind of activity. We see that the fighting has continued, that the so called new Syrian army, primarily supported by Turkey, is now engaged in a serious military confrontation with the Syrian Democratic Forces in alignment with the US over the control of the northeast of Syria, which is very interesting on very many levels, including the fact that you have Turkey, a member of NATO, theoretically sort of a U.S. ally, fighting an organization, a group that is receiving its major support from the US So you have this clash of interests there. You have the gangsters who were situated in the southern part of Syria that are carving out their territories in the southern part of the country. You still have the presence of the Russians in the west along the Mediterranean. So what we are finding very rapidly developing, Margaret, is a replay, but even more nefarious one that we saw unfold in Libya. And so there's going to be more of the retaliations, more conflict. And keep in mind too, what happened to the Syrian army and the folks that were persuaded to not engage hts, who now will find themselves in the Crosshairs of HTS retaliations. Are we not seeing a replay, not just Oblivia, but a replay possibly of Iraq. People have to remember that the main military forces that get associated with both Al Qaeda and the Islamic State were made up of military personnel from the Iraqi military. So this is another element that people who were celebrating the overthrow of the Assad government seem not to have thought much about.
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Margaret Flowers
Right, right. And then of course, since December 8, Israel has been bombing, sending hundreds of bombs into Syria, targeting their military infrastructure, basically. It sounds like they've pretty much decimated that. And then so, you know, Syria is largely, quote, unquote, defenseless, other than what the United States and other countries provide to them. And then the US Occupation of the. I think it's the northeastern area of Syria, which I believe now it may not be true today because Russia has been, you know, put in a position where it's required to take more, probably, you know, more territory of Ukraine. But, but that occupation in Syria was larger than what Russia initially, you know, the Donetsk region that Russia was helping to defend.
- [36:21]
Ajamu Baraka
Isn't that interesting? But yes, you're absolutely right. And that occupation with those hundreds of US soldiers in alignment with the democratic alliance forces, the Kurds, you know, they occupied and controlled some of the most valuable agricultural territory in the country and they were of course, in control of the Syrian oil fields. So the Syrian Democratic Forces under the Kurds, they were in a very unique strategic position. But as we said a moment ago, they're now feeling the pressure coming from the Turkish allied forces, the so called new Syrian Army. And so it's providing now a very interesting and serious dilemma for US Policymakers. The other factor to watch too, Margaret, is the sort of re emergence, if you will, of ISIS. You might recall that right after December 8th, you had this massive bombing campaign by the US and eastern Syria and parts of Iraq. They said they were bombing the re emergence of isis. Now we have to ask the question, those of us who have been watching and monitoring this very, very closely, we saw what was being put in place when the Syrian when, when, when there were real pressure being applied to the Syrian Democratic Forces to release ISIS fighters from their many, many camps. They had people in prison in, in eastern Syria. They ended up releasing something like 1500 ISIS fighters. Now where did they go and why, why was that happening at that point?
- [38:33]
Margaret Flowers
Right.
- [38:35]
Ajamu Baraka
These are the same ones that now the, the U.S. is pretending that they're so concerned with and are engaged in this bombing campaign. All in my opinion, Margaret, for creating the conditions that will make it impossible or really limit the policy options that the incoming Trump administration has vis a vis both Iraq and Syria. How can you make an argument, if you're Donald Trump, to begin to pull back and try to normalize relations with the Russians and pull back from Syria when you have the reemergence of ISIS and now you have a, basically, in essence, a civil war throughout Syria? So they created the conditions to ensure that there will be a continuation, a serious continuation of a US Presence in Syria and in Iraq.
- [39:33]
Margaret Flowers
Right, right. You mentioned the impacts on the axis of resistance, but also, I think what this has really done is it's awakened and really put a lot more fuel on the effort by Israel, the illegal occupying state of Israel, to pursue its, its dream of a, of a Greater Israel that would, you know, they've already taken. Immediately they started occupying more of Syria. For a long time, they've desired Lebanon, Jordan, parts of Saudi Arabia, parts of Egypt. What does that mean in terms of the state of Israel?
- [40:12]
Ajamu Baraka
Well, the Israel, the. They see this historic opportunity. That's why they're moving in the way that they're moving. That's why they have expanded their, their presence from the Golan Heights into, deeper into Syria. They do have those desires now. They were somewhat, their ambitions in southern Lebanon was somewhat blocked, at least temporarily, because one of the things people have to understand that that ceasefire that they agreed to in southern Lebanon, it wasn't just because they understood that there was going to be this rust coming from HTS into, into northern Syria, and therefore they didn't want to have their forces to, to divide it. I think that was a little bit of that element was there. But the main issue, Margaret, was that basically they were not able to penetrate into southern Lebanon on the ground, that is, for more than a few miles. So they were able to create a lot of suffering and destruction through the air power, the domination of the, of the Lebanese airspace. But in terms of being able to consolidate control, you have to send in your ground troops, and they were facing significant resistance. Now, their ability to be able to withstand another major thrust into Lebanon now, as a consequence of the land bridge being broken as a result of this, of this coup and the collapse of the Assad government, that remains to be seen how effective they're going to be in being able to withstand another thrust. So I would suggest to your listeners to be on alert to watch that, because I suspect that that will be part of the next phase of this conflict. As I said, the conflict is really just beginning in a new way. So there'd be a thrust into Lebanon and there's going to be more activity in Iraq, all with the final intent of preparing the ground, the battlefield, if you will, for the main objective, which is Iran.
- [42:41]
Margaret Flowers
Right. And I want to talk about the impact on that, but previously when, because this, as we've talked about, has been going on for a long time, this assault on, on Syria and the US Economic war and the military war. And, and two major allies to Syria were Russia, who provided military support to defend the Assad government, the Syrian government, and then of course Iran, which played an incredibly important role in fighting back against the terrorist groups against isis. But neither of them were really in a position to come to Syria's defense. Can you tell what you know about that?
- [43:23]
Ajamu Baraka
Well, I mean, look, it's a combination of the reality of the sanctions that made it very difficult for the Syrians to continue to keep a mobilized military in place, to make sure that people were paid and not to be dependent just on a draft left constructs. And that was very difficult. They thought, and everyone thought that as a consequence of the, of the agreement that was struck in 2020 and that allowed for the jihadist military forces to remain in iblit, that and this, remember, this was a security council resolution 2254 that the Russians thought would be respected by all parties concerned, that in essence the military aspect of the conflict was over. That's why you had a major demobilization that took place with the Syrian army. That, and then the fact that you had the major conflict that the Russians are involved in in Ukraine. And remember that the whole situation with, with Ukraine is connected also to Syria. That is the war itself that broke out or was intensified in 2012, 2013, 2014 in Syria. It was thought among certain policymakers that because of the role that the Russians were playing in Syria, not allowing the US to realize its strategic objectives, that in fact a second front should be opened up. And where was that second front? That second front in essence was in Ukraine.
- [45:12]
Margaret Flowers
Right.
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Ajamu Baraka
Okay. So these two, these two conflicts are fundamentally interconnected.
- [45:19]
Margaret Flowers
Ukraine provided drones to the hts. I understand.
- [45:23]
Ajamu Baraka
Exactly. Once that war really became more intense and with a significant amount of resources and human power that was devoted to that conflict, it became very difficult for the Russians to be able to maintain a second conflict that was unfolding in Syria. In fact, they had learned from the US experience how difficult it is to fight a two front war. They saw that the US basically lost both in Iraq and in Afghanistan because of that kind of fantasy. So they were between Iraq And a hard place. But they were still prepared to in fact provide as much military support to the Syrian army as they could. You might recall that in the first few days of the incursion, there was massive bombing taking place by the Russians. The problem they solved very quickly was that something had happened and the Syrian military was not standing and fighting. And you know, is Scott Ritter and other others already said you can't expect the Russians to be more Syrian than the Syrians.
- [46:37]
Margaret Flowers
Right, right. They needed the Syrian army to lead it.
- [46:39]
Ajamu Baraka
Right, exactly. So basically it made the situation untenable. And, and I don't even think, I think many people sort of agree with this that the, the HTS was prepared to go to march all the way to Damascus. I don't think they thought they can do that. But as the Syrian military seemed to be dissolving right on front of them, they kept on moving. It would very risky because when you start extending your supply lines that far, you know, you run the risk of getting out flanked and really having some real issues for yourself. But they were able to march right down the highway right into Damascus.
- [47:22]
Margaret Flowers
Yeah. So what does this mean for Iran now? We have a Trump administration coming in. There are already reports that that administration is going to be more hostile to Iran. Of course, the Trump administration waged its own maximum pressure campaign against Iran last time. What do you think about Iran's position in the region and what the US Will be planning to do?
- [47:47]
Ajamu Baraka
Quite clear. The situation is much more precarious than it was a few weeks ago. And as you said, the Trump administration, like the Democratic administrations, have been obsessed with Iran partly because of their own interests, but partly because of the disproportionate influence from the Zionist lobby in the U.S. the only state that was able to challenge both U.S. and Israeli dominance in West Asia has been Iran. And so they see now that they have an opportunity to significantly diminish Iranian regional power. There's been reports that the Israelis are going to finally be allowed to engage in what they wanted to do for the last decade, and that is to attack Iran, attack its nuclear, so called nuclear capacities. And they may have been given the green light to in fact do that. You might recall that the Biden administration at least put some constraints on that a few months ago. But with the rapidly changed conditions, I'm sure that there are powerful voices in the US government and in their intelligence agencies. They see this opportunity, this historic opportunity to finally strike a critical blow against Iran. So that kind of convergence of interest between the Republicans and the Democrats and positions will be reflected in the incoming Trump administration. The only thing that one might be there might be a saving grace for all out regional conflict is Trump's focus on China and that he sees all of this as diversionary for that laser focus he wants to, he wants to apply to US China relations. So that may be the only thing that might constrain US Policy.
- [50:14]
Margaret Flowers
Right, right. And of course, Israel would not be capable of doing any of this without the support of the United States. It seems to have an unlimited supply of weapons from the US to wage these aggressions. In your article in Black Agenda report on Syria, you write about the leftist organizing within Syria. You know, prior to the this significant US intervention going back to 2011, the Assad family had been in power for a long time. There was of course, resistance to them. Talk a little bit about what was happening prior to US Intervention politically within the country.
- [51:00]
Ajamu Baraka
I mean, you know, it's, you have to go all the, you have to go back further than right before the conflicts that were got in 2011 and really go back, you know, 40, 50 years ago and look at what was happening in the region as part of the post World War II reconfiguration of global power, the process of decolonization. You had the emergence of a very significant Arab nationalism in the region. And a lot of that was sparked by Arab nationalists who also were influenced by Marxism, Marxist Leninism and other revolutionary tendencies. And so there was a real threat to the continued hegemony of Western power in the region that was reflected, for example, in the plan to attack and take over the Suez Canal on the part of Israel and the French that was blocked by Eisenhower, I mean, Israel and the UK and others. This was, you know, this just helped to spark the kind of left opposition they were developing in the region. Now to counter that, though, you had some of these states that weren't as progressive as say the Egyptian government that started to crack down on some of these left forces. And one of the elements that started developing in the region that was really a sort of an anti left force, if you will, was the so called Ba' athisms that emerged dominant in Iraq and in Syria. And what we had seen developing, especially after the collapse of the Egyptian, Syrian sort of union government they had in place for a while was the emergence of these elements. These were mainly Syrian nationalists who also had a sort of bourgeois desire and saw development to take place in a certain kind of way. And they found that the left in their country was opposed to that. And the result was that it became very difficult to be a leftist in Syria. And so there was always crackdowns on the left. And when many of those forces ended up in places like Beirut, they were still subjected to the long arm of the Syrian government. At the same time, you had the Kurdish struggle that was taking place and had some very progressive elements involved in that struggle. So there's always opposition, there's always political dynamics in Syria that were being played out. And what I was referring to in my piece was that the so called Arab Spring provided some space in Syria. You had the son of the so called dictator now in a place who people saw as a, as a reformer, who saw himself as a so called reformer, who was now prepared to use an iron fist against the protesters. At the very beginning, in fact, when some governors in some of the provinces did respond with the iron fist, they were disciplined to a certain extent possible. And the result was basically there was a perception that there was a certain degree of weakness there, even among people who were around Bashar Assad. And so what happened was, Margaret, was that these forces were opposed to any kind of space that was being opened up for legitimate discourse and for any kind of reforms. But some reforms were in fact being discussed for the first time in many, many decades. But as the consequence of this push on the part of these external forces from the CIA and other intelligence agencies, they were pushing this armed struggle narrative. And as a consequence of the increased violence taking place and the response from the state against this violence, then you had basically a situation that was created that ended up compelling, in my opinion, the Syrian state to move aggressively against these left forces. And many of those left forces ended up having to leave the country. Some join the opposition, but the more other ones that I considered to be more principled did not engage in what appeared to be an imperialist plot, but they ended up having to go places like Beirut. So I was saying that basically there was opportunities, in my opinion, to see space created, more democratic space created that could have resulted in some shifts in governmental power and more space for the possibility of a non violent progression of progressive forces in the country. But that was basically choked off as the consequence of the machinations of these external actors.
- [56:28]
Margaret Flowers
Right. So for people in the United States, what do you think folks should be looking out for in the coming weeks, months, years? What should we be focusing on here to show support for both the Syrian people and Palestinian people?
- [56:47]
Ajamu Baraka
One thing that has to happen in the west, and the US in particular, is we've got to defeat this arrogant tendency on the part of so called left forces to provide political and ideological cover to Western imperialism. That when it's time to stand with these states, to find themselves at the crosshairs of U.S. destabilization, that you have to. Any sentimentology that informs some notion of benevolent US imperialism has to be defeated. And when you find yourself on the same side of the US state, be it in Syria or Iran or Venezuela or Nicaragua or Bolivia, you have to begin to ask yourself the question, why is this, why is this keep, why is this occurring in this way? Why do we have a left that seems to be always on the side of US imperialism? They will, they will have an argument that says they have their own sort of left explanations. But for some of us, we never find ourselves on that same side. We get accused of being the so called knee jerk imperial, anti imperialist. But we also say that what we have in the left, in the us, in Western Europe, is a anti imperialist left, social imperialist as a matter of fact. And so that tendency has to be confronted. We can't sugarcoat it any longer. And so people have to have the boldness, the audacity to confront this kind of collaboration so that, you know, you can stand with these experiments, you can have your own critique of them. There's no question about that. They should be critiqued. But there has to be a reason why these states find themselves in the crosshairs of US destabilization. And it can't be some simplistic BS about they are violators of human rights or their so called dictatorship when you are living in the most criminal society on the face of this planet. And when did these people become the arbiters of what is supposed to be democratic or human rights related? So we've got to deal with this kind of ideological collaboration. And if we could do that and build a stronger anti imperialist movement, that would be the greatest contribution that we can make to collective humanity.
- [59:19]
Margaret Flowers
Well, Ajamu, thank you so much for all the work that you do, your writing, your speaking to keep us ideologically focused and clear on what we need to do. And thank you for taking time to speak with me today.
- [59:31]
Ajamu Baraka
My pleasure. Thank you, Margaret.
- [59:33]
Margaret Flowers
You've been listening to Clearing the Fog, Speaking Truth to Expose the Forces of Greed. I'm Margaret Flowers. My guest today was Ajamu Baraka. I'll go out with a song by Junkyard Empire. It's called We Want.
- [59:57]
Ajamu Baraka
The Kind of Future we Want.