On Sunday, December 8, at dawn, the world woke up to the news of the fall of the Syrian regime and the flight of Bashar al-Assad "to an unknown destination". At the same time, the entry of the forces of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and the National Army, bloody terrorist groups supported by Turkey, America and Zionism, into Damascus was announced. Indeed, on November 27, 2024, that is, the very day that the cessation of war was signed between the Zionist entity and the Lebanese resistance, a large-scale attack was launched from the northwestern border with Turkey, passing through the most important cities of Syria: Aleppo, then Hama, then Homs, to Damascus.
The attack was carried out and the cities were penetrated one after the other without significant resistance, as the Syrian army continued to withdraw each time under the pretext of “redeployment” or “concern for sparing blood” until it completely evaporated along with the security services. Subsequently, it was confirmed that the matter was linked to previous arrangements that had apparently been approved at the Doha meeting that brought together Russia, Iran and Turkey, and that Bashar al-Assad was abandoned. The green light was reportedly given to his government and his army, security, parliament and all the institutions of his regime to hand over power “peacefully” to the new invaders in exchange for special Turkish guarantees to Russia, stipulating that some of its vital interests would not be harmed.
The collapse of the Assad regime has sparked contradictory reactions due to the conflicting interests of the various parties and entities concerned with Syrian affairs. The parties opposed to the Assad regime and supported the terrorist groups that set out to overthrow it were quick to bless the “victory of the Syrian revolution,” while the parties that supported it remained silent or accepted the fait accompli under the pretext of “respecting the will of the Syrian people.” It should be noted that a large part of the Syrian people expresses satisfaction at the end of an oppressive, arrogant and tyrannical regime, while some religious and sectarian communities express their fear of the harm that could befall them in the new situation. As events accelerate, the potential regional and international repercussions continue to raise many questions to understand this "earthquake" that occurred in the "heart" of a region that, due to its geographical location and its weight in geostrategic equations, attracts the attention of the largest capitalist and imperialist countries in the world, old and emerging, competing for spheres of influence and weighing each event on the scale of profit and loss.
In addition to this, what happened in Syria is linked to what is happening in Gaza, Lebanon and in the resistance camp in general. It is in fact an extension of it that will have certain repercussions, even for a certain time. The Syrian regime was part of what is called the “axis of resistance”, and its fall is demanded by the imperialists, the Zionists and the Arab and Turkish reactionaries in order to cut the cord between it and the resistance. Finally, it cannot be believed that this issue does not interest the Tunisian people and the peoples of the Maghreb in general, because everyone, in the Maghreb as in the Mashreq, is interconnected and is the target of the same forces that plan to dominate the entire region by dividing and tearing it apart further. This requires us to follow the transformations and conflicts underway in Syria and the region to explore their possible consequences on the destiny of our peoples who aspire to liberation and unity within a democratic framework that guarantees individual and public freedoms and equality for all, as well as economic and social rights, a condition for true progress and prosperity.
A system doomed to failure and collapse
The regime of the “Al-Assad family” is, historically, one of the most dictatorial and authoritarian regimes in the region. It is a sectarian regime although it is wrapped in a Baathist Arab nationalist veneer. It is a hereditary regime that began with the father, Hafez Al-Assad (1971-2000), and continued with the son Bashar Al-Assad (2001-2024). The Assad family ruled under the name of the “Baath Party” within a regime whose outward appearance was Arab nationalism but whose core was an odious sectarianism, a regime with a civilian cover and a bloody military content (Al-Assad father was a military man). It gave the military establishment, intelligence services and militias the upper hand to tyrannize the Syrian people and lead them with fire and iron, depriving them of their most basic political and civil rights, completely excluding them from participation in public affairs. And horrific crimes were committed in its name, perhaps the most important of which are: The Hama massacre (between 20 and 30 thousand victims, 1982). The political and civil opposition forces were constantly oppressed, which prevented the emergence of a civil, democratic and diverse society in a region that was one of the most important centers of the modern Arab renaissance.
This dictatorial regime has also given the Alawite sect, whose size fluctuates between 9 and 12%, considerable influence in a society characterized by religious and sectarian diversity (Islam, Christianity, Sunnis, Shiites, Druze, etc.) and ethnic diversity (Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, etc.). While the regime brandishes propaganda slogans about justice and socialism, the economic options it has finally established, after a period of state capitalism during which some social benefits were provided to the general public, are neoliberal options, aggravated by external sanctions (the Caesar blockade) to widen the scope of poverty and marginalization. This has affected not only the Syrian people in general, but also the military institution itself, whose members, soldiers and junior officers, suffer misery and destitution in exchange for privileges for senior officers. This extended the sphere of corruption to all areas within the institutions and made it the basis of governance. From then on, it was no longer difficult to turn it against Bashar himself at the decisive moment; which led some observers of Syrian affairs to consider what happened as a coup d’état by the establishment against the head of the regime.
On the other hand, while the Assad family regime displayed the appearance of defending national issues, especially the Palestinian issue, instrumentalization was one of the most important aspects of its behavior; the Palestinians were subjected to one of the terrible massacres in Lebanon in 1976 (about 3,000 martyrs in the Tal al-Zaatar camp). We cannot forget either the alignment of Hafez al-Assad in 1991 behind the United States of America, France, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia and Hosni Mubarak's Egypt in the thirty-year aggression against Iraq, the one that paved the way for the 2003 aggression that ended with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime and the occupation of Iraq, its tearing apart and the control of its wealth, which continues to this day.
The Syrian people participated in the first revolutionary wave that began in Tunisia in late 2010/early 2011 and raised the same demands and aspirations that spread throughout the region after the overthrow of the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes, a process in which the revolution maintained its independent path and its just political and social demands before being bypassed by local counter-revolutionary forces with international and regional support. However, the Syrian regime's confrontation of its people's demands with bloody repression and the presentation of its peaceful civil movement as an "American-Zionist conspiracy" in order to conceal its dictatorial nature on the one hand and deny the legitimacy of the democratic demand on the other, have created fertile ground for the intervention of foreign, international and regional powers. Intervention that plunged Syria into a reactionary and destructive civil war in which tens of thousands of people were killed and a similar number disappeared, in addition to the forced displacement of millions of people, similar to what happened in Libya and Yemen, where the repression and bloody response of the regimes of both countries led to civil war and foreign intervention, and then to their fall.
The obscurantist forces, with their various branches, played a decisive role in the deterioration of the situation in Syria, especially after the extensive process of arming, training, media support and financing they received from the American, Zionist, Gulf and Turkish Western intelligence services, which came in force to destroy the struggle of the peoples of the region, tear apart the unity of their societies and destroy the gains they had previously achieved. The situation reached its peak with the creation of the terrorist organization ISIS, a descendant of Al-Qaeda, within the framework of international and regional decision-making aimed at gaining greater control over the region and its capabilities. It is these gangs that operate today under the name of "Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham", that are leading the invasion of Syria and that, at the time of the Ennahda movement in Tunisia, attracted a significant number of young Tunisians in what is known as "Jihadist transfer" operations, many of whom were killed and many others arrested.
The Syrian regime has reaped the bitter fruits of suppressing the legitimate demands and aspirations of the Syrian people to live under a regime in which they enjoy freedom and a decent life, and opening the door to the intervention of foreign Arab powers, colonial, Zionist and reactionary. -Turkish forces and terrorist gangs with many names and forms, but with a single agent essence. One of the results of this situation has been the cutting off of significant areas of Syrian territory, especially in the north and northwest, whether for the benefit of Turkey, the United States or terrorist gangs and Kurdish rebel groups led by foreigners, especially Americans, which has made Syria lose its sovereignty over its territory and its capabilities.
The ruler of Damascus had become at the mercy of direct Russian protection and had needed the support of his Iranian neighbor, itself aware of the danger posed by the presence of hostile forces on its borders. What ultimately complicated the situation of the Syrian regime was its neglect of the new opportunity it had to ensure its continuity after Russia, Iran and Hezbollah saved it from collapse in 2015. It had indeed violated the obligations it had undertaken and which were contained in United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254 of December 18, 2015. This was approved by Russia and Iran themselves and which called for the opening of a dialogue after a year, but which was only launched in January 2017 in "Astana" under the supervision of the guarantor trio (Russia, Iran and Turkey) and under the control of the United Nations, the United States and some neighboring countries (Jordan). This consisted of reducing armed tensions in the conflict zones, observing a transitional period dedicated to the development of a new constitution for which a joint commission was formed, but it did not progress in its work, and organizing a political dialogue leading to elections under the supervision of the United Nations, which did not happen. At the same time, the material situation of the Syrian people continues to deteriorate due to the corruption of the regime and its transformation from a sectarian regime to a narrow family regime. Added to this are the effects of corruption, the American and Western economic blockade in general, which explains today's "state of relief" with the fall of the regime which has provided the people with nothing but demagogic slogans.
Serious consequences and repercussions
The systematic destruction of Syrian society has strengthened the influence of foreign powers and that of the terrorist groups affiliated with them, which have thousands of mercenaries in their ranks. This regime did not fall at the hands of the Syrians, as a result of an uprising or a popular revolution led by forces emanating from the people and carrying a project that reflects their aspirations, but rather by regional and international tools aimed at reshaping the region in a way that serves the interests of the main powers intervening there, namely the Zionist entity, the United States and Erdogan's Turkey, which dreams of restoring its glory, the Ottoman Empire and NATO.
As for Russia and Iran, allies of the Assad regime, their influence has declined with its collapse, knowing that one of the major objectives of controlling Syria was to expel Russia from the region, entangled in the war in Ukraine, and to isolate Iran, which in turn suffers from a difficult internal economic situation due to sanctions. This would prepare the ground to attack it later because of the threat it represents to the interests of the Western colonial powers, the Zionist entity and the comprador regimes of the Gulf, which are only waiting for the destruction of Iran, and its dragging into the furnace of destructive internal conflicts to carry out their projects in their military, economic and commercial dimensions with a view to their confrontation with China and Russia.
There is no doubt that all this does not serve the interests of Syria and its people in any way. Syria is seriously threatened with division into cantons along sectarian and ethnic lines and according to the interests of each of the parties to the conflict, including terrorist groups, each of which is beholden to one of the camps. The Syrian people, with its working classes, women, youth, intellectuals and creators, cannot dream, with these groups and their sponsors, of freedom, democracy and peace, nor of economic and social well-being, nor of scientific prosperity and civilizational progress.
On the other hand, the Palestinian issue will be the first to be affected by the characteristics of the new situation in Syria and the region. The destruction and dismantling of Syria is an extension of the aggression against Gaza and Lebanon, with no other objective than to achieve the hegemony of the Zionist entity over the region and to block the path of any form of support for the resistance. The invaders of Syria make no reference in their speech to the Palestinian issue or the Zionist occupation of the Syrian Golan. On the contrary, their leader did not fail to express his thanks to the usurping entity that helped the terrorist groups gain power and promised to recognize it and normalize relations with it. Today, they do not lift a finger in the face of the attacks committed by the usurping entity against Syria. It entered its territory, abandoned the 1974 arrangements regarding the border between the entity and Syria, and occupied the buffer zone. Today it is located about twenty kilometers from Damascus, thus confirming its intention to definitively annex new lands to what it previously occupied.
On the other hand, it is launching hundreds of intense airstrikes against strategic Syrian military installations (destroying the air and sea fleet and missile systems) and military and civilian scientific research centers, all aimed at destroying the elements of power acquired in Syria through the efforts of its sons and daughters. The goal is to transform Syria into a demilitarized country with cut nails, and this with the official American, Western, Turkish and Arab blessing.
In this context, American and Western statements of support for the new invaders have followed one another, with a view to removing the names of these groups (Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, etc.) from the list of terrorist forces established by the United Nations and even by the imperialist countries (United States of America, Great Britain, etc.). As for Turkey, the "Ottoman" voices are rising loudly, hailing the "return of Aleppo" to its "original cradle"... as an expression of the ambitions of Erdogan and his gang to share the "Syrian spoils" and to exploit the opportunity to bury the Kurdish question, which will put him in confrontation with the Kurdish groups supported by the United States.
As for the Arab comprador regimes, they have accomplished their mission in the service of the American-Zionist-Turkish monster and its projects in the region, and they do not realize that they are not outside these projects and that their turn is undoubtedly coming. And despite the state of panic that is beginning to appear here and there among certain regimes (Egypt, Jordan, etc.), they persist in pursuing the same repressive policies that ultimately only favor the causes of their fall.
The repercussions of what is currently happening in Syria will be, even if circumstantial, due to the strengthening and expansion of American, Zionist and Turkish influence, in light of an unprecedented submission of the Arab regimes, on the one hand, and the weakness of the patriotic and popular forces despite the considerable efforts made by the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance, which cost them enormous sacrifices. Likewise, the control of terrorist forces over Syria will not serve the interests of the Syrian people, nor the region, nor the Palestinian cause. Rather, it will serve to revive obscurantist movements and terrorist groups as a tool of control to reshape reformulate the map of the region within the framework of what is called the "New Middle East" that extends to North Africa.
This plan aims to review the Sykes-Picot agreements, which divided the Arab world and the Middle East in general into mini-states in order to facilitate the control of the region and its capabilities, in the sense of redividing what is already divided and fragmenting it further on religious, sectarian and ethnic bases this time. The objective is to perpetuate Western colonial interests and ensure the superiority of the Zionist entity in the region and to bury forever the Palestinian question, and pave the way for normalization with this entity within the region within the framework of the "Deal of the Century" and the "Abraham Accords".
This will also have the effect of reducing the manifestations of the growing influence of Russia and China in the region, isolating the Iranian regime and leaving the peoples of the region in general in a state of eternal confusion and conflict. As we mentioned above, the reactionary Arab regimes, led by Egypt, which have worked and are working in the company of Washington and Tel Aviv, thinking that this will ensure their eternal protection, while their turn is coming, without a doubt. Indeed, the fragmentation project will not exclude them, just as it did not exclude Sudan, which experienced a partition in the past, and which is today the scene of a devastating internal conflict between the army and the “Janjaweed” militias, and each of them has its international and regional supporters. The same goes for Libya, which is in reality divided between an East under Russian/Egyptian/Emirati protection and a West under Turkish protection; or Yemen, which is effectively and institutionally divided into a North linked to the “Axis of Resistance” and a South subject to Saudi control.
In this context, Tunisia will not escape these arrangements, given its situation as a horizontal and vertical transit zone towards the countries of North Africa, the Sahel and sub-Saharan countries (Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, etc.) where manifestations of conflicts over spheres of influence are multiplying between traditional imperialist countries (mainly France) and emerging countries (China and Russia) and where terrorist groups and mercenaries are widespread. Furthermore, the return of Tunisian terrorists released from Bashar al-Assad's prisons cannot be ruled out. We must also not forget the terrorist groups active in western Libya, nor the Turkish presence not far from our borders.
Naturally, neighboring Algeria will not be immune to the fragmentation plans contained in the “New Middle East” project aimed at controlling its enormous natural resources and exploiting its strategic location. The growing influence of Western imperialist Zionists in Mohammed VI’s Morocco and the supply of weapons to his regime cannot be considered outside this framework. It is certain that the Zionist colonial monster will work to exploit political, security, economic and social weaknesses, whether in Tunisia or Algeria, to exploit them.
What to be aware of and what to do
These dangerous developments require the patriotic and democratic forces in Syria, the region and our country to be aware of these various issues, and the tasks to be undertaken to face the possible repercussions of these developments. If the American-Western colonial powers, the Zionist entity, the ruler of Turkey and their lackeys have their calculations, then the peoples, the patriotic, revolutionary and progressive forces, and the resistance movements must have their plans to thwart these calculations, which is necessary and possible. On this basis, the Tunisian Workers' Party reiterates its bias towards the brotherly Syrian people, who have suffered the most serious injustices under the Assad family regime and who have been subjected to the ugliest foreign international and regional interventions, and while expressing its unfailing support for their democratic aspirations:
1-The Syrian people and self-determination
The Workers' Party
- calls on the Syrian people to be wary of the new invaders, because they are not liberators, but rather creations of the colonial powers, the Zionist entity and Erdogan's Turkey, and servants of their project to tear apart the unity of Syria, and to divide the areas of influence within it and in the region, particularly targeting the resistance in order to bury the Palestinian cause. It is not enough to get rid of the tyrannical regime of the Assad family to achieve salvation. Rather, we must think about who will replace it so that Syria does not fall into the clutches of a new tyrannical regime in the hands of the new invaders, perhaps even more odious than the previous one.
- also calls on the brotherly Syrian people and their democratic forces (parties, organizations and unions) to unite around a national rescue program that realizes freedom, democracy and social justice, and establishes national sovereignty by driving out all invaders from the country. This must include rejecting the American, Turkish and Russian military bases, and liberating the occupied Syrian territories and confronting the Zionist aggression that has been spreading since the arrival of terrorist groups in Damascus, and supporting the Palestinian cause and resistance in Palestine and Lebanon.
- affirms its conviction that Syria needs a regime that will put an end to tyranny and dictatorship and open the way to freedom and equality within the framework of full and effective citizenship guaranteeing a democratic solution to the Kurdish question which, for centuries, has served as a blackmail card in the hands of colonialism and reactionary regimes in the region.
2- The peoples of the region and the duty of solidarity
- calls on all the forces of freedom and progress in the region to realize the seriousness of the repercussions of what is happening in Syria on our countries and peoples, which obliges them to stand firmly with the Syrian people in these critical moments and to stay away from narrow calculations. The revolutionary and progressive forces of Turkey are called upon to confront the expansionist ambitions of their Sultan Erdogan and to pressure him to withdraw from Syria, respect the sovereignty of his lands, stop supporting terrorist groups and cooperating with the usurping and fascist Zionist entity.
- calls on the Arab peoples and their revolutionary, progressive and patriotic forces to realize the gravity of the current situation for the Palestinian people, their cause and their resistance, as well as for the Lebanese people and their resistance, and to form an Arab popular front to support the resistance and confront imperialist intervention through puppet regimes. All the plots, coups and attacks that are taking place are centered on the Palestinian issue, which is destined to be buried and ended in order to open a “new era” under the leadership of the Ben Salman regime, based on normalization with the usurper entity within the framework of the “Deal of the Century” and Trump’s “Abraham Accords.” It is known that the Al-Aqsa flood came to stop this project, which will ultimately be doomed to failure and collapse because the Arab peoples will not accept it, no matter how arrogant the American imperialist is and how brutal the usurping entity is.
- calls on the Arab peoples to learn the great lesson of the fall of the authoritarian regime of the Assad family. Tyrants do not build nations and do not advance peoples. On the contrary, they tear them apart, destroy them, humiliate them, condemn them to backwardness and afflict them with a weakness that allows foreign colonial powers to infiltrate and dominate them. The Arab peoples must, here and now, take their destiny in hand and progress towards achieving their liberation and unity on solid democratic and popular bases. Our peoples deserve liberation, independence, democracy, progress and social justice, and this is a mission that is theirs and that cannot be accomplished in their place either by foreign powers or by their local lackeys.
- claims that the apparent stability that the regimes of exploitation and treason “enjoy” in our Arab region, especially in the Gulf, are the result of particular circumstances and not of the integrity of their political, economic, social or cultural systems. These regimes are the most backward, the most brutal, the most tyrannical and the most violators of the rights of individuals, women and minorities in the world. Today, they are thriving because of their treason, their enormous wealth that allows them to buy external protection, but also because of the delay in political awareness in these societies, which will not last. The winds of liberation will sooner or later sweep them away, as well as their protectors, the colonial and Zionist forces.
- urges all revolutionary and progressive democratic forces in the world that are hostile to imperialism, colonialism and Zionism to stand with the Syrian people and support them in realizing their dream of building a national, democratic and popular regime and expelling all foreign powers, armies, mercenaries and military bases from their lands. It also calls on them to be aware of the threat to world peace in the form of a catastrophic world war resulting from the tensions in the region that are constantly fueled and fanned by US imperialism.
3- May the Tunisian people be vigilant and strengthened
- It also calls on the Tunisian people and its progressive forces to be more vigilant and prepared for the political and security repercussions of what is happening in Syria and the entire region, which requires supporting the brotherly Syrian people and redoubling efforts in supporting the Palestinian cause so that the enemy camp does not take advantage of the opportunity to liquidate the Palestinian cause once and for all. It is also called upon to learn from the experience of the tyrannical regime in Syria, which collapsed in a few days due to the lack of real popular support, despite the high percentages of the simulated elections and the scale of the apparatuses of repression and enslavement.
- Stresses that the fortification of our homeland requires the Tunisian people to confront the populist tyranny that undermines freedoms, violates rights, tramples on the principle of equality, throws its opponents, critics and protesters into prison or sends them into exile. This regime spreads hate speech and malice, sets Tunisians against each other and exposes the country to bankruptcy and the people to unemployment, poverty and misery, hunger, disease and ignorance. These evils are the result of the country's immersion in debt, the dismantling of production systems and the continued destruction of the social system and environmental and cultural services, all of which weaken the unity of the people and undermine the nation's immunity, which can make it easy prey for its local and foreign enemies.
- In conclusion, our deep conviction is that the valiant Syrian people will overcome the difficulties and chart the course to confront their enemies inside and outside. Our conviction is also deep that Palestine will remain the compass and that the resistance in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon will not be defeated. On the contrary, it will expand with the expansion of the reactionary Zionist imperialist tyranny and will become more solid and determined to win. This is embodied today in the most astonishing images of steadfastness in Gaza and the West Bank, where qualitative operations against the occupation continue uninterrupted, and in Lebanon, where the Zionist monster has been forced to retreat. We are also convinced that our people and the rest of the Arab peoples will not delay in rising up against their oppressors and exploiters to achieve their freedom, independence and social emancipation.
Tunisian Workers'
Party
Tunis, December 11, 2024
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