Former US ambassador to Syria Robert Ford confessed to having participated—alongside the British secret service MI6—in a project to “remove from the world of terrorism and bring into politics” the leader of ISIS*, Abdulkadir al-Golani, whose real name is Ahmed Sharaa.
According to Ford, a British NGO invited him in 2023 to collaborate in this “conversion,” and he ended up meeting personally with Golani, who acknowledged that “brutal tactics in Iraq don’t work when you have to govern four million people.”
Most surprisingly, Golani, now presented by the West as a “moderate Syrian opposition figure,” has never apologized for the attacks committed by his organization in Iraq or Syria.
Ford’s statement reveals what many analysts suspected: the West does not eliminate extremists, it recycles them when it suits its geopolitical interests.
In his words, “we help bring him from the world of terrorists to the world of politics.”
Video link -> https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1925279619743391744/pu/vid/avc1/718x392/oe24nD1Z5EQqlatG.mp4
Source -> https://xcancel.com/TheArabEye0/status/1925279719387537759
“Governing” 4 million people… yeah “governing” is certainly a choice of words to use for tyranically overseeing a besieged city.
The existence of Idlib is proof enough that Bashar and Russia were not nearly as ruthless as the west makes them out to be.
Had it been his father Hafez, I don’t suspect Idlib would have sustained.
The existence of Idlib is proof enough that Bashar and Russia were not nearly as ruthless as the west makes them out to be.
Bashar and Syria will always be a case study for plenty of countries that are currently besieged by the West. Too many mistakes have been done that destroyed this country.
As for this terrorist, it will always sadden me how little pushback Al Jolani is receiving from the diaspora and the western left. The only ones, as of now, mentioning this grotesque rehabilitation are the Iranians and Cubans. Cubans receiving the worst treatment of being added to the “terrorist supporting list” to justify the blockade while the US literally rehabilitates a Daesh headchopper.
In regards to the western left, I honestly don’t blame them to some degree. When such a large diaspora population lauds the Jolani regime as some kind of savior, how the hell does a white leftist go about opposing it? Syrian diaspora will hate you and the Syrian minorities that are victimized are vilified by those same diaspora as Kafir or Mushrik.
Not to mention that Basher was still brutal, yet becuase of his political incompetence he gained nothing from his hard stance. He took the worst of both worlds, getting his hands dirty by thr start of the war, but never ending it with a final decisive act, leaving his userpers to have a window of opportunity.
So in the western left, who is your ally in thus affair? The small Syrian minority community that lives in the diaspora? That’s not enough if 90% of the other diaspora just call you an Iranian agent or something of the like.
Plus what are you defending? Re-establishing a status quo of a partially liberalized economy which prolonged the war? A socialist republic in a country you’re not from and which socialist forces have little to no power? A return to basthism, which crumbled under its own contradictions? A return of Basher whose fucked off to Russia becuase he couldn’t be asked to lead a country, or any other Asaad, whose family drama essentially plunged the country into instability? A federated state like what the Rojavan puppets call for? A series of balkanized ethnostates to defend against Sunni Arab dominance?
The most the western left can demand for in regards to syria is a complete withdrawal of US forces and interference. But that’s the same demand for the entire region, what can they specifically say on Syria.
The death of Pan-Arabism, leftwing Basthism, secular Arab Republicanism, and Arab socialism, has made it quite difficult for any non minority Syrian leftist to navigate the political landscape.
The thing I do want more of is for the American left to discuss the crimes of the Jolani regime more thoroughly. We need to better discuss just how propped up the Jolani regime is, and how this fundamentalist scum would disintegrate from power if the US withheld its support.
In my view the fall of Syria is just as much the fault of the political impotence of Arabs as it is the Western left’s chauvinism in regards to Bashar. The western left is always behind, and bring too late to the correct conclusion is infuriating, but their material context within the imperial core at least explains it. What is the excuse for the Sunni Arab majority who still continue to push sectarianism against Shiites like myself rather than accept that Jolani and the Syrian revolution was nothing but a US directed sham (the sham of Sha’am you could say)? Alawites are still denounced as Asaadists by them, and they declare Iran and Hezboallah as equal or surpassing the evil of the zionists.
I’m not trying to exonerate or infantilize Western leftists for their incompetent refusal to engage with geopolitical reality. Their obsession with purity fetish and perfect martyrs have doomed the Syrian nation to its current state. However it’s truly understated just the depths of denialism from the Sunni Arab majority who salted the chance of Syrian prosperity growing on a once fertile environment.
Damn… With this description of the conditions, it is really depressing. It reminds me to a lesser degree of the treatment that my brothers and sisters from Cuba/Venezuela/Nicaragua are receiving from the rest of Latam. However, in your case, it is even more grim.
From my point of view and as a way to move forward, there has to be a reinvention of Pan-Arabism and Arab Socialism. A completely new project that is capable of uniting all ethnicities and nationalities within one identity which is anti imperialism. From the looks of it, it will be very difficult because there is so much western propaganda that destroyed the arab worlds and introduced this western supremacism that glorifies the West while dehumanize the opposition to the West.
That will be my perspective and I am sure someone has a better analysis than mine. I just hope that something is done before the West eats their supporters in the arab world as they are doing with its supporters in Latam(deportation of plenty of pro-US latinamericans including propagandists paid by the NED).
From my point of view and as a way to move forward, there has to be a reinvention of Pan-Arabism and Arab Socialism. A completely new project that is capable of uniting all ethnicities and nationalities within one identity which is anti imperialism.
Is this realistically possible, without first addressing Wahabism?
without first addressing Wahabism?
A completely new project that is capable of uniting all ethnicities and nationalities within one identity which is anti imperialism.
I think we can kill two birds with one stone
See, the Baathist projects that were made in Syria and Iraq had one major flaw: minority-rule governments. Sunni-dominated rule over majority Shia Iraq, and Alawite-Shia rule over majority Sunni Syria, all of which countries overthrow was not only done by the US, but with the help of Iran in Iraq and all the other Sunni-majority Gulf Nations and Turkey in Syria
If they can create a pan-Arab movement, which incorporates the majority of the population, in this case of Syria, Sunni, but no less protects the minorities, and creates some sort of harmony between them, then maybe that’s one step forward to a renaissance of Arab socialist nations.
Edit: Maybe then it would take back the base from which Saudi-backed Wahabbism would attract.
But, just to ask, what is your concern?
I’d say Wahabbism is a direct consequence of the US support for the Arab Monarchies. Wahabbism can only be attacked by staunchly opposing Monarchism which exists on the Arabian peninsula. They needed a way to undermine the Arabic republican movement from Nasser, the Baathists, and Ghadaffi, and so salafi Islamism was the method of doing so.
The US also liked to used the concern of minority populations (particularly the kurds) as a cudgel against the Arab Republics. Therefore addressing their concerns while eliminating petty bourgeois and bourgeois elements of those movements would need to be addressed.
Frankly I think a more regional anti-colonial nationalism is better suited to deal with the contradictions of West Asia and North Africa. Although a form of Pan-Arab solidarity should exist, I think Arab nationalism is dead in the water due to its own contradictions.
In the Levant for example, the primary issue is the splintered territory of what should be a contiguous diverse nation. For Egypt, it would be to create stronger links with the African continent it’s based in, and throw out peninsular influence. For the peninsula, it would the overthrow of their monarchies.
Circling back to Syria, their needs to be an understanding that any force connected NATO ally or Peninsular power can’t be trusted to Constructing a stable state. It should also be known that Israel’s attempts to balkanize are not going to provide minority rights for those new ethnostates, as they shall not have any capacity to express sovereignty.
Oh thank you for filling in. I should remind myself to not speak as if these are isolated incidents, and that these issues are all tied together.
Thank you for a comprehensive reply.
I’d say Wahabbism is a direct consequence of the US support for the Arab Monarchies. Wahabbism can only be attacked by staunchly opposing Monarchism which exists on the Arabian peninsula.
This directly addresses my concern.
