The Kurdish autonomous administration in northeastern Syria is not an integral part of the ongoing revolutionary process in the Arab world. It is a byproduct, made possible by the civil war that weakened the Syrian state and led it to tolerate the existence of this regional administration. From the outset, this administration distanced itself from the confrontation between the Syrian regime and the opposition. It allied itself with the United States in the fight against ISIS (the Islamic State).
Furthermore, the combination of interference from the oil monarchies, the Machiavellian maneuvers of the Syrian regime, and the inaptitude of the Left within the Syrian popular movement led the revolutionary uprising in that country to quickly morph into a civil war between two counterrevolutionary camps: the Assad regime on one side, and various armed forces belonging to the political sphere of Islamic fundamentalism on the other.
It was the most reactionary of the latter — the al-Nusra Front, formerly al-Qaeda’s branch, which had governed the Idlib region in the north of the country for several years and developed relations with the Turkish state (long unacknowledged by the latter) — that ultimately reaped the benefits of the collapse of the Assad regime. The latter fell because it was abandoned by Russia, bogged down in the invasion of Ukraine, and then by Iran, which became incapable of intervening, especially after Israel’s decapitation of Hezbollah in Lebanon in the fall of 2024.
The new government established in Damascus, rebranded after Idlib but retaining essentially the same parameters, is a reactionary, sectarian, and antidemocratic regime, and, of course, a proponent of the crudest form of capitalism. This is indeed why it was immediately embraced by Donald Trump and Western capitals.
In contrast, the recent Moroccan youth movement is fully in line with the revolutionary process that began in 2011. It perfectly illustrates its deep…
Auteur: Gilbert Achcar
