There is now a lot of interest in making sure that what comes after Assad is chaotic. The Gulf does not want democracy in the Arab world. Israel and the USA do not want democracy in the Arab world. Turkey, Russia, Iran neither. The Egyptian military dictatorship? Same. - ThreadSky

ayoub.bsky.social • 101 days ago

There is now a lot of interest in making sure that what comes after Assad is chaotic. The Gulf does not want democracy in the Arab world. Israel and the USA do not want democracy in the Arab world. Turkey, Russia, Iran neither. The Egyptian military dictatorship? Same.

Comments

andreadoremus.bsky.social•101 days ago

📌

leroc.bsky.social•101 days ago

Right wing parties in Europe don't want democracies either. They just want a place to turn refugees back to.

ayoub.bsky.social•101 days ago

That’s not even including problems from within. The Assad regime annihilated the organised Left over decades, decimated the unions. They sectarianized the population to divide it. The challenges ahead are herculean, but it doesn’t mean that they can’t be overcome.

ayoub.bsky.social•101 days ago

Again, these are the people who created the local councils and local coordination committees while Assad and Iran and Russia and Hezbollah were besieging, bombing, gassing, torturing and disappearing them. They held elections in hundreds of villages and towns

ayoub.bsky.social•101 days ago

Pity and charity are not what’s needed here. Pointless ‘I hope it doesn’t get worse’ comments are useless at best and at worst insulting to those who suffered under Assad. Worse than a toddler born of rape in Saydnaya prison? Bodies crushed to be disposed of in mass graves? You monsters.

ayoub.bsky.social•101 days ago

Samir Kassir understood this long ago. Freedom in Syria is tied to freedom in Palestine is tied to freedom in Lebanon (etc etc). He was just a journalist and a historian and yet so dangerous that he was the *first* to be assassinated by Assad in Lebanon after the prime minister Hariri was killed.

ayoub.bsky.social•101 days ago

Assad could have killed other politicians with Hezbollah’s help, as he did to Hariri, but no he went for the journalist. Who was the 2nd person killed after Kassir? George Hawi, the ex leader of the Lebanese Communist Party. They were creating a new movement together.

ayoub.bsky.social•101 days ago

As in Syria, any real alternative to the status quo was assassinated or disappeared in Lebanon. And in both Syria and Lebanon any Palestinian who dared link Palestinian freedom to the freedom of Lebanese and Syrians was pursued with the full savagery of the state. Kassir was all 3 identities.

mrsvsmegma.bsky.social•101 days ago

What does Syria need from the West? I ask as someone who is appalled at all the suffering Syrians have been subjected to, and also desperately hoping that the Syrian people can have the future they so deserve. I really hope our Governments don’t impose our solutions on Syria but fear they will

pvanheus.bsky.social•100 days ago

If we look at Sudan as an analogy: after the 2019 revolution the West forced the new government to "normalise" relations with Israel with promises of development aid that never came. Western politicians insisted on dealing with successive military regimes while ignoring the civilian grassroots.

pvanheus.bsky.social•100 days ago

Again by analogy the challenge (that the West including the Western "Left" has been failing for years) will be to build people-to-people solidarity while the Western states (like the Gulf, like Turkiye) play geopolitics & try and find a "leadership" (likely a strongman) to do deals with.

alexlizhill.com•101 days ago

Why don't Israel and the US want democracy in the Arab world?

leroc.bsky.social•101 days ago

Because blaming everything on Muslims strengthens their own governments.

What Netanyahu fears most is a democratic Palestine.

veeandchip.bsky.social•100 days ago

I understand why the Gulf, Turkey, Russia, Egypt don’t want a democracy in the Arab World. But why don’t Israel or the US? Because it might destabilize other Arab countries which puts oil supplies to Israel/US at risk? And/or something else?

Thanks for helping to educate me on this!

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply