Opposition to the Syrian Opposition: Against the Syrian National Council - As‘ad Abukhalil
►http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4593/opposition-to-the-syrian-opposition_against-the-sy
For some reason (or for several reasons, and one of them is Zionist) people in the West, including in the progressive academic community, are very reluctant to criticize the SNC or even the Ikhwan. Worse, there are some in that community who want to convince us that Syrian opposition is entirely run by progressives. People’s choices (though whether the SNC is actually the product of such choices has yet to be proven) are not always progressive or desirable. Khomeini had mass support and the left was and is obliged to go after the Khomeini movement. There are Khomeini wanna-bes in the Syrian uprising and they should be opposed before they do more harm to the cause of the Syrian people. Moreover, there is an attempt by liberal Zionists to promote the SNC and its cause (just as they promoted the Iraqi National Congress and its cause) as a manifestation of a leftist-liberal movement (of course, Ahmad Chalabi is now reduced to ride on the coattails of Muqtada al-Sadr, of all people). It is no coincidence that the Likudnik Senator, John McCain, who was the Godfather of the Iraqi National Congress, is now serving as the Godfather of the SNC.
There is war in Syria. And the Syrian people are now left to be victims but also bystanders. The SNC and its allies have allowed the Syrian cause to become an agenda in the foreign policies of such reactionary regimes as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, and Bahrain. The US and Israel are now engaged in a war that has nothing to do with the aspirations and desires of the Syrian people. The SNC is now on the side of the US and Israel in their plots against Syria (Syria the country and not the regime) and they have in the past had no problem in doing business with that regime during and after the Hamah massacre of 1982. In this conflict, progressives can’t sit on the sidelines, and they certainly can’t join the joint US-Israeli project. They have to stand opposed to the regime and to the Israeli/US/Saudi plot; that is the obligation for the sake of the Syrian people, and not for the sake of those who speak on their own behalf for purposes that are related neither to democracy nor to freedom.