Lessons from Iraq, Libya, and Syria: Resistance, Betrayal, and Collapse

The tumultuous collapses of Iraq, Libya and Syria offer stark parallels and contrasts, shedding light on the complex interplay of foreign intervention, internal strife and the fragile dynamics of power in the Middle East.

At the heart of anti-colonialism lie two principles which, at first glance, seem to stand in direct opposition. The first calls for unwavering support of the global struggle for resistance and liberation against white supremacy and colonialism, a battle fought across borders and systems of oppression. The second prioritizes empowering the poorest workers and peasants, ensuring that wealth is redistributed to uplift those most marginalized.

Achieving both of these core principles is rare and remarkable. State-building efforts, including attempts at socialist state formation, are constantly pressured to compromise with colonial powers and transform into comprador states that serve external capitalist interests. Most succumb to this pressure swiftly. The coup against Ben Bella in Algeria and the betrayal of Lumumba by Kabila are just two of many examples.

Despite their flaws and criticisms, Saddam’s Baathist Iraq and Gaddafi’s Libyan Jamahiriya managed to uphold both principles. In stark contrast, Syria failed on both fronts, resulting in the hollowed-out, degenerated state under Assad. This stands in sharp contrast to Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011, both of which resisted colonial destruction at the time. A telling indication of Syria’s failure is the complete lack of popular will to fight for the decrepit Baath regime once it falls.

Raising the Poor Prepares for the People’s War

Saddam Hussein’s leadership was marked by a radical commitment to socialist land reforms and wealth redistribution, aimed at mobilizing the Arab and Third World masses in a relentless confrontation against colonialism. And, for a time, he succeeded. Despite his toxic traits and brutal repression of opposition, Hussein earned respect and loyalty because he generally prioritized the needs of the oppressed over the interests of bureaucratic elites.

In stark contrast, Syria under Hafez and Bashar al-Assad pursued an exploitative and oppressive political model that alienated broad swathes of the population. Their regime entrenched itself in a framework of intense religious sectarianism and deepening divisions rather than uniting the people. After Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow as the Syrian Baath state fell, Assad made a statement in which he states:

“My departure from Syria was neither planned nor did it occur during the final hours of the battles, as some have claimed. On the contrary, I remained in Damascus, carrying out my duties until the early hours of Sunday 8th December 2024. As terrorist forces infiltrated Damascus, I moved to Latakia in co-ordination with our Russian allies to oversee combat operations. Upon arrival at the Hmeimim airbase that morning, it became clear that our forces had completely withdrawn from all battle lines and that the last army positions had fallen. As the field situation in the area continued to deteriorate, the Russian military base itself came under intensified attack by drone strikes.

“With no viable means of leaving the base, Moscow requested that the base’s command arrange an immediate evacuation to Russia on the evening of Sunday 8th December. This took place a day after the fall of Damascus following the collapse of the final military positions and the resulting paralysis of all remaining state institutions.”

This statement raises the fact that the Syrian armed forces gave-up en masse, as they were hardly getting paid. The fact that they were hardly getting paid indicates how exploitative and degenerate the leadership and the state bureaucracy had become, sucking-up resources and investments to itself away from those giving their life and limb for the state. Furthermore, it’s clear that Assad chose to become so dependent on a super-power state – Russia – that he could only rely on Russia to save himself by running away to Moscow. Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi desisted from choosing such a dependent relationship with any super-power state, and sought to redistribute funds away from corruption and capitalist interests, investing it instead into the poorest communities across their respective countries.  On top of it all, unlike Gaddafi and Huseein’s more secular although in-part Islamist anti-colonial resistance, Assad’s war was wholly and officially sectarian in many regards, which again has contributed to an axis of alienation from the state and its leadership. Saddam and Gaddafi, on the other hand, actively countered sectarianism, which meant they relatively successfully fostered unity and mobilised support for their political projects.

Iraq was under a genocidal, imperial war and sanctions regime from 1990 until 2003. Saddam ensured consistent delivery of all basic socialist services of electricity, water, health, education etc. He was constantly preparing his state functionaries on all levels to be mobilised for the anti-colonial war and was harsh against bureaucrats who were corrupt etc. Iraq won accolades including from the UN for his consistent organisation to serve the broad masses under the colonial genocidal offensive. Hussein prepared strategically for a people’s war – guerilla resistance – as the state was demolished by the colonial invasion.

In an instance of a colonial war, the target of the colonialist will always see a considerable sell-out from the leadership of the targeted people and state. This was also the case in Iraq, as well as Libya, however after the overthrow of the Baathist Iraqi state a considerable amount of the former Iraqi state forces went directly into the people’s war resistance of many factions (creating resistance grouping and joining many others) which all led to the greatest anti-colonial surge since the Vietnamese resistance. Nearly a week into the full-scale invasion of USA and Britain into Iraq, Saddam Hussein on March 24th 2003 was reported as saying:

“These forces have pushed into our land and wherever they encroach they are trapped in our land, leaving the desert behind them, and find Iraqi citizens surrounding them and shooting at them. The (Baath) party, the people, the clans, the Fedayeen of Saddam and national security forces alongside our brave armed forces have done great things which match their calibre. Therefore, after underestimating you…the enemy is trapped in the sacred land of Iraq which is being defended by its great people and army.”

Saddam Hussein was committed to a full confrontation of resistance against the colonialists to the very end, and this inspired confidence and loyalty in Iraq and attracted fighters from across the Arab and wider Muslim world to join the war of resistance and liberation against colonialism. Some of Saddam Hussein’s most senior comrades went on to fight for years in the underground in Iraq.

Although Gaddafi did not prepare like Saddam in these regards, nevertheless the story of the Libyan Jamahirya is very different to the Assad state, and has more in common with Iraq.

The Jamahiriya system was complex, incorporating multiple layers of popular, mass-based structures of people’s power. It supported social and tribal movements, women’s movements and radical global anti-colonial solidarities, actively mobilising the Libyan people into these causes. The socialist redistribution of services and wealth transformed Libya, lifting a significant portion of the population, among the poorest in the world before Gaddafi’s revolution in September 1969, into dramatically improved social, political and cultural conditions.

When oppressive policies emerged, such as Minister Mustapha Jalil’s attempt to ban women and girls from traveling alone, women organised in massive resistance. Gaddafi supported them, leading to the annulment of Jalil’s unjust law, showcasing the dynamic interplay between grassroots activism and leadership within the Jamahiriya system.

Gaddafi’s state was far from perfect, and Gaddafi did his fair share of collaboration with imperialism (frontex, rendition, giving Irish anti-colonial guerrilla-fighter names to the Brits, although Sinn Fein ended up selling out Libya to Nato, too), yet in the end this all did not define him. He chose to die fighting with his people directly against colonialism, and always kept the oil revenues flowing to the poor (that’s why he and Libya were destroyed by the colonialists).

In August as the Jamahirya state was seeing its final phases of destruction under the might of a Nato war imposed on it:

“The Libyan people will remain and the Fateh revolution (which brought Gaddafi to power in 1969) will remain. Move forward, challenge, pick up your weapons, go to the fight for liberating Libya inch by inch from the traitors and from Nato. Get ready for the fight … The blood of martyrs is fuel for the battlefield.”

In some senses Gaddafi was obsessed by the example of martyrdom of Omar al-Mukhtar, going so far as getting the leader of Italy to kiss the hand of al-Mukhtar’s grandson as an apology to the crimes of Italian colonialism in Libya. Gaddafi spent his whole life obsessing over his ‘al-Fateh Revolution’, and perhaps waiting for the moment that he could face his own death by means of confronting colonialism and being killed and martyred by colonialism’s crimes against Libya. Many of Libya’s tribes pride themselves on their resistance to colonialism, not least Gaddafi’s own Werfelli and Gaddafa tribes. That Gaddafi chose to return to his tribal and ancestral lands for the final confrontation with colonialism saw his example inspire comrades of his from the the 1960s die alongside him. Again, this example of leadership couldn’t be further away from Assad’s own inability in the end to command one Syrian pilot to assist his final escape from Syria and instead had to rely on his Russian big brother to save his skin.

At the time of the Jamahiriya’s destruction in September/October 2011, countless people who had found value and opportunity in the former socialist system courageously mobilised. Militarily, socially and culturally, they rallied to defend the legacy of Gaddafi and the Jamahiriya, openly continuing the fight in various forms despite overwhelming odds.

Syria’s complicity with imperialism

Syria massacred Palestinians in Lebanon in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre in 1976 and directly joined the British, USA, French colonial war against Iraq in 1990. These and other choices by Hafez al-Assad demoralised and alienated people from the Syrian state. It was reported Syrian soldiers on the battlefields against Iraq were, much to the dismay of their military leadership, celebrating Saddam Hussein’s scud missiles targeting Israel. Defiant anti-colonial militancy mobilises the oppressed, sellout to colonialism contributes to the social rot.

The Assad state further impoverished the masses by prioritising protecting an increasingly parasitic and corrupt political ruling class, engaged in an openly sectarian war, allowed in a big colonial power to occupy Syria (Russia), partition it with Nato, invite Nato to bomb Syria with it and massacre unarmed masses. Assad chose to fully embrace elements of white supremacy, aligning himself with figures like KKK leader David Duke and Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin, revealing a disturbing admiration for such ideologies. Of course, these racists infiltrated Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah to destroy them along with Nato, the results of which we are witnessing today. In contrast, Gaddafi and Saddam chose not to become servants of colonialism, particularly in the form of Russia and its military bases. This decision earned them more respect within a framework that supports resistance and liberation, rather than betraying those principles for the self-interests of Putin and his allies.

The elephant in the room is Syria’s decision to align with Russia, which in turn tied it to Israeli agendas and actions. This choice set the country up for failure, as Assad and his regime ultimately believed they were more aligned with “white” powers than with Arabs or the broader Third World. While the people of the Jamahiriya sought refuge disproportionately in Black African countries and Latin America, Assad and his wife fled to racist, colonial Moscow. The contrast is stark.

Radical Socialism

In an era defined by fascism, deceit, and cowardice, it’s crucial to return to the fundamentals of anti-colonialism, which guide us toward seeking truth from facts, not clinging to delusional and non-existent “victories.” Socialist anti-colonialism in all its forms remains the only path to dignity and the fighting chance we need to resist and ultimately achieve liberation. On April 16th 1967 Che Guevara made his defining speech to the Tricontinental conference in which he advocated a basic but important framework and strategies for having a chance at defeating colonialism across the globe:

“How close we could look into a bright future should two, three or many Vietnams flourish throughout the world with their share of deaths and their immense tragedies, their everyday heroism and their repeated blows against imperialism, impelled to disperse its forces under the sudden attack and the increasing hatred of all peoples of the world! And if we were all capable of uniting to make our blows stronger and infallible and so increase the effectiveness of all kinds of support given to the struggling people — how great and close would that future be!”

Only a committed and firm radical socialist anti-colonial project can empower and inspire the masses to fight together for its collective emancipation. Either we understand that uniting all forces against a common enemy is our only hope and chance for victories against oppression, or we allow corrupt and sellout leaderships and frameworks to divide and ruin the people delivering them into new levels of colonial white supremacist hell in so doing.

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