Im aware that he is not a socialist by any means but i watched some interviews of him and he does have some good takes on US imperialism and the Western Hegemony but i also recall hearing that he did some pretty shady stuff but i cant remember any specifics....Im generally supportive of leaders who try to free their countries of the boots of the US even when they're not socialist per se but this Assad guy seems a little off
AFAIK he's a Ba'athist (a type of
non-Marxist socialistMarxist) and a very popular leader, but I don't know much about him personally. I'm sure Marxists have many disagreements with his party's domestic policies, as with any non-ML country, but Syria's anti-imperialist struggle should absolutely be supportedBa'athists were originally Marxists and scientific socialists (they have since grown into "big tents"). They split with the Comintern communists in West Asia due to those parties being weak on French and British Imperialism as well as the early Comintern lines on Israel. They are primarily focused on building socialist states in the region to eventually merge into an Arab Socialist nation. It's a decolonization movement. However, Bashar's father was a revisionist who caused MLs to leave the Ba'ath in Syria. The Iraqi Ba'athists held the original lines up until they were ousted in 2003. Overall they are very watered down on the ML side and more-so focused on the NatLib side of things.
One more thing that made them keep a distance from other Socialist movements was the religion question. Iraq and Syria are very diverse countries and have communities practicing some of the oldest religions in the world. They were secular but did not have an anti-religious line and in fact believed religions in the region could play a revolutionary role against colonialism.
you're right, I vaguely remember reading that somewhere
Do you have any quick resources to read more on Ba'athism for people who don't know much about current day MENA? I was interested on learning about it a while back, but NATOpedia was not helpful and doing full research looks a bit daunting.
Iraqi Ba'athists self crit of their first 5 years in power: https://www.marxists.org/history/iraq/baath/index.htm
It's a good outline of their views and their description of the region and country's role.
Ba'ath you mean? I didnt know that, the only politician i know who followed this was Saddam Hussein
yes, a Ba'athist is someone who practices Ba'athism, and Hussein was part of the Iraqi Ba'ath party
I think Egypt, Libya, Iraq and Syria had the same motivation, kill out the monarchy and establish a kind of welfare state but without a proper ideology it went into mayhem after Nasser's death. (USSR saved Nasser though). Syria's misfortune began during Arab Spring when liberals wanted a western style democracy and sought help for ISIS but the radicals took over and the rest is history. Iraq had a complicated relationship with USSR and west. US funded Saddam hussein to gas Iranians because US feared the Islamic clergy who were die hard enemies of Saudi house and Muslim Brotherhood. I think you should know Syria and Iran are like relatives. Assad is an alwyite muslim and have strong relations with Iran.