NM's blog

“At a cost of over  11,000 dead fighters  and uncounted civilians, the predominantly Kurdish SDF defeated ISIS and prevented its re-emergence as a worldwide threat. Yet despite this incalculable service, the SDF and its homeland in northeast Syria came under assault by former ISIS fighters, effectively abandoned by its US ally . “A decade after  partnering with the US  and following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the Kurdish sacrifices in hopes of regional self-determination feel painfully distant.”

“Had he [Öcalan] betrayed the Kurds? Could the self-dissolution of the PKK be understood as anything other than a total capitulation? What factors prompted the decision? ”

“[S]ectors of the populist or neo-Stalinist Left lament the fall of the Assad dictatorship . They present it — along with the rest of the “Axis of Resistance” led by the reactionary Iranian regime — as a progressive and anti-imperialist alternative. Some argue that the enemies of our enemy should be our allies, because they challenge ‘Western hegemony’. This completely ignores the class character of these powers. Rather than supporting the Palestinian cause or that of other oppressed people, these forces seek to oppose the reordering of the region for the further benefit of Israel and the United States because that would push them to the margins; at the same time they reconcile themselves with the pro-imperialist monarchies of the Gulf.”

Growing utopian crack

 “We refuse to recognise the hostile verdict against Leyla Güven”

 The Unintended Consequences of Turkey’s Quest for Oil