If Syrians voted, would they reelect president Assad? Would they vote for the new military rulers?

@sree251 Hmm... There are degrees of it.

I'm a socialist so I'm skeptical of bourgeoise liberal democracy. My point was that there is no liberal democracy tradition in Syria. Not an opinion, just a fact.

@Burnley123 The involvement of Russia is vastly overstated. Russia has not been funnelling billions and billions into Syria to the point of paying the government's salary. The US is literally paying Zelensky's salary and the salaries of basically the entire Rada.

Lol. No. Turkey and the Gulf States have been dumping massive amounts to the so called rebels. The 30 dollars a month versus 1500 was not an exaggeration.



It is not contentious. It is factual. All you need to do is look at a map of the country. Controlling two major cities is not going to hold a country together.

It fell apart because they never controlled more than 20% of the country and each American fiefdom was geographically surrounded by hostile warlords. It was never going to end any differently.



Please. Your own PM was used to threaten Ukraine into fight Russia to the last Ukrainian and threatened them with the same economic ruin imposed on Syria and other countries if they didn't go along with the NATO plan.

It has nothing to do with nationalism outside the far right ultra nationalists.

Ukraine is kidnapping men off the street and forcing them to the front with no training. The US is also trying to pressure them into drafting 18 year olds making sure they have a demographic collapse.


The comparison with Afghanistan was not fair because it was like comparing medieval Europe to a flawed but modern nation state.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Yes, I'm aware that the rebels were funded by outside agencies but they had homemade drones against planes. Two weeks ago, they were guerillas waking out an existence on the perifere of their own country having comprehensively lost the war in 2019. A lost war they kept fighting. A war that had direct Russian military involvement that was decisive in turning the tide.

Russia is too busy in Ukraine to do the same again. When the rebels took Aleppo, there were no people in Syria prepared to fight and die for the Asad cause. His army gave up, he fled the country and the government collapsed. This doesn't happen to a popular regime. Like the US backed govt of Afghanistan. It lost to a military that had inferior numbers and technology and did so in weeks.

Your reading of the Ukraine situation is ridiculous and one-eyed. The Ukraine army is largely made up of volunteers, including Yuliana: who is/was a liberal. They have a far-right element who most Ukrainians see a 'bastards but our bastards.' Russia itself has plenty of far right elements, which is why it's ridiculous for any serious leftist to be uncritical of Putin.

A country of forty million people resists an invasion by a richer country four times it's size with a few far right thugs, pressganged soldiers and British intimidation? 😆 But Ukrainian people are not motivated to resist. It's just American money. Bollocks.

At least tens thousands of Ukrainians have died in this war and they keep fighting against the odds but they don't care about Ukrainian nationalism?

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow odd how polling them does not occur to the West.

@Roundandroundwego The west doesn't care what the people of Syria actually want.