Okay, spicy take warning, I will only respond to folks who engage in good faith:

I preface this by saying that I've been writing on Syria for awhile; wrote a 200+ undergraduate thesis discussing the various nations/ethnic groups and I'm writing an MA thesis now on AANES.

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2. The common anti-imperialist position on Syria is to support the Syrian Government against separatist movements or plans that would balkanize it.

3. What these well-meaning-and-I-presume-to-be-principled people (often settlers) miss is that Syria is a colonial project open to the contingency of history. It was part of the Ottoman empire and created out of its dissolution as part of a French mandate over Lebanon & Syria.

4. Joined Egypt to form the UAR in 1958 and gained independence in 1971. However, there were always stateless nations within this broader colonial formation.

The question then is, what is the principled position on the national question for indigenous peoples?

5. Let me repeat: The question then is, what is the principled position on the national question for indigenous peoples?

Do they have the right to self-determination? In the U.S., I think most folks would say the goal isn’t a 'USSA' but rather land back for indigenous nations.

6. Why not the same for Kurds, Armenians, and other ethnic groups, if that is their wishes?

Obviously it's important to distinguish whether this push for self-determination is genuine among the masses or just a color revolution. Lenin's "critical remarks on the nat'l question"

7. is instructive here:

"the Marxist fully recognizes the historical legitimacy of national movements. But to prevent this recognition from becoming an apologia of nationalism, it must be strictly limited to what is progressive in such movements..."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/crnq/4.htm

8. It is one thing to say that a United Syria or other regional federation would serve as a stronger bulwark against imp aggression; another to reify Syria as a primordial entity, & claim that the Kurds particularly, are ripping apart a nation-state that they were forced into

9. and by-and-large had no rights in (see decree no. 93 & its afterlives).

I return to Ho Chi Minh,

“If you do not condemn colonialism, if you do not side with the colonial people, what kind of revolution are you waging?”

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/ho-chi-minh/works/1960/04/x01.htm

10. Let me preemptively add: the 20+ peace talks from Sochi to Cairo, to Astana, to Istanbul, to Geneva under UN resolution 2254 has been a shame. It shouldn't be for the "international community" to decide Syria's future but for Syrians.

11. but to automatically uphold the Assad government as some sort of anti-imperial bulwark is ignorant at best.

Okay, I think that's all I needed to get off my chest on my day off, send tweets

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