By Reece Lawton
There are some ‘leftists’ that proclaim support for Al-Assad, claiming that he is better than the Islamic extremists that appear to dominate the rebels.
These extremists, in reality, actually make up a minority among the rebels. Assad supporters like to act as if the rebels are a homogenous mass, all with the same views, reasons for fighting, etcetera, but this is no where near the truth. Yes, US aid mainly focuses on the Islamists, which will come back to haunt them- history repeats itself, this is a similar situation to arming the mujahideen to fight the soviets. Also, the non-lethal aid line that te west are taking is a sham. When you have an armoured vehicle, a Saudi arms dealer and a couple of screws later and you already have a massive advantage compared to Assads cannon fodder.
These people are fighting against Assad’s dictatorship, for their freedom from tyranny, but it will most likely end up as swapping Assad for the US, and becoming another US puppet state, similar to what happened in operation Ajax in Iran.
The only way for these people to truly set themselves on the road to freedom is socialism. At this current point, the rebels want to swap a bourgeois dictator for a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie; the proletariat must take power and rule for itself, brutally crushing all Islamic, capitalist and other reactionaries. This is what I am hoping for worldwide, but it seems unlikely to even take root in one country for the foreseeable future.
ACA The Underground 
Iran had a revolution, an Islamic revolution, and look what happened to that, freedom (especially for women) was the first thing to go.
Personally I can see that post Assad the creation of a Syrian Islamic Republic is on the cards. I don’t feel that the left needs to choose sides particularly, we should be criticising both and offering up a real alternative to make the lives of everyone better based on genuine equality and freedom for its citizens; Socialism.