Those of us who concern ourselves with the Syrian revolutionary war will be more than familiar with the old line, almost solely repeated by leftists and ham anti-imperialists, that they simply just can’t support the Syrian rebels because they’re ‘supported by imperialism’ or, in its even more crude and directly antagonistic form, that they’re ‘proxies of imperialism’ or stooges of forces that they’ve deemed to be be in the wrong ‘camp’, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.  The logic of this is inherently irrational and/or downright perfidious.

Firstly, it’s usually wielded not as any kind of genuinely analytical point, but rather merely as a means to deny support for and even just interest in the Syrian rebels and the revolution in general.  It’s a position shaped by counter-revolution, eurocentrism and isolationism rather than any form of progressivism.  In different circumstances, this intercedes with sectarianism, different forms of chauvinisms and…