I really must comment on Hannu Reime's letter (May 20). He concedes that the intervention of Iran and Russia in 2015 saved Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, and that the USA was so “interested” that it “gave arms and material support to the rebels, some of it through Saudi Arabia”, while “Turkey and Qatar also aided anti-Assadists”.
He then goes on to assure us that good old Uncle Sam is not such a bad guy after all, because the US had not “actively sought to overthrow Assad” and “Syria has been torn apart by geopolitical gangster wars”. Well done for that gangster theory of the global class struggle. Never mind analysing US imperialism as the global hegemonic power, with its transnational corporations and Wall Street financiers - there are other gangsters just as bad if not worse actively fighting in Syria. This is simply Judaeo-Christian moralism and certainly not a Marxist approach at all.
Gerry Downing