While I agree we must not forget that rebels undermined their own revolutionary project through their exclusionary rhetoric and ideology, I wonder if you've failed to treat the fence-sitters to the war with the same critical rigor. Alienation is a two-way street, and bourgeois indifference over the government's ferocious crackdown in the early period no doubt fueled the rebel's retreat into extremism.
You've accused the Syrian rebels of adopting Sunni theocratic values as though they weren't pushed into them by the government-sponsored massacres in Daraya, Banias, Bayda, Houla, Jabl al-Zawyeh, etc, which all featured sectarian undertones. You've also elided the sectarianization of the country's patronage networks throughout the Assad years, and the preferential treatment shown to predominantly-minority centers in the early years of the war.
About the West/East Aleppo division, of course a secular society is going to resist fundamentalist rule, but the city's bourgeoisie is as guilty of alienating the revolutionary classes as the rebels are guilty of alienating the bourgeoisie. Going back to the first year of the war, where were the urban capitalist classes (disproportionately minorities, and disproportionately concentrated in Aleppo and Damascus) when the government suppressed the demonstrations in Homs, Hama, and the Syrian countryside? There's no such thing as a sideline in domestic politics - much less a revolution.
As for the Viet Cong comparison, they had Chinese and Soviet support. It helps to have a superpower to back you.
While I agree we must not forget that rebels undermined their own revolutionary project through their exclusionary rhetoric and ideology, I wonder if you've failed to treat the fence-sitters to the war with the same critical rigor. Alienation is a two-way street, and bourgeois indifference over the government's ferocious crackdown in the early period no doubt fueled the rebel's retreat into extremism.
You've accused the Syrian rebels of adopting Sunni theocratic values as though they weren't pushed into them by the government-sponsored massacres in Daraya, Banias, Bayda, Houla, Jabl al-Zawyeh, etc, which all featured sectarian undertones. You've also elided the sectarianization of the country's patronage networks throughout the Assad years, and the preferential treatment shown to predominantly-minority centers in the early years of the war.
About the West/East Aleppo division, of course a secular society is going to resist fundamentalist rule, but the city's bourgeoisie is as guilty of alienating the revolutionary classes as the rebels are guilty of alienating the bourgeoisie. Going back to the first year of the war, where were the urban capitalist classes (disproportionately minorities, and disproportionately concentrated in Aleppo and Damascus) when the government suppressed the demonstrations in Homs, Hama, and the Syrian countryside? There's no such thing as a sideline in domestic politics - much less a revolution.
As for the Viet Cong comparison, they had Chinese and Soviet support. It helps to have a superpower to back you.