The war on Syria began in 2011 as a proxy war to overthrow the independent government of Bashar Al-Assad. This war intensified after the destabilization of Libya in March of that year. Tireless and heroic struggle on the part of the Syrian people has prevented the imperialist alliance consisting of the US, EU,�the Gulf Monarchies, and Israel from repeating a Libya scenario in Syria. In March of 2016, a ceasefire was agreed upon by the US and Russia. Russia pulled out its military forces and respected the terms of the agreement. The US on the other hand, continued to wage war on Syria.

On April 25th, the Obama Administration announced that it would send 250 more Special Forcesto Syria to purportedly "fight ISIS." This move represents a break from Obama's campaign promise to wind down Bush-era wars in the Middle East. Earlier this year, President Obama announced that the US would keep combat troops in Afghanistan until further notice. Now, with the peace process in Syria mired in crisis, Obama has moved another step closer to building the foundation for a ground war in Syria. Such a war would hopefully�produce the results the US and its allies have wanted all along: the fracturing and disintegration of the Syrian state.

However, an "official" ground war would anger the vast majority of people in the US. In August of 2013, the Obama Administration contemplated direct military invasion of Syria under the pretext the Syrian government released chemical weapons on its own people. The claims were proven falseand the Obama Administration was forced to retract its wildly unpopular plans. Not too long into 2014, ISIS became�the new "boogeyman" of the region. Ever since, the imperialist alliance has waged a proxy war in Syria and labeled it a "coalition" effort to eradicate terrorism from the region.

Imperialism's coalition has conducted operations�with�the same objective of overthrowing Syria, just by different means. Russia responded to�imperialism's ISIS bluff in 2015 by waging�a successful campaign that nearly eradicated ISIS�in Syria. The operation's impact has sent shock�waves�throughout the imperialist alliance. Turkey has provoked Russia numerous times over the course of the last year. Yet no matter what the imperialist alliance has done, the Syrian Army has advanced on terrorist strongholds throughout the country. This has led the�US and its imperial allies to reconfigure their�Syria strategy.

Obama's deployment of Special Forces to�Syria reveals the deep and intractable crisis of imperialism. Imperialism has trapped itself in the contradictions of its�nearly four-decade long project of supporting jihadist proxies to achieve the system's objectives in the resource-rich Middle East. On the one hand, imperialism cannot eliminate these forces because�they are the only ones�that share�the common goal of destabilizing the�region.�On the other, the jihadists have proven themselves to be disloyal foot soldiers to their paymasters. ISIS,�despite being supplied arms by the Saudi Monarchy,�has long declared that the�war it is waging to establish a caliphate includes the destruction of its Saudi paymasters.

However, imperialism's primary concern in Syria has always been expansion of market share for the multinational corporations that dictate the policies of nation-states. The imperialist countries�funded and backed jihadist proxies to invade Syria and�thwart independent development in the Middle East and North Africa region. Just as the NATO invasion of Libya was spurred by gold and oil interests, so too was the war on Syria spurred by the threat of developments such as a Syria-Iraq-Iran pipeline. In the same vein, Syria is a key strategic partner with the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation and the Peoples Republic of China's are currently the only two nations in the world that can provide economic and military assistance to countries outside of the orbit of the imperialist countries. Russia�s plan to form a Eurasian Union and China�s project to build a �New Silk Road� that spans across the Middle East and into Europe are threats to US imperial hegemony. Such policy designs could hasten the demise of imperialism by giving oppressed countries an alternative to the exploitative relationships of dependency fostered by the Western market.

Because Russia and China remain the prime targets�of the imperial war machine,�Syria will be wrought with crisis for the foreseeable future. The Obama Administration's deployment of more special forces to Syria falls in line with the Pentagon's plan to increase funding for "moderate rebels" in the so-called�fight againstISIS. Yet the roots of this war have nothing to do with ISIS. The term �moderate rebels� has been a convenient tool used to obfuscate the true character of the foreign-sponsored war on Syria. ISIS is merely the strategic tool in the larger plan to destabilize the region and bring all countries in opposition to imperialism into submission. The sooner people that people�in the US and the West realize this, the greater chance Syria and the rest of the world has in defeating the Empire's ambitions.

This article was written by Danny Haiphong for American Herald Tribune on May 3, 2016. Danny Haiphong is a activist and radical journalist in the Boston Area.