On Syria: Where the Left is Right and the Right is Wrong

"When the Green Movement started in Iran in June 2009, there was a recalcitrant fraction of the Left (taken in a very generic sense) that went on a rampage against it and denounced the civil rights uprising as a Saudi-US plot to dismantle the Islamic Republic and appease Israel and pave the way for neoliberal imperialism. "I am only for revolutions that make Israel angry," one such sophomoric detractor of the Green Movement famously said at the time. "If Israel is happy with an uprising I am not happy.""