US support for terrorists in Syria, dangerous: Analyst
Tue Jan 22, 2013 8:49AM GMT
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Interview with James Jatras, ex-Senate foreign policy analyst
It [US’ Syria policy] just shows the confusion of ends and means of American policy. I have to agree in part with Mr. Kaplan and disagree in others. It is fair to say we should not have a dog in this fight in Syria but unfortunately we do have a dog in the fight.”
A former US Senate foreign policy analyst says Washington’s support for the Saudi-sponsored Salafi and al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria is “naïve and dangerous.”
The International Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has announced that the so-called Free Syrian Army is just a group of terrorists, stressing that Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are granting money and weapons to the terrorists in Syria. Damascus has repeatedly said that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and that a very large number of the militants operating in the country are foreign nationals. According to a UN report, militants from 29 countries - most of whom are extremist Salafists - have filtered into Syria to fight against the Syrian government.
Press TV has conducted an interview with James Jatras, ex-Senate foreign policy analyst from Washington D.C, to shed more light on the topic of the show. He is joined by two additional guests on Press TV’s The Debate program: Sukant Chandan, political analyst from London and Lee Kaplan, investigative journalist from Berkley. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Mr. Jatras again the question that we raised at the beginning of the show, why does the US and its allies fund and arm terrorist groups like the al-Nusra Front in Syria? At the same time they are fighting groups linked to al-Qaeda in Mali.
Are there good terrorists and bad terrorists in the US foreign policy?
Jatras: I think that a lot of people in Washington, in the foreign policy establishment do operate on that assumption that if we can adopt these causes of militant Islamic groups, particularly Sunni groups, we can somehow blunt their more radical tendencies and we saw this going back to the Afghan war against the Soviet Union, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Libya and now we see it in Syria.
It seems to me that this is a very naive and dangerous policy because what you end up doing is not moderating the appetites of such groups but rather whetting their radical appetites.
And this inevitably results in blowback, we can see what is going on in Algeria and Mali as a blowback from our misguided intervention in Libya, in my opinion, and I think that we could see the same thing in Syria.
We are far from moderating the outcome. If the Assad government loses the power, we will be empowering the radical groups like Jibhat al Nusra and then wondering Oh Gosh! What do we do now hat these maniacs are in power?
Press TV: Mr. Jatras when it comes, again, to what our guest there was mentioning; the threats that the United States says it is facing, our guest there [Lee Kaplan] was saying that Iran’s nuclear program is considered the threat and that the Israeli interests are now under threat.
Let us have your opinion on this. How logical those threats are in your opinion and what kind of action they warrant?
Jatras: Well, that is right and let us bring back the question of Israel and also how it relates to Syria.
It is interesting that while many of Israel’s partisans in the United States are enthusiastic about..., and I agree with the gentleman in Berkeley [Kaplan], we do not have a dog in this fight but there are many people here in Washington who are pro-Israel, who are much more enthusiastic about supporting the rebels in Syria than you hear from people in Israel.
Because I think many people in Israel realize that the Baathist regime in Damascus is hostile to Israel but it has been a relatively quite enemy. The Golan border is among Israel’s quietest borders.
I do not think that is likely to be improved if, for example the Muslim Brotherhood takes power in Damascus. We already see the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood, with American support, has taken power in Egypt, standing behind these powers and the Muslim Brotherhood is the Wahhabist regime and Saudi Arabia, which is the godfather of almost all of these radical Islamic groups and then we have the increasingly hostile to Israel direction of the Erdogan regime in Turkey and so I do not see where the big plus for Israel is for an intervention by NATO to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad government.
Press TV: Mr. Jatras let us have your reactions on this. Our guest in Berkeley did mention Iran’s role in the conflict here, whether you think that you can argue for that and basically also about whether this was, actually, preplanned as a lot of people are saying, against the Resistance Front and Israel?
Jatras: The regime in Damascus has had good relations, for many decades, with Iran. These are not ideological ties primarily. The government in Tehran is an Islamic revolutionary government with the Shiite ideology.
The government in Damascus is a Secular Arab Nationalist regime. Similar, in some respects, to the regime that we overthrew in Baghdad in 2003 and brought into power what? A Shiite pro-Iranian regime. one which is not exactly helpful to the American regional interests and certainly [not] to Israeli interests.
I think that it just shows the confusion of ends and means of American policy. I have to agree in part with Mr. Kaplan and disagree in others. Its fair to say we should not have a dog in this fight in Syria but unfortunately we do have a dog in the fight.
The true proxies, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and the United States, the Obama administration, and I am sad to say that he has been pushing the envelope and insisting that regime change is the only acceptable outcome in Syria and I think if we were to back away from that demand and agree that there should be negotiations with no preconditions, we might have a very different outcome in terms of Damascus’ orientation toward Tehran that has only increased because of the path that the Western powers have taken. I think it is a terrible mistake.
MY/HMV