Sat Oct 10, 2015 4:3PM
Press TV has interviewed Sara Flounders, member of the International Action Center in New York, to discuss Russia’s airstrikes against the positions of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Syria.
What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: There you heard Ashton Carter saying the Russian strategy in Syria is fundamentally flawed. What do you say to that statement?
Flounders: I think the whole world knows that the US strategy is fundamentally flawed. It really was an effort to totally destroy Syria as a sovereign nation; break it into pieces; absolutely destroy; that is the very nature of regime change; reduce Syria to what they have done to Libya, what they have done to Iraq. That was the US plan, and that has been set back by the Russian assistance to Syria today, and Syria as a government, as a sovereign state, has every right to ask other countries and other forces for assistance as they have both with Iran, with forces in Hezbollah and now with Russian forces.
They really are in a struggle to preserve Syria as a unified state, as a state where all people, religious groups, nationalities have full rights and an effort to stop a terrorist overturn and that overturn was being orchestrated very clearly by the US. So this strategy is suffering right now - this US strategy - a very serious setback and it is the US who orchestrated and brought in terrorist forces, did so through Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, through Israel itself.
Press TV: Certainly the US and other Western countries are playing with fire here, aren’t they, because this Daesh terror group, many Westerners have joined it as US’ own counter-terrorism chief has admitted so. I am wondering Russia, essentially, is doing what the West should be doing, so why is the West not supporting Russia in this effort?
Flounders: The real frustration and anger coming from the US is that they were using this struggle against ISIS or Daesh, ISIL - as it is so often called here in the US and in the West - as a pretext for their intervention and for their bombing raids, which have gone on for more than a year and surprisingly have barely scratched ISIL or Daesh forces. And this intervention at the same time there was a frantic effort to find and to organize what they call moderate forces. These moderate forces were again and again both set back or turned their weapons directly over to al-Nusra and other terrorist groups within Syria.
So the US strategy is being pushed back, and they have no basis, really, and this is their biggest problem for cooperation with Russia, because their objectives are diametrically opposed. The real US objective is to overturn the government in Syria and to set up a group of collaborators who are completely beholden to them and they are not succeeding in this. Syria has really resisted in the most incredible way now for four years, and that in itself is quite an important accomplishment.
Press TV: I am wondering many people are saying that at some point there may be a standoff between Russia and the US over the skies over Syria or even Iraq. Do you think that is likely to happen?
Flounders: It is an enormous danger, and we should not forget for a minute just how high the stakes are going when you have both NATO, which has NATO-US bases in Turkey, and at the same time you have the Russian assistance of the Syrian government. This is very, very dangerous and now there is also a call for an escalation of US and NATO forces in the region.
So it is extremely dangerous and the only possibility is for an end to US intervention, US efforts to overturn the government of Syria. That is the only basis for a real peace agreement and all the forces really here in the US and Europe have to join in the demand of that to end this outside effort at regime change.
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