Stephen Lendman

Rogue states wanting Assad ousted and Syrian sovereignty destroyed include America, NATO, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and their allies - partners in high crimes against peace.

Interviewed by Belarus’ ONT News Agency, Assad blasted foreign regimes supporting ISIS and other terrorist groups in Syria - all with a common thread, he said, representing “extremist Wahhabi ideology.”

“And all of them are instruments in the hands of the United States” - Obama and now Trump waging war on his country.

“…Western Europe doesn’t practically exist on the political map. Europe implements what America wants, without any objection.”

“All of these groups operate under the American leadership. So, whether we say that they are foreign powers, ISIS and al-Nusra, or others, the director and financier is the same.”

“They are all one group but with different names and different tactics” - with the same objective in mind: destroying sovereign Syria, replacing secular governance with Wahhabi extremism.

ISIS, al-Nusra and Erdogan represent the same extremist “terrorist doctrine. (W)e cannot separate these groups,” he said.

They’re all the same, along with their rogue foreign backers, allied against Syrian sovereignty, wanting tyranny replacing it.

Washington, NATO and their allies sponsor terrorism, using it as an instrument for dominance, wanting sovereign states turned into vassals - “controlling everything they have materially and morally,” enslaving their people, Assad explained.

He called US-led Western colonialism “the new Nazism,” vital to keep from achieving its aims.

“The West is used to a group of lackey officials who ingratiate themselves with it for their personal interests. When it comes to the real state of patriotism, as in the deep and accumulative social concepts in this region, Western officials do not understand this at all. That’s why they failed,” Assad stressed.

He called conflict resolution talks in Geneva a process for “pushing us toward making (unacceptable) concessions,” harmful to ordinary Syrians.

In Astana, Kazakhstan, talks are with “armed terrorists” hostile to Syrian interests - Turkey acting as “the terrorists’ guarantor…Russia and Iran…the guarantors of the legitimate Syrian state.”

De-escalation zones are a way to stop bloodshed if they work, a Russian initiative supported by Iran with dubious Ankara backing.

Will backers of terrorists send them more weapons, undermining conflict resolution efforts like earlier, Assad asked?

“This is very likely as this is what happened before,” he explained. Syrian, Russian and Hezbollah forces, with Iranian support “will strike any move on the part of the terrorists if they attempt to violate (the de-escalation) agreement,” he added.

He remains hopeful for conflict resolution one day so he can focus on rebuilding his war-torn country - an enormous eventual task, requiring years and tens of billions of dollars to restore what Washington and its rogue allies destroyed.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at http://www.sjlendman.blogspot.com.