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US-led coalition in Syria fraying: Commentator

Friday, 01 July 2016 12:44 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 01 July 2016 12:44 PM ]

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (AFP photo)

Press TV has interviewed Daniel Patrick Welch, a political commentator in Boston, to discuss recent remarks by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

A rough transcription of the interview appears below.

Press TV: How do you feel about President Assad speaking so clearly and openly about these double standards and hypocrisy?

Welch: Here is the thing. What it shows is that the US coalition which was always kind of an arm-twisting campaign is fraying a little bit. I think he is doing this on purpose to kind of reveal that the hold of the US on its vassal states is not as solid as it once was and there is a lot of chafing among the so-called allies of the US which really amount to puppets that they have to do the US bidding or they themselves will fall under the same lash and it is almost laughable to see them kind of dealing under the table and behind the back of the US because they are being forced into it and increasingly they do not like it.

Press TV: So I am wondering how much of a judgment is this on the US’ plan when it comes to Syria? Certainly all of these countries see that President Assad is in fact the solution here?

Welch: I think what it shows is just a deepening of the crisis for the US and its imperial goals. They want to overthrow the Assad government, they always have. They made no secret of it.

The Russian air campaign at the behest of their ally, Bashar al-Assad, and the resistance of the Syrian army has made it impossible for the US to go ahead with its own death squad project, and now I think that this shows a cementing of the realization setting in that Assad is not going anywhere, that the Syrian people as he has constantly said, the Syrian people are the only arbiters of who can govern them and increasingly no one is going to listen to the US increasingly rabid demands of something it just cannot control on the ground.

Press TV: Do you think that such divisions within this coalition will now come out in the public?

Welch: That may be a strategy of Bashar al-Assad that is making this public. I think as it is with all the other sanctions, the Russian sanctions and US policy around the globe, you can see splits and fractures kind of increasingly emerging into the public view.

I think that eventually yes, this will become a public spilt and this is why the US is afraid of the Brexit vote, afraid of the fraying of the EU, afraid of its dominance in the overall geopolitical scene as it shifts to Russia and China.

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