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West seeking to cripple Syrian defense power: Academic

Wednesday, 01 March 2017 5:26 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 01 March 2017 7:13 PM ]

Syrian government soldiers gesture as they walk down the road in the '3000' apartment block area, in al-Hamdaniyah, in eastern Aleppo on November 4, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

The United States and its allies are well aware of the fact that the allegations over the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government forces is unfounded; however, they want to weaken the defense might of the Arab state, says Daniel Shaw, a professor at the City University of New York.

On Tuesday, the United States, Britain and France put forward a draft resolution to blacklist Syrian military commanders and ban the supply of helicopters to Damascus over the alleged chemical attacks in Aleppo back in 2014 and 2015.

“These sanctions are just another effort to cripple Damascus’ ability to defend itself,” Shaw told Press TV on Wednesday.

The United Nations Security Council votes on a resolution to ban the supply of helicopters to the Syrian government and to blacklist Syrian military commanders over alleged chemical attacks at UN headquarters in New York City, US, February 28, 2017. (Photo by Reuters)

He also noted, “They are using sanctions despite a lot of evidence to the contrary that actually it was the terrorist forces supported by the US and in fact used chemical weapons against Damascus.”

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons and accused Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey of supplying foreign-backed militants with banned arms and ammunition.

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The academic added, “This is an ongoing attempt by the West to have regime change in Damascus” to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian state.

Pushing for imposing new sanctions on Syria is an “ongoing war that started under [former US president] Barack Obama and continues under [President Donald] Trump, " he noted.

“They (the US administrations) have used covert financing of terrorist forces – al-Nusra, al-Qaeda and ISIS (Daesh)" - to put forward their regime change policy in Syria, he concluded.

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