Press TV has interviewed Daniel Patrick Welch, a political commentator in Boston, about France confirming that the suspected Belgian mastermind of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris has been identified among the dead in Wednesday’s police swoop in Saint-Denis commune.
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: The French interior minister says ‘We got him.’ Does it really make a difference at this point considering all the warning signs, even President Assad warning Europe that this very day would come, were ignored?
Welch: No, it does not make any difference. The West loves to gloat about these single .., like the strike on Jihadi John when the real, the big picture is what is at stake here. The big picture is the West is playing footsie with all these terrorist organizations for years, using them as its proxy army to overthrow governments they do not like. You can see the big picture.
Look at, you have heard of … news, whatever it is - there cannot be any solution in Syria until Bashar al-Assad is gone. Who gives Barack Obama the right to dictate something like that? It is crazy and it is arrogant and that is the cause of the crisis that we are seeing, not even ISIS (Daesh) particularly.
Press TV: It is interesting, isn’t it though that President Assad from day one even Russia and even Iran in fact and many of these other countries have warned Europe of this very day and they have not listened. Do you think we will see any sort of policy changes now?
Welch: No. I mean not until they are forced to change their view by a credible military deterrent. There is not any other way to force the West to abandon its genocidal regime change policies that it has been pursuing forever. You do see a little bit of wiggle room now the French and the Italians are both saying that they are going to cooperate with Russia, which means with the Syrian government, which is of course the only way that you can have any effect on the ground in Syria.
If that is true, then it represents a move away from this dogmatic and maniacal US diktat of funding the terrorists and fighting them at the same time which is just a kind of a head exploding non-secretory.
Press TV: And I imagine the US is not very happy about France saying that likes of Russia is sincere in its fight against Daesh and that is why France will now take part in the fight against Daesh with Russia?
Welch: Right. Well, they are not happy about anything at the moment because they are seeing Russia being completely serious about it. I mean look, I can post something on Facebook that they do not like and they can have a SWAT team at my front door, bashing in the windows within 12 hours, but ISIS can have a Twitter account and these long lines of shiny white Toyotas or tanker trucks of oil that President Putin showed to everybody on the sidelines of the G20 Summit and they cannot seem to find them.
The question is who is serious about it and whose lives matter? We had the State Department spokesman saying that now they no longer accept that this was a bomb on the Sinai plane after having shouted it before the Russians completed their investigation.
So they want to control the narrative. They want to use terrorism for their own end and not end it and not curb it. They want to use it as their kind of little puppet which is disgusting and sad.