'US policy in Syria backfires in wake of Russian assault on Daesh'

The US policy in Syria has backfired in the wake of the Russian air campaign against Daesh (ISIL) terrorists wreaking havoc in the Arab country, an American political pundit says.

Dennis Etler, a professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Friday, after the United States said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fate will be decided in international talks in the coming weeks.

Professor Etler said the United States “is coming face to face with its failed policies in the Middle East. In Syria the US is backtracking and attempting to make the best of a bad situation and take credit where no credit is due”.

“US State Department spokesman John Kirby has told reporters that the role of President Bashar al-Assad will be negotiated, a clear retreat from the previous position that Assad had to go prior to the formation of a transitional government, and US Secretary of State John Kerry, trying to take credit for Russia's decimation of ISIS, arrogantly stated that the US was about to neutralize it,” he added.

“First, two important facts must be established. One is that the US is not interested in ‘democracy,’ ‘the will of the Syrian people,’ or ‘human rights.’

“The US has a history of supporting fascist dictatorships, military juntas, and feudal monarchies and its practice of engaging in regime change and outright aggression against sovereign nations belies any attempt to cast its foreign policy in terms other than ‘realpolitik.’

“Second, the US is not concerned with the ideological orientation of the nations it seeks to undermine. It is only concerned with maintaining its position of world domination and hegemony.

“The contention with the Soviet Union was not about its communist ideology but the geopolitical challenge that the Soviet bloc posed to the US after WW2. Today Russia is no longer a communist state, but a democratic Christian nation, yet the US continues to cast it in the same light as it did when the Soviet Union existed.

 “All talk about ‘Western values,’ ‘freedom,’ and ‘democracy,’ is a propagandistic smokescreen to hide the true face of American imperialism and barbarity.

“The US is not interested in the fate of the Syrian people, or the Iraqi people, or people anywhere in the world. It is only interested in maintaining its dominant position across the globe.

“Its insistence on ousting Bashar al-Assad as president of Syria has nothing to do with the supposed lack of legitimacy of his government or alleged human rights violations.

“Assad was welcome in the corridors of power until the opportunity arose to replace him with willing dupes of the US. It was then that the US and its allies in the Middle East, primarily Saudi Arabia and Israel, decided the time was ripe to support a prefabricated opposition that could serve as a front for regime change.

“As elsewhere, terrorist storm-troopers, were trained, equipped and funded to lead the assault. This scenario has been played out time and time again with death squads and drug cartels in Latin America and fascistic brown-shirts in Europe and elsewhere. The Takfiri terrorists in the Muslim world fit the same mold.

“But the forces unleashed by the cynical policies of US imperialism have spun out of control and now threaten the US and its allies in NATO with an unprecedented wave of refugees and terrorist massacres.

“The opportunistic attempt by the US to use terrorists to implement its policy of regime change and destabilization has led to a punitive response by Russia and other forces opposed to the US policy of aggression and mayhem.

“The effective actions of Russia which at the behest of the Syrian government, is decimating ISIS has forced the US to try and save face, as it becomes clear to all concerned that its war against [Daesh] has been furtive with one hand tied behind its back.

“The days of US unilateralism are over. The US empire has been shorn of its clothes and its naked aggression and duplicity has been exposed for all to see.”

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