US principal objective is to oust Assad, not eliminate ISIL: Analyst

An American political analyst in Virginia says defeating Daesh (ISIL) is not a US policy priority and the United States has instead focused on overthrowing the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“It has to be understood that the principle objective that the United States has in Syria and Iraq is not the defeat of ISIS [or ISIL], that at best is the secondary concern. The principal concern that the United States has is the overthrow of the government of President Assad in Syria,” said Keith Preston, the chief editor and director of AttacktheSystem.com.

“In fact, President Obama recently made a statement to that effect. President Obama was criticizing Russia, saying President Putin’s strategy has been primarily to defeat ISIS and to do so by protecting the government of President Assad which is the primary bulwark against ISIS,” he told Press TV on Sunday.

“If the government of President Assad falls in Syria, then ISIS will most likely come to dominate the entire nation. So the best way to defeat ISIS is to maintain the regime of President Assad, perhaps bolstered by the presence of foreign assistance which is the kind of assistance that the Russians are currently providing,” he added.

On Sunday, former CIA Director Jack Devine said that the United States has been very ineffective when it comes to combating terrorist groups like Daesh (ISIL) in the Middle East.

“You have a group in ISIS today that is frankly uncivilized. These folks could get stronger and stronger. We basically have to destroy ISIS over there,” Devine said, adding that “if there’s blame to be put, it’s on our failure to have done that by this point.”

Preston said “Jack Devine is correct… but he doesn’t really go into details concerning why that is the case.”

“President Obama has actually criticized the Russians for their efforts to protect the regime of President Assad, which is the principal barrier to the expansion of ISIS, and the reason for that is that the overthrow of the regime of President Assad is the United States’ primary objective in the Middle East, or at least in the Levant region at present,” the analyst said.

“The United States has always regarded independent regimes that are in opposition to Washington in the Middle East as a far greater threat than these on the ground terrorist organizations like Daesh, or like al-Qaeda and so forth,” he stated.

“The effect of American foreign policy in the Middle East is to dismantle regimes that are in fact bulwark against these kinds of terrorist and insurgent organizations,” Preston noted.

ISIL terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control parts of Syria and Iraq. They have been engaged in crimes against humanity in the areas under their control.

Observers say while the US and its allies claim they are fighting against terrorist groups like ISIL, they in fact helped create and train those organizations to affect their policies in the Middle East.

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