'Turkey serves interest of sociopaths in Washington'

Turkey's shooting down of a Russian fighter jet near the border between Syria and Turkey serves the interest of “sociopath” war hawks in Washington eager for a conflict with Moscow, an American writer and political analyst says.

The downing of the war plane was a “very dangerous” escalation likely carried out with the authorization of NATO and Washington, said Daniel Patrick Welch, an outspoken critic of US foreign policy.

“It all winds up being in the service of the sociopaths in Washington, who for some crazy reason, are spoiling for a fight with Russia, Welch told Press TV on Tuesday.

He noted that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been “fully in the service” of the US and the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group. "The trouble is that Erdogan has been fully in the service of empire and of ISIS for years. So it's a very, very, very dangerous thing, it's a crazy thing."

On Tuesday, NATO member Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet, claiming the aircraft had repeatedly violated its air space.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the jet had been attacked when it was 1 kilometer inside Syria. He warned of "serious consequences" and called it a “stab in the back” administered by "the accomplices of terrorists."

Despite branding this a clear act of war, Welch thinks Russia's best option is not to retaliate in kind.“I think the best outcome would be a sharp strengthening of the resolve both among the population, who is going to witness Turkmen beating a Russian pilot to death [shooting out of the sky] and by the policy drivers, that there is no partnership with the West."

"There is no one there to talk to, that they will always be stabbed in the back, like Putin said today, and that the drive toward separation, and integration with BRICS, with China, etc, has to be accelerated on all fronts" the analyst said.  

And while it may seem an aggressive act, Welch sees the West as increasingly desperate in the face of Russian and Syrian success on the ground: "They are trying desperately -- they see their regime change operation in Syria going down in flames -- literally. And they are trying desperately to keep the thing going so they can maybe eke out a partial victory. I think it's not going to work."

Russia has been conducting airstrikes on Daesh positions at the request of the Syrian government since September 30.

Russia's airstrikes in Syria mean Russian and NATO planes have been conducting an air campaign in the same air space for the first time since World War II.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since March 2011. The United States and its regional allies - especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - have been supporting the militants operating inside Syria since the beginning of the crisis.

ISIL terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, have taken over swaths of land in Syria and Iraq.

The Takfiri group has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Parris, France earlier this month that allegedly killed 130 people.

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