US to sabotage any peace talks on Syria: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed James Jatras, a former US Senate foreign policy analyst in Washington, to discuss the remarks made by US Vice President Joe Biden announcing America’s readiness for military intervention in Syria in case there is no ‘political solution’ there.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What is your take on what the US vice president has said basically when he is talking about getting involved militarily now in Syria?

Jatras: What the vice president has said is very disturbing though unfortunately not very surprising. It shows that the Obama administration talks Daesh, Daesh, Daesh but what they are really still focused on is regime change. ‘Assad must go’, they may have muted that rhetorically for the time being but it is clear that Washington along with Ankara and Riyadh are prepared to sabotage any peace negotiations unless they result in regime change.

When he talks about military intervention, they may pretend they were talking about Daesh but really what we are talking about is against the legitimate Syrian government and it is also disturbing that the Republican leadership in Congress appears ready to pass a very broad, basically blank check authorization for the use of military force supposedly against Daesh.

In that regard, I think we also have to look after the possibility of a provocation of [what] we saw in Ghouta in 2013 that will justify launching a military campaign.  

Press TV: So where do you see this going? Of course this is before the so-called peace talks trying to reach some type of agreement. Do you think that the United States is sending out this threat, letting the parties know that still if they do not agree to President Bashar al-Assad stepping down, that they are going to totally up the ante no matter the price?

Jatras: Unfortunately I think that is exactly what it says. I think it also shows that he was saying this of course with Mr. Davutoglu and of course he and Mr. Erdogan’s terrorist regime support Daesh that the United States is also preparing to betray the Kurds who have been among our closest partners and among the most effective fighters against Daesh.

So I think this is wrong-headed from any number of other directions and the only solution I can see is that the Syrian army and the Russian air force and their other partners - Iran, Iraq - have to step up their efforts to close the Turkish border with Syria to Daesh transit in and out of the country and unfortunately a military solution may be the only solution here.

Press TV: What does it seem like the US foreign policy just continues to spiral more and more out of control?

Jatras: Because both parties in Washington - the Democrats and the Republicans - simply did not understand a national interest based foreign policy. They are such captives of foreign lobbies, in this case Saudi Arabia and to a large extent Turkey, that they simply take the agendas of these so-called partners as what America’s agenda should be and they really do not consciously  understand that the United States has independent interests that do not follow this trajectory.

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