US lip service to Syria truce political ploy: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with James Jatras, a former US Senate foreign policy analyst, about top US officials saying Russians bear responsibility for an airstrike that destroyed a UN humanitarian aid convoy near the northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo.

Here is a rough transcription of the interview:

Press TV: The footage released by Russia is going to cast some serious doubt on claims being made by the White House. How do you think this is going to play out?

Jatras: It might cast some serious doubts for anybody who is carefully weighing the evidence and trying to figure out what actually happened. Unfortunately that is not what goes on in these circumstances.

This is a pattern we have seen before. We saw in Ghouta in 2013; we saw with [an] Aleppo boy a few weeks ago. Obviously in Aleppo when something happens, immediately within minutes if not hours, Western officials are making accusations as to who is responsible based on partial or even in some cases zero evidence. That runs all the way around the world where all the mainstream media pick it up and give it saturation coverage and then when people start to pick through and say what actually happened here, you won’t see anything like that coverage to cast doubt on the first story in the major media that carried it in the first place.

Press TV: The Russian side is saying that the US is putting the blame on Moscow or Syria for the attack on this aid convoy to distract from what the US did; that is, killing the Syrian army soldiers in Syria. Do you see it that way too?

Jatras: If this convoy was in fact hit by some of the anti-government terrorists, again it is kind of a false flag to blame on the Russians or the Syrians. That could very well be the case.

As they say, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its running shoes. Again I do not know what happened. I do not have the evidence in front of me. But if it turns out that the Russians or the Syrians were not responsible for this, maybe the foreign media will carry this and maybe they will reevaluate what the initial accusations were. But I can guarantee virtually nothing will appear on the American media which take the marching orders from the government.

Press TV: We did hear US President Barack Obama in his UN address raising the hope of coming to the negotiating table once again to reach a political solution. Do you believe the US is a willing partner?

Jatras: We have to keep in mind what Mr. Obama means when he talks about a political solution. By hook or by crook, it means somehow coercing the Russians into agreeing that ‘Assad must go’. That is what he means by a political solution and even though he may have muted that in public, that objective has not changed in the Obama administration.

Press TV: Would you say the recent events that have unfolded in Syria would become the whole mark of Obama’s legacy as he leaves office?

Jatras: I think he is trying to keep it at a simmer until Hillary [Clinton] can get in and bring the United States in a more forceful way into the war. I do not think there is much he expects to do with this much longer. I think there are some differences of opinion within the government but the real concern in Washington is that if east Aleppo is liberated by Syrian forces strategically, then it makes a huge difference in this war and they want to keep that from happening.

I think lip service to the ceasefire is essentially a political ploy to blame the Russians and the Syrians for the collapse of the ceasefire and somehow to keep the Jihadist forces alive.

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