US support for human rights a cover for intervention in Syria: Analyst

An American political analyst says the US support for anti-Damascus militants, who are involved in a range of atrocities against the Syrian people, contradicts Washington’s proclaimed advocacy for human rights and serves as a cover for its self-interested intervention in the Arab country.

Patrick Lawrence, a US political commentator and foreign affairs journalist, said in an interview with Press TV on Thursday that Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, and the al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which are operating in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, are by no means “moderate” as Americans claim, but rather they are “radical,” and “their intent is to bring down the government in Damascus.”

Lawrence underlined that the Takfiri outfits are “known to be responsible for abductions, violence, torture, disappearances, sexual abuse and all manner of such things.”

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The political analyst also pointed to White Helmets and said the so-called aid group was financially supported by the United States.

“White Helmets has been widely discredited around the world. The group's connections with NATO and Western governments is quite plain. Notably, its funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, which is standing for the CIA,” Lawrence said.

“But the fiction of White Helmets, as a force of good, as a force for humanitarian action, I'm afraid remains rather strong in the United States. So, the US is not going to be taking any steps against it,” he added.

The group is known for its coordination with terror outfits in Syria to carry out staged chemical attacks in order to falsely incriminate Syrian government forces and fabricate pretexts for military strikes by a US-led military coalition present in Syria since 2014.

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Lawrence also said, “As to al-Nusra and HTS, the question of human rights for Washington is very rarely more than a cover for some other kind of self-interested intervention.”

“We need to keep our expectations in line here and recognize that human rights which most of us support without reservation is in the American case very frequently if not most of the time a screen veiling a more self-interested, aggressive form of intervention,” the analyst stressed.

Moreover, the commentator hailed Iran’s advisory presence in Syria, saying, “Iran is present in Syria at the invitation of the Assad government and its support for the Assad government is entirely in a principled humane cause.”

The Arab country has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011.

Idlib remains the only large area in the hands of anti-Damascus militants after government forces managed to undo militant gains across the country and bring back almost all of the Syrian soil under government control.

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www.presstv.co.uk