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13 Feb, 2012 19:15

Arab League is ‘under Western petrodollar influence’

The Arab League is lobbying for a UN peacekeeping initiative in Syria. Tony Gosling, an investigative journalist, says the organization is heavily influenced by the West, which is moving towards conflict.

“The Arab League now has become simply a tool of the West, because the most powerful countries in there are very much under the Western petrodollar influence,” Gosling explained, adding that the body no longer represents the interests of Arab people.Meanwhile, the journalist asserts that Western policy is divided into the official and unofficial whereby, officially, the Western countries seek negotiations but, unofficially, carry out “constant cover attacks against the Assad regime.”Gosling says the current crisis looks “as if NATO are trying to just simply replay the script they wrote for the Libyan uprising.”The journalist says NATO have been “ruthless” in manipulating the rebels in order to get them to fight the Assad regime.“Many of the rebel fighters in Syria are playing into the hands of NATO,” he added.Gosling strongly warns that intervention in Syria will bring drastic consequences. “Assad has made it crystal clear if there is an intervention in Syria he will then attack Israel. If this does happen it may even cause a nuclear exchange in the Middle East, which could be the first shots of a third world war.”The only way to save Syria, the journalist says, is through negotiated settlement, “but the actions of the West are, unfortunately, heading for more conflict.”

‘USA and Al-Qaeda are often on the same side’

Neil Clark, a UK-based journalist and contributor to the Guardian, expressed the belief that the Arab League’s latest actions are largely driven by Saudi Arabia’s anti-Syrian stance. “I think the Arab League aren’t honest brokers,” he told RT. “Saudi Arabia is playing a very key role here. Saudi Arabia is opposed to the Assad regime and so I don’t think Syrians feel confident that the Arab League can actually propose a solution to this”.He also said the organization’s latest statements were inconsistent with the conclusions of the report it had published in January. “We had the Arab League report which was sort of buried and the Arab League report did blame both sides for the violence,” he noted “Yet the Arab League itself is saying that they will support the opposition with all possible forms of assistance. And so on one hand their trying to be honest brokers, and yet on the other hand they’re not. And the facts are the opposite”. He went on to say that the US and Al-Qaeda find themselves on the same side of the barricades in the Syrian conflict as they largely pursue the same geopolitical strategy of toppling secular regimes in the region.“It’s a great myth to think that the USA and the sort of radical Islamic terrorists of Al-Qaeda are opposed to each other in terms of geopolitical strategy,” he remarked “In many ways they share an agenda here and the US’s great enemy here is to have secular states. And if we look back at the number of secular regimes the US has undermined, destabilized or toppled: Afghanistan in the 1970s and 80s, of course we’ve had Libya, Yugoslavia again. And so it’s a great myth to think that the US and Al-Qaeda will always be on the opposite side. They’re often on the same side”.Neil Clark, a UK-based journalist and contributor to the Guardian, expressed the belief that the Arab League’s latest actions are largely driven by Saudi Arabia’s anti-Syrian stance. “I think the Arab League aren’t honest brokers,” he told RT. “Saudi Arabia is playing a very key role here. Saudi Arabia is opposed to the Assad regime and so I don’t think Syrians feel confident that the Arab League can actually propose a solution to this”.He also said the organization’s latest statements were inconsistent with the conclusions of the report it had published in January. “We had the Arab League report which was sort of buried and the Arab League report did blame both sides for the violence,” he noted “Yet the Arab League itself is saying that they will support the opposition with all possible forms of assistance. And so on one hand their trying to be honest brokers, and yet on the other hand they’re not. And the facts are the opposite”. He went on to say that the US and Al-Qaeda find themselves on the same side of the barricades in the Syrian conflict as they largely pursue the same geopolitical strategy of toppling secular regimes in the region.“It’s a great myth to think that the USA and the sort of radical Islamic terrorists of Al-Qaeda are opposed to each other in terms of geopolitical strategy,” he remarked “In many ways they share an agenda here and the US’s great enemy here is to have secular states. And if we look back at the number of secular regimes the US has undermined, destabilized or toppled: Afghanistan in the 1970s and 80s, of course we’ve had Libya, Yugoslavia again. And so it’s a great myth to think that the US and Al-Qaeda will always be on the opposite side. They’re often on the same side”.

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