US grabbed opportunity to back off, but regime change still ultimate goal in Syria
The objective of the United States remains to bring about regime change regardless of the fact that they have been deterred from an immediate military strike on Syria, Richard Becker an anti-war activist told RT.
Russia and the United States have struck a deal on a framework
that will see the destruction or removal of Syria’s chemical
weapons by mid-2014. Nevertheless, US President Barack Obama
warned that America will remain prepared to act if diplomatic
efforts fail.
RT:A lot seems to have been done in a very short time.
Why wasn't something like this done earlier?
Richard Becker: We can see that the US government very
quickly grabbed at the opportunity to find a way out of for them
a very contradictory situation. We should recall that just two
weeks ago military action was imminent. We were on the streets
that day. We were expecting that the Obama administration would
be announcing that military strikes were taking place. Instead he
announced that he was going to Congress. And when that did not
work – in fact he and Secretary of State Kerry became more and
more isolated – they jumped at the opportunity to find the way,
at least temporarily out of this situation when foreign minister
Sergey Lavrov made the proposal on Monday.
They want to put this very quickly in the back burner at this
point. Despite all the bluster and all the arrogant talk that we
hear from Kerry, they have suffered a very serious setback at
what their plans were to go to war and launch military strikes
against Syria and have moved very quickly to try to have some
resolution to this issue, at least on a temporary basis.
RT:After these proposals were announced, Obama again said
Syria would face military consequences if it doesn't comply. Is
that helpful at this delicate stage?
RB: I think that it is actually more of the spin to try to
protect the image of the President and of the administration,
trying to look tough. They tried to look tough but they found
themselves extremely isolated because of tremendous opposition to
a new US war in the Middle East from around the world and from
inside the United States, very persuasive opposition to this.
Despite all the propaganda, the huge PR effort that they wield
out, beginning about three weeks ago, they were unable to shift
or break down that opposition. This was a great opportunity
presented to them – what Sergey Lavrov presented to them last
Monday. At the same time, as wanting to grasp that very quickly,
they also don’t want to look weak. But clearly they want out of
this very difficult, contradictory situation that they found
themselves in.
RT:Despite the cooperation we have seen between Moscow
and Washington there are major divisions over this issue, over
the ultimate goal, aren’t there?
RB: Yes they are major. The United States policy consist
of different elements which include the sanctions which hurt the
people there, arming and funding, training the so-called the Free
Syrian Army and coordinating the intervention of other countries
– Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey – in this war against the
government of Syria.
The objective of the US is to bring about regime change
regardless of the fact that they have been deterred from an
immediate military strike. That remains their objective. The
Syrian opposition oppose this agreement because they can’t win
without US intervention.
RT:The Syrian opposition has already rejected the
Russia-US agreement, could this pose a serious problem?
RB: I do not think that we know. I think they want the
agreement to fail. They did not want the agreement at all. They
cannot win, they cannot achieve victory without the intervention
of the US and other NATO allies. They do not have the capacity on
their own to win. That is why they were so ardently hoping for
massive military strikes by the US against the government forces.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.