This would have to rate as one of the most amoral interviews I have read. Both parties talk blithely about events that amount in effect to the waging of an illegal war against a sovereign nation. It is well established that the Americans, the French and the British, among others, are supplying weaponry to the insurgents. That is an act of war and contrary, it should be bleeding obvious, to international law.

The bulk of the financing for these weapons seems to be Saudi and Qatari money. Neither country has the least pretensions to being called a democracy or having any interest in establishing a democracy anywhere in the Middle East. Both do however have a strong interest in supporting Salafist extremists whose brand of Islam has very little support throughout the Islamic world.

The Americans are playing their usual dangerous game of supporting extremist elements when it suits their foreign policy goals. Chechnya, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya are some of the recent examples. These policies inevitably cause mass death and destruction and the "cure" is usually worse than the original "disease".

A dismembered, weak Syria also just happens to suit the Zionist regime currently occupying Tel Aviv although neither of the parties to the above conversation can bring themselves to discuss this geo-political reality.

Too right James O'Neill.It suited the Western Oligarchs and Israel to create Saddham Hussein a tyrant until he tried to be independant and sell oil in currencies other than $ US.

Now Assad of Syria is on the nose for being independant of Western Oligarchy.This has nothing to do with freedom of the Syrian people.Syria is an ally of Iran,the really big prize that the Imperialists want under the lie of them developing nukes.Why are the weapons inspectors not in Israel who have at least 200+ NUKES?

James O'Neill wrote:

>>A dismembered, weak Syria also just happens to suit the Zionist regime (sic)>>

Interesting point.

My feeling is Israeli strategists preferred the Assad regime. Despite their posturing the Assad's were more interested in adding to their wealth than in waging any sort of Jihad against Jews. The present Assad and his father were more like capo's running a successful Mafia family than presidents. They were essentially criminal businessmen and none of them would want a repeat of 1973.

The Assad regime is also inherently unstable - a small Alawite / Christian coalition allied with the "Persians" milking a mainly Sunni Arab country. This instability acted as a constraint on what the Assads would do. It would have been relatively easy for Israel to engineer a crippling rebellion in Syria, providing arms and training. The Assads continuance in power, and the flow of wealth that power brought, relied on convincing Israelis that, their bluster notwithstanding, they were better than any alternative.

I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say that the Assads and Israel had a de facto modus vivendi. They may have hated each other but, by and large, they had learned to live with each other

Steven,
Yeah that's pretty much my view, Assad's problems are domestic and NATO is trying to give Syria and the region a soft landing rather than a crash then a power vacuum. As far as I understand B'aathism it was set up as a form of National Socialism or a Third Position to sit astride the East/West divide of the cold war, it's obviously long out of date, Syrian kids don't want to live under a dictator with his Goons stopping them all the time and saying "Papers please" and snooping about the place. I used to work with a guy who grew up in Spain under Franco, he said the worst thing about these types of regimes is that you can't trust your neighbours, everyone was too scared to put a foot wrong in case someone ratted on them to the Guarda Civil and there were government families who got all the perks and because members of his family had sided with the republic they got bugger all and were ostracised.
William S Lind also wrote a useful article on the "Gangs Of Aleppo" and post state violence:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/gangs-of-aleppo/

Jay. "NATO is trying to give Read Richard Cottrell's book "Gladio" (2012). It just might open your eyes as to how NATO really sees its role.