now the
al-qaeda target the original al-qaeda
target is of course no longer in
afghanistan it's in syria but this time
it's working with the americans there
was a flicker of al-qaeda you'll recall
the u.s defense secretary said some six
months ago maybe nine months ago in
syria that flicker has become a flame
it's quite clear from the modus operandi
of the
fighters that are
combating the syrian regime
it's quite clear from their rhetoric
it's quite clear from the
chatter on their websites and so on
that just about every jihadist
of the al-qaeda ilk
is now taking the road to damascus and
not to convert to democracy one presumes
no they're coming in because it's a shia
regime the the regime of
bashar al-assad is alawite which is a
group partly from the shia religion and
these people are fanatically anti-shia
they think that they are complete
infidels basically and we're seeing the
same kind of killing they want to
continue doing that they did in iraq
five or six years ago when
when that was the
target these people didn't read
frankenstein to the end
because once you've created the monster
of course because it's a monster it by
definition is no longer under your
control
and the monster they created to fight
the red army in afghanistan became
the authors of the
disaster the massacre on 9 11.
is there no sense of
trepidation in washington amongst
policymakers in the state department and
so on about the new monster that there
is i think there is which is why people
like james clapper the director of
national intelligence did go before a
congressional committee and become
really the first top official in the
west to say al-qaeda is moving to syria
up to then it had been a secret that
nobody dared mention because everybody's
saying these people are unarmed freedom
fighters you know against this vicious
regime in damascus and so on and when
the evidence began to emerge that al
qaeda was there nobody wanted to say
anything about it and clapper was the
first to say that and i think he's
worried but
the point is as so often the united
states has a divided
administration they're different voices
some more hawkish than others some more
neocon than others and
i think you get people like hillary
clinton who are very keen on toppling
president assad because they think he's
a tyrant and so on and they feel he's
lost his usefulness to them in the
middle east and then you've got these
people in the national intelligence a
little bit more worried and so on
and uh and then you've got qatar and
saudi arabia the big allies of the
united states who are pushing really
hard and the u.s doesn't want to get
into an argument with them and so it's
leading from behind as they did in libya
but basically supporting it and
supplying some information not only
information but information gathering
equipment satellite communications and
all the rest of it across the border uh
from turkey obviously a nato state uh
helping the helping the the the
militants and the new york times this
week seem to indicate that all of that's
going to be stepped up
the u.s spokesman quoted memorably i
think we're going for a controlled
demolition of the assad regime
quoted in the new york times but of
course
controlled demolitions can go wrong
and i'm wondering if in london for
example hague who's never off the
airwaves
threatening syria with somebody else's
army
in the way that mussolini used to do
um
is uh in the foreign policy
establishment here no worries of a
reprise of the afghan experience
well i think there is is some concern
but
you know they don't have the ultimate
decision-making power you know it's
obviously washington that decides and
britain goes along with whatever
washington does but i mean i think the
real hypocrisy of it is that they
support the anand plan they say which
calls for ceasefire political transition
you know democratic uh
solution and dialogue and so on and
instead of that they are totally
one-sided the west they're completely
anti-the government of syria they're
completely in favor of the rebels
harming them as i've already mentioned
with so-called non-lethal equipment
backing the supplies of real lethal
equipment by qatar saudi arabia and
turkey and
and yet they say they support a
political solution it's nonsense it is
nonsense and it surprises me uh because
actually the anand plan
gave these people much of what they
claim at least to have wanted a
political transition democratic
elections
the end of one party rule and so on all
of which i am in favor of in syria and
everywhere myself as indeed of course
are you
however people like us who oppose uh the
al-qaeda
insurrection in syria the foreign
intervention in syria are characterized
as
friends of the bashar al-assad regime
and i just find that very very difficult
not least because actually all of my
political life i was against the
assad regime but i'm even more against
foreign intervention in other people's
countries
what's going to happen in syria how is
this going to end i think it's kind of
far far worse before it gets better
because i think the political solution
is out of the window the west is pushing
war it's regime change by civil war
that's what they're doing and if the
worst comes to the worst they may even
use
nato intervention like in libya after
the november u.s presidential election
whoever wins i think there's a real
danger of the libyan style nato
intervention even in defiance of the
security council yes yes even if and as
long as if assad is still there by
november this year which is still
obviously an open question i mean the
tragedy is that that there are people in
syria in fact there was a conference
this week at the the convent of
sanegidio in rome which is a well-known
mediation center of various civil
society groups from syria who want
political solutions who said no to
violence they said please to the free
syrian army put down their guns and
negotiate but their voice is not heard
they're branded as toadies and stooges
of the regime
even though they are genuine independent
democrats who see the danger of civil
war but the syrian regime is not weak it
will fight back and it has powerful
friends i mean what would the attitude
of russia for example be to a nato war
on an allied country after the security
council has ruled one out they would be
completely furious but i don't think
they would intervene against it they
would just denounce it and and they
would
they would rightly use it around the
world to say look we keep saying that
this is not a unipolar world anymore it
isn't just one country of the united
states and its allies that control the
world there are other centers of power
and that is why we support international
law the united nations that's why we
won't support a resolution demanding the
use of force in syria and uh if the nato
people are foolish enough to go down the
path of military intervention
they will only blacken their name even
further around the world and sharpen the
contradiction between the emerging
powers especially china and russia and
the west
pretending
you're called
india yes all these other countries that
don't want any more this unilateral
intervention