NATO has always sought dreams to remove Syria’s Assad: Webster Tarpley

An analyst says that any compromise which includes the precondition of Syria’s President Assad giving up power is unacceptable since it has always been the goal of the West.

In the background of this, the head of the foreign-backed Syrian opposition coalition, Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, has again urged President Bashar al-Assad to step down while at the same time pledging allegiance to the Tel Aviv regime if he manages to form a “new regime in Syria.”

Press TV has conducted an interview with Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley, author and historian from Washington, to shed more light on the topic of the program. He is joined by two additional guests on Press TV’s Debate: Alaa Ibrahim, freelance journalist from Damascus, and Richard Millet, a journalist from London. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Tell us why do you think things are getting out of control. Infighting is taking place between the al-Nusrah Front as part of the insurgency and the Free Syrian Army.

Tarpley: Well, I think that the news of the past two or three weeks is very grim for the fate of the rebels that is to say for these death squads that have been created with the help of NATO and with the help of the [Persian] Gulf monarchies inside Syria.

I would point primarily to three things, as soon as you heard Khatib, the head of the Syrian National Coalition, the new puppet front created in the last couple of months; as soon as Khatib, who is a Royal Dutch Shell executive, came out for negotiations, that immediately, I think, alerted many to the idea that the rebels may be in danger of collapse, that they have been so adamant about no talks, and once they say that they want talks, that probably indicates some weakness on their part.

Press TV: Would you say the fact that Khatib said that he is ready for negotiations with the government shows that there has been a lack of support now by, especially, the United States and all of its allies, basically, for the insurgents? Does this mean a dwindling of that support?

Tarpley: It seems to. We have got the defeatism about this spreading in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, in Jordan and elsewhere.

So on the one side, Khatib says that he wants talks. The other thing is the increased activism of Israelis. Israelis bombing a couple of targets inside Syria, the Israelis talking about creating, under their military auspices, a buffer zone, along the Israeli-Syrian border and then thirdly this news that we have got, a little bit retroactive, about Obama in November and December saying that he will not even increase the size of the weaponry.

So you put those things together, the rebellion may very well be near collapse.

Press TV: A lot has been said about the stance of the United States, whether there has been a change now in that stance or not.

For instance we have John Kerry saying that Washington is looking for a diplomatic solution to this crisis, then we have got Leon Panetta saying that we are thinking that it is time now to start arming the insurgents and then a lot of people were saying the fact that we had call for negotiations by the opposition was a green light that, actually, the US gave to that opposition.

So what do you think the US is looking for; a diplomatic solution or a military one?

Tarpley: I think that the Obama administration policy is in crisis.

Let me warn people about John Kerry… He is after all a member of this infamous secret society, this freemasonic cult called Skull and Bones, to which President Bush the elder, President Bush the younger belong, which has done so much damage to the United States over many, many decades.

I think that it is clear that the United States has… certainly, as the guest in Damascus is saying, been key in delivering all kinds of heavy weapons and fighters.

Indeed what we were told of a kind of an airlift and sealift from Libya to Turkey in the closing months of 2011 and all during 2012, it was basically the Libyan fighters, the death squads from Libya, veterans by now, who were brought to Incirlik NATO air force base in Turkey and they were then deployed across the border into Syria.

Indeed the biggest struggle in the US foreign policy right now is the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi on September 11th.

Well what was he doing there after all? He was meeting with a Turkish diplomat. Why would he meet with a Turkish diplomat in Benghazi? It seems that he was trying to get another wave of fighters and equipment looted from Gaddafi’s arms depots sent into Turkey so those could be deployed in Syria.

Press TV: Now we are hearing that some in the United States are saying that it is time to alter the balance of power – so to speak – in Syria by reaching a compromise, but a compromise that would involve Assad’s departure and that that would only work.

But the question is that how is the United States or basically the foreign powers involved going to do that?

Does this mean that they are going to still train and arm, for instance, the insurgents, the Free Syrian Army?

Does this mean that they could even send Cruise missile, according to Senator McCain and use them against Syria’s airplanes?

So basically what do you think this compromise and Assad’s departure will look like?

Tarpley: Well, we may get a clue from the verbiage in Obama’s State of the Union address, which is now in about 12 hours or so, even less.

Any so-called compromise that has a precondition of Assad giving up power is no compromise at all, because that has been the goal of NATO and this entire foreign intervention into Syria using terrorists as the ground forces.

There is a certain amount of momentum in the US bureaucracy in favor of intervening.

General Petraeus is now widely reported to have been a big partisan of intervening and of course we have got this angry group of senators, the three amigos, right now it is McCain and Lindsey Graham and Ayotte, the lady from New Hampshire. They are all calling for heavy weapons to be given to these rebels.

I do not think that the Republicans will get their way. I think right now this situation is undecided. Obama is vacillating. Obama is leading from behind and waiting for developments and I think that the most important development would be a significant partial collapse of the rebellion…