US plans to topple Syria’s Assad go back to 9/11: Analyst

Washington’s plans to overthrow the Syrian government go back to the 9/11 attacks and recent revelations by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should come as no surprise to anybody, says an American journalist.

Wayne Madsen, an author and investigative journalist, made the comments when asked about Assange’s remarks who said on Wednesday that the US had planned to topple the Syrian government long before 2011, the year that the brutal conflict broke out in the country.

What Assange has said is nothing new because “we know according to retired Gen. Wesley Clarke that, shortly after 9/11, he was shown in the Pentagon a list of countries that the US wanted to overthrow” their governments, Madsen told Press TV on Thursday.

The analyst noted that on the list, Syria came after Iraq and was followed by countries like Libya and Sudan.

In his new book, Assange points to a cable pertaining to US Ambassador William Roebuck, who served as the Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus between 2004-2007, about plans for overthrowing the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at the time.

This is “also no surprise because the successive US ambassadors to Syria have sought to undermine the Syrian government,” Madsen maintained.

He added that “It clearly is a demonstration that just because the United States maintains diplomatic relations with a country,” there is no guarantee that the US is not going to shy away from taking harsh measures against “the government it recognizes.”

This is an extreme version of democracy, Madsen argued, which was sought after not only by President Obama’s administrations, but also Republican government such as that of George Bush also attempted to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

The Syrian government has been in an all out war against various Takfiri groups, mainly the ISIL, since March 2011. According to reports, the United States and its regional allies – especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey – have been supporting the militants operating inside the country.

The conflict, according to the UN, has so far taken the lives of about 230,000 people. Millions of Syrians have also been displaced as a result of the conflict.