Saudis seek to sabotage Syria talks: Lawrence Freeman

Press TV has conducted an interview with Lawrence Freeman, with the Executive Intelligence Review, in Baltimore, about Syria.

The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: Would you say that a military solution is not going to work, we have to look for a political solution and if you agree, what is in the way of that political solution?

Freeman: There is no question that the solution to Syria is not going to be the overthrow of the government of al-Assad.

The negotiations are stalled because the opposition the insurgents backed by various [Persian] Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others are making preconditions for this conference that Assad has to go and that is not going to be acceptable.

The Saudi government is particularly enraged right now. They are lashing out at the United States and other governments for not backing their plan for overthrowing the government of Assad.

If that were to occur this would set off a chain of events that could lead to a much larger war and the insurgents themselves if they were in control of the country would carry out bloody murder throughout the country and would lead to confrontations with the neighboring countries as well.

So, the insurgents are not qualified to run the government and we have to have a peaceful political solution.

Press TV: We heard Saudi Arabia speaking, the foreign minister just a day ago about Iran’s role in Syria accusing Iran of militarily intervening in Syria.

Some people analyzing those statements were saying that these kinds of remarks are meant to kill the chance for Iran to take part in the Geneva II conference to end the crisis. What do you think?

Freeman: It’s true. The Saudis right now and their support for the insurgents are the biggest obstacle to a solution and the idea of keeping Iran out of negotiations is also designed to make the effort less successful. Iran should be involved – It’s a regional power.

But the logical question right now is that the Saudis – and they have a certain backing from sections in the British political government – are hell bent on preventing a solution knowing full well that if we don’t find a solution that this will escalate to greater war and chaos in the region.

So the Saudis right now are really an enemy of the United States and they’re an enemy of mankind for stalling, stopping and trying to sabotage peaceful solutions to the Syrian crisis.

Press TV: Do you think then that the United States is actually changing its position now that it has agreed to acquiesce and look at the current situation and change its way of approaching it?

We did have reports that Mr. Brahimi on behalf of the United States and other countries had been proposing that Assad be a part of a transitional government although Mr. Brahimi later denied that – but there have been reports like it.

Freeman: President Obama even in statements a month ago was saying that President Assad of Syria is not part of the future of Syria.

Now, Mr. Korb (another Press TV guest) may be correct that the official position of the State Department is different, but President Obama has made his point very clear repeatedly that Assad is not part of the future. And this itself is a problem.

Don’t forget that up to a few months ago we were planning on 85 airstrike attacks in Syria and at the last minute this was called off due to an unprecedented outpouring of opposition by the American people, which was 100:1 against intervention; plus some very clever flanking operations by the Russians to prevent this attack.

So, the United States was forced – President Obama who wanted to go to war – was forced to back down. That’s a positive development, but we don’t have really from the president real leadership in finding a solution in Syria.

I think the military under General Dempsey has been outspoken and still is against intervention. So, there is enough forces that have acted to prevent this war from going to the next level.

But President Obama has a long history of working with the Saudis and working with the Muslim Brotherhood against the interests of national governments in the region and that to me is a very significant problem, which we’re going to have to overcome.

Press TV: Our guest there earlier on was speaking about the Saudi role in Syria; our commentators referring to the US and Russian role.

Now, unlike what Mr. Korb was telling us, Saudi Arabia has been accused at least of providing weapons and military aid to the insurgents, even giving weapons to extremist groups and to terrorists.

And the question here would be what has the United States done about that? At least tacitly it has been supporting what Saudi Arabia has been doing. What do you think about that?

Freeman: They have been supporting. The fact of the matter is that the Saudis have been arming the insurgents; the Saudis have been funding a training base in Lebanon, which is being staffed by American intelligence operatives. The United States has looked the other way repeatedly on arms going directly to the insurgents.

Don’t forget right now you have more foreign jihadists in Syria than you ever had in Afghanistan or Iraq. So this is not a legitimate civil war. This is an outside intervention to overthrow the government of al-Assad and President Obama has been supporting this effort just like he supported the effort of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. So, his policy is the wrong policy.

There have been other forces in the government and in the US military, who have intervened to try to prevent a disaster.

But the Saudi role is very obvious, it’s known, it’s been exposed in every publication in the United States and in the West. And the United States has allowed it to go on.

The United States has a real problem and President Obama has a real problem because there is an effort in Congress to release 28 classified pages from the 9/11 Commission of 2002 that identify the Saudi role in the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

These pages were classified under George Bush and they remain classified under President Obama and there is a call on the Congress to declassify them.

So, the US and Obama in particular are protecting Saudi interests in the United States and around the world and in Syria.

Press TV: As a conclusion we are at least agreeing that the extremists – the terrorists – are now the main threat in Syria and they have to go. How can this happen? What is preventing this form happening? The Syrian government has been saying, ‘How can we enter into dialogue when terrorism is continuing in our country?’

Freeman: We have to have an all-out effort to crush the Saudi influence in the area. And you can see that they are livid by their actions in the UN in response to the fact that they didn’t get their way.

These regime change policies, which we saw in Libya pushed by President Obama, Susan Rice, Samantha Power and others that overthrew Gaddafi have caused a catastrophe of destruction across Western Africa.

We don’t want another regime change in Syria that causes more catastrophe, chaos and war. So we ought to shut the Saudis down, give them a rough time, get the Israelis to back off and as my colleague said, let the people of Syria actually decide amongst themselves not told what to do by the outside forces of Saudi Arabia or even the United States.