West seeks fragmenting Arab countries: Commentator

Press TV has conducted an interview with George Jabbour, political commentator from Damascus, about Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Bashar Ja’afari saying the current tumult in the Middle East, including the crisis in his country, is a scheme by the West to safeguard Israel’s interests.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Please elaborate on the comments made by UN Ambassador Ja’afari, that the unrest in the region has been designed by the West.

Jabbour: Well it is clear every day that what happened in the Arab countries starting from the last part of the year 2010 clearly it has a ring of being plans by the West exploiting some complaints by the people inside regarding the way the government treated the population or at least segments of that population.

The upper hand in what happened was in the West, continues to be in the West and of course the Arabs played as part of a game well-prepared by the West. Those who are of good intention are not many and those who are ignorant about what is going [on] are many and of course the majority but then I suppose the future history will reveal certain clever planning but this clever planning is based on fragmenting the Arab countries internally and fragmenting the cooperation between Arab countries externally.

Press TV: So Mr. Jabbour along the lines of what you just said, it can’t be ignored that the support that the militants received in Syria, specifically the ISIL contributed to the spillover in Iraq, which has now caused further concern in the region.

Jabbour: Well of course. Well this ISIL was proclaimed recently, I do not know who is behind it, the leader is not known. I suppose that there is somebody in some countries in the West who is in touch with them more than Syria, more than Iraq.

And then of course there are regional powers that are in touch with [ISIL] and those countries who are in touch with it, I suppose we know the names of them. And they will certainly be in difficulty if the ISIL expands its operation.

The regimes in the [Persian] Gulf and in Saudi Arabia certainly have some relationship with ISIL but then again the ISIL represents some danger to them and this danger is approaching them I suppose.

What is needed is some sort of international modus operandi for the stoppage of violence in the region and for the protecting of the existing sovereign states in the region and of course for the treatment of this phenomenon of extremism which is of course the product of various factors including the American reaction to the sad events of the 11th of September.