Konflikten i Syrien

'West can't bear to see Islamic State defeated'

The West is stepping up this war on ISIS partly because it doesn’t want to lose credibility in the war on terror to Russia, political analyst Dan Glazebrook told RT.

RT: Francois Hollande claimed France is at war with terrorists as a NATO member. Can France now expect help from the bloc?

Dan Glazebrook: Well France was already at war, don’t forget. The difference is that now the war has reached its soil. Really after the Russian intervention - more I think than the Paris attacks - what it’s done is muddied the waters of the double game that the West has been trying to play in Syria. The West was playing this double game where, on the one hand, it was trying to contain – to use Obama’s phrase - to contain ISIS – to prevent it from over spilling too much into Western allies like Jordan and Turkey and so on. But at the same time it did see ISIS as a kind of useful means of weakening the Syrian regime and achieving a regime change. And the West still can’t - quite despite everything that happened – can’t quite bear to see – and it is quite open about this – to see ISIS defeated if that means the Syrian state is going to reassert control.

So for the West it is stepping up this war with ISIS partly because it doesn’t want to lose credibility in the war on terror to Russia. But partly I think what we’re seeing is a kind of slash-and-burn policy, where before ISIS areas are retaken by the Syrian army, the West wants to make sure those areas are devastated in terms of infrastructure and so on as much as possible.

Västs stöd till Syrienrebeller banade väg för IS

Efter terrorn i Paris riktar västvärldens ledare allt fokus på bekämpandet av Islamiska staten. Men tystnad råder om att det är västs militära inblandning i Mellanöstern som skapat det monster som idag går under namnet IS. Frankrike tillhör de stater som pumpat in pengar och vapen till extremistrebeller i Syrien.

”Det går inte att slå ifrån sig fakta. Islamiska staten har fötts ur den västerländska interventionen av Irak och de hemliga åtgärderna i Syrien. Detta Frankensteinliknande experiment med att beväpna en påstått frihetskämpande syrisk opposition har skapat ett monster som hotar regionen.”