Russia anti-terror raids undermine US hegemony: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Eric Draitser, founder of stopimperialism.com in New York, about the Syrian army, backed by allied forces and the Russian Air Force, making significant advances against militants in different parts of the country.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Isn’t it interesting that with the Russians going forward with their airstrikes and the Syrians also making advances, the West is finding this situation very hard to digest. Why is that do you think?

Draitser: There is a number of reasons that are probably too numerous and complex to go into in just a couple of minutes. I think the basic point here is that the United States understands that Russia’s involvement in providing aid and support to the legitimate government in Syria is essentially the opening salvo in a probably long trajectory of the decline of US hegemony in the region as Russia moves to reassert its influence to demonstrate, as we have seen in recent days and over the course of the last week or so, that to other countries in the region that Russia stands committed against terrorism and most importantly that Russia is a reliable partner, not only a partner in terms of weapons sales, this I think all of these countries have known for a long time, but that Russia is actually able to effectively utilize political and military force when it is necessary.

This is something that is quite new and we see that Russia has been flexing its muscles in terms of airstrikes, it has been coordinating with the Syrian army in terms of ground forces and the Russians have recently shot cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea, flexing their naval power. This sort of full-spectrum military dominance is something that up to this point only the United States has really demonstrated. Now that Russia has come on to the scene as not necessarily a rival to the United States - that would certainly be overstating the point - but as an alternative, this is really critical for this emerging multi-polar world order where you see Russia and China and some of the other partners including Iran and some other countries really demonstrating a new emerging alternative to Western imperial hegemony. This is something that is I think of world historical importance.

Press TV: So what will be the impact of this because I would imagine that in the halls of power within the US this is quite embarrassing because as the Russians are driving the point home, the US has been in this apparently anti-ISIL campaign for up to a year now and has not achieved as much apparently as the Russians have in this short period of time?

Draitser: Yes indeed, not to rain on the parade of triumphalism that you hear from certain quarters, but I am a bit hesitant to say that Russia’s involvement here is really the end of the story. I think that unfortunately the United States as well as its proxies in the region – Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel- they are fully aware of what Russia is doing. They are fully cognizant of the geopolitical and strategic consequences of this and I think that people interested in peace and interested in a resolution in the region need to be prepared for a counter move from the Western side.

Now this counter move could take many forms. This could be the spread of the Islamic State (Daesh) beyond the borders of Iraq and Syria. We could see a flood, as we have seen recent reports a flood of fighters into Jordan, upsetting the stability of that country, possibly fanning the flames of war there. We could see them flooding into Lebanon. You could see the spread of this cancer throughout the region which of course would be tremendously beneficial to the United States and to Israel and to Saudi Arabia, who are desperate to see the destabilization spread if for no other reason than to be able to vindicate their strategy and move towards a further regional destabilization that works in their interest.

Any instability is really to the benefit of the Western imperial system and their Israeli allies and this is a very real potential now. Second … of course we can see the Afghanistan model employed in Syria and in Iraq. You could see the US military and US intelligence transferring anti-aircraft missiles to some of these terrorist factions that they have been sponsoring. Now if you start seeing terrorist elements shooting down Russian jets, you are now looking at a further escalation of this conflict. Naturally, we saw that in the 1980s in Afghanistan, it could certainly be repeated. Now that would take this to a new level of conflict, taking it out of the [room] of a Syrian war, a war within Syria and within Iraq and making it into a full-blown regional if not a global war.

So this conflict is far from over. The final chapter is yet to be written and it remains to be seen exactly how the United States and its Western allies respond and further more how Russia responds to that response.

Press TV: Today I was reading an article about how many conservative Republicans see that Christians are being persecuted throughout the Middle East, and we had this Catholic Church come out in support of Russian involvement against ISIL in Syria. So I am wondering wouldn’t this just naturally then, as the United States being apparently a Christian nation, wouldn’t it and shouldn’t it then be allying itself with Russia to get rid of this threat to Christians?

Draitser: There is only one religion among the ruling establishment in the United States, and it is the religion of capitalism, the religion of profit, the religion of imperialism. This is the only religion they know. These are the only gods that they pray to. So do not be fooled into believing that the Christian underpinnings of the foundation of the United States somehow are relevant to its policy. They certainly are not.

The United States has shown no interest in protecting Christians in any reasonable way in the region and they are certainly not going to do so now. It is not about religion. This is about hegemony, it is about dominance and the United States is desperate to extend its hegemony and its dominance for another century and they are going to do it in any way they can, including setting the entire regional ablaze.

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