Regional powers must assist Syria: Mark Glenn

Press TV has conducted an interview with Mark Glenn, from the Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement in Idaho, to discuss Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s call for an end to the bloodshed in Syria during a meeting with Austrian President Heinz Fischer.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: We had Austria, we had Czechoslovakia, we had Spain and of course a host of other European countries in Iran, it is interesting how this platform of business relationship may translate into political action such as perhaps a resolve in Syria. 

Glenn: Absolutely but I do not think it is a way of resolving the problems in Syria but rather a way of getting Iran and Syria separated from each other. Using the bait of lifting the sanctions against Iran, what they are now going to do is they are going to switch from the carrot and stick, the stick in this case being saying that if you do not divorce yourself from your support for Syria, which everyone knows that Iran and Russia and other players are there to assist the government of Bashar al-Assad in fighting back these wild dogs that have been loosed upon his country deliberately by the United States and Israel, that if they do not separate themselves from supporting Syria that the sanctions are going to go back into place.

I think that really is the real reason for this visit and the fact that the president has said that there needs to be a political solution to this and that there should not be any foreign meddling, I think that everybody understands the fact that there is going to have to be assistance from Iran, from Russia and other players because literally all of the powers have been unleashed against the people of Syria as I said by the United States and Israel and it is going to take some pretty powerful friends in the neighborhood in order to restore Syria to her sovereignty and to her independence and to stability.

Press TV: Do you think the fact that Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says that we are open to discuss this with any country means that there are going to be countries coming on board who will seriously engage with Iran in the conversation towards finding a solution?

Glenn: I think that the president rightly understands the environment in which all of this is taking place and he has to very political and he has to be very diplomatic about this. He cannot say in a very straightforward manner to the Austrian President A, B and C because to do so is going to make Iran appear to be a bellicose and unreasonable and this is exactly what Israel wants.

She needs Iran to make the appearance of being unwilling to talk and unwilling to reason so that Israel can then ramp up the pressure - particularly in the United States - that Iran is an unreasonable player, you cannot deal with her, you cannot trust her, the only solution is to start dropping bombs on her. So I think that the president understands that he has to be very careful in his use of language, lest he put his foot into something that will have unintended consequences.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk