Daesh on brink of collapse in Iraq, Syria: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Kevin Barrett, an editor with the Veterans Today from Madison, Wisconsin, about remarks made by Ammar Hakim, chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, on recent gains by Iraqi forces against the Daesh Takfiri terrorists.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: I'd like to pick up on that last point that was made by Ammar Hakim where he stressed that the age of using terror groups as a tool is over. What would you say to that?

Barrett: I think he may be a bit overoptimistic for talking about the long-term global view but in terms of this plague of massive terrorism that's been hitting the region and specifically the countries of Iraq and Syria, I think, he may be right that we're going to see a significant improvement in the near future as the Daesh collapses and as its whole approach is discredited.

Unfortunately, we are still in the midst of this destabilization of the region, which was planned as far back as the early 1980s. The Oded Yinon Plan out of Israel set out their intent to destabilize, balkanize, and generally take down the region especially their neighbors by splitting up these countries on the sectarian lines. And this program then was put into high gear with the public relations launch of the war on terror, their inside job in September 2001 and since then they've tried to take out seven countries in five years as General Wesley Clark said and all seven of those countries or countries that are prone to threaten Israel.

Now that plan and that program is not yet finished. So, we do need to recognize that the further chances of Zionist mischief still exist. However, I do believe that it's true that I think Daesh is on its last legs, has zero support across the Muslim world. It's really a group of new Kharijites who have stepped out of the house of Islam, more and more people recognize it; so, that group has no future and I think Iraq and Syria are going to see better days.

Press TV: How much of that is imperative upon inter-regional unity, so to speak, where we're seeing for example Iran, Syria, Iraq even Russia sort of chipping in to work together strategically to rid the region of this plague of terrorism.

Barrett: Well, it's interesting, isn't it that this terrorism which was created as a civilizational enemy at the Jerusalem conference on international terrorism in 1979 by Benjamin Netanyahu. It was intended to unify the Western world behind Israel's war on the Palestinians. That’s the whole purpose of the so-called war on terrorism. That’s why this plague of terrorism was invented.

And today we're seeing a certain kind of blowback from that in which the genuinely anti-terror forces which are also by and large the forces that are not totally under the control of the Zionists are uniting to fight this Takfiri terrorism as a scourge, and despite the propaganda that's been put out by the Zionists and the Americans and their regional allies trying to divide Sunni from Shia Muslim and trying to balkanize the region.

There has been this process of uniting behind this platform that Daesh and these Takfiri terrorist groups are unacceptable. So, ironically it seems that the very instrument that was created to divide the region in service to Israel is now in fact being used more positively to unite the region independent from Israel.

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