Wrong American policies embolden ISIL: Analyst
Press TV has conducted an interview with Nabil Mikhail, a Washington-based professor at the George Washington University, to discuss the successive usage of chemical weapons by ISIL Takfiri terrorists in Syria.
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Sir, I am wondering and confused, where is the uproar about this use of chlorine gas and the successive use of chlorine gas by these terrorists?
Mikhail: It is a terrible statement, definitely agree with your use of the word uproar, there should have been more anger, more renunciation, and a call for action. Let me remind you of what happened back in September of the year 2013, a little over a year ago, a year and a half, the United States held the Syrian regime accountable for the use of chemical weapons against a number of villages in Syria. The United States sent an ultimatum. They threatened military action.
Then Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, intervened and he negotiated a deal, whereby Syria would ship its stockpile of chemical weapons to Russia. So the United States was about to intervene and Russia played the diplomatic game. This is absent from the terrible news you told me. What is United States’ responsibility? What is Russia’s responsibility? Where is the group of six’s responsibility? Because if they really are dedicated to containing a nuclear Iran, they should also contain any element, or any component of a weapon of mass destruction. There is a need for an action, an urgent action, to stop ISIS, from committing a crime after a crime.
Press TV: So then how do you see the logic of this, professor Mikhail, the fact that we are not seeing the uproar? Why do you think we are not seeing that kind of uproar?
Mikhail: It is not logic. I mean I would refute it. What is the illogic? Why there is an illogic? Because there are wrong policies towards that part of the world. America got into Iraq, and then we departed from Iraq. So America’s policy was characterized toward this important country by extreme swings, from over-engagements to total negligence. We are neglecting Iraq.
Even the fight against ISIL, it is seeing very few selective bombardment campaigns, remember in the two [Persian] Gulf wars, in 1991 and in 2003, there were over a thousand sorties by the air force against Iraqi targets, I think the air campaign against ISIL does not exceed 10 to 15 air raids every day, so there is a dearth of strong action, you talk about the military coalition, there is no coalition so there is no wonder that ISIL is emboldened to use the extremist of all the extreme methods to terrorize the population.
MTM/MKA
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