West benefits from chaos, instability in Middle East: Pundit

Press TV has interviewed John Steppling, an author and commentator from Norway, to discuss former British Prime Minister David Cameron being blamed by a parliamentary committee for the rise of Daesh in North Africa.

Here is a rough transcription of the interview:

Press TV: How much of a train wreck was Libya?

Stepling: Depends whose perspective you’re talking about. This is part of a large Western intervention in Africa and the Middle East. One of the British lawmakers today accused Cameron of shirking his moral responsibility after the assassination of Gaddafi. What about the illegality of assassinating Gaddafi to begin with? What about the illegality of all these interventions in the region? So this kind of rhetoric is typical of the last few years.

The ultimate purpose of this kind of scolding that Cameron is getting, is to justify further intervention: We will plan it better next time, we’ve made a few mistakes this time. They haven’t made any actual mistakes. All of this has gone as the west wants.

They make money of this chaos and instability. The general overview goes unquestioned in assets which is why is NATO in this region? Why are the French and British jets bombing Sirte? Why is any of this happening? These kind of occasional eruptions of criticism of western leaders (in this case Cameron) are pretty self-serving.

Press TV: I wonder if Europe is regretting some of its decisions getting involved, for example in cases like Libya, considering that issues like the refugee/asylum-seeker crisis is putting pressure on it, isn’t it?

Stepling: Sure, the refugee crisis probably was far greater than Cameron or Obama or anybody expected. The leaders of the U.K. and France and the United States have been ignoring public opinion. You’re right, there is more anger and dissent in the general public perception of all of this than there was 10 or 15 years ago.

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