“It’s been a battle over who’s going to control Syria afterwards. The whole thing is a proxy war. There’s lots of foreign meddling in Syria,” Middle East expert James Paul, former Global Policy Forum Director and UN human rights expert, said.
“The FSA was patched together in late 2011 and early 2012 as a means to convert the national, non-violent opposition to the Assad government into a violent, game-changing kind of deal,” Paul said.
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“The United States was bringing in at first battle hardened fighters and veteran regular Syrian army officers into the FSA. I think they were trying to position themselves to take power after Assad was toppled and the Western powers were happy to have such a group,” Paul stated.
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“In a sense, it has always been something of a proxy war, though now Russia is directly involved, whereas before it was merely providing military aid and serving in an advisory role,” Draitser said.
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However, he cautioned, “There’s no doubt that the United States, Turkey and the Saudis have coordinated the terrorist war against Syria. If they feel they can cripple Russia by dragging it into a quagmire scenario using terrorism, then they’ll certainly do that.”
However, Russia was sending a message to Washington that the time of unchallenged US hegemony in both the political and military spheres had passed, and that the world had moved into a multipolar era.
Full article: US Created Free Syrian Army to Fight Proxy War to Topple Assad (Sputnik News)
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