One of the ironies is that the US pretending to fight ISIS in Iraq, when it is in Syria, too; Washington is using the ISIS to wage new wars in the region and create new military bases, especially in Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraq analyst Sami Ramadani told RT.
RT:There is a steady flow of Europeans to Syria and Iraq. In your opinion, what are the chances they will bring violence back to the EU?
Sami Ramadani: It is always a possibility, but this is something the British government should have thought about when it started funding and arming the various armed groups in Syria and undermined the cohesion of Syrian society. Cameron in his article goes as far as saying that ISIL today has the ancient city of Aleppo firmly within its sight, and most of its design on Jordan and Lebanon, and right up to the Turkish border. If it succeeds we would be facing a terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean and bordering a NATO member. So you can see, people have been warning about these terrorists groups in Syria or in Iraq, they have been funneling arms from the Western countries, backed by funds from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, funding these terrorist groups through the Turkish border.
RT:Who is responsible for the rise of the “Islamic State”?
SR: You have to go back to the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Neither Syria nor Iraq had any terrorist organizations before that date, and within a year of that occupation the Iraqi doors were flung open for terrorist organizations and terrorist acts, and gradually through 2005 the US and some Gulf rulers started even funding some of these extremist organizations. Once the Syria crisis started in 2011 openly the US, and Britain started funding and arming these groups. You can even go back to Afghanistan where Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda were trained and funded by the CIA to fight the Soviet forces there, and then Bin Laden forces became so strong that they started threatening the US interests. These terrorists organizations were created, used, abused by the Western powers, including Britain, so they can use the same organizations to reinvade the area, reoccupy it; they had a design to create a massive military base in Iraqi Kurdistan. That will obviously threaten Iran in the future and any government in Baghdad that might wish to have policies different from those of the US. So we have talked about strategic interests, the UN report referred to oil, but this entire region is extremely sensitive, and the US and NATO are using the barbarity, savagery and threat of the ISIS to strengthen their presence.
RT:Britain along with its allies spent a fortune on the campaign in Iraq. Was the money spent wisely?
SR: Many billions of pounds. The accurate figures are still not available, but certainly over £10 billion were spent. Within the context of Syria figures are not available, but certainly Britain spent tens of millions of pounds on the campaign to destabilize Syria and make it open to all of these terrorist organizations. And if you talk about the Afghanistan and Iraq war then you are talking about a hundred billion pounds and more.
RT:Why are the US and the EU so eager to fight the Islamist group in Iraq, but largely ignoring its activity in Syria?
SR: That is one of the ironies - they have them in Syrian and they pretend to fight them in Iraq. I think the scenario and the policies are quite clear to anybody who observed it carefully. The US and NATO countries are using the threat of ISIL/ISIS to re-intervene, to wage in the future new wars in the region, create new military bases, especially in Iraqi Kurdistan, to try and weaken any Baghdad central government, maybe even divide Iraq into three warring regions with a very weak central government in Baghdad. The current vice president of the US Joe Biden when he was a Senator proposed to divide Iraq into three regions with a very weak center and that is what they are now practically doing in Iraq today by using this ISIS threat and savagery.
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