PressTV has conducted an interview with Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley, author and historian, to further discuss the issue. The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: France is the first country to officially commit its military to the Syria situation. Is this a parallel to the role France played in Libya?

Tarpley: President Hollande has been a target of a very vigorous campaign by the reactionaries and colonialists in France, people around Sarkozy and including Sarkozy himself, demanding that Hollande take the lead as the aggressor in Syria. I think it’s a kind of a desperation tactic to keep something going when it’s not going.

Today we’ve had Hillary Clinton visiting Turkey. In her meeting with Foreign Minister Davutoglu, they talked about a no-fly zone that the United States and Turkey, perhaps with other countries, would somehow try to impose a no-fly zone over Syria which, of course, would mean a war.

Brennan, the anti-terror Czar of the Obama White House had talked about a no-fly zone earlier this week at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations. It’s not clear whether that’s just talk, whether that’s bluffing. Given the track record of these people, we would have to take it very serious, indeed.

Press TV: On another front, the US secretary of State Hillary Clinton has come out saying Washington and Ankara are working on a detailed military and intelligence operation hopefully to bring a regime change in Syria. Do you think it’s going to work?

Tarpley: No, I think this is a somewhat desperate plan now.

I think the big turning point actually occurred yesterday. The Tehran consultative conference on Syria, it seems to me, is a landmark event in our times. 30 countries coming together on the basis, I would say, of national independence and national dignity.

Not much more than that but that’s already a lot in today’s world, and certainly organized by the Iranian foreign ministry with the presence of Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, Sudan, a very important selection of countries across the world.

It obviously shows that Syria is not isolated in a way that Hillary Clinton says. This is really the first time that we’ve had a kind of task-oriented, anti-imperialist conference.

It’s very interesting here in the United States, the media has not a word about this. It’s a complete blackout. I’ve looked at the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the television stations, there’s nothing about this conference.

I think the US State Department is freaked out because this is a huge defeat for Hillary Clinton. What is Hillary Clinton’s diplomacy worth if 30 countries including about half the world when you get down to it, can come together on a pro-Syrian, pro-independence platform?

It seems to me that the imperialists are probably getting desperate. This is of course the classic time when they resort either to some kind of Gulf of Tonkin incidence, something military, or the classic false flag that we’ve seen them play so many times.

Press TV: Of course, Libya did not have this support in the situation at the time. However, how can one explain the US double standards on Syria compared with its role in Bahrain and Yemen? Why is the Western public opinion silent on the atrocities committed against the civilians by the so-called Free Syrian Army, in your opinion?

Tarpley: I don’t think there’s total silence here in the West. I think there’s an awareness and it’s a growing awareness. Obviously, the first part of your question, this is hypocrisy.

What I think we’re getting towards now is a situation where you have to frankly admit there are two blocks of states. There’s an imperialist block with the US, the British, NATO, the Israelis and so forth; but then there’s an anti-imperialist block which is very large and quite formidable when you’ve got Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia. That’s already a great deal.

Let me also focus on the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Mrs. Khar, who I think made a landmark statement of her own: it’s time now to reject, very categorically, any idea of foreign intervention into Syria.

This leaves the US in a terrible predicament. We have to see how they’re going to get out and it might be some ugly surprises.

Source: PressTV