Amin Abadi of the Kayhan Institute, Teheran interviews renowned economist and geopolitical analyst Peter Koenig.
The interview entitled “The Tragedy of Syria and the Middle East at Large” was published in Farsi in Kayhan (Cosmos), one of Iran’s most prominent newspapers. Below is the original English version of the interview.
Amin Abadi: What is the major reason for Syrian crisis in your point of view, the crisis that includes massacre of thousands of people and homelessness of too many
Peter Koenig
By 2011 the ‘opposition’ was ready to launch a civil war on behalf of Washington against the Government of Bashar al-Assad, the democratically elected President of Syria, elected with a vast majority; and after five-years of foreign imposed war on the people of Syria, his approval rating is still above 70%. The ‘opposition’ – al-Nusra, al-Qaeda and whatever other names the ‘western friendly’ opposition was given to confuse the public at large by western media, was trained, fed and armed by the CIA, Mossad, Saudi Arabia – and of course, Vassal-Europe’s / NATO secret services.
Backtracking – soon after WWII a few Zionist-headed US so-called ‘think tanks’, like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – and others, concocted a plan for the United States to take over the world. They called it ‘Pax Americana’ after the Roman Empire’s ‘Pax Romana’ which were arguably the 300 to 400 bloodiest years of the Roman Empire.
This is an ongoing plan, modified and adjusted according to new circumstances, but never deviating from the final objective – Full Spectrum Dominance. In the early nineties, under neoliberal banking deregulator Clinton, the plan’s name was changed to ‘Plan for a New American Century’ – PNAC. ‘Pax Americana’ may have been too obvious a give-away for a country that propagates democracy around the world, while spreading dictatorships to achieve a One or New World Order. Mind you, the Chosen People, are masterminding the New World Order – which includes the take-over of the Middle East.
Within PNAC, the Middle East’s destruction and chaos was planned for a long time, according to the motto – divide to reign. It’s part of the take-over of the world and its resources. The Middle East’s major natural resources are hydrocarbons – and “who controls energy controls the Continents; who controls food, controls the people; and who controls money – controls the world” – the infamous words spoken by war criminal Henry Kissinger already in the early seventies. It remains the motto on which the PNAC is built.
This is a long introduction to get to the point: The PNAC singles out in particular a number of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries that have to fall – regardless. Period. They include, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia – not necessarily in this order, but their destruction and subordination, or to use the term that emerged after Clinton’s destruction of peaceful and prosperous Yugoslavia – Balkanization – was planned. Yugoslavia was divided into chaos, to be controlled by the US / NATO forces – and to advance NATO bases ever closer to Russia.
The ‘balkanization’ of Syria is particularly ‘necessary’ for the Empire, as it is strategically located on the Mediterranean Sea and a potential thoroughfare for oil pipelines from the Gulf countries to serve the vast European markets and become a fierce competition for hydrocarbons from Russia.
At present about 35% of the world’s seaborne traded oil (and about 20% of all oil worldwide) passes through the Strait of Hurmuz, one of the world’s most important oil chokepoints, which is largely controlled by Iran; and, by the way, is a key factor in the US-Iran tensions – which in fact have nothing to do with an alleged Iranian ‘nuclear threat’. This is nothing but a public opinion manipulating farce propagated by western media.
Of course, Washington needs to dominate and cannot deal with democratically elected socialist leaders like Iran’s Hassan Rouhani, or Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. In Syria, Mr. Assad has full popular support as recently demonstrated by Syria’s Parliamentarian elections. He is leading a secular socialist government with equal rights and free social services like health and education – all of which does not fit Washington’s neoliberal fascist concept of privatizing-everything in the New World Order under their reign. So – for Washington there is not even a question of ‘peace’ as long as President Assad is the head of Syria. For Washington and its European vassal allies, there is only one way: “regime change”.
By now it is no longer a secret, not even in the western media, who created, funded, trained and armed ISIS or the Islamic State (IS) terrorism – the United States of America, by recruiting remnants of Saddam Hussein’s elite defense forces after his murder. Now maintenance of the Islamic State is shared largely between the US, the Saudis, Qatar and other Gulf states – and Turkey, President Erdogan being the number one US puppet, leading a crucially strategically located NATO country, who can be ordered to do anything that Washington demands – like shooting down a Russian fighter jet.
Fortunately, there is Russia and President Putin. He has put a monkey wrench in the wheels of aggression of the western forces who were pretending vis-à-vis the western public that they were fighting ISIS (or IS), but in fact were supporting them, by bombing mostly Syrian civilian populations and supplying IS with arms, letting them smuggling stolen petrol into Turkey for sale to such illustrious ‘enemies’ like Israel and others in Europe. In a few months Mr. Putin put an end to IS dominance in Syria and western aggressions, liberating most of IS-occupied territory, and putting the Syrian army back in charge.
This left Washington and its European vassals up in arms – what to do? Despite the self-inflicted or ‘false flag’ terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, which were to justify more NATO bombing of Syria – Russia’s air force and strategy prevailed in bringing back, at least in part, Syria’s sovereignty. – Therefore Washington had to gain time – for NATO and IS to regroup and to rethink (sic). Hence, the so-called Geneva Peace Talks were called. As we know now, they are unlikely to lead anywhere – as long as Washington and its European NATO stooges insist on ‘regime change’.
Be sure, while Washington keeps breathing, they will never relent; they will never make any serious concession which deviates from their plan – other than agreements they break by deceit, as we already see with the Iranian Nuclear Agreement. That is their firm strategy. Never get detracted from your goal – à la Roman Empire – which eventually collapsed through internal forces.
AA: Do you believe that big powers across the world including America has fulfilled their humanitarian responsibilities and moral obligations toward Syrian people?
PK: Of course not. To the contrary, they are responsible for the humanitarian disaster, for over 4 million of displaced people, for more than half a million killed by a ‘civil war’, entirely instigated and funded by foreign forces. They are responsible for uncountable human tragedies, for the flood of refugees into Europe via Turkey. Mind you this flood of refugees from Syria and other western devastated MENA countries was also planned, as a ‘weapon’ to destabilize Europe.
The US and Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States funded refugee camps in Turkey at the tune of 6 billion dollars – camps that can hold more than 4 million refugees. Erdogan was told by his transatlantic masters – keep them in Turkey until we tell you to open the flood-gates. That’s exactly what he did. Last fall came the order – let them go. And he did let them go – into a European wet and cold fall and winter season, difficult to give shelter to sudden multitudes of refugees. In masses they crossed the Aegean Sea to the Greek islands or the Mediterranean to Italy and southern France. Many of the refugees were told to go to Germany, that’s where the future is – many of them were actually given ‘road maps’ to Germany, Austria and some other northern European countries.
Germany in 2015 absorbed at least a million refugees from MENA and African countries and is expected to take in at least as many in 2016. Yet, as these lines are written, Madame Merkel is negotiating with Mr. Erdogan a six-billion euro-plus deal to keep the refugees in Turkey. The blackmail specialist, Erdogan is getting paid from both sides. He must keep his fraudulently acquired money in safer places than Panama.
A new, little spoken about but horrendous tragedy is lately emerging from Europol – possibly as many as 10,000 refugee children, mostly orphans, have disappeared. Have they fallen into the hands of child traders, using and selling them for slave labor and the girls into sex trade?
All is possible in our western world where all sense of ethics has disappeared in the last 30 years or more; but at least since the ascent of neoliberal – everything-goes-for-profit – fascism. After all, Europe’s records on ethics is historically abysmal – having raped, plundered and killed hundreds of millions of Africans, Asians and South Americans in their hundreds of years of colonies around the world. One would have hoped after two world wars they would come to reason. But no. There is something fundamentally wrong with this ‘Chosen People’-dominated western world.
Yet, there was another strategy in place – to destroy Greece completely. She is already being slaughtered, humiliated and – I dare say – assassinated by the troika – European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB – which is not really a central bank) and the infamous IMF, the long-arm instrument of the US Federal Reserve (FED) and of Wall Street. History shows that Greece is a country of enormous human resources and resilience. This resilience has to be broken and annihilated. After all, Greece, together with Turkey and Germany, is host to one of the most important strategic NATO base. Greece cannot remain an autonomous, sovereign state and god forbid – with a socialist government. Never.
So, the northern European countries closed their borders to Greece; and Greece could not return the refugees to Turkey, mostly because of humanitarian reasons. What would happen to them back in Turkey – under Erdogan’s fist – and thousands of refugees have already lost their lives attempting to cross the seas to safer havens. Ironically, these safer havens are the very European nations that helped destroy their homes, livelihoods, tear their families apart – kill literally millions of them during the past 15 years. Go and seek help from your executioner! – What a fate! – Greece, with not enough resources to feed its own people, had to look after and protect the lives of hundreds of thousands of refugees, who were not allowed by her northern neighbors to move on.
Talk about solidarity – there is none. The European Union is a sham; an unsustainable fraud.:
AA: You have mentioned in your article The Children of Syria published by Global Research that Obama is the biggest misuser of human rights in the world of the century, would you explain us more about that.
PK: Sure. For one thing, Mr. Obama has started more wars than his predecessor; he is today involved in seven wars, as he boasts himself. And this for a Peace Nobel Prize winner – a prize given to him at the beginning of his tenure, in hope that he would bring peace to the world. But no. He was given a different agenda by his masters. The secret masters at the top of this opaque triangle, the elite of the elite, some call them ‘Illuminati’ others, the secret Masters of the Free Masons.
The known semi-secretive organizations, like the Bilderbergers, the Trilaterals, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the British Chatham House, the World Economic Forum (WEF) – and others – are all instruments used subjugate the world by the top of the evasive triangle. The ‘leaders’ below, Obama, Hollande, Merkel, Cameron and Co. are all puppets, put in place by above and executing orders fromabove. The elusive above is led by ‘The Chosen People’. – Sounds like conspiracy theory? – Think again and look at who is heading the FED, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street giants, the media and communications industry, the military industrial complex – and so on.
Back to the question on human rights – Obama is also abusing human rights by his drone killings. He has openly admitted, if not boasted about approving every drone killing himself. Mostly on Tuesdays, he looks at lists of alleged terrorists around the world, and he decides who must be eliminated, no accusation, no trial, no investigation. He is god, deciding over life and death, giving the job to actually pull the drone trigger to some young soldiers who love ‘play stations’ – killing unknown people thousands of kilometers away, mostly aiming at people’s gatherings like weddings, funerals or other family events, in which, maybe, the target is present. They kill hundreds of people who have nothing to do with the alleged ‘terrorist’ – they become ‘bug-splats’, military jargon for remotely killed unknown people. On Obama’s orders; who fulfills a world agenda of the above.
Other than the two world wars, there is hardly anybody on this planet who is responsible for killing more people in the last hundred years than Obama. He is a puppet alright, but even puppets have a conscience – don’t they, or shouldn’t they?
AA: You have mentioned in your article that tens of thousands people have been killed during the last 15 years because of the drone attacks conducted by France, America and United Kingdom and more than 90 percent of the victims were civilians. Why have the international communities responsible for human rights such as United Nations kept silence against these crimes?
PK: There is no international community that is not in the claws of the United States of America. In the last 20-30 years they have all become lackeys for the Empire. It’s sad to say, but the United Nations, born in October 1945 from the League of Nation, created after WWI to assure peace around the world, has become but a tool for Washington to manipulate the world. Every UN Secretary General has to be approved, if not selected by Washington. All the UN Special Agencies, like WHO, UNESCO, UNCTAD, UNICEF, World Bank, IMF and more – are under direct orders from Washington. If anyone misbehaves, as has happened at times, with WHO and UNESCO among other, the US simply withholds its share of funding and pressures other countries to do likewise – until the respective agency falls back in track. So simple.
The worst is the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. From a court you would expect neutrality and justice. How come all the ‘criminals’ accused and condemned are enemies of the Empire? But the real criminals and war criminals, like the US Presidents of the last 60 years and their aids, are not even accused, let alone tried and brought to justice. In a just world they all would deserve a judgement Nuremberg style.
That’s why all these agencies, the international community, keeps silent about these crimes – the drone killings, the ‘illegal’ wars (all wars are illegal and crimes against humanity), proxy-instigated and fed conflicts, go without judgement. People are afraid of sanctions, of Washington’s sledgehammer.
Fear is the key instrument used by any empire to manipulate people. Just organize somewhere an act of terror – and people are afraid, screaming for help – please more police, more military protection – they even ask that their civil rights be abrogated for ‘protection’. That’s how President Hollande was able to extent the state of emergency (Martial Law) in France. He is still working on perpetuating it into the French Constitution.
AA: As you mentioned in your last article, millions of people in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan are living in a very low standards of life, they are suffering from poverty and that misery is only because of the greed and dominance ambitions of super powers. What is the solution to enhance their level of life?
PK: The simple and in the end only answer is peace and social justice. How to achieve that is a different question. It needs a shift in paradigm. It requires a different human consciousness, one not driven by greed and power, but by a sense of human solidarity, by a desire to live together in harmony and in harmony with nature – a society that is not just thriving on consumerism, on absurd annual growth of consumption – a society that is aware of its surroundings, of Mother Earth, her entire ecosystem, animals, plants, natural unrenewable resources – a society that takes care of and protects its ‘neighborhood’ which is precisely that – the globe’s precious ecosystem. It is generously giving us everything we need for life, for a decent life that is – without having to kill and destroy.
This consciousness is inherent in human beings. We are all born with it. But it is imminently destroyed as we enter this greed-driven society. Yet, there is in every human brain, call it spirit or soul, a spark that glows up ever-so-often and tells us, there is something wrong with what’s going on around us. We only have to grasp this glow, this warm little light in the back of our minds, and follow it, look where it leads us. It will lead us to the truth. Maybe we have to look for it in alternative media, or just by opening our eyes. It may disturb our comfort zone. That’s the major hindrance for most people who ignore this little warm spark. In fact, crossing that threshold of abandoning our comfort zone, brings a richness of mind from which you never want to return. – That would be the solution.
AA: America has always been exposing as a state that pay close attention to peace and has a great emphasis on maintenance of democracy all over the world. But, yet the US itself has been one of the countries, having big shares on Syrian destruction. How do you see this Paradox?
PK: The ‘paying close attention to peace and democracy’ is just a propaganda farce Washington applies again and again. Ever fewer people fall for it. They see the real United States of Chaos, Greed and Power. But the paradox is, that even if nations and leaders of nations see the truth, see the lie behind the propaganda, they do not dare countering it. They are afraid of the emperor without cloths. He might dish out sanctions, economic sanctions, his atrocious military forces may invade their country, he may bring about ‘regime change’ – he may just simply kill to get what he wants. Just see what’s happening in Syria, in the Ukraine, before in Iraq, Libya – you name it. The list of leaders of unaligned nations killed by the empire in the last 70 years is long, very long.
Yes, the US has not only a big share in the Syrian disaster, it is the main instigator of the war and misery. The reason being, as explained before, full dominance of, first, the energy rich and strategic Middle East and North Africa, then of the world. And there it may falter. There is Russia and China, allied countries that will not allow a Zionist-Anglo-Saxon take-over. They have not only created an alliance among themselves, but also with the remaining BRICS (Brazil, India and South Africa), as well as with the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
This alliance is foremost an economic and political alliance, but also one of defense. Together these countries make up about half of the world population and at least one third of the globes total economic output. They are also about to launch their independent monetary system, completely delinked form the fraudulent western fiat dollar-based casino system (for more on this, seehttp://www.globalresearch.ca/the-collapse-of-the-western-fiat-monetary-system-may-have-begun-china-russia-and-the-reemergence-of-gold-backed-currencies/5521107 ).
There is hope. Although do not expect a drastic overnight change. Sea changes do happen. But they are slow.
AA: According to the received reports more than ten thousand refugees including kids have been disappeared in European countries. There is a
big probabilities that they have been kidnapped by human trafficking Bands. Such a news coming from Europe seems not to hurt anyone seriously in West. What do you see the reason?
PK: Indeed, as mentioned before, according to Europol, at least 10,000 refugee children disappeared. They could have easily fallen into bands of human trafficking – an utterly miserable perspective for these defenseless children, slavery, sex-exploitation, abuse all the way to death. Nobody knows about their fate. And as you said, the western media doesn’t particularly seem to care about their fate. This occurrence is almost silenced.
More important seem to be the semi-secret talks between Madame Merkel and Mr. Erdogan about the six-billion-euro deal, and the ongoing ultra-secret, behind closed-doors ‘negotiations’ of the infamous TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), the most nefarious trade agreement of recent centuries that risks to totally enslave Europe to transnational corporations, most of them US corporations
(For details see PK’s article my article entitled EU to Become a “U.S. Colony”? The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would Abolish Europe’s Sovereignty. (24 April 2016).
Human life is cheap, especially human lives in poverty and destitution is expendable, in our world of greed and without ethics.
As a last word – let me again appeal to this little warm spark in the back of your mind that we tend to ignore, as it may impinge on our comfort. Please do not ignore it. Let it glow brighter and follow it to the truth. It will warm your heart and help bring about the needed sea change.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, CounterPunch, TeleSur, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.