Syria unrest
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Israel is the "ultimate outside power" that is behind the Syrian crisis and foreign countries' pushes to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, says an analyst.

The assertion comes as the foreign ministers of Russia, China, Britain, France, Turkey, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq, as well as the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, the Arab League Secretary-General, Nabil El-Araby, and the secretary of state of the United States attended a meeting on the situation in Syria at the United Nations office in Geneva on Saturday.

Press TV has conducted an interview with political commentator Mark Dankof to further discuss the issue.

The video also offers the opinions of an additional guest: Lawrence Freeman of US weekly newsmagazine Executive Intelligence Review.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview:

Press TV: Why do you think that countries such as Kuwait and Qatar were invited but regional players like Iran even a country that would definitely be affected by this very much so like Lebanon was not invited?

Dankof: Well, I think it's very clear what's going on here. You have a situation where as your News Analysis suggests this is nothing more than an attempt to destabilize and to overthrow the current regime in Syria at the behest of outside powers and the ultimate outside power that stands behind all of it is the one that wasn't mentioned in the News Analysis and that is the Zionist ... of Israel.
The fact of the matter is that the Israelis and their Jewish neo-conservative allies in the United States have decided that Assad has to go; that you basically have an Alawite Shiite regime in Syria that has to be removed and that they're going to employ Saudi Arabia and the Gulf cooperation states and Turkey and the so called North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to do it.
So this is another version of what was going on in Libya and it clearly goes back to many many years of American and British and French imperialism, yes, but the bigger game plan in this whole thing is to destabilize and to remove this Alawite Shiite regime in Syria is a prelude to what Benjamin Netanyahu and both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney clearly want as well as all of their Zionist allies in Congress and that is a war with Iran.

Press TV: OK, Mr. Dankof let's look at how significant the Russian role is in all of this? It seems that during this meeting in Geneva now actually it was probably due to the flexing of the Russians that Kofi Anan said in talking about this transitional governing body that would be representative of all parties that are involved in this situation including the Syrian government. How significant was that statement in your perspective?

Dankof: Well, I think when you look at these talks it's clear to me that what is likely to emerge is one of two things either the talks will fail or there will be an agreement that ultimately will still guarantee as far as the agreeing powers are concerned that Assad will ultimately have to go.
It's kind of a heads I win, tails you lose proposition as far as the American expression is to what happens when you call heads or tails, when you flip a coin.
It seems to me that what we have here is a circumstance clearly where the United states and Britain and France and Israel want Assad out at all costs and it is clear that this involves Netanyahu's desire for a war with Iran.
And yes it also involves the agenda of the international banking community as the EIR guest has chronicled on your show but we need to remind ourselves of the fact that when you speak that way that ultimately whether it's American banking or British banking or what have you it is still ultimately a Jewish power game that is involved here.
And ultimately it's a situation where if the United States and Israel and Britain and the international bankers that control all of these governments don't get their way the talks will simply collapse.
Press TV: And how likely do you think that is to happen? Do you think that so far that the talks have at least enabled these other entities from obviously not entering directly and how long do you think that that could continue?

Dankof: Well, I think what clearly has to happen is that behind the scenes Vladimir Putin has to make it clear and the Chinese have to make it clear that they've had enough of this monkey business, they basically were pulled on like a heated flying suit as my air force father would have said in regarding going along with this no fly zone UN resolution that involved Libya which proved to be nothing more than a prelude to what it was that NATO and the United States and the Israelis really had planned for Libya.

The Russians and the Chinese have presumably learned their lesson this time and hopefully Putin's people including Mr. Lavrov and the Chinese representatives to this talk are going to in fact understand that by now the other side does not want a reasonable agreement but shows every intention of overthrowing the Syrian government and doing so with the so called Free Syrian Army which they're clearly bankrolling, they're clearly arming it.

And of course as [American economist and Creators Syndicate columnist] Paul Craig Roberts has pointed out the Western news media has engaged in a series of blatantly outrageous and false news stories as to who is doing what in that country that is making it appear that the Syrian regime is the one doing all of the killing and that these rebels are almost entirely the victims and that it's not a situation where in fact Western Zionists and banking interests are bankrolling this [so called] Free Syrian Army and using al Qaeda and other enemy entities to do it in order to get rid of a Shiite regime that is aligned with Iran and in order to bring this particular country back in to alignment with presumably whatever it is that the international banking community wants which certainly dovetails with what your other guest was speaking about earlier.

Press TV: What about that Mr. Dankof on the one hand Kofi Anan said that he wanted this plan, this transitional plan implemented that immediately all sides would stop all the violence? However at the same time we know that the West is actually arming the so called opposition to the Syrian government, so what exactly does it mean is it as our guest has said in Washington that all of this is already set up to fail because they don't want it to be successful?

Dankof: I share your guest's pessimism and cynicism on this frankly just look at what the United states is doing with Iran. You have a situation here where everything that has happened up to now is destined simply to replace the current regime in Tehran and to engage in a series of obvious acts of war up to this point as Ron Paul has pointed out in order to make it happen.
When it comes to the Iranians, the United States and the West are engaging in all kinds of sanctions against the Iranian banking interest, against the Iranian oil markets. You have a situation where the United States and Israel are using the Mujahedin (MEK) to engage in all kinds of atrocities in Iran including the assassinations of these Iranian nuclear scientists.
You have had the Washington Post chronicling the fact that there has been a fire-fold increase in so called unexplained bomb blasts in Iran in the last couple of years that virtually everyone agrees are being undertaken as the result of the operations of the MEK and the Israeli Mossad and quite possibly the British paramilitary forces as well.
So when you add assassinations and bomb blasts to violations of airspace and to oil and banking sanctions and so forth and so on, these are even individually acts of war. Collectively they are really an ultimate act of war and if these things fail to bring down the Iranian regime next year the next phase in all of this will be an American/Israeli and quite possibly British military conventionally military operation against Iran that would accomplish the same thing that we're all concerned about with Syria and that is a regional configuration and potentially a third world war.
This is exactly what former United States assistance secretary...

Press TV: Let me just jump in here, you're saying that all of this involving Syria is actually an attempt to bring down the Iranian government?

Dankof: That's exactly what it is and it's also a situation I think your other guest has done a nice job with this, it's clear that we have an international global banking crisis. Paul Craig Roberts was discussing this in his most recent essay. The people that have given us a world global international central banking system have brought Fiat money, fractional reserve banking, extortionist usury and all of these other elements into play in what they do within individual countries as well as the amount of money that they make when they get war started and control the debt that is generated by this conflict and so all of this is involved.
And it seems to me that the explanation of this by your other guest which I think is very fine and very legitimate dovetails very nicely with the fact that these global banking interests tend to be Jewish dominated, they tend to be pro-Zionist and their agenda in terms of the amount of money and power that they wish to accrue to themselves works out very well with Benjamin Netanyahu's desire for a war with Iran and to continue to destroy any power in central Asia and the Middle East that poses any competitive threat whatsoever to a Zionist takeover of all the lands between the Nile river and the Tigris-Euphrates river.
Press TV: Mr. Dankof, one minute, what do you think is the key right now for the Syrian people in order to have peace in their country?

Dankof: I think two things are key. One is that Russia and China have to stick to their guns and do whatever they have to do behind the scenes otherwise to convey to the West that they're not going to put up with other monkey business in regard to what it is that is going on in central Asia and the Middle East.
I think Paul Craig Roberts also brings a note of hope into this as well in his latest essay when he in fact seems to be hinting that a Western banking collapse on the order of the one that your other guest was alluding to may well be the salvation of the entire world because if there is an international banking collapse, there will not be any longer any capital available to be promoting what it is that the United States and Israel And Britain are promoting in Syria