It's puzzling how the US can treat radical Islamists in Syria as allies while fighting against them as enemies in Afghanistan, says the chair of the Russian parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Washington's double standard approach is evident in the Syrian crisis. It supports the armed opposition, which wants to turn the country into a dictatorship, claiming that their war against the Assad government has democracy as the goal,

Aleksey Pushkov: chair of the Russian parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs
Aleksey Pushkov told RT.
RT: Do you think the events unfolding in Syria are in line with the interests of the Syrian people?Aleksey Pushkov: There is a civil war going on in Syria, and it is only the Syrian political opposition that is benefiting from it. The opposition took up arms and uses violence to achieve their goal. I am convinced that most Syrians don't want to have this armed conflict.
It is well-known that the armed opposition groups persecute the Christian community in Syria. Thousands of Christians were driven out of their towns and villages. Shia Muslims, a minority in the country - they make up 13 per cent - are also targeted by armed Sunni radicals who represent the majority in the armed opposition.
Minorities are killed, as we saw in Houla, and driven out. There is a town in Syria called Hama, right now it is controlled by the militants. And there are basically no local residents left in Hama. They have either been killed or fled the city.
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