Owen Jones (Americans can spot meddling, 5 January) refers to Russian interference in Syria to support the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad against his own people. In fact, Vladimir Putin is supporting Syria against the brutal invasion of Islamic State, which has been armed and financed, by proxy, through the US client states Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey in order to destabilise Syria (as related by US journalist Seymour Hersh, among others). Islamists have been used repeatedly by western and regional powers in recent history against progressive Arab socialism and nationalism. Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief, Prince Bandar, advised using radical Islamists to destroy the Syrian regime at a high-profile meeting with the CIA.
This intervention is not designed to promote democracy or human rights (hence the pivotal alliance with the brutal Saudi regime), fitting into a catalogue of US foreign policy interventions against “rogue” states deemed to be inimical to its interests, to guarantee geopolitical hegemony.
Dr Ali El-Gingihy
Consultant psychiatrist (retired), Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
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