'No reason the US would want Syrian chemical weapons process to succeed'

With Syria the United States is going to create a formula for failure, like it did with Libya, changing the rules, playing games to use leverage in the area, Gordon Duff, senior editor of Veterans Today Newspaper and a former Vietnam marine told RT.

RT:Why are radical ideas becoming more radical and more popular among the rebels in Syria?

Gordon Duff: I think that the struggle in Syria is increasingly becoming something we can forecast as a broader struggle, one that is going to engulf a much larger area. The struggle in Syria is much less now an anti-Assad struggle and is more an anti-American struggle. This is a pan-Islamic struggle against the United States and its predicated belief that Assad is going to step down in a political agreement, a diplomatic agreement at some time. The real struggle as I see it, and I take issue with many other analysts in this, I believe that the real struggle was always intended to be against the moderates, the Salafists, the more radical elements. That's the real war. That war can go on for generations.

RT:How is this going to develop? What consequences could these radical divisions have?

GD: This is going to turn, into I believe, into a surrogate war right out of the Cold War. Russia and the United States are going to stare each other down, the current US moves towards befriending Iran are a way of taking focus off the horrific diplomatic errors the US has made. The United States has found out that it tries to arm one side against the other, and this is what a lot of people miss, if we are arming one group of rebels, if the United States is, we are not arming them to fight against Assad, we are arming them to fight the other groups of rebels.

RT:All three factions have different views on the future of Syria, if they are able to achieve their shared goal of toppling the Assad regime. Where is this going to lead the Syrian people? 

GD: It's going to lead them to well we are saying we’ve lost a 100 thousand of people now. Well, 20 years from now it will be 2 million. We are creating a civil war that will turn into genocide. 

RT:What is Assad going to do? 

GD: The assumption that’s being made is that he is going to lose interest and step aside. I believe that that’s not going to happen, I believe he’s going to stand firm, I believe that certainly there is a move that is going to be made to destroy Hezbollah and break that alliance apart. But that the Syrian people are going to be able to withstand even this tremendous pressure that’s coming through right now. I think that the United States is the government that's going to eventually walk away from this. 

RT:What of the chemical weapons talk? Assad says that within the next 12 months they will be handed over. Is Assad going to see that through? 

GD: The United States as it did with Saddam is going to create a formulary for failure. We are going to continue raising the bar, changing the rules, playing games, to drag this on and on and on as a way of playing leverage in the area. There is no reason the United States would want this process to succeed. It’s the worst thing that can happen to the United States. Once the Unites States admits to these chemical weapons being gone and we know that Assad has no use for them at all this leaves the United States no leverage, no way to be able to exert any force or influence the US policy in the region. The moment this becomes the fact, the moment the chemical weapons are gone the United States will have to walk away. They’ll have no choice.