France, US using Paris tragedy to expand wars: Commentator

Press TV has interviewed Joe Iosbaker, a political commentator in Chicago, about remarks by French President Francois Hollande that he needs a "large coalition" to destroy Takfiri Daesh terrorists.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What the French president is saying is that he wants a large coalition. Anything larger than -- what it is right now and in the past year with the US leading – would be larger than NATO. Is he may be implying that?

Iosbaker: Well, I would certainly expect that the response of both France and the United States would be to use this tragedy in Paris as an excuse to expand their intervention in Syria, to expand as Hollande has now named it “the new war on terror.”

Of course, all of the world is still grieving for the tragedies in Paris as well as in Beirut, in Baghdad and of course the ongoing tragedy, the daily tragedy that is taking place in Syria. This reminds me very much of the days following the 9/11 attacks in New York and in Washington DC and the mood of sorrow and grief that gripped the people in this country and what did the Bush administration do, it took that grief and used it as a pretense, as an excuse to launch the war on terror which has now become the longest war in American history, which has caused several million deaths - mostly Arabs and Muslims - and has cost a trillion dollars a year in American tax monies alone and it has also led to a war on Muslims, domestically in the United States. And from the reports from France, it sounds like Hollande is going to unleash a war on the Muslim and Arab peoples inside France as well.

Press TV: One of the interesting statements that has come out is what the US secretary of state yesterday said and he said, “Now that the Paris attacks have happened we are going to make sure that a ceasefire comes into effect.” Before, it was supposed to be for months but now he said in weeks. That is pretty revealing. Now, why would it take the Paris attacks for Secretary of State John Kerry to say that?

Iosbaker: Well, the ceasefire that they are talking about is based on the negotiations that are taking place in Vienna and at this point the United States still has as its principle objective the removal of the government in Damascus, a government that is independent of US and NATO objectives.

I hope that the US learns the lesson here but the last 13 years, 14 years of history have indicated that the US only learns the lessons that serve its imperial interests. Moving towards a ceasefire in Syria would involve accepting that it is only the people of Syria that can defeat Daesh or the Islamic State. It would also involve recognition that it is the US, NATO, Turkey and their allies in the [Persian] Gulf states that have been the principle backers of the foreign armies and have in fact helped to create ISIS (Daesh) and I would be very surprised if the United States owns up to its role in the horrors of that war and its role in the tragedy that has struck Paris.

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