Saudis grasping at straws over Syria: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Ken Stone Hamilton, from the Coalition to Stop the War in Ontario, about Saudi Arabia saying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must step down from power at the beginning of a political transition in the war-ravaged country, not at the end.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: I want to put to you this first question. Now despite what the US, the main backers of Saudi Arabia, are doing in terms of not pressing ahead with their previous policy of removing Assad from power it seems like their main ally in the region, Riyadh, is still pressing ahead with this policy. How is that so?

Stone: Well this has to be the ultimate hypocrisy. Imagine that a representative of the most repressive, the most despotic, the most barbaric regime in the entire world is calling upon the democratically elected president of Syria to step down. That is the most hypocritical thing I can think of in the world today.

It is outrageous that the Saudi Arabian government should have been given a platform in France to even make such a ridiculous assertion. They know very well, the Saudis, that as far back as June 2012 at Geneva one, the peace talks, it was agreed that the peace talks would begin without any preconditions which means that nobody was going to have anything to say about the President of Syria having to step down and still now four years later the Saudis are still making the same claim.

And I wonder if the French allowed the Saudi foreign minister to have a platform to make this ridiculous claim, this hypocritical claim because the Saudis have bribed the French government by buying billions of dollars worth of French arms and of course the British are the same and even I am sorry to say the Canadian government is the same and that is how Saudi Arabia gets a pass at the United Nations and how Saudi Arabia, the most repressive regime in the world gets to be the head of the Human Rights Committee at the United Nations. It is utterly hypocritical but it is typical of what goes on here in the West.

Press TV: How far do you think that Saudi Arabia, Riyadh can really go with this and are we going to be witnessing a breakaway from French policies in terms of dealing with Saudi Arabia as well as Syria in comparison to the US policies?

Stone: I think the Saudis are getting desperate. They have made some desperate gambles by taking on a war of aggression against their neighbor Yemen which is the poorest country in the Arab world and they have made some terrible mistakes by arming and supplying ISIS (Daesh) and other terrorist groups inside of Syria.

Now that this is all failing, they are flailing around and trying all kinds of different maneuvers. I think the Saudis have talked about with the Turks of making an armed invasion into Syria. The Saudis have been meddling in Lebanese politics to try and cause mischief in that country so as to cause a problem for Hezbollah fighters who are now in Syria and the Saudis would like to see them dealing with problems in Lebanon.

The Saudis are grasping at straws and they will not succeed because the US and thanks to the Russian diplomatic and military offensive have come to an understanding that there is going to be a peace deal that Syria is going to stay united with its territorial integrity and its sovereignty and I think that what we have to look for in terms of the Saudis is the fall, the long overdue fall of the House of Saud. That is what I think is coming next.

Press TV: And finally, what needs to be done in terms of realities on the ground for the Saudi government to actually come on board?

Stone: Well I think that the ceasefire is the fact on the ground right now that is proving to the West that the Syrian government along with its allies, Iran and Lebanon and Russia, have the matter well in hand and that there is no room for the Saudis, the Turks and certain people in the US administration for a Plan B to partition Syria.

I think they have to realize the jig is up, that Syria is going to win, it is going to win back its sovereignty and its territory and it is too bad for the repressive leaders of Saudi Arabia who are still rattling their sabers. This should be something that comes up in the demonstrations around the world around the March 19th, the 21st where people in all the Western countries should say, ‘cancel those sales, arms sales to Saudi Arabia, hands off Syria.’

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