Russian (Vestnik Kavkaza) Interview With PCR on US/Russia Syria Cooperation
Russian (Vestnik Kavkaza) Interview With PCR on US/Russia Syria Cooperation
Paul Craig Roberts: “Russia has independent foreign policy, this is unacceptable to Washington”
Sep 27 - 11:17 pm By Vestnik Kavkaza
A long-awaited meeting between Presidents of Russia and the U.S. will take place tomorrow in New York, apparently, in the room of the Russian delegation in the UN SC. Paul Craig Roberts, professor, Chairman of The Institute for Political Economy, the former Aid of the Financial Minister in the administration of Ronald Reagon, told Vestnik Kavkaza (VK) about his view on the Russian-American relations.
Vestnik Kavkaza (VK) - Do you believe that the fact that presidents Barak Obama and Vladimir Putin agreed to meet is the sign of thaw in bilateral relations?
Paul Craig Roberts (PCR)- No. Of course, not.
VK - What does it mean then?
PCR - I think, it means that Putin is too hopeful. It can also mean that he went every possible length to calm down the hostility flowing towards Russia from Washington; but it does not really mean anything, because Putin wants to talk about Syria and ISIS, and Obama wants to talk about the breakaway republics and Ukraine and wants Putin to turn it all back to Kiev.
Therefore, they have no common purpose in the talks. Obama intends to overthrow Assad, one of the reasons, of course is to get rid of the Russian naval base at Tartus, which was the reason Washington overthrew the Ukrainian government, he wanted to get rid of the Russian Black Sea naval base. So, the two countries have different intentions. The neo-conservative strategy is that the United States must prevent the rise of Russia, because Russia could be a constraint on unilateral US actions. So, if you intend to prevent the rise of a country and you have demonized it, Russia is demonized: it is a threat worse than Ebola, the threat worse than Islamic State. American politician and top government officials even compared the president of Russia to Hitler. So, you cannot create a threat in the minds of the American people and the minds of the Europeans, and then turn around and work with that threat, because it undermines the success of the propaganda in demonizing Russia. So, there is nothing to be expected.
VK - So, what are the chances for the US-Russia cooperation against ISIS? Actually, Ashton Carte recently said that such cooperation might be possible.