Eric Draitser: U.S. fomenting war in Syria

The US strategy of fomenting war in Syria by arming militants there will exacerbate tensions in the Middle East, says Eric Draitser.

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The US strategy to continue "fomenting war" in Syria by arming militants there will "exacerbate tensions" in the Middle East and expand the US wars throughout the region, a geopolitical analyst in New York says.

"The United States is already at war in Iraq, the United States is at war in Syria, the US proxies of ISIS are at war against Hezbollah trying to expand the war into Lebanon," Eric Draitser, the founder of StopImperialism.com said, using another acronym for the ISIL terrorist group.

The main objective of Washington in stirring unrest in the region is for the "purposes of advancing a hegemonic agenda," Draitser told Press TV on Saturday.

"The notion that the United States is fighting a war against ISIS is in and of itself a fraud," he said.

"This is sternly the corollary aspect to the larger mission to depose [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, to institute regime change in Syria and deprive Iran of its primary strategic ally in the region, (and) to move towards a US/UK/NATO/Israeli hegemony in the region that breaks the axis of resistance from Tehran, Iraq, Syria, and Hezbollah," he continued.

The Washington Post reports that the United States is preparing plans to escalate the CIA's role in arming and training anti-government militants in Syria.

Officials say the move is aimed at accelerating covert US support to "moderate" militant groups, while the Pentagon is preparing to establish its own training bases, the report said.

The prospect of expanding the program was discussed at a meeting of senior national security officials at the White House last week.

The plan would expand the CIA's clandestine activities that have grown significantly over the past year.

The notion that the United States is arming and training "moderate" militants is a "mythology" and a "cover" designed to distort the reality that the US is allying itself with extremists and the proxies of the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia, Draitser noted.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since March 2011. Nearly 200,000 people have been killed and millions displaced due to the violence fueled by the militants.