BRITISH Tory and Labour leaders fell in with their US masters’ drive to war yesterday.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in an interview aired yesterday on CNN that until Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is out of power, she doesn’t see a political solution to the conflict in Syria.
Haley told ‘State of the Union’ anchor Jake Tapper that ‘if you look at his actions, if you look at the situation, it’s going to be hard to see a government that’s peaceful and stable with Assad’. When asked if President Trump would order more strikes, Haley said: ‘If he needs to do more, he will do more. So, really, now what happens depends on how everyone responds to what happened in Syria.’
Haley said she thought a regime change would occur because ‘all of the parties are going to see that Assad is not the leader that needs to be taking place for Syria.’ Her remarks came just a day after she warned that the US was prepared to take further actions in Syria during a special session at the UN following the US cruise missile strike against a Syrian air base that killed 14 including nine civilians.
UK defence secretary Fallon said President Assad must depart and the search for stability begin.
In a bid to whip up war fever, he said: ‘Someone who uses barrel bombs and chemicals to kill his own people simply cannot be the future leader of Syria.’
UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson was derided as Trump’s ‘poodle’ in the Tory press after he called off his trip to Moscow that was planned to take place today. His excuse is attempting to co-ordinate a united response from the G7 group of industrialised nations, whose foreign ministers meet in Italy this week.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will visit Moscow as planned after the G7 meeting. Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said Labour’s official position was that the Trump administration should not have acted without UN backing but she conceded that senior figures, including deputy leader Tom Watson took a different view.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell attacked Russia and Assad and offered advice to Tory foreign secretary Johnson. Interviewed on SkyNews, he said: ‘I think Russia has a role to play because they’ve propped up the Assad regime all the way through.
‘But the only way I think we’re going to get rid of Assad is what was happening before the bombing which was the US and Russia beginning to build their relationship in which a strategy around Syria could be developed.’
He continued: ‘This Trump and Putin relationship that was developing could have enabled us to step back from the bombing rather than immediately bomb and have a proper enquiry and draw Russia in because I actually think there’s no way we’ll get rid of Assad unless there’s Russian agreement and I think the potential there has been destroyed as a result of this bombing.’
He went on: ‘We will not get a settlement in Syria as a result of bombing, we will get it as a negotiated settlement at some stage. But if we can bring Russia on side in due course that means a settlement without Assad.’
He added: ‘Here’s the tragedy today – America has bombed as a result of the use of gas and yet Syria, Assad, is bombing again today with barrel bombs, so actually it hasn’t stopped the bombing. In fact it might have actually put off the opportunity of a negotiated settlement.
‘My view is there should have been time for a proper inquiry, the results of that inquiry properly exposed, negotiations and back to Geneva. I think that there was potential there. We’ve got to get back to that. That’s why, I think actually Boris Johnson should be in Moscow now. I think he should be there.’
‘So he was wrong then?,’ the interviewer interjected, McDonnell responding: ‘I think he was. I think he should be in Moscow now saying to the Russians just how appalling the situation is and the role that they should play. We’ve got to be frank with them and we shouldn’t just allow the Americans to go off and do that, we should be doing that ourselves.’
The interviewer asked: ‘Do you think that he’s effectively bowing to pressure from the Americans?’
McDonnell replied: ‘I don’t know, we need to ask him that and he needs to be honest with us about that as well and they need to be straightforward.
‘But look, we shouldn’t be, well, we shouldn’t be basically directed by America, but whether we are or not, he should be there making the case to Russia, condemning them of course but then also saying the proof of whether or not they’re serious about peace is back to Geneva and the talks, he should be saying that on our behalf, firmly.’
British workers are opposed to imperialist intervention in Syria. It’s high time the trade unions call mass demonstrations and strike action in support of the Syrian people who have every right to choose President Assad to lead their government. The imperialists have no right to remove him.
