In promising a new attack on Syria, Donald Trump is stealing a page from George W Bush, who said he wasn’t into nation-building but then went full force into Iraq, said Kaveh Afrasiabi, ex-adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiators.

Russia's envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, called the alleged chemical attack in Syria’s Douma “fake news” and “staged” during an emergency Security Council meeting on Monday.

Reports on Saturday claimed dozens had died in the rebel-held city of Douma in Eastern Ghouta after chlorine gas was dropped on the area. Russia's military and chemical experts searched the area but no traces of banned substances were found.

The US said it will act against the Syrian government with or without the UN’s blessing.



“History will record this as the moment when the Security Council either discharged its duty or demonstrated its utter and complete failure to protect the people of Syria. Either way, the United States will respond,” US envoy Nikki Haley told the Security Council.

Kaveh Afrasiabi, a former adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiation team and author, told RT that Western countries have an old habit of interventionism that they are addicted to.

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RT: Ambassador Haley just stated that the US will quote, "respond," no matter what the Security Council decides. Isn’t it a mockery of the Security Council?

Kaveh Afrasiabi: Unfortunately, that seems like it. It is a ‘post-fact mindset’ in Washington that executes punishment and then searches for evidence in order to rationalize this war-mongering policy. And it coincides with last year, this time President Trump ordered 59 tomahawk missiles into Syria even though we know by, among other things, the investigative reports by Seymour Hersh that Trump knew that the Syrian government wasn’t behind it. Nevertheless he ordered the attack. He is making a little ritual out of this and he is about to recycle US military interventionism in Syria on lame excuses...

The US has the entire US media behind it sheepishly echoing the government’s point of view, without anyone asking any critical question: why would the Syrian government who was winning the war in east Ghouta, liberating it after seven years, resort to this political suicide by attacking its own civilians with nerve gas? Why? Just to hand over on a golden plate its victory to its enemies? It makes absolutely no sense, it is illogical. Yet, the Western governments are pathetically predictable by now… They dish out one false flag operation after another, after the Skripal case they are jumping to this one. There is absolutely no independent world body to hold them accountable for their action. If President Trump orders another attack, and this time he might even send B-52s in addition to the missiles and carpet bombing… the Western media will rally behind it, they will mobilize the public opinion and his sagging opinion polls will rise. This is an old habit that they are addicted to…

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After seven years, Eastern Ghouta is liberated, these rebels who are on the terrorist list of the US State Department, are being routed and there is no possibility of them coming back. And there is no possibility of turning the clock back, regaining the lost footholds in major parts of Syria. What is the excuse? I don’t really have the answer.

RT: If the US is so sure that the attack happened, won't they want to investigate? Especially, when Russia's UN ambassador says no bodies, no trace of chemical weapons, and no witnesses were found.

KA: After having put Russia under siege through the Skripal case, they have weakened Russia’s standing, they don’t mind ignoring what Russia presents as counter evidence to prevent another war of choice and US-Western militarism. And unfortunately, it seems like that they’ve got France mobilized as their junior partner. And that is a sad statement on France that used to have an independent foreign policy.

Hopefully, something will come out of this and the UN secretary general will put his foot down, he has called for an independent investigation of Israeli atrocities... Israel aggressively violated Lebanon’s airspace and Syria’s territorial sovereignty, unilaterally conducting military aggression against Syria without any provocation by the Syrian government. That seems to be a prelude for a much more comprehensive US-led attack on Syria as President Trump has promised within the next 24 hours or so. He is definitely stealing a page from George Bush who was pretending that he is not into nation-building and then went full force into Iraq…

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