Washington is using its fight against the notorious Islamic State as a smokescreen to deal a lethal blow to Syria and its democratically elected leader President Bashar al-Assad, Western experts say.

Ignoring Bashar al-Assad's overwhelming public support in Syria, Washington and its Middle Eastern Sunni allies are doing whatever it takes to topple the country's secular leader. Now Syria is facing the risk of being dragged into further destruction: as America's President Barack Obama has recently approved US air support for Turkey's no-fly zone over Syria.

"It is late July 2015, and the media is abuzz with the news that Turkey will allow US jets to use its bases to bomb Islamic State [ISIL] targets in Syria. There is much talk about how this development is a "game-changer," and how this is a clear escalation of the much ballyhooed, but more fictional than real, US war on ISIS [ISIL]: the terror organization that US intelligence welcomed as a positive development in 2012 in their continued attempts to instigate regime change against the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad," US political analyst and StopImperialism.com editor Eric Draitser pointed out.

Experts stress that "this is exactly how events developed in Libya." US writer and activist Shamus Cooke recently branded the no-fly zone an 'Anti Kurdish and anti-Syrian government safe zone.' The activist pointed to the fact that in 2011, with Libya engulfed in internal strife, a "no-fly zone" quickly snowballed into US-backed regime change and the murder of Libya's president Muammar Gaddafi.

"Obama upped the stakes a year ago by authorizing the bombing of Syrian infrastructure targets, a bandit diktat without Security Council or congressional authorization — on the phony pretext of fighting IS [ISIL]. Now in collaboration with Turkey, plans are to establish (illegal) buffer and no-fly zones in northern Syria bordering southeastern Turkey," Chicago-based US writer and syndicated columnist Stephen Lendman said.

Lendman emphasized that Washington's anti-Assad plot is entirely based on false premises. While the US is spreading lies that al-Assad's army attacked peaceful civilians, facts on the ground indicate that the Syrian Army is the only shield to protect Syrians against the so-called "relatively moderate" Islamists sponsored and trained by Washington.

"Blaming victims is longstanding US policy. Washington, rogue NATO partners, Israel and other regional allies bear full responsibility for nearly four-and-a-half years of conflict in Syria," the columnist writes.

Western experts express doubts over the US-led coalition's "firm intention" to eradicate the ruthless Islamic State.

"In reality the latest pretext, ISIS [ISIL], was created and to this day perpetuated by US, Saudi, Israeli, Jordanian, and Turkish support. ISIS [ISIL] is incapable of sourcing the weapons, cash, and fighters within Syria and Iraq alone, and admittedly receives the vast majority of all three from abroad," Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher Tony Cartalucci pointed out.

"Were Turkey serious about ending the ISIS [ISIL] menace, its first order of business should be to stop harboring their fighters in their territory," Cartalucci noted, adding that Turkey has long become "the virtual port-of-call for all fighters from across the world" seeking to join the Islamic State.

There are no "moderate" rebels in Syria, most of them are Islamist insurgents, including al-Nusra Front, the infamous affiliate of Al-Qaeda, experts stress.

Embarrassingly, the Turkish Intelligence agency (MIT) has long been an active player in arming and resupplying terror groups such as al-Nusra, Draitser noted, referring to the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet that released video evidence confirming this disturbing fact.

"The question remains: will Syria survive? The answer depends on the continued resolve of the Syrian Arab Army and its allies, and on the global Resistance's capacity to organize itself to effectively oppose the Empire in Syria and beyond," Draitser concluded.