Eric Margolis returned to the Scott Horton Show on Wednesday for another intriguing interview regarding international relations and war. In the interview, Margolis, a Ron Paul Institute Academic Board member and international affairs writer, lifted the lid on the ongoing fight of the United States and coalition members against the Islamic State (ISIS), referring to ISIS as a “covert western asset” and the US-supported fight against ISIS as a “big charade.”
Margolis explains:
But, look, I’ve covered a lot of wars. I’ve been a soldier myself. I look at this whole ISIS business and two things strike me. First of all, it’s been ludicrously exaggerated. It’s a ragtag bunch of lightly-armed crazy people, thugs who are stiffened by some of [former Iraq President Saddam Hussein’s] old soldiers. Secondly, I really believe that ISIS, the Islamic State, was created by the Saudis and is a secret, tacit ally of both the Saudis and the US. So, what’s been going on for the last couple of years, we’re pretending to fight — we’re the greatest power on earth, and we cannot knock out a bunch of teenagers with “burp guns?” We’ve staged battles with them, which is more theater than actual combat. We don’t want them to lose because they’re fighting [Syria] President Assad’s government, which we want to overthrow. And it’s a crazy situation. It is a big charade.
Margolis continues his examination of this “big charade” by discussing ISIS controlling for over a year the city of Mosul in Iraq. Says Margolis:
The Jordanian army could clear out Mosul in a couple of days. So could the Turkish police, let alone the mighty Turkish army — 500,000 tough soldiers. But, we don’t want to clear them out because they are helpful to us. And I think we are trying to get the Islamic State to go and fight Taliban in Afghanistan as well. They are a covert western asset. Otherwise, they would have knocked them out long ago.
The complete 25-minute interview focused on the ongoing violence in Syria and Iraq also includes Margolis’ assessment that new Russia military action in the area is “inevitable, perfectly predictable,” and “the result of stupid blundering” by the US government. It also, Margolis suggests, threatens to escalate the fighting in the region into a much larger war.
Listen to Margolis’ complete interview here.
