Assad Adviser: West’s “Moderate Rebels”

Assad Adviser: West’s “Moderate Rebels” Are The “Only Opposition In The World Who Are Agents Of Foreign Countries”

Bouthaina Shaaban has been an effective and dominating figure representing the Syrian government in Western media for years now. Having delivered a number of fiery rebuttals to Western governments and the claims made by their State Departments and media mouthpieces, the political adviser to President Bashar al-Assad has recently returned to the Western media circuit to respond to questions regarding fighting terrorism in Syria and the upcoming implementation of a U.S. – Russian brokered ceasefire there.

In her interview to largely sympathetic RT, Shaaban stated that dialogue between the Syrian government, “rebels,” and other “opposition forces” would legitimately be held “whenever the opposition is able to get together and be at the table.” She also pointed out that the so-called “opposition” has yet to even agree on the makeup of their own delegation.

“For five years they [Syrian opposition] have not been able to have a dialogue, because each party of this opposition belongs to a different country and is paid by different countries. They are not an opposition that have a political party in Syria and that have grown from the Syrian people. This is the only opposition in the world that are agents of foreign countries against their own country,” she said.

Pointing out that both the Syrian and Iraqi armies are doing their best to defeat and destroy ISIS, she also reiterated that “We are running the country according to its constitution… We are fighting terrorism as we should, and we are forthcoming in pursuing any political solution.”

Shaaban specified that the interference of both regional and international players has prevented Syria and Iraq from defeating the terrorist organization and restoring peace to their respective countries. “If it were not for the support [of militant groups] by regional parties – in particular Turkey and Saudi Arabia, it would not be difficult to defeat ISIL. But the money, the resources, the facilitation comes from these countries to IS. [IS] doesn’t live in a vacuum.” She added that not only has ISIS received support from countries in the region but also “political support of the United States and the West.”

Shaaban further pointed out the hypocrisy and falsehood of the label “moderate rebel” or “moderate opposition.” Shaaban stated that “There is no such thing as moderate terrorist or moderate opposition, because anyone who carries arms is not moderate, anyone who is killing people is not moderate, anyone who is destroying institutions in the country is not moderate.”

“Moderate,” she stated, “has no relation to reality whatsoever.”

Shaaban pointed out the use of semantics and wordplay by the West and its regional allies to promote a particular narrative – in this case, the narrative that there is or ever was such a thing in Syria as a “moderate opposition.”

“It’s very dangerous, as so many people are using it almost unconsciously… It’s an abuse of the language,” Shaaban said.

When asked about John Kerry’s Plan B (the breakup and partitioning of Syria) if the ceasefire fails, Shaaban stated that “the Syrian people have fought for five years against any partition of Syria.” Still, she expressed hope that the Russian-American agreement will succeed but stipulated that it must “keep the territorial integrity and the unity of Syria.”

The main objective, Shaaban says, is to defeat terrorism in the region and that “requires, first of all, stopping the flow of support” to the terrorist organizations.

“It’s only [when] the Russian forces came to Syria that the oil trucks that were going to Turkey were attacked. Only when the Russian planes came to Syria, were we able to control some parts of the border with Turkey. . . .And that’s why Turkey started to attack us directly,” she stated.

Shaaban stated that both the Russian and Syrian air forces only target terrorist targets and never civilians despite the “many false reports that Western media put in order to show that Russia is not doing the right thing in Syria.”

“I get tired of saying how many unfounded news come to us every day from Western media. They fabricate news about Russia, Syria, about what’s happening on the ground – but they have no grain of truth in them,” she said.

Brandon Turbeville