WEBVTT

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Western world has been mostly indifferent towards the situation in Syria.

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What do you think is the reason for that?

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Well, the Western world is directly engaged in what happened in Syria.

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First of all, from the very beginning, we, like Syria,

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was seeing the influence of some Western powers coming inside its country

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and trying to influence what was happening.

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I'm thinking of the roles that France played,

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and I'm thinking of the role that the United States played in trying to support those rebels

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that then were identified in a second phase as terrorists.

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And so this is not something new that I'm saying,

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but it's something that has been confirmed by the words of Donald Trump last week

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when he ordered to stop the training of the rebels inside Syria.

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But another reason for the silence of the West is that there were some actors,

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some foreign actors that played an important role inside the Syrian conflict,

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which are strongly linked to the Western, to the Western main countries.

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For instance, I was interviewing some people from the opposition in Syria

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that took part to the first manifestation, to the first demonstration

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that happened against the government, the Syrian government in 2011.

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And if, in the first moment, those demonstrations were really coming from the people

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that were asking for change, well, then, step by step, after the very first days,

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some external influence started to be part of them.

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And so people started to listen to slogans against Shia people, against Iran, against Hezbollah,

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which were at that time not present on the Syrian ground.

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And so, from the very beginning, it was evident that there were some external actors

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trying to use the rivalry, the conflictuality happening between the Shia world and the Sunni world

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in order to make this situation develop into not a Syrian conflict, not a civil conflict,

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but into an international conflict, which is today.

