Putin Warns West’s Syria Policy Could Backfire
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned Western powers that their “dangerous” stance on the Syria crisis could come back to haunt them.
“Today some want to use militants from Al Qaeda or some other organizations with equally radical views to accomplish their goals in Syria,” Putin said in a wide-ranging interview with the RT international news channel. “This policy is very short-sighted and is fraught with dire consequences.”
Putin compared alleged Western funding of radical Islamic militants to help topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with U.S. support for Afghan rebels after the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of its Central Asia neighbor.
“When someone aspires to attain an end they see as optimal, any means will do,” Putin said “As a rule, they will try and do that by hook or by crook - and hardly ever think of the consequences.”
“That was the case during the war in Afghanistan,” he added. “At that time, our present partners supported a rebel movement there and basically gave rise to Al Qaeda, which later backfired on the United States itself.”