Tariq Ali on Syria: 'Western intervention would be disastrous; Assad must go'; Western hypocrisy condemned

Tariq Ali interviewed on Russia Today, February 15, 2012. Ali warns that the consequences of Western military intervention would be "worse than in Libya". “The fact is that the overwhelming majority of people in Syria want the Assad family out – and that is the key thing that we have to understand and [Assad] should understand ... If the Assad clan refuses to relinquish their stronghold on the country, sooner or later something disastrous will happen ... Syria needs a non-sectarian national government to prepare a new constitution", Tariq Ali stressed.

On February 16, 2012, Tariq Ali, again interviewed by Russia Today, speaks about the double standards of the US and other Western governments towards protesters in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Despite publicly backing rebels in Libya and Egypt, the US government is supporting the brutal crackdown on protesters in states more friendly to US agendas. Tariq Ali discusses the political reasons behind this two-faced political dealing and why we don’t see rebellion in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen in the news.

"Worse than Libya?" Libya is now the most democratic of the three overturns the Arab Spring has led to thus far (the other two being Tunisia and Egypt). While socialists in the West are scribbling their criticisms of various wings of Syria's revolutionary movement, left-liberal groups like Avaaz are doing real revolutionary work by raising money for cameras and other material aid for the uprising to be smuggled into Syria: http://www.africasia.com/services/news_mideast/article.php?ID=CNG.bed6d5013dbff8ae5506d598c0c69073.1f1 This came as a surprise to me since I'm on their email list and had no idea they were doing this kind of thing. I guess I should read those emails more closely.