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Source: U-News.net
Professor of Political and Economic Sciences at the University of Sydney, Tim Anderson, said wars on the middle east can not be defeated individually rather there should be a certain level of organization and combined efforts for defeating the pressure against all these countries.

In an interview with Unews Press Agency, Anderson talked about his latest book “Axis of Resistance Towards an Independent Middle East”.

He said the book is mainly about the war on Syria, Palestine, and the resistance in Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran. Anderson added that it looks on the US-led war on the 8 countries of the region and encourages a study on the resistance.

“We can not understand these wars if we just look at the big pals, we have to look at the resistance and what it is doing and what is its characters and so on.”

Anderson explained “one of my arguments in the book is that these wars against this whole region can not be defeated individually but it has to be some combined efforts, of course that is happening to a certain extent there is coordination between the resistance in Lebanon and Syria and sections of Iraq and Iran, but the level of organization is crucial for defeating the pressure against all these countries.”

He noted that all through the war on Syria, there has been a very strong corporate and state media outworn of war propaganda against Syria, Iran, Iraq, Palestine and the resistance in this region.

The professor added that on the war in Syria there were personal and abusive attacks on some of the academics and writers who supported Syria, noting that some of these attacked put pressure on the university and he was pushed out of his job at the University of Sidney as they claimed he was saying inappropriate things about Israel.

“That is the subject of the court case now, I and the academic union and lawyers are challenging that dismissal at the moment,” Anderson added.

He also pointed out to a conference in Damascus that has been organized a couple of years ago by the General Federation of the Trade Union of Syria in solidarity with Syrian workers against the economic sanctions in Syria and was attended by 130 people mainly from the region and Africa, as well as from some from Europe, north America, and Russia.

He said “it was a productive conference and a good step towards forming some links and some alliances across national borders at this war because the economic war on Syria is not just on Syria it is also against at least six countries in the region, there is a siege on Palestine that has been going on for a very long time, there is a siege on Yemen, there is blanket sanctions on Syria and Iran, and there is a set of targeted sanction on Lebanon and Iraq, but effectively they employ a level of inclusion into the economic life of Lebanon and Iraq to the extent that they affect everyone in these two countries.”

Anderson stressed that “there is really economic war on this whole part of the world, it is not sanctions as it too soft term, it is a siege warfare trying to start and frustrate and weaken people and this is what we should draw attention to.”

He affirmed that there is in Australia a general sort of sympathy for Palestine which has been build up for a long period of time but there is a very poor understanding of the region in general.

“The left in Australia has been led by the exceptional liberals or the imperial liberals of the western countries, a large number of them has a lot of enthusiasm about the humanitarian intervention and warfare in these countries.”

It is still a battle to get people to express some positive support for the forces against Zionism and colonialism in this region, he added.

He continued “it is something that has been driven by the western liberals, the idea of a mission to save people from their own governments and their own systems.”

Anderson further confirmed that “all people who are against the invasion of Iraq in 2003 didn’t rally behind the aggression against Libya or the aggression against Syria, now we have a very long education process over the 8 or 9 years since the so-called Arab Spring and a ground level that there has been a shift in the popular opinion.”

About the argument that the conflict in Syria is a civil war, Anderson said in sarcasm “large parts of Syria are occupied by the Israeli regime, US, and Turkey, oh but it is a civil war!”