Iranian political: US encouraging armed rebels to use chemical weapons in Syria

Washington is persuading foreign-backed armed rebels to use chemical weapons in Syria in a bid to blame President Bashar al-Assad’s government for it, a senior Iranian political analyst said. “The US is encouraging the extremist Takfiris to use more chemical weapons because every time they do it, the Syrian government will be blamed and the Americans will attack it, o they will kill Syrian people and America will attack Syria,” political analyst and Tehran University Professor Mohammad Marandi told China’s CCTV television channel. Marandi said that the US was repeating history a day after President Barack Obama announced that he would seek Congress approval to carry out a military strike against Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons on August 21. Marandi said that Obama exactly like former President George W. Bush during 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. “According to Wikileaks documents, they told their diplomats to blame Iran. So they were helping former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein use chemical weapons and were trying to convince the international community that the victim was carrying it out.” He said the US is “dishonestly” blaming Assad’s government while the evidence of chemical weapons use is in reality pointing to the militants. The US and other western countries have adopted the rhetoric of war against Syria over allegations that the Syrian government was behind a recent chemical attack near Damascus. The call for military strike intensified after the militants operating inside Syria and the foreign-backed Syrian opposition claimed on August 21 that hundreds had been killed in a government chemical attack on militant strongholds in the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar. The Syrian government has strongly denied the claim, accusing the militants of the attack.