Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The West's "regime change" policy for Syria not only profoundly destabilized the Middle East, but also unleashed uncontrollable and expanding forces of global terrorism.

Russia, China, and the Vatican are doing their best to promote a diplomatic solution based on international law, but this is an arduous battle.

The Syria crisis began as part of a broader Anglo-French agenda for the Middle East not unlike the WWI era Sykes-Picot spheres of interest policy.  Washington foolishly and mistakenly was drawn into this European design.

The Obama administration's regime change policy was driven by humanitarian interventionist advisors such as Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and Anne-Marie Slaughter.

Neoconservatives who for two decades sought the Balkanization of Syria also supported the regime change policy, thinking that it would be good for Israel.

Warnings against such a reckless and destructive policy from the US academic community, the US military, and the US intelligence community went unheeded and were overruled.

Washington's "color revolution" is blood-red, and the blood is that of the Syrian people.

Syria is a multi-confessional and multi-ethnic state. As such, a secular form of government is best suited to protect all minorities. But Western policymakers undertook to support the forces of radical Islam and terrorism in order to overthrow the secular Assad government.

The forces of radical Islam attacking Syria are the forces of the extremist Wahhabi sect within Islam. This sect originated on the Arabian Peninsula over two centuries ago.

Present day global terrorism is dominated by Al Qaeda, and many groups which emulate it. The religious inspiration for these groups is based on the Saudi Arabian Wahhabi sect, experts say.

There have been discussions that using such terrorist forces as an instrument to gain regional dominance, Saudi Arabia launched its regime change war against Syria together with Qatar. Britain, France, and the US supported Riyadh in this regional design.

Predictably, Syria was thrown into chaos and the region destabilized. A forest fire was ignited consuming Syria, and now it spreads into neighboring Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey.

Damascus has stated the obvious - that the fundamental issue this time is terrorism. More precisely, it is foreign terrorism undertaken by thousands of foreign jihadis coming from all parts of the globe. They are slaughtering Syrians from all sects and ethnic groups.

The entire world can now clearly see that the West's regime change policy created a regional forest fire which is presently out of control. It will inevitably impact on Europe and on the US as some of the terrorist jihadi fighters return to their adopted countries.

The improper handling of the Geneva II pre-meeting in Montreux, Switzerland, does not bode well for the overall peace process. Iran should not have been excluded by the UN secretary general who caved in reportedly under US pressure.

The official US position that the Syrian government has "lost legitimacy" and so should be changed is a disgrace.  Who is Washington, or any other country, to arrogate unto itself such a presumptuous and fatuous attitude?

Russia, China, and the Vatican among others correctly insist that Syria is a sovereign state and that Syria's political future must be decided by Syrians themselves.

The decadent West apparently does not anymore recognize the international legal principles of sovereignty and noninterference.

Such an attitude must not be allowed to derail any peace process to resolve the Syrian crisis.

The author is an educator and former senior professional staff member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

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