A political analyst says the US, the UK, Israel and NATO are stoking up violence in Syria to justify direct military involvement there and an eventual aggression against the Islamic Republic, Press TV reports.

“The stage is being set [in Syria] for another version of what happened in Libya with NATO and the United States and Israel and Britain being directly involved, and again as the prelude to a wider war with Iran,” Mark Dankof, political commentator and broadcaster from The Ugly Truth Podcast, said in an interview with Press TV.

By overthrowing the Syrian regime, the West seeks to “remove a key supporter of Iran in the Arab world to exacerbate tensions between the Sunni and Shiite [Shia] Muslims and to basically undercut Hezbollah in Lebanon and to remove a major supporter of Palestinian resistance against ongoing Israeli occupation,” Dankof said.

“All of the usual suspects [in Syria] … point in the direction of the Zionism, international banking, oil consortiums and arms dealers and these are the folks who want to get rid of President [Bashar] Assad in Syria and pave the way for an American and Israeli military intervention against Iran.”

He further criticized the Western media as active associates in the conspiracy against Syria for their role in distorting and blacking out the facts on the ground.

“We’re being led to believe that President Assad is practically the worst leader in world history and that we have to get rid of him at all costs,” Dankof said.

The political analyst concluded by saying that the Western-fomented Syrian crisis is the latest instance in a long line of “false flag operations” since 9/11.

“What you have is a situation here where all of these false flag operations, just since 2001, are achieving everything that the usual suspects want in Syria and elsewhere…You are looking at Zionism, international bankers, arms merchants and oil consortiums. And all of these red herrings like al Qaeda are being very skillfully manipulated in the American media.”

AR/HMV/PKH/AZ