The hostile US occupation of Syria's oil and gas fields is the polar opposite of Russia's military intervention to save the country from terrorist takeover.
Independent journalist Rick Sterling told Sputnik that Russian forces "were invited by the Syrian government to help in their fight against ISIS* when it was at its peak in 2015, and they're continuing in that capacity."
By contrast, the US is occupying bases far out in the southern and eastern deserts in a hostile stance towards President Bashar al-Assad's elected government.
"They have been explicitly asked to leave by the Damascus government," Sterling stressed. "They are without the authorization of the government. And not only that, the US is effectively stealing 80 percent of the oil resources of Syria."
That theft began under the administration of former president Donald Trump, who explicitly said the US was there "for the oil" — and was later stymied in his attempts to withdraw troops. But it has continued unabated under Joe Biden's administration.
Washington has supported the Kurdish separatist guerrillas in northeast Syria since the time of Barack Obama's presidency, the journalist noted.
He argued that US forces were there to prevent trade between Syria and its allies Iraq and Iran to the east, as well as to "support a secessionist force and to take away the resources that rightfully belong to the Syrian government."
Syria's airspace has recently been the site of at least 23 close encounters between Russian jet fighters and US remote attack drones, leading to accusations by both sides of "dangerous and unprofessional" behaviour.
"One big thing that's changed is the conflict in Ukraine and the the collapse of relations between the US and Russia," Sterling pointed out. "The US accuses Russia of violating the deconfliction agreement" and vice versa.
"But the basic, elemental fact is that Russia's there with the agreement of the of the Syrian government and the US is not," he underlined. "Supposedly the US is there to fight ISIS, but there are a lot of contradictory facts regarding that. One of the most important one of facts was that in 2016, the US actually attacked the Syrian forces as they were breaking the ISIS control of the city of Deir Ezzor, and they killed 70 Syrian soldiers."
The commentator drew parallels between the conflicts in Syria since 2011 and Ukraine since 2014, saying they were "connected in significant ways."
"Russia has stepped in, in a way, to stop the US from from taking complete command and control in in in the Ukraine after the coup in 2014 and the the referendum in Crime," Sterling said. "Similarly, Russia has intervened instead of allowing Syria to collapse."
"This has been much to the chagrin of the United States and the West, which evidently would would have preferred to see Syria become a failed state instead of the instead of the state that it is today, which is a secular state," he added. "It's a semi socialist state and it's an ally of Russia."
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*Daesh/ISIS is a terrorist organisation banned in Russia and internationally by UN security council resolutions