2 minute read
MOSCOW, JANUARY 9, ARMENPRESS:Expansion of the antiterrorist campaign beyond Afghanistan could have highly undesirable consequences for the international community, Col-Gen Leonid Ivashov, one of Russia°s top experts on international military relations and vice-president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying. "The antiterrorist operation is merely a fig leaf for the USA°s designs to impose a military dictatorship on a global scale," the general believes. Until recently, Ivashov headed the Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation at the Russian Ministry of Defense. He told ITAR-TASS of his concern that expansion of the operation beyond Afghanistan could result in "Washington coercing other countries to align themselves to American foreign policy, with the exclusion of any dissent in international affairs". For this reason, he believes, Russia, as it advocates a democratic and multipolar world, should in no way back US moves towards "establishing a global monopoly". As regards the military component of the antiterrorist operation, Ivashov said that "the Americans play computer games with air strikes and have not scored any kind of victory in Afghanistan; they just rode into Kabul and other towns on the coat-tails of the Northern Alliance". There was nobody to score a victory against in Afghanistan, he said: "the Taliban vanished into thin air, since it was created and for a long time controlled by US and Pakistani intelligence". The Taliban are gone but could reappear "in a region or state where a provocation is needed for a particular purpose", Ivashov concluded.-0-/39/