Washington doesn’t negotiate. It demands. John Kerry saying he’s willing to engage with Russia and Assad on Syria is smoke screen deception. Claiming the need for a political solution belies America’s rage for war.

Washington undermined Geneva I and II talks despite Russia’s best efforts. Longstanding US plans call for regime change.

Days after 9/11, retired General Wesley Clark visited then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon “No one will tell us where or when to bomb”, he was told. Military commanders said Iraq would be attacked.

On a second visit, Clark was told plans were to “destroy the governments in seven countries,” he explained. Besides ongoing war on Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran would be targeted.

As a brigadier general in 1991, Clark met with then Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz after Operation Desert Storm. He was told America planned multiple premeditated wars – intending to destabilize and redraw the Middle East, changing its configuration under US-controlled puppet regimes.

“We can use our military anywhere in the Middle East and the Soviets won’t stop us,” Wolfowitz explained. “And we’ve got about five or 10 years to clean out those old Soviet client regimes.” He named Syria, Iran, Iraq and other countries – calling multiple wars essential “before the next great superpower comes along to challenge us.”

In his book, “Winning Modern Wars,” Clark discussed what’s explained above. Did Congress debate it, he asked? Did presidents explain it? Did America’s media report it? “Was there a full-fledged (public discussion)? Absolutely not, and there still isn’t.”

In his new book, titled “The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire,” Julian Assange explained US plans to topple Assad way preceded the so-called 2011 Arab Spring.

A 2006 cable from former Washington consular section chief in Damascus William Roebuck discussed plans to oust Assad, saying:

…That plan was to use a number of different factors to create paranoia within the Syrian government; to push it to overreact, to make it fear there’s a coup…so in theory it says “(w)e have a problem with Islamic extremists crossing over the border with Iraq, and we’re taking actions against them to take this information and make the Syrian government look weak, the fact that it is dealing with Islamic extremists at all.’

Key was

“foster(ing) tensions between Shiites and Sunnis. In particular, to take rumors that are known to be false…or exaggerations and promote them – that Iran is trying to convert poor Sunnis, and to work with Saudi and Egypt to foster that perception in order to make it harder for Iran to have influence, and also harder for the government to have influence in the population.”

Nothing American officials say is credible. Longstanding US plans call for toppling all independent governments. Assad must go remains unchanged US policy.

Washington shuns political solutions. They require comprises.

The Obama administration’s alleged willingness to negotiate with Russia and Assad on resolving Syria’s conflict conceals its real objective – regime change by any means possible.

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Stephen Lendman, globalresearch.ca