Most people don’t yet realize that Syria could turn into World War III, but it could. From Pepe Escobar at sputniknews.com:
Nobody needs to read Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s 1997 opus to know US foreign policy revolves around one single overarching theme: prevent – by all means necessary – the emergence of a power, or powers, capable of constraining Washington’s unilateral swagger, not only in Eurasia but across the world.
The Pentagon carries the same message embedded in newspeak: the Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine.
Syria is leading all these assumptions to collapse like a house of cards. So no wonder in a Beltway under no visible chain of command – the Obama administration barely qualifies as lame duck – angst is the norm.
The Pentagon is now engaged in a Vietnam-style escalation of boots on the ground across “Syraq”. 50 commandos are already in northern Syria “advising” the YPG Syrian Kurds as well as a few “moderate” Sunnis. Translation: telling them what Washington wants them to do. The official White House spin is that these commandos “support local forces” (Obama’s words) in cutting off supply lines leading to the fake “Caliphate” capital, Raqqa.
Another 200 Special Forces sent to Iraq will soon follow, allegedly to “engage in direct combat” against the leadership of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, which is now ensconced in Mosul.
These developments, billed as “efforts” to “partially re-engage in Iraq and Syria” are leading US Think Tankland to pen hilarious reports in search of “the perfect balance between wide-scale invasion and complete disengagement” – when everyone knows Washington will never disengage from the Middle East’s strategic oil wealth.
All these American boots on the ground in theory should be coordinating, soon, with a new, spectacularly surrealist 34-country “Islamic” coalition (Iran was not invited), set up to fight ISIS/ISIL/Daesh by no less than the ideological matrix of all strands of Salafi-jihadism: Wahhabi Saudi Arabia.
Syria is now Coalition Central. There are at least four; the “4+1” (Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq plus Hezbollah), which is actually fighting Daesh; the US-led coalition, a sort of mini NATO-GCC combo, but with the GCC doing nothing; the Russia-France direct military collaboration; and the new Saudi-led “Islamic” charade. They are pitted against an astonishing number of Salafi-jhadi coalitions and alliances of convenience that last from a few months to a few hours.
And then there’s Turkey, which under Sultan Erdogan plays a vicious double game.
Sarajevo All Over Again?
“Tense” does not even begin to describe the current Russia-Turkey geopolitical tension, which shows no sign of abating. The Empire of Chaos lavishly profits from it as a privileged spectator; as long as the tension lasts, prospects of Eurasia integration are hampered.
To continue reading: You Want War? Russia is Ready for War
If US foreign policy revolved around a “single overarching theme” and that was the only reason for what’s going on in the Middle East, things would have been much easier to explain. But that’s not the case. In fact there is a far more complex geopolitical reality with not just the United States’ interests entangled in it, but also, Russia’s, Turkey’s… and so on. In this particular case the last two powers mentioned above have vital interests at stake and that’s why neither is backing down. On the contrary, posturing might turn into actual war if a compromise isn’t reached soon enough. The US have a huge amount of responsibility for the course of events, but keep in mind that geopolitics means political decisions based on geographic reality and national interests, among other things. Russia and Turkey would have confronted each other anyway, a bit later perhaps, but they would have nevertheless. Both are strong enough to never completely resolve their most important issues and that’s why they have fought wars no less than 12 times since the 16th century… Only this time Turkey is aligned with the world’s greatest power at a moment when that power is doing its best to degrade Russia (not just economically) and there are others involved on that side too… It will be difficult, to say the least, for Russia to emerge winning out of this mess, but an all-out battle is insanity and NATO knows it. Russia is not a joke. It never was. But to think it would engage in a war with a NATO member (and Turkey is a significant one), accepting consequences such a decision would bring… Well, I doubt it.
Reblogged this on The Lynler Report.