Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
Trying to figure out what on earth is happening in the Middle East appears to have gotten a lot harder. Perhaps (because) it’s become more dangerous too. There are so many players, and connections between players, involved now that even making one of those schematic representations would never get it right. Too many unknown unknowns.
Via Golem XIV's blog,
The Great Gas War has already two distinct fronts: The now relatively quiet Northern Front in Ukraine and the Southern Front in Syria in which the Western empire has been losing. It looks to me that Lebanon is being targeted as the next front, where the West hopes its loses might be recouped.
Yesterday, November 6th, Reuters reported,
Saudi Arabia said on Monday that Lebanon had declared war against it because of attacks against the Kingdom by the Lebanese Shi‘ite group Hezbollah.
The Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad al-Hariri, unexpectedly resigned on Saturday, saying in a fiery televised broadcast from Saudi Arabia that he feared for his life while also fiercely criticizing Iran. According to regional analysts, the move has "plunged Lebanon into crisis" amid heightened regional tensions.
Whether it's the Middle East, Africa, or Eastern Europe, the familiar pattern of American military expansion goes something like this: first we are promised that US troops are merely in a country for limited "training" missions with "partner" forces; next we are told of "counter-terror" operations which require an increased "footprint"; after which we are assured once again that there are "no boots on the ground" but a "minimal" increase of train and assist missions; finally, US soldiers begin to come home in body bags at which point the 9/11 era AUMF is cynically invoked (Authorization For
Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,
Does anyone in the Trump Administration have a clue about our Syria policy?
In March, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appeared to be finally pulling back from President Obama’s disastrous “Assad must go” position that has done nothing but prolong the misery in Syria. At the time, Tillerson said, the "longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people."