ERDOGAN, PUTIN AND ROUHANI MEET ONCE AGAIN, BUT WHO’S MISSING?

The Three Stooges or the Three Musketeers, you pick. Two huge egos and one Puppet. Three nations meeting to decide the fate of another nation and all three act like they have the same goals, but they can’t even  put together one paragraph for a press release that doesn’t sound ridiculous. As silly as Egodan’s statements sounded, it was the Tsar that made me stop and tilt my head like a Dog! “ Syria’s government has the right to retake all of it’s territories”. Wait….what?....... I have a question……. If the three of you believe that statement, and I don’t think you do, then why was the leader of the nation you are trying to save not invited to the meeting? As soon as that statement sank in, I read the next one from the Puppet about the US being in Syria illegally. Really? Can the Puppet produce a copy of the invitation letter sent to the Sultan? At what point in time did Assad say, “come on in Turkey and slice out a hunk of land for yourself”?

Everybody wants something:

            Everybody wants something out of the Syrian Civil War, and few, if any want the same thing. The Tsar wants to have a dominant footprint in the region of the world that produces the one item he worries about. Fuel. The Tsrar wants to disrupt NATO to the best of Russia’s ability and that explains the “bromance” with the Sultan. The Sultan wants the Kurds kept in check, but the Sultan also wants the West / EU / to see he doesn’t need them to be on the world stage, thus his side of the “bromance” with the Tsar. The Iranians? Well, the Iranians, want to keep the Arabs killing each other as long as possible and somehow wake up to the delusion the Mullahs rule over all of Islam. Now, that’s a problem because the Sultan has that same dream. The Tsar? He could care less about Islam as long as it doesn’t interfere with his vision of a Russian Empire. So there you have it. Just like I said at the beginning of the Arab Spring, you have three Empires all striving to take the lead in the region. The Russian, the Ottoman and the Persian Empires.

Why does the US stay?

            The Donald is like an old tune from the 80s….  “ Should I stay or should I go”, by the Clash…..clash…how appropriate. As of the 7^th of September 2018, it sounds like the US intends on staying, at least until The Donald tells someone they are leaving again. Training the Kurds and “others” makes sense if you are going to stick by them long enough for them to make an impact, but then again, what impact is DC wanting any of them to make? Yes, the so called training sites are great for infiltration ops into Iran, whoops…..did I say that? Never mind, but then again, the US doesn’t need that. They can just fly over and take all the information needed. So what is the US’s mission in Northern Syria….really? A lot of us think it’s just a great stick in the eye of the Tsar. Does the US need to be there? Not really? Does it upset the Russians and the Iranians and the Syrians? Well, it upsets the Iranians that’s for sure. As for the Russians, probably not. As for Assad and his so-called government? Who cares….he wasn’t even invited to the meeting. So, when the US hears, “you need to leave”…..the answer really comes down to, “ Make me”.

What is old is new again:

            When you get right down to it, the beginning of the conflict / Civil War / in Syria has its roots in the Arab Spring. A rebellion against unjust living conditions both economically and socially. The Mullahs saw it as a Western plot to toss out authoritarian governments in the Middle East, after all, the US President was nearly a card carrying Socialist and he was in love with the Muslim Brotherhood. So, in the eyes of Tehran, The Arab Spring had to be stopped at all cost. They had beat back those cries for justice in 2009, but here it came again and this time it had the US’s backing. Well, like any virus, something I called the Arab Spring for several years, it got out of control. The next thing you know, the puppet government in Syria was shooting their own people in the streets and the military was facing desertions on a daily basses. Just when the Mullahs thought they had an effective backfire in Syria, one that would keep the Arab Spring from Iran, the Russians show up with a completely different set of goals. If the West was going to push Moscow in Eastern Europe and go back on their word, then Russia would inject itself in the Middle East. Not only that, but they would begin to entice the unstable Sultan away from the EU and perhaps even NATO. In the eyes of the Mullah’s the Russians showed up and like any Mob loan, the interest rates for saving Assad’s rule were more costly than the actual loan.

            Trump comes to power in the US, and the left goes nuts. Not only does the US start to come apart at the seams, but the DC outlook to the whole Middle East changes and changes radically. The next thing Tehran knows, the people are back in the streets of Tehran marching for change and justice. Everything they tried to head off by letting Syria burndown has now come back to their front door. Somehow this Businessman wins in the US and the next thing Tehran knows, the whole game changes. Not only are they no longer going to make money off the West, but now, the guy in the White House decides to cut Tehran off at the bank account. Yep, things went from great to Shi- in no time. Yet, here they stand, the three Empires, all dreaming of a region they believe they will soon rule. I realize there is a lot of room on that stage they took their picture on today, but the best picture would be the one that shows each of them holding a dagger behind the other’s back.  Idlib. The Turkish answer is a Turkish trained “Security Force”. Let’s see how that one goes over when the cameras are gone. If you live in Idlib, stay in your bomb shelter. That photograph won’t save your life.