US Proxy War(s) Keep Potential for Real War on Front Burner

— The US middle class collapsed, its poor living in the underground conditions, conditions are ripe for raising an army to aid only fat cats at the top!

Michael Weddle
7 min readJan 12, 2020

[NOTE: Much of this text I originally wrote on Steemit, April 12, 2018, under the title: “Why War in Syria? Petro Dollar!”]

Background: For China’s Belt Road Initiative Turkey is gateway to the Middle East and Iran is gateway to the Stan region and lower Asia. The US seems hell bent and determined to become the odd man out in its want for unipolar hegemony.

The critical reason for the manufactured crisis in Syria is the US Petro Dollar will eventually become threatened by introduction of the Chinese Petro Yuan which entered international trading markets at the beginning of April.

The world’s largest importer of oil since 2010, China economically and militarily has recently aligned with Russia. The two super powers have especially teamed on the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) which aims, using green infrastructure, to reopen ancient Silk Road land and sea trading routes. This will involve Eurasia, the Baltics, the Middle East, the Stan nations and lower Asia. Future prospects for this project could become a powerful lure for both Europe and India to eventually join, perhaps even Japan and Australia.

The above amounts to a bottom line serious threat to the economic interests of the United States. However, this threat is not to America’s people, but rather towards the economic interests of US oligarchs who annually see around 90% of America’s generated wealth go into directly into their pockets, with much of this money squirreled away, out of the US economy, into infamous offshore tax havens!

Soon to see its Arctic resources combine with its Siberian resources, Russia leads the world in oil production, recently surpassing Saudi Arabia. Also noteworthy, as of this writing, China is the number one producer of gold, has its Petro Yuan backed by gold. Also noteworthy, Russia is the number three gold producer.

One must now ask: What supports America’s Petro Dollar? Is it a combination of debt and gold (US is #4 in gold production)? For many decades the US Petro Dollar has teamed with Saudi Arabia to dominate the world’s oil markets. However, for the US, the hands of time and the wheel of karma now see the Saudis are a suspect ally.

Oh, but for the nitty-gritty of it all!

It might also make sense to consider the role the BRICS nations (Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa) will play in the future, especially as the Yuan influence strengthens. The BRICS nations comprise lots of consumer power, 41% of the earth’s population. Already, Venezuela — #1 in proven oil reserves — has forsaken the Petro Dollar and BRICS is now appealing to many South and Latin American nations. [NOTE: Since this was originally written, Brazil has seen a right wing extremist take power — will Venezuela take Brazil’s place?]

The Impact of US Proxy Wars:

It’s a hard cold economic reality that Russia presently supplies most of Europe with its oil.

To help strengthen the value of its Petro Dollar the US desperately wants an oil pipeline to reach from Saudi Arabia, through Syria and Turkey on into Europe, this as an effort to inhibit Russian oil sales to Europe. Not only would this hurt Russia, it would help to keep the US Petro Dollar strong — like flying two balloons on one string!

But conditions, what with Russia’s involvement with Syria, in the Middle East have not gone according to US geopolitical planning.

Russia, with two regional major international naval ports, has long been Syria’s ally. One port is located on the northern coast of Syria, in Tartus, where it secures its Mediterranean Fleet. The other port is located in Crimea (recently again becoming part of Russia) where it ports its Black Sea Fleet, this since the time of clipper ships. Both seas connect through Turkey’s Straits of Bosporus. It is thus in Russia’s national security interests both of these ports remain protected and, hence, the need for solid relations with Turkey.

When Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said no to the original northern pipeline proposal — for obvious reasons given its alliance with Russia — Syrian regime change became an imperative goal of the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and also Israel. Note that originally Turkey was in this mix. All of these nations helped to fund the opposition, including ISIS & Al Qaeda, to the Syrian government.

The greasy reality is that Israel illegally (according to multiple UN mandates) annexed Syria’s Golan Heights where it has recently discovered massive oil reserves. A Dick Cheney-connected oil company, Genie Oil, is now drilling for the Golan oil. Regime change in Syria would also favor Israel getting to permanently keep the Golan Heights where it also draws 60% of its water supply. [NOTE: since this was originally written the Trump Administration has recognized a permanent Israeli claim to the Golan Heights and US mapmakers now include the Golan as Israeli-owned land.]

Conclusion:

When one factors all of the above, the reason becomes clear why the United States armed, trained and provided intelligence and air cover for the ISIS and Al Qaeda terrorists — using them as an international excuse to allow a US military toehold in Syria. The US also has been manipulating the SDF Kurds, who want statehood, as its proxy occupying military force in Syria.

For US planners, Plan-A was for a clandestine US-induced civil war to outright remove Assad from power. This failed. Plan-B was to use ISIS and Al Qaeda to overthrow Assad or force him to a US negotiating table to ease out the Assad government. This, too, failed. Both Plan A and Plan B were immediately nixed once Russia responded to Syria’s request for assistance.

Plan-C became to fraction off Syria into separate territories. This is why the US, via the Kurds, now occupy Syria’s oil-rich territory east of the Euphrates River and why it occupies a swath of land blocking use of the Damascus-to-Baghdad Highway.

Plan C is why Turkey invaded northwestern Syria and helped to secure Al Qaeda in Syria’s Idlib province [update: more recently Turkey has moved into northeastern Syria]. It was always planned for Israel to keep the Golan Heights. All three countries — Israel, Turkey and the US (via the Kurds), at one point, became intent on grabbing important chunks of Syrian sovereignty. [update: This formula appears changing as Russia and Turkey became better aligned to deal with Syrian conditions] For all intents and purposes, the US appears as odd man out and Plan C, too, will fail.

Often photos of dead women and children — from what appear as staged chemical incidents (yet another of several desperate attempts to draw the US militarily into the fray)— have been planted into the consciousness of the world in order to justify a potential widescale US, NATO, Saudi, et. al., military action.

Unless reasonable minds prevail these scenes could set the table for the aforementioned nations to go against Syria, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and China in what could amount to World War III. [Again, revisit from above the article on China’s Belt Road Initiative].

The bottom line? Sadly, dead women and children become inconsequential when trillions of dollars are at stake! It’s like the financial actuaries, like grim reapers pushing pencils, have already worked their numbers on behalf of US and global oligarchy. Consider this is why the median age of the Middle Eastern/North African populations (where the US bombs) is so young (low-20's) — pitifully, over a million people have died, become injured or displaced from their homes all in the cause of the rich man’s oil!

The US, with its present Syrian occupation illegal under international law, will not give up its hold on Syria as it sees Syria as a staging area for any future conflict with Iran and it aims to isolate Syria from Iran. With US and NATO relations with Turkey now complicated and Turkey seemingly closer to Russia, could the US be contemplating a new Irclik-like air base, now situated in Turkey, within the new Kurd-controlled Syrian territory? Who knows!

But it is true that, for the US, both Syria and Iraq are steppingstones for any wider action against Iran. Herein, likes the danger. Forget not Turkey is a BRI gateway to the Middle East and Iran is a BRI gateway into the Stan region and lower Asia. For China’s Belt Road Initiative to succeed, it needs those gateways.

Please do pray for the well-being of reasonable thinkers!

[Interesting Sidebar Fact: For every dollar the US spends on renewable energy, China spends three dollars. Where there was once an American Dream there is today a Chinese Dream.]

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Michael Weddle

Founder of Boston’s Climate Change Band; former NH State Representative; Created Internet’s 1st Anti-War Debate; Supporter of Bernie Sanders & Standing Rock!