1. The US government’s official explanation is that Bashar Assad is a tyrant, and he should be bombed. That it will kill a lot of civilians who have nothing to do with Assad’s political regime means nothing to Washington. The White House is like a terrorist who takes innocent people hostage. The US government’s stated position exists only because killing people without justification is considered bad form these days.
2. Oil.
3. According to one conspiracy theory, there are dark forces (Satanists, voodoo practitioners, masons, Dark Jedi’s, etc.) in Washington who want to establish a global Evil Empire. Why? That’s a hard question to answer. What do we know about how voodoo practitioners and Satanists think? Alas. We can only guess at that.
4. Other reasons.
Sadly, it seems we should disregard the first and third explanations if we want to get at something like the real state of affairs. Some may not find Assad a model political leader, and a satanic sect might actually be running Washington, but several aspects of the Syrian conflict make us think that there are purely commercial explanations.
Oil is, of course, the most tangible of all reasons; it has often been called the main driver of the Iraq war. There is a subtle point to be made. The war and the occupation of Iraq suggest that simply buying the oil from Hussein would have been cheaper than bearing the burden of the military costs. Consider the US budget. What happened to it during George W. Bush’s time in office? The answer is obvious. It became a black hole that is swallowing the prosperity of the American people.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair once stated the reasons for the war in Iraq quite clearly when he said that if oil had been the issue, it would have been much easier to come to an agreement with Saddam. The same principle applies to Libya, for example. Why did Gadhafi need to be killed if he was selling oil to the West and keeping his money in Western banks in accordance with the classical colonial canon — resources in exchange for a string of beads? Colonel Gadhafi was a friend of the West. According to several news outlets, he even bankrolled Sarkozy’s election campaign in France. When did President Obama come up with the idea that Gadhafi was a tyrant? Was it when he shook the Colonel’s hand and smiled for the photographers?
The reasons for the Syrian conflict, like other wars and revolutions in the Islamic world, actually have to do with oil, but the American government isn’t that interested in this viscous black fluid in and of itself. It’s obvious that the interests of Western oil companies aren’t behind what’s happening in Syria. Could it actually be that some voodoo practitioners have put a spell on the president and the US Congress?
Let’s turn our attention to the “other reasons” category.
As we know, after US administration officials retire they love to shock the public with sensational revelations, demonstrating that the United States still has freedom of speech. In an interview with Press TV a couple of years ago, Paul Roberts, a former economic advisor in the Reagan administration, said, “We want to overthrow Gaddafi and Assad in Syria because we want to clear China and Russia out of the Mediterranean.”1
What Roberts said was close to the truth. The White House’s permanent desire to clear somebody out of someplace is quite obvious. The Americans tried to clear the communists out of Vietnam and invaded Panama to arrest their old satrap Noriega. The communists grew even stronger. Meanwhile, an attempt to drive out China and Russia — both countries together — is the shortest route to a world war, which would not have an obvious outcome for the United States. Could voodoo practitioners really be to blame?
And there’s more. Why overthrow the aged President Mubarak and drag him into court on his bed for the public’s amusement? Did Mubarak secretly join the Chinese Communist Party, or was he readying a base for Russian missile cruisers?
Russia’s presence in the Mediterranean is in no way comparable to the past Soviet presence there. The Soviet Union’s impact on processes in the Middle East is undisputed. Nevertheless, the United States did not hang its friends there, did not drag beds into court and generally behaved quite well.
Let’s consider the recent events in Turkey, which are unfolding before our eyes. What is happening today in Istanbul can be called nothing less than a “revolution,” or an attempt at one. The significance of the events is yet to be determined, but clearly there is more at stake than the resignation of the Erdoğan government.
Who is behind Turkey’s unrest? Naïve people believe that revolutions are a spontaneous expression of popular anger. Alas, that isn’t the case. Revolutions are thoroughly prepared for and planned, and not one has ever improved peoples’ lives.
Following the logic of states in opposition, it could be assumed that the unrest in Turkey is organized by Chinese or Russian intelligence. Can anyone seriously believe that? It would be more plausible to attribute it to plotting by international practitioners of voodoo. Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952 and a candidate for membership in the European Union since 1999, and it is of particular interest to the Atlanticists. If we assume that FSB agents inspired the attempt at a Turkish revolution, we should agree that the same kind of thing will soon happen in Washington, also.
Is Obama a tyrant, and does he have to go? Hm… There’s something in that.
Erdoğan has actively supported the US position on Syria. His voice has been heard in the general chorus chanting, “Assad must go!” Now, Erdoğan is the one who must go. That’s obvious. May be he wasn’t loud enough or clear enough, and the guys in Washington have never had very good hearing.
So. Syria clearly isn’t the end goal. It’s a link in a chain. The United States and its partners in crime are going after Iran and direct control over oil supplies to China. It’s a geopolitical thing. Beijing is well aware of that and is cooperating with Russia on energy to diversify its supplies. So what does Turkey, which has been a member of NATO since 1952, have to do with it?
It’s also clear that Washington needs to control the entire Islamic world and all of the oil, no matter what country produces it. That makes the Islamic world just a link in the chain.
An observer of events in the Middle East always comes up against an obvious contradiction. On the one hand, it appears that all of these wars and revolutions clearly have an odor of the oil about them; on the other hand, oil isn’t the primary reason, although it is closely tied to it.
So what is going on here?
To be continued.
Konstantin Alexandrovich Penzev is an author and historian and a columnist for New Eastern Outlook.
1 https://www.press
