My theory is that the "hard left" inside the U.S. government (which certainly would include the sort of hard-left, sort of mainstream of the Democratic party, i.e., the Clintonistas, Schumers, big-city Democratic machines, etc.) certainly is playing ball with American big corporate/big finance interests to further a pro-China agenda. In their heart of hearts, after all, it's the communism/socialism that they've liked going all the way back to their youth in the 60's. I guess the big question is China "playing" them or are they "playing" China ?
The European political class, with their competitive jealousy of American power, and the American left, with it's disdain for the American success at geopolitical power projection in the 20th century, find themselves both helping the "arab spring", which, by default, includes Syria. Somehow, IMHO, I doubt the European politicians really appreciate how the "Syrian operation" is actually selling them down the river anyway, despite the "conventional wisdom" that the purported State Department interest in promoting said "arab spring" is publicly to "promote democracy" and privately promoting European access to oil. In reality, undoubtedly, the much of the political left in America, various global financial interests, and China are really "on the same page", and the political ambitions of "legacy empires" are actually of secondary concern to this alliance. Of course, "legacy empires", in the understanding of the left wing, includes America itself.
The American right wing, on the other hand, does not view Europe as "legacy" anything, but simply sovereign nations who are historically allies of the U.S. Trouble is, the American right wing is much more prone to support work and savings instead of debt and bailouts. If European politicians could stop worrying about competition and parity of prestige and simply follow the example of entrepreneurialism, Europe could start the road back to prosperity.
Definitely recommend the first cup of coffee before thinking about this.
IMHO.
The real message here is that Asians absolutely resent European/American presence and interference in their domain. It was suicidal Japan’s rational for launching WWII. Their greatest “victories were expelling the British from Malaysia and China, the French from Indochina, the Dutch from Indonesia and the Americans from the Philippines. Today China is the new power. It will simply not comply with American ordered sanctions unless it was clearly in its national interest. The resentment of American interference on the Asian mainland remains. This time the Chinese have armed the Iranians with a sophisticated shore to ship missile system, as well as other sophisticated capabilities. ( remember the captured drone). These capabilities have given Obama a lot of pause before he commits American forces into another Asian war.