Yes, the drive to get Assad out is about the Saudi-to-Europe gas line. I don’t see how ousting Assad will assure a gas pipeline.
As long as the Russian-supported Assad controls Syria, the Saudi’s can’t build the gas pipeline to Europe, competing with Russian gas.
Northern Iraq through Turkey is too close to Iranian influence. Israel... well, we all know that isn’t going to happen. Syria is the only viable routing.
~Yes, the drive to get Assad out is about the Saudi-to-Europe gas line. I don’t see how ousting Assad will assure a gas pipeline.~
Bingo. Saudis are facing worsen sales in face of US fracking boom and they initially opted to compensate aiming to European market.
Syria is an obvious obstacle as a Russian client because Russia is not interested in Gulf Arabs on its market.
Syria gets a bunch of terrorists to destabilize it and Russia intervenes not to let Obama to Saudi bidding supporting terrorist attack on Syria.
Saudis are upset at both Russia and US and starting an energy price war against both. There are numerous objectives for Saudis. Both Russian arctic production and US fracking are costly so they are hurting both driving them into insolvency. Secondary objective it to punish both Russia and US political classes - first for standing with Assad’s regime and second for failure to counter Russian Middle East policy.
Ukrainian crisis was mostly an Obama’s way to say “I’m sorry” to the Saudis and a shot in the back for Russia.
The main idea is to obstruct Russian gas transit to Europe this winter which would be perpetrated by Ukrainian companies and blamed on Russia by the media to paint it as an unreliable supplier.
An idea is to make Europe eager to join against Assad and support Saudi plan.