I strongly agree that there has to be something much, much bigger behind this Syria issue that a single CW attack, or even CW use in general. It is something that for some reason we dare not speak its name, and has to be disguised with all manner of diversionary and alternative excuses. Bogus on their face. The effect is sort of like black hole, invisible and undetectable except for the gravitational effects it has on other bodies.
What could it be? I find it simply unpersuasive that this is just political “wag the dog” theater to distract form US domestic issues. There are too many foreign governments on edge as well about whatever this thing is. The Republican leadership is being prompted to fall in line behind this overwhelmingly unpopular threat of US military action. There has to be some REAL threat to international peace and stability and US national interests at stake to justify this level of war preparation, not to mention the costly effort already under way to “regime change” Syria.
My hunch: China. In the nuclear age, head-to-head confrontations (or even the appearance thereof) between superpowers has to be avoided at all costs. So everyone ties themselves up in a pretzel knot of lies and diversions to hide the fact such might be the case. The world would just go nuts otherwise.
Indeed, a persuasive case has been made that the reason GW Bush concocted the WMD thing as a pretext for invading Iraq in 2003 was to avoid mentioning the real reason for that action. That was to block what would certainly be Chinese occupation of several massive oil fields in Iraq under Saddam-era concessions as soon as UN sanctions would have been lifted at the end of 2003, hence running afoul of the Carter Doctrine. You can look it up: http://www.amazon.com/Oil-Card-Economic-Warfare-Century/dp/097779539X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199719101&sr=8-1
The Chinese have been hell bent on establishing client state relationships around the world, especially in the Middle East and North Africa and where there are oil or other resources. Syria doesn’t have (much) oil, but it’s in the right neighborhood and it is one of the few really strategic places left where the Chinese have much of a chance to make headway in this quest. Note that all of its other would-be clients in that region have one way or another been removed from the order of battle by the US inspired and led Arab Spring movement or other disruptive intervention.
Prime among those was Libya, where NATO held up its bombing campaign for several days to allow a massive evacuation of some 36,000 Chinese nationals including the huge crew from Huwai that was rebuilding Muamar’s communications infrastructure (hint: that’s strategic business). Sudan, China’s first client in that zone, has been crippled and split with a Western-backed civil war. Egypt, another likely China friend target, was taken off the boards with Mubarak’s removal. Yemen is a continuing basket case. Iran remains in the global doghouse, in part for doing bidness with the wrong people (China).
You don’t hear much about China in Syria. Beijing has no doubt redoubled its efforts to stay below the radar screen this time. But consider this: in 2007 the Israeli air force bombed a suspected nuclear weapons development site in Syria. It was suspected of having been built with Chinese and N Korean (i.e., more Chinese) hardware. Syrian and China kept mum about the disaster. A few months later the Chinese announced plans to build a 100,000 b/d oil refinery on or near the site. China is now Syria’s largest trade partner (maybe no big deal in itself) but who knows what else they are collaborating on since Assad’s visit to Beijing in 2004. (BTW, news today was that Beijing will host a visit from Assad’s envoy Sep 5.)
Now consider the effects of a nuclear-armed Syria, with the region’s largest army, sitting next door to Turkey, Israel, Iraq and a stone’s throw from Saudi Arabia. Allied with Iran and fronting for the Chinese, with their longstanding benefactors the Russians running interference, Syria would be a North Korea on steroids, sitting smack dab in the middle of things.
Thus, there has been an all-out effort over the past several years to derail that development and now that time is running short and things have gone badly for the West, the project has to be escalated.
All this is just to offer some explanation of events, explain why otherwise sane and responsible people might be doing crazy things on the flimsiest of nominal excuses, and can’t bring themselves to say what’s really going on.
That stakes, however, could indeed be very, very high.
Hmmmm.. The only problem is, I don't see 0bama doing anything that's really in OUR best interest (unless you're Muslim, of course). So, it's in the best interest of Islam, for starters. Could be about gold or oil, but it could be that 0bama has been blackmailed into finding a country for MB/AQ to manage since the Egypt gig failed.