Syrian President Basher al-Assad has killed more than half a million of his own countrymen and driven another 10 million from their homes. In alliance with Iran, he plans to shift Syria’s ethnic and religious balance by driving out Sunni Arabs and replacing them with Shi’ite settlers from Lebanon to Pakistan. For all intents and purposes he has won the seven-year Syrian civil war, now that Turkey has limited its support for anti-regime Sunni rebels in return for a free hand to suppress Kurdish territorial ambitions in Syria’s north. When Russian President Putin, Iranian President Rouhani and Turkish President Erdogan met in Istanbul April 4, and President Trump declared that the US planned to leave Syria “to the others,” Syria’s fate was settled. The three powers will continue to wrangle among themselves and their proxies will still kill each other, but the big issues have been decided without input from Washington.
Meanwhile 70 civilians are reported dead in the Syrian town of Douma, and an additional 500 show symptoms of exposure to toxic chemicals. The poison gas employed in the attack probably was a mixture of chlorine and sarin. Chlorine is an irritant and sarin is a nerve agent. It is unclear why Assad should have deployed chemical weapons while he is winning. Both gases are easy to manufacture and allegedly have been employed by Syrian Islamist rebels or ISIS in the past. Sarin was first used in 1995 by terrorists in Japan.
Whatever actually occurred, the gas attack gives President Trump the opportunity to dominate the television news cycle. President Trump’s Twitter warning to Russia to “get ready” for “nice and new” cruise missiles flying towards Syria doesn’t worry Moscow, unless, of course, some of its 5,000 military personnel in Syria are in the way.
Russia, meanwhile, warned that it will shoot down any US missiles fired at Syria. It has the capability to do so; cruise missiles are well within the capability of Russia’s S-400 air defense system. Nonetheless, it is very unlikely that the Russians will destroy incoming US cruise missiles, unless Russian lives are at risk. If Russia destroyed all or most of an American missile barrage, it would expose America’s weakness in the region and provoke a strong American response. To date the Pentagon has done little to invest in countermeasures against the S-400, and a full demonstration of its capabilities might change that. It would also humiliate President Trump, whom Moscow considers “unpredictable.”
Russia doesn’t particularly care how many Syrian targets the Americans might destroy. As uncertainty rises in the region and oil prices rise in response, Russia emerges as the biggest winner.
American sanctions against Russian companies, which provoked an 11% fall in the ruble exchange rate vs the US dollar, are an irritant to Moscow, but no more. Russia presently runs a current account surplus of about 2% of GDP, which means that it is a net lender to the rest of the world. Foreign investors owned between 30% and 40% of the float of ruble-denominated Russian government debt prior to the imposition of sanctions last week, drawn by yields above 7%, and the liquidation of these positions forced a steep fall in the Russian currency. But Russia does not require foreign financing and can do perfectly well without it. Its internal budget deficit is about 2% of GDP (vs about 5% for the United States).
The new sanctions restrict the access of some Russian companies to the dollar-based banking system. The aluminum producer Rusal, which accounts for about 6% of world supply, will probably fail to make a US$13 million bond payment this week for lack of access to banking facilities. That is disruptive but not deadly for the Russian economy. In the medium term, it will push Russia to find alternative clearing arrangements in combination with China. The US still controls the clearing mechanism for dollar-based payments, and has the ability to shut targeted companies or countries out of the banking system. But that is a dangerous weapon to use, because it increases the incentive for other countries to find alternative payment mechanisms.
There has been considerable speculation about the use of the Chinese yuan as a reserve currency to compete with the dollar, complete with alternative clearing mechanisms. In practice, a reserve currency requires a large, diverse and free capital market, and China will require years of patient experimentation to create such a market. Washington’s use of the dollar-based banking system for political reasons gives China and Russia reason to move faster. And if the dollar faces serious competition as a reserve instrument, the US government will pay a great deal more to borrow money. With a US$1 trillion annual federal borrowing requirement during the next several years, the US itself is overstretched, and the deployment of financial power for political reasons may backfire.
Another propaganda artical by Spenger but than again he seldems to never publishs anything else.To begin with there is no proof that a chemical attack ever took place,Trump is using that pre-tex along with the fake one in Britian to take attention away from the Stormy Daniels affair, much like Clinton used the missiel attacks to cover up his and take the heat off from his affair with Monica,will he attack Syria the odds are aganist it,just another day in the swamp only now Trump is part of that swamp…
Although I disagree with Spengler on U.S. involvement in the Middle-east, this article provides a well-reasoned rebuttle to all of the hype swirling around Syria, Russia, and China. I recommend it for this reason alone.
This one was not as filled with tripe as usual. It had more reality to it. Read between the lines, Mr. Spengler is making a very sound point here.
Most of article interesting and incisive: but first two sentences AIPAC BS. Come on Goldman, try a thinking like a Jewish American, instead of an American Jew. You embarrass yourself. Outside of the neocons, do you think anyone believes those "facts" in first two sentences? Sad.
pure propaganda,
Amazing distortation of facts, very dissappointed,
i replied to david last year,turkey is key..the kurds are bought by the iranians..the kurds are genetically connected to the iranians,the kurds only allies in the mideast are the iranians,this will be a disaster for the gulf and israel,there is no choice for the west but to neutralise assad,and worse it is time to take iran on head to head..1.strike at assad hard,and a united force agains iran,end the kurdish dream,bring back turkey into the fold..game over for iran and assad.
Lol.
kurds are unable to manage a state, they are a tribal society.
"Syrian President Basher al-Assad has killed more than half a million of his own countrymen and driven another 10 million from their homes."
We don’t have the numbers, except an estimation for the refugees. To say Assad killed 500 thousand Syrians is simply false. And, since the author doesn’t provide the source, I’ll assume this number was made up.
"In alliance with Iran, he plans to shift Syria’s ethnic and religious balance by driving out Sunni Arabs and replacing them with Shi’ite settlers from Lebanon to Pakistan."
Maybe Assad has a hidden anti-Sunni agenda. I don’t read minds, I don’t know what’s crossing his mind. But to say this was was waged on an anti-Sunni agenda is nonsense.
ISIS was created from the remains of the old Iraqi Army, left in tatters after Bush’s illegal invasion, was financed by the USA (through its favorite pipelines in the region: Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar), rebranded and instructed to invade Syria (i.e. journey to the West). That Syria is also the place where the Apocalypse will happen, according to the Muslim scriptures, was just a happy coincidence: ISIS was financed on the condition it would conquer Syria and Syria only. I don’t recall any indications that there was a Sunni genocide in Syria before that.
Nevertheless, once the total, open war begun, it didn’t matter what was Assad’s agenda: war is the suspension of ideology; you fight for your survival, and the truth is Assad needed (needs) all the help he can have.
ha ha ha ha ha. Asad killed half a million sunnis. Crap.
Except Spengler has this analyzed correctly. I do not believe the USA will actually strike Syria. Might be used by Pres. T. as part of an entre to a summit with Putin. At same time Putin doesn’t care about a missile attack and neither does Iran. The whole situation benefits ALL oil producing countries but that is incidental only and not part of a plot. I hope all sides in Syria keep ‘winning’.
Ucci – look at facts. Get used to them. Assad has moved on his enemies as any king would. He ‘owns’ Syria. Several rivals have tried to rob him. Be honest with yourself. What would you do?
Vick Pm I believe they pressed the right button on Trump. He cannot resist it. The military certainly is looking for an opportunity. Only the State Dept would be horrified but hey, is anyone home?
i replied to a similar case last year,when the brutality of assad was clear,.the problem is the west has isolated turkey,when the kurds are really on the iranian position.for that is because the kurds are iranian cousins,they are from the iranian heritage hence that was a grave mistake by supporting the kurds..secondly allowing turkey greater strength will clear the west for access from the north..it is now paramount that we along with the sunni world and israel must take down both assad and iran before the danger gets worse.
"…It is unclear why Assad should have deployed chemical weapons while he is winning…"
Simple: he didn’t. Why intelligent people keep insisting he did, beats me.
thanks for writting my comment .what i was going to say was this writer is more interested in the financials than who will be murdered. and used lies to promote the zionist neocon israeli agenda. bolton is running the show now.
Vick Pm
Very true you are. This what power politics is.
Blood samples from attack victims in Duma conclusively show chemical weapons were used. Everyone’s cynicism is perhaps fashionable but morally reprehensible.
" It is unclear why Assad should have deployed chemical weapons while he is winning."
The talking heads in the Western media should be asking this question, but they don’t. Somehow, we are to believe that Assad is totally irrational AND that Russia, currently the objective of a massive propaganda campaign around the Skirpal affair, needs to get involved in yet ANOTHER chemical weapons brouhaha. ANY honest person with a gram of sense can see that it is the anti-Assad forces which benefit from all this, and staged it like they staged others in the past; very unconvincingly. In fact, it is staged so badly that it is likely a local job, not a professional operation that a state intellligence agency would organize. This sites deconstructs one of the videos. Study it with the mind of a physicist.
https://southfront.org/there-are-some-problems-with-gas-cylinders-videos-used-by-white-helmets-as-evidence-of-douma-attack/
My commentary follows:
1. Gas cylinders are color coded according to contents. Presumably this is an international standard. Yellow indicates corrosive or toxic gas. It could have held chlorine. There is heavy corrosion around the valve and the stand which holds the cylinder. The stand looks like it was originally part of an industrial application-see the legs- and is held in place by a flimsy clamp. An area of the stand which is bent shows rust, i.e., old damage.
2. These tanks are extremely durable and are designed to survive a serious impact, but that stand would be seriously damaged, even ripped off if it fell through the ceiling tearing through what looks like 1/2" rebar. And look at the size of that hole! No way it could make a hole that big. These brackets are designed only to hold cylinders securely upright. Somehow, the cylinder landed on the bed, which is not under the hole in the ceiling.
3. Without more information, it is not clear whether the valve is open or closed. It appears that there was originally a tube exiting the valve which has been broken off, but there seems to be no mechanism to release gas on impact.
Clearly, this is all fake, and not a very good fake either.