Wag a dog was a beautiful movie about how a Government can fake a crisis in order to distract people and achieve other objectives. That is what I think of Syria and why, in the end, it will just another buying opportunity in the market – unless there is a serious miscalculation somewhere.
A gas attack is a terrible thing. But in the 1980s thousands of Iranian and Kurdish died of gas attack (from the US supported Saddam) and nobody said anything….because there was the greater issue of the Cold War and a nice terrible 8 years war was distracting two large Arab country.
Now we have the US which has to answer because a red line has been crossed (nothing to do with the gas poising…less of a 1,000 people on a 110,000 death war). But it does not want Assad to collapse as the projection give Al Qaeda as a clear winner of an Assad fall. That is the real motivation before the delay in action and the call for limited strikes.
Moreover it has the side benefit to distract everyone from the US Fed tapering…..but more important solve the looming Debt Ceiling debate in October.
It also opens a realpolitik alliance with Iran (apparently Oman’s leadership went to Iran with nice US messages and openings). If you noticed Iran has been much more restrained than usual in their threat.
Israel actually likes the situation of a weakened but not out Assad (apparently the Occupied Golan Heights have a lot of oil underneath and if no-one is there to contest it is all theirs….or better the contract of oil extraction has been already assigned to Genie Energy (owned by…guess (and cry) by Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch) – Please note in international law is illegal to use resource of an occupied country (Singapore vs Japan, International Court of Justice sentence 1945)
The party that really wants the fall of Assad are actually the Saudi as they fight for the Middle East supremacy against Iran (there is even a theory that if it was not the Government to use gas – it could be some Saudi sponsored element).
In effect all brings to a “show war” more than a real war. Also Russia show is more to get credits in other negotiation than anything else.
Yes there will be some real consequences as some Hezbollah actions against Israel (nothing new there….it just usually does not make the news).
As usual with any war, there could be unintended consequences: Hezbollah and Assad’s brother are the one to watch. And the master puppeteer – the Saudis
investorpolitico 