Elements of Washington wonkdom are calling for the break-up of Syria into ethno-sectarian mini-states, and see the separatist contagion spreading to the rest of the Middle East.
Obama's UN speech pledged: "We will ensure the free flow of energy" from the Middle East. Yet intervention risks a conflagration that could threaten imperial control of the oil reserves.
The fearful synergy of regional sectarian war and Great Power rivalries holds the menace of the looming Syria intervention setting off a new global conflagration.
Samantha Power’s appointment as UN ambassador may signal a determination on the part of the Obama administration that intervention in Syria is inevitable.
Israel's claim that Syria has used chemical weapons comes as rebel militias have assumed positions near the line of control in the Golan Heights.
Voices on the left seek to play down jihadist involvement in the Chechen struggle, while the neocon right plays it up—ironically in line with Moscow's propaganda.
Leftists are ironically rallying around Chuck Hagel as Obama's apparent pick for Secretary of Defense—a conservative Republican who is wary of the neocons but close to Big Oil.
Is a "false flag" attack in preparation to faciliate military intervention that would install the rebels in power? Or is Washington more afraid of WMD falling into jihadist hands?
David Petraeus was scheduled to testify before Congress on the Benghazi attack when he was brought down by a sex scandal. Did the FBI instrument the revelation to silence him?
In the wave of protest over a provocateur-produced "film" dissing the Prophet Mohammed, jihadists could be seizing back the initiative from secular revolutionaries in the Arab world.
Trump, the great enthusiast for dictators, suddenly develops a touching concern with democracy in Venezuela, grasping at the opportunity for long-sought regime change. Predictably overlooked in the world media's Manichean view of the crisis are voices of Venezuela's dissident left that takes a neither/nor position opposed to both the regime and the right-wing leadership of the opposition. Also unheard are voices of indigenous dissent and resistance. In an episode that received little coverage, December saw protests in the remote Orinoco Basin after a leader of the Pemón indigenous people was killed in a confrontation with elite Military Counterintelligence troops. The military operation was ostensibly aimed at clearing the region of illegal mining—while the Pemón themselves had been protesting the mining. The indigenous leaders view the militarization of the region as intended to make way for corporate exploitation under the Orinoco Mineral Arc plan. (Photo: EcoPolitica Venezuela)
Talk about strange bedfellows! This week witnessed the surreal spectacle of US National Security Adviser John Bolton, the most bellicose neoconservative in the Trump administration, visiting Turkey to try to forestall an Ankara attack radical-left, anarchist-leaning Kurdish fighters that the Pentagon has been backing to fight ISIS in Syria. "We don't think the Turks ought to undertake military action that's not fully coordinated with and agreed to by the United States," Bolton told reporters. Refering to the Kurdish YPG militia, a Turkish presidential spokesman responded: "That a terror organization cannot be allied with the US is self-evident." Bolton left Turkey without meeting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who then publicly dissed the National Security Adviser's stance as a "serious mistake." YPG spokesman Nuri Mahmud, in turn, shot back: "Turkey, which has been a jihadist safe-haven and passage route to Syria since the beginning of the conflict, has plans to invade the region end destroy the democracy created by blood of sons and daughters of this people." (Photo: ANF)
