A Mediterranean Battlefield - Syria

[Jan Klimkowski]

In years to come, historians will ask how America after its defeat in Iraq and its humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan scheduled for 2014 could have so blithely aligned itself with one side in a titanic Islamic struggle stretching back to the seventh century death of the Prophet Mohamed.

No need to wait for historians of the future to comment, as the answer is already clear as clear can be.

It's oil silly.

The strategy is: divide and conquer, sow and reap, make war not peace - war is profitable, oil is wanted, and global hegemony is the name of the game. Keep the folks back home looking afar and not around them.

And remember: Russia's Putin has agreed to rent to NATO a military base deep inside Russia. Russia is part of the G8. And most importantly of all, Russian is Christian not Muslim.

I was watching what passes for debate on Sky News late last night, and the anchor asked his interviewee, an editor or deputy editor at a national broadsheet newspaper, whether we should cut through the rhetoric and simply acknowledge that (I paraphrase) "the real reason for Putin's position is that Russia wants to keep a port in the Mediterranean". The editor/deputy editor nodded in sage agreement, and responded "that is absolutely the reason for Russia's position".

However, if the anchor had asked "isn't the real reason for the American/British/French position oil and control of the Middle East?", I have little doubt that the editor/deputy editor would have responded in mock outrage "absolutely not, you shouldn't be peddling 'conspiracy theories', I'm sure our position is based on humanitarian and democratic principles".

It's all garbage.