As predicted, things are getting hairy all over again in Syria, a place where too many conflicts are going on. The casus belli this time is the little town of Manbij, in the northern part of the country. Actually is controlled by Kurds, with logistic support from the US. Russians and Americans found themselves together against the will of the Turkish government to seize the town, a move that greatly enraged the leadership of this regional power. Check here the story, from Stars and Stripes.
Syria orthographic projection
The war against ISIL is not over. While the mainstream media are busy with Donald Trump and Theresa May, the multilateral conflict against ISIL rages on with uncertain results. The black flag of the insurgents is still up in Syria and Iraq (not to mention an unknown number of their members who escaped from Libya and are still unaccounted for). At the present day, we have five different battles going on between ISIL and various aggregation of allied forces with no end in sight. It looks like that the end of the self-proclaimed caliphate is still far from reality.
Words are important, so choosing the right word for the current situation in Syria is a way to anticipate my position. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a simple definition of deadlock is:
a situation in which an agreement cannot be made : a situation in which ending a disagreement is impossible because neither side will give up something that it wants.
The flag of Syrian Arab Republic / Damascus, Syria (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The UNO goes on, issuing every now and then documents about the situation in Syria.
Recently I’ve received this one, titled “70/234. Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab
Republic” (HERE); of course the said document is very bureaucratic, full of references with past
resolutions and contains little data.
In the second page, you can read this:
Expressing outrage at the continuing escalation of violence in the Syrian Arab Republic, which has caused more than 250,000 fatalities, including the killing of many more than 10,000 children, and in particular at the continued widespread and systematic gross violations, as well as abuses, of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law, including those involving the continued
indiscriminate use of heavy weapons and aerial bombardments, such as the indiscriminate use of ballistic missiles, cluster munitions, barrel and vacuum bombs and chlorine gas, and the starvation of civilians as a method of combat, which are prohibited under international humanitarian law, by the Syrian authorities against the Syrian population
In short, a quarter million dead and use of weapons of mass destruction. Against the Syrian people from the Syrian authorities (and the Russians, too).
We have to congratulate with John Kerry for a rare moment of truth between the federal administration of the USA and the public. The current Secretary of State was attending a hearing in the House of Representatives last Wednesday (September 4th, 2013) and answering a question admit loud and clear that foreign countries have offered to pay the bill for the military intervention in Syria.
Present days Syria’s crisis is a good start to think about how Putin’s Russia look at the whole Middle East in short and middle terms (from 1 to 5 years). After the shake down of USSR in 1991 russian presence in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf has been close to be wiped out. No political sphere of influence was viable for a nation in rubble, not to mention the overwhelming military power of the USA that was already on the brink to squash Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.
After the end of the Cold War we had a number of conflicts with the direct participation of NATO countries, wars and “peace missions” that hardly got any real winner. USA and its allies won every battle on the field but how many of this wars gave us a better world?
All right, we’re on the eve of a bombing campaign against Syria. Everybody knows it and all of us already got the commemorative T-shirt (My brother bombed Syria and all I’ve got it’s this lousy T-shirt?). What we have to remember is that they’re waiting for an opportunity to strike back.
Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, are you ready for another dirty little war? A new conflict will start before the end of this week so be sure to have enough popcorn and soda for the non-stop flow of TV shows about that. Now, it’s time to get some information.
This world is gonna change again in the next few years, driven by economic challenges and by the different needs of geopolitical big players. Here’s a brief summary about the major operations:
TAFTA, the Transatlantic Free Trade Area; will force an alliance between NAFTA countries (USA, Canada, Mexico) and EU, preceded by a massive revision of national and international economic policies about agriculture, OGM, steel production, value fluctuation of currencies and so on.
Russia-China, money for oil/gas/coal; Russia desperately needs to invest billions of USD to develop its oil/gas/coal industry, to explore the artic fields and to upgrade its refineries. China needs more and more energy every year, with enourmous mass of money ready to be invested. Advanced trade agreements are already in place.
Turkey as a regional power; it’s already on the move, Turkey sphere of influence covers Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Armenia, Moldova, Azerbaijan. The future challenge is to confront Israel and Iran on different grounds, in order to expand its influence over Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. It’s an hard game, both on religious and geopolitical sides.
India and its future development; this asian giant will face dramatic changes in a matter of a decade. The need for deep and shocking reforms can’t be delayed anymore with about one billion citizens who are on the edge of a society collapse. The original caste order will not last long, not with Dalit on rampage and the pressure given from the sheer existence of western models of society. The industrial system got to evolve too, in order to avoid the current level of pollution and to raise its salary capacity.
As you may see, each and every one of this operations got serious consequences for geopolical and economic stability of our world. This decade will be remembered.
Angelo Benuzzi 