Syria.

He's Dead said:
It's not true that Iran's oil matters very much to Putin. It matters more to China, all things being equal.
Click to expand...

Sorry but that's just isn't true.

Russia has a broad program of cooperation with Iran in the oil, natural gas and petrochemical industries. Russia and Iran are not only trading partners, they're also strong economic allies; they share several agreements in agriculture, telecommunications, and the energy sector, in which their goal is to establish a large combined production of up to 15 million barrels of oil -per day-, which has the potential to become a global leading market, along with their increasing gas joint projects.

Even though Iran is a major exporter of crude oil, they still import tens of thousands of gallons (or about half of their gasoline) daily, to make up for their extremely weak refining capacity (a result of the crippling sanctions), even though they've been investing heavily in that area over the last decade.

On the other hand, Russia is the #1 oil refining country in the world. At around 4.5 million barrels a day, China is also a big oil-refining country (third to Japan).
Russian energy output is thought to remain stable for at least five years, but will require increasing investments as the main oil provinces in western Siberia (which peaked years ago) will keep declining.
And as you mentioned, China is oil-dependent.

Iran, however, has enough high-grade oil reserves to produce for the next 100 years, while the reserves of other Middle Eastern countries will be depleted in the next 60 years and most other oil-rich countries will lose their reserves within the next 30 years.


So yeah, Iran matters to China AND Russia. There's a reason Russia is placing their warships on the Mediterranean Sea, vowing to defend Syria. And Obama is already accusing Iran of trying to bomb an US embassy or something (or so I heard on CNN today).

Kudos to the American people though, they seem unwilling to buy into the same BS war rhetoric again.
 
AD Chaos said:
Russia has a broad program of cooperation with Iran in the oil, natural gas and petrochemical industries. Russia and Iran are not only trading partners, they're also strong economic allies; they share several agreements in agriculture, telecommunications, and the energy sector, in which their goal is to establish a large combined production of up to 15 million barrels of oil -per day-, which has the potential to become a global leading market, along with their increasing gas joint projects...
Click to expand...

You know a lot about global energy issues, and I think you know more than I do, so I readily concede that point hahah. The reason I said that was because I was reading a piece last week on forecasts of Russian oil output until 2050 and it showed Russia with a fairly sizeable trade surplus for the foreseeable future, and it even assumed Iran would be hampered by sanctions. But forecasts obviously differ quite a bit and I may very well have read it too quickly or not read enough. Thanks for correcting me. :)

AD Chaos said:
FYI it IS a false flag, because it would not be logic AT ALL for Assad (who isn't a 'saint', granted) to bring upon himself a shitload of international military intervention by using chemical weapons on his own people, whilst at the same time fighting Al-Qaeda, AND doing so on the very same day the UN inspectors traveled over there.. that makes literally NO sense whatsoever.
Click to expand...

Before we invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein thought we were clearly getting the signal that his bluffing about CW/WMD was directed at Iran, not us, and that our intelligence apparatus must have been so sophisticated that we were playing mind games with him by threatening to invade. He was being rational; we were being rational (broadly speaking), and yet we were both horribly wrong. People do stupid things and make mistakes. States and actors aren't black boxes.

You also have to remember that Assad has, smartly (for plausible deniability purposes), put his CW stocks under the control of local commanders, and U.S. intelligence thinks that his brother may have been the one who used the sarin. Google "Assad brother chemical weapons" and at least a couple of reports will come up. We've done everything possible to stay out of the Syrian civil war for 2 years now, so I think he probably said to himself, "What's the worst thing that could happen? They send a few missiles over here?" And technically, he's correct about that.

In the same way you're arguing it makes no sense for him to use CW given Obama's "red line" statements, I challenge you to find any conceivable reason at all why we would wait 2 years, do absolutely nothing, and then have Obama submit this to Congress instead of using his authority under the War Powers Act to attack the regime.

BTW, what happens if the UN comes back and says the evidence is there? Would you say Obama manipulated the UN? And if that's the case, then why bother with the UN at all, and why wouldn't Russia and China stop him from doing so?

It makes more sense that the chemical attack was carried out as a response by the rebels (who have been losing ground to the Syrian army), and want to draw the US and others into the conflict, in order to overthrow the Syrian government, and then secure a strong foothold in the country, once those foreign military efforts pull back.
Click to expand...

It's not out of the question in theory, but I'd like to see a plausible scenario in which the rebels gather the precursor chemicals, assemble them in a lab, mount them on a delivery vehicle, and then launch it in Damascus, which is still, as I understand it, solid Assad territory.

Syria is seen (by the international community at large) as a stepping point into Iran. Syria and Iran currently share mutual defense agreements, and attacking Syria could be aimed at provoking a reaction from Iran. Any pretext to start up shit with them, too. That is why Putin and China have started to make declarations the past couple of days.
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Iran just elected the most moderate president since Khatami. By all accounts, both the U.S. and Iran are in the early stages of a rapprochement that neither wants to derail for now.

Iran is the main source of oil for China and Russia, amongst others. Russia has vast oil reserves in the north, deep under ice, but it still makes more sense for them on a number of levels to buy from Iran.
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I do take issue with this. From everything I know and have read, this isn't accurate, but if you find a source that explains this I'd be interested to read it.

Just want to reiterate again that I don't think we should be intervening haha, but I do take issue with false flag theories and people who say we're doing this for economic reasons or because we feel like it or something. The evidence to the contrary- that Obama in particular, the vast majority of our elected officials, and 90% of the American public, have no interest in this conflict- is overwhelming, and I think marshalling evidence to the contrary points to a disdain for U.S. foreign policy that is so strong that you're willing to deny logic.

You can hate the U.S. or whatever, but some people are acting like global warming deniers by saying, "Well, I know better, because America sucks and this is the kind of thing they do all the time!" But that isn't an argument, and you're not actually presenting any evidence whatsoever. That's your personal, and very strongly held, opinion, with an underlying bias that colors your view of the facts.

I have a very poor opinion of Russian foreign policy, but I try to understand why Putin acts the way he does, and, to the degree possible, my view of Russia's international behavior is informed by my understanding of Russian institutions, public opinion, economic interests, history, and elite actor perceptions. That doesn't mean I can't have a personal opinion about Russia, but I'm not going to transpose my personal feelings about its foreign policy over actual political analysis.
 
pb-120112-syria-02.photoblog900.jpg


Yup, these guys have the resources to make nerve agents.. yup.. and considering even the russians admit that Assad is behind the attack and they all know who called it out, yeah, now that you guys who probably haven't even met a Syrian in your entire life say it.. yeah, must be a fucking conspiracy by the US to get a chance to make their relations with Russia, Iran and China even worse.
Makes perfect fucking sense.
 
Notuern said:
Yup, these guys have the resources to make nerve agents.. yup.. and considering even the russians admit that Assad is behind the attack and they all know who called it out, yeah, now that you guys who probably haven't even met a Syrian in your entire life say it.. yeah, must be a fucking conspiracy by the US to get a chance to make their relations with Russia, Iran and China even worse.
Makes perfect fucking sense.
Click to expand...

Not sure who was saying that the rebels were capable of making nerve agents. The more likely scenario is that they were provided these arms by Saudi Arabia. One rumor was that the recently publicized attack in Damascus was due to mishandling by the rebels. But more concretely, the tone of the victims on the ground so far has pointed toward the attacks originating from the rebels. Even back as far as May, prior to the Damascus attack, when the UN's Del Ponte was saying there were '"strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof"' that the attacks originated from the rebels.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22424188

Think about it. The Assad regime was gaining ground during the period the attack took place. It would've made no sense on their part to cross Obama's 'red line' and invite a coalition response.

Regarding Russia admitting that Assad was behind the attack - is this a recent development? Last I heard they gave the UN a 100-page report, blaming the rebels.

http://www.infowars.com/russia-says...-syrian-rebels-for-a-chemical-weapons-attack/

I don't know how impartial the UN investigators are in this matter, but I would wait on a concrete response from them rather than trusting the word of the US bobble-heads. They say they have incontrovertible proof of the chemical weapons being used by Assad, but they said this exact same thing about Saddam having WMD's a decade ago. We all know how that ended.

Are we to believe that America has suffered a sudden pang of altruism, despite its repeated history of warmongering for its own economic interests in the past? Moreover, I really wonder what leg this world policeman has to stand on when they themselves used Agent Orange in Vietnam, to which effect children are still being born deformed, and more recently white phosphorous in Fallujah. When they are terrorizing Yemenis at present with the threat of constant drone strikes - who are they to be drawing any 'red lines'?
 
Ermz said:
Not sure who was saying that the rebels were capable of making nerve agents. The more likely scenario is that they were provided these arms by Saudi Arabia. One rumor was that the recently publicized attack in Damascus was due to mishandling by the rebels. But more concretely, the tone of the victims on the ground so far has pointed toward the attacks originating from the rebels. Even back as far as May, prior to the Damascus attack, when the UN's Del Ponte was saying there were '"strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof"' that the attacks originated from the rebels.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22424188

Think about it. The Assad regime was gaining ground during the period the attack took place. It would've made no sense on their part to cross Obama's 'red line' and invite a coalition response.

Regarding Russia admitting that Assad was behind the attack - is this a recent development? Last I heard they gave the UN a 100-page report, blaming the rebels.

http://www.infowars.com/russia-says...-syrian-rebels-for-a-chemical-weapons-attack/

I don't know how impartial the UN investigators are in this matter, but I would wait on a concrete response from them rather than trusting the word of the US bobble-heads. They say they have incontrovertible proof of the chemical weapons being used by Assad, but they said this exact same thing about Saddam having WMD's a decade ago. We all know how that ended.

Are we to believe that America has suffered a sudden pang of altruism, despite its repeated history of warmongering for its own economic interests in the past? Moreover, I really wonder what leg this world policeman has to stand on when they themselves used Agent Orange in Vietnam, to which effect children are still being born deformed, and more recently white phosphorous in Fallujah. When they are terrorizing Yemenis at present with the threat of constant drone strikes - who are they to be drawing any 'red lines'?
Click to expand...

There's only one repeated issue I have with any of this and it's any time the US chooses to say, 'we have undenial proof'... You know what... If that's the case, show us, and then please go bomb the shit out of them! If you're REALLY going to apparently take all the time and means to acquire such proof, them you've apparently done a better job than members/ countries of the UN... How about toting that then so you can get your way?

But no of course not....

The police the world mentality is fucking retarded. And even IF the US IS sporting an altruistic reasoning but the rest of the world disagrees, well guess what, tough shit. THAT'S the point. The UN, for right or wrong, is its own democratic body of countries. So if Syria destroys itself because everyone decided its best to let them be, well it IS their country. You don't get to choose to be the parent breaking up the kids having a fight!
 
Melb_shredder said:
There's only one repeated issue I have with any of this and it's any time the US chooses to say, 'we have undenial proof'... You know what... If that's the case, show us, and then please go bomb the shit out of them! If you're REALLY going to apparently take all the time and means to acquire such proof, them you've apparently done a better job than members/ countries of the UN... How about toting that then so you can get your way?
Click to expand...

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/USGassessmentonSyria08302013.pdf

Couple of things to consider:

1. The U.S. intelligence apparatus was completely discredited after Iraq. The Department of Energy's intel arm and the Bureau of Inteligence and Research were the only 2 of the 16 intel agencies to challenge the conventional wisdom re: Iraq's possession of CBR and nuclear-related items. I've had several professors who work in intelligence because I live in DC and do international relations stuff, and trust me: there has been an enormous institutional and professional shift in how they qualify their assessments. They're unbelievably careful about not trying to seem certain about things. The language used in this document is the strongest you will ever see in intelligence assessments.

2. Contrary to what most people think, intelligence agencies in the United States have a statutory obligation not to become political arms of the administration. Ironically, the CIA has historically been used as an executive tool for covert action, but the vast majority of intelligence work is speaking truth to power through assessments, collection, and analysis. Policymakers may say, "I'm interested in this issue; get me a report on it," but the content of the report is completely self-contained within the agency and/or the community. If the policymaker doesn't like it, too bad.

Lyndon Johnson was notorious for hating the CIA because it told him he was losing in Vietnam. Again, Iraq was a strange exception, and we can get into it in a different thread, but I'd still argue that intelligence agencies didn't "toe the line"; they were just very, very wrong. But that's a different topic. My point is that U.S. intelligence agencies are very careful about not trying to appear partisan, precisely because they have to deal with multiple administrations over time and it is in their mission statement to not become politicized. They take this issue very, very seriously, and that's one of the many reasons I lend credence to this particular assessment.
 
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