{"id":31594,"date":"2018-02-25T19:21:21","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T00:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31594"},"modified":"2018-02-25T19:21:21","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T00:21:21","slug":"globally-top-respected-experts-on-middle-east-warn-syrian-war-may-produce-ww-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31594","title":{"rendered":"Globally Top-Respected Experts on Middle East Warn Syrian War May Produce WW III"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-title\">\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thesaker.is\/globally-top-respected-experts-on-middle-east-warn-syrian-war-may-produce-ww-iii\/\">Globally Top-Respected Experts on Middle East Warn Syrian War May Produce WW III<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Abdel_Bari_Atwan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Abdel Bari Atwan<\/a>, the retired editor-in-chief (1989-2013) of the pan-Arab newspaper <em>Al Quds Al Arabi<\/em> and author of widely respected books on the Middle East, headlined on February 18th, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raialyoum.com\/index.php\/the-drums-of-war\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cA superpower confrontation could be triggered by accident in Syria\u201d<\/a> and he opened:<\/p>\n<p><em>Qatar\u2019s plans to build a gas pipeline to the Mediterranean were a major cause of the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. Seven years on, Syria\u2019s oil and gas reserves east of the Euphrates, and especially around Deir az-Zour, have the potential to trigger World War III.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Four military aircraft were downed over Syria in the course of one week: an Israel F-16 shot down by a Russian-made Syrian missile; a Russian jet hit by an American-made shoulder-fired MANPADS; an Iranian pilotless drone intercepted by Israeli missiles; and a Turkish helicopter brought down in the countryside of Afrin by US-backed Kurdish fighters.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Warplanes from at least six countries crowd Syria\u2019s airspace, including those of the American and Russian superpowers, while numerous proxy wars rage on the ground below involving Arab, regional and international parties.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Atwan goes on to note the reason why the war has ratcheted up after Donald Trump became America\u2019s President:<\/p>\n<p><em>The US has made clear that it has no intention of withdrawing its 2,000 military personnel from Syria even after the expiry of the original pretext for deploying them, namely to fight the Islamic State (IS) group. Administration officials have repeatedly affirmed that these forces will remain indefinitely in order to counter Iranian influence in the country.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Trump has abandoned former U.S. President Barack Obama\u2019s excuse for invading Syria, and replaced it by what is now clearly an American hot war against Iran, which indisputably has become the U.S. President\u2019s target \u2014 no longer (even if only as an excuse) ISIS or \u201cradical Islamic terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Globally Top-Respected Experts on Middle East Warn Syrian War May Produce WW III Abdel Bari Atwan, the retired editor-in-chief (1989-2013) of the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi and author of widely respected books on the Middle East, headlined on February 18th, \u201cA superpower confrontation could be triggered by accident in Syria\u201d and he opened: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18939,7844,4394,441,446,474,522,9828,1026,694,776,18938,862,891,1823],"class_list":["post-31594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-abdel-bari-atwan","tag-donald-trump","tag-eric-zuesse","tag-iran","tag-isis","tag-kurds","tag-middle-east","tag-oil-and-gas-reserves","tag-qatar","tag-russia","tag-syria","tag-the-saker-blog","tag-war","tag-world-war","tag-world-war-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31595,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31594\/revisions\/31595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}