{"id":37668,"date":"2018-09-12T06:18:40","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T11:18:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=37668"},"modified":"2018-09-12T06:18:40","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T11:18:40","slug":"the-uss-choice-wwiii-or-saving-face-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=37668","title":{"rendered":"The US\u2019s Choice: WWIII or Saving Face in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"<header><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive\" title=\"The US\u2019s Choice: WWIII or Saving Face in Syria\" src=\"https:\/\/www.strategic-culture.org\/images\/news\/2018\/09\/11\/or-41372.jpg\" alt=\"The US\u2019s Choice: WWIII or Saving Face in Syria\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.strategic-culture.org\/news\/2018\/09\/11\/us-choice-wwiii-or-saving-face-in-syria.html\">The US\u2019s Choice: WWIII or Saving Face in Syria<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<p>Sometimes when I step back from the overwhelming flow of geopolitical insanity I\u2019m reminded of the old adage that coming close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.<\/p>\n<p>To which, I always add, \u201cAnd nuclear war.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been watching the build up to the operation to liberate Idlib in Syria which includes the endless neocon and Israeli moral preening warning Assad against using chemical weapons with a sense of detachment.\u00a0 And I keep thinking to myself, \u201cDo they really think we\u2019re that stupid?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Three times the chemical weapons canard has been used to justify further aggression against Syria and three times a full-blown U.S. invasion has been averted. First by Vladimir Putin\u2019s deft diplomacy and General Dunford\u2019s refusal to implement a \u2018no-fly zone\u2019 in 2013 and then during the Trump years with ineffectual air strikes on Syrian airbases.<\/p>\n<p>How much of that ineffectuality of those airstrikes were designed by Defense Secretary James Mattis to avoid a wider conflagration and how much was Russian EW\/missile defense is anyone\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n<p>The truth most likely lies somewhere in the middle.<\/p>\n<p>That is why everyone who is worrying about the U.S.\u2019s blustering over Syria\u2019s Idlib campaign needs to take a big step back and think the scenario through.<\/p>\n<p>Because the neoconservatives and Israel are forcing the situation to its crisis point, thinking they can manipulate the headlines and the levers of power to still eke out a victory in Syria that will allow them to continue on their quest to destroy Russia first and conquer the rest of Asia after that.<\/p>\n<p>And they are willing to blackmail us with the threat of WWIII over 50,000 head-chopping mercenaries to get their cookie.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US\u2019s Choice: WWIII or Saving Face in Syria Sometimes when I step back from the overwhelming flow of geopolitical insanity I\u2019m reminded of the old adage that coming close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. To which, I always add, \u201cAnd nuclear war.\u201d I\u2019ve been watching the build up to the operation to [&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":[694,8203,776,16963,827,1823],"class_list":["post-37668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-russia","tag-strategic-culture-foundation","tag-syria","tag-tom-luongo","tag-united-states","tag-world-war-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37668","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=37668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37669,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37668\/revisions\/37669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}