The playing in Syria of a bloody chess match — or poker with three jokers wild — has produced a humanitarian catastrophe now coldly reflected in big numbers: more than 200,000 dead; more than 9 million internally displaced and refugee.

As a stalemate from the git-go — post-Soviet Russia vs NATO, the feudal world vs the modern — and held there by nuclear danger, Putin-Assad-Khamenei’s hands have transformed an authentic people’s revolution — call it a democratic socialist revolution, an anti-totalitarian revolution for classical liberalism — into an immensely tragic put-on featuring on the state’s side a tyrant and in much of the opposition the tyrants of the al-Qaeda-type organizations.

(On this blog, ISIS is a Khamenei proxy by way of direct bribes or subterfuge, and, one way or the other, its presence may be maintained as long as it serves Iranian diplomacy, war strategy, and the business that has been made of the want of infinite “narcissistic supply” — i.e., contemplated later glory).

Perhaps this way an endgame comes:

• US-NATO has cut the revenues of oil-dependent states and their proxies;
• US-NATO appears to have gotten Hezbollah consumed with striking Israel, which perverse shift in focus may signal gathering weakness in Assad’s military outlook (perhaps if he’s going down, he wants to see Israel hurt while he’s falling);
• US-NATO has laid some groundwork for rebuilding a moderate army for Syria, one capable of destroying both the fattened red-brown capitalists and the jumpy green meanies of jealousy’s jihad that have made Syria the world’s capital of limitless suffering.

By when?

Not so fast.

It takes time to assemble parts, build machinery, and move the machinery around — and not only for the “small war” — always: if it’s in your own neighborhood, it is all the war in the world! — but for greater and more dismal possibilities as well.

Excerpts and Reference

The consequences of missing oil revenue for IS are severe. IS is unlikely to decrease funding for its military operations so it will have to find ways to simultaneously cut costs elsewhere and raise new revenue — and both methods are likely to jeopardize popular support for the group.

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-impact-of-the-oil-collapse-on-isis-is-severe-2015-1 – 1/15/2015.

But the good times may now be over for Hezbollah and its supporters. Iranian oil profits, which have lubricated the proxy group with hundreds of millions of dollars a year, appear to be drying up. Western sanctions, imposed on Tehran due to its nuclear program, coupled with falling oil prices, have emptied the coffers of the Islamic Republic.

http://www.newsweek.com/2015/01/23/hezbollah-going-broke-299139.html – 1/15/2015

Hezbollah’s fear is that all that weaponry will be lost if Assad falls. One wonders, lost to whom? The Muslim Brotherhood? Al-Qaeda operatives in Syria? Since both the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda are reported moving quickly into the mayhem and becoming part of the opposition mix, this strategic weaponry, including stockpiles of chemical weapons and long-range missiles, could fall into the hands of any of these terrorist groups, as the Syrian regime disintegrates.

http://www.maozisrael.org/site/News2?id=9174 “Why Syria’s Assad Can’t Stop Killing His Own People.” – March 2012.

With no American combat boots on the ground and limited intelligence, the U.S. is struggling to have an impact there against Islamic State militants or the Assad regime.

One of the biggest hurdles for the U.S. training program for Syrian rebels is identifying and vetting individuals to train. Defense officials said earlier this month that the U.S. is working closely with other U.S. government agencies as well as partner nations to find rebel fighters who would be candidates for the program.

http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2015/01/us-send-400-trainers-and-hundreds-more-troops-syrian-train-and-equip-mission/103068/ – 1/15/2015.

Jihad Mughniyeh, son of former Hezbollah chief Imad Mugniyeh, as well as 11 others were killed in the airborne attack, including six Iranians, one of them a general. Iranian state sources confirmed the identity of the senior Revolutionary Guard officer, naming him as General Mohamed Allahdadi. Another key figure killed in the attack was identified as Mohammed Issa, the head of Hezbollah’s operation in war-torn Syria and Iraq.

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Strike-against-Hezbollah-was-an-intelligence-and-operational-success-ex-Shin-Bet-chief-says-388313 – 1/20/2015.

Assad’s war against his people, attacks of terrorist groups, and the trauma of ordinary Syrians have gone unnoticed while the global leaders quickly gathered in Paris to condemn the killing of 12 journalists, which is of course an atrocious and condemnable act, but the same world is turning a blind eye and is not reacting to the daily killings by poisonous gases, explosions and missiles.

The inability of the international community to act has turned the Syrian issue into a huge humanitarian crisis.

http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/views/editor-in-chief/317263/the-suffering-of-syrian-refugees – 1/18/2015.

Additional Reading

http://nypost.com/2014/12/07/an-iran-russia-axis/ – 12/7/2014.

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