Engdahl looks at some of the strange happenings in and around Syria and sees some shrewd Machiavellian games being played. For example, both the US and Russia support the Syrian Kurds, but for very different reasons as he explains.
At this point it rather looks like a shrewd judo by Putin, himself an old judo master, with a Judo 8th Dan and sitting as Honorary President of the European Judo Union. It looks like Russia, despite its air force drawdown and troop pull-back, has just established the first “No Fly” zone in Syria, the most-wanted aim of the US Pentagon and Turkey only five months ago, as the necessary step to topple Assad and the Syrian government and create a weak government presiding over a Balkanized Syria. Only the Russian no fly zone has a quite different aim–to protect the Syrian Kurds from a possible Turkish military attack.Then there is the Israeli trade deals with Russia cutting in on such deals with Turkey. All these maneuverings leave many questions. One thing is clear: deception is the name of the game.