Click here to access this post which features a 10:26m interview with Gilbert Doctorow from Sputnik.
This veteran political observer is clearly alarmed by recent events in Syria and in the vitriolic remarks and hostile actions of US officials and US forces in Syria. He attempts to explain this unprecedented level of hostility in several ways including what is suggested in the headline, but he also suggests that it might have something to do with the fear of the "war party" with the prospect of Trump winning the forthcoming election. He posits a "war party" but doesn't elaborate what he means by this phrase, and suggests that Obama has acted to restrain them. This is in accord with those who theorize that the Pentagon has acted independent of the president and the State Department to undermine the negotiated ceasefire agreements.
I thoroughly agree with his feelings of alarm and most other observations, but I am very skeptical of the reasons he suggests as to the cause of the very strained relations between Russia and the US Empire. I don't think these events have anything to do with the forthcoming election nor any one event that transpired regarding Syria. And I think we should ignore the superficial differences between the official agencies of government as reported by corporate media.
I think that the aggressive neoconservative faction which is likely the dominant faction in the US capitalist ruling class is seriously frustrated in their attempts to advance their imperial agendas in Ukraine, Syria, and other places by Russia and secondarily by China. Because of this we are at a very frightening stage which threatens a catastrophic war, and Doctorow expresses this anxiety very well.
