During my recent downtime due to internet problems, it looks like I missed a very important article by Engdahl. He sees escalating events related to the Trump administration's increasingly friendly contacts with Netanyahu and oil in the Golan Heights. Of course, he wrote this before the US attack on the Syrian air-force base, but it may fit into the overall pattern. Referring to Netanyahu's visit immediately after his February visit to the White House, Engdahl writes:
Some days after Netanyahu left Washington, in an OpEd in the Rupert Murdoch Wall Street Journal, Mark Dubowitz, Executive Director of the Washington pro-Israel think-tank, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, argued that American recognition of Israel’s control of the Golan “would provide the Israeli government with a diplomatic win while helping the Trump administration signal to Russia and Iran that the US is charting a new course in Syria.” Dubowitz is an adviser to the Trump Administration on Iran and the Middle East. Other neo-conservative editorials echoed the theme. There is big change brewing in Washington and it looks ugly in terms of a possible US-backed war with Israel against Russia ally, Syria, over the Golan Heights. That immediately poses the question what Russia would do if it materializes.
Against the backdrop of the Netanyahu talks on US recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, the ensuing events begin to make strategic sense, mad though they may be.