Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times.
Implied in this article is essentially that China's major project of the new Silk Road network across Asia is in jeopardy due to the impending defeat of the Empire's terrorist armies in Syria. He sees a likely scenario in which the defeated terrorist proxy armies are sent to Afghanistan and reinforced by terrorist forces, doubtlessly supported by the CIA, in China's Xinjiang region and other adjacent areas.
Thus the near future situation in Afghanistan looks very much like an unstoppable force meeting a difficult-to-move object. This may be the future's major pivotal event in the contest between the hegemonic US-led Empire versus the challenge posed by the China-Russia-Iran combination and their new Silk Road project. Sadly missing so far in this scenario is any major threat to the Empire's ruling classes posed by a vigorous anti-war movement within its borders. Although there are some signs that the US coalition behind the conflict in Syria is disintegrating, at the present time it appears that only bankruptcy threatens the Empire's resistance to their project. More austerity measures will be needed to stave off bankruptcy. Perhaps anti-austerity movements within the US and some its allies will be sufficient to prevent a future "terrorist" war in Afghanistan as we've seen in Syria.