Surviving Capitalism (Not) : How Syria’s Victory Reshapes Mideast

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, October 1, 2017

How Syria’s Victory Reshapes Mideast

Click here to access article by Alastair Crooke from ConsortiumNews.

I am departing from my usual practice to ignore speculative articles about the future because I simply could not pass this one up. It is clear that the actions of the Saudi-Israeli-US project of using ISIS to destabilize Syria and installing a more compliant government (Plan A) is coming to an end.

In the first section Crooke provides a review of the history of the region which sets the stage for what he sees as a more likely second scene in this geopolitical drama in contrast to one which he refers to as "Israel’s New Scheme" (Plan B): using the Kurdish desire for independence to balkanize both Iraq and Syria. If you have little time, I recommend that you skip down to the subsection entitled "Israel’s New Scheme" where he quickly disposes of this outcome, and proceeds to elaborate the outcome that he sees much more likely. I think you will agree with me that such an outcome will have monumental repercussions on global geopolitics.