Syria has been disintegrated and pillaged in the name of ‘liberating’ Syrians from the threat of ISIS, which they – Washington – had installed in the first place.

James Jeffrey, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, in a March 2021 interview with PBS Frontline, laid out very plainly the template for what has just happened in Syria this month:

“Syria, given its size, its strategic location, its historical importance, is the pivot point for whether [there can be] an American-managed security system in the region … And so you’ve got this general alliance that is locked in with us. But … the stress point is greatest in Syria�.

Jeffrey explained (in the 2021 interview) why the U.S. shifted its to support to Jolani and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS):

“We got Mike Pompeo to issue a waiver to allow us to give aid to HTS – I received and sent messages to HTS� -The messages coming back from HTS were: “We [HTS] want to be your friend. We’re not terrorists. We’re just fighting Assad��.

The PBS Frontline interviewer asks: The U.S. was “supporting indirectly the armed opposition�? To which Jeffrey responds:

“It was important to us that HTS not disintegrate … our policy was … was to leave HTS alone … And the fact that we haven’t targeted [HTS] ever, the fact that we have never raised our voice to the Turks about their cohabitation with them — in fact, I used this example the last time I was talking to very senior Turks – when they started bitching about this relationship we [the U.S.] have with the SDF [in eastern Syria]�.

“I said to them, “Look, Turkey has always maintained that you want us in northeast Syria, which they do. But you don’t understand. We can’t be in northeast Syria without the platform, because we only have hundreds of troops there�; … I said: “It’s just like you in Idlib …�.

“We want you to be in Idlib, but you can’t be in Idlib without having a platform, and that platform is largely HTS. Now, unlike the SDF, HTS is a UN-designated official terrorist organisation. Have I ever, or has any American official ever, complained to you about what you’re doing there with HTS? No …�.

David Miller, a British academic, has noted that in 2015, prominent Syrian Sunni Muslim scholar, Shaykh al-Yaqoubi (who is anti-Assad), was unconvinced by Jolani’s efforts to rebrand Al Qa’ida as Jabhat al-Nusra. Jolani, in his al-2013 Al-Jazeera interview twice confirmed his allegiance to al-Qa’ida, saying that he received orders from its leader, Dr Ayman [al-Zawahiri] … and those were to not target the West. He confirmed his own position as being that of hardline intolerance toward those who practiced a ‘heretical’ Islam.

Miller comments:

“While ISIS put on suits; allowed Syria to be carved up by the U.S.; preach peace with the Zionist state; want free markets; and cut gas deals with their regional patrons – their ‘true-believers’… in the Sunni identitarian diaspora haven’t yet clocked that they’ve been sold out – as was always the plan�.

“In private, the planners of this war in NATO states laugh about sending young Salafi cannon fodder from around the world into a meat grinder. The $2000 salaries are a mere speck of sand compared to the gas and construction wealth that is expected to be returned to Turkish, Qatari, Israeli and American coffers. They killed Palestine for this, and they’ll spend the next 30 years justifying it, based on whatever line the very expensive PR firms hired by the NATO and Gulf states shill to them…The Syrian regime change operation is the rug pull of the century�.

Of course, James Jeffrey’s account was nothing new. Between 1979 and 1992, the CIA spent billions of dollars funding, arming, and training Afghan Mujahideen militia (like Osama bin Laden) in an attempt to bleed the USSR dry by pulling it into a quagmire. It was from the ranks of the Mujahideen that al-Qa’eda emerged.

“And yet, by the 2010s, even as the U.S. was ostensibly at war with al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan – it was secretly working with it – in Syria on a plan to overthrow Assad. The CIA spent around $1 billion per year training and arming a wide network of rebel groups to this end. As Jake Sullivan, told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a leaked 2012 email, “AQ [al-Qaeda] is on our side in Syria�, as Alan Macleod observes in Consortium News.

Turkish press accounts largely confirm this Jeffrey scenario was the current gameplan: Ömer Önhon, former senior Ambassador and Deputy Under-Secretary in charge of Middle East and Asia at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, writes that:

“the operation to overthrow Assad’s regime in Syria was meticulously planned for over a year, with coordinated involvement from Turkey, the United States, and several other nations. Through various statements it has become clear that Assad’s departure resulted from an intricate web of agreements between virtually all stakeholders. Whilst HTS is actively working to rebrand itself – this transformation remains to be proven.�

This HTS story has a precedent: In the summer following Israel’s 2006 (unsuccessful) war on Hizbullah, Dick Cheney sat in his office loudly bemoaning Hizbullah’s continuing strength; and worse still, that it seemed to him that Iran had been the primary beneficiary from the U.S. 2003 Iraq war.

Cheney’s guest – the then Saudi Intelligence Chief, Prince Bandar – vigorously concurred (as chronicled by John Hannah, who participated in the meeting) and, to general surprise, Prince Bandar proclaimed that Iran yet could be cut to size: Syria was the ‘weak’ link that could be collapsed via an Islamist insurgency. Cheney’s initial scepticism turned to elation as Bandar said that U.S. involvement might be unnecessary. He – Bandar – would orchestrate and manage the project: ‘Leave it to me’, he said. Bandar separately told John Hannah: “The King knows that other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself, nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria�.

Israelis generally are celebrating their ‘victories’. Will this euphoria weigh with U.S. business élites?

Syria has entered the abyss – the demons of al-Qa’eda, ISIS, and the most intransigent elements of the Muslim Brotherhood are circling the skies. There is chaos, looting, fear, and a terrible passion for revenge scalds the blood. Street executions are rife.

Maybe Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and its leader, Al-Joulani, (following Turkish instruction), thought to control things. But HTS is an umbrella label like Al-Qa’eda, ISIS and An-Nusra, and its factions have already descended into factional fighting. The Syrian ‘state’ dissolved in the middle of the night; the police and army went home, leaving weapons depots open for the Shebab to loot. The prison doors were flung (or prised) open. Some, no doubt, were political prisoners; but many were not. Some of the most vicious inmates now roam the streets.

The Israelis – within days – totally eviscerated the defence infrastructure of the state in more than 450 air strikes: missile air defences, Syrian air force helicopters and aircraft, the navy and the armouries – all destroyed in the “largest air operation in Israel’s history�.

Syria no longer exists as a geo-political entity. In the east, Kurdish forces (with U.S. military support) are seizing the oil and agricultural resources of the former state. Erdogan’s forces and proxies are engaged in an attempt to crush the Kurdish enclave completely (although the U.S. has now mediated a ceasefire of sorts). And in the south-west, Israeli tanks have seized the Golan and land beyond to within 20 kms of Damascus. In 2015 the Economist magazine wrote: “Black gold under the Golan: Geologists in Israel think they have found oil – in very tricky territory�. Israeli and American oilmen believe they have discovered a bonanza in this most inconvenient of sites.

And a big impediment – Syria – to the West’s energy ambitions has just dissipated.

The strategic political balancer to Israel that was Syria since 1948, has vanished. And the earlier ‘easing of tensions’ between the Sunni sphere and Iran has been disrupted by the rude intervention of ISIS rebrands and by Ottoman revanchism working with Israel, via American (and British) intermediaries. The Turks have never really reconciled themselves to the 1923 Treaty that concluded World War I, by which they ceded what is now northern Syria to the new state of Syria.

Within days, Syria has been dismembered, partitioned and balkanised. So why do Israel and Türkiye still bomb? The bombing started the moment Bashar Al-Assad departed – because Türkiye and Israel worry that today’s conquerors may prove ephemeral, and may soon themselves be displaced. You don’t need to own a thing in order to control it. As powerful states in the region, Israel and Turkey will wish to exercise control not just over resources, but over the vital regional crossroads and passageway that was Syria.

Inevitably however, ‘Greater Israel’ is likely, at some point, to butt heads with Erdogan’s Ottomanesque revanchism. Equally the Saudi-Egyptian-UAE front will not welcome the resurgence of either ISIS re-brands, nor the Turkish-inspired and Ottomanised Muslim Brotherhood. The latter poses an immediate threat to Jordan, now bordering the new revolutionary entity.

Such concerns may push these Gulf States closer to Iran. Qatar, as purveyor of arms and funding to the HTS cartel, may again be ostracised by other Gulf leaders.

The new geo-political map poses many direct questions about Iran, Russia, China and the BRICS. Russia has played a complex hand in the Middle East – on the one hand, prosecuting an escalating defensive war versus NATO powers and managing key energy interests; while, at the same time, trying to moderate Resistance operations toward Israel in order to keep relations with the U.S. from deteriorating utterly. Moscow hopes – without great conviction – that a dialogue with the incoming U.S. President might emerge, at some point in the future.

Moscow likely will draw the conclusion that ceasefire ‘deals’ such as the Astana Agreement on jihadist containment within the boundaries of the Idlib autonomous zone in Syria are not worth the paper on which they were written. Türkiye – an Astana guarantor – stabbed Moscow in the back. Likely, it will make the Russian leadership more hard-nosed over Ukraine, and of any western talk of ceasefires.

Iran’s Supreme Leader spoke on 11 December: “There should be no doubt that what happened in Syria was plotted in the command rooms of the United States and Israel. We have evidence for this. One of the neighbouring countries of Syria also played a role, but the primary planners are the U.S. and the Zionist regime�. In this context, Ayatollah Khamenei quashed speculations about any weakening of the will to resist.

Türkiye’s proxy victory in Syria nonetheless may prove Pyrrhic. Erdogan’s Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, lied to Russia, the Gulf States and Iran about the nature of what was being cooked-up in Syria. But the mess now is Erdogan’s. Those that he doubled-crossed will at some point extract pay-back.

Iran seemingly, will revert to its earlier stance of gathering together the disparate threads of regional resistance to fight the Al-Qa’eda reincarnation. It will not turn its back on China, nor the BRICS project. Iraq – recalling the ISIS atrocities of its civil war – will join with Iran, as will Yemen. Iran will be aware that the remaining nodes of the former Syrian Army might well, at some point, enter into the fight against the HTS cartel. Maher Al-Assad took his entire armoured division with him into exile in Iraq on the night of Bashar Al-Assad’s departure.

China will not be pleased at events in Syria. The Uyghurs played a prominent part in the Syria uprising (there were an estimated 30,000 Uyghurs in Idlib, under training by Türkiye (which sees Uyghurs as the original component of the Turkic nation). China too, will likely see the overthrow of Syria as underlining putative western threats to their own energy security lines that run through Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Finally, western interests have been fighting over Middle Eastern resources for centuries – and ultimately that is what lies behind the war today.

Is he, or isn’t he, pro-war, people ask about Trump, since he has already signalled that energy dominance will be a key strategy for his Administration.

To seek a deal on Ukraine is to treat the symptom and to ignore a cure.

‘Doomsters’ is an occasional Russian expression used to categorise commentators that only see the ‘dark side to events’ (a vice quite prevalent during the Soviet era). Marat Khairullin, a highly respected Russian military analyst, says, “Today, a network of mercenary war bloggers has begun another round of moaning – this time about Syria, where apparently everything is lost for Russia�.

“Many see the events in Syria (and some add Georgia to the mix) as attempts to open additional fronts against our country. Perhaps that’s true. But in that case, it’s more appropriate to draw direct parallels with the reckless attack on Kursk, which left the Ukrainian armed forces in an almost hopeless position�.

Khairullin views the activation of this jihadist insurgency in Syria as a similarly ‘desperate’ act. The background is that the Syria-Russia-Iran coalition had – thorough the Astana negotiations – “cornered the remaining Syrian terrorists into a 6,000 sq. km enclave. Without delving into the details, it was a process reminiscent of the [Ukrainian] Minsk Agreements—both sides were utterly exhausted and thus agreed to a ceasefire. Importantly, all sides understood this was only a temporary truce; the contradictions were so profound that no one expected the conflict to end�.

Aleppo fell quickly these past days, as “one division of the Syrian National Army outright defected to the Islamists (read: Americans)�. The defection was a set up. Northern Aleppo was occupied by the Syrian National Army, fully controlled, armed and funded by Turkey, which dominates northern Aleppo.

The key, Khairullin says, is this crucial point: The land is flat criss-crossed by few roads:

“ … whomsoever controls the airspace controls the country. Last year, Russia formed a new aerial unit called the Special Air Corps, reportedly tailored for overseas operations. It consists of four aviation regiments, including a regiment of Su-35s. Currently, just two Su-35s are overseeing the entirety of Syria’s territory. Imagine the impact when 24 such aircraft are deployed. And Russia is fully capable of such a deployment�.

The second crucial point is that “Iran and Russia have drawn closer. At the start of the Syrian war, relations between the two were decidedly ‘neutral-hostile’. By late 2024 however, we now see a very strong alliance. Israel and the U.S., by violating the peace agreements through this Turkish insurrection, have provoked a renewed Iranian presence in Syria: Iran has begun to expand beyond its bases, redeploying additional forces into the country. This gives Assad and his allies a direct pretext to expel the American and Turkish proxies from Aleppo and Idlib. This isn’t speculation — it’s straightforward arithmetic�.

Syria, however, is a key component to the Israeli-American plan to remake the Middle East. Syria is both the supply-line for Hizbullah, as well as a hub of resistance to Israel’s “Greater Israel Project�. Now that the permanent ‘Anglo’ Security State unreservedly is backing Israel’s ambition to assert regional hegemony, the West has okayed Erdogan’s jihadist insurrection against President Assad. The aim is to split Iran from its allies, weaken Assad and to prepare for the putative Iran overthrow. Reportedly, the Turkish initiative was hurriedly brought forward, to fit with Israel’s ceasefire plan.

Khairullin’s point is that this Syria ‘ploy’ is akin to Ukraine’s “reckless attack on Kursk�, which diverted Ukrainian élite forces from the beleaguered Contact Line, and then marooned these forces in an almost hopeless position in Kursk. Instead of weakening Moscow (as intended), ‘Kursk’ inverted NATO’s original objective – by becoming opportunity to eradicate a major portion of Ukraine’s élite forces.

In Idlib, the Islamists (HTS), writes Khairullin, “had gained dominance – imposing a strict Wahhabi regime and infiltrating the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. Both groups are patchwork organizations, with various factions fighting over money, border crossings, drugs, and smuggling. Essentially, it’s a cauldron—not very combat-effective but highly greedy�.

“Our Aerospace Forces obliterated all command centres (bunkers) of Tahrir al-Sham … and there is a strong likelihood that the entire leadership of the group has been decapitated�, notes Khairullin.

The Syrian Army’s main forces are advancing toward Aleppo; meanwhile, the Russian Air Force is bombing relentlessly; its Navy held a large drill off the Syria cost on 3 December with test launches of hypersonic and Kalibr cruise missiles; and Wagner and the Iraqi Hash’ad forces (Iraqi PM forces that are now part of the Iraqi army) are grouping on the ground in support of the Syrian Army.

Israeli Intelligence Chief’s lately have begun to scent problems with this ‘clever initiative’ that dovetails so exactly with Israel’s pause in the Lebanon fighting; With the supply route from Syria cut, Israel then – in theory – would be in a position to commence ‘Part Two’ of its attempted onslaught on Hizbullah.

But wait … Israeli Channel 12 reports the possibility that events in Syria are creating threats against Israel “where Israel would be required to act�.

Shades of ‘Kursk’ – rather than Hizbullah being weakened, Israel adds to its military commitments? Erdogan too, may have wrong-footed himself with this gamble. He has infuriated Moscow and Tehran, and is being flailed at home for siding with the U.S. and America against the Palestinians. Further, he has drawn no Arab support (apart from a Qatari studied ambivalence).

Yes, Erdogan has cards to play in the relationship with Putin (control of naval access to the Black Sea, tourism and energy), but Russia is an ascendant great power and can afford to play some hardball in negotiations with a weakened Erdogan. Iran also has cards to play: ‘You, Erdogan, equipped the jihadists with Ukrainian drones; We can deliver the same to the Kurdish Workers Party’.

In the background is the bellicose language emerging from Team Trump, some of whom take harshly aggressive and hardline positions. These Israel-Firster and hawkish appointees by Trump likely emit their bluster as much to project an image of Trumpist strength to the American public, as to project a substantive project.

Trump is known for waving a big stick – and when he has played that tune for a little while, he slips in from behind, to complete a deal.

The Middle East is ‘conservative’ no more. Rather, a very different ‘Awakening’ is gestating.

The long war to reaffirm western and Israeli primacy is undergoing a shape-shift. On one front, the calculus in respect to Russia and the Ukraine war has shifted. And in the Middle East, the locus and shape of the war is shifting in a distinct way.

Georges Kennan’s famed Soviet doctrine has long formed the baseline to U.S. policy, firstly directed toward the Soviet Union, and latterly, towards Russia. Kennan’s thesis from 1946 was that the United States needed to work patiently and resolutely to thwart the Soviet threat, and to enhance and aggravate the internal fissures in the Soviet system, until its contradictions triggered the collapse from within.

More recently, the Atlantic Council has drawn on the Kennan doctrine to suggest that his broad outline should serve as the basis of U.S. policy towards Iran. “The threat that Iran poses to the U.S. resembles the one faced from the Soviet Union after World War II. In this regard, the policy that George Kennan outlined for dealing with the Soviet Union has some applications for Iran�, the Atlantic report states.

Over the years, that doctrine has ossified into an entire network of security understandings, based on the archetypal conviction that America is strong, and that Russia was weak. Russia must ‘know that’, and thus, it was argued, there could be no logic for Russian strategists to imagine they had any other option but to submit to the overmatch represented by the combined military strength of NATO versus a ‘weak’ Russia. And should Russian strategists unwisely persevere with challenging the West, it was said, the inherent contrariety simply would cause Russia to fracture.

American neocons and western intelligence have not listened to any other view, because they were (and largely still are) convinced by Kennan’s formulation. The American foreign policy class simply could not accept the possibility that such a core thesis was wrong. The entire approach reflected more a deep-seated culture, rather than any rational analysis – even when visible facts on the ground pointed them to a different reality.

So, America has piled the pressure on Russia through the incremental delivery of additional weapons systems to Ukraine; through stationing intermediate range nuclear-capable missiles ever-closer to Russia’s borders; and most recently, by shooting ATACMS into ‘old Russia’.

The aim has been to pressure Russia into a situation where it would feel obliged to make concessions to Ukraine, such as a to accept a freezing of the conflict, and to be obliged to negotiate against Ukrainian bargaining ‘cards’ devised to yield a solution acceptable to the U.S. Or, alternatively, for Russia to be cornered into the ‘nuclear corner’.

American strategy ultimately rests on the conviction that the U.S. could engage in a nuclear war with Russia – and prevail; that Russia understands that were it to go nuclear, it would ‘lose the world’. Or, pressured by NATO, the anger amongst Russians likely would sweep Putin from office were he to make significant concessions to Ukraine. It was a ‘win-win’ outcome – from the U.S. perspective.

Unexpectedly however, a new weapon appeared on the scene which precisely unshackles President Putin from the ‘all-or-nothing’ choice of having to concede a bargaining ‘hand’ to Ukraine, or resort to nuclear deterrence. Instead, the war can be settled by facts on the ground. Effectively, the George Kennan ‘trap’ imploded.

The Oreshnik missile (that was used to attack the Yuzhmash complex at Dnietropetrovsk) provides Russia with a weapon, such as never before witnessed: An intermediate range missile system that effectively checkmates the western nuclear threat.

Russia can now manage western escalation with a credible threat of retaliation that is both hugely destructive – yet conventional. It inverts the paradigm. It is now the West’s escalation that either has to go nuclear, or be limited to providing Ukraine with weapons such as ATACMS or Storm Shadow that will not alter the course of the war. Were NATO to escalate further, it risks an Oreshnik strike in retaliation, either in Ukraine or on some target in Europe, leaving the West with the dilemma of what to do next.

Putin has warned: ‘If you strike again in Russia, we will respond with an Oreshnik hit on a military facility in another nation. We will provide warning, so that civilians can evacuate. There is nothing that you can do to prevent this; you do not have an anti-missile system that can stop an attack coming in at Mach 10’.

The tables are turned.

Of course, there are other reasons beyond the permanent security cadre’s wish to Gulliverise Trump into continuing the war in Ukraine, in order to taint him with a war that he promised immediately to end.

Particularly the British, and others in Europe, want the war to continue, because they are on the financial hook from their holdings of some $20 billion Ukrainian bonds which are in a ‘default-like status’, or from their guarantees to the IMF for loans to Ukraine. Europe simply cannot afford the costs of a full default. Neither can Europe afford to pick up the burden, were the Trump Administration to walk away from supporting Ukraine financially. So they collude with the U.S. interagency structure to make the continuation of the war proofed against a Trump policy reversal: Europe for financial motives, and the Deep State because it wants to disrupt Trump, and his domestic agenda.

The other wing to the ‘global war’ reflects a mirror paradox: That is, ‘Israel is strong and Iran is weak’. The central point is not only its cultural underpinning, but that the entire Israeli and U.S. apparatus is party to the narrative that Iran is a weak and technically backward country.

The most significant aspect is the multi-year failure as regards factors such as the skill to understand strategies, and recognize changes in the other sides’ capabilities, views and understandings.

Russia seems to have solved some of the general physical problems of objects flying at hypersonic speed. The use of new composite materials has made it possible to enable the gliding cruise bloc to make a long-distance guided flight practically in conditions of plasma formation. It flies to its target like a meteorite; like a ball of fire. The temperature on its surface reaches 1,600–2,000 degrees Celsius but the cruise bloc is reliably guided.

More than just a dangerous provocation aimed at Russia, the ATACM and Storm Shadow attacks represent an attempt to turn foreign policy on its head.

“The Deep State whispered to Trump: ‘You cannot withstand the storm’. Trump whispered back: “I am the storm�. The war is on. The Deep State has launched a war of disruption to disable Trump’s ‘storm’. This week’s ATACM strike was but one part to an inter-agency counter-insurgency – a political strike directed at Trump; so too are all the inter-agency false narratives attributed to the Trump camp; and so too, the escalating provocations directed at Iran.

Be assured the Five Eyes are full participants in the counter-insurgency. Macron and Starmer openly conspired together in Paris ahead of the U.S. announcement to promote the ATACMS strike. The inter-agency grandees clearly are very fearful. They must worry that Trump may expose the ‘Russia Hoax’ (that Trump in 2016 was a Russian ‘asset’) and put them in jeopardy.

But Trump understands what’s afoot:

“We need peace without delay … The foreign policy establishment keeps trying to pull the world into conflict. The greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia. It’s probably more than anything else ourselves… There must be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire Globalist Neo-con establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad while they turn us into a Third World country and a Third World dictatorship right here at home. The State Department, the Defense bureaucracy, the intelligence services and all of the rest need to be completely overhauled and reconstituted. To fire the Deep Staters and put America first – we have to put America First�.

Whilst the long-range ATACM launch on ‘deep Russian pre-2014 territory’ is no game-changer – it will not change the course of the war (ATACMS regularly are – at 90% – downed by Russian Air Defences); the salience of this act however, is not strategic; rather, it lies with the crossing into the realm of direct NATO attacks on Russia.

Colonel Doug MacGregor reports that two sources are telling him that “Russian nuclear rocket forces are on full alert. They are at the highest level of readiness ever achieved. It suggests that Russia has taken this crossing of the line very seriously�.

Yes, it was a provocation, and President Putin will respond appropriately. He has to – but not necessarily through nuclear escalation. Why? Because the war in Ukraine is moving rapidly in his direction, with Russian forces closing-in on the Dnieper east bank. Effectively, facts on the ground will be the outcome determinant, leaving little point to external mediation.

But more than just a dangerous provocation aimed at Russia, the ATACM and Storm Shadow attacks represent an attempt to turn foreign policy – literally – on its head. Instead of policy being aimed directly at a rising foreign adversary threatening U.S. hegemony, it is being transformed into a loaded weapon locked onto America’s domestic war. It is aimed specifically at Trump – to ‘hog tie’ him in, and to divert his attention to wars that he does not want.

Logic suggests that Trump would want to keep clear of Netanyahu’s scheming for a war against Iran. But the ‘Israel Firsters’ and the Lobby (as Professor Jeffrey Sachs argues) long have had effective control over Congress and the U.S. military – more than does the President. Explains Sachs:

“Because the Zionist Lobby is so powerful, Netanyahu basically has had control over the Pentagon to fight wars on behalf of Israeli extremism. The war in Iraq in 2003 was a Netanyahu War. The attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the overthrow of Moamar Gaddafi – All were ‘Netanyahu Wars’�.

The important point is that Netanyahu can ‘do what he does’ because it was always planned this way – a plan that has been 50 years in execution. The ‘Israel First’ strategy was fully embraced by Scoop Jackson (a two-times Presidential candidate). And just so the policy could not be rolled back, Scoop insisted on Zionists staffing the State Department, and that neo-cons and Zionists hold the reins at the NSC. That same pattern continues until today.

At bottom lies the ultimate boondoggle by which the political class of both U.S. parties become wealthy and afford the campaign costs of remaining legislators: “It’s quite a dandy deal that the Israel Lobby or the Zionist Lobby puts in, say, a hundred million dollars into campaigns and it gets trillions out –trillions, not billions, trillions out [in government] expenditures. And so, when Netanyahu speaks, it’s bizarre to me, but it is not Trump who is appointing or naming [those ‘Israel Firsters’ who are part of his Team, but Netanyahu]�, Sachs says.

When Netanyahu describes Trump’s ‘Israel First’ nominations as his ‘dream U.S. team’, the explanation is not difficult to see. On the one hand, Trump has a ‘Revolution’ to conduct in America and wants his nominations to office approved. And, on the other, Netanyahu has a further war he wants the U.S. to fight for him.

“The ‘Big Ugly’ was always a description of the battle that few understood�,another commentator notes:

“The Senate is factually the core of republican opposition to MAGA and President Trump. The visible battle … consumes the most attention. However, it is the less-visible battle against the entrenched ideological Republicans that proves to be the hardest�.

“The Republicans in the upper chamber will not relinquish power easily. They have a multitude of weapons to use against the (Trump) insurgency … We are seeing this play out now in the alignment of Republican Senators who stand in opposition to Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, [as] this recent report [explains]�.

“The basic outline is that the senate leadership will reluctantly support Matt Gaetz for Main Justice, where ‘support’ means they will not directly oppose; in exchange for the nomination of FBI Director Mike Rogers [a co-founder of the ‘Never Trump’ group] to defend inter-agency interests at FBI�.