It's not about Syria. It's about Russia.

Obama, Erdogan, Saudi King Abdullah, and Qatar’s Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, worked together in their joint effort to grab Europe’s oil-and-gas markets from Russia. For the Sunni Islamists it would be directly an economic benefit to the Sunni aristocrats who would be raking in extra billions, some of which would then fund yet more Sunni jihadists and clerics, to spread the Wahhabist Sunni faith yet further and thus satisfy the Sunni clerics and not only the national Sunni aristocracy; but, to Obama, this would mainly be just another way to cripple the Russian economy, to bring it down, which America’s aristocrats want to do.^[1]

The "bad man" justification for deposing Pres. Assad in Syria and the NATO hysteria about the "Russian threat" are not credible. Assad is clearly the best man to lead Syria and Russian "forays" outside of Russia have been limited to say the least -- provoked and eminently justifiable in the face of the now-standard outrageous U.S. meddling in the affairs of other nations.

If there's rhyme or reason to U.S. foreign policy, no one's seen fit to inform me. Mark Twain called for Christian missionaries in China to return and convert the heathen back home. Maybe we could call back our vast military and diplomatic establishment from all foreign climes and focus on a little nation building here as well. Out and out reaction is more my taste but "Bring the boys home" is a good start. Perhaps we could subdue New Orleans and Dallas rather than Fallujah.

The neocon obsession with demonizing Pres. Putin is palpable. One hundred years after one of the most pointless and irresponsible bloodlettings ever engaged in by Western man, one would think that casually drifting toward a military confrontation with Russia might not be on the menu at various foreign policy establishments. If the responsibility for starting WWI is a bit hard to pin down, I'd be grateful if someone would lay out for me what is the cause of our seemingly intolerable heartburn over Russia.

PS – It is about Saudi and Qatari oil and gas, too. Tiny Tim's marriage to Miss Vicky made more sense to me than our determination to be Saudi Arabia's bitch to the end of time. However, developing America's fracking industry to weaken the Saudi hold on us -- and destroy the Wahhabi network in the West -- seem to be out of the question.

Notes
^[1] "Seymour Hersh’s News Report Banned in U.S., Is Finally Confirmed in Turkey." By Eric Zuesse, Washington's Blog, 10/30/15.