And the US should get out of the way and quit trying to overthrow Assad. It's not our business nor our right to do so.

But I guess it's not our problem, that's the progressive way.

Fuck um.

About 210,000 Syrians have died in the civil war, according to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory.

About 80,000 of them are regime forces.

About 70,000 of them are armed rebels.

About 60,000 of them are civilians.

"Assad has murdered almost 200,000 Syrians" is a falsehood.

The Assad regime has undoubtedly committed war crimes, but then, so have a lot of governments, including some of your favorites.

I think the US needs to quit trying to overthrow Assad--it ain't happening--quit contributing to the bloodshed in Syria, and get behind UN-backed efforts to begin to make peace by engaging in limited, local cease fires, with an eye toward a broader political settlement down the road. What's your policy prescription?

What you refer to as a civil war was originally part of the Arab Spring, a movement to bring democracy to dictatorships in the Middle East and North Africa.

The fact is that had Assad stepped down and allowed a democracy to emerge most, if not all of the deaths could have been avoided.

At this point though, I have no idea what the US should do.

Unlike Oil, which being a liquid, can easily be shipped by ship, Natural Gas is a gas and as such either had to be transported by pipeline OR compressed and shipped by Ship train or truck. Given the natural of National Gas, it takes the energy equivalent of about 1/3 of the gas being compresses to provide the energy to do the compression. Thus Compressed Natural Gas is always 1/3 higher in price then piped natural gas.

Thus pipelines are how to ship natural gas. At present Europe gets most of its natural gas from Russia via pipelines OR from the North Sea. The North Sea oil supplies are in steep decline but the Natural gas is at present expanding.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/resource/0045/00451335.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_oil

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21597890-scottish-nationalists-are-right-charge-britain-has-mismanaged-north-sea-oil-unionists

One of the problems with Natural Gas is you do NOT have a production curve like Oil. Oil tends to be produced very much like a statistical bell curve, this is true for oil as a whole AND individual oil fields. You pump till you hit peak, then a slow decline.

Natural Gas being a gas, just one day no longer produce gas. You have a rapid drop off of production, can happen almost overnight. As a whole Natural Gas production follows the same statistical bell curve as oil, but each field tends to cut off when ever it does. No slow decline in production (and one of the problems with old Natural Gas Wells, unless capped, every so often a burst of natural gas goes up the old well and causes problems). This is what making Shale Gas so problematic, no one knows when the wells will go dry. They can guess based on their estimate of how much natural gas is in the field, but unlike oil and its slow decline before it goes dry, you have no such warning from a decline in production, before a natural gas well goes dry.

Now, with conventional oil in slow decline (unconventional oil such a shale oil, making up the difference but that is expected to end by 2017 and oil as a whole when then go into a slow decline), natural gas in the energy of the immediate future. The big Natural Gas Fields are in Iran and Russia. A huge field is coming into production between Qatar and Iran. This field could provide the natural gas Europe wants, but the real fight is how the gas will get to Europe.

Right now there are two proposed Natural Gas pipeline. One from Qatar, across Saudi Arabia, then to Eastern Syria, Controlled by ISIS, then to Turkey then to the Balkans and Europe. This is favored by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The other propose pipeline, and one that is being built, is from Iran across from Qatar, through Iran to Iraq, through Iraq, then to Cyprus and Greece to Europe. It is favored by Iran.

Notice BOTH have to go through Syria.

In the beginning of March Turkey and Russia did something that that was a shock to everyone and from what I have read no one in the US or the Middle East knows what to do about it. Russia dropped its plans for a Natural Gas Pipeline through the Black Sea, bypassing the Ukraine and Turkey and then signed to build a pipeline from Russia through the Caucuses to Turkey and to Europe. When this was announced everyone concentrated on the drop of the Black Sea Pipeline as a defeat for Putin, but the co agreement for a pipeline through Turkey was not mentioned for no one wanted to accept the implications of that agreement.

Basically Turkey is dependent on Russia for Natural Gas, the pipeline would make them even more dependent. Iran is an ally of Russia, so the Iranian plan to bypass Turkey may no longer be needed, Iran can hook up its pipeline to the Russian Pipeline through Turkey instead. Now so can Qatar, but that would put Qatar's Natural Gas under Russian Control.

Yes, no one wants to address the new Russian Pipeline through Turkey. It is also needed by Qatar to gets its gas to Europe, thus Qatar and Saudi Arabia can NOT oppose it, they can only oppose any connections to Russia and Iran, both minor parts compared to the parts in Turkey.

Thus the US hates Putin, he had out maneuver them by agreeing to let Turkey control the pipeline. Now the US can convince Turkey NOT to work with Russia, but Turkey seems to be willing to do so, given its previous support for the Qatar Pipeline gave them leverage with Putin so that Putin came to terms with Turkey on terms Turkey liked.

Putin AND Iran agreed to the movement of the pipeline for Greece is in turmoil and they would like a quick connection to Europe.

The "Colder War" as one writer calls it, is getting interesting. In many ways the drop in the price of Oil may be Saudi Arabia's response to the Turkish-Russian pipeline agreement, the House of Saud are hoping the drop in the price of oil will hurt Russian Government Finance that Putin will lose power (The Soviet Union fell do to the drop in the world price of oil in the 1980s). The problem is Russia is no where spending any where near what the Soviet Union was spending on Defence in the 1980s. Thus Putin has much more maneuverability then did Gorbachev have in the 1980s. i.e. No need to maintain a bloated defence position and figure out how to cut it, Russia has a lean military at the present time, mostly using patched up and rebuilt weapons built during Soviet Days. The Russians are flying 1/2 the planes and maintaining on active during 1/3 of the tanks, the fleet has either been sold off or in moth balls.

Furthermore Putin has a weapon Gorbachev did not have, Putin has a low tax government, he can always increase taxes and solve the problem of the lost of revenue from the drop in the price of oil, an option Gorbachev did NOT have (The Russian Economy went into a massive decline in the 1990s, only recovering since 1999, but that huge lost meet that when Russia came back, it did not have the overhead the Soviet Union had in the 1980 that Yeltsin had to eliminate). ]

China will benefit from the lower price for oil, even as Russia and Iran suffer. On the other hand China was SECURE source of energy and right now that means Russian Natural Gas, which they have been working with the Russian to secure for over ten years. China likes cheap oil, but China knows it will NOT last long. Thus China will NOT stab Russia and Iran in the back for a temporary drop in the price of oil. If necessary China will buy Russian and Chinese bonds to keep those two government afloat (Providing both countries are doing things to reduce the lost do to the drop in the price of oil AND both countries are doing so).

Yes, it is getting interesting. I also mention Italy between 1912 and 1945. In 1914 they were technically allied with Germany, but dependent on British Coal. Thus they refused to declare war in 1914 in support of Germany, but did declare war on Germany and Austria in 1915 for Britain, they source of energy urged them to do so.

In the 1930s, Hitler made his first move to annex Austria, it wa the Italian Army that marched to the border to tell Hitler such a move would mean war and Hitler backed down. In the late 1930s Italy allied with Hitler. Why? British coal production peaked in the 1920s and went into a slow but steady decline. Italy had to look elsewhere for coal and thus turned to Germany. Thus by the late 1930s Italy was as dependent on German Coal, as it had been on British Coal in 1915. Italy thus went with its source of energy. Italy switched sides in 1943 for it had lost the war AND the US was promising oil and Italy became a close ally of the US as long as the US supplied Italy with oil.

Countries will follow the dictates of who ever is supplying them oil. Now, the US is an exception for the US can take the Oil in Saudi Arabia any time we wanted to, so they became our "Allies" instead. This Saudi Arabian-USA alliance is built on oil. The US protects the House of Saud, and we get their oil.

On the other hand, the Alliance is a two way street, the US does what it can to support the House of Saud and they agenda, which includes radical Islam, but it is an alliance built around energy and the House of Saud wants to get into the Natural Gas business by getting Natural Gas to Europe, a market presently dominated by Russia. It is a domination the US has been trying to undo since the 1970s but has only become worse with the increase in the price of oil since 2002 (the recent drop in price is an attempt to undo that relationship between Europe and Russia).

Thus the issue is which pipeline will be built and so far it looks like Iran and Russia is winning that fight. The recent drop in price is just the latest attempt to reverse those wins, lets see how it works out.