The Bloody Game of Chess Surrounding Syria

http://watchingamerica.com/WA/2015/10/20/the-bloody-game-of-chess-surrounding-syria/

Europe's refugee crisis is the result of a chess game with three players.

The Bloody Game of Chess Surrounding Syria
Published in Die Welt (Germany) on 12 October 2015 by Michael Stürmer [link to original]
Translated from German by Thomas Johnson. Edited by Laurence Bouvard.
Posted on October 20, 2015.

The situation in Syria is becoming increasingly unstable. As Putin tests new high-tech weapons, the U.S. is continuing to pull back. The power vacuum also threatens us Europeans.

Yesterday, Oct. 11, Russia and the United States brought the nuclear armament of Iran into their joint control. Today, they lead a proxy war in Syria against each other. Putin's Russia, mindful of the defeat in Afghanistan, is testing high-tech weapons and is doing everything to bomb away the rebels who fight the greatly reduced forces of Syrian President Assad.

The U.S. wants to achieve the exact opposite: Assad conceding to the rebels and pushing back Iran's influence upon the Shiite axis stretching from Tehran to southern Lebanon.

Until now, both sides had avoided the domestic political considerations of sending combat troops to Syria. Now the Russians are building airfields, securing them militarily and strengthening their only naval base in the Mediterranean, in Tartus, which also lies in the heartland of Assad's power.