Great couple of presentations, thanks Matt. Couple of questions: 1. Both pipelines proposed in ?2009 to run through Syria would compete with Russian gas to Europe so that can't be the reason Assad turned down the pipeline from Qatar through Saudi, Jordan, Syria & Turkey(Syria's adversaries) and agreed to the one from Iran through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon(we'd call it the 'Resistance' Pipeline today - Syria's allies). If Syria had agreed to the Qatar pipeline then the west would have used that as an opportunity to further undermine Assad's Presidency. 2. After Israel blamed Egypt for the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 was not the US about to launch a nuclear attack on Egypt but LBJ pulled back at the last minute(?a phone call from the Russians "You nuke Egypt, we nuke Israel, then all hell.......) Weren't the B52's on their way? A US landing in Syria would have been hazardous to say the least.
Great couple of presentations, thanks Matt. Couple of questions: 1. Both pipelines proposed in ?2009 to run through Syria would compete with Russian gas to Europe so that can't be the reason Assad turned down the pipeline from Qatar through Saudi, Jordan, Syria & Turkey(Syria's adversaries) and agreed to the one from Iran through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon(we'd call it the 'Resistance' Pipeline today - Syria's allies). If Syria had agreed to the Qatar pipeline then the west would have used that as an opportunity to further undermine Assad's Presidency. 2. After Israel blamed Egypt for the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 was not the US about to launch a nuclear attack on Egypt but LBJ pulled back at the last minute(?a phone call from the Russians "You nuke Egypt, we nuke Israel, then all hell.......) Weren't the B52's on their way? A US landing in Syria would have been hazardous to say the least.