Syria: The slippery slope to an international crisis … The proposed talks in Geneva, under joint American and Russian auspices, remain the only realistic opportunity for producing a solution to the civil war in Syria … With the United Nations this week reporting 93,000 fatalities in Syria since the civil war began, it is arguably somewhat late in the day to be considering intervention on humanitarian grounds. Indeed, President Barack Obama has spent the past two years trying to avoid making the very decision he is now edging towards: how and when to get involved on the side of the anti-Assad forces. The ostensible justification for this dramatic change of policy is apparently compelling evidence that chemical weapons have been used in the conflict, though this has been rumoured for some time. – UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: This war with Syria was unprovoked and unexpected. Too bad.

Free-Market Analysis: We expect the US to go to war fairly directly with Syria any time now. The only real suspense is how US, British and NATO leaders will justify it.

All this palaver and breast-beating is just for show. The West, under its critical mass of generals, politicians and bankers, has been at war with great regularity, especially since the Great Recession began around 2008.

The Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Somalia, Yemen and now Syria have all felt the ill wind of drone attacks, depleted uranium weapons, etc. It is truly the "war next time." As in … there will be war and more war next time and the time after that … until economic circumstances improve.

Government's answer to harsh conditions is always a military one, at least in the modern age. War is truly the health of the state. Here's more from the article excerpted above:

While it is right that the international community should make clear its repugnance at the use of such [chemical] weapons, it is questionable whether this alone should be the trigger for intervention. After all, it makes little difference to the victims whether they are killed by gas, tank shells or bullets.

The humanitarian crisis, in other words, has been apparent in Syria for many months; so why does the White House think the moment has now come to intervene? One obvious reason is the gains that have been made by the pro-Assad forces in recent weeks, notably the fall of the strategically vital city of Qusayr, and the massing of regime troops ahead of an assault on the central provinces of Homs and Hama.

This, said an aide to Mr Obama, had created a "new sense of urgency": strengthening the rebels may force Assad on to the back foot and encourage him to engage seriously in peace talks. In the background, both the UK and France have been pressing for a more proactive approach from the reluctant Americans. The recent lifting of an EU embargo on supplying arms to the rebel groups was pushed through at the insistence of London and Paris. There are, therefore, geopolitical motives behind what is happening now.

From the outset, the White House has said it did not envisage a Syrian future with President Assad still in charge; but this was never an outcome that could be guaranteed without the West being willing to get involved in the war. Meanwhile, Russia – which considers Syria as lying within its sphere of influence – has consistently vetoed all UN efforts to tighten the squeeze on Assad in Damascus, and continues to supply military hardware to the regime.

Just as the US does not want Russia to get its way unchallenged in this strategically important region, neither is Moscow keen for the West to supplant another Middle East leader. The deployment of Iranian-backed Hizbollah fighters on the side of the Syrian regime has further raised hackles at the White House.

We should be clear. Even if the American offer of military support to the opposition is limited in scope, the imposition of a no-fly zone or the shipment of arms to rebel forces could prove a slippery slope towards the one eventuality that public opinion in the West shows no sign of tolerating – boots on the ground.

This article rehearses all the predictable talking points, including controversial ones about chemical weapons. Its main effort, presumably, is to reinforce the perception that the Syrian confrontation happened spontaneously. Once again, for the umpteenth time, the West has "stumbled" into war.

Yet the Internet and the alternative media surely have made it obvious by now that these are incited events, aimed for some reason as building an Islamic crescent in the region, one run by the Muslim Brotherhood. The West, as always, is busy creating yet another artificial enemy, so far as we can tell. Thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Out of chaos order.

But one must never mention this. One must wait gravely and nervously to see if war will break out in earnest … In fact, it already has. As in Libya, the West is funded Al Qaeda types, the same "terrorists" that have caused the West, supposedly, to regularly undermine its own civil liberties.

Almost certainly, the war will go on until the current regime is ousted. The only question that does remain – admittedly a big one – is whether Russia will intervene aggressively to blunt the West's eventual usurpation of Syria.

We don't think there's much chance of that happening, though. And thus, barring unexpected occurrences, the Syrian regime will gradually collapse into even more bloodshed, civil war, etc.

Before that happens, however, we'll be exposed to an endless amount of breast-beating and summits and declarations of peace making.

It happened in Libya and it's happening again. No doubt it is a good investment opportunity for those involved in the military-industrial complex. But the Syrians are going to pay with blood.