Diplomacy Will Out? Let's Not Get Ahead of Ourselves Just Yet

The story being retailed is that Russia and the United States have come to a diplomatic agreement to take care of that little chemical weapons problem in Syria within the next year or so, and this is being hailed far and wide as an example of diplomatic skill almost unparalleled in the modern world, as -- for once in our miserable lives -- war has been averted.

Well. That's good. The less war the better for most of us, and the ideal would be no war at-all, at-all. But of course the Syrian civil war shall continue without let up, much as all kinds of resistance actions and civil wars continue regardless of diplomacy, sometimes for decades or generations, and eventually whatever is left of Syria will be ground into powder by the Israelis, yes?

This is all for Israel's benefit, is it not?

We don't know that. Israel is part of the Problem of the Middle East and is constantly agitating the Arabs to do dirt to one another so as to ensure they are too debilitated to do dirt to the Israelis. It's a form of "diplomacy" I doubt most of us would want to talk about, but it has been going on for thousands of years and it's sometimes successful in preventing a wider struggle from breaking out, or in ensuring that certain interests stay above the fray while the Lesser Ones fight among themselves.

What has happened with Syria is that something along those lines has been worked out on behalf of the "parental units" -- ie: Russia and the United States -- and the Crazy Uncle (Israel) as well. The Syrians will keep fighting among themselves till Doomsday, with active support and armaments from the Powers, but supposedly without the wherewithal to deploy WMD. Only Israel in the region will have that particular grim agency.

I thought it was interesting that Assad said in his interview with Charlie Rose that until Israel disposed of its WMD arsenal, Syria could not agree to do any such thing itself -- while not admitting that there was a Syrian arsenal. Israel is the Problem, after all. And until Israel complies...

But Israel won't comply, and as a client (?) state of the United States, the United States has no interest in compelling compliance.

Assad then agrees to the Russian framework for removing chemical weapons from Syria (in due time), which the United States then agrees to. Success! Or something.

Of course, there are those who will insist till their dying day that all this was nothing more than a kabuki distraction from the Real Story of NSA Surveillance of Americans and the Whole Wide World.  Well, yes, I suppose it is in some sense, though the NSA Story was evaporating on its own, as there were no plans to scale back the Surveillance/Police State despite the complaints. But everything is Kabuki eventually, everything is a distraction from everything else. And it's all a show. What's taking place backstage and behind the scenes creates the "show" we are so fascinated by -- whatever show it is at any given time.

We are not well equipped to observe and appreciate more than one show at a time, it seems.

I was certain that there was Something Big coming After Labor Day, and I was right. It was Syria, yes, but -- apparently -- not in the context of another Anglo-American Imperial War of Aggression. So in that sense, I was wrong, in that I thought we'd see more bloodshed led by American military might. It could still happen, of course, but the likelihood of it is relatively slim.

The punditocracy is furious, of course, because they didn't know in advance what was going to happen. They were as bindsided as anybody else, and they don't like being in that position. They're better than the Rabble, aren't they? Aren't they?

The pundits insist the Real Issue is whacking Iran, the sooner the better, but as we've seen, the whackage planned for Iran never seems to happen. Doesn't mean it won't, but the likelihood diminishes year by year. Or so it seems.

Meanwhile, the Rabble keeps paying for all the miscalculations and destructive policy decisions coming out of Washington and Wall Street.