Many people might be absolutely confused by the chain of events in the Middle East since 2001. Hopefully I will unravel some of the confusion that has arisen with Syria, now with Russia and Saudi Arabia politically involved. I could start with mentioning that there has been much talk about American 'sponsoring' - or supporting Al-Qaeda and rebel factions, and you can find many examples online, such as U.S weapons support in Libya or financial/materials aid to Syrian rebels, which may have ended up in the wrong hands and have created smaller regional conflicts between Sunni and Shia Muslims.  That is surely a great part of the storyline, and perhaps the Syrian conflict would not have been so intense if America had not supported the rebels- but reports of chemical weapons being used on civilians in Syria has brought the U.S and Allies to the war table.

Let's go back to September 2001, a few days after the attacks on the New York World Trade Centre, and examine what General Wesley Clark learnt under the Bush Administration. In this video General Clark reveals Pentagon war plans for attacking seven Muslim nations.

'Gen Wesley Clark - Democracy Now video- talking how Sec.Rumsfeld informed Clark in September 2001 that the U.S would be at war with 7 countries Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan and Iran...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSL3JqorkdU

And so the war-saga continues. America's Republicans set in motion the Iraq War, the pretext to the series of planned wars or attacks on MId-East and North African nations over the last decade. In fact there have been other conflicts which the US has been part of to some degree. Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen were not mentioned by Gen Wesley Clark, nor was Mali on the list. All but Egypt have been bombed by the US or Allies, but the Egyptian crisis has been fast flaring up with hundreds killed in mid 2013, which looks to possibly go the way that Syria has gone- toward civil war.

So let's look at the Pentagon list of countries so far:- Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Mali- and we have to add Palestine and Lebanon to the list, who were both bombed by the Israelis under full support by the U.S. and Allies.  Only Sudan and Iran have not met with intervention by foreign forces. The US are engaged in theatre warfare (warfare on multiple fronts), and US Administration claim that practically all Al-Qaeda leaders have been killed or captured. That is doubtful. Al-Qaeda leaders are replaced as soon as others are killed:- any army or faction has a chain of command with next-in-line for the top job. The fact that President Omar Bashir of Sudan is a wanted war criminal in relation to hundreds of thousands of deaths in Sudan seems to be of lesser importance, or has possibly been scrapped for the near future. 

Amongst the myriad of Islamic countries are the oil producing Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, the latter who are the bosom-buddies of American business interests and arch-enemies of Iran,Syria and Lebanon. Without the U.S taming the Saudis we could have already seen Iran and Syria attacked by Saudi factions. America might be able to stem the tide of conflict with delaying tactics of rhetorical 'diplomacy' but the mistrust and vying for power in the region is something that is changing at a very fast rate.

The Saudis want to remain an absolute Monarchy over the entire region. Iran wants to be the top economic nation, yet sanctions aimed at their business circles have not put an end to conflicts- probably because Iran had little to do with the Arab uprisings, and were merely seen to be rising up the economic ladder alongside Russia, and were planning to sell oil and do business to Russia in rubels for example (reminicent of when Saddam Hussein wanted to sell Iraq's oil in Euros. According to sources, the Saudis had warned of the 7/7 London bombings, and as we all know the vast majority of the 9/11 attackers were Saudi nationals.  There is obviously far more factional conflict in Saudi Arabia than the media are telling us- simply because the Western media is not covering much that goes on in Saudi Arabia.

This next article is based on conversations and information intercepted between Saudi Prince Bandar and Russia.
'Saudis Warn Russia Of Terrorist Attacks At Winter Olympics & Demand Russia Walk Away From Assad'-
http://www.businessinsider.com/saudis-russia-sochi-olympics-terrori...

Saudi Royal Prince Bandar has allegedly made promises to prevent terrorist attacks at Winter Olympics if Russia stops supporting Assad. Saudis also want Russia to accept oil price fixing at $100 as part of the 'deal'...The article also mentions U.S-Saudi collaboration to supply weapons in the Arab uprisings.  Just what kind of olympic-size games does Prince Bandar play when he isn't making billions?

Turkey is an odd one out, being the one single Muslim country who are considered to be closer allies to Israel than other Arab countries, and have not ventured into political discussion over the Arab uprisings, nor have experienced any significant problems associated with the conflicts.

Going back to the first video with General Wesley Clark, America has always been ready for these wars, and the planning came from the Bush Administration era, where the war planning for the next decade was started and is still being carried out under the 'Obama Democrat' Government. Could President Obama have torn up the Republican war plans and just pulled troops out of the Mid East region?  Definately not. The sheer cost of placing troops, hardware, equipment, communications and satellite surveillance in the region must amount in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and the cost of maintaining the military positioning over a decade has run into the trillions of dollars.

Perhaps the U.S have been trapped between a rock and a hard place with Saudi Arabia's political clout and the Arab uprisings?  Both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are allied against uprisings in their own countries, yet the Saudis threaten (or blackmail) Russia, supply weapons to resistance groups in Syria and other regions they oppose, and generally confuse the whole picture.  I remember President Obama's words during his 2008 Election Campaining- 'Let's make it clear- Saudi Arabia are not our friends...' 

Words that ring in my ears. I have been unable to find the video footage of that 2008 campaign speech by Obama.
There could be much yet to come if the Pentagon war schedule is true. Only Sudan and Iran have yet to be dealt with by America and Allies. Whatever happens, the cost of war continues to rise, and the taxpayers are the ones who fork out the trillions of dollars for big corporate gains. The oil wars, the political and economic wars and the civil wars are all too costly to maintain- and Government chequebooks are running out.

Were the financial and corporate bailouts the result of our Governments spending so much on wars that they just didn't have the money to hand out the bailouts? We indeed pay for war, and our Governments have overspent their war budgets ten times over. Don't be surprised if 'Bailout-v2' eventuates soon. The cost of wars were buried by the economic collapse, yet we all know that the wars have not boosted Western economies- and seeing as the taxpayer forks out billions each year, we have to get back on track to address and protest the amount of money made from wars by big business, and to protest the cost to the tax payer for 'correcting' financial corruption during our era of paying trillions into the war chest. It seems that far too much money has gone to the wrong causes for far too long, and we have yet to see any good come out of any U.S Government over the last ten years or more.

Perhaps we the taxpayers have not learnt enough to wake up and smell the coffee- because it's expensive coffee that has runneth over for far too long. Wars will not benefit the people of this World, just the corporations and profiteers...and more people need to wake up and be very concerned about the globalist corporate control of our politicians.