You are posting good reminders of issues that are not widely discussed in supposedly legitimate sources, but I would suggest you are frankly going too far in seeing interconnectedness and coordination in what are, in reality, overlapping and competing matters.
Yes, it is true that we are "told" that Syrian rebels are freedom fighters...among the multitude of factions in the war, some are. We are also "told" that the situation is complex, that there are numrous factions among the rebels and that foreign fighters have poured into the country and there is no actual way of knowing what the outcome would be of an Assad ouster.
It is also true that Israel and Turkey have an interest in Mediterranean gas fields, but it is also true they both have a legitimate security stake in the civil war happening on their borders. Neither had good relations with Assad but there was continuity and stability in the situation and Israeli leaders of all stripes have a near fetish like obsession with predictability. Hezbollah isn't just accused of all sorts of terrible things...their militia wing does a fairly good job of acting on it, and it hasn't been until recently threatened international action against Syria that threats made against Israel have prompted more open expressions of support for the rebels. If Israel and Turkey had really been interested in ousting Assad for their own purposes, they could have done a much better job of aiding the rebels to this point. I am simply unclear how you construct it so that Turkish and Israeli interests in gas fields ARE a reason for the Syrian crisis...something happening with players in the region at the same time as something else happening that effect those players are not necessarily reasons for that.
As for Iran, there is no doubt a lot of interests opposing Iran and maneuvering to make them less powerful, and certainly control of energy resources are part of the equation. So is religious ideology. So are the power interests of ruling families. So are the foreign policy aspirations of a number of competing powerful nations. So are corporate interests. So are NGOs. So are the actual aspirations of people living in these countries.
My problem with your discussion is that by calling things cards and saying they are being played, you are emphasizing a portrait of the Middle East of interconnectedness and interwovenness that I think implies near or actual conspiratorial thinking relying on a level of coordinated action that I don't believe is really a work. Look at Iran: lots of power players want Iran diminished. But the last 12 years of actual policy has largely served to increase Iran's stature in the region and the potential loss of Assad is the first event of the period that threatens to decrease their influence. How could such nefarious plotters and schemers make such a hash of it? I suggest that because the real situation is better described as overlapping and piled up plates than a carefully woven tapestry. Pull on one and they still shift and change like the tapestry but the results are not predictable.
History can look like a novel because after the fact, we know what didn't happen. In situ, not so much. In 1914, everyone in the know figured the Great Powers would eventually fight...I doubt very many figured that Austro-Hungary's desire to pick a fight with Serbia would send them all over the cliff in such catestrophic fashion so quickly.
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Yes, it is true that we are "told" that Syrian rebels are freedom fighters...among the multitude of factions in the war, some are. We are also "told" that the situation is complex, that there are numrous factions among the rebels and that foreign fighters have poured into the country and there is no actual way of knowing what the outcome would be of an Assad ouster.
It is also true that Israel and Turkey have an interest in Mediterranean gas fields, but it is also true they both have a legitimate security stake in the civil war happening on their borders. Neither had good relations with Assad but there was continuity and stability in the situation and Israeli leaders of all stripes have a near fetish like obsession with predictability. Hezbollah isn't just accused of all sorts of terrible things...their militia wing does a fairly good job of acting on it, and it hasn't been until recently threatened international action against Syria that threats made against Israel have prompted more open expressions of support for the rebels. If Israel and Turkey had really been interested in ousting Assad for their own purposes, they could have done a much better job of aiding the rebels to this point. I am simply unclear how you construct it so that Turkish and Israeli interests in gas fields ARE a reason for the Syrian crisis...something happening with players in the region at the same time as something else happening that effect those players are not necessarily reasons for that.
As for Iran, there is no doubt a lot of interests opposing Iran and maneuvering to make them less powerful, and certainly control of energy resources are part of the equation. So is religious ideology. So are the power interests of ruling families. So are the foreign policy aspirations of a number of competing powerful nations. So are corporate interests. So are NGOs. So are the actual aspirations of people living in these countries.
My problem with your discussion is that by calling things cards and saying they are being played, you are emphasizing a portrait of the Middle East of interconnectedness and interwovenness that I think implies near or actual conspiratorial thinking relying on a level of coordinated action that I don't believe is really a work. Look at Iran: lots of power players want Iran diminished. But the last 12 years of actual policy has largely served to increase Iran's stature in the region and the potential loss of Assad is the first event of the period that threatens to decrease their influence. How could such nefarious plotters and schemers make such a hash of it? I suggest that because the real situation is better described as overlapping and piled up plates than a carefully woven tapestry. Pull on one and they still shift and change like the tapestry but the results are not predictable.
History can look like a novel because after the fact, we know what didn't happen. In situ, not so much. In 1914, everyone in the know figured the Great Powers would eventually fight...I doubt very many figured that Austro-Hungary's desire to pick a fight with Serbia would send them all over the cliff in such catestrophic fashion so quickly.