On the surface, U.S. actions in Iraq and Syria involving ISIS seem inexplicable. Armies like ISIS don’t just spring up. They require vast amounts of money and resources to conduct the kinds of campaigns we’ve observed. Big Dogs are clearly feeding this beast, and I believe the U.S. has been one of them. Recently, Vice President Biden and others have admitted as much.

Wanting to understand our policy and have it make sense, I expanded my research to a broad set of sources and finally developed an argument that made the situation explainable.

Here’s my take:

Early in his presidency, Barrack Obama revealed his alignment with the Muslim Brotherhood and sought to ingratiate himself with our allies on the Arabian Peninsula.  Based on events occurring since this time, it seems reasonable to conclude that the President signed up to support the efforts of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, U.A.E. and others to find a way to build pipelines through Syria into Turkey, and ultimately connection to Europe.  With pipelines in place Arab leaders stand to enhance their energy revenues by billions and billions for decades to come.  Their wealth and power would be reinforced, and their gratitude and alliance assured.

When the President asked how he could help, the overwhelming response was certainly: help us remove Bashar al-Assad from power so we can build our pipelines.  What an opportunity this was for President Obama to be adored by his Arab friends, and most certainly by Europe, and so many others who would benefit from competitive gas supplies to Europe.  And certainly, such a fantastic relationship with Arab oil suppliers would have political benefits if gas prices ever needed to be manipulated.

So, what was it going to take to overthrow Bashar al-Assad?  Well, it just so happened that there were thousands and thousands of unemployed men of all ages, from all over the Mideast, who would sign on for a paycheck, and a chance to share in the spoils of war.  Through covert and sometimes haphazard methods (Benghazi), money and arms and other resources were shipped to rebel/mercenary leaders with a simple directive, “Get that guy Assad out of power.”

The U.S. mustered a direct strategy as well.  With the help of Turkey or Qatar or both, the plan was to facilitate a false flag chemical attack on poor Syrian civilians, and with this action they would have the impetus to legitimize direct intervention with U.S. forces.  Recent evidence revealed in an article by Seymour Hersh seems to indicate that this plan was in play and supported by “Washington”.

False flag or not, it’s just strange to watch us predict Assad would use chemical weapons on his own people only to have it happen, just as predicted.  And, of course, we had our not-to-be-crossed “red line” preemptively in play with the threat of serious consequences for such an act.  We just knew al-Assad would commit the evil deed.  Funny how he met our expectations so perfectly.  It’s hard to believe that we could be so prescient without being an instigator of sorts?

There is just one giant impediment to the whole plan, Russia.  Threatening Russia’s energy monopoly in Europe is, to Russia, an existential threat worthy of direct war with its competitors.  This became evident when our “red line” was crossed and we did nothing. It’s also evident from Russia’s behavior in Ukraine that they see the U.S. as weak.

It is unknown what Vladimir Putin did to cause President Obama to back off so quickly, but whatever it was it worked, and it made this President look like the ninety-eight pound weakling.  If we had any insight we should have known Putin would do whatever it takes to keep al-Assad in power and maintain their pact to keep Arab pipelines in check.  It is also likely that President Obama’s direct assault on Syria would have had such disastrous political ramifications that it became easy for him to retreat and proclaim that removing Assad’s inventory of chemical weapons would be a satisfactory outcome for the American people.

Meanwhile, the abundance of support for Plan “A”, the mercenary overthrow, was creating a monster soon to be called ISIS.  Certainly, all the President’s men knew the rebel forces were growing strong and taking territory in Syria.  In the halls of the CIA, it was probably high fives all around.  However, over time, these ISIS guys were developing their own agenda; that would be the fulfillment of Islam’s plan of record for any powerful true believers, a Caliphate and the creation of an Islamic State.

More recently, a fly on the wall of the Oval Office may have heard a conversation something like this: “Hey, these ISIS guys are out of control.  They’re taking over Iraq, and their methods are causing the world to erupt with outrage.  This wasn’t part of the plan.  What now?”  “Well, we must consider the politics of the situation.  We’ll need to realign the team around a plan to degrade and destroy ISIS from the air.  No boots on the ground, and it could take years.  That will placate the sheeple.  Mind you, our strikes against ISIS will be minimized and not meant to really debilitate their strength.  We’ll be dropping bombs in Syria, and conveniently, some of them will do more damage to Assad than ISIS.  Sooner rather than later ISIS will take down Assad and we will have achieved our original goal.”

“But we could lose Iraq in the process!”  “Well, Iraq, as we’ve defined it, is an illusion. What’s happening in that region of the world is a transformation of old states into new states.  How borders ultimately map out is not nearly as important as the political alignments that are formed.  Assad will be removed.  His secular government will be dispatched.  New Islamic leaders will emerge.  Islamist will align with Islamist and not Russia.  Trust me; our friends have the money to pull this off.”

Granted, this argument can be rebutted, but it offers a rational explanation for the events observed.  Consider, once again, Obama’s enthusiastic support for the Muslim Brotherhood, his embrace of Muslim allies, bowing before Saudi King Abdullah.  It explains the panic around Benghazi and our exaggerated response trying to keep our covert activity with the Turks out of the headlines.  It explains why the Emir of Qatar was shopping around for mercenaries to conduct a false flag chemical attack, and saying he had Washington’s support.  It explains why ISIS was allowed to grow without restraint.  It explains why our “degrade and destroy” campaign is such a joke.  It explains why the cold war has been reignited.  Like I said, the argument explains a lot.

The questions for our political leaders are as follows:

Where are the flaws in this argument?
Do you support a policy to overthrow Assad?
Are covert methods such as false flag attacks a reasonable means to that end?
How far should the U.S. go to make Russia compete in European energy markets?

This above argument is the only logical explanation I can come up with.  Comments are welcomed.