Russia and US woo Saudis to help save Assad - albeit putting Israel and Jordan in danger from S. Syria -
http://www.debka.com/article/24796/Russia-and-US-woo-Saudis-to-help-save-Assad---albeit-putting-Israel-and-Jordan-in-danger-from-S-Syria
Building on the nuclear accord signed in Vienna last month, the Obama administration has been in close communion with Moscow and Tehran on regional moves to save the Assad regime, as the key to their next regional policies, including a united front against the Islamic State.. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners are being assiduously wooed to join the new alignment being set up for this purpose. The live wire in getting them all together is Omani Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohamed Al-Attiyah, the secret broker who brought Iran and the United States to the negotiating table for a nuclear accord. This was first reported in the last DEBKA Weekly.
Wednesday, Aug. 7, Obama threw out his first hint on this development: "The window has opened a crack for us to get a political resolution in Syria, partly because both Russia and Iran, I think, recognize that the trend lines are not good for Assad," he said. "Neither of those patrons are particularly sentimental; they don't seem concerned about the humanitarian disaster that's been wrought by Assad and this conflict over the last several years, but they are concerned about the potential collapse of the Syrian state. And that means, I think, the prospect of more serious discussions than we've had in the past."
The US president then affirmed more strongly in a CNN interview Sunday, Aug. 9: "Is there the possibility that having begun conversations around this narrow issue [the nuclear accord with Iran] that you start getting some broader discussions about Syria, for example, and the ability of all the parties involved to try to arrive at a political transition that keeps the country intact and does not further fuel the growth of ISIL and other terrorist organizations? I think that's possible," Obama said. "But I don't think it happens immediately."
The administration and its prospective partners are united by the will to destroy ISIS - in its Syrian stronghold, for starters - but are divided on much else, DEBKA file reports. And so the process is moving forward in careful steps.
Their initial focus is on Syria, the bloody battleground which in less than five years has left at least 300,000 dead and more than 10 million people homeless.
The plan the group started out with in the last ten days was a swap as simple as it was ruthless: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would slow their assistance to Syrian rebel groups, against whom President Bashar Assad's army and allies would hold their fire; Iran, for its part, was to start withdrawing its support from the Yemeni Houthis insurgents.
The informal truce in Syria would be the stage for the Assad regime and rebel groups to start discussing a new government with room for opposition parties. The Islamists of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda's Nusra Front would not be invited.
In Yemen, Tehran would cut back on the arms and intelligence which have enabled the Houthi insurgents to stand up to the combined forces of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. The pro-Western Yemeni President Abd Rabo Mansour Hadi would be restored to his palace in Sanaa and invite the insurgent leader, Abdu Malik Al-Houthi, to discuss his partnership in a new government.
This deal was tantamount to a joint US-Russian guarantee of Bashar Assad survival in power in return for a Tehran-Riyadh compact for Hadi's reinstatement in Sanaa.
These arrangements were debated back and forth in exchanges, some semi-secret, among the leading actors for most of July. The visit to Riyadh of the Syrian intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk was set up by Moscow as a major push forward.
The plan was for the entire enterprise to be brought out in the open and sealed in Doha, Qatar, Tuesday, Aug. 3 at a conference attended by US Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir and other top Gulf diplomats.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif was not there. But he put a strong oar into the proceedings by calling in at Muscat, Oman the day before the conference and subsequently on Friday Aug. 7. Assad also kept his hand in by sending his foreign minister Walid Moallem to Tehran and Muscat last week.
But then, at Doha, just as the package was ready to unveil, the Saudi foreign minister pulled away and blew it up with two provisions: a) Riyadh would not countenance Bashar Assad being allowed to stay in office, and: b) Saudi Arabia would not do business with any representative of the Assad regime.
This put a large spoke in the main wheel of the initiative and also scuttled some of the secondary plans depending on it.
But by then, a lot was happening in the Yemeni and Syrian war arenas:
1. Saudi and UAE armored forces had landed in Aden and were closing in on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. The Houthi rebels, trained and armed by Iran, were forced to retreat without negotiations on their future role in government.
2. Syrian rebel leaders, sensing the approaching betrayal, sent a secret delegation to Tehran to discuss terms for opening negotiations with Assad. They too were left at sea about the deals in play among Washington, Moscow, Tehran and Riyadh over their future.
Saturday, Aug.8, the Russians, egged on by the Americans, set about winning Riyadh into the fold, Foreign Minister Al-Jubeir was invited to pay a visit to Moscow Tuesday, Aug. 11, for talks about the Syrian conflict and the war on the Islamic State.
Refusing to accept that the new initiative had been grounded in Doha, Moscow presented the visit as continuing the ongoing dialogue on the issues raised at that encounter.
debkafile's military and intelligence sources note that neither Israel nor Jordan has been co-opted to this big power initiative, as though they are not concerned. However, both have a big stake in Saudi Arabia's next decisions. If Riyadh is won over by US-Russian blandishments and goes back on its decision to boycott Assad, the Saudi-Israeli-Jordanian effort to support Syrian rebel control of southern Syria will fall apart. This will open up both countries to new perils on their northern borders.
Obama's De-growth Agenda - Todd Strandberg - http://www.raptureready.com/rap16.html
The coal industry is facing its toughest challenge since The Great Depression of 1929. The collapse in coal prices and a growing weight from new regulations has claimed dozens of firms. In just recent months, three major coal producers have filed for bankruptcy.
Alpha Natural Resources operates more than fifty underground and surface mines in five states. It is the nation's largest producer of the type of coal used in steel production. In 2011, Alpha Natural Resources was worth $11 billion in stock value. The firm is now worth less than $7 million.
Peabody Energy Corporation, is the largest private-sector coal company in the world. In 2011, its stock traded as high as $73 per share. Today, you can buy a share in company with one single dollar.
This apocalypse in coal could have been predicted by anyone who read President Barack Obama's views on the industry. On January 17, 2008, Obama made known his hostility toward, of all things, electricity generated from coal and coal-powered plants. He told the San Francisco Chronicle, "You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal . . . under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."
Obama added ". . . So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that's being emitted."
The president argues against the use of coal because he views carbon dioxide as a pollutant. In a recent speech, Obama compared it to mercury. Carbon dioxide is not a poison. It is a natural part of the atmosphere. Green plants need it to grow and produce oxygen. Without it our planet would freeze.
The coal business is a vital part of the American economy. It is responsible for over 555,000 Jobs and contributes $65.7 billion to national GDP. Average wages and salaries in coal mine operations (excluding support activities and transportation) is approximately $72,200. Nearly a third of our nation's electrical power comes from coal fired plants. The state of Kentucky gets 97% of its power from coal.
A rational president would see the damage his previous policies are inflicting on coal and change direction. Obama obviously doesn't care about the economic impact. He has ordered the EPA to mandate a 32 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030.
The White House expects wind and solar power to play a much bigger role in our energy needs, but we only get 0.4% of our power from solar and wind topped out at 4%. There is a limit to the number of new hydropower plants we can build. Unless we turn to nuclear power, this goal of coal power reduction is a pipe dream.
Another major flaw in this plan is the increase in coal consumption by other nations. China is building one coal-fired power plant every 7 to 10 days, while Japan plans to build 43 coal-fired power projects to replace its shuttered nuclear units. India is another nation with rapidly growing power needs.
The only thing Obama's socialist plan is going to get us is blackouts, rolling brownouts, and massively higher electric bills. America has such a good power system, most Americans don't realize how common disruption are in the third world.
The president is seeking to downsize America because he is a supporter of the de-growth agenda. This movement sees the reduction of production and consumption as a benefit to human well-being and the equity of the planet. It calls for a future where societies live within their ecological means, with open localized economies and resources more equally distributed through new forms of Democratic institutions. Obama thinks the U.S. takes too large a piece of the resource pie, so we need to cut back our demand.
Every nation that has followed the Marxist utopian blueprint has ended in disaster. Venezuela is a prime example. Right now, its economy is in a meltdown mode. Lake Maracaibo, at 5,097 square miles, is the largest fresh water lake in South America. Venezuela's leftist government has allowed oil to leak into Lake Maracaibo, making it one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth.
The de-growth movement is just another plot by the devil to destroy America. The true goal of the environmental movement is to draw the world into a central body that would set the rules. This plan is part of Satan's master scheme to recreate the type of control he had during the time of the Babylonian Empire. The only way to get back to Babylon is to push for world unity.
I know that environmentalists would bristle at the idea of a refurbished earth being the ultimate solution to all ecological problems. If the world is going to be "dissolved," there is no need for us to become too attached to it. Knowing that the earth will eventually be put back in order, we need to be concerned with the preservation of our eternal souls.
"...The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness" (2 Peter 3:10-11).
"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26).
BE SURE TO CHECK OUT MY ALL NEW PROPHECY AND CREATION DESIGN WEBSITES. THERE IS A LOT TO SEE AND DO..........
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