My local paper ran an opinion piece by Charles Krauthammer on Sunday. It was called My vote, explained and you can read it here if you're interested. -> Washington Post If you've ever read his stuff you know that Krauthammer is a Neocon for sure and as crazy as any of them. There's never been a war of choice he couldn't get behind and, although he says he won't vote for Hillary I'm sure he'd support her vision of an exceptional America raining death and destruction across the Middle East and elsewhere. Mr. Krauthammer is also, apparently, an imbecile.

As I understand it, the war in Syria is a pipeline war. It's a war, like all of these regime-change wars, over resources and revenue streams. In this case the resource is natural gas and the war is about who will sell their gas to Europe, where it gets cold in the winter. Here are some links, the bolding is mine.

Qatar seeks gas pipeline to Turkey, The National, August 26, 2009

Other reports in the Turkish press said the two states were exploring the possibility of Qatar supplying gas to the strategic Nabucco pipeline project, which would transport Central Asian and Middle Eastern gas to Europe, bypassing Russia. A Qatar-to-Turkey pipeline might hook up with Nabucco at its proposed starting point in eastern Turkey. Last month, Mr Erdogan and the prime ministers of four European countries signed a transit agreement for Nabucco, clearing the way for a final investment decision next year on the EU-backed project to reduce European dependence on Russian gas.

Syria intervention plans fueled by oil interests, not chemical weapon concern, The Guardian, August 30, 2013

These strategic concerns, motivated by fear of expanding Iranian influence, impacted Syria primarily in relation to pipeline geopolitics. In 2009 - the same year former French foreign minister Dumas alleges the British began planning operations in Syria - Assad refused to sign a proposed agreement with Qatar that would run a pipeline from the latter's North field, contiguous with Iran's South Pars field, through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, with a view to supply European markets - albeit crucially bypassing Russia. An Agence France-Presse report claimed Assad's rationale was "to protect the interests of [his] Russian ally, which is Europe's top supplier of natural gas".

Is the United States going to war with Syria over a natural gas pipeline?, Blacklisted News, September 3, 2013

Why has the little nation of Qatar spent 3 billion dollars to support the rebels in Syria? Could it be because Qatar is the largest exporter of liquid natural gas in the world and Assad won't let them build a natural gas pipeline through Syria? Of course. Qatar wants to install a puppet regime in Syria that will allow them to build a pipeline which will enable them to sell lots and lots of natural gas to Europe. Why is Saudi Arabia spending huge amounts of money to help the rebels and why has Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan been "jetting from covert command centers near the Syrian front lines to the Élysée Palace in Paris and the Kremlin in Moscow, seeking to undermine the Assad regime"? Well, it turns out that Saudi Arabia intends to install their own puppet government in Syria which will allow the Saudis to control the flow of energy through the region. On the other side, Russia very much prefers the Assad regime for a whole bunch of reasons. One of those reasons is that Assad is helping to block the flow of natural gas out of the Persian Gulf into Europe, thus ensuring higher profits for Gazprom. Now the United States is getting directly involved in the conflict. If the U.S. is successful in getting rid of the Assad regime, it will be good for either the Saudis or Qatar (and possibly for both), and it will be really bad for Russia. This is a strategic geopolitical conflict about natural resources, religion and money, and it really has nothing to do with chemical weapons at all.

Syria: Ultimate Pipelineistan War, Counterpunch, December 8, 2015

The «Assad must go» obsession in Washington is a multi-headed hydra. It includes breaking a Russia-Iran-Iraq-Syria alliance (now very much in effect as the «4+1» alliance, including Hezbollah, actively fighting all strands of Salafi Jihadism in Syria). But it also includes isolating energy coordination among them, to the benefit of the Gulf petrodollar clients/vassals linked to US energy giants.
Thus Washington’s strategy so far of injecting the proverbial Empire of Chaos logic into Syria; feeding the flames of internal chaos, a pre-planed op by the CIA, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with the endgame being regime change in Damascus.

The Secret Stupid Saudi-US Deal on Syria, Globla Reasearch, March 16, 2016

Now if we map the resources of known natural gas reserves in the entire Persian Gulf region, the motives of the Saudi-led Qatar and UAE in financing with billions of dollars the opposition to Assad, including the Sunni ISIS, becomes clearer. Natural gas has become the favored “clean energy” source for the 21st Century and the EU is the world’s largest growth market for gas, a major reason Washington wants to break the Gazprom-EU supply dependency to weaken Russia and keep control over the EU via loyal proxies like Qatar.

Now back to Krauthammer:

In sum, a warm gun but nonsmoking. Indeed, if the phrase “quid pro quo” hadn’t appeared, it would have received little attention. Moreover, it obscures the real scandal — the bottomless cynicism of the campaign and of the candidate.
Among dozens of examples, the Qatari gambit. Qatar, one of the worst actors in the Middle East (having financially supported the Islamic State, for example), offered $1 million as a “birthday” gift to Bill Clinton in return for five minutes of his time.
Who offers — who takes — $200,000 a minute? We don’t know the “quid” here, but it’s got to be big.

Are you fucking kidding me, Charles ? You can't see what a possible quid pro quo might be, you can't see why the Grand Poobah of Qatar would be throwing money at the Clintons ?

Bill and Hillary Clinton have a combined net worth of over $100 million. That's a lot of money. We have every right to ask, how'd they do that ? What, exactly, is their line-of-work ? Motivational Speakers, some might say, or Global Do-Gooders. As far as I can tell, the Clintons are Rainmakers. When one of them is in office they can make things happen, like deregulation or regime-change. We know Hillary's plans for Syria, we know that there are billions at stake and those of us who can put two and two together know how the Clintons made their fortune.