british sas on the ground in syria, page-66

Syria has a military alliance with Iran and North Korea. Iran has close ties to Hezbollah and Hamas. Russia and Syria are close. North Korea is China's puppet. It has been claimed by certain security agencies over the past 20+ years that if any one of Syria, Iran or North Korea comes under attack then the others will take military action to come to the aid of the other directly or to at least open up a new front to make things as difficult as possible for the attacking country or countries.

If Syria is hit and the war spills across the border then you can expect Hezbollah and Hamas to launch military action against Israel. If that was to occur the Israeli response would be to use overwhelming force causing heavy casualties amongst the civilian population, particularly in Gaza, something that would see the Egyptian military enter proceedings rolling armour across the Negev Desert in response while allowing Iranian naval vessels to sail up the Red Sea to join in the attack leading to a military response by Saudi Arabia against Iran.

In addition to a major missile attack on Israel by the Iranians both from within Iran and from the Red Sea, there will be an attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz with Iranian speedboats being used essentially as high-speed highly-manouverable torpedoes causing significant damage to allied naval vessels whose size and relative lack of speed and manouverability make them highly vulnerable to such attacks that would come out of the blue, or should I say out of the dark.

It has also been reported that Turkey wants to join in any military action that will take place against Syria, opening up another front in any possible war.

The US-led attack, should it occur, is thought to include taking out Syria's eight airbases across the country and the Syrian airforce, as well as Syria's four ports.

In the latest reports I've heard, Syrian naval vessels have started leaving their bases and are intermingling with commercial shipping vessels. To complicate this we have a Russian presence including Russian naval vessels in the Syrian port of Tartus and a presence that numbers in the thousands. There are movements there but who really knows whether they're pulling out or just re-organising themselves on a war footing?

Syria has also just been reported to have started moving its forces out of Damascus and comandeering trucks to move their heavy weaponry inside them.

Good luck destroying Syria's missile capabilities and chemical weapons stockpiles when they're mobile and being scattered throughout the country and possibly across borders.

The longer the delay the more time the Syrians have to prepare for any eventual attack.

Now it's all eyes on the Russian reaction.

The world came close to WWIII over the breakup of the old Yugoslavia when Russia seriously considered coming to the military aid of Serbia against the West in 1999, so it appears we have a re-run of Russia v the West, but this time in a much more unstable, much more heavily armed region where the stakes are that much higher.

I guess the question is, are Russia and Iran prepared to lose Syria?

If they are not then we have real problems.We're standing on a precipice and if Obama can't get Putin to stand down his opposition to the strikes then anything could happen.

A footnote to end on. It won't be like the Gulf War when the US told Israel to stay out of it and Saddam lobbed a handful of scud missiles into Israeli territory.

Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran will launch thousands of missiles, far more capable and accurate with heavier payloads than the scuds Saddam launched at them. There is simply no chance of Israel standing by this time round.

Hopefully someone's going to blink first otherwise this could get out of control really quickly.