I still wonder if Trump would have carried out his promise of better relations with Russia and less interventionist foreign policies absent Russia-gate?

I ask this question because a confluence of events in Syria is increasing the danger of war with nuclear-armed Russia. From Trump’s cluelessness, to the neocons whispering in his ear, to the corporate media braying for war, to the political pressures of the upcoming mid-term elections, the conditions have never been more dangerous.

In a new memo addressed to President Trump, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, warn that the risk of a direct military confrontation between the US and Russia in Syria is at “an all-time high” as the Syrian government moves to recapture the province of Idlib from the Al-Qaeda affiliates who have taken it hostage.

In my opinion, Russia-gate has been used to carry out a so-called soft-coup against the chief executive. In fact, there has to be some question about who is actually determining the policies that come out of the White House, which is reported to be in more than usual disarray due to the New York Times, anonymous op-ed, describing a “resistance” movement within the West Wing that has been deliberately undermining and sometimes ignoring the president to further Establishment/Deep State policies. One section of the op-ed in particular reeks of neocon ideology, describing how the White House staff has succeeded in “calling out countries like Russia…for meddling and having them punished accordingly”, in spite of the president’s desire for détente.

Going further, the United States’ industrial-military-intel-security complex profits from a compounded annual budget of roughly US$1 trillion. The only justification for such enormous expenditures is to manufacture a lethal external threat: Russia. That’s the crucial reason the complex will not allow US President Donald Trump even to try to normalize relations with Russia.

You can observe this dynamic at work in Syria. The Russian intervention in Syria in 2015, in effect halting the neocons attempted regime change operation, laid the foundation for the current anti-Russian hysteria in the US.

The pressure is having its desired effect. Trump, after promising to pull out of Syria and identifying the nature of the Syrian rebels, has now been pushed by the neocons to threaten Syrian President Bashar Assad. Despite his having expressed his desire to get U.S. troops out of Syria only months ago, a report published Friday in The Washington Post claims that President Donald Trump is allegedly “on board” with a new “indefinite military and diplomatic effort in Syria.” That effort claims to seek the “establishment of a stable, non-threatening government “acceptable to all Syrians and the international community,”

Unfortunately, Russia and Syria, in cooperation with Iran and Turkey, have begun the assult on Iblid province, the last stronghold of Washington’s proxy army consisting of Al Qaeda, Al Nursra, and ISIS mercenaries hired by Washington.

Which brings up the awkward and largely unmentionable reality that in Syria, our allies are Al Qaeda. While it may seem hard to believe that the US government is helping the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, there’s a method to the madness. The neocons who run Trump’s foreign policy have determined that an alliance with terrorist groups is necessary to fight their greater enemy Iran, who is allied with Syria. The nature of the militants occupying Idlib is well known to Washington, London, Brussels, and the Persian Gulf nations sponsoring them. In fact, it was admitted by Brett McGurk, the U.S. government’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (Daesh, ISIS), who called Syria’s Idlib province “the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11″, tied directly to Ayman al-Zawahiri [current leader of Al Qaeda].

I believe that the confluence of forces I mentioned earlier is driving Trump towards war. The corporate media has been unrelentingly hostile towards Trump with one exception–when he has decided to launch cruise missiles at Syria. As the pressures mount, I fear that he might be tempted to launch another attack. Crucially, another U.S. attack on Syria would help U.S. President Trump on domestic issues, most importantly in the upcoming elections for Congress.

What’s so infuriating is that after campaigning on a promise to “Make America Great Again”, Trump is being herded into the same endless wars as his predecessors–BushBama.  The Trump administration’s Syria policy is just one of many parts of its foreign policy that make a mockery of the idea that Trump puts American interests first.

The most remarkable thing about the present moment is that the crisis of U.S. foreign policy—a series of radical missteps—are systemic, and have been a long time coming.

These radical missteps continue uninterrupted. In a revealing interview an administration official told The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, “Right now, our job is to create quagmires until we get what we want.”

Great. If we somehow manage to avoid nuclear war, we’ll always have quagmires to look forward to.