I ran across a number of articles that helped me understand what is going on in Syria and why so many countries are involved. Here are couple articles that give a good background.
January, 2011 – Assad announces a ‘Four Seas Policy’ (www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2011/01/06/Syrias-Assad-pushes-Four-Seas-Strategy/UPI-98471294335880/). This is designed to make Syria and Turkey the regional hub for getting mideast energy to Europe and beyond via a network of pipelines.
July 2011 – Syria announces a pipeline deal with Iran and Iraq – a deal that doesn’t include Turkey (rt.com/news/gas-pipeline-iran-syria/). So does this mean that Syria broke the partnership and decided to compete with Turkey? Two months later is when the Syrian violence started.
So why are Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the US supporting the rebels, and Russia and China supporting the Assad Government? Here are my guesses:
The United States: Obviously the US is not wild about a conduit for Iran to get its huge gas reserves to market – especially through a country that they have no control over.
Turkey: they don’t want a competitor in the battle to become the hub of oil and gas transmission to Europe. I would be interested in knowing what the State Department has offered Turkey to support the rebellion. Hillary Clinton has met with Turkish diplomats many times of the last several months.
Saudi Arabia: Not sure here. Maybe they don’t want competition in the Oil / Gas exporting to Europe. Probably would have some interest in keeping Iran’s reserves bottled up in Iran. Probably more to be exposed here..
And why are Russia and China supporting the existing government? Maybe its just a knee jerk reaction to America’s involvement. Russia probably has some interest in an efficient conduit of Gas and Oil thru Syria – a country they have very good relations with. Also, this article brings up an interesting point – Russia has been a big player in buying up Iraqi Oil and Gas fields – so a pipeline through Syria would probably be pretty handy.
http://www.platts.com/weblog/oilblog/2012/07/09/petrodollars_ad.html
So I don’t know if I fully understand why all the global interference in Syria, but I am pretty sure it has something to do with the transporting of energy.