What's the #1 reason that makes the Judeo-Christian nations want to do away with Assad? Oil and Gas pipelines.

You better believe it, dear people!   The modern wars are usually fought for fuel to keep the world going.  Instead of using the fuel from our own lands, we want to take control or at least have easy access to it in parts of the world  far away from ours and  we are willing to kill, destroy and bring total havoc to other nations in our quest for oil.  Only humanitarian reasons for going to war?  My arse!   Humanitarian reasons and Israel's welfare might be on the list .... but neither are at the top.
The first vid is from March, 2012.

Nafeez Ahmed writing at The Guardian
....Syria intervention plan   fueled by oil interests, not chemical weapon concern. Massacres of civilians are being exploited for narrow geopolitical competition to control Mideast oil, gas pipelines.
Whatever the case, few recall that US agitation against Syria began long before recent atrocities, in the context of wider operations targeting Iranian influence across the Middle East.

In May 2007, a presidential finding revealed that Bush had authorised CIA operations against Iran. Anti-Syria operations were also in full swing around this time as part of this covert programme, according to Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker. A range of US government and intelligence sources told him that the Bush administration had "cooperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations" intended to weaken the Shi'ite Hezbollah in Lebanon. "The US has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria," wrote Hersh, "a byproduct" of which is "the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups" hostile to the United States and "sympathetic to al-Qaeda." He noted that "the Saudi government, with Washington's approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria," with a view to pressure him to be "more conciliatory and open to negotiations" with Israel. One faction receiving covert US "political and financial support" through the Saudis was the exiled Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

According to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, Britain had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009: "I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business", he told French television:

"I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria."

The 2011 uprisings, it would seem - triggered by a confluence of domestic energy shortages and climate-induced droughts which led to massive food price hikes - came at an opportune moment that was quickly exploited. Leaked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor including notes from a meeting with Pentagon officials confirmed US-UK training of Syrian opposition forces since 2011 aimed at eliciting "collapse" of Assad's regime "from within."



So what was this unfolding strategy to undermine Syria and Iran all about? According to retired NATO Secretary General Wesley Clark, a memo from the Office of the US Secretary of Defense just a few weeks after 9/11 revealed plans to "attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years", starting with Iraq and moving on to "Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran." In a subsequent interview, Clark argues that this strategy is fundamentally about control of the region's vast oil and gas resources.

Much of the strategy currently at play was candidly described in a 2008 US Army-funded RAND report, Unfolding the Future of the Long War (pdf). The report noted that "the economies of the industrialized states will continue to rely heavily on oil, thus making it a strategically important resource." As most oil will be produced in the Middle East, the US has "motive for maintaining stability in and good relations with Middle Eastern states":



"The geographic area of proven oil reserves coincides with the power base of much of the Salafi-jihadist network. This creates a linkage between oil supplies and the long war that is not easily broken or simply characterized... For the foreseeable future, world oil production growth and total output will be dominated by Persian Gulf resources... The region will therefore remain a strategic priority, and this priority will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war."

In this context, the report identified several potential trajectories for regional policy focused on protecting access to Gulf oil supplies, among which the following are most salient:

"Divide and Rule focuses on exploiting fault lines between the various Salafi-jihadist groups to turn them against each other and dissipate their energy on internal conflicts. This strategy relies heavily on covert action, information operations (IO), unconventional warfare, and support to indigenous security forces... the United States and its local allies could use the nationalist jihadists to launch proxy IO campaigns to discredit the transnational jihadists in the eyes of the local populace... US leaders could also choose to capitalize on the 'Sustained Shia-Sunni Conflict' trajectory by taking the side of the conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment movements in the Muslim world.... possibly supporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly hostile Iran."

Exploring different scenarios for this trajectory, the report speculated that the US may concentrate "on shoring up the traditional Sunni regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan as a way of containing Iranian power and influence in the Middle East and Persian Gulf." Noting that this could actually empower al-Qaeda jihadists, the report concluded that doing so might work in western interests by bogging down jihadi activity with internal sectarian rivalry rather than targeting the US:

"One of the oddities of this long war trajectory is that it may actually reduce the al-Qaeda threat to US interests in the short term. The upsurge in Shia identity and confidence seen here would certainly cause serious concern in the Salafi-jihadist community in the Muslim world, including the senior leadership of al-Qaeda. As a result, it is very likely that al-Qaeda might focus its efforts on targeting Iranian interests throughout the Middle East and Persian Gulf while simultaneously cutting back on anti-American and anti-Western operations."

The RAND document contextualised this disturbing strategy with surprisingly prescient recognition of the increasing vulnerability of the US's key allies and enemies - Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Egypt, Syria, Iran - to a range of converging crises: rapidly rising populations, a 'youth bulge', internal economic inequalities, political frustrations, sectarian tensions, and environmentally-linked water shortages, all of which could destabilise these countries from within or exacerbate inter-state conflicts.

The report noted especially that Syria is among several "downstream countries that are becoming increasingly water scarce as their populations grow", increasing a risk of conflict. Thus, although the RAND document fell far short of recognising the prospect of an 'Arab Spring', it illustrates that three years before the 2011 uprisings, US defence officials were alive to the region's growing instabilities, and concerned by the potential consequences for stability of Gulf oil.

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..........

Here's more to further make similar claims about oil being the overall factor for the Syrian crisis.
Michael Snyder writing at EconomicCollapse blog:
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.........



More proof below.  This paper was written more than a year ago.
Charalampos Tsitsopoulos writing at EuropeanEnergyPolicy: 
  ....  Since last March, Syria has been the theatre of internal strife, violence and bloodshed. Although, naturally, much ink has been spilled on the regional and international repercussions of the events, the reaction of the international community and the future of the Syrian regime, the answer might very well be interlocked with the country’s energy needs. Recent events might also bear heavily on regional energy politics and a scenario where the regime’s final response is a reflection of its energy security state is not at all unlikely, as Syria’s location is strategic in terms of regional security and prospective energy transit routes.[1]............

.......Apart from domestic concerns, however, the recent strife in Syria also has an international and regional dimension in terms of energy politics. In the context of President Al-Assad’s ‘Four-Seas Policy’, Syria is projected to become a ‘regional transit hub for gas’,[18] linking the Mediterranean, the Caspian, the Black Sea and the Arab Gulf, in a region seen as ‘the center of the world’[19]. The future of Syrian politics will to a large extent define whether this vision is sustainable. As one of the countries projected to partake in the project, Turkey, is the potential destination of a significant project: the extension of the Arab Gas Pipeline from Syria’s Aleppo to Turkey’s southern city of Kilis that could later link to the prospective Nabucco project, if such a pipeline is ever materialized.

There are more plans for pipelines passing through Syria to Turkey and ending in Europe. Interestingly, Turkey’s integration with Syria is of more importance to the former, as its position is more strategic. Turkey has grown increasingly alarmed at Syria’s dealing with the uprising, has hosted opposition conferences and has stepped up its criticism of President Asad’s tactics. The latter has refused to concede any right to the Turks and, to the contrary, has toughened its stance vis-a-vis Turkey. As Bouthaina Shaaban, Asad’s Media Advisor, has recently stated during a visit by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davuto?lu, ‘if Davuto?lu is coming to Syria to deliver a decisive message, then he will hear even more decisive words in relation to Turkey's position’.[20]

All this means that although Syria is important for Turkey’s goal of becoming a transit hub, a further escalation of the row between the two in combination with the prospect of European energy sanctions might bring about alterations to the region’s energy map. In addition, as noted by Turkish daily Zaman, if Turkey and Syria fall out, Turkey is likely to move closer to the US-Israeli axis..........