Despite a rare display of intelligence shown by a group of politicians, with the British parliament rejecting their Prime Minister’s call for war, at least for now; and despite serious questions raised by the likes of a former NPR reporter with years of on-the-ground experience in the Middle East who states that eyewitnesses say it is the Saudis who supplied the chemical weapons to the rebel forces; it seems almost certain that the US will be waging war in Syria, likely beginning with attacks launched from US naval vessels.

Most people might think this will be another “Libya” type of war with US techno-hardware pummeling the country for a couple of months and then it will be over. A bunch of political posing and sniping. Lots of discussion about whether annihilating people is legal! Little or no direct inconvenience to anyone in the US or Europe. And little consideration of the reality of those who will hold someone they love in their arms and experience the agony of seeing their beautiful friend demolished.

Why is this war less likely to be a brief campaign and more likely lead to World War 3?

1. There are 30,000 Russians living in Syria. If some of these people are killed, do you think Russia will just say, “Oh well. No problem.”

2. Russia is a long-time ally of Syria. They have a naval base there. They sell lots of arms to Syria. If Assad is toppled, Russia loses big strategically and economically: they wil likely lose their naval base; they lose a good arms customer; but most importantly, a new regime might be quite happy to allow the Qatari’s to build a natural gas pipeline across Syria to supply Europe with natural gas, breaking the Russian monopoly on the European natgas market.

3. Iran is an ally of Syria. Both countries are well aware that they are on the list of countries  whose governments the US planned to topple as early as 2001, as reported in this required-listening two minute video interview with General Wesley Clark:

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”

And Iran is an ally of China.

4. Cycles: Manfred Zimmel, whose excellent forecasting work we have discussed here and here, has for many years been predicting that the period from 2013 to 2018 will be “the War Years.”

5. Cycles: The uncanny Wheeler Cycle of War and Political Change, discussed here, arrives again at its most intense point for the risk of major war in 2014:

6. Cycles: Michael Mau’s books predicted world war for this period unless humanity can stand up to being manipulated into war yet again. Mau’s books contain detailed discussions regarding who manipulates politicians and populations into war. So this is a big test for humanity: do people want war or have they truly had enough of it?

7. Cycles: August 2013 was given here as a major potential economic turning point. Oftentimes, people and nations play their part when a big cycle is ready to turn.

8. The US badly needs a distraction from the revelations of illegal spying that arrive almost daily.

9. The US badly needs distraction from its financial failures and its upcoming battle over the debt ceiling. Even researchers from within the US Federal Reserve have admitted that the Fed’s money printing has had little positive effect, and they have announced that they would like to gradually stop printing so much. (Perhaps the White House will basically force them to keep printing to support a war?) And even that gold-bashing defender of the status quo, the Financial Times, began an article with this quote:

The world is doomed to an endless cycle of bubble, financial crisis and currency collapse.

And included this sentence in the same article:

A stable international financial system has eluded the world since the end of the gold standard.

(Side note: Numbers 8 and 9 are partial indications that things have not been going so well for the US lately. This too is a result of a specific cyclic influence, so if you are confident that a US war foray will be quick and successful, you might wish to contemplate what the news flow has looked like for the US for the last several months.)

10. There are always those powerful groups who stand to profit greatly, financially and politically, from war, as described so well by US Marine Corp hero General Smedley Butler in his booklet War Is A Racket.

So what’s it going to be, folks? Have we had enough of war? Or do too many still want war, or not care one way or the other? Whatever the numbers, it seems that humanity still does not understand that the advice “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” contains the idea that what you do to others you are doing to yourself. Humanity is one, though it appears that few are aware of their awareness that such is the case.

If you have chosen to have preparations in place for when it really hits the fan, and if you have not completed those plans, my suggestion would be that you wrap them up now. Not in a state of fear, not in a panic, but with definite persistence and logic. Perhaps the status quo in this world can hold on till 2014, or even 2015. But betting that way entails some serious risks. Besides, preparing for a life independent of the theftocracy–that is, working with gardens, greenhouses, plug-in vehicles, solar arrays, water wells, and so forth–is a lot of fun.