US threats of Syria war a distraction: Analyst

US President Obama’s comments on Syrian chemical dossier are so cryptic and unclear that even hardliners in Europe feel more and more confused.

It becomes more and more apparent that “humanitarian” invasion, if it is going to happen, will be about Qatar’s gas pipeline to Europe, Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s drilling license near the Golan Heights and struggle over Lebanon’s offshore gas. “Human rights” pretexts do not convince anybody in Europe.

Surprisingly representatives of the US military industrial complex seem to distance themselves from armchair strategists in the White House. Interventions in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have shown that US officials do not care what the world would say about violation of international law.

That’s why there must be some objective economic contradictions that caused this sudden pacifist sentiment. Military hawks’ public statements on the real situation in the US economy may be much more informative than Vice President John Kerry’s diplomatic pantomime.

“Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should “have his head examined”, as General MacArthur so delicately put it,” told an audience of West Point cadets former US minister of defense Robert Gates just before his resignation in 2011. Unfortunately for American taxpayers his attempts to instill a “culture of savings and restraint” in the US military were not successful.

In 2011, Joseph Lazarro precisely described this tendency as “imperial overstrech”. In his opinion, hegemon’s attempts to maintain global control may cause severe economic crises and social instability. Americans with military background know what «limited strike» really means.

Donald Rumsfeld and Zbignew Brzhezinsky, for instance, refrain from jingoism. Rumsfeld has bashed Obama on Fox news: “There really has not been any indication from the administration as to what our national interest is with respect to this particular situation”.

Brzhezinsky is even more straightforward: “US foreign policy on Syria is difficult to understand in the long term”. Truly these are the last things one would expect to hear from the architects of American brutal invasions who encouraged lucrative arms contracts and field weapon tests. Retired military officials often mouth the words of their colleagues in the Army. What do officers in charge of Syrian crisis say?

”We have learned from the past 10 years, however, that it is not enough to simply alter the balance of military power without careful consideration of what is necessary in order to preserve a functioning state. <…> This is especially critical as we lose readiness due to budget cuts and fiscal uncertainty,” complained Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey. Costs of the military operation following all proposed scenarios could average well over USD 1 billion per month. War overseas has never been cheap.

The US will have to overuse again its privileged status in the world’s financial system and, therefore, face reputational risks. That’s why US Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew in his letter to Congress has pointed at “the threat of default” and “irreparable harm to the US economy”.

He knows that trust is hard to build and very easy to lose. Dancing on the fiscal cliff after military intervention in Libya led to the downgrade of US sovereign credit rating from S&P’s AAA (outstanding) to AA+ (excellent). As a result the cost to insure US debts against default has risen from an average of around 25 basis points in 2007 to a range from 55 to 75 basis points in 2011, Bloomberg reported. American “expertocracy” did everything in their power to downplay the rating fiasco because S&P put at risk the “sancta sanctorum” of Washington’s global financial system – the strange dependence of Central Banks around the world on the international market of US Treasuries.

Revenge of the administration was quick and painful. SEC and Department of Justice announced that S&P was under investigation. Two years on the situation is very similar: nobody knows how the markets will greet the news of another credit rating downgrade.

Financial witch hunts cannot change the sad reality of American debt. Splendid little war, however, is a different story – especially if Arab countries are ready “to share the cost”. In mid-October 2013, the US federal government will have to cross the real “red line” and deal with looming debt ceiling fight.

It is entirely possible that threats of US military intervention in Syria are aimed at distracting public attention from the new period of financial turbulence that may ensue.