Iran

Turkey is the next key region in this conflict, since the only alternative gas pipeline that supplies Russia, and comes from Asia (Nabucco), passes through Turkey. Future conflicts between Turkey and Russia will be part of the Russian strategy within the region. 

Decoding the war in Syria is not for the faint of heart. For those looking to make sense of it all, we present the following infographic which should go some ways towards untangling what has become one of the most complex, convoluted wars in recent memory.

And so it begins...

“We will listen, and then decide,” he said on Tuesday upon his arrival in Vienna, trying to tamp down speculation that the outcome is preordained. When asked if OPEC’s strategy of pursuing market share was working, al-Naimi was coy. “What strategy?” he said. “Who said we’re keeping market share?” Despite al-Naimi’s assurances that the Saudi delegation won’t dictate policy to OPEC, his voice is the only one that counts.

“It is not in doubt. ISIS is almost finished. They are weak. If only America would stop supporting them, we could defeat them in days.”

"We will chase and fight any American force deployed in Iraq. Any such American force will become a primary target for our group. We fought them before and we are ready to resume fighting."

"A tense moment occurred when the 133-meter ship, the Yauda, arrived at the Dardanelles from the Aegean Sea at around 10 a.m. on Nov. 30. and encountered a Turkish submarine across the shores of Canakkale's Eceabat."

With Jeremy Corbyn's divided Labour MPs free to break party rank in Wednesday's key vote, "RAF crews could be bombing the Isis headquarters in Raqqa by the end of the week." Meanwhile, "German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Cabinet approved deploying warplanes over Syria in the fight against Islamic State."

A false capitalism reigns based on false capital - notional wealth where there is really no wealth; value where there is no value. Moments like this in history beat a path straight to currency collapse, and that will open the door to a greater collapse of all our familiar arrangements.

Without a rerun of last Friday's Chinese stock market rout, European traders could focus on what "really matters", namely how much of the ECB's upcoming 20 bps rate cut and €20 billion QE expansion (with Commerzbank saying Draghi may even hint at Europe's QE3) is priced in, and whether the ECB's actions are just modestly priced in, or more than fully, and just how big the "sell the news" event will be.The result: the Euro falls to a new 7 month low, the dollar spot index hits a new all time high, and European stocks and US futures stage another remarkable overnight comeback on the usual low volume levitation and central bank intervention.

Now that Russia has hit back at Turkey with economic sanctions designed to punish Ankara for the brazen downing of a Russian Su-24 near the Syrian border last Tuesday, the ball is back in Erdogan's court. Unless the autocrat President plans on shooting down another Russian warplane, Turkey's options may now be limited to diversifying away from Russian gas or closing the Bosphorus strait through which Moscow resupplies its forces at Latakia.

"First, the Islamic world has been the victim of terror and brutality to a larger extent territorially, to greater amount quantitatively and for a longer period in terms of time. Second, that unfortunately this violence has been supported by certain great powers through various methods and effective means."

Americans today are blissfully distracted by their iGadgets, plotting out their holiday shopping strategies, leasing new cars, eating out, and buying advance tickets to the new Star Wars movie. They don’t see the wicked winter squalls ahead which will try their souls. We are experiencing the lull before the storms, but the storms are surely coming. The potential for catastrophe is high and burying our heads in the sand is not a strategy.

It's no secret that the US has played an outsized role in facilitating Syria's five-year civil war by funneling money and guns to a hodgepodge of opposition groups. It's also no secret that The Pentagon's latest "train and equip" program was a disaster of epic proportions. But rest assured, if Washington can make it worse, Washington will make it worse, which is why we weren't surprised that the 2016 NDAA authorizes more taxpayer money for the funding of "moderate" Syrian rebels.