The US and Great Britain are ramping up their efforts to secure the strategic advantage they created for the West in the Middle East by removing Russia’s key man in Syria, Bashar al-Assad, in December. A critical part of the political, economic, religious, and security fabric of the Middle East, it is also a crucial link from there to Africa in the south and to Europe in the West, by dint of its long Mediterranean coastline, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. The key to keeping Syria aligned with…