I read an article a few weeks back, tried really hard to find the link for it but just couldn't come up with it.

If I remember correctly... (which is sometimes dubious)

The article was about how before the war started the Syrian Agricultural Minister naively made the US aware that its drought problems were creating a situation that was ripe for uprisings; not knowing the US would use this information to its advantage in its covert war to destabilize the Assad government.

Maybe someone else read and knows the article.
I may have added the link in a different thread comment.
If I find it I'll post it.

Doubt if the Agriculture minister told the US something they did not
already know. The fall off in oil income meant they could not subsidise
food imports. If Syrian peak oil had not occurred they could have
ridden out the drought with imported grain etc.
If the price does not rise again, and there are those convinced of it,
Saudi Arabia will try to force up the price.
If they succeed watch out for a lot of financial problems world wide.

There is no just right price.
Goldilocks is dead !

AC,

As Bazz says, the US would have known about the 2006-2010 drought - probably every Australian wheat farmer would have known about it, year by year, and factored it in to their price forecasts .

Do you mean this article, or something like it:

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2015/11/29/climate-change-link-to-syrian-crisis/

or this:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34944520

That drought ended in 2010. But that probably wouldn't have been known until the next, more productive, season. In the meantime, reserves would have been wound down, and many farmers would have left the land for the cities. Unrest could easily have followed, without any involvement of outside forces.

Joe

Joe, I put those articles down to the all too prevalent;
"Oh global warming has caused that also" mantra.

The main reason the population took off was I believe the war that has
been showing no sign of a solution anytime in the next few years.

As the economies screw down it will get worse.

Hey Loudmouth,
Here are the articles I was referring to, posted in the 'Assad needs to stay in Syria' thread.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=7071&page=0#216744

AC,

Why do you keep thinking hat people in the Middle East are all puppets, to be manipulated by the evil US at will ?

For a long, long time, the options in the Middle East have been: brutal secular dictatorship, or Islamist theocracy. Democracy - and the Yanks are learning this slowly - doesn't get a look-in. So politics in Middle Eastern countries swings between secular dictatorship and theocracy. Currently, there is no Third Way.

So, yes of course, Assad must be supported against ISIS. His time will come, afterwards, if and when there is an 'afterwards'.

I wish you apologists would have the courage to do one thing: draw up three lists:

* what you think you stand for;

* what you think the west, the US, capitalism stand for;

* what ISIS stands for.

Factor in what might happen to feminists, any vaguely leftists, and gays after your besties take over. They're gone.

No, you won't do that. Opportunists don't stand for anything. I keep forgetting that. How naïve :)

Joe