As much as Iran, Russia, the US and the EU are involved in a sophisticated nuclear/energy ballet, Syria and Ukraine are also two key power play vectors bound to determine much of what happens next in the New Great Game in Eurasia.

And both Syria and Ukraine also happen to be energy wars.

The Obama administration’s Syria master plan was ‘Assad must go’; regime change would yield a US-supported Muslim Brotherhood entity, and a key plank of Pipelineistan – the $10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline – would be forever ditched.