The United States has made a bloody career of “stirring the pot” in the Middle East and South Asia (as well as hundreds of other regions). European imperialism, and US economic promotion was (and likely continues to be) advanced through covert actions, now increasingly pushed as official policy. The long term relationships in the region has mixed with and created hostilities and boundaries were redrawn, puppet governments installed, and those with and without power settled through external forces. As formal imperial powers “withdrew”, and supposedly “freed” their colonies, the economic imperialism replaced the old political bounds. Resources and geography set up the chessboard for superpowers to maneuver and variously influence national and regional government and business. After 2001, the United States made an open policy of something that had once only been done covertly – regime change. This hardly means that covert actions are out the window. In fact, in too many cases we can find the U.S. military and the various groups being backed and supported actually fighting with each other. This can happen when you back multiple forces within a given conflict. The U.S. policy of regime change has wreaked deadly havoc across the entire region and there is no end in sight. To say that these are complex issues would be a radical understatement, but Conn Hallinan does an excellent job of sorting through the various threads in the web of the Syrian. While horrendous, and criminally undercovered by the media, it is only one of many places where the U.S. has a direct hand in destroying lives and national and regional stability.