Following up on our recent warning about the situation in Syria, Chris sits down this week for a conversation with The Saker, who writes extensively on geo-political and military matters. The Saker (a nom-de-plume), is a former intelligence expert with professional and personal insights into Russia and the Middle East.

He shares our deep concern for the dangerously misdirected current state of US foreign and military policy, as well as the potentially lethal repercussions these threaten to have in the powderkeg that is Syria.

In this week's podcast, The Saker provides an excellent distillation of the complex forces in play in Syria -- as well as in the brewing friction between the US and Russia -- and why the risk of nuclear war has now grown higher than it has been in decades:

I'm not convinced there is a US strategy. I think there is a CIA strategy, a Pentagon strategy, a State Department strategy. There used to be a White House strategy. Right now, I am not even sure. We should go deeper into who is doing what inside the Pentagon and the military. I mean, there is chaos.

There has been chaos since at least Obama because he was an extremely weak president. When a superpower like the United States is ruled by more or less an absent man in the White House, the agencies themselves start implementing their own policies. This is happening now under Trump, who was elected under specific platform and now is basically giving it up. There has been a coup against him by the neo-cons who basically got him under control. He wanted to drain the swamp, but the swamp basically drowned him.

I'm not sure there's anything I can identify as a US policy. There is, however, an Israeli and a Saudi policy. And those two happen to be very, very closely aligned. Because those two, first of all, are extremely powerful as we know, inside the United States. But not only inside the United States but they are also objectively aligned in the region, which is very counter intuitive. It's natural to wonder: What would the Saudi Wahhabis have in common with the Israelis? What they have in common is an immense fear of Iran, first and foremost. And generally, the Saudis and the Israelis have the same exact interest for the Arab Muslim world, which is to keep it in chaos and weak. That allows them to rule it. It's that simple(...)

[Provoking Russia in Syria] is completely nuts. And it is due to that fact that I 'm convinced the neocons are not American patriots. They have their ideology. They have their agenda. They are just like parasites sitting in the United States and using that country for their own petty ideological interests. Which is the same thing the Saudis have been doing, by the way. Our government has been hijacked, and that's the real problem.

By patriot, I simply mean a person who loves his country. Through that lens, Americans should immediately see that Russia and the United States have no conflict. There's nothing to fight over and a great deal to work together with. This is something that the neocons do not want. And that's why they basically crushed Trump. That is why both the Democratic party and the Republican party don't let the people who are for a non-aggressive foreign policy -- like someone like Ron Paul -- get anywhere near power. If you look at the Republican and Democratic national committees they always take away money from these candidates – even if means losing a Congressional seat. There is a real problem here in the United States. And that problem could end up with international nuclear war.