Source: Zero Hedge

Abu Dhabi Media website The National has disclosed some rather disturbing news about peace "prospects" in the middle east. It appears this past Friday saw a war council convene in Damascus, between Syrian president Bashar al Assad, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah to "devise counterattack plans and assign tasks in the event of an Israeli offensive on one or all parties, wrote Abdelbari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds al Arabi." And more troublingly, "the Iranian president said he expects war to break out somewhere between spring and summer of this year. Meanwhile, the Hizbollah chief vowed to strike the Israeli capital, its airports and power stations if Israel dared to attack Beirut’s critical infrastructure."Let's recall that Goldman's most recent 2010 and 2011 WTI estimates call for prices to rise to $90 and $110/bbl, respectively.

More from The National:

 

 

“The timing of the meeting, the way it was undertaken and the ensuing press conference that was held at its conclusion, all point to a strategic coalition being reinforced. This is the build-up of a new front that will spearhead the confrontation with the US-Israeli alliance and whichever Arab countries that may, expressly or implicitly, be affiliated with it.”“Indeed, we are being exposed to a new discourse here, an unprecedented sense of self-confidence and an unheard-of preparedness for retaliation.”

What is more troubling for the US is that any potential effort to rekindle a relationship with Iran is now dead and burred, as the new axis seems to involve exclusively Syria.

 

 

For its part, the Syrian leadership appears to have made up its mind to close off the US administration’s “trite and cheap” flirtation with Damascus and opted for bolstering its tactical partnership with Tehran.

Surely this is now just another white swan in a sea of black, which has been duly factored in to various asset prices and what not