It appears that Mike Cernovich, who earlier this week wrote that Trump' s national security advisor, Gen. H.R.McMaster, was planning on sending as many as 150,000 troops to Syria, may have been right again. According to  Bloomberg commentator Eli Lake, who has now made a habit of confirming Cernovich " conspiracy theories" (he did so  previously with the Susan Rice scoop), Trump may be on the verge of escalating the proxy war in Syria by sending anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 troops on the ground, and - if Cernovich is indeed correct - as much as three times more.

Per  Lake, after U-turning on attacking Syria last week and on a variety of economic policies yesterday, the Donald Trump' s " biggest foreign policy surprise may be yet to come." Specifically, he says that McMaster, has been quietly pressing his colleagues to question the underlying assumptions of a draft war plan against the Islamic State that would maintain only a light U.S. ground troop presence in Syria."   McMaster' s critics inside the administration say he wants to send tens of thousands of ground troops to the Euphrates River Valley. His supporters insist he is only trying to facilitate a better interagency process to develop Trump' s new strategy to defeat the self-described caliphate that controls territory in Iraq and Syria."

To be sure, there have been ground troops, typically special forces, in Syria since 2014, when Barack Obama famously flipflopped on his own promise of " no more boots on the ground" , first in Iraq and then the broader region.  However, the U.S. presence on the ground has been much smaller and quieter than more traditional military campaigns, particularly for Syria. As Lae puts it, " It' s the difference between boots on the ground and slippers on the ground."

Well, the boots are coming, even if that means Trump gets to flip on yet another promise: Trump  told Fox Business  this week that that would not be his approach to fighting the Syrian regime: " We' re not going into Syria," he said.

According to Gen. McMaster " we are" , and it' s only a matter of time.

As Lake explains, McMaster himself has found resistance to a more robust ground troop presence in Syria. In two meetings since the end of February of Trump' s national security cabinet, known as the principals' committee, Trump' s top advisers have failed to reach consensus on the Islamic State strategy. The White House and administration officials say Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford and General Joseph Votel, who is in charge of U.S. Central Command, oppose sending more conventional forces into Syria.

An interesting aside: according to a Lake source, Stephen Bannon had " derided" McMaster to his colleagues as trying to start a new Iraq War. Bannon' s opposition to yet another US conflict - one which would have the clear goal of replacing the Assad regime - may explain why the former Breitbart head is on his way out.

* * *

So where in the process is the McMaster " ground war" plan currently? Lake reports that it is still in its early stages.

 

 

Because Trump' s national security cabinet has not reached consensus, the Islamic State war plan is now being debated at the policy coordinating committee, the interagency group hosted at the State Department of subject matter experts that prepares issues for the principals' committee and deputies' committee, after which a question reaches the president' s desk for a decision.

Of course, following the recent cleansing of the NSC as per McMaster himself, which kicked out such skeptics as Bannon, whatever the new national security advisor wants, is what he will get.

And what he wants, based on the preliminary information, is a land war.

 

 

Inside the Pentagon, military leaders favor a more robust version of Obama' s strategy against the Islamic State. This has been a combination of airstrikes and special operations forces that train and support local forces...  McMaster however is skeptical of this approach.  To start, it relies primarily on Syrian Kurdish militias to conquer and hold Arab-majority territory. Jack Keane, a retired four-star Army general who is close to McMaster, acknowledged to me this week that the Kurdish forces have been willing to fight the Islamic State, whereas Arab militias have primarily fought against the Assad regime.

Keane told Lake he favored a plan to begin a military operation along the Euphrates River Valley.  " A better option is to start the operation in the southeast along the Euphrates River Valley, establish a U.S. base of operations, work with our Sunni Arab coalition partners, who have made repeated offers to help us against the regime and also ISIS. We have turned those down during the Obama administration."

That particular plan would require an  initial force of 10,000 troops:

 

 

Keane added that U.S. conventional forces would be the anchor of that initial push, which he said would most likely require around 10,000 U.S. conventional forces, with an expectation that Arab allies in the region would provide more troops to the U.S.-led effort.

With time, however, the number will grow dramatically:

 

 

White House and administration officials familiar with the current debate tell me there is no consensus on how many troops to send to Syria and Iraq.  Two sources told me one plan would envision sending up to 50,000 troops. Blogger and conspiracy theorist  Mike Cernovich wrote on April 9  that McMaster wanted 150,000 ground troops for Syria, but U.S. officials I spoke with said that number was wildly inflated and no such plan has been under consideration. 

While McMaster has not disclosed in public whether he supports a ground troop offensive, on  Sunday in an interview  with Fox News, McMaster gave some insights into his thinking on the broader strategy against the Islamic State. " We are conducting very effective operations alongside our partners in Syria and in Iraq to defeat ISIS, to destroy ISIS and reestablish control of that territory, control of those populations, protect those populations, allow refugees to come back, begin reconstruction," he said.

According to Lake, " that' s significant" as Obama never said the goal of the U.S. intervention in Iraq and Syria was to defeat the Islamic State, let alone to protect the population from the group and begin reconstruction.

 

 

Those aims are much closer to the goals of George W. Bush' s surge strategy for Iraq at the end of his second term, under which U.S. conventional forces embedded with the Iraqi army would " clear, hold and build" areas that once belonged to al Qaeda' s franchise.

There is another reason why McMaster is for US ground presence in Syria.

 

 

As a young colonel serving in Iraq, he was one of the first military officers to form a successful alliance with local forces, in Tal Afair, to defeat the predecessor to the Islamic State, al Qaeda in Iraq.  During the Iraq War, McMaster became one of the closest advisers to David Petraeus, the four-star general who led the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq that defeated al Qaeda in Iraq -- and brought about a temporary, uneasy peace there.  That peace unraveled after Obama withdrew all U.S. forces from Iraq at the end of 2011. Obama himself never apologized for that decision, even though he had to send special operations forces back to Iraq in the summer of 2014 after the Islamic State captured Mosul, Iraq' s second-largest city. He argued that U.S. forces in Iraq would have been caught up inside a civil war had they stayed.

* * *

The cadre of former military advisers to Petraeus took a different view. They argued that America' s abandonment of Iraq gave the Shiite majority there a license to pursue a sectarian agenda that provided a political and military opening for the Islamic State. An active U.S. presence in Iraq would have restrained those sectarian forces. One of those advisers was H.R. McMaster.

What was unsaid in Lake' s piece, is that the real aim of any US ground assault would be to remove the Assad regime and " destabilize" the Middle-Eastern region, something both  Rex Tillerson  and  Sean Spicer  hinted at over the past week. That, in itself, would be considered a clear act of war, even if there is no formal declaration by Congress. It would also prompt a ground troop response by not only Assad but also Russia.

As Lake concludes, " it' s now up to Trump to decide whether to test the Petraeus camp' s theory or try to defeat the Islamic State with a light footprint in Syria. Put another way, Trump must decide whether he wants to wage Bush' s war or continue Obama' s."

The real conclusion, however, is different: it is now up to Goldman to decide whether to advise Trump to risk starting World War III in Syria by sending some 50,000 " boots on the ground" to start, a number which will only grow in direct proportion with the casualties that emerge as this proxy world war enters its final, most destrucive phase.

 

 

With just two days to go until North Korea' s " Day of the Sun" celebrations, when as  reported yesterday  it may conduct its 6th nuclear test at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site,  NBC reports  citing multiple senior U.S. intelligence officials that in the latest stepwise escalation, the U.S. is prepared to launch a preemptive strike with conventional weapons against North Korea should officials become convinced that Kim Jong-Un' s nation North Korea is about to follow through with a nuclear weapons test. Note: North Korea does not even have to carry out the text:  mere conviction on the side of the US that it would, is sufficient.

As  first reported yesterday, North Korea warned that a " big event" is near, and U.S. officials say signs point to a nuclear test that could come as early as this weekend. According to multiple sources, the U.S. intelligence community has reported with " moderate confidence" that North Korea is preparing for its sixth underground nuclear test, though the U.S. is also in the dark regarding the specific timing.

The launch of a preemptive attack would naturally threatens a counterattack by Kim: the U.S. is thus " worried" that its strikes could provoke the volatile and unpredictable North Korean regime to launch its own blistering attack on its southern neighbor. " The leadership in North Korea has shown absolutely no sign or interest in diplomacy or dialogue with any of the countries involved in this issue," said Victor Cha, the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Meanwhile, intelligence officials have told NBC News that  the U.S. Navy has positioned two destroyers capable of shooting Tomahawk cruise missiles in the region, one just 300 miles from the North Korean nuclear test site.  Additionally, American heavy bombers are also positioned in Guam to attack North Korea should it be necessary, and earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group was being diverted to the area.

Earlier in the week, North Korea said it would " hit the U.S. first" with a nuclear weapon should there be any signs of U.S. strikes. On Thursday, North Korea warned of a " merciless retaliatory strike" should the U.S. take any action. It is almost as if the U.S. is eager to provoke the " irrational" North Korean dictator.

" By relentlessly bringing in a number of strategic nuclear assets to the Korean peninsula, the US is gravely threatening the peace and safety and driving the situation to the brink of a nuclear war," said North Korea' s statement, which actually sounded quite rational and measured.

Futhermore, virtually everyone knows that Kim' s threats are those of a paper tiger: North Korea is not believed to have a deliverable long-range nuclear weapon, according to U.S. experts, nor does it yet possess an intercontinental missile. Which begs the question: why is the US getting involved in yet another regime change operation half way around the world?

South Korea' s top diplomat said today that the U.S. would consult with Seoul before taking any serious measures, or at least he hoped: " U.S. officials, mindful of such concerns here, repeatedly reaffirmed that (the U.S.) will closely discuss with South Korea its North Korea-related measures," foreign minister Yun Byung told a special parliamentary meeting. " In fact, the U.S. is working to reassure us that it will not, just in case that we might hold such concerns."

Of course, if the U.S. does not " closely discuss" any pre-strike plans, then... oops.

In any case, a new war may break out as soon as this weekend: " Two things are coming together this weekend,"   said retired Adm. James Stavridis, former commander of NATO and an NBC analyst. " One is the distinct possibility of a sixth North Korean nuclear weapons detonation and the other is an American carrier strike group, a great deal of firepower headed right at the Korean Peninsula."

 

 

The U.S. is aware that simply preparing an attack, even if it will only be launched if there is an " imminent" North Korean action, increases the danger of provoking a large conflict, multiple sources told NBC News.

 

" It' s high stakes," a senior intelligence official directly involved in the planning told NBC News. " We are trying to communicate our level of concern and the existence of many military options to dissuade the North first."

 

" It' s a feat that we' ve never achieved before but there is a new sense of resolve here," the official said, referring to the White House.

The unofficial admission that a preemptive strike is imminent comes on the same day the U.S. announced the use of its MOAB in Afghanistan, attacking underground facilities, and on the heels of U.S. missile strikes on a Syrian airbase last week, a strike that took place while President Trump was meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago.

Earlier today, Trump gave China what amounted to a tacit ultimatum: deal with North Korea, or Trump will.

And as the clock is ticking, officials have told NBC that Trump has talked to Chinese president Xi twice about North Korea since their Florida summit.

 

 

China has since sent its top nuclear negotiators to Pyongyang to communicate the gravity of the situation to the North, officials say. On Wednesday, President Xi called for a peaceful resolution to the escalating tensions.

It' s not just China: " Moscow has weighed in as well: " We are gravely concerned about Washington' s plans regarding North Korea, considering hints about the unilateral use of a military scenario" the Putin government said in a press release issued on Tuesday."

Ultimately, the only thing standing between Kim and a Tomahawk is a decision by South Korea, where as a reminder, the political regime has been in chaos since the impeachment of former president Park.

 

 

Implementation of the preemptive U.S. plans, according to multiple U.S. officials,  depends centrally on consent of the South Korean government. The sources stress that Seoul has got to be persuaded that action is worth the risk,  as there is universal concern that any military move might provoke a North Korean attack, even a conventional attack across the DMZ.

Tensions have escalated on the Korean Peninsula, as this Saturday marks the anniversary of the birth of the nation' s founder &mdash Kim il-Sung, grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong-un. At the highest levels in South Korea and the U.S., sources told NBC News, there are fears North Korea could mark the " Day of the Sun" by testing a nuclear device. As discussed yesterday, North Korea in the past has used these national holidays to celebrate the strengths of the regime and to reinforce the national narrative of their independence, as confirmed by Cha.

" I think that is what President Trump is getting trying to get the Chinese to do," said Cha. " [It] would impose real pain and force real choices on North Korea &mdash whether the costs are worth it for them to continue to pursue this program if they no longer have any sustenance."

In addition to the coal ships, the Chinese made an important gesture at the UN Thursday: A surprising abstention on a Security Council resolution condemning a Syrian chemical weapons attack. China didn' t stand with the Russians on Syria, as it has in the past.

But the biggest indicator may have been the market: for the first time in month, the S& P closed on the lowest tick of the day ahead of a long weekend, almost as if traders had no desire to go long into a the 72 hours in which there is a non-trivial chance that, in some form or another, a nuclear device may go off, coupled with the launch of an unknown number of US Tomahawk missiles.