Where did I say that I thought Syria has a lot of oil? I know perfectly well that it doesn't.

What Ramil was hinting at, is that Syria is a transit country, i.e. oil pipelines are running THROUGH it. Same as Ukraine incidentally - and Western interests have an agenda there too.

The fact that Syria is an oil transit country makes it strategically interesting, although Ramil does not develop his theory in detail. Syria itself is at a very strategic position in the Middle East, which is the reason it was a major piece on the chessboard in the Cold War.

And yes - Europe is behind this just as much as the USA / NATO, because obviously that is the end destination of the oil, so I am not arguing with that either.

The BBC usually tries to pretend being un-nuanced and give both sides of the story. But in this, they are completely black and white. Al-Assad is evil, etc etc.
Funnily enough they seem to have completely forgotten that only a couple of years ago, they were featuring Syria in travelling programs as the coolest destination in the Arab world, the "Syrian school" reality show which showed Syrian society in a very favourable light - include the respect of everyone for Al-Assad.... Not to mention taking the Top Gear show to Syria.
But now it is suddenly all evil!

Watch / read channels like Russia Today which shows that this is NOT the full story - the Christian population for example, largely supports Al-Assad staying in power and several cities are completely behind him.

The fact that Syria has CLEARLY been flagged by the USA as "evil" for decades (Was specifically mentioned in Bush' "Axis of Evil" speech) AND was named in the infamous General Wesley Clark video, shows that the USA very much has an agenda in Syria.

I am strongly against US war mongering, sinister agendas, propaganda wars and the like. I don't see what the goings on in Syria has ANYTHING to do with the USA and very little to do with Europe or Russia. The only countries that has any business having an opinion are the neighbours, so Turkey's opinions I recognize as relevant.

But do bear in mind that Turkey is a NATO member and will pretty much toe the US line by default. In addition, Turkey is trying to score points with the EU as part of its (unsuccessful to date) quest to join the EU. Taking a stand against Syria at the moment, is very much the politically correct thing to do in light of the NATO membership and EU ambitions, so you should not take that too seriously - there is nothing to say what the opinion of regular Turks is. The Kurdish population (a large part of Turkey) have been pro-Syria in the past, since Kurds were treated much better in Syria than in Turkey.

The bit that I am not understanding, is WHY the USA had Syria on its invasion list for almost a decade, and WHY it was listed as being "Evil".

Ramil seems to believe it's got something to do with oil transit and the city of Homs, but I do not quite get his complete point.
Anixx is suggesting that it is because Syria is one of the last (nominally) socialist countries in the Middle East / Arab world - a country that used to be aligned towards the USSR in the cold war days.

Syria is significantly less evil than lots of states in Africa, and a couple in South America. It had an essentially social democratic government that tried to provide the basic services for all, at a decent level. No doubt it had many faults and was probably to harsh on the opposition, but Syria was opening up and trying to modernise.

Al Bashir is a dentist who has worked in the UK and is married to a British woman who used to be a derivatives trader in London. We are not talking about Saddam Hussein here at all, but a man who inherited a backwards country from his father and has tried to reform while keeping it all together and preventing the minorities off each others throat.

And guess what..... suddenly every Arab speaking asylum seeker in Western Europe is "Syrian" (some of course, really are...) and hence automatically granted asylum. Then all they need to do is quickly have a child while they are here, and they're in for good. Just what we need.