Is Syria about preventing Iran from having an arc of influence and control stretching from the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea?

Is the situation in Myanmar, the result of inaction by the major powers because of China's desire to have a pipeline from the Indian Ocean overland to China?

@Treasurehunter From what I've read I believe that Syria is about the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Qatar wanting an oil pipeline going up to Turkey. Assad is Russia friendly, and going through conventional means would never work for the U.S. and friends, so the U.S. has to move it along somehow. They want Assad out. Russia's Gazprom provides Europe with most of their natural gas and oil and a pipeline through Syria for the U.S. and friends would severely put a damper on Russia's economy. Russia, Iran, and China are obviously allies in all this...for now. I'm not sure how Iran plays into it, but they are on the U.S.'s radar too. It was thought that no matter who became president between Trump and Clinton that the U.S. would still have a hard lined approach towards Iran.

As far as Myanmar, I haven't researched anything about that situation.

@Piece2YourPuzzle They could go through Iraq with that pipeline, so that reason is not really credible for me. Whatever the reasons are, millions of ordinary folks lives being ruined seems to have little effect on their reasoning or politics.

@Treasurehunter There might be a logistics problem with that. They would have to go to the northern most east corner of Iraq. It's an extra 500 miles of pipe plus security for it. Whatever it is though, I definitely agree that they don't care who lives or dies or has any type of hardship because of it.