As part of the Arab Spring, the Syrian Civil War began in March 2011. In this same time frame there was the murky rise of ISIS centered around the Sunnis who provided the backbone of the previous Saddam regime in Iraq and the later resistance to Coalition forces in Iraq. Also around this time frame there is the extremely murky oil smuggling operations in the Kurd controlled areas of northern Iraq and adjoining Syria territory under the rising ISIS umbrella.
In September 2010 General Austin became Commanding General of U.S. Forces Iraq (USF-1). Austin along with other members of the USF-I staff, departed Iraq on December 18, 2011. The purported Austin email addressed to the Syrian Ministry of Culture is dated September 2011. In September 2011, General Flynn was promoted to Lieutenant General and assigned as assistant director of national intelligence in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The attack on Benghazi was a year later in 2012.
In September 2015 President Putin addressed the UN General Assembly regarding Syria. Putin immediately flew back to Moscow and the Russian State Duma then unanimously voted authorization for the use of force in Syria. Within weeks, the Assad regime teetering, Russian planes began the bombing of the ISIS oil tankers smuggling oil out of Syria to NATO member Turkey.
In November 2013 there was the Euromaidan rapidly escalating into a civil war. In May 2015 the people of Crimea voted to be annexed by Russia by a 95.5% majority of voters. The effort by Ukraine to subjugate the Russian ethnic Donbas ended in February 2015 with the collapse of the Debaltseve Kesselschlacht. Thus ended an attempt for a grand pincer movement against the Eurasian landmass by an attack from the West over the steppes and an attack up through the Muslim majority Caucasus (the German plan in WWII).
In November 2016, Donald Trump was voted POTUS on a pledge to end foreign wars. Through fracking, the U.S. had achieved energy independence.