>Why involve the Starks at all? They weren't in the power
>structure in KL, so if ur saying he wanted to move some
>lannisters out any major house could do that

The Lannisters are still #1 military wise, so not many other houses could take them on. Starks had a chance because of how tough they stayed even during peace time as far as armies were concerned, how much they still subconciously distrusted the south, and the fact that in a land war the North was a bitch to take over (hence how it had to be done with dragons). The vale would have gotten stomped unless the Starks helped. Might as well go to the source. And he already had the Vale since its queen was sodickmatized.


>Why not set renly and stannis against the lannisters? (I kno
>they came to that anyway but why didn't LF go that route)

Id also argue Renley Stannis were less easier to manipulate then Ned. Stannis had to resort to magic to beat Renley, and Stannis’s whole team is a witchcraft infested loony bin.

All Littlefinger had to do was sit back, let Ned figure out what he already knew, and soft offer him the throne via blackmailing his way into becoming the permenant hand. If Ned took it, Littlefinger was confident he could be a puppetmaster through Ned(having shown he's corrupt). If Ned was too strong(or in this case too stupid) and said no, he could just give him up in exchange for moving up under the new Lannister bosses fully in charge.

Basically, he had NOTHING to lose with no risk. So while I can argue that's alot chaos, like Varys said (paraphrased) Littlefinger would burn down the whole kingdom just to rule its ashes, lol