Commentary on the economic , geopolitical and simply fascinating things going on. Served occasionally with a side of snark.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Divining why US foreign policy on Syria is "bombing " here at home and internationally - the Obama / White House " Ball of confusion factors " , the difficulty for many to grasp " whose red line is it anyway " and does the articulation for War , let alone the proposed remedy on the table make either sense or are likely to achieve the stated purposes ( which seem to change daily ) and do the majority of americans trust this Commander in Chief ?
Reflecting upon how the White house got itself in the present Syria pickle - hesitancy , too many cooks in the kitchen and not one master chef , lack of perspective , lack of coherent and consistent approach - or does it primarily boil down to foreign policy shallowness ? Does Obama truly think if he just talks enough , everyone will sooner or later believe what he says ? Read David Stockman's piece at the top !
Congress’s upcoming vote on Syria could bring to a close decades of incessant American meddling and bullying around the world. It’s about time, says David Stockman.
Next week Congress can do far more than stop a feckless Tomahawk barrage on a small country that is already a graveyard of civil war and sectarian slaughter. By voting “no,” it can trigger the end of the American Imperium—five decades of incessant meddling, bullying, and subversion around the globe that has added precious little to national security but left America fiscally exhausted and morally diminished.
President Barack Obama meets with members of Congress in the cabinet room of the White House on September 3, 2013. (Pool photo by Dennis Brack)
Indeed, the tragedy of this vast string of misbegotten interventions—from the 1953 coup against Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran through the recent bombing campaign in Libya—is that virtually none of them involved defending the homeland or any tangible, steely-eyed linkages to national security. They were all rooted in ideology—that is, anti-communism, anti-terrorism, humanitarianism, R2P-ism, nation building, American exceptionalism. These were the historic building blocks of a failed Pax Americana. Now the White House wants authorization for the last straw: namely, to deliver from the firing tubes of U.S. naval destroyers a dose of righteous “punishment” that has no plausible military or strategic purpose. By the president’s own statements, the proposed attack is merely designed to censure the Syrian regime for allegedly visiting one particularly horrific form of violence on its own citizens.
Well, really? After having rained napalm, white phosphorous, bunker busters, drone missiles, and the most violent machinery of conventional warfare ever assembled upon millions of innocent Vietnamese, Cambodians, Serbs, Somalis, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, Yemeni, Libyans, and countless more, Washington now presupposes to be in the moral-sanctions business? That’s downright farcical. Nevertheless, by declaring himself the world’s spanker in chief, President Obama has unwittingly precipitated the mother of all clarifying moments.
The screaming strategic truth is that America no longer has any industrial state enemies capable of delivering military harm to its shores: Russia has become a feeble kleptocracy run by a loud-mouthed thief, and the Communist Party oligarchs in China would face a devastating economic collapse within months were they to attack their American markets for sneakers and Apples. So the real question now before Congress is, how is it possible that the peace-loving citizens of America, facing no industrial-scale military threat from anywhere on the planet, find themselves in a constant state of war? The answer is that they have been betrayed by the Beltway political class, which is in thrall to a vast warfare state apparatus that endlessly invents specious reasons for meddling, spying, intervention, and occupation.
There should be no $650 billion war machine with carrier battle groups and cruise missile batteries at the ready to tempt presidents to heed the advice of ideological fanatics like Power and Wolfowitz.
In pursuit of nothing more ennobling than raw self-perpetuation, the propaganda machinery of the warfare state—along with its media affiliates such as the War Channel (CNN) and the War Press (The Washington Post)—have over recent decades churned out a stream of vastly exaggerated “threats,” falsely transforming tin-pot dictators and tyrants like Ho Chi Minh, Daniel Ortega, Slobodan Milosevic, the Taliban, Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, and now Bashar al-Assad into dangerous enemies. At length, triggering incidents are concocted such as the phony Gulf of Tonkin episode, the Madison Avenue–based fabrications about Iraqi soldiers stealing babies from incubators in Kuwait, the vastly exaggerated claims of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and Saddam’s reputed WMDs. Eventually, the drumbeat for military intervention is cranked to a fever pitch, and cable TV drives it home with nonstop telestrators and talking heads. Only after the fact, when billions in taxpayer resources have been squandered and thousands of American servicemen have been killed and maimed, do we learn that it was all a mistake, that the collateral destruction vastly exceeded the ostensible threat, and that there remains not a trace of long-term-security benefit to the American people.
Setting aside the self-evident catastrophes in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, even the alleged “good” interventions are simply not what they are cracked up to be by warfare state apologists. The 1991 Persian Gulf War, for instance, insured only that Saddam Hussein would not get the oil field revenues from what he claimed to be Iraq’s “19th province” so that he could fund projects to placate his 30 million deprived, abused, and restless citizens. Instead, the loot was retained for the benefit of the despicable Emir Al-Sabah IV and a few hundred gluttonous Kuwaiti princes.
Yet in the long run, “saving” the Kuwaiti regime and its unspeakably decadent opulence did not lower the world price of oil by a dime (Iraq would have produced every barrel it could). And it most surely subtracted from national security because it resulted in the permanent basing of 10,000 U.S. troops on Saudi soil. This utterly stupid and unnecessary provocation was the very proof that “infidels” were occupying Islamic holy lands—the principal leitmotif used by Osama bin Laden to recruit a few hundred fanatical jihadists and pull off the flukish scheme that became 9/11.
Likewise, the “triumph” of Kosovo is pure grist from the national security propaganda mill. The true essence of the episode was a mere swap-out among the ethnic cleansers: the brutal Serbian Army was expelled from Kosovo so that the Albanian thugs of the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army, which was on the terrorist list until it was mysteriously dropped in 1998) could liquidate minority Serbs and confiscate their property—a tragic routine that has been going on in the Balkans for centuries.
The recurrent phony narratives that generate these war-drum campaigns and then rationalize their disastrous aftermaths are rooted in a common structural cause: a vastly bloated war machine and national spying apparatus, the Imperial Presidency, and the house-trained lap-dogs that occupy the congressional intelligence, foreign affairs, and defense committees. This triangle of deception keeps the American public bamboozled with superficial propaganda and the media supplied with short bursts of reality TV when the Tomahawks are periodically let fly.
But it is the backbone of the permanent warfare-state bureaucracy that keeps the gambit going. Presidents come and go, but it is now obvious that virtually any ideological script—left or right—can be co-opted into service of the Imperium. The Obama White House’s preposterous drive to intervene in the Syrian tinderbox with its inherent potential for fractures and blowback across the entire Middle East is being ramrodded by the dogma of “responsibility to protect.” In that context, its chief protagonists—Susan Rice and Samantha Power—are the moral equivalent of Bush’s neocon hit men, Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz. In both cases, ideological agendas that have absolutely nothing to do with the safety of the American people were enabled to activate the awful violence of the American war machine mainly because it was there, marching in place waiting for an assignment.
And that truth encapsulates the inflection point now upon us. There should be no $650 billion war machine with carrier battle groups and cruise missile batteries at the ready to tempt presidents to heed the advice of ideological fanatics like Power and Wolfowitz. The cold war ended 25 years back, and like in 1919 and 1946 the American war machine should have been drastically demobilized and dismantled long ago; it should be funded at under $300 billion, not over $600 billion. The five destroyers today menacing the coast of Syria should have been mothballed, if not consigned to the scrap yard. No president need have worried about choosing sides among ethnic cleansers in Kosovo or Islamic sectarians in Syria because his available tool kit would have been to call for a peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, not a Tomahawk strike from warships in the eastern Mediterranean.
In this context, Barack Obama may yet earn his Nobel Peace Prize, owing to the Syria debate he has now unleashed. It will finally show that there is no threat to America’s security lurking behind the curtain in the Middle East—only a cacophony of internal religious, ethnic, tribal, and nationalist conflicts that will eventually burn themselves out. Rather than the “new caliphate” of Fox News’s demented imagination, the truth on the ground is that the Islamic world is enmeshed in a vicious conflict pitting the Shia axis of Iran, Syria, southern Iraq, and the Hezbollah-Lebanon corridor against the surrounding Sunni circle, which is nominally aligned with the Syrian rebels. Yet even the Sunni world is noisily fracturing, with Turkey and Qatar lined up with the Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states aligned with the Egyptian generals. Meanwhile, Jordan cowers in the shadows.
The cowardly hypocrisy of the Arab League should tell the congressional rank-and-file all they need to know about why we should stay out of Syria and shut down the CIA-sponsored rebel training camp in Jordan through which Saudi arms, including chemical weapons according to some reports, are being interjected into the slaughter in Syria. If the Assad regime is truly an existential threat to regional peace and stability, let Saudi Arabia and Turkey take it out. After all, during the last several decades they have received a combined $100 billion in advanced aircraft, missiles, electronic warfare gear, and other weaponry from American arms merchants financed by the U.S. government.
Needless to say, the spineless Arab League/Saudi potentates who are now demanding “deterrence” never intend to do the job themselves, preferring to stealthily hold the coats of American mercenary forces instead. The truth is that at the end of the day, they find the threat of Iranian retaliation far more compelling than ending Assad’s brutality or building a pipeline through a prospective Sunni-controlled Syria to supply Qatar’s natural gas to European markets.
That leaves the need to dispatch the final and most insidious myth of the warfare state: namely, the lie that Iran is hell-bent on obtaining and using nuclear weapons. Even the CIA’s own intelligence estimates refute that hoary canard. And whatever the proper share of blame ascribable to each side for failed nuclear negotiations in the past, the Iranian people have once again freely elected a president who wishes to normalize relationships with the U.S. and its allies—notwithstanding the cruel and mindless suffering visited upon them by the West’s misbegotten economic “sanctions.” Indeed, if Obama had the wisdom and astuteness President Eisenhower demonstrated in going to Korea, he would be now headed for a peace conference table in Tehran, not the war room in the White House.
So let the sunshine in. Perhaps the unruly backbenchers on Capitol Hill will now learn that they have been sold out by their betters on the jurisdictional committees, such as knee-jerk hawks like Senators Feinstein and Menendez, who chair the key Senate committees, and Mike Rogers who chairs the House (alleged) Intelligence Committee. If they do, they will understand that the U.S. has no dog in the Middle East hunt, and that the wise course of action would be a thorough-going retreat and disengagement from the internecine conflicts of the Levant, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf, just as Ronald Reagan discovered after his nose was bloodied in Lebanon. But however the current debate specifically unfolds, the good news is that the world’s greatest deliberative body is now back in charge of American foreign policy. By longstanding historical demonstration, the U.S. Congress specializes in paralysis, indecision, and dysfunction. In the end, that is how the American warfare state will be finally brought to heel and why the American Imperium will come to an end—at last.
Today we now hearing the White House say fighting Syria is sending a message to Iran ? Grasping at straws and straw men ?
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said Sunday that an impending U.S. attack on Syria would send a message to Iranian leaders that they should not feel free to develop nuclear weapons.
“This is an opportunity to be bold with the Iranians,” McDonough said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
He said, “nobody is rebutting the intelligence; no one doubts the intelligence” that is the basis for President Barack Obama pinning the blame for an August 21 chemical weapons attack in Syria on President Bashar Assad's regime which is fighting to suppress a rebellion that began in 2011.
McDonough said Obama wants Congress to be “a full partner” in military action against Assad’s regime. Obama faces one of the crucial weeks of his presidency with the Senate headed for a vote as early as Wednesday to end debate on a measure authorizing an attack on Syria; the measure’s supporters need 60 votes to move it ahead to final passage.
McDonough said he hoped all members of Congress would look at videos of victims of a chemical weapons attack which the Obama administration showed earlier to a group of senators. The videos were obtained by NBC News on Saturday. NBC News has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of the videos.
McDonough’s appearance on Meet the Press and other Sunday talk shows was one part of an intense public offensive headed by Obama himself, including the president doing interviews Monday with six television networks and culminating in his speech to the nation Tuesday night.
Obama’s national security advisor Susan Rice will make a speech on Syria Monday at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank, and Vice President Joe Biden and other administration officials are continuing to call members of Congress to try to persuade them to vote for the resolution authorizing Obama to attack the Assad regime.
Reaction from members of Congress has ranged from endorsing an attack to wariness to fervent opposition.
The division on the issue hasn’t followed party lines.
One example of the divide: a member of Obama’s own party, Sen. Mark Pryor, of Arkansas, who is up for re-election next year, announced Saturday that he opposes an attack, while his Republican opponent, Rep. Tom Cotton, has said he strongly supports military action and wants to go even further and topple the Assad regime to achieve “an ultimate victory in Syria” with “a pro-Western, moderate native Syrian government” taking Assad’s place.
Pryor said Saturday that the Obama administration had to “prove a compelling national security interest, clearly define a mission that has a definitive end-state, and then build a true coalition of allies” that would take part in action against Assad. But “based on the information presented to me and the evidence I have gathered, I do not believe these criteria have been met, and I cannot support military action against Syria at this time,” Pryor said.
Obama said Friday, “it’s conceivable that at the end of the day I don’t persuade a majority of the American people that it's the right thing to do,” but he added that sometimes members of Congress must do what they think is right even if they go against their constituents’ wishes.
Obama has not explicitly said whether he might choose to launch an attack anyway even if Congress votes down a resolution authorizing him to attack Syria. He rebuffed reporters’ questions on that point in a press conference Friday at the meeting of G20 nations in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Obama has repeatedly emphasized that he would order a limited military attack on targets in Syria, and wouldn’t dispatch American troops to that country. He said Friday that he wants “a response that is limited…both in time and in scope,” but also one “that is meaningful and that degrades Assad's capacity to deliver chemical weapons not just this time, but also in the future, and serves as a strong deterrent.”
He acknowledged that it is possible that Assad might use chemical weapons again and “more widely” after a U.S. military strike but “it wouldn’t be wise.”
Secretary of State John Kerry stressed in his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that if Assad “were foolish enough to do it again,” the U.S. military “does have follow-on possibilities.” He added that “with respect to chemical weapons, it would be a huge mistake” for Congress “to deprive (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) General Dempsey and company of their options to enforce what we're trying to achieve.”
EDITORS’ NOTE:This article has been updated since its initial publication.
Can a possibly war-bound U.S.A. survive the unbearable lightness of being Obama? As Americans weigh potential military intervention in Syria, the true grit of our GIs is unquestioned. But their hesitant and erratic commander-in-chief renders worrisome the notion of attacking Damascus.
On Wednesday, for instance, Obama told journalists in Stockholm, “I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line.”
This is the Bart Simpson defense. Regardless of responsibility, just say, “I didn’t do it!”
In fact, on August 20, 2012, Obama declared in the White House Press Room: “We have been very clear to the Assad regime — but also to other players on the ground — that a red line for us is, we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”
As NRO’s Charles C. W. Cooke brilliantly documents today, the White House on April 25 decided to “reaffirm that the president has set a clear red line as it relates to the United States that the use of chemical weapons or the transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups is a red line that is not acceptable to us.” On May 6, Jay Carney, Obama’s official spokesman, said: “The president’s use of the term ‘red line’ was deliberate.”
Obama installed the tripwire for war with Syria. Now, on the brink of combat, he disowns it.
On August 30, Obama had an uncharacteristically bellicose Secretary of State John Kerry virtually announcethat “bombing begins in five minutes.” But one day later, Obama startled everyone — including many of his top appointees — when he virtually announced that “debating begins in five minutes.” Obama stated that he wanted Congress’s permission for a military strike. No rush! Rather than summon lawmakers to Washington, Obama let Congress’s summer vacation roar on.
Still, Obama could have finished his Rose Garden speech, returned to the Oval Office, rolled up his sleeves, and spent the rest of August 31 ringing the ranking members and chairmen of Congress’s committees. An official photo of Obama urging their support would have signaled his single-mindedness and steely resolve.
Instead, soon after his remarks, Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden headed straight to Fort Belvoir for a round of golf — the 141st of Obama’s reign.
Such unseriousness seems to be the Obama Doctrine’s active ingredient. Consider:
• After just 19 days on duty, United Nations ambassador Samantha Power wasAWOL during an August 21 U.N. Security Council emergency meeting on Syria. State Department spinmeisters pirouetted like ballerinas rather than disclose her location.
• Obama last June 13 authorized the CIA to provide arms to the Free Syrian Army. “As of right now, they haven’t received one weapon from the United States,” Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.) lamented this week. “Reports are that the United States has constrained other countries from giving them the kinds of things they need.” (In a bipartisan display of immaturity, McCain got caught playing video poker on his iPhone during Tuesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Syria.)
• Last September, Obama met with precisely zero heads of state at the U.N. General Assembly, including Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who virtually begged to sit down with his American counterpart. However, Obama did find time to be “eye candy” (in Whoopi Goldberg’s words) on The View.
• Obama’s body language is the most interesting thing about the world-famous photo of him and his team in the Situation Room during the May 1, 2011, raid that liquidated Osama bin Laden. Obama is not surrounded by his advisers, nor does he preside over the action. Rather, he sits in the back corner, on the sidelines, seemingly in charge of nothing at all.
• But it got worse. As Obama’s former aide Reggie Love revealed at a UCLA forum: “Most people were like down in the Situation Room and [the president] was like, ‘I’m not going to be down there, I can’t watch this entire thing,’” Love said July 18. “So,” Love continued, referring to Obama, himself, and two other staffers, “we must have played 15 hands, 15 games of spades.”
That’s right. As Seal Team Six intrepidly descended on the man who unleashed the September 11, 2001, slaughter, their commander-in-chief played cards.
The lack of consistency and coherence is maddening..... consider this from yesterday as just one example - will there be boots on the ground or not ?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/09/07/weekly-address-calling-limited-military-action-syria ( no boots on the ground , right ? )
Remarks of President Barack Obama Weekly Address The White House September 7, 2013
Almost three weeks ago in Syria, more than 1,000 innocent people – including hundreds of children – were murdered in the worst chemical weapons attack of the 21st century. And the United States has presented a powerful case to the world that the Syrian government was responsible for this horrific attack on its own people.
This was not only a direct attack on human dignity; it is a serious threat to our national security. There’s a reason governments representing 98 percent of the world’s people have agreed to ban the use of chemical weapons. Not only because they cause death and destruction in the most indiscriminate and inhumane way possible – but because they can also fall into the hands of terrorist groups who wish to do us harm.
That’s why, last weekend, I announced that, as Commander in Chief, I decided that the United States should take military action against the Syrian regime. This is not a decision I made lightly. Deciding to use military force is the most solemn decision we can make as a nation.
As the leader of the world’s oldest Constitutional democracy, I also know that our country will be stronger if we act together, and our actions will be more effective. That’s why I asked Members of Congress to debate this issue and vote on authorizing the use of force.
What we’re talking about is not an open-ended intervention. This would not be another Iraq or Afghanistan. There would be no American boots on the ground. Any action we take would be limited, both in time and scope – designed to deter the Syrian government from gassing its own people again and degrade its ability to do so.
I know that the American people are weary after a decade of war, even as the war in Iraq has ended, and the war in Afghanistan is winding down. That’s why we’re not putting our troops in the middle of somebody else’s war.
But we are the United States of America. We cannot turn a blind eye to images like the ones we’ve seen out of Syria. Failing to respond to this outrageous attack would increase the risk that chemical weapons could be used again; that they would fall into the hands of terrorists who might use them against us, and it would send a horrible signal to other nations that there would be no consequences for their use of these weapons. All of which would pose a serious threat to our national security.
That’s why we can’t ignore chemical weapons attacks like this one – even if they happen halfway around the world. And that’s why I call on Members of Congress, from both parties, to come together and stand up for the kind of world we want to live in; the kind of world we want to leave our children and future generations.
Thank you.
Except than you read this later.......
http://rt.com/news/syria-crisis-live-updates-047/
( What gives - this sounds like boots on the ground - dithering on the same day ? )
11:20 GMT: President Obama said that a small military force may be needed in Syria after all, to deter future chemical weapons attacks – according to Reuters. Although he said on his weekly radio and internet address that a protracted conflict like “Iraq or Afghanistan” is not something he wants.
Obama talks to much - then from time to time as to walk back from his own words ( like last week's red line head scratcher in Sweden ! ) But he can't stop talking....
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama will give interviews on Monday to the three network news anchors, as well as to anchors from PBS, CNN, and Fox, more evidence of a "full court press" strategy ahead of pivotal congressional votes on military strikes in Syria.
( More talking and pushing his view, but does he listen ? Ever ? )
President Barack Obama says he will address the nation about Syria on Tuesday as he seeks public and congressional authority for military action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Obama wants to strike against the Syrian regime in response to a chemical attack on civilians last month that the Obama administration says was carried out by Assad’s military. Obama says failing to chemical weapons use would , quote, “send a signal to rogue nations.”
The question will be, of course, whether this will do any good at all. An Oval Office speech (or perhaps East Wing, but the Oval Office is the obvious choice) has great emotional impact, but then again, so does committing an act of war against a nation that hasn’t attacked us. Obama said in his presser that he knew the argument would be a “heavy lift,” but the polling shows a broad consensus in opposition to another American military adventure in the Middle East, perhaps especially one that has already demonstrated the kind of mission creep most Americans would fear.
What Obama hopes to get out of this speech may not be a big change in the electorate, but political cover for fellow Democrats who are publicly expressing skepticism over the authorization. That skepticism is being oversold as opposition when it’s really more a way to sell a later change as reluctant and necessary. Having the President ask for authorization is the one event in which those soft nays will become reluctant ayes. Watch for the whip counts to swing dramatically afterward — because if they don’t, this will become a de facto vote of no confidence in the Commander in Chief even among his own party.
Where there is a division has to do with the United Nations. You know, there are a number of countries that, just as a matter of principle, believe that if military action is to be taken, it needs to go through the U.N. Security Council. There are others — and I put myself in this camp, as somebody who is a strong supporter of the United Nations — who very much appreciates the courage of the investigators who have gone in and looks forward to seeing the U.N. report, because I think we should try to get more information, not less, in this situation — it is my view and a view that was shared by a number of people in the room that given Security Council paralysis on this issue, if we are serious about upholding a ban on chemical weapons use, then an international response is required, and that will not come through Security Council action.
And that’s where I think the division comes from. And I respect those who are concerned about setting precedence of action outside of a U.N. Security Council resolution. You know, I would greatly prefer working through multilateral channels and through the United Nations to get this done.
But ultimately, what I believe in even more deeply because I think that the security of the world, and my particular task, looking our for the national security of the United States, requires that when there’s a breach this brazen of a norm this important, and the international community is paralyzed and frozen and doesn’t act, then that norm begins to unravel. And if that norm unravels, then other norms and prohibitions start unraveling, and that makes for a more dangerous world, and that then requires even more difficult choices and more difficult responses in the future.
If that’s true, then why not force the UNSC to reject Obama and expose that paralysis? Why let Russia (and China, too) off the hook? George Bush did that much even though he had justification with twelve years of violations to the 1991 cease-fire and the genocidal acts of Saddam Hussein against both the Shi’ites and the Marsh Arabs. Politicians like Obama pilloried him as a cowboy unilateralist for moving forward after that with a coalition that was much larger than what Obama has right now, which consists of France and a handful of cheerleaders in the cheap seats.
Asking a serious question - has any considered the thinking of our close Ally the UK - why did their Parliament decide NO , while understanding a NO vote would present a black eye to their PM ( similar to the looming black eye President Obama faces ) ? Consider these items - a thoughtful letter from a Tory MP and two articles examining whether the proposed limited attacks would change anything meaningfully :
Dear Congressman, As a member of the Congress of the world’s leading power you will wish by your vote on Syria to uphold your country’s proud tradition of world democratic leadership.
Democrats usually wish to support their president, but understand that true support might mean giving him honest advice if military action could be both wrong and unsuccessful.
Republicans will know that this is a too big an issue to make party political. They will want to weigh the evidence and give the right advice to the man who is their commander in chief too.
When we in the UK Parliament came to speak on Syria, we did not wish to turn our backs on the world. We, like you, are far from being an assembly of isolationists or appeasers, as our national record shows.
Those of us who made the difficult decision not to back our Prime Minister and spoke against the use of force did so because we could not see how a limited powerful strike could make the position better.
We asked who the strike would kill? We asked which installations and buildings in general terms it would seek to destroy.
There was no consistent and convincing answer. We asked how a limited 'punishment’ strike could change the regime’s mind and ensure no future atrocities. Assad has a formidable arsenal. Limited missile raids could only destroy part of the regime’s military machine. It would still be left to those fighting on the ground against the Syrian government to seek to overturn it. Without boots on the ground and a long campaign, the West cannot be sure he will be displaced.
Given the very disparate forces pitched against Assad, no one can be sure if an alternative government would be better for most Syrians and the West, depending on which of the opposition forces gained power.
Sending even very smart missiles from a distance always runs the risk of killing those we wish no harm. The regime could use human shields to embarrass the West. It would be a tragedy if well-intentioned Western action led to more deaths of the very people we wish to protect.
You, like MPs, are representatives, not delegates. You are sent to Washington to exercise your judgment and satisfy your conscience.
You will also, like us, wish to take into account the views of those you represent. Opinion in the USA like the UK is skeptical about the value and wisdom of missile strikes against Syria. We need to ask if voters have good reason for skepticism. We need to learn lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Our voters are proud of our Armed Forces. We admire their fortitude and skill, shown in recent conflicts. We do believe they have striven to make the Middle East a better place. We also need to acknowledge that even where we have sent in substantial ground forces it has been a long and difficult task to help impose a rule of law and to assist a democratic government to flourish. Neither your president nor our Prime Minister has proposed trying this again in Syria. They have wisely decided we cannot do it against such a well armed opponent with so many strong regional forces involved.
We in the UK Parliament decided that if our leaders rightly think the full job is impossible, a limited bombing campaign is neither wise nor likely to be successful.
It is because I am a true friend of the USA and because I wish the leader of the free world success in all his overseas adventures, that I urge you to warn against a 'punishment strike’.
( How could a limited attack change momentum on the battlefield - and should we do that for largely islamist radical mercenaries linked to Al Qaeda ? )
The two-year-old uprising against the Damascus regime has broken down into countless battlefields fought over by a “vast array” of different rebel groups.
Rebel fighters may be able to make local gains behind a barrage of missile strikes, but are unlikely to overthrow Assad’s government.
The analysis from IHS Jane’s, a defence consultancy, comes as American military planners have been told to widen a list of potential targets for a more ambitious campaign of strikes.
President Barack Obama is now considering using long-range bombers to hit Assad’s forces harder and ensure they are unable to launch more chemical weapons attacks like the one that killed up to 1,400 people in an east Damascus suburb.
Charles Lister, author of the analysis, said: “The Syrian conflict has seen a vast array of armed groups emerge across the country.
“While it is perfectly feasible that localised insurgent groupings could take advantage of strikes that target government air assets and key artillery positions, it is unlikely that this will lead to a nationwide surge in opposition victories and any perceivable imminent overthrow of the government.”
The US has five guided-missile destroyers and at least one submarine in the eastern Mediterranean, each loaded with cruise missiles.
Planners are also considering bombing strikes from B52s or B2 stealth jets based in the US, which would be able to jam or evade Syria’s air defences.
A hit list being drawn up in Washington is reported to exceed more than 50 possible targets in Syria.
Top of the list are branches of the government’s secretive research centre where the regime is believed to develop chemical and biological weapons. There are laboratories in Damascus, Homs, Latika and Hama. Missiles will also hit the units thought to have fired chemical weapons.
Stockpiles of the weapons, which include mustard gas and sarin, will be avoided because of the risk of deadly leaks into civilian areas or of jihadist rebels stealing shells from shattered bunkers.
Other targets include command centres of the Syrian army, defence ministry, and intelligence agencies in Damascus.
Mr Obama may also add airfields to the list, said Jeremy Binnie, also of IHS Jane’s. He said: “Some US politicians appear to want the strike to be aimed at more conclusively degrading the capabilities of the Syrian military, thereby swinging the balance of power in favour of the insurgents. In these circumstances, airbases would be a likely target.” Smashing runways at key airbases including Tiyas, Dumayr and Mezzeh would ground Syria’s fast jets and stop planes bringing supplies from Iran.
More effective could be destroying the Russian-made helicopter gunships used to attack rebels, or the transport helicopters supplying bases.
One of Syria’s Russian-built Scud launchers
America is also likely to target mobile artillery, including Syria’s fleet of around 50 Russian-built Scud missile launchers (above). Dozens were reported to have been seen on the move last week from Qalamoun, near Damascus, to unknown locations. The missiles they carry, mostly manufactured in Syria, have a maximum range of 200 miles. Rebels also want attacks on the government’s elite forces, commanded by Assad’s younger brother, Maher.
Maher has been accused of authorising the August 21 gas attack on the Ghouta suburb of Damascus and his 4th Armoured Division and Republican Guard form the core of the security forces. The division of up to 25,000 soldiers is well trained and equipped, and is responsible for security around the capital. It is fanatically loyal to the Assad family.
US commanders have said the delay as Congress debates attacks has given them more time to find targets.
It may have given them time to track the mobile launchers used to fire Scud missiles. Destroying these would help prevent an attack on Turkey, Jordan, Israel or even Cyprus.
But the pause has also given Assad time to prepare for any onslaught by hiding troops and equipment.
Opposition groups warn he has moved equipment to civilian neighbourhoods and placed prisoners in military sites as human shields.
Michael Stephens, a research analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in Doha, said: “Assad has been moving a lot of things around recently. We have seen a lot of troop movements in central Damascus, particularly into civilian areas.”
If the strikes are successful, they could bring Assad to the negotiating table, US officials believe. Samantha Power, US ambassador to the United Nations, said: “This operation combined with ongoing efforts to upgrade the military capabilities of the moderate opposition should reduce the regime’s faith that they can kill their way to victory.”
Dr Alan George, of St Antony’s College, Oxford, said the Assad regime was not interested in a peace deal.
He said: “Assuming they really are narrowly focused, the strikes will not alter the fundamental balance of power between the regime and its opponents.”
For the rebels, the attack will be too little, too late; a strike so long delayed that it will destroy only empty buildings and broken warplanes.
For the government and its troops, it would be a petulant volley of Western frustration, born of the lies America has told the world about Assad's responsibility for firing chemical weapons and of its determination to overthrow him.
The soldiers I meet on the front lines are defiant. "When they send their rockets we'll shoot them out of the sky," says one grizzled fighter, raising his battered Kalashnikov rifle in the air. When I ask them what weapons they have to take down the cruise missiles likely to be fired, they assure me they have secret weapons that will do the job.
For all the bravado, soldiers and citizens of the capital are watching events with growing concern. There are reports that a military radar system has been dismantled at Damascus International Airport; that missiles, tanks and aircraft have already been hidden; that Intelligence and Defence buildings have been emptied of vital computers. The Information Ministry has a new satellite television set-up in case the State Broadcasting building is attacked.
On Mount Qassioun, the hilltop overlooking Damascus, there are few soldiers to be seen, which is odd, because it is the site of huge military bases and of the artillery positions that have pounded suburbs like Daraya and Ghouta, where hundreds died in the chemical weapons attack.
One army commander trained in missiles at Mount Qassioun's base told me the Americans might hit the mountain but the soldiers and the key equipment would be deep inside; the cruise missiles would not penetrate.
Around the swimming pools of the rich areas of Damascus, the middle class and business leaders, or at least those of them who haven't chosen to flee, predict the unintended consequences of an American raid. If it destroys enough of the planes, airfields, helicopters and equipment that has given Assad a clear military advantage over the rebels, they say, America might give al-Qaeda linked groups the opening they need to push on to the capital and take down the whole regime. Many Christians and Sunnis, as well as Assad's key Alawite supporters, are concerned that the secular Syria they remember may be destroyed by an Islamist offensive on the back of American missiles.
But most believe the American strike will achieve little. Command buildings may be struck but the commanders are unlikely to be inside. It has been a week since I heard a MiG warplane fly over the capital, once a regular sound. No-one imagines they're still on the runways. As one rebel put it "the Americans will scratch the surface, hit five per cent of the regime's power and save face. That won't save us from another attack."
Meanwhile, the street fighting and the killing goes on. In Tadamon, a southern suburb of Damascus, I watched intense gun battles, bullets taking chunks off a mosque underneath pro-Assad fighters who've made 400 yards of progress against rebels in a year. One of the fighters is Abu Issa, 70, dressed in full camouflage. On a street strewn with bullet casings and stinking of rotting animals, he fires volleys of shots at the rebel positions just 50 yards away and breathes deeply as he walks back towards me. "I fought the Israelis in '67 and '73," he says proudly. "The Americans can shoot their missiles but they'll get nowhere. Our real enemy is over there, on the ground - al-Qaeda!"
An educated young commander, his English good, is genuinely puzzled. "How can it be", he asks me, "that America is going to fight us, on the side of al-Qaeda? How can America be against a secular country and for Islamists who kill their prisoners and dump their bodies in a well?"
At the end of the day , simply ask - do we want the US armed forces to devolve into paid mercenaries serving the conflicting interests of the GCC nations ? In this case , we have to consider the conflicting interests of Qatar and the Saudis over a pipeline ( Qatar wants the pipeline to service Europe , Saudis position is no to the pipeline ) , which brings Russia into play as the pipeline impacts upon their own strategic interests. Even if Assad falls , there will be a second battle royal not just between Al Qaeda islamists and so called moderates with no real strongmen to back them up ( other than Team USA ) , but between Qatar and Saudis for a government who will side with either the Qatar view or the Saudi view on the pipeline . And don't be surprised if Russia and Saudis mend fences due to a common desire to stop said pipeline , despite any harsh disagreement between the two countries in the run up to major fighting in Syria - this is business , nothing personal.... And then ask what does the US , as mercenaries achieve and obtain here ???
Syria – Cui bono Part 2 – Qatar, Saudi, Russia and Gas
Our leaders would like you to believe that what is going on in Syria is simple – a bad man has gassed innocent victims and it is up to good people to punish him (take out his air defenses), prevent him from ever doing it again (regime change) and serve notice to other bad men (Iran) that doing really bad things (to be defined as and when) to people we like is verboten. In Simple World, the emphasis is on ‘what happened’. As if why things happen is unimportant or too obvious to be concerned about. It’s ‘watch the birdie’ politics. Please look right here – only here. Something pops out, you’re surprised, there’s a flash and we all enjoy the memories.
Or you can ask ‘Why?’ But asking ‘why’ confuses the simplicity.
A Partial analysis
Some of the questions I think any analysis of what is going on in Syria has to answer: Why is France so keen to get involved in Syria? Why are both Qatar and Saudi supplying and supporting the ‘rebels’ in Syria? Given that the ‘rebels’ which both Qatar and Saudi are funding are largely Jabhat al- Nusra who are seen as affilated with al-Qaeda, why are the US and the West happy to allow this?
My analysis involves Qatar, Saudi and gas.
Qatar
Qatar and Saudi are rivals. Saudi is the old hegemonic Arab power allied to the West’s old hegemonic power, the USA. Qatar is a rising power, thoroughly fed up with being held down, as they see it, by Saudi. I first wrote about their rivalry in Qatar’s rising importance and power, back in Feb. 2011, in which I pointed out that while both Qatar and Saudi are Wahabi and ’Wahabism’ is considered a very orthodox strand of Islam, Qatar, by comparison to Saudi is quite moderate, even liberal in a limited sense. For example Qatar funds Al Jezeera. Al Jezeera is much freer ro report on Arab affairs than any Middle Eastern state broadcaster, except that it refrains from reporting negatively on any Qatari affairs. The very existence of Al Jazeera tells you that Qatar is looking outwards and wishes to project political influence abroad.
Gas
The root of their rivalry is economic. Saudi is oil. Qatar is gas. For some time Qatar has wanted to be able to expand its gas supply to Europe, for which it needs a pipeline. In 2009 Qatar proposed building a pipeline across Saudi to link in to the Nabucco pipeline which runs through Turkey into Europe. Qatar, already in 2009, the world’s largest exporter of LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) had just finished doubling its production capacity from the world’s largest gas field, North Field, and wished to export to Europe. Saudi said no.
That left Qatar looking towards the already existing Arab Pipeline which supplies Egyptian gas to Jordan, Lebanon and SYRIA.
Qatar suggested extending this pipe across Syria to Kilis in Turkey. In 2006 Syria had in fact signed an agreement and the Russian company Stroytransgaz had got the construction contract. Suggesting that in 2006 at least, the Russians were OK with Egyptian gas coming to Turkey. But in 2009 the agreement was annulled. I can’t help but wonder if Russia felt Egyptian gas to supply Turkey – which relies on gas imports – was one thing, but the prospect in 2009 of Qatar joining the party to export huge quantities of gas to Europe was quite another. Russia is the major supplier of gas to Europe and as Syria’s main protector in a position to tell Syria yes or no. I think Russia had a word with Assad and suddenly Qatar was again blocked.
Politics
Qatar can’t hope to change Saudi’s mind or its regime, but Syria? In 2009 perhaps that too seemed remote, but then along came the Arab Spring. And Qatar had not been idle. While Saudi has been visibly and publically cool to the popular calls for political change, greater freedoms and democracy, Qatar has been very busy placing itself as the champion of change. But not just any old change.
Qatar’s ties with the Muslim Brotherhood affect entire region
The alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar is becoming a noticeable factor in the reshaping of the Middle East. There are several striking aspects to this evolving and deepening relationship…There are strong indications of media help, political training and financial support.
The article details how Qatar has trained, promoted and funded numerous influential Muslim Brotherhood figures many of whom have been prominent in the Arab Spring’s calls for change in their own countries. It is worth noting that as a formal organization the Muslim Brotherhood does not exist in Qatar because the Qatar branch dissolved itself. It is thus very like Al Jazeera in that it is active in every other Muslim country but refrains from agitating in Qatar.
That Qatar’s growing regional influence is seen as a direct challenge to Saudi is clear in an article in Al Monitor, (which calls itself the Pulse of the Middle East),
Qatar’s role in Yemen can be likened to breathing air. Its effects are visible without it being palpable. Yet, it sometimes gains exceptional prominence such as when Qatar funded the establishment of a Yemeni television station affiliated with one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s factions in Yemen: the Yemen Youth Channel.
In keeping with Al Monitor’s political leanings towards the America and Saudi axis, the article warns,
…Qatar succeeded in penetrating Yemeni political affairs, disregarding all previously established rules of political action there, and giving itself the ability to greatly and dangerously affect Yemeni and Saudi affairs.
Qatar has been a major funder and supporter of The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) not only in Yemen but in all the uprisings across North Africa from Tunis, to Libya and Egypt. In Libya the Muslim Brotherhood was fairly small and not, at first, in the van of the revolution. But once Qatari money began to flow the MB’s influence has grown. Much to the concern of the US and Europe. In Egypt, Qatar has backed the Muslim Brotherhood from the start and was instrumental in their electoral organization and victory. A victory which did not please the Americans or the Saudis.
Qatar has helped make the Muslim Brotherhood a powerful force for change across the Arab world, which in return has given Qatar huge influence and real power to rival Saudi’s. Saudi has not been happy with that and the US has not been enrirely comfortable with the Muslim nature of the change envisioned by the MB. This, as the Al Monitor piece puts it, has led to,
…obvious differences in opinion it had with Riyadh concerning the current events in Egypt, which led to the Muslim Brotherhood’s overthrow.
An interesting sentence you have to admit.
The Arab Spring has been a gift to Qatar. As the Muslim Brotherhood has made its power felt in every uprising, so Qatar now has influence in every country. And unlike Saudi it is largely seen as a progressive power. Of course there is opposition to its power from those who say it is meddling. As Middle East Online reports, Anti Qatar groups have sprung up in most of the countries I have mentioned. I strongly suspect the US and Saudi have been frantically funding and building those anti-Qatar groups. They are still small but expect to hear more about them in our press. The legend being put about is, ‘Never Mind the Muslim Brotherhood connection, Qatar is too closely aligned with the US and Israel.’
Let’s now combine the politics with the gas. Qatar has worked to become a power in its region. Which is great, but Foreign Policy tends to need more immmediate and tangible goals, not just getting nice nation of the year award.
Gas and Politics
Libya has untapped gas reserves, possibly very large ones. Qatar was a financer of the uprising and of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt has gas and the Arab pipeline. Qatar was and is a major funder and supporter of the Egyptian MB. The Arab pipeline was built and supervised largely by Egyptian construction companies largely owned and controlled by the Egyptian army. In Egypt the real business of the army is business. It is Egypt’s largest and most powerful business conglomerate. Qatar would like the MB in power but also needs the friendship and cooperation of the army. It will be interesting to see what compromise can be reached. Qatar will surely be pushing for one, even as the US pushes against it.
So Qatar has now got major influence across its region, on the side of the vocal and ascendant forces for change and can offer those forces something valuable. Qatar is rich and has gas it wants to sell. Egypt would profit from helping Qatar to shift it. In fact anyone aligned with Qatar could profit.
Which brings us to Syria.
Assad, possibly with Russian persuasion has said ‘no’ to Qatar’s pipeline connection to Turkey and from there onwards to Europe. It’s easy to see why Russia would object. Russia’s Gazprom makes lots of money and Russia itself wields enormous power over Europe because so many European nations rely on its gas. I’ll come back to Europe and its gas needs in part three.
To make matters worse just after Assad’s government refused the Qatar/Turkey plan (which Turkey was very keen on), as The Guardian reported,
Assad pursued negotiations for an alternative $10 billion pipeline plan with Iran, across Iraq to Syria, that would also potentially allow Iran to supply gas to Europe from its South Pars field shared with Qatar. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the project was signed in July 2012 [My emphasis]
This was a deal almost designed to start a war. It scuppers Qatar’s hopes. So cue Qatari interest in removing Assad. The deal would give Iran a direct line to Europe to sell its own gas. Cue American anger at Iran (axis of Evil) getting a crowbar of energy needs between America and Europe which would torpedo America’s ‘isolate and destroy Iran’ policy. And finally, since the outlet for this ‘Islamic’ pipeline was supposed to be in Lebanon NOT Turkey, cue Turkey to split with Assad who until that time it had been supporting. So now you have Turkey agitating for war and for removing Assad.
If nothing were done about Assad, his Russian allies and their decision, Qatar would be stymied while Russia for its part would have ensured that any gas coming in to Europe, not belonging to them, was coming from one of its allies which also happens to be the major thorn in the side of America’s neo con hawks.
So time for a revolution. Which requires Assad to show his true evil..ness. Cue chemical attacks. As I said in part one it could be someone from Assad’s side using chemicals but it makes very little sense. Assad gains nothing and potentially loses everything.
Supporting Syria’s rebels
So what does all this mean for Syria? As far as I can see it means half a dozen countries have huge and conflicting financial and political interest in trying to make sure whoever is governing Syria in a year’s time is pro their particular needs. Whatever else, Simple World it is not.
Russia wants Assad to stay. Qatar would like him replaced with a pro-Qatar pipeline government. While Saudi doesn’t really like democratic rebels of any stripe, but if Assad does go, they do NOT want Qatar to run the show and thus are trying to ensure an anti pipeline government. I do not believe anyone is primarily moved by humanitarian interests, or particularly concerned with the fate of Syrian civilians, nor particularly outraged about the use of gas. None of the countries in the region shouted loudly when Iraq used gas.
Qatar was the first country to ‘champion’ the uprising and has been the major funder of rebel forces in Syria from the start. According to the FT quoted by Zerohedge,
The tiny gas-rich state of Qatar has spent as much as $3bn over the past two years supporting the rebellion in Syria, far exceeding any other government,…
Three billion dollars buys a lot of influence and can create quite a network of support. I think Saudi woke up to this idea a few months ago and recently started to buy its own influence. As the FT notes, Qatar
…is now being nudged aside by Saudi Arabia as the prime source of arms to rebels.
The Saudis will obviously want a post Assad government to be anti the Qatar pipeline. What is emerging in Syria is what we had in Lebanon – a boiling pot of conflicting and shifting allegeance. What we can be sure of is that in Syria the ‘rebels’ are not one group and not fighting shoulder to shoulder for the same outcome. We know already there are ordinary Syrians who have taken up arms, plus a large Muslim Brotherhood and then of course foreign Islamists radicals, the largest group of whom are known as Jabhat al-Nusrah which is affiliated with al-Qaeda.
A vivid example of the real nature of the West’s mythic ‘rebels’ was apparent in a story run by MintPress News a week ago, about who might have supplied the chemical weapons that killed so many people in the attacks last week.
“My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.
Abu Abdel-Moneim lives in Ghouta, so he is a Syrian. But who had supplied the weapons his son was asked to carry?
Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.” [My emphasis]
Now we have Saudi paid ‘rebels’ who are calling the shots because they are the ones who have the weapons. Are they all rebels together in one happy, peace seeking opposition?
“They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,” complained a female fighter named ‘K.’ “We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”
“When Saudi Prince Bandar [Saudi Arabia's Intelligence Chief] gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them,” she warned. She, like other Syrians, do not want to use their full names for fear of retribution.
A well-known rebel leader in Ghouta named ‘J’ agreed. “Jabhat al-Nusra militants do not cooperate with other rebels, except with fighting on the ground. They do not share secret information. They merely used some ordinary rebels to carry and operate this material,” he said.
“We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,” ‘J’ said.
Even if you chose to believe the story itself is fabricated I think the picture it paints of the real nature of the ‘rebels’ is accurate. The ‘rebels’ are divided against each other serving different paymasters intent on quite different outcomes. Regime change will rid Syria of one unpleasant man only to open the door for a whole group of similarly unpleasant men.
That is my partial analysis of the interests of Russia, Qatar and Saudi. In part three I will wrap it up by looking at what Europe, the USA and Israel hope to get out of Syria.
Remarks of President Barack Obama Weekly Address The White House September 7, 2013
Almost three weeks ago in Syria, more than 1,000 innocent people – including hundreds of children – were murdered in the worst chemical weapons attack of the 21st century. And the United States has presented a powerful case to the world that the Syrian government was responsible for this horrific attack on its own people.
This was not only a direct attack on human dignity; it is a serious threat to our national security. There’s a reason governments representing 98 percent of the world’s people have agreed to ban the use of chemical weapons. Not only because they cause death and destruction in the most indiscriminate and inhumane way possible – but because they can also fall into the hands of terrorist groups who wish to do us harm.
That’s why, last weekend, I announced that, as Commander in Chief, I decided that the United States should take military action against the Syrian regime. This is not a decision I made lightly. Deciding to use military force is the most solemn decision we can make as a nation.
As the leader of the world’s oldest Constitutional democracy, I also know that our country will be stronger if we act together, and our actions will be more effective. That’s why I asked Members of Congress to debate this issue and vote on authorizing the use of force.
What we’re talking about is not an open-ended intervention. This would not be another Iraq or Afghanistan. There would be no American boots on the ground. Any action we take would be limited, both in time and scope – designed to deter the Syrian government from gassing its own people again and degrade its ability to do so.
I know that the American people are weary after a decade of war, even as the war in Iraq has ended, and the war in Afghanistan is winding down. That’s why we’re not putting our troops in the middle of somebody else’s war.
But we are the United States of America. We cannot turn a blind eye to images like the ones we’ve seen out of Syria. Failing to respond to this outrageous attack would increase the risk that chemical weapons could be used again; that they would fall into the hands of terrorists who might use them against us, and it would send a horrible signal to other nations that there would be no consequences for their use of these weapons. All of which would pose a serious threat to our national security.
That’s why we can’t ignore chemical weapons attacks like this one – even if they happen halfway around the world. And that’s why I call on Members of Congress, from both parties, to come together and stand up for the kind of world we want to live in; the kind of world we want to leave our children and future generations.
Qatar suggested extending this pipe across Syria to Kilis in Turkey. In 2006 Syria had in fact signed an agreement and the Russian company Stroytransgaz had got the construction contract. Suggesting that in 2006 at least, the Russians were OK with Egyptian gas coming to Turkey. But in 2009 the agreement was annulled. I can’t help but wonder if Russia felt Egyptian gas to supply Turkey – which relies on gas imports – was one thing, but the prospect in 2009 of Qatar joining the party to export huge quantities of gas to Europe was quite another. Russia is the major supplier of gas to Europe and as Syria’s main protector in a position to tell Syria yes or no. I think Russia had a word with Assad and suddenly Qatar was again blocked.
One of Syria’s Russian-built Scud launchers
