Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Gaza Genocide preludes West's Final Battle against Islam | Alexander Dugin

What is your opinion on Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza? How long can Israel continue this war?
 
I believe we are now on the verge of a major war in West Asia, a clash between American hegemony and Islamic civilization. I cannot say what will happen in the future, but I can say that the Zionists really want to blow up the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This is the apocalyptic project of Zionism to create a Greater Israel. The destruction and genocide of Gaza is a preparation for the creation of a Greater Israel, thus ignoring the two-state solution, an idea that the Zionists cynically reject.
 
 » Trump is anti-Islam, pro-Israel, pro-Zionist, anti-Chinese and anti-Iranian. «
  
I do not believe that Israel's actions can be stopped only by protesting, boycotting and opposing it. The only way to stop and destroy the Zionist regime is for the Muslim population and the Islamic world in general to openly confront Israel. Because if the Islamic civilization does not pay attention to such genocide and closes its eyes to the destruction of the Al Aqsa Mosque, I think that would mean that the Islamic world is powerless before the rest of the world. I believe that the tragic events and genocide facing Gaza is the prelude or the first stage of a much larger war between Islam and the West. Such a war can only be won if all Muslims participate in it.
 

If you could say one more thing to our audience, what would it be?

All the events of the modern world are connected with eschatology. It is clear that the Russian Orthodox world considers modern Western civilization to be the incarnation of the Antichrist. This is in line with Ayatollah Khomeini's idea about the historical mission of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Furthermore, I believe that modern politics is a form of fossilized theology. Geopolitics is equally important. Only by bringing geopolitics and eschatology together can we understand the true meaning of current world events and changes. It is time to combine geopolitics with religion. 
 
This is exactly what contemporary Iranian ideology has been doing. I believe that we must stand together in this eschatological war. Russia and Iran, Russian Orthodox Christianity and Islam, share a similar geopolitical worldview where the West is identified with the Great Satan or the Dajjal, which represents a totally negative form of social and religious deviation. Putting all these elements together I believe that Russia and Iran are part of the same front and belong to the army of light that will fight against the army of darkness in the final battle.
 
 

Monday, February 19, 2024

By the Grace of God Victory belongs to the Ummah | Brig. Gen. Yahya Sare'e

Statement issued by the Yemeni Armed Forces: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. The Almighty says:  »Permission to fight is granted to those who are being fought, because they were wronged. And indeed, Allah is capable of granting them victory .« This is the truth of Allah Almighty. 
 
 
 » God is sufficient for us. « 

In support of the Palestinian people who are facing aggression and siege in the Gaza Strip up to this moment, and as part of the response to the American-British aggression on our country, the naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out - with the help of Allah Almighty - two specific military operations in which they targeted two American cargo ships in the Gulf of Aden, the first was “Sea Champion” and the other was “Navis Fortuna”. The targeting operation was carried out with a number of appropriate naval missiles, and the casualties were accurate and direct, thanks to Allah. The total number of armed forces operations during the past twenty-four hours reached four: The first targeted a British cargo ship and the operation resulted in its complete sinking, thanks to Allah. The second operation destroyed an American MQ9 Reaper drone in the airspace of Hodeidah Governorate, while the last two operations in the Gulf of Aden targeted the mentioned two American cargo ships also heading for Israel.
 

The Yemeni Armed Forces affirm their full right to take further military measures in the Red and Arab Bahrain in defense of our people, our country, and our
nation, and in confirmation of their position in support of the oppressed Palestinian people, and that their operations in the Red and Arab Bahrain will escalate and will not stop until the aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted.

God is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs, the best protector, and the best helper. Long live Yemen, free, dear and independent! Victory belongs to Yemen and to all the free people of the Ummah!

Military Spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces;
Sana'a, 9 Shaban, 1445 AH,
February 19, 2024. 
 
Kids covered in blood, crying and terrified, as they are rushed to hospital after making up many of the casualties from Israel's bombings of
Central Gaza last night. Injuries in Gaza now top 70,000 as death toll tops 30,000 - 14,000 of those children.
February 19, 2024. 

UN envoy Riyad Mansour breaks to tears at International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearing.
During an emotional address at the highest court of the United Nations, Palestinian diplomat Riyad Mansour appealed for the protection of children and the coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians. Riad Mansour urged the court to validate 
the illegality of Israel's presence in the occupied Palestinian territory.
February 19, 2024.

Friday, February 2, 2024

Don't Mess with Iran | Seyed Mohammad Marandi

Let's assume that the United States strikes Iran. The United States has bases all across the Persian Gulf. The Iranians will hit out at those bases. And then they will punish those countries that host those bases. What will happen? The price of oil and gas would go through the roof. If they do actually carry out an attack, Iran will respond immediately. Iran has a very powerful missile defense and extremely effective drone capability, and US bases across the region are vulnerable. 
 
The attacks that are taking place in Syria and Iraq show this. But the real reason right now, why the Americans are occupying Iraq and Syria? They say it's to contain Iran and to limit Iran's influence. But in reality, it's about taking away the sovereignty of countries and to strengthen the Israeli regime.

 »If the United States attacks Iran, we will see the demise of the American empire
take place much more rapidly than we're seeing right now.«

Therefore, their critical infrastructure, especially their oil and gas facilities, would be fair game. And that would lead to a global crisis. So that is why I don't think the Americans will actually move in that direction. But if they do, the consequences will be very severe. And the United States will definitely not win in such a conflict. It's more likely that the Americans will strike Iraq and Syria again, and they will claim some sort of victory over terrorists and that sort of nonsense, which they usually say. But it will be like in Yemen. They will have very little impact because the resistance to the US occupation, the illegal occupation in Iraq and Syria, is very well hidden. Their assets are underground. 
 
The Americans escalated in Yemen when the Yemeni armed forces and Saudi Arabia blockaded Israeli ports because of the ongoing genocide. Instead of pushing the Israeli regime to end the genocide, the Americans tried to facilitate the genocide by escalating with Yemen. They launched many missiles, wasted a lot of money, but they were incapable of changing the balance of power. Yemen continues to easily strike ships, and the Americans failed again. They made Ansar Allah or what the West likes to call the Houthis very popular across the region and across the world. And they'll only do the same in Iraq and Syria. 
 

The United States, by pursuing a policy of violence, a policy of hegemony, of imposing its hegemony and occupation, is only making things more difficult for itself. The Iraqi parliament passed a law saying that the Americans must leave, but they won't leave. What do they do instead? They keep the oil money in US bank accounts. And whenever the Iraqi government insists that the US must leave, they start putting pressure on Iraq through withholding their own money. And whenever anyone carries out resistance, they go and bomb Iraqi military bases. That is the arrogance that the United States shows towards the Iraqi people, and that is exactly why the people of Iraq and the people of the region are so hostile towards the United States. 
 
 » Since when has the United States won a war? Has the United States won in Iraq? Has it won in Afghanistan? 
Did it win in Libya or in Syria?  Did it win in the genocide that it supported in Yemen? Did it win in Ukraine? 
The United States is only capable of ruining lives and murdering millions. And they don't care. «

The United States has many bases across Syria. The resistance can kill lots of Americans, but at the moment they don't want to escalate. What they're doing is putting pressure on Americans so that they would end the genocide in Gaza. And they want the Americans to leave their country. The United States occupied one third of Syria, they're selling its oil, and they're stealing Syrian grain. They've sanctioned the Syrian people and they're stealing their oil and grain because they want to make the Syrian people suffer as much as possible in the hope that they will rise up and that the Syrian government would collapse. The brutality of the regimes in Washington and Europe, their terrorists and their military is unbelievable. In Gaza we're seeing their genocide right in front of our eyes. Watching people in Syria suffer because of the Americans stealing their oil and wheat is not so easy to put in a picture or in a small video clip. But it's just as destructive, as inhumane and barbaric. 
 
 38 million people have been displaced by the United States' post-9/11 wars
in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and the Philippines; 4.5 - 4.7 million have been killed.

All of US calculations across West Asia and North Africa are based upon the interests of the Israeli regime. The people across West Asia, North Africa, and now across the whole world, are disgusted about what they see in Gaza. The Americans and the Europeans destroyed their reputation through their unconditional support for the Israeli regime. 

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Sacred Defense │ Imam Ali Khamenei

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. All praise is due to God, Lord of the Worlds, and peace and greetings be upon our Master, Muhammad, and his pure, immaculate, chosen Progeny, particularly the Remnant of God on earth.
 
» All praise is due to God, Lord of the Worlds. «
Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2023.

If our succeeding generations learn about the important, meaningful aspects of the Sacred Defense and realize how the Iranian nation was able to reach the heights of victory and to stand up there with power and pride, they will learn great lessons from it and they will achieve great things.

Up until now, we have not been able to make known the details of this great, colorful painting. In every piece of it there is so much beauty, and so much meaning and depth that one is amazed. Each piece of it is like this, and this information must be made known to people.

 
Imam Ali Khamenei, January 04, 2024,
commenting on Israel's genocide in Gaza - the day after the terrorist attack in Kerman, Iran, 
killing at least 91 and injuring 284 people. CIA, Mossad and ISIS are actors of the same Zionist project.

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

War And Epochal Global Shift │ Pepe Escobar

  
Reshuffling the inner and the outer rim-lands of the world-island.
All of Halford Mackinder's geopolitical nightmares becoming tangible realities not only in Greater Eurasia
but across all lands still governed by the evaporating Western world order.
The petrodollar monetary system died just lately.

Brazilian geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar breaks down the epochal implications of the ongoing military conflicts in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine; he explains the roles and missions of Russia, Iran and China and their leaders; he discusses the rise of Greater Eurasia under the alliance of the three main Eurasian powers; he reports on the drastic and unexpected swift collapse of the Western world order, civilization and hegemony over West Asia due to the waning influence of US neocons as well as due to fundamental US economic, strategic, diplomatic and military failures during the past three decades. The West's former proxy rulers in the Muslim world are shaking in fear. The widely detested opportunists they are, they now all changed sides. 

» The divine providence and mission of Russian President Vladimir Putin as God's chosen instrument and second Dhu al-Qarnayn,
the just conqueror,  lawgiver and savior of the Christian orthodox world and the world of Islam.
«

Reference:
Pepe Escobar (Nov 26, 2023) - Gaza changes everything as Russia, China Confront Neocon Agenda for Middle East. (video)
Independent Islamic Republic (Dec 09, 2023) - Putin will establish the final world order for end times
- 2nd age of Dhul Qarnayn begins! (video)

Sunday, December 3, 2023

Russian War Goal In Western Asia | Independent Islamic Republic

Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei (born April 19, 1939) is an Iranian Twelver Shia marja' and politician who has been the second supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1989. He previously served as third president of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei is the longest-serving head of state in West Asia, as well as the second-longest-serving Iranian leader of the last century, after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
 

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born October 7, 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has been President of the Russian Federation since 2012. Putin has held continuous positions as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012, and as president from 2000 to 2008 and since 2012.
 

Benjamin Netanyahu (born October 21, 1949) is an Israeli politician who has been serving as the prime minister of the State of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. He is the chairman of the Likud party. Netanyahu is the longest-tenured prime minister in the country's history, having served for a total of over 16 years. He is also the first prime minister to have been born in the State of Israel after its Declaration of Independence.

Reference:
Independent Islamic Republic (Dec 03, 2023) - Russia's Support for Palestine: Putin's Foreign Policy Is WahhabiZio's Nightmare.

Friday, October 27, 2023

The Khomeini Revolution | Henry A. Kissinger

When, in 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in Paris and Iraq to claim the role of the revolution's "Supreme Leader," he did so in the name of an assault against the entire regional order and indeed the institutional arrangements of modernity. The doctrine that took root in Iran under Khomeini was unlike anything that had been practiced in the West since the religious wars of the pre-Westphalian era. It conceived of the state not as a legitimate entity in its own right but as a weapon of convenience in a broader religious struggle.
 
 Imam Ayatollah Seyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini
» The First Day of God's Government. «
 
The twentieth-century map of the Middle East, Khomeini announced, was a false and un-Islamic creation of "imperialists" and "tyrannical self-seeking rulers" who had "separated the various segments of the Islamic umma [community] from each other and artificially created separate nations." All contemporary political institutions in the Middle East and beyond were "illegitimate" because they "do not base themselves on divine law." Modern international relations based on procedural Westphalian principles rested on a false foundation because "the relations between nations should be based on spiritual grounds" and not on principles of national interest. In Khomeini's view - paralleling that of Qutb - an ideologically expansionist reading of the Quran pointed the way from these blasphemies and toward the creation of a genuinely legitimate world order. The first step would be the overthrow of all the governments in the Muslim world and their replacement by "an Islamic government." Traditional national loyalties would be overridden because "it is the duty of all of us to overthrow the taghut; i.e., the illegitimate political powers that now rule the entire Islamic world." The founding of a truly Islamic political system in Iran would mark, as Khomeini declared upon the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran on April 1, 1979, "the First Day of God's Government."
 
 
» I say frankly to the American statesmen, who are now managing the genocide in Palestine, they will not be spared from this fire . The entire land of Palestine, from the sea to the river, belongs only to the original Palestinians, 
including Christians, Jews and the Muslims. « 
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian during the emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly 
on the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas at UN headquarters in New York City, October 26, 2023. 

from a Sunni perspective by Shahid Bolsen, October 26, 2023.

Sunday, October 22, 2023

Why Netanyahu Thinks America Is Stupid | Marwan Bishara

» America can always afford forever wars. «
 Janet Yellen, Oct 16, 2023
»
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. «
Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

» America is a Golden Calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left but the world’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control. Why? Because it’s god’s will and America is big enough to take the hit so we can do it again, again and again. This is what we do to countries that we hate. We destroy them very slowly and make them suffer for refusing to be our slaves. «   

Benjamin Netanyahu, 1990

ooo0ooo
 
The United States has provided Israel with the military means and diplomatic cover it needs to defeat Hamas in Gaza, while devastating the livelihood of more than two million Palestinians, in what qualify as war crimes. The Biden administration has covered for Israel at the United Nations and lied about it. Its denial of having obstructed a mere statement by the UN Security Council (UNSC) calling for a ceasefire, makes it look foolish, disingenuous and weak. Washington has stood alone among the members of the council in its opposition to consensus on a ceasefire, not once, not twice, but three times in the past few days. The White House spokesperson insisted that the US is pursuing an "effective" approach of "quiet, intensive, diplomacy", but as it turns out, President Joe Biden has been merely buying Israel time to get on with "finishing the job" [...] One has to wonder if any of this is in the US national interest. The short answer is no.

Marwan Bishara, May 2021
 
 
Contemporary Persian folk music: Karbalai Hussein Tahiri - Haider Haider, 2021, 
 "tomorrow when Haider's voice will raise from Kaaba ... the flag of Shia'at is raised in the world 
— a wonderful song dedicated to truth and justiceKhomeini's legacy has become international ! "

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Beware When Fighting Monsters | Friedrich W. Nietzsche


» Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.
For when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. «
 
1886 
 
Netanyahu is obsessed with razing Gaza to the ground. If that happens, a wider regional war is nearly inevitable. Sections of the West applauding the upcoming ethnic cleansing – including Zionists posing as 'analysts' saying out loud that the "population transfers" that began in 1948 "must be completed" – believe that with massive weaponry and media coverage, they can turn things around in short shrift, annihilate the Palestinian resistance, and leave Hamas allies like Hezbollah and Iran weakened. Peace in West Asia means the US retreat from Syria and Iraq; Israel retreats from Syria; Syria reconstruction – in which China is now officially involved; active redevelopment for Iraq and Lebanon; Iran and Saudi Arabia as part of BRICS 11; the Russia-China strategic partnership fully respected and interacting with all regional players, including key US allies in the Persian Gulf. And, as Chinese President Xi Jinping diplomatically put it in December 2022, Beijing "firmly supports the establishment of an independent state of Palestine that enjoys full sovereignty based on 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital. China supports Palestine in becoming a full member of the United Nations." 
 

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a map of "The New Middle East" without Palestine
during his September 22, 2023 address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
 
See also:
 

Friday, September 15, 2023

Syria Warns the US: "Stop the Oil and Gas Robbery! Get Out Immediately!"

The United States tries to overthrow Syrian governments through different proxies like Israel and the Muslim Brotherhood since the 1970ies, and since 2011 through al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, more radical Jihadi terrorists and militias as well as through substantial US military forces inside of Syria. As a consequence more than half of Syria's population of 23 million is displaced from their homes, 5.5 million fled the country, and estimates of the total number of deaths, in what is framed as 'the Syrian civil war' by the West, vary between 603,064 and about 620,000 as of August 2023. 
 
On September 10, 2023 the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres and the President of the Security Council Ferit Hoxha, demanding that they put an end to aggressive practices and violations of the principles of international law and the provisions of the UN Charter, which are being committed by the United States of America and its military forces that are illegally present on one third of the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic - on more than sixty thousand square kilometers - in the northeast and in the Al-Tanf region in the southeast of the country (yellowish and light green on the map below)
 
The Ministry pointed out that the United States of America and its tools continue to violate sovereignty and plunder the country’s wealth and strategic resources, with the aim of exacerbating the effects of illegal unilateral coercive measures and depriving Syrians of the capabilities of their homeland and increasing their suffering. The Ministry added that the value of the damage caused to the Syrian oil and mineral wealth sector as a result of acts of aggression, looting and sabotage committed by the US forces and their terrorist tools amounted to a total of $ 115.2 billion during the period from 2011 until the end of the first half of the year 2023. The Ministry stated that the latest statistics and estimates of the losses of the oil sector in Syria show that the value of direct losses amounted to $ 27.5 billion, resulting from the following: The theft, waste and burning of extracted oil quantities estimated at 341 million barrels. The rate of theft was around 100-130 thousand barrels per day and recently reached 150 thousand barrels per day in addition to 59.9 million cubic meters of natural gas and 413 thousand tons of domestic gas. The value is $21.4 billion. Vandalism and theft of facilities, resulting in damages amounting to $ 3.2 billion. 
 
Dana Stroul, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, US-Department of Defense, October 2019:
"The US now owns one third of Syria, all of the hidrocarbons, and the country's food basket. The rest is rubble."

The so-called ‘international coalition’ bombed oil and gas facilities in Syria, with the amount of damage amounting to $2.9 billion. The Ministry continued that the indirect losses amount to $87.7 billion, which represents the value of the lost benefits (from crude oil, natural gas, and domestic gas) as a result of a decrease in production below the planned rates under normal working conditions. Syria demanded that American officials be held accountable for these thefts and that the American administration be forced to compensate for them, end the illegal presence of American forces, and return the lands it occupies, oil and gas fields and other natural resources to the Syrian state to ensure improving the humanitarian and living conditions of the Syrians.

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Unity and Source | Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Omnia in uno sunt, et in omnibus unum.
All things are in one, and in all one.
Athanasius Kircher (1663)
 
» Ultimate Reality is at once Absolute and Infinite, the source of all being, of all consciousness and of all life. Itself beyond form, it speaks to mankind through revealed forms which, while externally bound and limited, open up inwardly towards the Boundless. Through revelations of this Word or Logos come into being the sacred traditions which although outwardly different are inwardly united into a Center which transcends all forms. They are, however, the bridge from the periphery to the Center, from the relative to the Absolute, from the finite to the Infinite, from multiplicity to Unity. «

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Quoted from:
Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1976) - Ultimate Reality. 
Foreword to Keith Critchlow - Islamic Patterns. An Analytical and Cosmological Approach.

Sunday, May 6, 2018

Greater Eurasia | Russia’s New Energy Gamble

Bruno Maçães (Apr 2018) - In October 2017, Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin took the unusual step of presenting a geopolitical report on the “Ideals of Eurasian integration” to an audience in Verona, Italy. One of the maps projected on the screen during the presentation (HERE) showed the supercontinent—what Russian circles call “Greater Eurasia”—as divided between three main regions. For Sechin, the crucial division is not between Europe and Asia, but between regions of energy consumption and regions of energy production. The former are organized on the western and eastern edges of the supercontinent: Europe, including Turkey, and the Asia Pacific, including India. 


Between them we find three regions of energy production: Russia and the Arctic, the Caspian, and the Middle East. Interestingly, the map does not break these three regions apart, preferring to draw a delimitation line around all three. They are contiguous, thus forming a single bloc, at least from a purely geographic perspective. 


Sechin’s map has a number of other interesting elements. As noted already, Turkey is left on the European side of the line delimiting the energy production core in the west. The same is true for Ukraine, which although unavoidable in this context is still an unusual inclusion in a map sanctioned by the highest echelons of Russian state power. If one looks at the world through the prism of energy geopolitics, then Ukraine is a European country—a consumer, not a producer. 


[...] The map illustrates an important point about Russia’s new self-image. From the point of view of energy geopolitics, Europe and the Asia Pacific are perfectly equivalent, providing alternative sources of demand for energy resources. Russia has been struggling to abandon its traditional orientation toward Europe, hoping to benefit from the flexibility of being able to look both east and west to promote its interests. It seems that Sechin and Rosneft can place themselves in that position much more effortlessly. 


Sechin’s map subtly makes one final—and decisive—point. As you consider the three areas it delimits, it becomes apparent that two of them are already led and organized by a leading actor: Germany in the case of Europe and China for the Asia Pacific. Production chains within these highly industrial regions are increasingly managed by German or Chinese companies, which tend to reserve the higher value segments for themselves. Their spheres of influence extend to all important inputs, with one glaring exception: energy. In order to address this vulnerability, the two regions of energy consumption will be attracted to the core region, where they need to ensure ready and secure access to energy resources. And their efforts may well be made easier by the fact that the core region of energy production lacks a hegemon capable of ensuring its survival as an autonomous unit in the Eurasian system.


The very same day he delivered his speech on Eurasian geopolitics, Sechin announced that Rosneft would take control of Iraqi Kurdistan’s main oil pipeline, boosting its investment in the autonomous region to $3.5 billion, despite Baghdad’s military action sparked by a Kurdish vote for independence. The move helped shield Kurdistan from increasing pressure from Baghdad. Two weeks later, Sechin went on to sign a preliminary pact with the National Iranian Oil Company, the first step before a binding deal to participate in Iran’s oil and gas projects over the next few years, with investments totaling up to $30 billion and a production plateau of 55 million tons of oil per year.

Four Russian oil companies have even begun negotiating for opportunities in Syria, a venture driven as much by politics as by commercial interest. The aim is not to explore and extract Syria’s modest petroleum reserves, of course. By actively participating in rebuilding and operating Syrian oil and gas infrastructure, Russian energy companies will be in control of a critical transit route for Iranian and Qatari oil and gas heading to Europe, bringing two rival producers closer to its orbit and tightening its stranglehold on the European gas supply. In 2009, Qatar proposed to run a natural gas pipeline through Syria and Turkey to Europe. Instead, Al-Assad forged a pact with Iran to build a pipeline from the Persian Gulf and then through Iraq and Syria and under the Mediterranean. This project had to be postponed because of the war. When it is resumed, Russia will be in control.

It is in the very nature of the Eurasian system described by Sechin that the core energy production region—provided it is sufficiently united and organized—will benefit from its central position, being able to pick and choose between east and west in order to obtain the most favorable terms. Russia and the Middle East are now part of the same geopolitical unit. It took the Russian military intervention in Syria for the world to start to come to terms with this reality.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Energy War over Syria │ The Geopolitics of Oil and Gas Pipelines

Major Planned Pipelines - Enlarge
The war on Syria is only unclear at first sight. On closer inspection, it becomes clear that fighting between mercenaries and government forces takes place only where important pipelines are running or planned. 

Russia, the Western powers and the Gulf States are fighting for the best starting position for gas and oil supplies for the European market. France, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and the United States, in particular, are interfering in the distribution struggle without any reference to international law, while Russia's support to the legal Syrian government is fully in line with international law.  

Two of the most important oil markets are located in the Syrian cities of Manbij and al-Bab, both of which are located in the Aleppo province. These two cities are also the most important pipeline, the oil from Iraq - from Mosul and al-Qaim - transported to Syria as far as the province of Idlib

Territorial Control - Enlarge
The same Pipeline runs through the city of Aleppo to the oil market in Idlib. Whoever controls Manbid, has a great influence on the oil transport in Syria. The same applies to Aleppo, Idlib and al-Bab in the west of the country. In the east of the country the same oil transport line runs through Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. The oil that flows through this transport line comes from Mosul, via Sinjar to Deir Ezzor and a second strand from al-Qaim to Deir Ezzor. So far, Turkey has had no influence on the oil transport lines in the Syrian conflict. Through the capture of Manbidz, Turkey could assert its influence on the transport system in Syria. The current battle for Aleppo is called only from a basic decision-making battle: Aleppo is the last big city through which flows the country's most important transport line. Anyone who controls Aleppo controls the "key" of the pipeline. It is striking that the conflicts between the conflict parties take place, in particular, on the most important points of the transport lines: Raqqa, Deir Ezzor, Aleppo, Idlib, Manbidsch, Hasaka, al-Bukamal, Ain Issa and al-Bab. In Homs and Hama also violent battles take place. Previously, Palmyra was fiercely fought. These, in turn, are the areas through which the Qatar-Turkey pipeline is planned. The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline supported and planned by the Russians should also be run by Homs. That is why Homs from the Russian point of view cannot be controlled by the Islamic mercenaries. 

The fog of war and the realm of uncertainty:
Russian
and US Airstrikes -
Enlarge
From the map of the air strikes, it is clear that the US airspace mainly focuses on the East and the Russian air strikes, especially on the west of Syria. While the control of West Syria is important to the Russians to prevent pro-Western pipelines, it is important from the US point of view that the prospect of pro-Russian pipelines - like the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline - to prevent.

Another planned pipeline was originally to go from the Israeli Golan Heights via Damascus to Turkey. This pipeline would allow Israel to emerge as a gas supplier, provided the government is overthrown in Damascus. But Russia does not want any competitors in the gas market.

In connection with the pipeline routes, the planned "Kurdish corridor" is also critical. The Caucasus Strategic Research Center (KAFKASSAM) in Ankara reports: "The real objective of this corridor is to transport the Kurdish oil and gas from the Northern Iraq over Northern Syria to the Mediterranean by pipeline there. In addition, the US had planned to build another pipeline from the Persian Gulf to the Northern Iraq and from there via Northern Syria. Thus, both Iraq and Turkey should be brought to the West and especially to Europe on the energy market through both Turkey and Northern Syria. But the plan to found a Kurdish corridor fell into the water because the Russians intervened in Syria. Russia is opposed to this corridor because Europe is to be maintained as a customer of Russian energy carriers. Russia will under no circumstances give up its position on the European market." See also HERE + HERE + HERE + HERE


War as the continuation of politics and economic interest by other means.