Herbert Masslau

Syria - next target?

(April 21st, 2003 / proof correction April 30th, 2003)

 

After the US occupation of Iraq the next logical and necessary step to get total control of the oil region between the Red Sea and the Caspian Sea is to start war on Iran. This will be, and I have no doubts about this, in the year of the US presidential election, 2004. But beyond this there is some argument that before this happens to Iran Syria could be a military target [1], too.

Running war on Iraq for the USA beyond every other reasons was done because of the Iraqi oil. Sure, there are some problems that have to be solved first. For example, the United Nations „food for oil“ programme. The „food for oil“ programme at this time makes it impossible for the US government to sell Iraqi oil on the official oil markets. Therefore it is necessary to get the approval of the UN-Security Council, which means with the agreement of the veto members of the anti-war league: France, Russia and China.

This problem, I think, will be solved. The US government will respect some of the former interests, especially, those of Russia and France.

Now let us take a look on the geographical map of the Middle East.

First of all we find an old international oil pipeline (IPC) from Kirkuk in Iraq via Haditha (Iraq) and Palmyra (Syria) to Homs in Syria with junctions to Syrian and Lebanese ports.

The pipeline of the Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC) went online in 1934 [2] from the important Kirkuk oil field first to Tripoli and from 1952 to the Syrian major oil export terminal, the port of Banias     [3],[3a],[3b].

To handle the Iraqi oil for the USA means the need of a friendly government in Syria which will not raise problems to the US interests. According to the Herald Sun from April 21st, 2003, the USA already are planning permanent basis in Iraq, one „in the western desert alongside an oil pipeline“ [4]. I guess, that will be continued in Syria.

(The same would go for the in these days discussed idea of an oil pipeline from Mossul in Iraq to the port of Haifa in Israel because of the near Syrian border and the problems caused by the Israelian occupation of the Golan Heights and by Syria and Iran supported Hizbollah and their military activities against Israel.)

To understand the circumstances one has to know that Syria’s major oil customer is the European Union (EU),that under the major trading partners are the „no-to-war“ countries France and Germany (but also „yes“ countries like Italy and Spain) and that together with Royal Dutch/Shell the French ELF-Aquitaine is the major foreign oil company in Syria [3].

In 1997 Syria and the EU started negotiations about an association agreement. [3]

In 1998 Syria and Iraq made up a „memorandum of understanding“ on the reopening of the IPC, which was closed since 1982 and only partly used by Syria. [3] The IPC went ready in 2000, but only used by Syria because of the UN sanctions against Iraq. [3]

In 1999 Syria signed an agreement with Russia on the cooperation of the so-called civil use of nuclear power. [3]

So what is the conclusion from these facts? The same three major protagonists against the war on Iraq, two of them veto members of the UN, have major interests (oil interests) in Syria: France, Germany and Russia. To control a US-bound Syrian government could be attractive for the USA, because it would mean total control of the IPC to handle the Iraqi oil and, in addition, no trick for French, Russian and German interests without an yes from US government as it is now the case with Iraq.

And so it is no wonder that in the case of Syria the same game starts again like in the Iraqi case.

The threats against Syria from US officials that Syria is about to help refugees from the Saddam-Clan (Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on April 9th), that Syria has chemical weapons of mass destruction (President George W. Bush on April 13th), that Syria supports terrorism (Secretary of State Colin Powell on April 13th) remember at the pre-war time concerning Iraq. [5]

Who cares about these lies after a war? What results from the Iraqi case? Nothing but the fact that the government is no longer, that weapons of mass destruction have not be found until yet, most of all, that nearly no-one is interested in this subject any longer and that the only important interest of the „Siegermacht“ [6] is how to get the oil to the market.

[Notes;Links:]

[1] For the fact itself: „Ex-NATO commander-in-chief Wesley Clark reckons on US military attack against Syria.“ n-tv Germany (online) on April 11th, 2003 [ http://www.n-tv.de/3152951.html ]. Translated by the author.

[2] http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/300/380/388/ipc/

[3] United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) http://web.macam.ac.il/~arnon/Int-ME/oil/Syria%20energy%20oil%20information.htm

[3a] http://www.mopmr-sy.org/syria_oil%20transporting.htm

[3b] http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+sy0073)

[4] http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6313419A663,00.html

[5] Collection of quotations in Frankfurter Rundschau [German newspaper] on April 15th, 2003. Translatet by the author.

[6] The German word means more than the technical sense of being a victorious power: it is a kind of charakter.

 

URL: http://www.HerbertMasslau.de/

Copyright by Herbert Masslau 2003. For fair use only.

 

Links to this article:

http://superherohype.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-135126.html (on August 17th, 2004)