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By Dr. Jan Best de Vries:
Kurdish fighter guarding oil well in Rimelan, 2013; Pic – DHA
The wars in Syria and Iraq are in reality just being waged for oil and gas. In 2011 Sunni Turkey and Qatar had agreed to build a gas pipeline which would bring natural gas from Qatar through Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Turkey to Europe. However, Shiite Iran and the Alawite (= Shiite) ruling clan in Syria wanted much shorter oil and gas pipelines through Shiite Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranen and therefore blocked the pipeline planned by Turkey and Qatar. This is the reason why Sunni Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey gave financial support and other facilities (free movement through Turkey) to the jihadis of Sunni IS in order to topple the the Assad regime in Syria and to conquer that part of Iraq through which their pipeline should run. That the oil fields in between, in Syria and Iraq, should be to the profit of ally IS, is the unspoken deal between the Sunni partners.
Oil and gas are also the reason why the Pasdaran of both Shiite Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon fight on the side of the Syrian Assad regime in order to prevent it from falling. By creating a buffer zone in North Syria along its border, which Aleppo would come within reach of, Turkey would destabilize Syria completely. For this reason IS must first get rid of the autonomous Kurdish cantons of Rojava, of which Kobane is the smallest one. But, for the Caliphate of IS, Aleppo is also an attractive prize and therefore Assad’s army is grimly, but until now unsuccessfully, struggling to reconquer its center from the FSA before the IS can do so….
The only alternative for the Americans to prevent either Sunni Turkey or Shiite Iran with their respective new pipelines from dominating the region with an enormous power shift, is to support the Kurdish ambitions for independence and meanwhile safeguard the oil fields in Rojava and Iraqi Kurdistan, which have foremost been protected by the PKK with its boots on the ground against IS. I foresee that, in the not too far distant future, the status of the Kurdish PKK as a “terrorist organization”, once given at the request of NATO member Turkey, will be lifted by the USA and Europe to bring the ambitions of Mr. Erdogan to a halt…
References: Iakovos Alhadeff, ‘The First World War for Oil 1914-1918: Similarities with the 2014 Oil Wars 100 Years Later’; ‘The Crisis in the American-Turkish Relations and the Creation of an Independent Kurdistan’
Dr. Jan Best de Vries is an archaeologist and historian, decipherer of the so-called Byblos Script from Aleppo and Alalakh (‘How to Decipher the Byblos Script’, Aspekt Publishers 2014, ISBN978-946-153-420-0)
Good suggestion ,and thanks for supporting the Kurdish ambitions for independence.However,the war of Syria is has not started over how and where the oil and gas pipelines should pass through .It has started over idological diffrinces ,power domination and interests between different political and religious sides.
Each side has been supporting its own group regardless of how many lives are lost .
Basically ,there are two agendas and plans for the war of Syria. First of all, it is not very hard for international community ,NATO or UN to put an end to the war of Syria within a short period of time,but the plan and agenda of Western world including Israel, is firstly to just support the opposition groups and movements of Syrian people (Kurds ,Sunnis Moslems) to fight this war until they overthrow the regime of Assad,which would result into the undermining and crippling the influence of Iran in Syria and Lebanon and also would cripple Hezbollah and its power and influence in Lebanon.This would consequently bring about more security for Israel as well as Christian of Syria and Lebanon.
The second agenda is after the overthrown of Assad regime the western world have the plan to empower and support the Christian minority and probably Kurds in order to undermine the power of Sunnis Moslems so that to not dominate and undermine Christians of Lebanon and Syria and also to make sure they do not support groups like Hamas to attack Isreal.So the ultimate goal is not where and how the gas piple should pass through ,but rather to support moderate groups ,Christianize the region and make sure Isreal is safe.