Why Western Strategy in Syria and Iraq Appears Contradictory: Energy Interests and Realpolitik.

This is what passes for "informed" commentary in a British newspaper in 2014,

'Oh the fickleness of humanity and history! This time last year, the British parliament was recalled by the prime minister, who appeared confident that he would receive a mandate to join the US in air strikes on Syria – the immediate and urgent reason being the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad’s, use of sarin gas to crush the growing uprising against him. Of course, “we” had few illusions about either the unity or the ethics of those rebels, but the argument was that there were enough people we could do business with and the Assad regime was the greater evil.

Fast forward a year, and authoritative word has winged its way across the Atlantic from the Pentagon – in the shape of a joint press conference by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the defence secretary, no less – that the only way to halt the advance of Islamic State (Isis) in northern Iraq is to bomb ... Syria. But this time not the forces – official and unofficial – of Assad, but the Syria of his enemies. Because, hey, we have revised our view of the lesser evil.'

There is no need for Mary Dejevsky to reveal to the public that Western strategy seems twisting, contradictory and even schizophrenic. Most observers can see that for themselves if they pay attention. What is needed is proper explanation as to why it is so or else too many words are wasted.

The reason the Western Powers wanted Assad to be removed in 2013 was due to energy geopolitics. Assad was in the way of the designs put forth by Turkey and Qatar for a gas pipeline that would provide energy to EU markets and turn Turkey into an East-West energy hub.

The removal of Assad would, moreover, check Iranian ambitions for a 'Shi'ite Islamic' gas pipeline from the very same South Pars gas field it shares with Qatar, with Syria having signed up for it in 2010 and Iraq by 2013. Removing Assad was apiece with the strategy for containing Iran.

The idea of that the West's backing the Sunni militants was based on a moral calculus of it being the lesser evil than Assad is simply ignorant and naive. The decision by French President Sarkozy to create the Friends of Syria in 2012 to back the Free Syria Army was pure realpolitik from the outset.

It was only when that strategy backfired because Qatar and Saudi Arabia started funding the most effective ( i.e ruthless ) jihadists so as to control any post-Assad government that ISIS started to gain ground in Northern Syria and that the West started to grasp that 'blowback' was a consequence.

ISIS was not considered a danger to vital interests until it came within striking distance of Erbil and the copious oil reserves in the Kurdish region and captured the Mosul Dam. As soon as ISIS could threaten oil interests and the global oil price, it became essential to stop it militarily.

Until the geopolitics of energy is examined as a routine fact of international relations in the mainstream newspapers we are going to get obfuscation and an inability to understand how the world actually works. Western policy is contradictory because based on oil and gas imperatives.

Oil and gas are not the only factors ,of course. But omitting them entirely in any sensible discussion about Western strategy is rather like trying to explain where babies come from without mentioning the word 'sex'. Face facts : most contemporary conflicts are resource wars.

The Spread of ISIS and the Possibility of Regional Sectarian War in the Middle East.

'The solution to the threat confronting Iraq is not the intervention of the Assad regime. In fact, it’s the Assad regime and the terrible violence they perpetrated against their own people that allowed (Isis) to thrive in the first place'.

President Obama's spokesman, Joshua Earnest's statement that the administration has “no reason to dispute” the reports of Syrian airstrikes in Iraq is one designed to provide a pretext for air strikes against Assad should Washington become concerned that Iranian influence is growing.

One other reason is that Washington needs to deflect the blame for what has happened in Iraq away from Saudi Arabia and Qatar and place it wholly on to Assad and his Shi'ite allies now that Tehran has taken more of a belligerant stance in wanting to shore up Maliki with military assistance and drones.
 
The growth and spread of ISIS has less to do with Assad than with the bulk of the past funding for Sunni jihadist groups being provided from private donors in Gulf states allied with the US and Britain such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar with those states tacit backing.

The reason for that is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia were vying throughout 2013 to back the most effective jihadist factions fighting with the Free Syria Army against Assad and in competition with each other. ISIS was aligned to the FSA in 2013 in their fight against Kurdish separatists.

From a tactical perspective, this backing of Sunni jihadists has backfired because ISIS turned against the FSA and, in effect, enabled Assad to roll back the FSA in and around Damascus much to the annoyance of the 'Friends of Syria Group which met in London in May 2014.

In his speech John Kerry stated 'Assad may think that today he is doing better and this process is somehow going to come to a close with him sitting pretty – but we are not going away". After all, Assad had not agreed to a political settlement in which his own arrest and trial would be a precondition.

The stakes in this geopolitical game are regional influence and energy interests. Britain and France even more than the US have been at the forefront of the demand that Assad must go because their ally Qatar announced plans in 2009 to build a Qatar-Turkey pipeline that would provide gas to the EU.

This pipeline has become all the more important with the danger posed by the expansion of Russia's influence both over the Black Sea region after the annexation of Crimea and in Syria and the Levant where it signed a lucrative deals with its client Assad to exploit gas reserves off the Syrian coast in December 2013

Hence the prospect of a Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline has been set back by Assad remaining in power and announcing in 2011 it would not be built and agreeing to alternative plans for a 'Shi'ite pipeline' from the South Pars gasfield Iran shares with rival Qatar via Iraq and Syria to the Eastern Mediterranean.

Both Britain and France were itching for the US to launch airstrikes against Assad in the summer of 2013 to assist the Sunni insurgents in overthrowing him and, therefore, to check both Iran, whose participation in the Geneva Conference has been rejected because Qatar and Saudi Arabia were against it.

ISIS represents a form of 'blowback' from the strategy of using Sunni jihadist fanatics to get rid of Assad. In surging towards Baghdad it posed both a threat but also an opportunity for Britain and the US to make support and assistance to President Maliki conditional on moving away from Tehran.

The Syrian opposition is keen to play on what are reported to be Assad's airstrikes against ISIS across the border in Iraq because they support their Gulf allies foreign policy and would like to see Shi'ite influence in Iraq reduced. Months before in January 2014 they had accused Assad of backing ISIS.

The reason for that was ISIS had tied up the FSA in northern Syria. Now that ISIS is 'objectively' posing a threat to Shi'ite axis, Al Qaida affiliated groups in Syria such as Al Nusra, that were bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have decided that ISIS is not so extreme after all and pledged allegiance.

Part of the decision is, of course, ideological as Al Qaida is wanting a showdown with the Shi'ites and Iran is a colossal sectarian war. But over the long term this clash is a deadly consequence of the Gulf powers foreign policy, one aided and abetted by the US and Britain.

Syrian Crisis: France's Stance and Its Strategic Partnerships.

“I am struck by how eager Great Britain and France appear to be in favour of military action. And I am also mindful of the fact that both of these two powers are former imperialist, colonialist powers in the region.” -former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski

France has been more hawkish over Syria throughout the conflict there than either Britain or even the US. When news of the alleged chemical weapons strike on East Ghouta broke on 21 August, the French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, was first out calling for a 'reaction with force'.

A continuous stream of the most belligerent rhetoric has emanated from Paris since then, with calls from President Hollande that France was 'ready to punish' Assad to Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault claiming the attack involved a "massive use of chemical agents".

France's knowledge about Syria's chemical weapons stock may come from the fact that in the 1980s it was French pharmaceuticals that were imported for 'dual use purposes'. The French dossier is technically specific about Syrian CW capabilities but adds nothing towards exact responsibility for the attacks.

The 'public diplomacy' behind the dossier is to back up Washington's version on Saturday and John Kerry's rhetoric about 'we know' everything and 'we have assessed'. Indeed France has been more persistent in backing the Syrian opposition than the US as it was responsible for setting up 'Friends of Syria'.

The 'Friends of Syria Group' or 'Friends of the Syrian People Group' was set up in June 2012 by Sarkozy to bolster support for the Syrian National Council and to prepare for a post-Assad government. The aim is 'revolution' but the reality from the French perspective is its national interests.

France is a staunch ally and strategic partner of Saudi Arabia and Qatar both in the Friends of Syria Group and which support militias with arms and money against Assad. French military ties with the oil rich kingdom have put it at the forefront of the push to directly provide weapons to the Syria rebels.

The FT reported on June 21 2013 an analyst close to ruling circles, Jamal Khashoggi, revealing that Saudi Arabia would never let its Persian Gulf rival Iran 'win a victory in Syria' because Assad had had the upper hand until the alleged chemical weapons attack by his regime occurred.

'”Saudi Arabia has to do something now, even if it will do it alone. The goal now must be toppling Bashar, even if the US is not involved. If Saudi Arabia leads the way, Sunni tribes and o ther countries, including France, will eventually join.”

France, concerned that Syrian opposition forces are losing ground, has suggested it is ready to push ahead with increasing the scale of equipment it supplies to the rebels, but it remains coy on what weapons it may be prepared to include.

Officials said this week that Paris had already “ticked the boxes” of materiel it was willing to deliver on a list presented to the Friends of Syria members by the Free Syrian Army. But they declined to say what these included.'

France's defence of Saudi Arabia's policy in Syria so as to check Iran, its main regional geopolitical rival and Shia enemy, is a lucrative and mutually beneficial partnership. On the August 30 news broke of 'a billion euro defence contract with Saudi Arabia to overhaul four frigates and two refuelling ships'.

France's bilateral ties with Qatar, the other main funder of the Islamist militias, brings numerous benefits from Total's stake in the liquefied natural gas ( LNG ) market and the supply of it as an increasing part of the gas energy portfolio for north west Europe via France's EDF group.

France's energy policy is interconnected to geopolitical strategy and competition with Russia and Gazprom for control over the global market for LNG. The volume of Qatari LNG threatens to displace the importance of Russian gas. The proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline would rival Russian imports and so it backs Assad.

France's interest in energy diversification coincides with many EU states. However, only France ( apart from Britain ) is a military power that can assert those energy security interests in the Middle East. More than that, Qatar invests billions of petrodollars in French real estate and grand projets.

Syria : Why Britain's Political Elites Want Military Intervention

There is much delusion in Britain over the reprieve from military intervention. The proposed missile strikes are a bad idea. However, that does not mean that they are merely 'stupid' or 'senseless'. Evidently, they are designed as part of a policy of showing Assad that he can never win in the civil war.

The aim of a missile strike is in continuity with the policy Washington and London have had since 2011 that 'Assad must go'. By a demonstration of strength, the US wants to make it plain that Assad will negotiate his exit at the postponed Geneva Conference and make way for the opposition.

The Syrian National Council is backed by the Friends of Syria group which meets in Doha and Istanbul and regularly receives Western diplomats. Turkey and Qatar are backing the opposition and want Assad to go with the support of the West due to its strategic partnerships with them and energy interests.

Britain's position is not merely about neoimperial hubris, 'saving Syria', the vanity of politicians wanting to strut on the world state though these are important. It is due to the fact that the enemies of Assad, especially Qatar, are vital partners in shoring up the continued prosperity of the Britain's rentier economy.

With the decline of North Sea Oil, Qatar has made up an increasing proportion of Britain's supply of LNG. Britain and France want 'energy diversification' and to depend less upon Russian gas for geopolitical reasons that are evident enough over Syria and also in wars such as Afghanistan.

Qatar proposed a gas pipeline to Turkey in 2009. Assad stands in the way of such a project as does Iran, the Gulf rival of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which wants to export gas to the Eastern Mediterranean via Iraq and Syria. This would be a major setback after Britain went to war to control Iraq's oil and gas.

Just as there was a complete cross political party consensus on the value of the Afghanistan War, so too is there on Syria. The Labour amendment to the defeated government motion, also rejected, was only about caution over rushing in to intervention when the case had not yet been clearly formulated.

The reason the British government's attempt to join the US in a missile strike on Syria was defeated in Parliament was not so much about public opinion. Nor did Cameron take the vote to Parliament because he was genuflecting to public opinion. He did it because he believed it would vote for him.

True, Miliband wanted to exploit the anti-interventionist mood after his 'lack of leadership' had been subject to criticism over the summer. Yet Labour was for military intervention and just not the way that Cameron had proceeded which seemed similar to Blair's demand to trust his 'call of judgement' on Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons

Already, there are strong voices calling for a second vote on military intervention on Syria now that Obama has played for time and delayed military action until Congress reconvenes .Members of the government are blaming Miliband for making military action no longer an option in case new 'compelling evidence' turns up.

The reasoning is that if Washington gets more regional support, as it already has with the Arab League now demanding action *and a legal pretext could be used for missile strikes, then the British government would be able to put another vote before Parliament in light of changed circumstances.

Boris Johnson in particular has been putting pressure on Cameron to do so. In the Daily Telegraph Johnson claimed  "If there is new and better evidence that inculpates Assad, I see no reason why the government should not lay a new motion before parliament, inviting British participation".

The Mayor of London has every reason to be forthright as he is close to the rich elites in Qatar and has been relentlessly banging the drum for it as a major investor in London. In fact, Britain has strong developed strong bilateral trade ties with Qatar in energy,education and 'culture'.

Unfortunately, Britain's dysfunctional rentier economy has become increasingly interconnected with Qatar's in the wake of the 2008 crash and the need for Qatari petrodollars to boost investment in British real estate (especially in London ) and lure shoppers to spend more.

Whether the British public likes it or not, Syria and its geopolitical position is very much about Britain's business, keeping gas bills down and giving shots of investment to prop up an ailing and failing neoliberal economy too overdependent upon oil and gas from unstable regions.


* Correction- The Arab League Secretary General has decided the UN route must be pursued and "military action is out of the question". Saudi Arabia wanted US military action.

'Saudi Arabia and the Syrian opposition pleaded with League members to back a US military strike on the regime.

 Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told the meeting that "opposition to international action only encourages the regime to pursue its crimes".

"It is time to ask the international community to assume its responsibilities and to take deterrent measures" against the Syrian regime," al-Faisal said.'

Syria: Britain's Role a a Global Player.

Osborne also said the White House, which may now press ahead with strikes alone, had shown a lot of understanding. However, he acknowledged it could place a strain on the "special relationship" between Britain and the US.

"I think there will be a national soul-searching about our role in the world and whether Britain wants to play a big part in upholding the international system, be that a big open and trading nation that I'd like us to be or whether we turn our back on that,"

"I understand the deep scepticism that my colleagues in parliament and many members of the public have about British involvement in Syria. I hope this doesn't become the moment where we turn our back on the world's problems."

After Cameron was defeated In Parliament on a vote on military action, Chancellor Osborne is positioning himself to win over those in the Party and Public sceptical about Cameron's leadershop the better to to pose as a potential alternative pole in the Conservative Party in readiness for Hague resigning or being sacked.

Qatar is a major investor in Britain and supplier of Liquefied Natural Gas as North Sea gas depletes rapidly. Qatar is not going to be impressed with Britain not being there to defend its commercial and energy interests through backing the insurgents opposed to Assad and its Persian Gulf rival Iran.

Already Western diplomats from nations in NATO and France as part of the 'Friends of Syria' Group have been backing Washington's stance on coercive dipomacy , that is missile attacks, to ratchet up the pressure to get Assad's departure and a political transition.

If the consequences of the Syria Crisis escalate to a higher level than the specific issue of chemical weapons use within Syria following a US led missile attack, NATO could intervene and a new vote not specifically concerned with chemical weapons but joining NATO intervention could be held in Parliament.

This bleak possibility reflects the fact this conflict is the opening part of a renewed struggle for the protection and control of energy resources that Europe desperately needs to be reduce dependency on Russia and where the US has national interests as importer of and exporter of oil and gas.

Should the US proceed to launch missile strikes and the Syrian crisis develops into a region wide war, Britain would quite possibly be drawn in to military operation if Turkey, a NATO member, was threatened or attacked by Assad.

Alternatively, another motion could be preposed on Syria not based on chemical weapons but on Assad's danger to 'the international community' if events spiral out of control. Then Miliband would vote for military action to protect Britain's interests in the region, that is the oil and gas supplies.

Appendix

* France is due to hold a Friends of Syria meeting in Paris very soon.

** Rueters reported on 27 August

The Friends of Syria core group comprises the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

U.N. experts trying to establish what exactly happened in the attack were finally able to cross the frontline on Monday to see survivors - despite being shot at in government-held territory. But they put off a second visit until Wednesday.

"The Americans are tying any military action to the chemical weapons issue. But the message is clear; they expect the strike to be strong enough to force Assad to go to Geneva and accept a transitional government with full authority," a Syrian opposition figure said.

"The message to the opposition was to get a team ready for Geneva, and be prepared for the possibility of a transition. But we must also be ready for the possibility of the collapse of the regime. If the strike ends up to be crippling, and if they hit the symbols of the regime's military power in Damascus it could collapse," the source said.

This entire conflict has always been about energy interests. NATO has made 'energy security' one of its priorities in recent years and NATO aided the air strikes on Libya in 2011. The EU is also a backer of the Friends of Syria and France has pledged to aid the Syrian 'rebels'.

France to respect EU rules on weapons to Syrian opposition

'We have committed with other (EU) member states to only make deliveries to the Syrian National Coalition with the aim to protect the civilian population and to demand guarantees on the end users and destination of equipment in order to assure an attentive follow-up," Foreign Ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said Wednesday when questioned about more weapons for the SNC'

The British government is going to look at other ways of consulting with EU and Western powers to preserve its energy security and commericial interests with the Gulf monarchies. Osborne knows the economic value of these ties

Syria : The Missile Strikes as 'Coercive Diplomacy'.

The Obama administration's preferred option for a potential strike on Syria is likely to leave Bashar al-Assad's government with significant chemical weapons and military infrastructure, according to military analysts.

In the first confirmation of the scope of any attack, White House principal deputy press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday that Obama was contemplating "something that is discreet and limited."But "boots on the ground" or "any military options aimed at regime change" were not up for discussion, State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters Thursday. Similarly, "we're not talking about a Libya-style, open-ended no-fly operation,"

One comparison here is Operation Desert Fox in 1998 when the US and UK bombed Iraq for four days in order to 'degrade' Saddam Hussein's capacity to produce and use 'weapons of mass destruction'. The aim of these air and missile strikes could be similar to that outlined by Madelaine Albright.

"I don't think we're pretending that we can get everything, so this is - I think - we are being very honest about what our ability is. We are lessening, degrading his ability to use this. The weapons of mass destruction are the threat of the future. I think the president explained very clearly to the American people that this is the threat of the 21st century. What it means is that we know we can't get everything, but degrading is the right word."

The difference is that this is 2013 and Syria is in the middle of a serious civil war. To start bombing is effectively to commit to the anti-Assad side and the insurgents backed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. If the bombing is a token gesture to prove US 'credibility' it will do nothing to ensure that.

Assad is not going to be removed by his military capacity being 'degraded' but it could lead to an intensification of the war on the ground as he loses the advantage he had until this as yet unexplained and alleged chemical weapons attack. It is said the aim is not 'regime change'.

It is difficult to understand what the logic behind these missile strikes would be beyond proving that crossing Obama's 'red lines' on chemical weapon use ( despite their being no conclusive proof as to the facts as yet presented to the UN security council ) means he would give a 'green light' to a strike.

The bellicose rhetoric of 'punishment' advocated by France's President Hollande, mingled with statements about humanitarian intervention and 'acting as the conscience of the world' wheeled out in Britain by the oily Michael Howard today, adds up to nothing coherent other than what is obvious beneath the spin and deceit.

Put clearly, the strikes would be the opening salvo in longer campaign of coercion implicit in the position taken by the West that 'Assad must go' for two and a half years after the civil war broke out in 2011. The US and Britain have always made that the precondition for negotiations on a political transition in Syria.

The fact is that this threatened use of force is an extension of the unwillingness to engage in proper diplomacy with Iran in order to uphold the West's tacit backing for Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar's proxy war in Syria against their main Persian Gulf rival.

This strategic alliance is mostly concerned with the geopolitical and energy interests it shares with the West. Yet engaging in diplomacy with Tehran was one of the only ways that could have brought about the political settlement Western statesmen claimed they wanted.

At a meeting last Monday in Istanbul of Western diplomats from 11 “Friends of Syria” nations made clear strikes could be expected. The group wasset up with the express purpose of organising regime change outside of the UN Security Council after the Russian and Chinese veto on a resolution condemning Syria in February 2012

 “The opposition was told in clear terms that action to deter further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime could come as early as in the next few days, and that they should still prepare for peace talks at Geneva”