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.

Resource War in Northern Iraq: Oil and the Anglo-American Military Intervention.

".. alongside the humanitarian crisis there is also a political and extremism crisis in Iraq that has a direct effect on us back here in the UK. We do have a fully worked through strategy for helping with allies to deal with this monstrous organisation – the Islamic State."-British Prime Minister David Cameron

The problem with Cameron's lame public diplomacy is that anyone who knows anything about the conflict in northern Iraq and Syria regards with complete contempt the cant about a 'monstrous organisation' and the impact it could have on our streets, a stock justification used for 'staying the course' in the Afghanistan.

It is about time British political leaders stopped treating the British public as some sort of infantile herd that can be fobbed off with condescending precision tooled up soundbites of the sort about  'military prowess', 'the terrorist organisation' and the possibility of 'mayhem in our streets'.

With the spread of the Internet and the 'information revolution', those even remotely interested in what is going on in northern Iraq could quickly discover that the reasons for intervention are not only concerned with saving the Yazidis from being killed by IS or about some more imminent terror threat being now a red alert.

The war in northern Iraq is not a simplistic conflict between forces of good versus evil, though IS is certainly evil and malign. It's a complicated many sided struggle over access to water as well as an ethnic/sectarian war between Kurds and Sunni Arabs over the oil wealth of Kirkuk amongst other things.

Unless the intention of the British involvement is to kill as many IS foot soldiers as possible and take out British born jihadists, then Cameron should refrain from trying to justify the war according to the idea it is primarily about protecting Britain from jihadists. It may actually increase that risk.

Cameron is, no doubt, aware that the cost of military intervention could be to lead to a spike in the threat of terrorism in Britain so he would need to manage risk and expectations by emphasising the ongoing nature of the threat the better to be able justify more intervention in future if attacked.

Britain would be better off tightening up borders and working with Turkey to prevent European jihadists crossing. Security measures are somewhat different to military campaigns to roll back what is, in reality, a potential threat to Iraq's stability and so global oil supplies and prices.

The crisis in Iraq has curtailed the supply of crude oil from OPEC's second largest producer and saw prices surge over $114 a barrel for the first time in nine months back in June 2014. Despite being less dependent on Middle East oil than in 2003, increased oil prices could affact the East Asian economies.

Energy analyst Anthony Cordesman argues "The United States, strategically, is a major trading power. It is particularly dependent on the import of manufactured goods from three countries which are extremely dependent on energy imports. Those happen to be China, South Korea, and Japan."

So while Sunni militants had been encroaching into Iraq months before the US and Britain decided to act, partly because of the Yazidis situation, but more due to the threat to Iraq as the world's 7th largest oil producer and the threat to Erbil and Kurdistan's oil boom regional state.

The Kurdish militias took Kirkuk in June 2014 and the threat to it from IS would set back British Petroleum's plans to reverse declining output at the oilfield discovered in 1927. Providing aid to the KRG could help remove opposition to BP's plans in Kirkuk, aswell as shoring yp the Iraqi government in Baghdad

Britain is among the many global players vying for oil contracts and the right to drill in Kurdish oil fields. The danger of that strategy is it could push Kurdistan further towards independence in a way that could anger Iran whose cooperation even Cameron has belatedly come to regard as essential to defeating IS.

Obama only gave the go-ahead for air strikes as soon as Erbil seemed in striking distance of the oil fields being drilled by Chevron and ExxonMobil. It is the involvement of such global oil majors that has put a strain on the relationship between Baghdad and Kurdistan that has helped destabilise Iraq.

Iraq is the cockpit of proxy struggles and resource wars and this vital fact in relation to both it and neighbouring Syria is routinely screened out from mainstream media accounts of the war when energy geopolitics should be getting a lot coverage and integrated into factual accounts of the conflict.

Arming the Kurds and the Danger of Spreading Regional Conflict.

While the strategy of arming the Kurds and trying to draw the Sunnis into a unity government would appear to be one way to check the spread of IS in Iraq, one danger would be that it could give impetus to the cause of arming the Free Syrian Army across the border.

The FSA, in its propaganda, has already accused President Assad of secretly plotting with ISIS so that they could divert the FSA in northern Syria away from taking Damascus. The problem is that official Western policy is still the one framed by Hillary Clinton and William Hague-'Assad must go'.

When it comes down to it Western policy 'remains contradictory and self-defeating', to use veteran Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn's words, because of the seldom mentioned matrix of energy geopolitics that dominates Western policy ( and the regional powers ) with regards the Middle East.

The US and EU powers would like to tacitly work with Iran in Iraq so as to bolster Baghdad against IS. Yet in Syria the West wants to remove Assad so as to check the expansion of Iranian interests towards the Eastern Mediterranean and the possibility of a gas pipeline stretching there from the South Pars gas field.

As Qatar becomes a regional power and a major economic partner of Western powers, and a vital supplier of liquefied natural gas to stave off potential energy shortfalls in Britain and France, Western foreign policy has increasingly aligned itself to a Qatari-Turkish Sunni axis of influence.

Not only does Qatar host a US Gulf air base, Qatar’s al-Udeid air field, used for strikes against IS, Qatar has tried to extend its regional reach into energy and infrastructure projects, signing a Memorandum of Understand with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) back in 2009.

With Qatar and Turkey aligned in checking Iranian interests in Syria, having their own scheme for a gas pipeline between Qatar's part of the South Pars gas field and Turkey, Iran could get more concerned that both in Syria and Kurdistan, the West is plotting to contain and encircle it further.

The strategy of providing arms to the Kurdish peshmerga is being balanced with one of trying to shore up Iraq as a 'unitary state'. The problem would be if Kurdistan would then regard that as a signal that it could and should break from Baghdad, not least over rows over oil revenues and contracts.

Despite being regarded as opposed to Kurdish independence, Erdogan's government is prepared to see greater autonomy and, in May 2014, Turkey started officially to export Kurdish oil on to the international market as part of his grand design to position it as an east-west energy hub.

Turkey's geostrategy could only raise tensions with Baghdad and especially with Iran, historically its regional competitor in the Kurdish borderlands and, to the north, in the Caucasus where a shadowy New Great Game for pipeline routes also contains the potential for war and destabilisation.

Iran would fear what Norman Stone calls Erdogan's 'neo-Ottoman' strategy as it would act as a magnet in drawing the Kurds into a prosperous economic block driven by oil wealth and could lead to Kurdish irredentist tendencies and even uprisings within Iran as happened back in 1946.

Set against a background of continued sanctions on Iran, the attempt to block off Iranian gas exports to the east via Pakistan, through trying to cajole the latter into accepting gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan ( the proposed TAPI pipeline ), the failure to take Iranian interests into account could be dangerous.

One way to avoid the intensification of a regional proxy war, indeed of the escalation into a wider regional war in which even the global powers would be sucked in deeper towards a greater collision would be to involve Iran directly in diplomatic talks over Syria instead of ignoring them as as been hitherto the case.

Isis and Crisis in Iraq: Plots, Paranoia and Radical Conspiracies.

As I write this, the US is launching air strikes against the Islamic State group in northern Iraq and dropping humanitarian relief parcels to the Yezidis who have been foreced from their villages and towns by the militant group who regard them as "Devil worshippers' fit for conversion or extermination.

ISIS have killed and slaughtered civilans in their attempt to carve out their Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, decapitating Iraqi state soldiers and policemen, crucifying Christians, and surging deep into Iraq to within striking distance of the capital, Baghdad.

They have attracted Sunni allies and even jihadists from the West to join in attacking a fragile state created by the US and Britain after the invasion 2003 and prone to sectarian and ethnic conflicts ever since, a consequence Blair was warned about prior to the invasion but ignored because 'Saddam is evil'.

No matter whether one was opposed to the invasion, not even the most ferocious 'anti-imperialist' could regard ISIS as anything other than barbaric and as a force that had better be defeated. The question, of course, is how and for some, more importantly, by whom.

Even so, despite the need for scepticism about whether air strikes could actually prove to make a bad situation worse, the usual and predictable armchair 'anti-war' ideologues have been out in force trying to oppose anything that could be termed 'intervention', even of a non-military sort.

The worst example comes from Sami Ramadai, an 'anti-war' sociologist based in London, who claims the intervention is neither humanitarian nor would it protect 'the people of Iraq'. The fact that the air strikes are specifically mean to protect some Iraqis such as the Yezidis and the Christians is considered largely unimportant,

Ramadani bats off with this weary set of claims about how hypocritical US foreign policy appears to be,

'Here we go again, the US is using a humanitarian catastrophe to implement imperialist objectives and pour petrol on fire.

It is sickening to see Obama and the Western media shedding crocodile tears for the Iraqi people, after the US-led occupation pulverised Iraq as a society and killed a million of its people. It is obscene to now suggest that the US will fight terrorism and protect the Iraqi people, when the rise of terrorism was the direct result of the US-led invasion of the country. 

Emergency humanitarian help to Yezidi, Christian, Shia communities and all victims of ISIS is essential. But this has to be done through genuine humanitarian organisations and the UN (like in Gaza)'

The first thing to notice about the propaganda is that it does not even start off with mentioning the fact there is a humanitarian crisis. Ramadani's main gripe, put forth in sulky adolescent language, is that the effort, even in fact as regards dropping humanitarian supplies by aircraft , is that it is 'imperialist'.

In fact the entire polemic and many others like it could be translated according to the following translation:

'The first thing to remember in any situation where the US is involved is to hate the US unconditionally while affecting decent scepticism about previous interventions. However, no matter what case could ever be made and for whatever reasons for humanitarian intervention, we would oppose it anyway. 

So this intervention is not humanitarian but, just in case it could be intended as such, it won't be effective ( just in case you had illusions about that ).In order to pretend I care about those Yezidi, Christian, Shia communities who could be slaughtered by ISIS, I need to make windy comments about the UN intervening in a 'genuine' humanitarian way. 

Then , I will explain why the Kurds are stupid to accept US help because of their the superpower's sinister imperial motives. Then, in the safety of my cocoon here in Western Europe I can feel satisfied I have taken the correct line. The important thing is to use the crisis to ramp up the resistance to imperialism. Nothing much else matters.'

It is difficult to think how dropping humanitarian parcels, as the British RAF is doing at present, could make things worse. How the UN would be able to get near the conflict zone without being themselves exterminated is not something Ramadani has given much thought to and for a simple reason: he does not care.

Instead, Ramadani is not even prepared to accept that the Kurdish region is autonomous because the Pashmerga have decided to cooperate with the US in order to drive ISIS back and accept US arms and assistance. As a consequence, they are in league with the imperialists and that's more damning that fighting ISIS.

'The actions of the Kurdish leaders run against the interests of the Kurdish people.' Says Ramadani. Why ? Because he says so. Note he wants to tell the Kurdish leaders what they should do while criticising 'imperialism'.If the Kurdish leaders are prepared to align with the US for whatever tactical reasons they are mere 'tools'.

The actions of the Kurdish leaders run against the interests of the Kurdish people. A similar policy was followed by the Kurdish leaders in the 1960's and 1970's. They, like today, relied heavily on US and Israeli backing. They became so dependent on the US, and its ally the Shah of Iran, that they had to abandon the Kurdish people when the US decided to ditch them. 

Only this is not the 1960s and 1970s. Back then there was a strong state, albeit one lead by the tyrant Saddam Hussein by the 1970s. No doubt there are realpolitik strategies at work with the US. But the Kurdish region is strong, relatively safe and autonomous at present and would have an interest in checking ISIS.

But ISIS is also serving Israel and US interests, apparently. Only this genius has the visionary ability to glean patterns and trends not nearly always associated with other more humble mortals,

'It is clear to me that ISIS is serving Israeli and US economic, political and military objectives in the region. The US is also using ISIS terrorism as a stick to impose conditions on Baghdad, i.e. to cut links with Iran and Syria'.

So not only the Kurdish leaders but also ISIS are 'objectively' in the grand scheme of things 'tools of imperial dominance'. Evidently, that Washington aims at defeating and rolling back ISIS as a means to save the Iraqi state ( the one Ramadani wants preserved ) and trying to put pressure on Baghdad to create a 'unity government'.

Ramadani, however, then put foward the paranoid idea that ISIS serves both the US and Israeli interests. This is despite the fact Israel and the US have been at odds over Israel having wanted to see Kurdistan as an independent republic and the US insistence that the Iraqi state should stay together and not fragment. He opines,

It was noticeable that the ISIS "Caliph" and Israeli war criminal Netanyahu declared the death of Sykes-Picot borders between Iraq and Syria on almost the same day. The Caliph did not mention Israel or its war crimes in Palestine and the region, while Netanyahu declared that the Jordan river will be where Israel will "defend" itself. He also declared his support for an independent Kurdish state. 

There is no 'plot'. Ramadani is paranoid. The fact that the Sykes-Picot borders are breaking down is simply a standard observation of fact with regards northern Syria and Iraq, not some sort of sinister statement of the intent to 'detabilise' the region. Moreover, it is flat out untrue that the Caliph has not condemned Israel.

On July 31st 2014, some eight days before Ramadani's miserable and feeble polemic appeared on the 'Stop the War Coalition' site, it was reported that the Caliph declared it was "only a matter of time" before they got to Palestine to join the fight against "barbaric Jews".

"As for the massacres taking place in Gaza against the Muslim men, women and children, then the Islamic State will do everything within its means to continue striking down every apostate who stands as an obstacle on its paths towards Palestine".

This sort of statement would tend to deflate Ramadani's assertion-'It is clear to me that ISIS is serving Israeli and US economic, political and military objectives in the region.' By aiming to murder everyone in the Middle East, including the Jews, it is difficult to see how that advances Israeli strategy.

In fact, Israel under PM Netanyahu was again at odds with President Obama because he supported Assad in Syria as a lesser evil than having a Muslim Brotherhood government backed by Turkey and Qatar in its place or, perhaps, even more radical Sunni fundamentalists in power in Damascus.

That makes Ramadani's next claim even more bizarre,

 'Similarly, the US is using ISIS terrorism to make Iran halt supplies to the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements and to cut its aid to Syria. Generally, the aim is to make Iran more amenable to US objectives in the region.'...

That is why ISIS started fighting the Free Syria Army backed by Qatar and Turkey-and the West and against Assad, Iran's main ally in Syria along with the Shi'ite Lebanese Hizbollah. If this is a plot, then it would be a plot by the the US and Western powers against themelves for some bizarre reason yet to be revealed.

And this is what is supposed to be 'cutting edge' commentary revealing the true yet 'concealed' reasons for US intervention in northern Iraq.

Egypt : The Military Crackdown and the Threat of ISIS.

The fate of the three al-Jazeera journalists jailed in Egypt is bound up in Egypt's attempt to clamp down on the Doha based new station because it is seen as favourable to the Muslim Brotherhood backed by Qatar after 2011 in rivalry with Saudi Arabia which supports the military state.

Washington, in turn, remains a stalwart ally of Saudi Arabia in its attempt to create a wall of Sunni Arab states in the Middle East to deter Iranian influence in the region. This is a goal broadly shared by the US which in 2013 accounted still for 17.2 % of its total crude oil imports.

General Sisi's crushing of dissent and imprisonment of political opponents is the unfortunate cost to be paid for 'stability' in Egypt as it faces the increased threat of radical Sunni jihadist violence from those angry about the coup against Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood supporters.

More ominously, an insurgency on the Sinai Peninsula has attracted radicalised jihadists from Syria fighting for groups such as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis and heeding the call from Al Qaeda and ISIS to go and take the battle to Egypt, the homeland of Al Qaida's leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

But the attempt by Sisi's regime to yoke Al Qaida together with the Muslim Brotherhood is as much about shoring up its own domestic legitimacy as it is about pleasing its Saudi sponsors who after the coup offered $5billion in aid to help support Egypt's tanking economy.

When President Morsi was in power, Saudi Arabia feared the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood could embolden Islamists at home. But it has been in competition with Qatar both in Egypt and in Syria where both powers have vied for political control over the anti-Assad Sunni militias.

The geopolitical energy dimension to this struggle for regional influence is that while both Qatar and Saudi Arabia have a joint interest in overthrowing Assad, to prevent an Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, they are at variance on Qatari attempts to build a gas pipeline from the Gulf which could circumvent Saudi Arabia.

Yet in competing for influence in Syria by backing the most effective Sunni jihadists on the ground and fracturing the unity of the Free Syrian Army, by 2013 Saudi Arabia and Qatar had enabled Al Qaida affiliated groups and ISIS to gain a strong foothold and for blowback into Egypt.

There are already jihadist organisations with connections to ISIS operating on the Sinai Peninsula which is said to be 'fertile ground' for the group to expand. Israeli-Egyptian cooperation to crush the jihadist insurgency in Sinai has resulted in large numbers of civilian casualties and surging support for the jihadists.

Washington's decision to release a $650m aid package to Egypt and continued military assistance, including Apache helicopters, is connected to the need to keep in check the threat of jihadist blowback caused by Syrian and Libyan conflicts and the military's coup and cack handed crackdown on Sinai.

Scores of civilans have continued to get killed in the cross fire in Sinai in villages said to be contain jihadist groups and Muslim Brotherhood supporters along with the use of torture centres, mass arrests and arbitrary imprisonment in a region where the government has made it difficult for journalist to enter.

Washington may not like the Egyptian states's imprisoning and suppression of journalism but it is a necessary consequence of the shoddy and failed foreign policies of its Gulf allies and which has contributed towards the havoc, mayhem and death spreading across the Middle East.

Iraq: ISIS, Turkey and Western Oil and Gas Interests

President Obama's decision to send 300 “military advisers” to help Iraq's army to drive back ISIS is primarily concerned with preventing the Sunni jihadists from advancing too far into Iraq and endangering the interests for which the US invaded Iraq in 2003, most obviously the oil.

No Great Power has an interest in ISIS menacing the oil fields in and around Baghdad or to the south in the highly unlikely event that ISIS would be able to overthrow the Maliki government. But the surge southwards of ISIS was made possible by the tacit acquiescence of the Kurdish militias and other Sunni groups.

The reason is that the authorities in the Kurdish region wanted to seize Kirkuk and hasten the break up of Iraq into three separate regions the better to control its great oil wealth. This policy has been backed by Turkey which has connived with the Kurds to sell crude oil without Baghdad’s authorisation.

As for the Sunni tribes in the north and east of Iraq, they are prepared to use any means of getting rid of a Shi'ite government viewed not only as apostates in league with Iran but of monopolising the oil wealth and revenues of an Iraqi state they have had no particular interest in defending.

The capture of Mosul and Tikrit by ISIS could only have been possible not only with a nod from the Kurdish militias but from Sunni militants and the tribes that supported Saddam Hussein. Yet back in January 2014 the US was advocating 'restrained approach' towards ISIS when it took Fallujah.

One reason is the Obama administration started to see the benefits of greater Kurdish autonomy from Baghdad and so lobbied and showed support for a new oil deal that would allow the Kurds to export 300,000 barrels a day along pipelines leading from the Kurdish region through Turkey.

When Washington and London calls for Maliki to rule in a 'non-sectarian' manner as a condition for military assistance, the unspoken agenda is to push Baghdad towards scrapping the de-Baathification program and to be reach out to those who supported Saddam Hussein.

From that perspective, the surge of ISIS provided an opportunity for the US and its Turkey to push for greater Kurdish autonomy and crude oil exports not only to US oil refineries but also to Israel which all sales of oil to are officially banned by the Iraqi government.

Despite accusations that Turkey turned a blind eye to ISIS, in so far as it has caused havoc for a Shi'ite government supported by Iran it has proved beneficial in furthering a reapprochement between Ankara and the Kurds after decades of hostilities with the Kurds now regarded as 'our Iraqi brothers'.

Apart from the flow of oil through Turkey and on to Europe, Turkey has profited from growing construction and trade links in Kurdistan and Erdogan announced he is "open to a divided Iraq" and his advisers claim that ISIS is a 'product' of Maliki's sectarianism as opposed to it and its Sunni allies foreign policies.

While Washington and London claim that ISIS could threaten not only Iraq but also the US and Britain, the fact is that both the Obama administration and the Cameron government were prepared to view Sunni jihadist groups as also somewhat useful in checking Iranian regional interests.

The truth that the public in Britain and the US are not being told is that whatever terrorist threat ISIS poses is a consequence of Washington and London ignoring its allies Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar bankrolling it in Iraq against Shi'ite militias and Sunni jihadists in Syria to overthrow Assad.

The reason for this failed foreign policy and the threat of terrorist blowback is the pathological struggle for control over oil and gas export routes. The tacit backing for Sunni jihadist fanatics in Syria from Washington and London lies ultimately in energy geopolitics. 

The readiness to support Sunni jihadists in northern Syria against Assad in a way that spawned ISIS's power base has its origins not in the policy of containing Iran but of removing a government prepared to co-operate with Russia in the exploitation of the gas of the Levant basin. 
 

In December 2013, Russia’s SoyuzNefteGaz signed a $90 million deal to support Syria’s first offshore drilling attempt. Not only did that outrage the Syrian opposition but it also poses a threat to the interests of their backers and US and Britain's allies- Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Jordan.

Turkey took Ukraine's side after Russia's annexation of the Crimea which threatens its role as a predominant NATO power in the Black Sea region. In turn, this has driven Iran closer to Moscow and led to fears of a Russia-Syria-Iraq-Iran axis of influence to rival Western alliances in the Middle East.

While ISIS's surge south raises nightmare concerns of a global oil price spike, its threat offers the opportunity for the US and Turkey to detach the Kurdish region further from Iranian influenced Baghdad, though Washington has so far pulled short of demanding Maliki's departure as the condition for military assistance.

The US is hardly likely to want to join Iran in rolling back the threat of ISIS even if domestic hawks are demanding greater military action and the need to remove Maliki. Such a policy could only be enforced by committing itself to increased military intervention that could draw it into conflict with Tehran.

On the other hand, if Iran commits to a military intervention, then Turkey would be bound to back Sunni militants and its Kurdish allies as a counter measure and with the support of Qatar and Saudi Arabia which have both warned the US to stay out of Iraq and that shoring up Maliki would be seen as a 'hostile act' against Sunni muslims.

The appalling danger of the Syria and Iraq conflict is that it is is drawing in the regional powers further into a clash  which could drag in those global power players that are vying for access to the oil and gas that drives their economies and is causing collisions of interest and growing insecurity.

ISIS, Kurdistan and the Geopolitical Stakes for the US and Britain in Syria and Iraq.

"The evidence is there for all to see what happens in the absence of cooperation. It leaves a political and military opening for extremists."- William Hague

With Washington said to be ready to intervene militarily along with Iran to roll back the threat posed to Bagdhad by the ISIS, it is vital to remember that the Obama administration has claimed it is prepared to use air strikes against it both in Syria and Iraq.

As ISIS has its main base in Raqqah, it owes its surge deep into Iraq through Mosul and Tikrit not merely to the continued chaos that has not gone away aftermath of the Iraq War but also due to the fact that the US and Britain have been tacitly backing fanatical Sunni jihadists in Syria.

That is why Obama and Hague focused solely on the failings of the Shi'ite government of al Maliki in Baghdad as a way of diverting attention away from the fact that ISIS were fighting with the Free Syria Army as recently as 2013, a force backed by Britain and the US as a means to overthrow President Assad.

ISIS was not only able to develop due to the way Sunni jihadists groups have become progressively more brutal in northern Syria. The group owed the bulk of its past funding to donors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait where it was regarded in Iraq as a means to combat Shi'ite militias and Iran's influence.

Hagues' propaganda use of the flexible cant word 'extremist' means 'jihadists not under our control' or else not objectively on the side of Britain's Gulf allies in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both of which have been vying for influence in any post-Assad Syria by promoting the most effective .i.e. ruthless jihadists.

The absurdity of the geopolitical situation in Syria and Iraq is such that Britain and the US are effectively backing Al Qaida affiliated groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra by funnelling weapons to the FSA which only in the course of 2014 has been fighting against ISIS.

One reason is that whereas the FSA and ISIS had a common interest in fighting Kurdish separatists, ISIS wanted to surge into Iraq and the Kurdish separatists were prepared to do a deal with ISIS to allow them to march southwards and link up with Baathists opposed to the Shi'ites in Baghdad.

The reason is that Kurdish separatists in Syria and the autonomous region of Iraq wanted to seize Kirkuk which they consider the ancient ( and oil rich ) capital city of Kurdistan. By having ISIS put pressure on Baghdad and fight against the FSA they could increase their reach and power over their territory and oil

The US and Britain would be prepared to shore up al Maliki's Shi'ite government only upon certain conditions so it can continue to exert influence in Baghdad and to prevent Iran from increasing its role in Iraq through sending troops , signing lucrative arms deals and shipping weapons to Assad.

Hence the other reason-apart from the potential threat to the oil producing regions south of Baghdad- for military intervention by the US, with British intelligence assistance, is to reduce ISIS so as to effectively back up the FSA's struggle  and ensure the goal of 'regime change' in Damascus is furthered.

Generally, ISIS is an offshoot and product of the increased radicalisation and competition for control amongst Sunni jihadists and, as such, a product of Saudi and Qatari foreign policy backed by Britain and the US. But it is seen as a threat because it has allowed Assad to regain the military initiative.

Throughout 2014 Assad has been rolling back the FSA from positions around Damascus and the strategically vital land between the Syrian capital to the Mediterranean coast, the route through which arms are supplied to the government and that connects to Hizbollah's base in Lebanon.

ISIS poses a threat because it has divided the Sunni jihadists in Syria and allowed Assad and hence Russia-which backs Assad and has an interest in blocking Qatar's and Turkey's plan for a gas pipeline that would rival its supply to Europe-to gain the upper hand in the Middle East.

On the other hand, the fact that ISIS has been able to collude with the Kurdish militias to threaten the Iraqi capital provides an opportunity for Washington and London to make any military assistance conditional on moving away from Tehran ( that's what Hague really means by the 'need for cooperation' in Iraq ).

Ultimately, US and British foreign policy is about energy geopolitics and siding with key regional allies which provide them with oil ( as Saudi Arabia does to the US ) and with the large and increasing quantities gas which Qatar provides to Britain and France, thus allowing it to diversify supply away from Russia.

ISIS, Iraq and Syria: The Geopolitical Stakes

It is not clear in the latest media reports on the new Iraq crisis whether the Obama administration is considering air strikes designed only to take out ISIS targets or if the existence of ISIS in Syria and Iraq is to act as the pretext to try and take out President Assad's military assets in Syria.

From the beginning of 2014, Assad's forces have rolled back the Sunni insurgent forces from the area around the capital Damascus, partly because ISIS started only this year to engage militarily with both the Free Syria Army and Kurdish separatists in northern Syria

Previously, in 2013, ISIS  was a staunch jihadist ally of the Free Syria Army in attacking the forces of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) of Kurdistan. As a consequence of rivalries with the Free Syria Army and its desire to align with forces within Iraq opposed to Baghdad, ISIS broke away from the FSA.

Whereas the FSA and its Western and Gulf allies backers have accused Assad of backing ISIS as a means to draw their forces into a diversionary war, Kurdish militias in northern Iraq may have colluded with ISIS in order to weaken the Maliki government in Baghdad because of disputes over the export of oil.

The danger is that Washington is going to use accusations that Assad has backed ISIS, as opposed to simply having not attacked them through realising they could fight the the FSA, to launch the air stikes it was prepared to launch in August 2013 after the Syrian military's alleged gas attack on Ghouta.

Of course, ISIS has been regarded by Western intelligence reports leaked to the media as an offshoot of Al Qaida that Assad may have abetted. Certainly, there have been defections as the competition for control over oil supplies has ensured the survival of the most brutal and pathologically violent groups.

However, even if Assad has played a murky double game with the Sunni jihadists and foreign fighters forming ISIS, the vast majority of the funding and provision of the weapons that has created this situation of increasing 'radicalisation' is from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both of which are competing to get the most effective jihadist group fighting for their interests.

What Washington and London fear is that Assad has outplayed the West by turning its use of jihadi assets in Syria as a means of thwarting the plan, mostly backed by Qatar, to use Al Qaida affiliated groups such as the Al Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham to overthrow him.

Qatar has resisted forthrightly any attempt to change that foreign policy, one that has led to quarrels with Saudi Arabia which had previously supported Al Nusra but has started to fear jihadi influence spreading back home and preferred to bankroll more 'moderate' jihadi groups such as Jaysh al-Islam.

Saudi Arabia has attempted to persuade Washington to lift restrictions on supplying this new 'improved' jihadi group with anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles to give it the edge over Al Qaida affiliated groups ( still backed by Qatar ) and, of course, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Washington could regard the deep incursion into Iraq by ISIS as too good an opportunity to miss in using it as a pretext to roll back Assad in Syria and to make saving Maliki's Shia government in Iraq through effective use of air power, conditional on breaking its arms deals with Iran and trying to reach out to Iraqi sunni Muslims.

By so doing, Washington could decisively scupper any potential realisation of the proposed 'Islamic pipeline' between Iran, Iraq and Syria that would allow Tehran to export gas to the Eastern Mediterranean and thwart the preferred Qatar-Turkey pipeline that is proposed from the South Pars fieldb both Gulf powers share.

Apart from the benefits of hemming in Iran as part of a broader attempt to encircle and destroy the regime in Tehran through sanctions, Washington would be able to decisively set back Russia's plans to control the gas supply to Europe from the Eastern Mediterranean.

Syria's Geopolitical Significance,

A very good summary of Syria's geopolitical significance was written by Michael T Klare for The Nation in September.

'Although Syria is not itself a significant oil producer, it lies adjacent to many of the major suppliers and has long served as a host for pipelines connecting the Gulf to the Mediterranean. More importantly, in recent years, is has assumed strategic importance as an ally of Iran and a conduit for Iranian arms shipments to Hezbollah in Lebanon. “Syria has a geopolitical importance out of all proportion to its relatively small population, area, resource base, and economic wealth because of formidable military power…and its location at the heart of the Middle East,” Alasdair Drysdale of the Australian National University wrote in the Oxford Companion to World Politics. “As a result, it plays a central role in most of the Middle East’s key disputes.”

This is the dilemma facing Obama today. If the United States cannot extricate himself from the geopolitical imperatives posed by Iran’s continuing threat to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the safety of Persian Gulf oil supplies, it cannot extricate itself from the turmoil in Syria. Because a failure to confront Assad’s excesses could be viewed as giving Iran and other outside powers a green light to meddle in the Syrian conflict, and could be seen by the Iranians as an indication that they can continue to stockpile enriched uranium with impunity, US leaders see no choice but to become involved in Syria.

Russian involvement in the Syrian imbroglio adds another dimension to America’s dilemma. Russia has long-established ties with the Syrian leadership, beginning with Assad’s predecessor, his father Hafiz, and retains a vital naval base at Tartous, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. More important than these strategic interests, however, is Moscow’s desire to curb America’s global activism. From Russia’s perspective, then, Syria is less important as a strategic asset in itself than as an arena in which to gain geopolitical advantage over the West. By the same token, a failure to contest Russia’s spoiler in Syria role could be interpreted as an invitation for Moscow to undertake other obstructionist endeavors'.

Read the rest here.

Syria: The US, Kurdish Designs, Turkey, Iraq and Iran

No matter how President Obama and his team try to spin it a military intervention and 'upgrading' assistance to the insurgents against Assad backed by Qatar and Turkey would be tantamount to directly taking sides in the Syrian conflict. Up until now, Washington has only given CIA help to the Sunni dominated Free Syria Army;

Washington's foreign policy has consistently called for Assad to go. In refusing to engage with Iran diplomatically has made a slide into involvement in the civil war inevitable. There can be no political settlement if Washington demands that the precondition for peace is for Assad's Shia government to surrender.

The Alawites fear retribution from Sunni jihadists who have fought with the FSA including elements affiliated with Al Qaida such as the al Nusra Front who are fighting against Assad. They are not controlled by 'official' Sunni insurgents and the Syrian National Coalition and want to ethnically cleanse Alawi villages.

Turkey, moreover, is a NATO member threatened with the conflict between the Kurds and the radical Sunni jihadists of al Nusra. spilling over the border. Backing the FSA in Syria, Washington would face the prospect of Iran intervening more to back militant Kurdish separatists.
 
The danger of Kurdish separatist struggles with Sunni jihadists in northern Syria on the border with both Turkey and Iraq is that it threatens to destabilise border districts and towns in a way that could yet draw in other Western powers should it escalate. 

The Syrian government no longer has much control over the north east of the country and is content to see the al Nusra Front pinned down by Kurdish militias. Iran also gave support for those seeking Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq in order to increase its regional influence.

The reason for move towards separatism that the West opposes, in order to show solidarity with Turkey as a NATO member, is opposition to a potential future for an oil and gas rich Kurdistan with its own ideas about its role in the world that elude the control of regional and global powers.

As part of a fractured Iraq, the relative autonomy of Kirkuk from the Shia dominated government in Baghdad has yielded benefits for Western oil concerns who are willing to invest. But the West does not want to drive Baghdad towards Iran by pushing for Kurdish autonomy too much.

Nor does Iran want to back Kurdish independence more than is needed in order to only cause problems for Turkey alone because it is backing the Muslim Brotherhood against Iran's Shia client Assad. Iran has its own large Kurdish minority.

When Obama states that Syria is not Iraq and not Afghanistan, because of the history the US had in its invasions of both countries, he only wishes to emphasise the distinction between limited military intervention and war.

Unfortunately, Syria is very much a similar case to its Iraq neighbour in being a country more opened up to the competing energy interests of global powers since the US invasion of 2003. Syria is also similar to Afghanistan in being a geopolitically vital pipeline transit zone.

The 21st century is set to be an epoch of intense and bloody struggles and conflicts over resources. Western nations are necessarily going to be involved in them due their overdependence upon oil and gas in those volatile lands where they lie. 

Syria: The Geopolitical Constellation and the Move Towards Military Involvement in the Syrian civil War.

'While stressing that Washington's primary goal remained "limited and proportional" attacks, to degrade Syria's chemical weapons capabilities and deter their future use, the president hinted at a broader long-term mission that may ultimately bring about a change of regime.

"It also fits into a broader strategy that can bring about over time the kind of strengthening of the opposition and the diplomatic, economic and political pressure required – so that ultimately we have a transition that can bring peace and stability, not only to Syria but to the region"' 

President Barack Obama, Tuesday Sepember 3 2013 ( The Guardian, Obama hints at larger strategy to topple Assad in effort to win over Republicans )

Washington has always wanted regime change from the outset of the Syrian Civil War in April 2011. That Obama is now indicating that a policy of siding with the Syrian 'rebels'  is back 'on the table' in addition to missile strikes. one advocated staunchly by the neoconservative John McCain, reflects a continuity in policy.

The rationale is clear: the US, France and UK will not tolerate any extension of Iranian influence in Syria through Assad and Hizbollah while they are tacitly backing the attempt by Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to extend their influence by backing the armed Sunni Islamist opponents of the government.

The bottom line is that Qatar is an ally with a strategic partnership with Britain in a variety of military and economic bilateral ties which is completely opposed to Iran's rival geopolitical designs for Syria in the future-if it has one-including proposed pipelines to pump gas west towards Europe.

Turkey is already has sections of gas pipeline to hook up to Qatar and that requires the potential Shi'ite axis of influence from Iran to the Eastern Mediterranean be broken and Assad removed in Syria. That requires the playing the role of a revived Ottoman Empire and extending greater friendship ties to other Arab states.

Turkey wants to stand with Qatar not only due to the desire to increase its prominence as an energy hub between Europe and Asia. Gas rich Qatar now provides most of Turkey's tourist revenue. As Professor Norman Stone emphasised, after the protests in Turkey back in June 2013,

'Arab money is behind the shopping malls and is underpinning the Turkish current-account deficit. The Saudis and Qatar seem to be mainly involved, and now they buy up land in Yalova, over the water from Istanbul, as well. This has delighted the foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu'.

The danger is that in pushing for the support for the Sunni insurgents aligned to the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran would step up its support for Kurdish militias who want autonomy in Syria and Turkey leading to the conflict spilling over into a NATO member. The al Nusra Front is already in conflict with the Kurds.

So Syria is the proxy war ground not only for external powers but also for ethnic and sectarian enmities that straddle borders and have created fault lines across the Middle East. It is a lethal theatre in the New Great Game being played by the world's largest powers for control over energy flows across the region and beyond.

The ultimate target is Iran. Hemmed in to the east by a government installed by the West through the Afghanistan war and occupation, Iran is also having its gas export routes west thwarted by the US and other allies who have opposed Iran as an independent geopolitical player since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

If the US embarks on military intervention through missile strikes, Assad could react in a dangerous way and Iran is not going to be prepared to see him removed or overthrown by pro-Washington opponents. Hizbollah will step up operations and Iraq under a Shia president leans towards Tehran as well.

That is why measures towards what  David Cameron  called the need to 'tilt the balance', in the rebel's favour is now back' on the table' in Washington. No doubt Britain will be a willing partner in funnelling aid to the Sunni militias in order to put Assad in the position of negotiating his exit at a second Geneva Conference.

Washington's foreign policy and the insistence that 'Assad must go' exacerbated the problems in Syria to the point where any political settlement looks unlikely and yet where military intervention could intensify the level of killing and instability as well as committing the West to the Sunni side in a complex conflict.

Syria : The USA's Coercive Diplomacy on Syria.

'Obama's draft resolution has a short paragraph on the need for a political settlement in Syria and even calls on the Geneva talks process to be resumed urgently. Is it cynical or just naive? Syrian rebels' intransigence and their unwillingness to attend without preconditions are the main reason for the failure of Geneva so far.' ( Jonathan Steele, Syria: the US public faces a grim reality TV choice  Guardian September 1 2013 )

Washington never wanted a political settlement on any other terms other than that of the US and the Syrian opposition it supported along with the Friends of Syria group. It continually made Assad's removal or agreement to 'go' the precondition of any negotiations. The foreign policy was and remains 'Assad must go'

That has been the aim of of US and its strategic partners in the Middle east such as Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The US and Britain does not want any Iranian influence in Syria because there are fears it was using that to plan a pipeline to the Eastern Mediterranean in rivalry to Qatar's proposed one to Turkey.

Syria is geopolitically the cockpit for rival energy interests. The US, France and UK support Saudi Arabia and Qatar because they rely on these countries for oil or gas. France has become increasingly reliant on Qatar for LNG and Total has a stake in it. Britain likewise in order to diversify supplies away from Russia.

Iran is seen as a threat because it is a rival to both these countries and feared as a source of sponsorship for disgruntled Shia populations in Saudi Arabia who live near the main oil producing zones of Saudi Arabia not to mention backing Assad's Alawite regime in Syria.

Engaging with Iran is the most sensible diplomatic option to bring about a political settlement but the US and Britain have continually rejected that because of the energy interests at stake and because Qatar and Saudi Arabia are going to pursue their interests no matter what the Wests wants.

The problem comes down to the fact that though US foreign policy on Syria is one of choice it is also dictated by the necessity of it depending on Saudi Arabia for 12% of its oil still and the more general overarching strategy of containing Iran and getting 'regime change' there.

Obama started talking more straightforwardly of 'national security interests' after the British Parliament decided the UK would not take military action alongside the US. These interests are crucially interconnected with energy interests and energy security no less than they were with Britain and more so France.

Evidently, Obama is attempting to drum up wider support for a missile strike against Syria designed to add greater pressure along with Kerry's statement that there would be assistance to 'the rebels'. The UN security council is dismissed as 'completely paralysed'. In reality, the US is asserting coercive diplomacy.

Syria: The New Great Game for Gas.

'US defense secretary Chuck Hagel says US forces are now ready to act on any order by President Barack Obama to strike Syria. The US navy has four destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean sea within range of targets inside Syria. The US also has warplanes in the region'.

It seems that the point of no return has been reached with the prospect of cruise missile strikes against the Syrian government being launched. The propaganda machine is in full spin, the media is focusing on the 'implementation' of a military attack that has been

This is despite the work of the UN inspectors in trying to find solid evidence chemical weapon use and this concern has been eclipsed. The YouTube clips and instantaneous images from social media sites of dying children believed to be casualties of a 'heinous' attack by 'the 'Assad regime' are a propaganda coup.

There are token nods towards the UN inspectors finding the facts first but the momentum towards military action is in full swing in order to maintain Western 'credibility', the same position held by Madelaine Albright with regards the 78 day bombardment of Serbia during the Kosovo Conflict in 1999.

But Syria is not Kosovo and the potential for the conflict to spin out of control as the result of military action far greater. The aim of the West has been 'regime change' from the outset of the civil war. Iran was not engaged with diplomatically and Assad's removal the precondition for negotiations.

Regime change is about the geopolitics and the control of energy supplies. Qatar supported the Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi Arabia other Wahhabi Islamist militias to remove Assad because he signed a deal to construct a rival gas pipeline from Iranian sector of the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf.

The New Great Game for gas is a vital interest for the West which has become increasingly dependent upon LNG from Egypt and Qatar in the last decade, not least Britain whose North Sea gas reserves have depleted at an alarming rate since 1999. The EU consumes 25% of the world's gas. It produces 2%.

Iran is warning the West about its attack on the Syrian state because this geopolitical gas export route through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean is another way to assert its standing as a global player with whom the West would need to negotiate rather than threaten with violence.

With gas export routes to the east through the Iran-Pakistan pipeline blocked off by Western manoeuvres to keep Pakistan onside ready for the construction of the Trans-Afghan pipeline-the central war aim in Afghanistan-Iran will be bound to try and back Hizbollah in Syria all the more as it becomes encircled.

If US missile strikes from its warships in the Mediterranean cause damage to Assad's regime without defeating it it can only put the backers of Syria's proxy armies further at odds in a way that could create the potential for all out regional conflict with lethal global ramifications.

For Russia has vital interests in backing Assad because a huge new gas field was discovered in April 2011 by the Syrians near the border with Lebanon and Tartus-the home of the Russian Mediterranean naval base and a potential export base of gas to the EU. Russia's Gazprom is also interested in gas deposits off Cyprus.

Unilateral US missile attacks, aided by willing European states increasingly desperate to be independent of Russian gas, is bound to be responded to by Russia should it lead to the real prospect of the Assad government collapsing because it could destabilise Chechnya. 

The decision to threaten missile strikes as a substitute for diplomacy or as an attempt to force the Assad government to step down could literally backfire if it fails to achieve that ( which is likely ) but only steps up the regional instability that could create an even worse situation to deal with in future.

Egypt: A Cockpit of Domestic and International Power Politics.

On the Washington's reaction to the Egyptian coup, Jonathan Steele writes,

'It was taken aback by the anti-Mubarak protests in 2011 and hesitated for days before persuading General Hussein Tantawi, the top military man of the time, to tell Mubarak to resign. It supported Morsi's removal after the event (and perhaps in advance), claiming the army is "restoring democracy" in John Kerry's phrase'.

Is there really any evidence, however, that Washington was not taken by surprise by the coup ? Or plotted it ? The reason that Washington has not cut the funding to the Egyptian military is more because it has to depend on it to preserve 'stability' against any threat from radicalised Islamists that come from the nature of the coup.

The Egyptian military has been armed and trained by the US since the 1979s to protect the state against threats from jihadists, including the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s and 1990s, and secure the Suez Canal, the border with Israel and strong relations with Saudi Arabia.

SCAF knew it could crush the Muslim Brotherhood without Washington being able to do anything to stop it even it it wanted. The overdependence upon oil and Egypt's geostrategic significance to the Western powers, as well as the potential threat of Cairo moving towards closer ties with China, ensure that.

As, unfortunately, do the lucrative multi-billion dollar arms deals that Washington has with Egypt. The $1.3 billion given to the Egyptian military is a form of subsidy to the US arms industry and firms such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics to boost sales, one that 'preserves jobs' and US manufacturing.

However, even if Washington did cut aid, the Egyptian military is a power in its own right and can use revenue from its own vast business empire in Egypt and money from Saudi Arabia to buy weapons in order to preseve 'stability'. Moreover, Egypt bought $800 million in Chinese weapons after 2003 and $600 million from Russia.

Egypt is now the focus of an arms race that is tied to geopolitical rivalry in the oil and gas rich Middle East. Indeed, the US itself has sought in the last decade to boost arms exports to Egypt so that the vital sea route to the Gulf of Aden, Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean is maintained against threats.

With China making inroads into Saudi Arabia and developing oil and trade deals, Washington is going to be wary of losing influence should Egypt turn towards the east as well as it has shown signs of doing not only under the old regime but under Morsi as well.

Morsi Lost a Brutal Power Struggle.

Steele goes on to claim of US statesmen that,

'They seem to have forgotten that Mohamed Morsi was elected president by millions of people in a free vote..... Morsi's rhetoric was often crudely partisan but his actions were not so one‑sided or narrow, given that he tried to appease the military by appointing several Mubarak-era technocrats to his cabinet'

Morsi was elected with 51% of the vote in a presidential election against a rival candidate he narrowly beat on a turnout of 43%. This came after the lower house of the Egyptian Parliament was dissolved after the Supreme Court decreed there has been electoral irregularities in Muslim Brotherhood seats.

Essentially, what has happened since the 'Arab Spring' of 2011 is a brutal power struggle between the old regime and the Muslim Brotherhood that has sidelined the more secular democrats and liberals and presented Egypt with a choice of either supporting the old regime again or identifying with the 'martyrs'.

The electoral turnouts prior to the coup in elections were dwindling as Egyptians saw they had no real choice. After the People's Assembly was dissolved in June 2012, there seemed to be few safeguards against Morsi's attempt to ram through a constitution that did not have popular support.

Apart, that is, from the Egyptian army which got rid of Morsi and a new constitution that had been approved of just above 60% of voters in a referendum in December 2012 in which only 37% of voters bothered with. No checks and balances on the president's authority has been guaranteed before his election.

By failing to try to rule for all Egyptians and, ironically, by thinking he had put the army on his side ( they retained a direct role in politics even under his new constitution ) at a time of economic collapse which any new government would have faced problems with, Morsi sealed his and his party's fate.

The irony is that the Muslim Brotherhood tried in November 2012 to strip civilian courts such as the SCC of their power while having done nothing to restrain the power of the military courts whose position was actually protected under the new constitution promulgated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood's failure to restrain the power of the Egyptian military and to end the military trials that Mubarak introduced, precisely because civilian courts were not effective enough in imprisoning Muslim Brotherhood members, will now be used against them.

By failing to work with those who wanted to restain the power of the Egyptian army, while consistely alienating other groups who had participated in the struggle to be rid of Mubarak's dictatorship, the Muslim Brotherhood helped to expedite the rule of the army.

Patrick Cockburn got it right in The Independent ( Egypt on the brink of a new dark age, as the generals close in for the kill )

'Right up to the giant rallies in Egypt on 30 June Morsi believed the mass petition against his rule was "absurd and unconstitutional". He convinced himself, against compelling evidence to the contrary, that the Egyptian armed forces had accepted a subsidiary role so long as their interests were protected. By policies of sustained ineptitude Morsi and the Brotherhood forced together a strange and awkward alliance against themselves of officials from Mubarak's police state, the military establishment, anti-Mubarak leftists and liberals, businessmen, Copts, intelligentsia and even Salafists'

The Egyptian Crisis: Why Obama Will Not Cut Aid to Egypt.

'Instead of addressing the issue of the coup and its implications for US aid to Egypt, he announced that the US would not hold joint military exercises with the Egyptians, which was just about the smallest punishment that he could have chosen, short of doing nothing'.

Daniel Larison: Unless Obama cuts aid to Egypt, he'll be seen as endorsing coup and crackdown .The Guardian Thursday 15 August 2013.

President Obama is going to continue doing nothing because the retaining the support of the Egyptian generals ( SCAF ) is believed crucial to maintaining American foreign policy goals and geopolitical objectives such as the continued supply of relatively cheap oil and gas from the Middle East.

The only reason John McCain is now posturing and calling for an end to the military aid is for the domestic political aim of making Obama seem indecisive and weak. It is merely a way for him to present himself as not Obama at a time when he is facing the consequent fallout of a policy the dates back to 1979.

The Egyptian army is funded by the US to preserve the security of the Sinai Peninsula that borders Israel and is close to Saudi Arabia with which the US also has a strategic military partnership based on oil and arms deals. The Sumed pipeline pumps oil west from the Gulf and needs protection.

Even if the US cancelled military aid, it would acheive little that Saudi Arabia could not do by stepping in to provide more than the $10 billion it has already given the regime for removing and eliminating the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement seen as a potential threat to the oil rich kingdom.

Given that the Obama administration has also seen setbacks in Syria, with the Sunni insurgents being rolled back and defeated by President Assad with help from Hezbollah and Iran, US primacy in the Middle East is seen as threatened which is why McCain is getting increasingly critical.

Yet the security of the Suez Canal is vital to uphold US interests in the Persian Gulf against the nation McCain has ranted against more than any other- Iran. It was Iran's breaking free from US control over its oil in 1979 along with the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan that created the current balance of power.

With Iran being seen as a potential menace to US oil interests in the Persian Gulf, the Suez Canal was all the more vital as a rapid sea route for US Fifth Fleet to have a shortcut to the region. The treaty with Egypt of 1979 gives the US exclusive quick passage whereas other powers must wait weeks.

The naval carriers are also vital to the war effort in Afghanistan. One central war aim seldom mentioned is to secure the construction of the TAPI pipeline as an alternative to Iran's rival IP pipeline through to Pakistan. The transport of Liquified Natural Gas via the Suez Canal is a strategic 'energy security' concern.

With an energy hungry and assertive China also courting influence in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, US dependence upon 12 % of its oil from Saudi Arabia ensures that Washington is going to continue to back the Egyptian army because to do otherwise would severely threaten the basis of  its foreign policy in the Middle East.

For some years now the US has been wary on increased Chinese influence in the oil rich kingdom and Russia's tendency to cooperate with Iran and Syria. One reason for the Iraq War in 2003 was to control the globe's second largest oil reserves in order to diversify oil supply.

However, as the Iraq war backfired and led in time to China gaining more oil concessions, the US has seen its global reach shrink and it is not going to want to lose Egypt to rival powers vying for influence in Iraq and Syria-especially Iran along with Russia and China.

With lucrative arms deals with Egypt at stake and increased rivalry with China and Russia in the New Great Game that has arisen in the wake of the end of the Cold War, Washington is not going to halt the flow of military aid nor, more ominously, is it going to watch should Egypt slide into chaos.

Why Obama Will Not Stop Military Aid to Egypt.

"If I'm an Egyptian general, I take notice and think President Obama is trying to take the least painful step to demonstrate to various constituencies in the US that he means what he says about democracy in Egypt," said Amy Hawthorne, who until recently was an Egypt policy official at the State Department.

The Egyptian generals do not care what Obama says. Nor are they interested in what impact he is supposed to be making on the US domestic audience who, in turn, mostly often not care about Egypt anyway nor understand what is at stake other than some vague sentiments about 'democracy' prevailing.

The reality is that SCAF has been able to get away with the execution of the coup and its follow up operations to eradicate the Muslim Brotherhood protesters from the streets of Cairo because it knows the US depends on it for 'counter terrorism' and the security of Sinai Peninsula which abuts Israel and Saudi Arabia

With the July 3 coup an a fait accompli already , the US is simply not going to 'suspend' aid because it is already pledged to deliver it until the end of 2013. Furthermore, Washington is hedging its bets as if the killings stimulate a resurgence in Islamist terrorism it will need the army to protect its interests.

Those interests are the protecting of the border with Israel agreed in 1978-9, preventing the sabotage of oil and gas pipelines West and to Israel and the Suez Canal. But they also include preventing Egypt from becoming a base for Al Qaida terrorism that could spread into the oil producing Gulf states.

Yemen, to the south of Saudi Arabia, is already menaced by Al Qaida and its operatives targeted there with the nation becoming a testing ground for killer drones. As many missiles have ended up killing civilians, even pro-US figures in Yemen are claiming the strikes are acting only to swell Al Qaida's ranks.

As with other Arab nations affected by the 'Arab Spring' of 2011, Yemen is another potential flashpoint where a failing state presides over a strategically vital oil and gas transit nation with a burgeoning youthful population that has run up against environmental limits and has a food crisis reaching catastrophic proportions

Yemen is a minor oil exporter but occupies the one of the world's seven most important oil 'chokepoints' that are vital to the flow of oil to Western nations overdependent upon it to fuel their consumerism. Al Qaida propaganda has always exploited the line that 'their decadent prosperity mean your poverty'.

Bab el-Mandab is a chokepoint between the horn of Africa and the Middle East, and a strategic link between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean. It is located between Yemen, Djibouti, and Eritrea, and connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.

An estimated 3.2 million bbl/d flowed through this waterway in 2009 (vs. 4 million bbl/d in 2008) toward Europe, the United States, and Asia. The majority of traffic, about 1.8 million bbl/d, moved northbound through the Bab el-Mandab en route to the Suez/SUMED complex.

The concentrated Al Qaida threat to Yemen thus focuses on throttling oil supplies to the West. Somalian pirates also menace the area. But the heavy overdependence upon oil from the Saudi peninsula and Gulf Region, as well as Al Qaida threats, means plans to establish US military bases in Yemen. will lead to conflict.

The geopolitical significance of Yemen is an extension of a prime concern that dovetails with the continued support the Egyptian army-the security of the sea route for the US navy between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea through the Gulf of Aden and thenceforth to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean.

Ultimately, Egypt's stability remains a cornerstone of the entire framework for the balance of power set up by the US to guard Western oil interests during the 1970s from the strategic military partnership with Saudi Arabia against its Gulf rival Iran to the backing for Pakistan as bulwark against Iran to the east.

Egypt: The West's Failed Policy.

"We appreciate the complexity of the situation...We recognise that change takes time. There are going to be false starts and difficult days. We know that democratic transitions are measured not in months or even years, but sometimes in generations.

While Mohamed Morsi was elected president in a democratic election, his government was not inclusive and did not respect the views of all Egyptians. We know that many Egyptians, millions of Egyptians, perhaps even a majority of Egyptians, were calling for a change in course."- President Obama

In the light of the the army's killing of MB street protesters, western politicians have to stop trotting out the line about democratic elections. It only gives vent to those claiming elections were all about the 'will of the people' as opposed to first having had a constitution accepted by a broad number of Egyptians beforehand.

The Arab Spring never blossomed. No new constitution was ratified in advance of the presidential election which is why even in the first run off the majority of Egyptians did not vote. In the second run off people had a choice of Mubarak's last prime minister and Morsi, whom few had ever even heard of before.

Obama's decision to cancel US military exercises with Egypt is only intended to signal that it disapproves of the manner in which the Egyptian security forces are dealing with the remnants of the Muslim Brotherhood's support on the streets of Cairo.

The coup is not a coup in Washington because if it were it could not legally send aid to Egypt to fund and train the security forces to preserve its interests. One of those is counter-terrorism so if the upshot of General Sisi's coup is to ramp up that threat then the US is hardly likely to want to suspend it.

The platitudes coming from US and EU envoys and diplomats prove that they want 'transition' but for it to be a smooth one. The Egyptian army do not give a damn about the wittering Lady Ashton's calls for the need for the need for the 'utmost restraint', the need for 'dialogue', 'inclusivity' and 'overcoming differences'.

From the outset of the so-called 'Arab Spring' of 2011, the army were firmly in control. Now the Egyptian army is claiming it is doing the sort of 'counter terrorism' operations it has been trained to enact for decades with the backing of the western powers.

The course was set for a showdown between the old regime and the Muslim Brotherhood ever since the army dissolved the Egyptian Parliament in July 2012. US and EU diplomats had little or nothing to say about that. But it meant that any future president would rule without a democratically mandated constitution.

Ultimately, neither the US nor the EU are going to let Egypt slide into chaos and it depends on the army it has backed since the 1970s being there to do so. SCAF knows that and knows that the Gulf States, which supply the oil the EU states take via the Sumed pipeline and Suez Canal back them too.

Egypt: The Coming Darkness

The death toll stands at about 149 people. The security forces moved in yesterday with bulldozers and armed police to eject Muslim Brotherhood supporters protesting in street camps against their president, Muhammad Morsi, being removed from office by the Egyptian army. Bloodshed was inevitable from then on.

But Egypt's descent into civil war was always likely from the moment the army dissolved the Egyptian Parliament on July 14 2012. By doing so, the Muslim Brotherhood was always going to try to proceed to go on and grab as much power as they could through the presidency of Morsi.

Two things are important here. Firstly, the Morsi presidency was never legitimate as no constitution providing checks and balances on the president's authority had been agreed prior to the election. He gained only 51% of the vote against a Mubarak regime candidate, Ahmed Shafik, in a vote with only 43% turnout.

Secondly, the military takeover on July 3 2013 was meant to exploit popular resentment at the way the Muslim Brotherhood had stolen the revolution of 2011 to impose their own version of a constitution without a clear and legitimate democratic mandate to do so.

The Egyptian security force's use of brutality in crushing the Muslim Brotherhood now is exactly what they have always wanted for two decades. A discredited Islamist opposition, that had botched its attempt to embrace democracy by trying to exclude liberal and leftist parties, could be conclusively removed.

But the sheer excess of force being used is also a demonstration to other players in the "Arab Spring" that the Egyptian army is ultimately in control. The security forces have repeatedly used force since 2011 against non-Islamist protesters who were angry at the absence of guaranteed democratic reforms.

What this "mopping up" operation in Cairo proves is that the nonsensical platitudes from Western politicians and envoys about getting democracy 'back on track' fail to grasp the reality. Western liberal observers  invested hopes in the Arab Spring that were entirely misplaced

There was never a functioning democracy in Egypt nor a revolution in 2011 but only a revolt coopted by the army into legitimising a de facto coup against Mubarak. From then on the old regime sought to defend its power by winning a duel with the main threat to that in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The 'Arab Spring' was a myth; it was, as historian Mark Almond writes, 'regime change as an inside job' .The very day after Mubarak's resignation late on 11th February 2011 the crowds, who had whipped themselves up into a fervour of hope through social media websites in Tahrir Square were dispersed.

Effectively, the it was the Egyptian army came to power in 2011. The coup of July 3 only allowed it to move centre stage and finish off the remnants of an unpopular and defeated Muslim Brotherhood. By invoking a 'state of emergency' it could pose itself as the guardian of economic and political order.

Before the 'Arab Spring', the Muslim Brotherhood had always been able to pretend to be a potential rival alternative. The Egyptian army knew it could remove that threat by acting when it did at a time of economic chaos and that the potential terrorist threat, real or imagined, could be used to bolster its power.

For if the destruction of the Muslim Brotherhood leads to a resurgence of Islamist terrorism, it can be guaranteed that its financial remit from external powers would be continued. No power would want Egypt destabilised because of the Suez Canal and its geostrategic role as an oil and gas transit state.

Even if Washington decided to remove its $1.3bn annual funding, it would not make a great deal of difference to the Egyptian army which controls 40% of the economy. The Gulf States would step in to shore up the protector of the Sumed pipeline that pumps oil west to energy intensive European nations.

The Egyptian army, in any case, has until the end of 2013 to conclusively bring about the appearance of a 'democratic transition' as Washington is already pledged to providing the remaining cash for bureaucratic reasons. If it can be effected and 'stability' achieved, the calculation is that it will be business as usual.

The indications are that this cannot be the case. Libya is awash with arms after the regime change aided by Western military intervention. Al Qaida's message about a US backed coup by an 'Americanised' army will be heeded by scores of angry unemployed men without a future in an overpopulated nation.

Western politicians are wary. If Egypt collapses into anarchy, the current balance of power and set up that has existed since the 1970s will collapse. If discontent spreads into Saudi Arabia, an oil price shock could cause economic collapse across the world, especially in the EU, and lead to terrorist blowback.