As the world order shifts into a multipolar world, a new balance of power based on economic ties centered in Asia emerges.
A New Order in West Asia: The Case of China’s Strategic Presence in Syria
Unanimity on a new American century had gone unchecked for a decade. The warhawk John Bolton lambasted Xi’s authoritarianism, claiming the new crackdown has made it practically hard for the CIA to keep agents in China.
Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) has evolved enormously since its inception. Today, multipolarity has developed, promising long-term progress for everyone who follows its norms. And Syria is one among them, had lately returned to world prominence after defeating a decade-long military offensive by the traditional unipolar actors.
In spite of this, unlawful US sanctions continue to harm the hungry, impede the rehabilitation of essential infrastructure and access to clean water, and restrict the livelihood of millions in Syria.
“We welcome Syria’s involvement in the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative,” stated Xi Jinping to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on November 5.
In July 2021, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with the Arab League’s head to discuss Syria’s return to the fold. A four-point plan to end Syria’s multi-faceted crisis was signed by China at the end of the tour, which coincided with Assad’s re-election.
Surrounded by western-backed separatist movements, Syria reiterated its support for China’s territorial integrity. In 2018, China gave Syria $28 million, and in September 2019, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi proposed China-Iraq oil for rebuilding and greater BRI integration.
Events orchestrated by foreign forces halted this progress. Protests swiftly overthrew Abdul Mahdi’s administration and the oil-for-reconstruction scheme. In recent months, Iraq has rekindled this endeavor, but progress has been modest.
These projects are currently mostly channeled through the 25-year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership deal between China and Iran in March 2021. This might open the way for future rail and energy lines connecting Iran with Iraq and Syria.
At the first formal BRI meeting in April 2019, President Assad stated: “The Silk Route (Belt and Road Initiative) crossing through Syria is a foregone conclusion when this infrastructure is constructed, since it is not a road you can merely put on a map.”
China and Syria are now staying quiet on specifics. Assad’s wish list may be deduced from his previous strategic vision for Syria. Assad’s Five Seas Strategy, which he pushed from 2004 to 2011, has gone after the US began attacking Syria.
The “Five Seas Strategy” includes building rail, roads, and energy systems to connect Syria to the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, Black, Red, and Caspian Seas. The project is a logical link that connects Mackinder’s world island’s states. This initiative was “the most significant thing” Assad has ever done, he claimed in 2009.
Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon were among the countries Assad led delegations to sign agreements with in 2011. President Qaddafi of Libya and a coalition of nations including Sudan, Ethiopia, and Egypt were building the Great Man-Made River at the time.
We can’t comprehend why Qaddafi was killed, why Sudan was partitioned in 2009, or why the US is presently financing a regime change in Ethiopia until we grasp this tremendous, game-changing strategic paradigm. Diplomatic confidentiality between China and West Asia is so essential in the post-regime transition situation.
Over the last decade, BRI-compliant initiatives throughout West Asia and Africa have been sabotaged in various ways. This has been a pattern. Neither Assad nor the Chinese want to go back to that.
The Arab League re-admitted Syria on November 23, revealing the substance of this hidden diplomacy. They have proved that they are prepared to accept their humiliation, acknowledge Assad’s legitimacy, and adjust to the new Middle Eastern powers of China and Russia: the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Unlike decades of US promises that consider Arab participation as disposable short-term interests, the China-Russia cooperation provides genuine, demonstrable advantages for everybody.
The BRI now includes 17 Arab and 46 African countries, while the US has spent the last decade sanctioning and fining those who do not accept its global hegemony. Faced with a possible solution to its current economic problems and currency fluctuations, Turkey has turned to China for help.
Buying ISIS-controlled oil, sending extremist fighters to the region, and receiving arms from Saudi Arabia and Qatar were all known methods of supporting ISIS and Al Qaeda operations in Iraq and Syria. The CIA’s funding has dwindled in recent months, leaving ISIS with little else to work with.
Though US President Joe Biden reiterated US military backing for the Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ hand has been overplayed. Many people now realize that the Kurds have been tricked into acting as ISIS’ counter-gang, and that promises of a Kurdish state are as unreal as Assad’s demise. For a long time, it was evident that Syria’s only hope for survival was Russia’s military assistance and China’s BRI, both of which need Turkey to preserve Syria’s sovereignty.
This new reality and the impending collapse of the old unipolar order in West Asia give reason to believe that the region, or at least a significant portion of it, is already locked in and counting on the upcoming development and connectivity boom.
The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.
by Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted
After careful evaluation, the Kremlin is rearranging the geopolitical chessboard to end the unipolar hegemony of the “indispensable nation”.
But it’s our fate / To have no place to rest, / As suffering mortals / Blindly fall and vanish / From one hour / To the next, / Like water falling / From cliff to cliff, downward / For years to uncertainty.
Holderlin, Hyperion’s Fate Song
Operation Z is the first salvo of a titanic struggle: three decades after the fall of the USSR, and 77 years after the end of WWII, after careful evaluation, the Kremlin is rearranging the geopolitical chessboard to end the unipolar hegemony of the “indispensable nation”. No wonder the Empire of Lies has gone completely berserk, obsessed in completely expelling Russia from the West-centric system.
The U.S. and its NATO puppies cannot possibly come to grips with their perplexity when faced with a staggering loss: no more entitlement allowing exclusive geopolitical use of force to perpetuate “our values”. No more Full Spectrum Dominance.
The micro-picture is also clear. The U.S. Deep State is milking to Kingdom Come its planned Ukraine gambit to cloak a strategic attack on Russia. The “secret” was to force Moscow into an intra-Slav war in Ukraine to break Nord Stream 2 – and thus German reliance on Russian natural resources. That ends – at least for the foreseeable future – the prospect of a Bismarckian Russo-German connection that would ultimately cause the U.S. to lose control of the Eurasian landmass from the English Channel to the Pacific to an emerging China-Russia-Germany pact.
The American strategic gambit, so far, has worked wonders. But the battle is far from over. Psycho neo-con/neoliberalcon silos inside the Deep State consider Russia such a serious threat to the “rules-based international order” that they are ready to risk if not incur a “limited” nuclear war out of their gambit. What’s at stake is nothing less than the loss of Ruling the World by the Anglo-Saxons.
Mastering the Five Seas
Russia, based on purchasing power parity (PPP), is the 6th economy in the world, right behind Germany and ahead of both the UK and France. Its “hard” economy is similar to the U.S. Steel production may be about the same, but intellectual capacity is vastly superior. Russia has roughly the same number of engineers as the U.S., but they are much better educated.
The Mossad attributes Israel’s economic miracle in creating an equivalent of Silicon Valley to a base of a million Russian immigrants. This Israeli Silicon Valley happens to be a key asset of the American MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex), as indelibly named by Ray McGovern.
NATOstan media hysterically barking that Russia’s GDP is the size of Texas is nonsense. PPP is what really counts; that and Russia’s superior engineers is why their hypersonic weapons are at least two or three generations ahead of the U.S. Just ask the indispensable Andrei Martyanov.
The Empire of Lies has no defensive missiles worthy of the name, and no equivalents to Mr. Zircon and Mr. Sarmat. The NATOstan sphere simply cannot win a war, any war against Russia for this reason alone.
The deafening NATOstan “narrative” that Ukraine is defeating Russia does not even qualify as an innocuous joke (compare it with Russia’s “Reach Out and Touch Someone” strategy). The corrupt system of SBU fanatics intermingled with UkroNazi factions is kaput. The Pentagon knows it. The CIA cannot possibly admit it. What the Empire of Lies has sort of won, so far, is a media “victory” for the UkroNazis, not a military victory.
Gen Aleksandr Dvornikov, of Syria fame, has a clear mandate: to conquer the whole of Donbass, totally free up Crimea and prepare the advance towards Odessa and Transnistria while reducing a rump Ukraine to the status of failed state without any access to the sea.
The Sea of Azov – linked to the Caspian by the Don-Volga canal – is already a Russian lake. And the Black Sea is next, the key connection between the Heartland and the Mediterranean. The Five Seas system – Black, Azov, Caspian, Baltic, White – enshrines Russia as a de facto continental naval power. Who needs warm waters?
Moving “at the speed of war”
The pain dial, from now on, will go up non-stop. Reality – as in facts on the ground – will soon become apparent even to the NATOstan-wide LugenPresse.
The woke Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Mark Milley, expects Operation Z to last years. That’s nonsense. The Russian Armed Forces may afford to be quite methodical and take all the time needed to properly demilitarize Ukraine. The collective West for its part is pressed for time – because the blowback from the real economy is already on and bound to become vicious.
Defense Minister Shoigu has made it quite clear: any NATO vehicles bringing weapons to Kiev will be destroyed as “legitimate military targets”.
A report by the scientific service of the Bundestag established that training of Ukrainian soldiers on German soil may amount, under international law, to participation in war. And that gets even trickier when coupled with NATO weapons deliveries: “Only if, in addition to the supply of weapons, the instruction of the conflict party or training in such weapons were also an issue would one leave the secure area of non-warfare.”
Now at least it’s irretrievably clear how the Empire of Lies “moves at the speed of war” – as described in public by weapons peddler turned Pentagon head, Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin. In Pentagonese, that was explained by the proverbial “official” as “a combination of a call center, a watch floor, meeting rooms. They execute a battle rhythm to support decision-makers.”
The Pentagonese “battle rhythm” offered to a supposedly “credible, resilient and combat-capable Ukraine military” is fed by a EUCom system that essentially moves weapons orders from Pentagon warehouses in the U.S. to branches of the Empire of Bases in Europe and then to the NATO eastern front in Poland, where they are trucked across Ukraine just in time to be duly incinerated by Russian precision strikes: the wealth of options include supersonic P-800 Onyx missiles, two types of Iskander, and Mr. Khinzal launched from Mig-31Ks.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed Moscow is perfectly aware the U.S., NATO and UK are transferring not only weapons but also loads of intel. In parallel, the collective West turns everything upside down 24/7 shaping a new environment totally geared against Russia, not caring for even a semblance of partnership in any area. The collective West does not even consider the possibility of dialogue with Russia.
Hence talking to Putin is “a waste of time” unless a “Russian defeat” in Ukraine (echoing strident Kiev P.R.) would make him “more realistic”. For all his faults, Le Petit Roi Macron/McKinsey has been an exception, on the phone with Putin earlier this week.
The neo-Orwellian Hitlerization of Putin reduces him, even among the so-called Euro-intelligentzia, to the status of dictator of a nation chloroformed into its 19th century nationalism. Forget about any semblance of historical/political/cultural analysis. Putin is a late Augustus, dressing up his Imperium as a Republic.
At best the Europeans preach and pray – chihuahuas yapping to His Master’s Voice – for a hybrid strategy of “containment and engagement” to be unleashed by the U.S., clumsily parroting the scribblings of denizens of that intellectual no-fly zone, Think Tankland.
Yet in fact the Europeans would rather “isolate” Russia – as in 12% of the world’s population “isolating” 88% (of course: their Westoxified “vision” completely ignores the Global South). “Help” to Russia will only come when sanctions are effective (as in never: blowback will be the norm) or – the ultimate wet dream – there’s regime change in Moscow.
The Fall
UkroNazi P.R. agent Ursula von der Lugen presented the sixth sanction package of the Europoodle (Dis)Union.
Top of the bill is to exclude three more Russian banks from SWIFT, including Sberbank. Seven banks are already excluded. This will enforce Russia’s “total isolation”. It’s idle to comment on something that only fools the LugenPresse.
Then there’s the “progressive” embargo on oil imports. No more crude imported to the EU in six months and no more refined products before the end of 2022. As it stands, the IEA shows that 45% of Russia’s oil exports go to the EU (with 22% to China and 10% to the U.S.). His Master’s Voice continues and will continue to import Russian oil.
And of course 58 “personal” sanctions also show up, targeting very dangerous characters such as Patriarch Kirill of the Orthodox Church, and the wife, son and daughter of Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov.
This stunning display of stupidity will have to be approved by all EU members. Internal revolt is guaranteed, especially from Hungary, even as so many remain willing to commit energy suicide and mess up with the lives of their citizens big time to defend a neo-Nazi regime.
Alastair Crooke called my attention to a startling, original interpretation of what’s goin’ on, offered in Russian by a Serbian analyst, Prof. Slobodan Vladusic. His main thesis, in a nutshell: “Megalopolis hates Russia because it is not Megalopolis – it has not entered the sphere of anti-humanism and that is why it remains a civilization alternative. Hence Russophobia.”
Vladusic contends that the intra-Slav war in Ukraine is “a great catastrophe for Orthodox civilization” – mirroring my recent first attempt to open a serious debate on a Clash of Christianities.
Yet the major schism is not on religion but culture: “The key difference between the former West and today’s Megalopolis is that Megalopolis programmatically renounces the humanistic heritage of the West.”
So now “it is possible to erase not only the musical canon, but also the entire European humanistic heritage: the entire literature, fine arts, philosophy” because of a “trivialization of knowledge”. What’s left is an empty space, actually a cultural black hole, “filled by promoting terms such as ‘posthumanism’ and ‘transhumanism’.”
And here Vladusic gets to the heart of the matter: Russia fiercely opposes the Great Reset concocted by the “hackable”, self-described “elites” of Megalopolis.
Sergey Glazyev, now coordinating the draft of a new financial/monetary system by the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) in partnership with the Chinese, adapts Vladusic to the facts on the ground (here in Russian, here in an imperfect English translation).
Glazyev is way more blunt than in his meticulous economic analyses. While noting the Deep State’s aims of destroying the Russian world, Iran and block China, he stresses the U.S. “will not be able to win the global hybrid war”. A key reason is that the collective West has “put all independent countries in front of the need to find new global currency instruments, risk insurance mechanisms, restore the norms of international law and create their own economic security systems.”
So yes, this is Totalen Krieg, Total War – as Glazyev spells it out with no attenuation, and how Russia denounced it this week at the UN: “Russia needs to stand up to the United States and NATO in its confrontation, bringing it to its logical conclusion, so as not to be torn between them and China, which is irrevocably becoming the leader of the world economy.”
History may eventually register, 77 years after the end of WWII, that neocon/neoliberalcon psychos in Washington silos instigating an inter-Slavic war by ordering Kiev to launch a blitzkrieg against Donbass was the spark that led to the Fall of the U.S. Empire.
‘A crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind.’ So says a Chinese proverb, and nowhere is this truer than in crisis-ridden West Asia, now a major focus of Beijing’s BRI vision to bring infrastructure, connectivity and economic growth to this struggling region
West Asia’s winds have changed. When Syria began 2022 by joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it became the 20th Arab country that Beijing has factored into its grand connectivity vision for Asia, Africa and Europe.
The ambitious connectivity and development projects the BRI can inject into a war-torn, exhausted West Asia have the ability to transform the areas from the Levant to the Persian Gulf into a booming world market hub.
Importantly, by connecting these states via rail, road, and water, the foreign-fueled differences that have kept nations at odds since colonial times will have to take a back seat. Once-hostile neighbors must work in tandem for mutually-beneficial economic gains and a more secure future to work.
And money talks – in a region continuously beset by war, terrorism, ruin and shortages.
Rebuilding Syria and linking the Four Seas
On 12 January this year, Syria officially joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The timing of this decision dovetails with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s whirlwind tour of West Asia this past spring and summer, beginning with the signing of the $400 billion Sino-Iranian 25-year Comprehensive Cooperation Plan.
In turn, President Bashar al-Assad’s re-election in May last year opened the door to a seven-year Sino-Syrian partnership in the reconstruction of Syria, to relink it to the Mediterranean and Asian markets.
The task will be extensive. The cost of Syria’s reconstruction is estimated to be between $250 and $400 billion – a massive sum, considering Syria’s 2018 total budget was just less than $9 billion.
Nonetheless, Syria has much to offer and China has never been reticent over long-term investment strategies, especially when much can be gained in stabilizing regions that include core transportation corridors.
Syria’s geographical location has been a center for trade and commerce that dates back centuries.
Today, it offers a crucial bypass from the choke points represented by the straits that separate the South China Sea from the Indian Ocean (Malacca, Sunda and Lombok), now controlled by a heavy US presence.
The location of Syria is of central importance to the trade routes through the Five Seas Vision, which was officially put forward by the Syrian president in 2004.
As Assad explained this vision: “Once the economic space between Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran becomes integrated, we would link the Mediterranean, the Caspian, the Black Sea, and the Gulf … we are not only important in the Middle East … Once we link these Four Seas, we become the compulsory intersection of the whole world in investment, transport, and more.”
Source: Schiller Institute. Proposed rail lines from Albu Kamal/Al-Qaim to Deir Ezzor onto Palmyra and Tehran to Baghdad.
The Latakia Port will be crucial to the Five Seas Vision, and will likely be the first primary focus for heavy Chinese investment, with the potential to become the Eastern Mediterranean’s largest port facility.
Iran has a lease on part of the Latakia Port and has a preferential trade agreement with Syria, while Russia has a base at the nearby Tartus Port, roughly 85km south of Latakia.
Latakia provides access to the Black Sea via Turkey’s Bosphorus (Strait of Istanbul), and access to the Red Sea via the Suez Canal. Russia has free trade facilities at the nearby Port Said in Egypt.
From there, vessels can enter the Persian Gulf, under the protection of another Russian facility at Port Sudan, through the Suez Canal.
Goods can then be shipped onto Iran, which connects to the Caspian Sea from the Chabahar Port via the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).
From the INSTC transport corridor, it is a short journey to Pakistan, India, and ultimately to China.
International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), the 7,200 km multi-mode network of ship, rail, and road routes for moving freight, largely coordinated by Russia (north end) and India.
Reviving routes and expanding ports
Lebanon’s Tripoli port, 20 miles south of the Syrian-Lebanese border, will also be at the center of BRI investment, if the country’s muddled political rivalries allow for it. The port can play a vital role in the reconstruction of Syria – which Washington seeks to thwart – with plans to revive the Beirut-Tripoli railway as part of a wider network that would incorporate Lebanese and Syrian railway systems into the BRI.
China is also looking to help establish a Tripoli Special Economic Zone as a central trans-shipment hub for the eastern Mediterranean. Plans are underway for the China Harbor Engineering Company to expand the Tripoli port to accommodate the largest freighters.
China has helped to expand the Mouawad airport, about 15 miles north of Tripoli, transforming it from a predominantly military base to a thriving civilian airport.
In 2016, the year that Egypt joined China’s BRI, President Xi Jinping visited Egypt, and the two countries signed 21 partnership agreements with a total value of $15 billion.
China Harbor Engineering Company Ltd has been cooperating with Egyptian companies in the construction of new logistic and industrial areas along the Suez Canal.
In addition, the China State Construction Engineering Corporation has been working on the construction of a new administrative capital 45km east of Cairo, valued at $45 billion. These projects will work to further facilitate integration into the BRI framework.
The case of Yemen, which joined the BRI in 2017, remains a challenging one. China has done much to invest in Egypt’s Suez Canal and the Djibouti Port, which connects with the Addis Abba-Djibouti railway.
Djibouti, Ethiopia and Sudan all joined the BRI in 2018, while Somalia had been on board since 2015. China established its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017, giving it access to the key maritime choke point in the region. Yemen stands to gain much with its strategically placed Port Aden.
China’s ambassador to Yemen, Kang Yong, said in a March 2020 interview with Yemeni news outlet Al-Masdar that China considers all agreements signed between the two countries prior to the onset of the 2015 war as still valid, and will implement them “after the Yemeni war ends and after restoring peace and stability.”
Although both China and Russia have made the point that they will not directly intervene in regional politics, it is clear where both nations stand in their orientation, as gleaned from the rapid ascension that has been granted to Iran in recent months.
This past September, Iran was admitted as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), while Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were admitted as SCO dialogue partners, joining Turkey.
Over the past year, Iran has quickly gained high regard and is now considered the third pillar to the multipolar alliance of Russia and China, increasingly referred to as RIC (Russia-Iran-China).
On 21 September, officials from Saudi Arabia and Iran met for the fourth round of talks aimed at improving relations, and although the process remains slow, it looks increasingly possible that a peaceful resolution can be reached.
Returning to Syria’s Five Seas Vision, Iraq also has a crucial role to play in this game-changing program.
The office of the Iraqi prime minister stated last May that “negotiations with Iran to build a railway between Basra and Shalamcheh have reached their final stages, and we have signed 15 agreements and memoranda of understanding with Jordan and Egypt regarding energy and transportation lines.”
China-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway corridor, part of the INSTC. Iraq joined the BRI in 2015, Iran in 2018.
The railway is part of Syria’s reconstruction deal. The 30km Shalamcheh-Basra rail line will connect Iraq to China’s Belt and Road lines, as well as bring Iran closer to Syria. Basra is also linked to the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).
The Shalamcheh-Basra rail link will make it possible for Iran to send various commodities, such as consumer goods, construction materials, and minerals through the railway from Tehran to Shalamcheh and then to Basra, and finally to Al Qaim border crossing between Iraq and Syria, which was re-opened in September 2019 after being closed for eight years due to war in both countries.
Presently, there is no rail link between Al Qaim in Iraq to Syria’s rail station in Deir Ezzor, which is roughly 163km away. This should be a priority for construction. From Deir Ezzor, Syria’s existing rail line connects to Aleppo, Latakia, Tartus, and Damascus.
On 29 December, the Iranian cabinet approved the opening of the Chinese consulate in Bandar Abbas, China’s first consulate in Iran. It is expected that China will invest heavily in the Chabahar Free Trade and Industrial Zone and Bandar Abbas, Iran’s most important southern sea transportation hub.
The former Iranian ambassador to China and Switzerland, Mohammad-Hossein Malaek, told the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) that Beijing is set to play a leading role in developing the Makran region, the coastal strip along Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province and Pakistan’s Balochistan, and where Beijing already has a 40-year, multi-billion dollar agreement with Islamabad to develop the Gwadar port.
Both Iran and Turkey have been intensely engaged with the BRI. The first freight train ran from Pakistan to Turkey through Iran on 21 December last year, after a 10-year hiatus.
This resulted in a major boost to the trading capabilities of the three founders of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), created in 1985 in Tehran by the leaders of Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, and which now has 10 members.
The 6,540km journey from Islamabad to Istanbul takes ten days, less than half the time needed for the equivalent voyage of 21 days by sea. The train has the capacity to carry 80,000 tons of goods.
Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul Rail (ITI).
Within the corridors of cooperation and connectivity
Also in December last year, Javad Hedayati, an official with Iran’s Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization, announced that Iran, Azerbaijan, and Georgia had reached an agreement on establishing a transit route connecting the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea.
This transit route could potentially link with the Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul Rail (ITI) and further boost connectivity in the region.
The construction work of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline is resuming in the Afghanistan section. The TAPI is a regional connectivity project for supplying gas from Turkmenistan to India’s Punjab to meet regional demand.
Map illustrates the planned TAPI pipeline (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) and railways in Afghanistan.
The pipeline is expected to carry 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. The 1,814km pipeline stretches from Galkinesh, the world’s second-largest gas field, to the Indian city of Fazilka, near the Pakistan border.
This will be more than enough to supply Afghanistan’s own energy needs as it starts to rebuild and reconstruct. TAPI is expected to facilitate a unique level of trade and cooperation across the region, as well as support peace and security between the four countries: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.
The Afghan-Uzbek rail project is another exciting proposal that has recently been under serious discussion. The project would include the construction of a 700km long Mazar-i-Sharif to Herat rail line that would pass through Shiberghan, Andkhoy, and Maimana in western Afghanistan.
If this project materializes, all Central Asian countries, including Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, would be connected to Iran’s Chabahar corridor via western Afghanistan.
The Afghan-Uzbek rail project will be one of the biggest breakthroughs in Asian transport connectivity with enormous implications for the entire region, both in terms of economic prosperity as well as political stability.
Afghanistan, Iran and Uzbekistan have already signed an agreement to develop a trans-Afghan transport corridor.
India is also seeking a railway connection with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which would connect Chabahar as a gateway between Eurasia and the Indian Ocean.
Cooperation in the area of connectivity with these countries could also be pursued under the SCO framework.
Whether the official title of BRI is present or not, all these development corridors in transportation, industry and energy will participate in the main economic corridors under the BRI framework.
All participant countries in the BRI understand this, and they also know that cooperation is key to mutual beneficence and security.
The Six Main Economic Corridors under China’s BRI, some completed, others hindered by geopolitical conflicts, as in Myanmar, Kazakhstan, Iraq, South China Sea.
Meanwhile, Gulf States shun collaboration
Generally, western-backed Persian Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE have done much to sabotage this vein of progress.
Thus far, their involvement in the BRI framework has mostly consisted of exchanging oil for technological resources to diversify their economies. They have not, however, been as eager to participate in collaborative processes with other Arab countries.
Nonetheless, the tides are changing, and one cannot maintain a wealthy island philosophy among this growing framework.
The Gulf States need a market to trade in, so that they can grow and prosper. They are therefore in no position to dictate relations with their neighbors, on whom they will grow increasingly dependent for their survival.
If the Gulf countries – some now dialogue partner states of the SCO – adhere to the guidelines of that political-economic-security organization – funding and support of Islamic terrorism is expected to slowly die out.
This would be the most effective way to isolate the attempts of the west to instigate chaos and division within West Asia.
With the BRI and Eurasian Economic Union framework working in tandem, those who are willing to abide by the multipolar framework of a win-win cooperation will make the quickest ascensions.
And those who sluggishly cling to old prejudices and outdated orders will only sink into irrelevance.The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
The Turkish Lira continues its free fall, it is now at 9.60 Liras for one US dollar, a record fall from 1.5 Liras for one US dollar in 2010 before the Turkish madman waged his terrorist war on Syria, and there’s no sign of recovery even if the Turkish madman fires everybody in the Turkish Central Bank, the finance, and the economy ministries.
Naram Serjoon describes the current situation of the Turkish economy, and its Lira in this explicitly magnificent piece, as much as I tried to maintain the wordings in the translation, the Arabic version remains more profoundly poetic:
I know that just looking at this title will provoke many Syrians from the opposition and national loyalists, and before many read the article, they will say that our Syrian Lira is made of glass and it is not permissible to throw stones at the Turkish economy, and many will revolt and rage, perhaps the two sides will unite for the first time in denouncing the article because the Syrian economy has suffered a severe blow in the past year, and the West’s efforts have succeeded in weakening the Syrian Lira through a complex and coordinated operation that began with the confiscation of food and oil wealth in the Jazira region and completed the old siege cordon by adding the bombing of the port of Beirut and the ‘bombing’ of Lebanon’s banks, which were the Syrians’ treasuries for their money, for fear of the instability of the situation in the Syrian economy, which was a war economy, and all people flee from the war economy.
But the suffering of the Syrian Lira seems temporary, and the American bet was to effect the shock and terror in the Syrian economy to explode and cause the final destruction of stability and Syrian social life, in preparation for the explosion of a popular resentment that destroys everything that blood and bodies (sacrifices) have accomplished, there are many manifestations that indicate that the ways to fix the Syrian economy have begun to move, albeit slowly and that the US has begun to loosen its grip for many considerations, which we will discuss later. The Syrian Lira is like a free woman whose slavemaster wants to corrupt and impoverish her in order to sell her chastity and honor, but she refuses, preferring poverty and death than selling her honor to him and selling her cause and her daughter Palestine to him and his whims.
But why does the Turkish lira get sick?? She gets diarrhea and loses her weight, color, and fat and looks like she has cancer and there is no cure for it?? As if she was the one who fought a ten-year war and was besieged, looted, and her factories and oil were stolen?
Turkey is not Syria, and the big lie about the miraculous economy and the seventeenth economy in the world was the crutch of the Islamists who wanted to move us by force to an Ottoman country, not under the pretext that Islam is the solution but neo-Ottomanism is the solution, and the evidence is Erdogan’s miracle, the hero who saved Turkey’s economy and turned it into a strong economy.
And we have always been skeptical of this Turkish miracle and we offered scientific and economic explanations, namely that the sudden flow of Western money into the veins of the Turkish economy was at a price, and that the rising Turkish economy is standing on the crutches of Western banks, which if they withdraw their crutches, this giant will fall and roll and break its bones, Although the most important factor in the rise of Erdogan’s Turkey’s economy was the Syrian openness to Turkey in support of it when it became writhing and barking in favor of Palestine, and the Syrians rewarded it with the support of Erdogan’s economy, who requested Damascus’s support and presented his credentials when he visited Damascus with Amina (his wife) and was asking and اe was asking, and his requests were answered. The Syrian economy, culture, and media opened up to Turkey, and the economies of the Arab region followed suit. This flow of Turkish products and goods, which was similar to an invasion through northern Syria, caused the recovery of the Anatolian economy, where the Islamist bloc supporting Erdogan against the economy of Istanbul, and this increased the control of the new economy that arose in Anatolia by virtue of the Syrian support, which was intended to create a ground for the Five Seas Project, which would dispense Turkey and the Arabs from Europe, and create an oriental economy that would compete with the European economy.
This is the true story of Erdogan’s miracle, but as usual, lovers do not see the defects of the beloved. The lover does not see that his beloved, who was poor and became rich overnight, has sold something dear, such as her chastity, honor, and virginity, and this is what happened with Turkey, which sold its Islamic honor and oriental virginity and accepted to fight on behalf of the West with its body, voice, and money. She put NATO poison in the dishes of Muslims, she fought the Zionist war on the entire Islamic world, in which several Arab and Islamic republics were destroyed, and she presented this achievement on a silver platter to Israel without batting an eyelid from the horror of the catastrophe that her inciting and financing behavior had inflicted on hundreds of Arab cities, millions of Arabs, and the sanctities of Arabs.
Turkey, which appeared to have a miracle, was in the hands of a pimp named Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party gang, who pushed her to sleep in the bed of the West and became the prostitute of the East. She wears the Islamic veil, but under the veil inhabits the vice, and like all hateful prostitutes, she wants every girl who refuses shame to be molested by force, like her.
What everyone should ask is what is the reason for this slack in the Turkish Lira now, even though Turkey does not live in a war, but rather lives from the wars surrounding it and eats from the shoulders of the Arab economies that surround it in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, all the money of the Syrian and Iraqi refugees migrated to Turkey and injected the Turkish economy with hundreds of billions of dollars. This poisonous leech named Turkey has sucked the blood of Syrians and Iraqis over the past two decades because it is the neighborhood and the sanctuary close to Europe, and despite this, the Turkish Lira suffers from dengue, fatigue, yellowing, and fever as if it had contracted malaria.
And Turkey injected it with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the Gulf states at the beginning of the war (on Syria) with tens of billions of dollars, as Hamad bin Jabr said (in the famous hadith of the prey), because the 137 billion dollars that were passed to support the ‘rebels’ and chaos in Syria, most of it passed through Turkey as the most important transit country for the militants who flocked by their tens of thousands and slept in its cities and hotels and used its airports and airlines and spent their huge salaries on its goods and in its cities and all the money transferred to them passed through the Turkish banks that were sated with banknotes, meaning that no less than a hundred billion dollars passed to Turkey at least, and with this, the Lira seems today is as if she is drinking castor oil, and remains in a state of permanent diarrhea,
Turkey openly stole Syrian oil through ISIS and the Kurds, stole crops and antiquities, and even became the largest center for the export of human organs from the Syrian victims. It stole thousands of Syrian factories and destroyed all competing Syrian industries in the east, giving way for the rise of the economy of Turkish industrialists, who became unrivaled after the destruction of Aleppo factories, which were the factory for the Middle East, however, the Turkish lira is weakening and emaciated, the bones of its face and the ribs of its chest protrude, and its stomach is swollen to resemble the children of the African famine.
And Turkey sold the Syrian refugees for billions of dollars, as it begged in their name from Europe and left them to live in the most despicable living conditions. And despite this, the Turkish citizen seems poorer than the Syrian refugee and became jealous of him.
The Syrian Lira seems more stubborn in the face of the dollar than the Turkish Lira which every day takes off some of her clothes in front of the dollar hoping that he will marry her or make love to her, but the dollar is not tempted by the Turkish lira, nor is he tempted by her tender flesh, and the euro is packing his bags and confiscating her clothes and leaving her naked.
The Turkish lira is very sick and panting, and the reason is not Corona, because the strong economies are still resilient, while the fake and forged economies are starting to get exposed because there is no real economy in Turkey, but an economy of thieves, the thieves of the Justice and Development Party, the Erdogan family, and the neo-Ottoman thieves that tried to build the Ottoman as it was built by its first pioneer sultans by robbing peoples and looting and enslaving them. When the idea succeeded, it became an empire of thieves, and the process of theft and enslavement lasted for 400 years.
The problem of the Turkish lira is Erdogan’s adventure towards the south, and it will not have a chance, and all the money that was injected into the Turkish stock exchange from Western banks has stopped, not because it wants to punish Erdogan for his Islamic honor, as some want to picture, rather, it was because the Western banks gave the Justice and Development Party everything it wanted in order to make the project of overthrowing the Syrian state succeed and attaching the East to the Turkish model, which is reconciliation between Islam and Zionism and an alliance between them under the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, but the project has eroded or collapsed and it has done everything in its power and is no longer able to provide more.
Western banks are not naive to inject a false economy with money, the game is over and there is no need to support this rogue economy, the Lira began to feel that all supporting injections had stopped and that the Gulf funds had stopped because there were no longer fighters migrating to Turkey to spending on them, and the movement of donations for the so-called Syrian revolution had stopped, remittances to fighters whom tens of thousands of them have been killed and tens of thousands are missing have stopped, and jihadist immigration to Turkey has largely stopped, especially after Erdogan excelled in blackmailing the Saudis and Emiratis in the Khashoggi case, which was a very stupid move by Erdogan that caused the depletion of Gulf transfers, although in the first months he received bribes of billions from the Saudis to cover the issue, which raised the Turkish Lira a few points, but, with his greed and rapacity, he insisted on completing the disclosure of the scandal at an Israeli and American request, because this would facilitate forcing the Saudis and Emiratis to publicly reveal relations and normalization (with Israel) after they were secret, because Israel wanted to enter the Gulf through the Emirates gate, penetrate the entire economy, spread the Mossad in the Arab communities, and start normalization with immigrants and recruit many of them as spies for the next stage, every Arab immigrant in the Gulf has become a Mossad spy project.
Whoever is waiting for the recovery of the Turkish Lira, we tell him, advising, it is funny dreams, do not be stubborn. The Turkish Lira is very sick, and Erdogan is trying to inject it with the elixir of life, reading the Qur’an and incantations and writing amulets for it, fleeing to wars with the Syrians and the Kurds, bombing the streets of Damascus and overnight buses to force us to accept negotiating with him. But nothing will help him, as she has destroyed her immune system, and she has a terminal disease, and this terminal disease is the one that will pass to the Justice and Development Party and will spread in the whole Turkish society, which is bidding farewell to the days of glory and prosperity when Erdogan was selling it promises and borrowing from the West to build the lie of the rich Turkish economy, albeit it were loans, aid, and privatization of the public sector.
And again, advice to everyone who puts his money in Turkey, flee with your skin and your money quickly, before you are surprised by a collapse as Beirut’s banks collapsed and the sultans’ decisions to seize your money, and perhaps you will find that the place from which you fled to the whole world is the safest place for your money, that is, invest in your country that at the height of the war did not stab you and did not declare its bankruptcy, and do not bet on Erdogan’s Lira. All indications and prophecies in Turkey’s ‘crystal ball’ say that it is a Lira that will enter intensive care because she ate from the money of the orphans, the widows, and the poor, it was like someone who eats fire in his stomach, that the fire is in the belly of the Turkish Lira, and we will contemplate it with pleasure, joy, and happiness as it burns before our eyes from its stomach, rather, we will put our coffee on that fire and heat the tea.. and drink Turkish coffee in this winter in front of this feverish body.
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أعرف ان مجرد النظر الى هذا العنوان سيستفز كثيرين من السوريين من المعارضين والموالين الوطنيين .. وقبل أن يقرأ كثيرون المقال سيقولون ان ليرتنا السورية من زجاج ولايجوز ان ترمي الاقتصاد التركي بالحجارة .. وسيثور كثيرون ويهيجون .. وربما يتوحد الطرفان لأول مرة في استهجان المقال لأن الاقتصاد السوري تعرض لضربة قوية في السنة الاخيرة ونجحت جهود الغرب في اضعاف الليرة السورية عبر عملية معقدة ومنسقة بدأت بمصادرة الثروة الغذائية والنفطية في الجزيرة واكملت طوق الحصار القديم باضافة تفجير ميناء بيروت وتفجير بنوك لبنان التي كانت خزانات السوريين وأموالهم خوفا من عدم استقرار الوضع في الاقتصاد السوري الذي كان اقتصاد حرب .. وكل الناس تفر من اقتصاد الحرب .. ولكن معاناة الليرة السورية تبدو مؤقتة والرهان الامريكي كان احداث الصدمة والروع في الاقتصاد السوري ليتفجر ويتسبب في تدمير الاستقرار والحياة الاجتماعية السورية نهائيا تمهيدا لتفجير نقمة شعبية تدمر كل ماأنجزته الدماء والاجساد .. وهناك مظاهر كثيرة تشير الى ان طرق معالجة الاقتصاد السوري بدأت تتحرك ولو بشكل بطيء وان الامريكي بدأ يرخي قبضته لاعتبارات عديدة سنتطرق اليها لاحقا .. انها مثل المرأة الحرة التي يريد نخاس افسادها وافقارها كي تبيع عفتها وعرضها فترفض .. تفضل الفقر والموت على ان تبيع شرفها له .. وتبيع قضيتها وابنتها فلسطين له ولنزواته ..
ولكن لماذا تصاب الليرة التركية بالمرض؟؟ وتصاب بالاسهال وتفقد من وزنها ولونها وشحمها وتبدو وكأنها مصابة بالسرطان ولاعلاج لها؟؟ وكأنها هي التي خاضت حرب عشر سنوات وحوصرت ونهبت وسرقت معاملها ونفطها ؟؟ تركيا ليست سورية .. وكانت الكذبة الكبيرة عن الاقتصاد المعجزة والاقتصاد السابع عشر في العالم هي عكازة الاسلاميين الذين أرادوا تجويلنا بالقوة الى بلاد عثمانية ليس بذريعة ان الاسلام هو الحل .. فليس اي اسلام هو الحل بل العثمانية الجديدة هي الحل .. والدليل معجزة أردوغان .. البطل الذي أنقذ اقتصاد تركيا وحوله الى اقتصاد قوي ..
وكنا دوما نشكك بهذه المعجزة التركية ونقدم تفسيرات علمية واقتصادية وهي ان تدفق الاموال الغربية فجأة الى عروق الاقتصاد التركي كان مقابل ثمن .. وان الاقتصاد التركي الناهض يقف على عكازات البنوك الغربية التي ان سحبت عكازاتها فان هذا العملاق سيقع ويتدحرج وتتكسر عظامه .. رغم ان اهم عامل في نهوض اقتصاد تركيا اردوغان كان الانفتاح السوري على تركيا دعما لها عندما صارت تجعجع وتنبح لصالح فلسطين .. وكافأها السوريون بدعم اقتصاد أردوغان الذي طلب دعم دمشق وقدم اوراق اعتماده عندما زار دمشق مع أمينة .. وكان يطلب فيجاب .. وانفتح الاقتصاد والثقافة والاعلام السوري على تركيا ولحقته اقتصادات المنطقة العربية .. وكان هذا التدفق في السلع والبضائع التركية الذي كان يشبه الغزو عبر الشمال السوري سببا في انتعاش اقتصاد الاناضول حيث الكتلة الاسلامية الداعمة لاردوغان ضد اقتصاد استانبول .. وهذا زاد من سيطرة الاقتصاد الجديد الذي نشأ في الاناضول بحكم الدعم السوري الذي كان بغاية خلق أرضية لمشروع البحار الخمسة الذي سيغني تركيا والعرب عن اوروبة .. ويخلق اقتصادا مشرقيا ينافس اقتصاد اوروبة ..
هذه هي القصة الحقيقية لمعجزة أردوغان .. ولكن كالعادة فان المحبين لايرون عيوب المحبوب .. فالعاشق لايرى ان حبيبته التي كانت فقيرة وصارت تبدو كالاغنياء بين عشية وضحاها انما باعت شيئا عزيزا .. مثل عفتها وشرفها وبكارتها .. وهذا ماحدث مع تركيا التي باعت شرفها الاسلامي وبكارتها الشرقية وقبلت ان تحارب نيابة عن الغرب بجسدها وصوتها ومالها .. ودست السم الناتوي في أطباق المسلمين .. وخاضت الحرب الصهيونية على كل العالم الاسلامي ودمرت فيها عدة جمهوريات عربية اسلامية وقدمت هذا الانجاز على طبق من فضة لاسرائيل دون ان يرف لها جفن من هول الكارثة التي ألحقها سلوكها التحريضي والتمويلي بمئات المدن العربية وملايين العرب .. ومقدسات العرب .. تركيا التي ظهرت صاحبة معجزة كانت في يد قواد اسمه رجب طيب اردوغان وعصابة حزب العدالة والتنمية .. دفعها دفعا للنوم في فراش الغرب وصارت عاهرة الشرق .. ترتدي الحجاب الاسلامي ولكن تحت الحجاب تسكن الرذيلة .. وصارت مثل كل العاهرات الحاقدات .. تريد كل صبية ترفض العار ان تهتك عرضها مثلها بالقوة .. الذي يجب ان يسأله اي شخص عن سبب هذا الترهل في الليرة التركية الآن رغم ان تركيا لاتعيش حربا .. بل هي التي تعيش من الحروب المحيطة بها وتأكل من أكتاف الاقتصادات العربية التي تحيط بها في العراق وليبيا وسورية .. فكل اموال اللاجئين السوريين والعراقيين هاجرت الى تركيا وحقنت الاقتصاد التركي بمئات المليارات من الدولارات .. وامتصت هذه العلقة المسماة تركيا دم السوريين والعراقيين طوال العقدين الماضيين بحكم انها الجوار والملاذ القريب من اوروبة .. ومع هذا فالليرة التركية تصاب بالضنك والتعب والاصفرار والحمى وكأنها اصيبت بالملاريا .. وتركيا حقنتها السعودية وقطر ودول الخليج في بدايات الحرب بعشرات مليارات الدولارات كما قال حمد بن جبر (في حديث الصيدة الشهير) لان 137 مليار التي مررت لدعم المتمردين والفوضى في سورية كانت معظمها تمر عبر تركيا كأهم دولة مرور للمسلحين الذين توافدوا بعشرات الالاف وناموا في مدنها وفنادقها واستعملوا مطاراتهم وشركات طيرانها وأنفقوا رواتبهم الضخمة في بضائعها و في مدنها وكانت كل الاموال المحولة اليهم تمر عبر البنوك التركية التي أتخمت بالبنكنوت .. اي ان مالايقل عن مئة مليار دولار مررت الى تركيا على الاقل .. ومع هذا تبدو الليرة التركية اليوم وكأنها تشرب زيت الخروع .. وتبقى في حالة اسهال دائم ..
وتركيا سرقت علنا النفط السوري عبر داعش والاكراد .. وسرقت المحاصيل والاثار وحنى انها صارت اكبر مركز لتصدير الاعضاء البشرية من الضحايا السوريين .. وسرقت آلاف المعامل السورية ودمرت كل الصناعات السورية المنافسة في الشرق .. لينهض اقتصاد الصناعيين الاتراك الذي صاروا بلا منافس بعد تدمير معامل حلب التي كانت تمثل مصنع الشرق الاوسط .. ومع هذا فان الليرة التركية تضعف وتصاب بالهزال وتبرز عظام وجهها وأضلاع صدرها ويتورم بطنها الى مايشبه اطفال المجاعة الافريقية .. وتركيا باعت اللاجئين السوريين بمليارات الدولارات حيث تسولت باسمهم من اوروبة وتركتهم يعيشون في أحقر الظروف المعيشية .. ومع هذا فان المواطن التركي يبدو أفقر من اللاجئ السوري حتى صار يحقد عليه .. وتبدو الليرة السورية أكثر عنادا في مواجهة الدولار من الليرة التركية التي في كل يوم تخلع بعضا من ثيابها امام الدولار عله يتزوجها او يطارحها الغرام .. ولكن الدولار لاتغريه الليرة التركية ولايغريه لحمها الغض البض وهاهو اليورو يحزم حقائبه ويصادر ثيابها ويتركها عارية .. الليرة التركية مريضة جدا وتلهث وليس السبب هو كورونا لأن الاقتصادات القوية لاتزال صامدة بينما الاقتصادات المزيفة والمزورة بدأت تنكشف لأنه لايوجد اقتصاد حقيقي في تركيا بل اقتصاد لصوص .. لصوص حزب العدالة والتنمية وعائلة اردوغان ولصوص العثمانية الجديدة التي حاولت بناء العثمانية كما بناها روادها الاوائل من السلاطين بسرقة الشعوب ونهبها واستعبادها .. وعندما نجحت الفكرة صارت امبراطورية للصوص دامت عملية السرقة والاستعباد 400 سنة ..
مشكلة الليرة التركية هي مغامرة اردوغان نحو الجنوب .. ولن تقوم لها قائمة .. وكل الاموال التي حقنت في البورصة التركية من البنوك الغربية توقفت .. ليس لأنها تريد ان تعاقب اردوغان على شرفه الاسلامي كما يريد البعض ان يصور .. بل لأن البنوك الغربية اعطت حزب العدالة والتنمية كل مايريد من أجل انجاح مشروع اسقاط الدولة السورية والحاق الشرق بالنموذج التركي الذي هو مصالحة بين الاسلام والصهيونية وتحالف بينهما تحت قيادة الاخوان المسلمين .. ولكن المشروع تآكل او تداعى وفعل كل مافي وسعه ولم يعد قادرا على ان يقدم المزيد .. والبنوك الغربية ليست بالساذجة كي تحقن اقتصادا كاذبا بالمال .. فاللعبة انتهت ولاداعي لدعم هذا الاقتصاد المارق .. وبدأت الليرة تحس ان كل الحقن الداعمة توقفت .. وأن اموال الخليج توقفت لأنه لم يعد هناك مقاتلون يهاجرون الى تركيا وينفق عليهم .. وتوقفت حركة التبرعات لما يسمى الثورة السورية .. وتوقفت التحويلات للمقاتلين الذين قتل عشرات الالاف منهم وفقد عشرات الالاف وتوقفت الهجرة الجهادية الى تركيا الى حد كبير خاصة بعد ان أبدع اردوغان في ابتزاز السعوديين والاماراتيين في قضية الخاشقجي التي كانت حركة غبية جدا من اردوغان تسببت في نضوب التحويلات الخليجية رغم انه تلقى في الأشهر الاولى رشوات بالمليارات من السعودديين للملمة القضية مما رفع الليرة التركية بضع نقاط .. ولكنه بجشعه وطمعه أصر على اكمال كشف الفضيحة بطلب اسرائيلي وامريكي لأن ذلك سيسهل ارغام السعوديين والاماراتيين على اظهار العلاقات والتطبيع علنا بعد ان كانت سرية لأن اسرائيل كانت تريد دخول الخليج من بوابة الامارات واختراق كل الاقتصاد ونشر الموساد في الجاليات العربية وبدء التطبيع مع المهاجرين وتجنيد كثيرين منهم كجواسيس للمرحلة القادمة .. فكل مهاجر عربي في الخليج صار مشروع جاسوس لدى الموساد .. من ينتظر شفاء الليرة التركية فاننا نقول له ناصحين .. انها أحلام مضحكة فلا تعاند .. الليرة التركية مريضة جدا .. ويحاول اردوغان حقنها باكسير الحياة .. وقراءة القرآن والتعويذات ويكتب الحجابات لها والهروب الى حروب مع السوريين والاكراد وتفجير شوارع دمشق وباصات المبيت لارغامنا على قبول التفاوض معه .. ولكن لن ينفعه شيء .. فهي دمرت في جهازها المناعي .. وأصيبت بمرض عضال .. وهذا المرض العضال هو الذي سينتقل الى حزب العدالة والتنمية .. وسينتشر في المجتمع التركي كله الذي يودع ايام العز والرفاه يوم كان اردوغان يبيعه وعودا ويستدين من الغرب لبناء كذبة الاقتصاد الثري التركي .. رغم انه كان قروضا ومساعدات وخصخصة للقطاع العام ..
ومن جديد .. نصيحة لكل من يضع أمواله في تركيا .. اهرب بجلدك وأموالك بسرعة .. قبل ان تفاجأ بانهيار كما انهارت بنوك بيروت وبقرارات السلاطين بالاستيلاء على اموالك .. وربما ستجد ان المكان الذي هربت منه الى كل العالم هو أكثر الأماكن أمنا لأموالك .. أي استثمر في بلادك التي في ذروة الحرب لم تطعنك ولم تعلن افلاسها .. ولاتراهن على ليرة اردوغان .. كل المؤشرات والنبوءات التي في فنجان تركيا تقول انها ليرة ستدخل العناية المشددة .. لأنها أكلت من أموال اليتامى والأيامى والفقراء .. فكانت كمن يأكل في بطنه النار .. ان النار في بطن الليرة التركية .. وسنتأملها بتلذذ وحبور وسعادة وهي تحترق أمام عيوننا من بطنها .. بل سنضع قهوتنا على تلك النار ونسخن الشاي .. ونشرب ونحتسي في هذا الشتاء قهوة تركية امام هذا الجسد المحموم ..
In a recent conference held on Zoom and published on YouTube, senior Middle East political analyst Anees Naqqash spoke about his 2014 book titled The Levantine Confederation: The Battle of Identities and Policies.
The book proposes that the solution to the chronic problems of the war-ravaged and tumultuous Middle East region lies in the establishment of a confederation that unites the states of the Levant, or what Naqqash often calls the ‘West Asian region’.
Middle East Observer will gradually be publishing English translations of the author’s online talk over several posts. This is part one, which revolves around Naqqash’s initial motivation for developing the concept of a ‘Levantine Confederation’.
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Transcript :
One does not need to be a political or strategic expert in order to know that our (Arab and Islamic) countries are (currently) living through numerous wars, whether internal wars or those of an external (nature); and that international and local powers are participating in these wars; and that the (Arab and Islamic) nation’s capabilities are being exhausted by these wars and violence. Its unity, territorial integrity, potentials, property and civilization are being consumed (as a result).
The worst thing about these wars is that they often tarnish and distort (true) Islamic thought, thus proving that many of those who bear arms (in this region) are in a state of aimlessness regarding the actual and necessary track that they should pursue in order to confront the true enemies of the nation. In other words, it has been proven that many activists and local actors have a weak (level of) awareness. Thus, these topics must be highlighted in order to put things back on track.
The idea of a Levantine Confederation stems from two points. First, history shows that for more than 1400 years our region lived in a state of empire, starting from the Umayyads, to the Abbasids, all the way to the Ottoman Sultanate. Apart from some perversions during the Crusades and the Tatar and Mongol wars, the region lived in (a state of imperial) unity. No foreign power was allowed to intervene in its military, intellectual or economic affairs. However, following the two world wars, the (Arab & Muslim) nation was faced with a set of programs, plans and schemes resulting from its military defeat against the Western powers. This defeat enabled these (Western) powers to set up a very dangerous triangle for us: the Sykes-Picot-Balfour triangle.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement (in 1916) divided the Arab states in the region into small(er) states, while the Balfour Declaration (in 1917) fulfilled the promise of giving Palestine to the Jews for the establishment of a (Jewish) entity, one of the most brutal entities that the (Arab and Muslim) nation has ever faced in the modern era in terms of military, conspiratorial and intelligence capabilities. Today, this (Israeli) entity is posing a new danger, penetrating deep into the nation and the minds of its people.
In addition, these geographical divisions (created by Sykes-Picot and Balfour) established two types of regimes. First, there were the regimes that were built for religious-sectarian reasons, such as the Lebanese state established as a favor for the (Christian) Maronites in Lebanon. However, Lebanon has changed due to shifts in different kinds of balances as Maronites are no longer the largest demographic group (in Lebanon), nor do they occupy the main role in the country. Therefore, Lebanon always suffers from political problems because of its system that is based on sectarian identity, while it is demographically changing in relation to its sects, as some sects weaken and others grow stronger, which causes continuous security disturbances.
In fact, a part of Syrian land was cut off during the drawing of the map of Lebanon. The map of Syria was not drawn by the hands of its people. Rather, it was established based on the lines and borders demarcated by the French, who at that time gave Turkey a part of Syrian territory. Turkey was the only country (in the region) to demarcate its own borders via blood (i.e. through the military sacrifices that it made), because it was defending what was left of the Ottoman Empire. In other words, historically, Turkey was the only country whose borders were drawn with the blood of its people. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s borders were determined by the French Commission (the French body that controlled Lebanon). Many parts of Syrian territory were cut off, and what was left became the Syrian state.
The good thing about Syria is that it preserved its unity against the four-zone division project that the French were planning for. (The French) wanted to establish (four states): an Alawite state, a Druze state, and two Sunni states, one in the north and another in the center; but this project was foiled by the national unity of the Syrians.
Iraq did not demarcate its (own) borders either. Not one Iraqi was involved in the drawing up of the map of Iraq. It was Miss Gertrude Bell – an advisor at the British Foreign Ministry – who drew up the map (of Iraq) and proclaimed Faisal the King of Iraq, based on a sectarian equation that would satisfy both the Shias and Sunnis, and she added some Kurds to a part of the current Iraqi map because (she deemed them) as fierce fighters who would fight against Turkey if a clash broke out between Iraq and the new Turkey.
(Winston) Churchill established Jordan and drew up its map. There was no country called Jordan. The establishment of Jordan fully complemented the British project to establish the State of Israel, in addition to Iraq which was also a British protectorate.
In conclusion, the Levant was suffering from the delineation of borders that were carried out without consultation with its people. (The Levant) was divided up, and new, quasi-national territorial identities were established alongside the sectarian and religious identities that continued to play an (important) role too.
القوقاز روسية إيرانية مشتركة لا مكان فيها للغرباء ولا نفايات الصهاينة أو الإرهابيين…!
وأردوغان يخسر المعركة، وإيران تحبط الإنزال الإسرائيلي التكفيري خلف خطوطها…!
هكذا تلخصت نتائج غزوة الأطلسي لجنوب القوقاز، وتقطعت السبل بجسور عبورهم التي تخيّلوها وخططوا لها من البحر الأسود إلى بحر الخزر…!
تخبّط أذربيجان، وصمود أرمينيا، وتعقل إيران، أفرز حصاداً روسياً لغير صالح أميركا والأطلسي، وضاعت طموحات أردوغان بين قره باغ ونقچوان والطرق السريعة التي تحمل غاز القوقاز الجنوبي…!
انتهت اللعبة بدخول بوتين شخصياً على الخط بتفويض إيراني وإكراه تركي، بدعوته الطرفين المتنازعين الى موسكو للتفاوض ومن ثم ترتيبات وقف إطلاق نار ستحمل في طياتها حضور روسي عسكري (مراقبين أو ما شابه ذلك) إلى حين البتّ في أصول النزاع بعيداً عن توظيف ثلاثي الإرهاب الأميركي الأطلسي العثماني الذي ظنّ للحظة انّ بإمكانه إعادة إطلاق سيناريو سوري في القوقاز…!
في هذه الأثناء وتعزيزاً للتفوّق الروسي والثلاثي الشرقي الصاعد فقد وضعت روسيا اليوم صاروخ تسيركين الأهمّ والأخطر في تاريخ الصناعات الصاروخية في العالم في الخدمة، أيّ بتصرف القوات البحرية والجوية الروسية…!
وصاروخ تسيركين هذا لمن لا يعرف تبلغ سرعته 12 ألف كلم في الساعة أيّ 12 مرة أسرع من الصوت، ويتمّ إطلاقه من الجو ومن البحر مدمّرات وغواصات، وليس بإمكان أيّ رادارات اكتشافه أو التقاطه فضلاً عن إسقاطه لأنه يتحرك بشكل طبقي ولولبي بشكل سريع جداً، وتتمّ حمايته بشبكة من أنظمة الدفاع التي تجعل منه غير قابل للاصطياد من جانب العدو مطلقاً…!
ويستطيع تدمير حاملة طائرات مع مرافقاتها خاصة عندما تطلق منه عدة صليات مرة واحدة…!
وهكذا يكون العالم قد تقدّم خطوة إضافية باتجاه خروج الأميركي من أحادية القوة التي لا تقهر، فيما دخل ثلاثي طهران موسكو بكين سباق الجلوس على عرش العالم رغم أنف الامبرياليين وأذنابهم الذين يتهاوون الواحد بعد الآخر…!
لا تغرنكم استعراضاتهم التلفزيونية ولا حتى أصوات مدافعهم الصدئة والبالية والمهترئة، فهي ليست سوى مناورات لقتال تراجعي تقهقري لقوة غزو فاشلة تحاول العودة الى قواعدها بأقلّ الخسائر الممكنة…!
عالم تتكسر موجاته على شواطئ بحارنا، فيما عالم تتشكل قدراته في جغرافيا آخر الزمان…!
يرفض الأميركيون الاعتراف بانهيار سيطرتهم الأحادية على العالم، فلا يكتفون بفصيح الكلام على الطريقة العربية، بل يشنّون هجوماً مضاداً بأسلحة اقتصادية واستخبارية وعسكرية، تكاد تعمّ زوايا الأرض. لكنهم يركزون على منطقتين أساسيتين بإمكانهما ضخّ ما يحتاجه الجيوبولتيك الأميركي للاستمرار، وهما أميركا الجنوبية اللاتينية والشرق الاوسط في محوره الإيراني مواصلين أيضاً مناوشة العالم بأسره إنما بعيارات خفيفة، وللمناوشة فقط.
هذه الهجمات إقرار أميركي باقتراب الخطر على أحاديتهم القطبية لمصلحة قوى دولية أخرى أصبحت قادرة على مشاركتهم في إنتاج القرار الدولي والتوسع الاقتصادي.
اما مؤشرات هذه المقدرة فتجمع بين الإمكانات الاقتصادية والعسكرية التي يؤدي التطوّر العسكري العمودي النوع الى انتشار أفقي في سياسات العالم واسواقه.
بالتدقيق، تنكشف الحركة الأميركية، بمحاولاتها إسقاط الأنظمة المتمرّدة عليها في أميركا اللاتينية ـ الجنوبية، وبلمح البصر، يرحل رئيس بوليفيا فارّاً من بلاده بانقلاب عسكري يرعاه الأميركيون علناً.
هذا إلى جانب ضغوط هائلة يمارسها الأميركيون في فنزويلا لإسقاط رئيسها بالحصار حيناً ومشاريع الانقلابات وبالتشجيع على التمرّد والحصار الاقتصادي المفتح حيناً آخر وبشكل متواصل.
هناك أيضاً كوبا التي تتعرّض لحصار أميركي مفتوح ومتواصل يترافق مع محاولات دائمة لتفجيرها منذ ستينيات القرن الماضي، من دون نسيان المكسيك وغيرها، أما أوروبا المقموعة بالنفوذ الأميركي فيزجرها الأميركيون كلما حاولت التسلل من العباءة الأميركية، محوّلين بلدانها الشرقية الى مكامن لترسانات صاروخية ونووية موجهة لأهداف روسية وصينية.
على مستوى الصين، فهي أكبر اقتصادياً واجتماعياً وعسكرياً، من أيّ محاولات أميركية لتهشيمها، الأمر الذي يحصر التعرّض الأميركي لها في مسألة التجارة الخارجية بمعنى أنّ الصين تحتاج الى مواد أولية وطاقة وأسواق تصريف للاستمرار في صعودها الكوني، بما يفسّر العقوبات الأميركية التي تستهدف السلع الصينية في حركة انتشارها العالمي.
كذلك روسيا، فإنّ التعرّض لها عسكرياً، شبه مستحيل فلا بأس إذاً من معاقبتها أميركياً بقرارات اقتصادية للحدّ من حركة عودتها الى الفضاءات السوفياتية السابقة.
هذه الوتيرة متبعة أيضاً في كوريا الشمالية، باعتبارها امتداداً صينياً لا تسمح بكين بإصابته بأذى كبير.
انّ هذا الجيوبولتيك الأميركي استشعر بأنّ نظام العولمة المرتبطة بالحدود المفتوحة أمام السلع أدّى الى عكس ما يريده الاقتصاد الأميركي، لأنه أفاد الصين وألمانيا واليابان، متيحاً لسلعها اختراق أسواق كبرى بما فيها الأميركية.
هذا ما جعل الأميركيون ينقلبون على «عولمتهم» الاقتصادية، محتمين من جديد «بالحمائية» ايّ إقفال حدودهم الاقتصادية وأسواقهم أمام بضائع الدول المنافسة. وهي حرب فعلية تعيد التطوّر العالمي الى الزمن القديم، علماً أنّ العولمة التي شملت الاقتصاد والاجتماع والفنون والإعلام والسياسة كان المطلوب منها تعزيز الهيمنة الأميركية العالمية، فتحوّلت وبالاً عليها بالاقتصاد.
يتبيّن أنّ الأميركيين يحدّدون إعادة الإمساك بمنطقتين في العالم، وسيلة ناجحة لمنع تدهور أحاديتهم القطبية وهما أميركا الجنوبية والشرق الأوسط، والناتج الأول لهذه السياسة سقوط النظام البوليفي المعادي لها والحصار الشديد على فنزويلا والتشجيع على الاضطرابات فيها. يكفي انّ أميركا الجنوبية تمتلك أهميات كبيرة، أهمّها موقعها القريب الاستراتيجي المحاذي لأميركا وأسواقها الكبيرة التي تستطيع استيعاب السلع الأميركية ومنع أيّ تمركز دولي منافس فيها، أما النقطة الاضافية فهي أنّ فنزويلا بمفردها تمتلك أكبر احتياط نفطي في العالم.
هناك نقطة أكثر مركزية يعمل الأميركيون على الإمساك بها بما يؤدّي فوراً إلى تماسك قطبيتهم الأحادية، وهي إيران وضرورة إلحاقها بواشنطن. وهذا يتضمن إسقاط البلدان المتحالفة معها في اليمن والعراق وسورية وحزب الله في لبنان وبعض التحالفات في أفغانستان وباكستان. هذا إلى جانب إلغاء تقاربها مع روسيا والصين.
لا يعني هذا الكلام ربط الأسباب الأساسية لاندلاع انتفاضات العراق ولبنان بمؤامرة أميركية، لكنه لا ينفي نجاح الأميركيين في التأسيس لها من طريق أحزاب ونخب وإعلام/ لا يتوانى عن العمل في لعبة التحريض لتفجير أوضاع هذه الدول بما فيها إيران، والدليل انّ الإعلام الخليجي يبث ترهات وأضاليل عن الاضطرابات في إيران بتكبير حجمها والإصرار على نجاحها وامتدادها الى كامل الجغرافيا الإيرانية 24 ساعة يومياً.
هنا يجوز إصرار وتأكيد أنّ الأسباب الاقتصادية والاجتماعية للانتفاضات حقيقية وصادقة، لكنها لا تذهب الى حدود اعتبار السعودية او أميركا بديلاً، فالسعودية دولة متخلفة في القرون الوسطى لا تنتج شيئاً، والأميركيون ينهبون الشرق الاوسط اقتصادياً منذ 1945 ويدعمون «إسرائيل» والأنظمة المتخلفة المتحالفة معهم.
لذلك فإنّ لعبة التحريض الأميركية ـ الخليجية ـ الاسرائيلية تعتبر أنّ إيران هي مركز محور مناهض للهيمنة الأميركية واتباعها، بما يعني أنّ القضاء عليها يستتبع حماية أنظمة الخليج وتحصين الكيان الإسرائيلي، ويزوّد الجيوبولتيك الأميركي بطاقة إضافية تزيد من عمره الافتراضي.
إيران إذاً مستهدفة بقوة للزوم استمرار الأحادية الأميركية، لكن السؤال هنا، يذهب ناحية الصين وروسيا ليسألهما عن مدى إحساسهما بالخطر من الهجوم على إيران في الخارج والداخل.
فهما الهدف الأميركي الذي يلي إيران، بما يعني وجوب تحركهما بأشكال مختلفة للدفاع عنها ودعم حلفائها في اليمن والعراق وسورية ولبنان أما إذا واصلتا لعبة «الترقب» ومعاينة النتائج فإنّ ترميم الهيمنة الأميركية، يصبح أمراً ممكناً لأنه يصبح بإمكان الأميركيين الاستمرار في السيطرة على احتياطاته الاساسية في قطر والربع الخالي السعودي وإيران نفسها، بما يضع روسيا الأولى في إنتاج الغاز في حلبة منافسة لا تمتلك فيها أوراقاً رابحة.
فهل تنتقل بكين وموسكو من دائرة الرصد إلى مرحلة دعم إيران؟ المعتقد أنهما متجهتان الى هذا الهدف بشكل لا تنخرطان فيه بحرب متنوّعة مع الأميركيين إيماناً منهما بقدرة إيران على المزيد من الصمود وإلحاق هزيمة جديدة بالغطرسة الأميركية.
With the transformation of the rules of the “Great Game” in the Middle East emerging out of President Trump’s recent Syrian surprise pullout and Putin’s brilliant manoeuvres since 2015, a sweeping set of development/reconstruction programs led by China now have a chance to become hegemonic across the formerly hopeless, terrorist-infested region.
The fact that the Arab states of the Middle East were targeted for destruction by western geopoliticians over the last 40 years is not un-connected to the region’s historic role as “cross-roads of civilizations” which were once the bridge between East and West along the ancient Silk Road (c. 250 BC). Today’s New Silk Road has brought 150 countries into a multipolar model of cooperation and civilization-building which necessitates a stabilized Middle East in order to function.
When asking “how could a reconstruction of the Middle East be possible after so many years of hell” I was pleasantly surprised to discover that both great projects once derailed have been given new life with the new prospects for peace and also new projects never before dreamed possible have been created as part of the New Silk Road (Aka: One Belt One Road).
Just to get a sense of this incredible potential that is keeping western oligarchs up at night, I want to quickly review just a few of the greatest China-led reconstruction projects which are now taking hold in four of the most decimated areas of the Middle East: Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.
Iraq Joins the New Silk Road
After decades of foreign manipulation, the Iraqi government was able to declare victory over Da’esh in 2017- just 3 years after the western-sponsored insurgents had gained control of one third of the territory. This new stability created by Russia’s intervention into Syria, unleashed a vast potential for China-led reconstruction to not only re-build the war-torn nation, but launch it into the 21st century.
In September 2019, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdu-Mahdi announced Iraq’s participation in the New Silk Road standing alongside Xi Jinping in Beijing. Mahdi said: “Iraq has gone through war and civil strife and is grateful to China for its valuable support… Iraq is willing to work in the ‘One Belt One Road’ framework”. President Xi then said: “China would like, from a new starting point together with Iraq, to push for the China-Iraq Strategic Partnership”.
Part of this Strategic Partnership involves an Oil for Reconstruction program which will see Chinese firms exchange infrastructure-building for oil (100 000 barrels/day to be exact). Already Iraq is China’s 2nd largest supplier of overseas oil while China has become Iraq’s #1 trade partner. Abdul Hussein al-Hanin (Advisor to the Prime Minister) explained that rather than giving money for Iraqi oil, China would build its projects defined by 3 priorities which al-Hanin said “first is building and modernizing the highways and internal roads with their sewage systems. Second is the construction of schools, hospitals and residential and industrial cities, and third is the construction of railways, ports, airports and other projects”. Atop the list of “other projects” include water treatment systems and power plants.
While Iraq’s economy is dependant on oil (making up 65% of its GDP, 100% of its export revenue), China’s New Silk Road focuses upon diversifying Iraq into a more complex full spectrum economy which is vital to enhance its sovereignty.
While great strides have been made towards a new system, anti-government protests threaten to disrupt this program having left 100 dead and thousands wounded since they began in July 2018.
A New Hope for Syria
The wounds Syria has inflicted since the crisis erupted in 2011 will take generations to heal, with over half a million deaths, a loss of 5.6 million civilians who have fled the country and approximately 6.1 million displaced within Syria itself. China has made clear its intentions to bring the BRI to Syria as fast as possible since 2017 with Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang saying:
“Too many people in the Middle East are suffering at the brutal hands of terrorists. We support regional countries in forming synergy, consolidating the momentum of anti-terrorism and striving to restore regional stability and order. We support countries in the region in exploring a development path suited to their national conditions and are ready to share governance experience and jointly build the Belt and Road and promote peace and stability through common development.”
After committing $23 billion in aid in 2018, BRI projects in Syria have taken many forms which can now begin as a viable peace process is finally underway, including East-West rail and road connections between Asia and Europe passing through Iran, to Iraq and into Syria where goods can be sent to the Basra Port in Iraq, the Syrian ports of Latakia and Tartus on the Mediterranean as well as the incredibly important Port of Tripoli in Lebanon called a “pearl on the New Silk Road” by the Chinese.
Discussion of a North South route connecting transport routs through Syria to Lebanon, Israel and Egypt into Africa are now underway and the timing of the chaotic anti-government protests in Lebanon makes one wonder if western meddling is behind it.
Many of the beautiful possibilities for Syrian reconstruction were laid out in great detail in a 2016 Schiller Institute video entitled Project Phoenix which has circulated widely across the Arab world.
Assad’s Five Seas Strategy Revived
Little known in the western world, President Bashar al-Assad had already advanced this vision as early as 2004 when he first announced his “Five Seas Strategy”. In an August 1, 2009 interview, President Assad described his program beautifully:
“Once the economic space between Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran becomes integrated, we would link the Mediterranean, Caspian, Black Sea, and the [Persian] Gulf . . . we aren’t just important in the Middle East. . . Once we link these four seas, we become the unavoidable intersection of the whole world in investment, transport, and more.”
Going beyond mere words, President Assad had led delegations signing agreements with Turkey, Romania, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon to begin Five Seas projects. This was done at a moment that President Qadaffi was well underway building the Great Manmade Riveras the largest water project in history alongside a coalition of nations of Sudan and Egypt.
“Through the BRI, China is offering the rest of the world its know-how, experience and technology, backed by a $3 trillion financial arsenal. This is a great opportunity for West Asia and Africa to realize the dreams of the post-World War II independence era, dreams that have unfortunately been sabotaged for decades. The dramatic deficit in infrastructure both nationally and inter-regionally in West Asia and Africa can, ironically, be considered in this new light as a great opportunity.”
It is now becoming obvious, that the Syrian project that was derailed in 2011 can now get back on track.
Yemen as Keystone of the Maritime Silk Road
The four year Saudi war on Yemen has been a humanitarian disaster of our times. However in spite of insurmountable odds, the Yemenis have managed to not only defend themselves but have pulled off one of the most brilliant military flanking maneuvers in history crippling the Saudi economy on September 29th. This victory has both forced the Saudis to eat yet-another mouthful of humble pie and created a breathing space for a serious discussion for Yemen’s reconstruction through participation in the New Silk Road. Sitting upon the entry of the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea, Yemen is today as it was 2000 years ago: a vital node in both Maritime Silk Road and the land-based Silk Road connecting Asia with Africa and Europe.
Already several Yemeni organizations have been created endorsing this vision led by the Yemeni Advisory Office for Coordination with the BRICS, Yemeni Youth BRICS Cabinet and the New Silk Road Party which has gained the support of leading government officials since their founding by Yemeni poet/statesman Fouad al-Ghaffari in 2016. Courageous efforts such as these have resulted in the government’s signing an MOU to join the BRI in June 2019.
A word on Turkey and Afghanistan
The Middle Corridor linking Turkey to Georgia and Azerbaijan via rail and to China via Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan was hailed by Erdogan to “be at the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative.” In July 2019, Erdogan said the BRI “has emerged as the greatest development project of the 21st century”. After citing the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge over the Bosporus, Eurasian tunnel and Marmaray system across the Dardanelles and its vast high speed rail, Erdogan continued by saying: “Turkey shares China’s vision when it comes to serving world peace, preserving global security, stability, promoting multilateralism… the world seeks a new multipolar balance today”. It is no secret that Turkey has come to the realization that its destiny relies on China, whose trade rose from $230 million in 1990 to a staggering $28 billion in 2017!
President Trump’s efforts to bring the Taliban to the discussion table with the Afghan government of Ahmadzai have resulted in a renewed potential for China’s desire to extend the $57 billion China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor (CPEC) into Kabul. While this diplomatic opportunity is very fragile, it is the closest the region has yet come to a viable resolution to the post 2001 insanity (including the replacement of its opium-based economy towards a viable full spectrum nation).
It goes without saying that the entire Arab world is looking at a new future of hope and development through the combined efforts of Russia and China. The USA, under Trump’s efforts to undo the decades of Gordian Knots in the Middle East have resulted in the most absurd campaign from republican and democratic tools in Washington to impeach the president. Obviously, a US-Russia-China alliance would be a wonderful blessing for the world, but for this to occur, the matter of the deep state infestation of America must first be dealt with.
On August 21, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the Tiger Forces liberated the town of Khan Shaykhun and the areas of Khazanat and Tal Taeri, thus fully encircling remaining militants in northern Hama.
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham strong points of Kafr Zita, Lataminah, and Morek, as well as the nearby settlements of Lahaya, Markabah, Latmin and Sayad are now fully cut off from their radical counterparts in the Idlib zone. A Morek observation post, where Turkish troops are deployed, is also encircled.
Khan Shaykhun, located on a highway linking Damascus with Aleppo, is one of the biggest urban centers in southern Idlib. For years, it had served as the key stronghold of al-Qaeda-linked militants. Currently, SAA troops are working to secure their recent gains and preparing for a further push to clear the rest of northern Hama.
Reacting to the Syrian military advance, a Turkish presidential spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, saidthat all observation posts, including the one near Murak, will remain in their positions in Greater Idlib. He also revealed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will speak with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the phone over the situation in Idlib in the next couple of days.
These remarks were accompanied with common Turkish media propaganda accusing the SAA of violating the ceasefire regime and oppressing so-called moderate rebels. But in fact, Turkey just admitted its tactical loss and inability to rescue militants in this part of Syria.
Another important point of Kalin’s statement was dedicated to the US-Turkish ‘safe-zone’ agreement on northern Syria. According to the Turkish side, joint partrols US and Turkish forces will soon be launched east of the Euphrates, within the area controlled by US-backed Kurdish groups. Ankara see these groups as terrorist organizations and has repeatedly shelled their positions. So, it will be interesting to look how this claim will be implemented if US-backed formations remain deployed in the areas of supposed joint patrols.
BEIRUT, LEBANON (10:10 P.M.) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) scored a major victory in the southern countryside of the Idlib Governorate this week when the jihadist rebels abandoned several areas, including the strategic city of Khan Sheikhoun.
Since the militant withdrawal from Khan Sheikhoun, the Syrian Arab Army has moved into the city and begun clearing the empty neighborhoods, while also securing other areas east of the city.
According to a military source near the front-lines, the Syrian Arab Army has completed the siege of northern Hama after capturing several points near the town of Al-Ta’manah in the southern countryside of Idlib.
While Al-Ta’manah has not been captured, the Syrian Army has seized most of the points south and east of the town, leaving only a small area left under the control of the jihadist rebels.
At the same time, with the Ta’manah-Khan Sheikhoun Road closed off, the Turkish Armed Forces now find themselves encircled by the Syrian Arab Army at the town of Morek.
Turkey has already announced that they will not abandon their observation post at Morek, despite the recent militant setbacks.
The Turkish regime has also warned the Syrian military about “playing with fire” in this area, especially after the Syrian Air Force almost hit their military convoy in southern Idlib.
كلّ شيء يحصل في بحر العرب وخليج فارس من حرب ناقلات وتحفز وأرصاد الى تعارض إرادات وديبلوماسية حياكة السجاد تشي بما يلي:
انّ ما يطلق عليه الأزمة الأميركية الإيرانية، الدائرة الآن في الخليج وبحر العرب وبقية مناطق الإقليم، من اليمن الى العراق وسورية ولبنان وفلسطين، ليست أزمة عادية وإنما هي معركة استراتيجية كبرى بين كتلتين دوليتين هما :
الولايات المتحدة الاميركية، مدعومة من حلف شمال الأطلسي بشكل كامل ومن الأنظمة العربية العميلة في جزيرة العرب، الى جانب الكيان الصهيوني طبعاً.
وهي بمعنى من المعاني إنهاء هيمنة القطب الواحد، ايّ الولايات المتحدة، على العالم.
لا يوجد أيّ أفق، لا على الصعيد التكتيكي ولا على الصعيد الاستراتيجي، لتحقيق أيّ من أهداف الولايات المتحدة، لا في منطقة الصراع المفتوح حالياً ولا مناطق أخرى من ساحات المواجهة، مثل وسط آسيا أو بحر الصين أو منطقة البحر الأسود/ أوكرانيا. وكذلك هو الوضع في منطقة بحر البلطيق/ شمال غرب روسيا، حيث يستمرّ تحشيد قوات كبيرة لحلف الناتو بالقرب من الحدود الروسية الشمالية الغربية/ أيّ بالقرب من مدينة لينينغراد ذات الرمزية التاريخية والوطنية الكبرى في روسيا خضعت لحصار الجيوش الألمانية لمدة 900 يوم دون أن تستسلم .
يتمثل الجانب الاستراتيجي، في المعركة الدائرة حالياً، في انّ إيران تتصدّى بشكل مباشر لمحاولات الولايات المتحدة السيطرة، ليس فقط على منابع النفط الموجودة في الجزيرة العربية وإيران بهدف التحكم في إمدادات الطاقة للأسواق الصينية والباكستانية وأسواق دول شرق آسيا لإبطاء نمو اقتصاديات هذه الدول وإضعاف قدرتها على منافسة الولايات المتحدة، على الصعيد الدولي، وانما تتعدّى الأهداف الأميركية كلّ ذلك، حيث انّ طبيعة هذه المواجهة تشمل قبل كلّ شيء الجوانب الاقتصادية الدولية. وبكلام أكثر وضوحاً فإنّ واشنطن ودول الناتو يحاولون السيطرة على منطقة المواجهة الحاليّة، الممتدة من سواحل فلسطين المحتلة غرباً وحتى سواحل الصين وروسيا الشرقية على المحيط الهادئ.
اما كلمة سر هذا الجانب الاستراتيجي فهي: مشروع الطريق والحزام الصيني، ذو الطابع الدولي والعابر للقارات، الذي سيكرّس إنهاء السيطرة الاقتصادية والمالية الأميركية على مقدرات شعوب العالم.
وهذا يعني أنّ معركة إيران، ومعها حلف المقاومة، الحاليّة، مع الأطراف الاستعمارية المذكورة أعلاه، هي معركة فرط استراتيجية، يتمثل هدف إيران وحلفائها، من وراء خوضها، في ما يلي:
ـ إنجاز حقوق إيران، ليس فقط في المجال النووي، وإنما في الحفاظ على أمن الملاحة البحرية في كلّ المنطقة الممتدة من خليج عدن وحتى غرب المحيط الهندي. وهو ما يشكل مانعاً قوياً أو خط دفاع أوّل عن حدود الصين الغربية وحدود روسيا الجنوبية الغربية.
ـ إنهاء عوامل التوتر المتجدّد في الإقليم وذلك باقتلاع جذور أسبابه، المتمثلة في الوجود العسكري الاميركي الأطلسي المكثف في جزيرة العرب وفي بحار المنطقة وصولاً الى بحر الصين الجنوبي، خاصة أنّ سلاح البحرية الإيراني قادر، ودون أدنى شك، على تأمين خطوط الملاحة بكلّ كفاءة واقتدار.
ـ أما آلية الحماية المنشودة فيمكن تحقيقها، وبكلّ سهولة، عبر تطبيق الاقتراح الإيراني، المقدّم منذ أشهر، والذي ينص على إنشاء نظام أمني إقليمي تشارك فيه كلّ دول المنطقة، العربية منها وغير العربية، كباكستان وإيران، وإخلاء المنطقة من القواعد والأساطيل الأجنبية.
أما في ما يتعلق باحتمالات سير هذه المعركة، وتطوراتها في الميدان، فإنّ ذلك لن يتعدّى مرحلة ممارسة التفاوض تحت النار، أيّ انّ طرفي المعركة، خاصة إيران وحلف المقاومة، سيواصلان تنفيذ خطوات للضغط العسكري على العدو، على امتداد ساحة المواجهة، وذلك لثقتها الكاملة بنفسها وقدراتها أولاً ولتيقنها من محدودية قدرات العدو ثانياً.
وعندما نتحدث عن محدودية قدرات العدو فإننا بالأكيد لا نعني انّ قدرات إيران العسكرية تفوق في حجمها قدرات المعسكر المعادي، وإنما نعني محدودية قدرة العدو في استخدام ما لديه من قدرات عسكرية. وهذا ما يسمّى في علم السياسة: محدودية استخدام القوة. الأمر الذي يعود الى أسباب عديدة لا مجال لتعدادها في هذا المجال…
وإنما لا بدّ من التذكير بأهمّها، ألا وهو عدم وجود ايّ نية حقيقية، لدى الرئيس الأميركي الحالي، في خوض حرب ضدّ إيران وحلفائها. علاوة على تخوّف الرئيس ترامب من تدحرج أيّ عمليات، حتى ولو كانت محدودة، ضدّ إيران إلى حرب شاملة، الأمر الذي لا قدرة للولايات المتحدة الأميركية على المغامرة به، إذ انّ مثل هكذا تطوّر سيحتاج الى نشر ما لا يقلّ عن 750 ألف جندي أميركي/ أطلسي في منطقة العمليات إيران والعراق وسورية ، بالإضافة الى قراءة الفاتحة على روح قاعدة واشنطن العسكرية في فلسطين المحتلة، «إسرائيل»، والتي ستزول عن الوجود خلال ساعات بدء الحرب الأولى.
إذن… فالولايات المتحدة لديها القوة العسكرية، المجمّدة او المشلولة او المغلولة الأيدي، بسبب ظروف الميدان السياسية والعسكرية. بينما تستند القيادة الإيرانية الى يد مطلقة في اتخاذ القرارت الحازمة والمبنية على الظروف الموضوعية المؤاتية أيضاً ما يجعل القارئ الموضوعي لمسرح العمليات، يخرج بنتيجة لا تقبل الشك ألا وهي:
انّ الطرف الأقوى في المواجهة سيكون بالتأكيد ذلك الطرف الذي تقاتل معه الجغرافيا والإرث الحضاري الإيراني، الأكبر والأعمق والذي يستند اليه الإمام السيد علي الخامنئي في قيادته للمعركة وفي قراراته وتوجيهاته للآلة السياسية والديبلوماسية والعسكرية في إيران، المتكئة الى فقه إسلامي ديناميكي ثوري أكثر عمقاً وزخماً من كلّ ما يمكن ان يتصوّره السياسيون التقليديون.
ثمة معادلة جديدة تتشكل في العمل السياسي الدولي تشي بحصول هزائم مدوية تنتظر الأميركيين وأذنابهم وانتصارات كبرى غير مسبوقة في المسرح الدولي لصالح إيران وحلفائها.
The people of the Middle East do not want foreign soldiers on their soil. Every one of our countries has laws forbidding foreigners from entering without a valid visa. We, therefore, maintain the right to pursue and detain an illegal alien within our borders and waters. Also, our national law enforcement agencies and military may sometimes be too overwhelmed with their duties. Therefore, it is the patriotic obligation of able-bodied civilians to take up arms and support our brave men and women of the armed forces in defending our borders and sovereignty.
As for foreigners who try to enter our countries with weapons in hand, we assume that they are neither seeking refuge nor a better, more authentic, way of life. The logical deduction is that they have come to cause harm and steal our riches as the American military did in Iraq. Those who invade with the intention of killing out children should not enjoy humanitarian treatment – it simply becomes a matter of survival.
Having stayed calm and peaceful in the face of almost daily provocations does not mean weakness. It is just that war is not our way. A rich culture such as ours dictates patience even in the face of trigger-happy cowboys whose hobbies include abducting and waterboarding people.
We love our land and honor international laws. We also love the leaders we have chosen for ourselves and wait for them to give the word. Once they do, martyrdom will be our aim. But, Leader of the Islamic Revolution His Eminence Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei and Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah cling to peaceful solutions up until the very last second. They have hope in humanity and faith that people across the ocean will finally see the true nature of the greedy murderous regime that has hijacked their constitution.
People are destined to realize that Palestine was never the Promised Land for Zionists. It was actually the United States and they, the Zionists, succeeded in creating their government in Washington D.C. a long time ago. What is now called “Israel” is just an outpost of destruction and terrorism run by the same warmongers who hijacked the White House. They did that using the mafia, shady banking establishments, and mega-corporations. The people will soon begin to question why any politician running for office needs to sign documents forbidding him or her from revealing or opposing the daily “Israeli” crimes and genocide against the indigenous people of the Middle East, mainly the Palestinians.
Once awareness has been reached, the people will hold their regime responsible for tarnishing their nation’s name and sending their sons and daughters to kill innocent children in the very spot of earth that gave the world Jesus, Moses, and Mohamed (PBUH). Someone is destined to reveal that Trump must have bought shares in a company that produces body bags. That is why he is so eager to send their children to start a war in the Middle East. We just hope they realize all that before it is too late.
In our culture, a guest is honored. He gets the best room in our house and eats before we do. Nevertheless, he needs to be invited first. Entering our house without permission makes him a trespassing thieving criminal. What does the American law say about trespassers who break and enter with premeditated intentions to kill?
Trump should have someone explain to him that the Middle East is not like the fiction movies he depends on for information. We are not represented by some puppet presidents and kings that the British helped place in power and our unity is most definitely not limited by religion or ethnicity. We are Arabs, Persians, Phoenicians, Semites, Arians, Shiites, Sunnis, Maronites, Druze, Jews, and so much more. Our Orthodox Christians respect His Eminence Sayyed Nasrallah just like our Shiites respect Archbishop Theodosios of Sebastia. And while this someone is at it, he might as well explain to Trump how there really is no Captain America or Wonder Woman; there are real heroes in the world but they are 15-year-old boys from Gaza who stand for honor, dignity, and patriotism.
We hope that Americans listen to reason and not to the latest edition of Zionist puppets they have in the White House. A man who sells arms to the Saudis for the purpose of butchering Yemeni children is nothing less than ethically challenged. It is their choice whether they really want him to lead them or not; it doesn’t really concern us as long as he doesn’t lead their tanks in the direction of our children.
The Middle East is not the Wild West; it is not a frontier up for grabs. Centuries of persecution by the Ottomans failed in bringing us to our knees. Why would anyone think that a few metal boats enjoying the sunshine of our Mediterranean can steal our land? They might have a chance if they had Tony Stark on board one of them but the last time we checked, Iron Man was fiction just like what they call the “deal of the century”.
The Trump administration unilaterally cheated on the 2015 multinational, UN-endorsed JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal. It has imposed an illegal, worldwide financial and energy blockade on all forms of trade with Iran — from oil and gas to exports of iron, steel, aluminum and copper. For all practical purposes, and in any geopolitical scenario, this is a declaration of war.
Successive U.S. governments have ripped international law to shreds; ditching the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is only the latest instance. It doesn’t matter that Tehran has fulfilled all its commitments to the deal — according to UN inspectors. Once the leadership in Tehran concluded that the U.S. sanctions tsunami is fiercer than ever, it decided to begin partially withdrawing from the deal.
President Hassan Rouhani was adamant: Iran has not left the JCPOA — yet. Tehran’s measures are legal under the framework of articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA — and European officials were informed in advance. But it’s clear the EU3 (Germany, France, Britain), who have always insisted on their vocal support for the JCPOA, must work seriously to alleviate the U.S.-provoked economic disaster to Iran if Tehran has any incentive to continue to abide by the agreement.
Protests in front of former U.S. embassy in Tehran after U.S. decision to withdraw from JCPOA, May 8, 2018. (Hossein Mersadi via Wikimedia Commons)
Russia and China — the pillars of Eurasia integration, to which Iran adheres — support Tehran’s position. This was discussed extensively in Moscow by Sergey Lavrov and Iran’s Javad Zarif, perhaps the world’s top two foreign ministers.
At the same time, it’s politically naïve to believe the Europeans will suddenly grow a backbone.
The comfortable assumption in Berlin, Paris and London was that Tehran could not afford to leave the JCPOA even if it was not receiving any of the economic rewards promised in 2015. Yet now the EU3 are facing the hour of truth.
It’s hard to expect anything meaningful coming from an enfeebled Chancellor Angela Merkel, with Berlin already targeted by Washington’s trade ire; a Brexit-paralyzed Britain; and a massively unpopular President Emmanuel Macron in France already threatening to impose his own sanctions if Tehran does not agree to limit its ballistic missile program. Tehran will never allow inspections over its thriving missile industry – and this was never part of the JCPOA to begin with.
As it stands, the EU3 are not buying Iranian oil. They are meekly abiding by the U.S. banking and oil/gas sanctions — which are now extended to manufacturing sectors — and doing nothing to protect Iran from its nasty effects. The implementation of INSTEX, the SWIFT alternative for trade with Iran, is languishing. Besides expressing lame “regrets” about the U.S. sanctions, the EU3 are de facto playing the game on the side of U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates; and by extension against Russia, China and Iran.
Rise of the Imperial Psychos
As Tehran de facto kicked the ball to the European court, both EU3 options are dire. To meaningfully defend the JCPOA will invite a ballistic reaction from the Trump administration. To behave like poodles — the most probable course of action — means emboldening even more the psychopaths doubling as imperial functionaries bent on a hot war against Iran at all costs; Koch brothers Big Oil asset and enraptured evangelist, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and paid Mujahideen-e Khalq asset and notorious intel manipulator, National Security Advisor John Bolton.
The Pompeo-Bolton gangster maneuver is hardly Bismarck’s Realpolitik. It consists of relentlessly pushing Tehran to make a mistake, any mistake, in terms of “violating” its obligations under the JCPOA, so that this may be sold to gullible American public opinion as the proverbial “threat” to the “rules-based order” doubling as a casus belli.
There’s one thing the no-holds-barred U.S. economic war against Iran has managed to achieve: internal unity in the Islamic Republic. Team Rouhani’s initial aim for the JCPOA was to open up to Western trade (trade with Asia was always on) and somewhat curtail the power of the IRGC, or Revolutionary Guards, which control vast sectors of the Iranian economy.
Washington’s economic war proved instead the IRGC was right all along, echoing the finely-tuned geopolitical sentiment of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who always emphasized the Americans cannot be trusted, ever.
And as much as Washington has branded the IRGC a “terrorist organization,” Tehran replied in kind, branding CENTCOM the same.
Independent Persian Gulf oil traders dismiss the notion that the kleptocrat House of Saud — de facto run by Jared “of Arabia” Kushner’s Whatsapp pal Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), the Saudi crown prince – holds up to 2.5 million barrels of oil a day in spare capacity capable of replacing Iran’s 2 million barrels of exports (out of 3.45 million of total daily production). The House of Saud seems more interested in hiking oil prices for Asian customers.
London protests at Saudi bombing of Yemen. March 2018. (Alisdare Hickson via Flickr)
Faulty Blockade
Washington’s energy trade blockade of Iran is bound to fail.
China will continue to buy its 650,000 barrels a day – and may even buy more. Multiple Chinese companies trade technology and industrial services for Iranian oil.
Pakistan, Iraq and Turkey — all bordering Iran — will continue to buy Iranian high-quality light crude by every method of payment (including gold) and transportation available, formal or informal. Baghdad’s trade relationship with Tehran will continue to thrive.
As economic suffocation won’t suffice, Plan B is — what else — the threat of a hot war.
It’s by now established that the info, in fact rumors, about alleged Iranian maneuvers to attack U.S. interests in the Gulf was relayed to Bolton by the Mossad, at the White House, with Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat personally briefing Bolton.
Everyone is aware of the corollary: a “reposition of assets” (in Pentagonese) — from the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group deployment to four B-52 bombers landing in Al Udeid Air base in Qatar, all part of a “warning” to Iran.
A pre-war roaring crescendo now engulfs the Lebanese front as well as the Iranian front.
Reasons for Psychotic Rage
Iran’s GDP is similar to Thailand’s, and its military budget is similar to Singapore’s. Bullying Iran is a geopolitical and geo-economic absurdity. Iran may be an emerging Global South actor — it could easily be a member of the G20 — but can never be construed as a “threat” to the U.S.
Yet Iran provokes psychopathic imperial functionaries to a paroxysm of rage for three serious reasons. Neocons never mind that trying to destroy Iraq cost over $6 trillion — and it was a major war crime, a political disaster, and an economic abyss all rolled into one. Trying to destroy Iran will cost untold trillions more.
The most glaring reason for the irrational hatred is the fact the Islamic Republic is one of the very few nations on the planet consistently defying the hegemon — for four decades now.
The second reason is that Iran, just like Venezuela — and this is a combined war front — have committed the supreme anathema; trading on energy bypassing the petrodollar, the foundation stone of U.S. hegemony.
The third (invisible) reason is that to attack Iran is to disable emerging Eurasia integration, just like using NSA spying to ultimately put Brazil in the bag was an attack on Latin American integration.
The non-stop hysteria over whether President Donald Trump is being maneuvered into war on Iran by his pet psychopaths – well, he actually directed Iran to “Call me” — eludes the Big Picture. As shown before, a possible shut down of the Strait of Hormuz, whatever the reasons, would be like a major meteor impact on the global economy. And that would inevitably translate as no Trump reelection in 2020.
The Strait of Hormuz would never need to be blocked if all the oil Iran is able to export is bought by China, other Asian clients and even Russia — which could relabel it. But Tehran wouldn’t blink on blocking Hormuz if faced with total economic strangulation.
According to a dissident U.S. intel expert, “the United States is at a clear disadvantage in that if the Strait of Hormuz is shut the U.S. collapses. But if the U.S. can divert Russia from defending Iran, then Iran can be attacked and Russia will have accomplished nothing, as the neocons do not want detente with Russia and China. Trump does want detente but the Deep State does not intend to permit it.”
Assuming this scenario is correct, the usual suspects in the United States government are trying to divert Putin from the Strait of Hormuz question while keeping Trump weakened, as the neocons proceed 24/7 on the business of strangling Iran. It’s hard to see Putin falling for this not exactly elaborate trap.
Not Bluffing
So what happens next? Professor Mohammad Marandi at the Faculty of World Studies of the University of Tehran offers quite a sobering perspective: “After 60 days Iran will push things even further. I don’t think the Iranians are bluffing. They will also be pushing back at the Saudis and the Emiratis by different means.”
Marandi, ominously, sees “further escalation” ahead:
“Iranians have been preparing for war with the Unites States ever since the Iraq invasion in 2003. After what they’ve seen in Libya, in Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, they know that the Americans and Europeans are utterly brutal. The whole shore of the Persian Gulf on the Iranian side and the Gulf of Oman is full of tunnels and underground high-tech missiles. The Persian Gulf is full of ships equipped with highly developed sea-to-sea missiles. If there is real war, all the oil and gas facilities in the region will be destroyed, all the tankers will be destroyed.”
And if that show comes to pass, Marandi regards the Strait of Hormuz as the “sideshow”:
“The Americans will be driven out of Iraq. Iraq exports 4 million barrels of oil a day; that would probably come to an end, through strikes and other means. It would be catastrophic for the Americans. It would be catastrophic for the world – and for Iran as well. But the Americans would simply not win.”
So as Marandi explains it — and Iranian public opinion now largely agrees — the Islamic Republic has leverage because they know “the Americans can’t afford to go to war. Crazies like Pompeo and Bolton may want it, but many in the establishment don’t.”
Tehran may have developed a modified MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) framework as leverage, mostly to push Trump ally MbS to cool down. “Assuming,” adds Marandi, “the madmen don’t get the upper hand, and if they do, then it’s war. But for the time being, I thinks that’s highly unlikely.”
Guided-missile destroyer USS Porter transits Strait of Hormuz, May 2012. (U.S. Navy/Alex R. Forster)
All Options on the Table?
In Cold War 2.0 terms, from Central Asia to the Eastern Mediterranean and from the Indian Ocean to the Caspian Sea, Tehran is able to count on quite a set of formal and informal alliances. That not only centers on the Beirut-Damascus-Baghdad-Tehran-Herat axis, but also includes Turkey and Qatar. And most important of all, the top actors on the Eurasian integration chessboard: the Russia and China in strategic partnership.
When Zarif met Lavrov last week in Moscow, they discussed virtually everything: Syria (they negotiate together in the Astana, now Nur-Sultan process), the Caspian, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (of which Iran will become a member), the JCPOA and Venezuela.
The Trump administration was dragged kicking and screaming to meet Kim Jong-Un at the same table because of the DPRK’s intercontinental ballistic missile tests. And then Kim ordered extra missile tests because, in his own words, as quoted by KCNA, “genuine peace and security of the country are guaranteed only by the strong physical force capable of defending its sovereignty.”
Global South Watching
The overwhelming majority of Global South nations are watching the U.S. neocon offensive to ultimately strangle “the Iranian people”, aware more than ever that Iran may be bullied to extinction because it does not posses a nuclear deterrent. The IRGC has reached the same conclusion.
That would mean the death of the JCPOA – and the Return of the Living Dead of “all options on the table.”
But then, there’ll be twists and turns in the Art of the (Demented) Deal. So what if, and it’s a major “if”, Donald Trump is being held hostage by his pet psychopaths?
Let The Dealer speak:
“We hope we don’t have to do anything with regard to the use of military force…We can make a deal, a fair deal. … We just don’t want them to have nuclear weapons. Not too much to ask. And we would help put them back into great shape. They’re in bad shape right now. I look forward to the day where we can actually help Iran. We’re not looking to hurt Iran. I want them to be strong and great and have a great economy… We have no secrets. And they can be very, very strong, financially. They have great potential.”
Then again, Ayatollah Khamenei said: the Americans cannot be trusted, ever.
الحروب الأميركية التي دمرت عشرات البلدان منذ ثمانينيات القرن الماضي من دون موافقات من مجلس الأمن الدولي، جاءت بمثابة إعلان عن ولادة نظام قوة عالمي بأحادية أميركية تمكنت من إسقاط المنافسين السوفيات واستيعاب الأوروبيين.
هذه الهيمنة الأميركية تعثرت في 2013 في الميدان السوري، فلم تتمكن من تنفيذ خطة كانت تشمل معظم الشرق الأوسط بتفتيت بلدانه إلى كيانات صغيرة على أسس طائفية ومناطقية وجهوية للتمديد للاحادية الأميركية.
لذلك بدت سورية آنذاك المعقل الأول للنيل من الفرادة الأميركية، حيث تحالفت دولتها الشجاعة وبالتتابع مع حزب الله وإيران والروس، لدحر أكبر قوة إرهابية في التاريخ تمتعت وحسب اعترافات سياسيين أوروبيين وقطريين بدعم أميركي إسرائيلي خليجي تركي يشمل كل أنواع المساندات التمويلية والتسليحية واللوجيستية والسياسية بمشاركة قصف جوي دائم اميركي وإسرائيلي لا يزال يستهدف الجيش السوري وحلفاءه. فبدأ الإرهاب مع هذا الإسناد مجرد معارضة تنشد التغيير الديموقراطي ببرامج عمل لبن لادن والظواهري.
يتبيّن أن الدولة السورية نجحت في تسديد ضربة قوية للأحادية الأميركية ارغمتها على التراجع نحو شرقي الفرات، حيث تحاول هناك استكمال جزء بسيط ومستحيل من خطتها المنكسرة.
وبما أن إيران دولة «شرق أوسطية»، تشارك في دعم سورية بكل إمكاناتها، وتمكنت من اختراق الأحادية الاميركية في افغانستان وباكستان واليمن والعراق وسورية ولبنان، وبنت نظام تسليح ضخماً ودولة متماسكة، تشكل تهديداً بنيوياً لمدنيين اميركيين من الحلبات الاساسية للاحادية الأميركية في الخليج النفطي، الغازي الاقتصادي، و»إسرائيل» الصمود الاستراتيجي للجيوبولتيك الاميركي في الشرق الأوسط.
أرتأت «امبراطورية الكاوبوي» الاميركية أن وقف تراجعها لا يكون إلا بإسقاط الدولة الإيرانية، وبما أن الهجوم العسكري المباشر على إيران صعب، لجأ الأميركيون إلى اسلوب الحصار والتجويع وقطع علاقات إيران الاقتصادية بالعالم، وذلك بالترافق مع نشر كميات كبيرة من البوارج والمقاتلات الأميركية في مياه العرب واراضيهم المقابلة للجمهورية الاسلامية.
أما الذرائع الأميركية فهي كالعادة واولها اسلحتها الصاروخية ودعم اليمن والعراق وسورية.
وهذه اتهامات تصب فقط في مصلحة داعش والنصرة وكامل التنظيمات الإرهابية وترميم التراجع الاميركي، وحماية «إسرائيل» والسعودية والإمارات.
لذلك ظهرت ردة فعل ثنائية بدت على شكل بناءات هدفها العلاقات الدولية وتوفير ظروف أفضل للاستقرار الدولي عبر وقف الحروب الاميركية التدميرية بوسيلتيها الاجتياحات العسكرية والحصار الاقتصادي الخانق.
ردة الفعل الأولى من إيران الدولة والمجتمع، فمقابل حصار تجويعي يمنعها من الاستيراد والتصدير الطبيعيين والمسموح بهما لكل دولة عضو في الأمم المتحدة، قدمت الجمهورية الإسلامية بشكل دولة قوية تجمع بين قوة التسليح والاكتفاء الزراعي مع تقدم ملموس صناعياً، بوسعه تلبية الحاجات الأساسية للإيرانيين.
لكن ما فاجأ الاميركيين هو الالتفاف الكبير للإيرانيين حول دولتهم على الرغم من المصاعب الاقتصادية الضخمة، كان الأميركيون يعولون على انفجار داخلي يطيح بالدولة، وما حدث كان على العكس تماماً بدليل أن إيران المتنوعة عرقياً ودينياً ظهرت جسماً واحداً في مواجهة الحصار الأميركي ـ الخليجي ـ الاسرائيلي.
كما قدّم جيشها نماذج عن مصادر قوته البحرية والصاروخية والبرية، بما يدحض أي إمكانية لغزو خارجي.. هذا إلى جانب وجود نظام متحرك لقوتها الصاروخية يستطيع نقل ادواته إلى أمكنة جديدة، قبل حدوث الغارات المتوقعة عليه.
هذه المعادلة، افهمت الأميركيين استحالة غزو إيران من الخارج أو قصفها جوياً، فذهبوا نحو التشدد في العقوبات وصولاً إلى منع الدول من شراء نفطها وامكاناتها الأخرى في محاولة لإفلاسها نهائياً وتفجير دولتها.
على المستوى الثاني لردود الفعل، فكان من تركيا والهند والعراق المصرّين على مواصلة شراء غاز ونفط من إيران إلى جانب الصين التي اكدت وبجملة واحدة أنها لن توقف وارداتها من الجمهورية الاسلامية، فرد عليها الرئيس الاميركي ترامب بمضاعفة رسوم جمركية بمعدل 25 في المئة على سلع صينية تدخل الأسواق الأميركية وقيمتها 300 مليار دولار.
مما يجوز فهمه على أنه جزء من حروب الاحادية الاميركية على منافسيها في السيطرة على القرار الدولي بواجهات اقتصادية وسياسية.
فالموقف الصيني المعترض على المشروع الأميركي بتفجير إيران يتطوّر على هوى تطور الموقف الروسي. وهنا يمكن الإشارة التي تشكل موقفاً معادياً للأحادية الاميركية، استناداً إلى ما يحدث في الخليج من احتمالات حروب وتدمير.. فهذه هي الفرصة المناسبة ليس لتفجير إيران، بل للنيل من الاحادية الاميركية على اساس إعادة بناء نظام جديد ينتمي اليه الاميركيون بالطبع انما إلى جانب تحالف ثلاثي ـ صيني، روسي، وإيراني، مدعوم من شبكة علاقات دولية في سورية وفنزويلا وكثير من الدول في أميركا الجنوبية والشرق الأوسط وجنوب شرق آسيا.
الدور الإيراني هو إذاً الفرصة النموذجية والموضوعية لتقليص النفوذ الأميركي العالمي، متيحاً للروس مرة جديدة، وبعد الميدان السوري، مزيداً من التقدم لاستعادة دورهم العالمي المفقود منذ انهيار الاتحاد السوفياتي في 1990 وللشرق الأوسط مزيداً من الاستقلالية عن سياسات التأديب الأميركية.
وما يؤكد على صحة هذه الأهداف، ما صدر عن لقاء منذ يومين جمع وزيري خارجية روسيا والصين، أكدا فيه على التحالف مع إيران التي لم تنتهك الاتفاق النووي.
لكن الروس ذهبوا أكثر بدعوتهم لكل البلدان الى التعامل الاقتصادي مع إيران لأن القرارات الأميركية غير شرعية.. كاشفين عن عزمهم تزويدها بكل ما تحتاجه من سلاح للدفاع عن نفسها، فكيف يمكن لروسيا المصرّة على دورها العالمي أن تقبل بغزو اميركي لإيران المجاورة لها لجهة بحر قزوين والدولة الوحيدة مع سورية التي تجابه الهيمنة الاميركية في الشرق الأوسط.
ان منطق الضرورة والحاجة المتبادلة يؤسس بسرعة لحلف روسي ـ إيراني ـ سوري له مدى كبير في العالم، وهدفه المحوري هو إلحاق هزيمة بالأميركيين في بحر الخليج تستطيع إعادة تنظيم الاستقرار الدولي بتعددية المرجعيات الدولية المتوازنة والبلدان الإقليمية الوازنة ـ الأمر الذي يؤدي إلى تراجع لغة الإقناع بالتدمير والحروب لمصلحة إعادة تقديم لغة الحوار بين الأنظمة المتناقضة.
Beijing – Presidential Political and Media Adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, discussed here on Thursday with Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister, Chen Xiaodong, who is responsible for West Asia and North Africa affairs, ways to enhance bilateral relations between the two friendly countries at various levels.
During the meeting, which was held on the sidelines of the second session of the “One Belt One Way” summit held in the Chinese capital, Dr. Shaaban pointed to the strong ties linking Syria and China, which have two cultures and are similar in human ideals and values. Both countries, she added, are striving to fight terrorism and bring peace and security to the world, indicating to the support provided by the Chinese Government to Syria at all levels.
Dr. Shaaban pointed out the importance of Syria’s participation in the second international summit of the “One Belt One Way” initiative, which reflects its important contribution to the communication between peoples and civilizations.
For his part, the Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister said that his country’s attitude and policy towards Syria has not changed and will never be changed in the future, noting the cooperation and coordination between the two countries, especially in the field of combating terrorism.
Mr. Chen expressed his country’s readiness to continue to provide support and assistance to Syria in various fields, noting the efforts made by Syria to make the Astana talks a success.
He also pointed out his country’s willingness and seriousness to participate in the reconstruction process in Syria, stressing that the government always encourages Chinese companies to invest in Syria.
The importance of Syria’s participation in the international summit comes from its historic role in the Silk Road, which was the spotlight in the region and the world, in addition to the great sacrifices made by the Syrian people in combating terrorism and for establishing peace and security in Syria, the region and the world.
The three-day summit was launched today in Beijing under the theme “Policy Coherence” with the participation of 37 presidents and prime ministers and 150 ministers from around the world.
Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the “One Belt One Way” Initiative in 2013, focusing mainly on economic and humanitarian aspects, communication and fighting terrorism.
– تبدو المنطقة في ظل فراغ سياسي لا أفق لتخطّيه في المدى المنظور، فالتمسك الأميركي بأولوية إرضاء الشهوات الإسرائيلية المنفلتة من الضوابط كلها، وما تعنيه هذه الأولوية من رفع لمنسوب التوتر وإحلال التصعيد مكان التهدئة ولغة المواجهة مكان لغة التفاوض، من جهة، ومن جهة مقابلة ربط كل الملفات المفتوحة في المنطقة من اليمن إلى سورية ولبنان والعراق بالعلاقة الأميركية الإيرانية، التي قررت إدارة الرئيس دونالد ترامب ربطها بالشروط الإسرائيلية، التي تجعل إيجاد سقف سياسي مشترك لأي من أزماتها أمراً مستحيلاً. وعندما يكون أفق التسويات مغلقاً ويكون التوتر في تصاعد، تصير المنطقة مكشوفة ومحكومة بتطوراتها بصدفة لا يعلم أحد مدى تستدرج القوى المتقابلة للانزلاق إلى حلقات أعلى من التوتر، وربما المواجهة، وكل مواجهة بلا سقوف تصير مفتوحة على احتمالات الأسوأ، وهو الحرب التي يسعى الجميع لتفاديها، لإدراك أن لا أفق لنصر حاسم أو لكلفة معقولة لأي حرب، وهذا هو توازن الرعب، بدلاً من توازن الدرع الذي يعني ضمان عدم الانزلاق نحو الحرب، الذي حكم سنوات ماضية رغم ضراوة المواجهات التي شهدتها.
– على طرفي المواجهة في الإقليم تقف واشنطن وموسكو على ضفتي اشتباك مفتوح في جبهات متعددة، خلافاً لكل المراحل الماضية، ولا يبدو للحوار بعد فرصة لصناعة التسويات، فمن فنزويلا إلى سورية وأوكرانيا، وصولاً إلى السودان والجزائر وليبيا، تقف واشنطن في ضفة وتقف موسكو في ضفة مقابلة، وعندما تتقدّم إحداهما كانت الأخرى تتراجع، بينما نراها اليوم تتقدم، ومثلما جاءت واشنطن إلى سورية ولم تراع كونها من المحيط الأمني الحيوي لروسيا، ذهبت موسكو إلى فنزويلا، والتوتر المتصاعد لن يعني وقوع الحرب بين الدولتين العظميين، بل زيادة توازن الرعب الحاكم في المنطقة.
– بالتوازي لا تبدو أميركا و»إسرائيل» قادرتين على التقدم في المجال العسكري، لذلك تخوضان حرباً مالية تتولاها واشنطن، وحرباً إعلامية ونفسية تخوضها تل أبيب، وفيما يبدو محور المقاومة مقتدراً على الصعيد العسكري، إلا أنه يبدو متحسباً للانزلاق من أي خطوة عسكرية محسوبة نحو مواجهة أكبر، ولذلك تبدو الاستعراضات الإسرائيلية العسكريّة ضمن إطار الدعاية العسكرية الإعلامية والنفسية، قادرة على اللعب في الوقت الضائع، لكنها حذرة من إيقاع أي خسائر بشرية تجعل الرد عليها إلزامياً، وتفتح الباب لتصاعد منسوب المواجهة والتوتر، ويبدو تركيز محور المقاومة على إنهاء الجرح السوري المفتوح للتحرّر من أعبائه، من إدلب إلى المنطقة الشرقية للفرات، لرسم قواعد اشتباك تتناسب مع الحرب المالية والنفسية وتخرج من توازن الرعب القائم.
– ربما يكون في واشنطن وتل أبيب من يتوهّم بمتغيرات نوعية في مصادر قوة محور المقاومة بفعل الحرب المالية، لكن الأكيد أن زمن الاختبار الضروري لهذا الوهم ليس طويلاً، مقابل الإمعان في اختبار مدى زمن صبر محور المقاومة على الاستعراضات العسكرية الإسرائيلية، وعندما تلتقي نهايتا الزمنين، زمن فعالية الحرب المالية وزمن صبر محور المقاومة، مع زمن حسم استرداد الجغرافيا السورية، ستدخل المنطقة في وضع جديد، قد تكون الحرب إحدى مفرداته، ما لم تحدث مفاجأة بحجم تفاهم روسي أميركي على سقوف تسويات كبرى، أو فك حلقات التصعيد بالتدريج بعضها عن بعض. ومرة أخرى تكون سورية هي المقياس، بفصل التسوية حولها عن سائر ملفات المواجهة، وإلا فتوازن الرعب مرشح في العام المقبل للارتفاع إلى حرارة أعلى، والانزلاق نحو نقاط الخطر سيكون وارداً بقوة.
Syria, Iran and Iraq are to continue their project on connecting their railway systems into one, Syrian outlet al Watan reported.
“Now, the countries are working on the resumption of the project connecting the railways of Syria, Iran and Iraq and are determining the date of the meeting between the representatives of the countries to develop the points of view”, an anonymous source at the Syrian Ministry of Transport said.
A date was set for a trilateral meeting, since the project was an important strategic point, that was stopped during the war in Syria.
Click to see full-size image. IMAGE: silkroadbriefing.com
The aim of the project was to provide Iraq and Iran with access to Syrian ports. Before the outbreak of the war in 2011, Syria had completed 97% of the project, but large portions of the railway system were destroyed during the clashes.
Furthermore, there is a current project to link Iran and Iraq through Basra and Syria would like to also join in.
There is an agreement between Syria and Iraq to connect the railways between the two countries through the Altnif and now the countries are seeking to evaluate the project through a meeting to assess the possibility of re-employment and the status of government agencies in the three countries When the project is clarified, then a final decision can be made. The project could also take up to 4 years.
Al Watan also reported that there were understandings with the Chinese side to be a partner in this project, which will be parallel to the Belt and Road Initiative, which is planned to be completed for the benefit of several countries, including Syria, Iraq, Iran, China, Pakistan among others.
In the context of the Iraqi Ministry of Transport, there will be talks on linking Skaki between Iran, Iraq and Syria.
In a statement issued on the sidelines of the meeting of the joint committee between Iraq and Syria in Damascus, Talab al-Husseini said that “in the light of the guidance of the Iraqi Transport Minister Abdullah al-Aybi in the field of transport and the importance of rail links between the two countries during the Akashat- – Khnevis coordination by the Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian sides to hold a trilateral meeting to discuss the possibility of implementing the rail link between the three countries to complement what was agreed at the bilateral meeting held on July 5, 2014, where it was stressed to move forward to strengthen bilateral relations And improve the level of economic, commercial, scientific and technical cooperation in all sectors.”
Al-Husseini added that the road to joint cooperation in the economic field has been reached and all obstacles and restrictions preventing the promotion of higher volumes of trade between the countries were gone. There would also be discussions for cooperation in energy, electricity, land, sea, air travel and skiing.
Separately, in a sign of normalization, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadidiscussed the opening of the al-Qaim border crossing with a Syrian delegation on February 7th.
Iraqi Minister of Interior Qassim al-Araji on February 12th confirmed that al-Abbadi had given his permission to open the crossing.
Prior to the closing due to war, as well as the necessity for Iraq to cleanse the area of ISIS militants, trade was realized through the Iraqi city of al-Qaim and the city of Albu Kamal on the Syrian side.
Prior to the closing, annual trade turnover was estimated at $5 billion. After the war in Syria began, it was still operational but at a fraction of its activity and when ISIS emerged, it was completely halted.
Recently, Syria also announced that it would lease the port of Latakia to Iran from October 1st, 2019, as per an agreement between the two countries.
Earlier, on February 25th Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s visited Tehran, where he met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The trip was Assad’s first since the beginning of the conflict in Syria, approximately 9 years ago.
The situation of the improving relations between Syria, Iran and Iraq and them continuing and furthering their cooperation is a sort of “nightmare scenario” for Israel and the US.
It is quite likely that there would be a strong negative response, since all of their efforts to divide them by means of sanctions, threats (and even active strikes on targets by Israel) have resulted in failure. Even the remaining US troops in the al-Tanf military base proved ineffective in discouraging the restarting of logistical and military links between the friendly countries.
Crimea is essential to Russia strategically and economically, but speculation over Ankara helping to boost the US presence in the Black Sea is far-fetched given Turkey’s energy deals with Moscow.
A power struggle over the Black Sea between Russia and the US plus NATO has the potential to develop as a seminal plot of the 21st century New Great Game – alongside the current jostling for re-positioning in the Eastern Mediterranean.
By now it’s established the US and NATO are stepping up military pressure from Poland to Romania and Bulgaria all the way to Ukraine and east of the Black Sea, which seems, at least for the moment, relatively peaceful, just as Crimea’s return to Russia starts to be regarded, in realpolitik terms, as a fait accompli.
After a recent series of conversations with top analysts from Istanbul to Moscow, it’s possible to identify the main trends ahead.
Just as independent Turkish analysts like Professor Hasan Unal are alarmed at Ankara’s isolation in the Eastern Mediterranean energy sphere by an alliance of Greece, Cyprus and Israel, Washington’s military buildup in both Romania and Bulgaria is also identified as posing a threat to Turkey.
It’s under this perspective that Ankara’s obstinance in establishing a security “corridor” in northern Syria, east of the Euphrates river, and free from the YPG Kurds, should be examined. It’s a matter of policing at least one sensitive border.
Still, in the chessboard from Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, Turkey and Crimea, the specter of “foreign intervention” setting fire to the Intermarium – from the Baltics to the Black Sea – simply refuses to die.
‘Russian lake’?
By the end of the last glacial era, around 20,000 years ago, the Black Sea – separated from the Mediterranean by an isthmus – was just a shallow lake, much smaller in size than it is today.
The legendary journey of Jason and the Argonauts, before the Trojan war, followed the Argo ship to the farther shore of Pontus Euxinus (the ‘Black Sea’) to recover the Golden Fleece – the cure for all evils – from its location in Colchis (currently in Georgia).
In Ancient Greece, steeped in mythology, the Black Sea was routinely depicted as the boundary between the known world and terra incognita. But then it was “discovered” – like America many centuries later – to the point where it was configured as a “string of pearls” of Greek trading colonies linked to the Mediterranean.
The Black Sea is more than strategic, it’s crucial geopolitically. There has been a constant drive in modern Russian history to be active across maritime trade routes through the strategic straits – the Dardanelles, the Bosphorus and Kerch in Crimea – to warmer waters further south.
As I observed early last month in Sevastopol, Crimea is now a seriously built fortress – incorporating S-400 and Iskander-M missiles – capable of ensuring total Russian primacy all across the eastern Black Sea.
A visit to Crimea reveals how its genes are Russian, not Ukrainian. A case can be made that the very concept of Ukraine is relatively spurious, propelled by the Austro-Hungarian empire at the end of the 19th century and especially before World War I to weaken Russia. Ukraine was part of Russia for 400 years, far longer than California and New Mexico have been part of the US.
Now compare the reconquest of Crimea by Russia, without firing a shot and validated by a democratic referendum, to the US “conquests” of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya. Moreover, I saw Crimea being rebuilt and on the way to prosperity, complete with Tatars voting with their feet to return; compare it to Ukraine, which is an IMF basket case.
Crimea is essential to Russia not only from a geostrategic but also an economic point of view, as it solidifies the Black Sea as a virtual “Russian lake”.
It’s immaterial that Turkish strategists may vehemently disagree, as well as US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker who, trying to seduce Turkey, dreams about increasing the US presence in the Black Sea, “whether on a bilateral basis or under EU auspices.”
Under this context, the building of the Turk Stream pipeline should be read as Ankara’s sharp response to the rampant Russophobia in Brussels.
Ankara has, in tandem, consistently shown it won’t shelve the acquisition of Russian S-400 missile systems because of American pressure. This has nothing to do with pretentions of neo-Ottomanism; it’s about Turkey’s energy and security priorities. Ankara now seems more than ready to live with a powerful Russian presence across the Black Sea.
It all comes down to Montreux
Not by accident the comings and goings on NATO’s eastern flank was a key theme at last summer’s biennial Atlanticist summit. After all, Russia, in the wake of reincorporating Crimea, denied access over the eastern Black Sea.
NATO, though, is a large mixed bag of geopolitical agendas. So, in the end, there’s no cohesive strategy to deal with the Black Sea, apart from a vague, rhetorical “support for Ukraine” and also vague exhortations for Turkey to assume its responsibilities.
But because Ankara’s priorities are in fact the Eastern Mediterranean and the Turkish-Syrian border, east of the Euphrates river, there’s no realistic horizon for NATO to come up with permanent Black Sea patrols disguised as a “freedom of navigation” scheme – as much as Kiev may beg for it.
What does remain very much in place is the guarantee of freedom of navigation in the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits controlled by Turkey, as sanctioned by the 1936 Montreux Convention.
The key vector, once again, is that the Black Sea links Europe with the Caucasus and allows Russia trade access to southern warm waters. We always need to go back to Catherine the Great, who incorporated Crimea into the empire in the 18th century after half a millennium of Tatar and then Ottoman rule, and then ordered the construction of a huge naval base for the Black Sea fleet.
By now some facts on the ground are more than established.
Next year the Black Sea fleet will be upgraded with an array of anti-ship missiles; protected by S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems; and supported by a new “permanent deployment” of Sukhoi SU-27s and SU-30s.
Far-fetched scenarios of the Turkish navy fighting the Russian Black Sea fleet will continue to be peddled by misinformed think tanks, oblivious to the inevitability of the Russia-Turkey energy partnership. Without Turkey, NATO is a cripple in the Black Sea region.
Intriguing developments such as a Viking Silk Road across the Intermarium won’t alter the fact that Poland, the Baltics and Romania will continue to clamor for “more NATO” in their areas to fight “Russian aggression”.
And it will be up to a new government in Kiev after the upcoming March elections to realize that any provocation designed to drag NATO into a Kerch Strait entanglement is doomed to failure.
Ancient Greek sailors had a deep fear of the Black Sea’s howling winds. As it now stands, call it the calm before a (Black Sea) storm.
– أتوجّه إليك فخامة الرئيس بهذه الرسالة التي تعبر عما يختلج نفوس الكثيرين من الذين آمنوا بصدق مسعاك لبناء دولة مدنية والسير بخطى حثيثة لإصلاح نظامنا الفاسد، ووثقوا بأنك فرصة ربما لن تتكرر بسهولة لتكون لنا دولة قوية قادرة، ودولة مؤسسات وقانون يتساوى فيهما الناس في الحقوق الواجبات، ومجتمع يتعافى من العصبيات ويتماسك في ظل هوية وطنية تتعاظم مكانتها في نفوس أبنائه، وتتعزّز وحدته الوطنية، ورسموا في ذهنهم صورة عما سيكون مع رئاستكم للدولة من إخراج لاتفاق الطائف من كونه إطاراً للمحاصصات الطائفية ليتحوّل خريطة طريق نحو بناء الدولة، وفقاً لما نصّ عليه من سعي لإلغاء الطائفية، وإعادة صياغة دور لبنان في المنطقة انطلاقاً من علاقة لبنانية سورية تتخطى كل الأمراض والعقد والتلاعب السياسي والمصلحي، لكون هذه العلاقة وفقاً لاتفاق الوفاق الوطني في الطائف الركن الأساس في هوية لبنان العربية، ولكون المصالح الاقتصادية اللبنانية تبدأ وتنتهي عند الإجابة عن سؤال ماهية العلاقة بالعمق الجغرافي الذي تمثله سورية، وحجم وعود إعادة الإعمار فيها، وموقعها المفصلي جغرافيا كرئة يتنفس عبرها الاقتصاد اللبناني، عدا عن الحاجة الملحّة في حلول شاملة ونوعية لملف النازحين لا تفي به إلا بعلاقة متعافية بين لبنان وسورية.
– ها نحن فخامة الرئيس، أمام استحقاقين يتجمّعان معاً يطال كل واحد منهما كشف حساب حول عنوان من عنوانَيْ بناء الدولة والعلاقة اللبنانية السورية. وفي كليهما نشعر أن بلدنا يسير بالاتجاه العكسي لما كانت عليه آمالنا وتطلعاتنا ووعد وصولكم إلى رئاسة الجمهورية، وليس سواكم من يستطيع تصويب المسار، بعدما اختبرتم الفرضيات التي ظننتم أنها تصون لبنان، وتحقق استقراره وتقدمه نحو مشروع الدولة، وتضع العلاقة بين لبنان وسورية حيث يجب أن تكون، والقضية بالتأكيد ليست شأناً تقنياً في العنوانين، بل فعل ثقافة وسياسة وتوجهات ورسم خريطة أولويات، فخلال سنتين من عهدكم كان الجهد على إنتاج قانون للانتخابات النيابية أعقبته الانتخابات ومساعي تشكيل الحكومة، وكانت إدارة للعلاقة مع سورية تتظلّل ما سُمّي بخيار النأي بالنفس، وخير طريقة للحكم على صواب الخيار من عدمه هو ما حصدناه. وها هو المشهد الذي نراه مع مسار ولادة الحكومة يكفي للحكم على ما حصدناه في مسار بناء الدولة، بالفشل والخيبة والتراجع، حيث العصبيات أشدّ حضوراً من الوطنية بأضعاف، والمحاصصات أكثر فجوراً وفكرة الدولة يُصيبها الضعف والإضعاف، والناس من يأس إلى مرارة فوق مرارة تضاف. وفي الاستحقاق الثاني، نحن على أبواب القمة الاقتصادية العربية في بيروت، والعرب يتسابقون إلى دمشق، ودمشق غائبة عن بيروت، وبيروت غائبة عن دمشق، وفي الغياب يسقط النأي بالنفس لينضم لبنان إلى عرب بلا سورية، ويكون آخر وأسوأ لحظات التعبير عن القطيعة العربية لسورية، التي التزم لبنان بالنأي عنها، وها هو يستعدّ ليصير عنوانها، والعرب يستعدّون لإنهائها، ولبنان الاقتصاد غائب في القمة الاقتصادية، فماذا عساه يشتري وماذا عساه يبيع بدون علاقته بسورية، فالعناوين المقرّرة عن فتح الأسواق والربط الكهربائي والانفتاح على الفرص المقبلة، كلها تترجم بالنسبة للبنان بكلمة واحدة هي سورية.
– فخامة الرئيس، إن الكلام الصادق وحده ما يحتاجه نجاح العهد وما تحتاجه قيامة الوطن، ومن قلب صادق وعقل حريص، لا يبدو للحظة أن خيار قانون الانتخابات المبني على معادلة الاستنخاب الطائفي بفرضية الجمع بين تحسين التمثيل الوطني والتمثيل الطائفي كان خياراً موفقاً، فقد نهش القانون نفوس الناس وأضعف حسها الوطني وأيقظ العصبيات النائمة وشحذ اليقظة منها بمصادر القوة، وشقّ الطريق الواضح نحو فدرالية تنتظر الفرصة لتطل برأسها، فتحوّلت الطوائف إلى إقطاعيات يتقاسم تمثيلها قادة يفرح الطائفيون منهم بما حازوه، ويتأقلم الوطنيون منهم مع الطائفيات التي لا بقاء لهم دون الخضوع لمقتضياتها، وغاب كل حساب للهوية الوطنية والمصلحة الوطنية والحسابات الوطنية، وتهمش كل مؤمن بالوطن العابر للطوائف وازداد إحساسه بالغربة، وكأننا اليوم عشية النقاش حول اتفاق الطائف، نرتضي الفدرالية التي بني الطائف كله على السعي لدفنها، ونهض على روح عنوانها إسقاط خطر التقسيم وكل أنواع الفدرالية والتمسك ببديل واضح هو السير نحو إلغاء الطائفية، هذا بدلاً من أن نكون ونحن نتنافس ونتبارى بالحديث عن الطائف نضع روحه سقفاً ممنوع تخطيها أو تجاوزها، فكيف بنا نطعنها في الصميم.
– فخامة الرئيس، كيف يستقيم السعي لتنقية العلاقات اللبنانية السورية وإعادة صياغتها على أسس تحقق المصالح المشتركة ويسودها الاحترام المتبادل، وتجسّد مفهوم الأخوة والتعاون والتنسيق الذي شكل ركناً رئيسياً في اتفاق الطائف، وكل يوم يخرج مسؤول في الدولة يتبجّح بالعداء لسورية والتطاول على رموزها ورئيسها، وتربط الدولة كلها توقيت علاقاتها الطبيعية بسورية، بساعة الذين ناصبوها العداء، ونحن ندرك أن رهان الآخرين يسقط ورهانكم على قيامة سورية ينتصر، فكيف يستقيم أن يحكم لبنان رهان المهزومين، وأن يتحكّم هذا الرهان الخاسر بمصالح اللبنانيين الحيوية المتعلقة باستثمار لبنان لعلاقة مميزة مع سورية، في تطوير حياته الاقتصادية وحل قضية النازحين، وإرساء قواعد تبادل الفرص والمنافع، وكيف يستقيم أن ينعقد في لبنان آخر مؤتمر قمة عربية تغيب عنه سورية، مراعاة لداخل مريض أو خارج بغيض، أو حساباً لمصالح الآخرين على حساب مصلحة لبنان.
– اضرب بيدك على الطاولة يا فخامة الرئيس منعاً للانهيار ووقفاً للانتحار، فها نحن نخسر آخر ما تبقى لنا من رصيد هوية وطنية في الداخل، وهوية عربية في الخارج، وليس للهوية العربية من تجسيد وفقاً لاتفاق الطائف إلا العلاقة المميزة بسورية، وليس للهوية الوطنية من مقياس إلا التقدم نحو إلغاء الطائفية، والطريق واضح ويشبه الصلابة التي تجسّدونها، وفيه مفهوم الرئيس القوي، القوي بالموقف، والقوي بتلبية طموحات شعبه، ولك بين اللبنانيين الكثيرين الذين سيقفون خلفك عندما تقدّم، والمطلوب موقف وللموقف عنوان، إن لبنان سيوجّه الدعوة للرئيس السوري لحضور القمة وليرضَ مَن يرضى ويغضب من يغضب، ويشارك مَن يشارك ويقاطع مَن يقاطع، وعلى ضفة موازية تماماً، موقف لا يقل صلابة، أن الدولة اللبنانية لن تسير نحو الفدرالية، وقانون الانتخاب المريض يجب أن يسقط ومعه تسقط كل ثقافة المحاصصة، وها نحن ذاهبون إلى قانون انتخاب نصّت على مضمونه المادة 22 من الدستور بمجلس نيابي خارج القيد الطائفي معه يمكن تطبيق التمثيل النسبي واللوائح الحزبية في لبنان دائرة واحدة، ومجلس للشيوخ تتمثل فيه الطوائف ويقدّم الضمانات لطمأنة الهواجس الطائفية المشروعة فقط.
– فخامة الرئيس، أنتم الأعلم أن الموقف سلاح، وأن رسالة تحمل توقيعكم كرئيس للقمة الاقتصادية العربية تتوجّه للملوك والأمراء والرؤساء العرب تعلن عزمكم على دعوة رئيس الجمهورية العربية السورية لكل الأسباب العربية واللبنانية، إلى القمة العربية الاقتصادية في بيروت، ستنقل لبنان من موقع الملعب المفتوح للاعبين الآخرين إلى اللاعب الذي يدير قواعد المرحلة العربية الجديدة ويصون مصالح لبنان، وأن رسالة موازية للقادة اللبنانيين المشاركين في هيئة الحوار الوطني برئاستكم، تقول إن مسار التآكل والإنهيار يجب أن يتوقف وأن المطلوب تطبيق بنود اتفاق الطائف الإصلاحية والسير قدما بقانون انتخاب يستوحيها ويلتزم معاييرها، وبناء عليه تتم الدعوة لانعقاد هيئة الحوار لمناقشة الانسداد السياسي، كنتيجة للخراب الوطني الناتج عما جلبناه من تعاظم الحال الطائفية، وجعل البحث في المسار الحكومي ترجمة لهذا التوجّه وتلبية لاحتياجاته ومقتضياته، هذه خريطة طريق وحيدة نحتاجها، وتعيد رسم الأمل في السواد المقيم، ووحدها ستشكل الباب لوقف حال الإحباط والخيبة التي يعيشها اللبنانيون وتخيم على النخب الحاضرة للوقوف وراءكم كرمز لمشروع بناء الدولة عندما تقدمون وأنتم أهل العزم، وعلى قدر أهل العزم تأتي العزائم.
Syrian security services chief Ali Mamlouk held talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo over the weekend on a rare visit to the country, Syrian state media said Sunday.
His Saturday visit came “at the invitation of” Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, the official SANA news agency said.
It came just one week after a surprise visit to Damascus by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who became the first Arab leader to visit the Syrian capital since the conflict began in March 2011.
Mamlouk and his Egyptian counterpart discussed topics of common concern including “political, security and counterterrorism issues”, SANA said.
It was the second official visit by the secretive Syrian security official to the Egyptian capital since the outbreak of Syria’s seven-year-old war.
– ليست المرة الأولى التي يلتقي فيها رئيس مجلس الأمن الوطني في سورية اللواء علي المملوك قيادة المخابرات المصرية، ولا هي المرة الأولى التي يزور فيها بلداً عربياً، لكن السياق السياسي للزيارة الحالية للواء المملوك إلى القاهرة تجعلها في مكانة خاصة. فهي ليست زيارة تنسيق أمني يجري أصلاً على قدم وساق عبر اللجان المشتركة بين أجهزة الأمن في سورية ومصر منذ زمن، ولا هي لتبادل الآراء حول المتغيّرات، وهو أمر متاح في زيارة سرية أو في زيارة موفدين يتبادلهم المصريون والسوريون على الدوام، بل هي كل هذا طبعاً لكنها هي شيء آخر، والإعلان عنها بذاته هدف.
– في اللحظة التي تعلن فيها واشنطن قرار الخروج العسكري من سورية، وتفتح باب التنسيق العسكري والأمني مع تركيا، تعلن سورية ومصر تلاقيهما للتنسيق كثنائي عربي محوري في رسم مفهوم للأمن القومي العربي، وفي اللحظة التي تتسابق فيها الوفود العربية إلى سورية لوصل ما انقطع وترميم ما تبقى من بيت عربي متصدّع، تعلن سورية ومصر عن أن الأمور تكون بخير بقدر ما تكون سورية ومصر معاً، ولا تكون بخير ما لم تكن مصر وسورية معاً.
– سورية من زاوية مصلحية تستطيع تدبّر أمورها وترصيد المزيد من انتصاراتها الخاصة، وتترك لمصر تقدير اللحظة المناسبة لملاقاتها أو للمشاركة في الجهد العربي الهادف لإعادة ترميم العلاقة الرسمية العربية بسورية، وبالمعنى الضيق ربما يكون الدور التركي غير مزعج لسورية في اللحظة الراهنة. وهو الواقع تحت القلق الكردي من جهة، والقلق من تبعات الانسحاب الأميركي من جهة ثانية، والمقيد بالتفاهمات مع موسكو وطهران من جهة ثالثة، لكن سورية المسكونة بالهم العربي تجير اللحظة التاريخية لمصر علها تلتقطها، وتقول ها هي انتصارات سورية على الطاولة، وها هو الوضع العربي الممزّق، وها هي التراجعات في وضع الخليج الذي كان يضغط لتحجيم مصر والإمساك بالدفة، وها هم العرب يتسابقون إلى سورية، وها هي سورية تختار مصر، ولعل هذا هو مضمون الرسالة التي تقولها الزيارة.
– مصر القادرة على لعب دور قيادي مطالبة بتوفير مقوّمات هذا الدور، فلا تترك تركيا وحدها تطرح الهواجس مع الأميركيين وتتصدّر المشهد الإعلامي المعني بما بعد الانسحاب الأميركي بين حلفاء واشنطن الذين يفترض أن مصر تتمسك بأن تكون بينهم، ولا تنتظر إشارة سعودية لتبادر. فالمبادرة المصرية يجب أن تكون قيادية تسهم في حل مأزق الانعزال والضعف السعوديين لكن على الطريقة المصرية، وليست بالانضواء المصري تحت جناح خطة سعودية، ولا تقيم حسابات من نوع ماذا عن العلاقة السورية الإيرانية كما فعلت السعودية ذات يوم انفتاح سوري، وكان الجواب عندما تعرّضت سورية للخطر وجدت تآمراً عربياً من جهة وتخلياً عربياً من جهة موازية، ولكنها بالمقابل لم تلق إلا احتضاناً إيرانياً، وعندما تكون البوصلة فلسطين ويبيع بعض العرب القدس لكسب ودّ أميركا وتقف إيران بثبات تكون إيران حليفاً وصديقاً، فهل القاهرة جاهزة لنداء التاريخ لدور يستنهض الحضور العربي الغائب في ملفات المنطقة، وشرطه نهوض ثنائية مصرية سورية تتسع للآخرين وتلحظ أدوارهم ولا تستثنيهم، لكنها تقوم في الأصل على إدراك أن تلاقي سورية ومصر وحده ينتج مشهداً عربياً جديداً، وفي الفراغ الدولي والإقليمي تتسع الساحة لهذا الدور، ولا ينقصه إلا الإقدام!
– لا ينتبه كثيرون أن للجغرافيا السياسية قوانين ومعادلات، كما للفيزياء، تنتج قواها، كرفض الفراغ وقوة الجاذبية وعلاقة الضرورة السببية بين الفعل وردّ الفعل، وبيضة القبان التي تحفظ التوازنات وتتيح قراءتها وكل تغيير طفيف في مكانها يعبر عن تحولات كبرى في أمكنة أخرى، فيقعون بالتسطيح عندما يحصرون قراءتهم ببُعد واحد صحيح، لكنه غير كاف، وهو تناسب درجات امتلاك مصادر القوة الظاهرة بين المتواجهين في ساحات النزال السياسي أو العسكري، فيبدو الأقوى نظرياً ينهزم أمام مَن يفترض أنه الأضعف، فتتشوش العقول وتتوه التحليلات في البحث عن مؤامرة أو قطبة مخفية أو صفقة تحت الطاولة لصعوبة تصديق الأمر السهل وهو أن ثمّة هزيمة وقعت وفرضت معادلاتها.
– في حال الانسحاب الأميركي من سورية الكثير من هذا، فكثيرون توقّعوا سرعة التقدّم التركي لملء الفراغ في العملية العسكرية المرتقبة واعتبروا أن التفاهم التركي الأميركي وراء القرار ليفاجئهم الرئيس التركي بإعلان تأجيل العملية العسكرية و»لشهور»، معلوم أنه سيجري خلالها الكثير مما يغير المشهد وربما، أو الأرجح ما سيتكفل بنسف العملية، وكثيرون اعتبروا الانسحاب إعلان فراغ يدفع اللاعبين للتذابح، ويطلق دينامية فوضى سياسية وأمنية، فبدا العكس أن البحث بالانخراط السياسي مع الدولة السورية يبدأ مع تبليغ فحوى القرار لحلفاء واشنطن قبل إعلانه، ويتواصل بعد الإعلان، من زيارة الرئيس السوداني إلى زيارات مرتقبة للرئيس العراقي وأمير قطر وحديث علني في تونس عن تحضير لدعوة الرئيس السوري إلى القمة العربية الدورية التي ستنعقد قبل المئة اليوم المقررة لإنجاز الانسحاب الأميركي.
– ليست القضية انتصار سورية على أميركا، فالذي تواجه خلال سنوات كان المشروع السوري والمشروع الأميركي. المشروع السوري القائم على ثلاثة أركان تحدّث عنها الرئيس السوري مراراً وفي فترات متفاوتة من الحرب على سورية. الركن الأول هو أن سورية الموحّدة بشرعيتها الدستورية وجيشها القوي ضرورة دولية إقليمية تفوق أهمية القياس التقليدي للمصالح بالقرب والبعد عن السياسات التي تعتمدها الدولة السورية. وكل تصرف نابع من الاستخفاف بهذه الحقيقة ويؤدي للعبث بوحدة سورية وشرعيتها الدستورية وقوة جيشها ستكون نتائجه خسائر أكبر من تلك المترتبة على الخصومة السياسية مع الدولة السورية، بالنسبة لخصومها، وأكبر من الأرباح المتوقعة من أي من حلفائها مقارنة بعائدات وهم الإمساك بأجزاء من سورية على حساب هذه المعادلة لسورية الموحّدة بشرعيتها الدستورية وجيشها القوي.
– الركن الثاني للمشروع السوري هو النداء الأصلي للرئيس السوري بقيام نظام إقليمي أسماه بمنظومة دول البحار الخمسة، أي إجماع الدول الفاعلة الواقعة ما بين بحار قزوين والخليج والأحمر والمتوسط والأسود على التنسيق الاقتصادي والأمني لضمان الحقوق والمصالح المشروعة للجميع بمن فيهم أميركا، كتدفق الطاقة ومحاربة الإرهاب، لملء الفراغ الاستراتيجي الناجم عن تراجع القوة الأميركية بعد حربي العراق وأفغانستان، وأنّ كل سعي لبديل عن هذا النظام سيُطلق الفوضى والإرهاب ويزعزع الاستقرار، لكنّه لن يحقق مصالح أحد، والثلاثي الإقليمي الذي خاطبه الرئيس السوري كان روسيا وتركيا وإيران من جهة والثلاثي العربي من جهة مقابلة كان السعودية ومصر والعراق، وكل الحروب وفظاعاتها بهدف إنكار هذه الحقيقة وتفاديها لن تفعل سوى أنها تعيد التذكير بهذا النظام الإقليمي كضرورة وحاجة. وماذا عساها تركيا تفعل بعد تورطها في الحرب على سورية سوى تكريس هذه الحقيقة عبر انخراطها في مسار أستانة؟ ومثلها سيفعل الآخرون.
– الركن الثالث للمشروع السوري هو أن الإرهاب غير قابل للاحتواء والتوظيف، ومحاربته قضية وطنية وإنسانية وأخلاقية، لكنها أيضاً مصلحة جامعة، وكل استثمار في الإرهاب بنية إلحاق الأذى بالخصوم سرعان ما يتحوّل انتحاراً جماعياً، يُصيب المتلاعبين بمفهوم الإرهاب والحرب عليه ومعه، ومهما قيل في قرار الانسحاب الأميركي من سورية أو في القلق الأوروبي من تدفق العائدين من الإرهابيين إلى ساحات أمنها، فهي بنهاية المطاف تعبير عن الاكتشاف المتأخر لصحة هذه المعادلة، التي يصفها أحد الأمنيين الفرنسيين الكبار بقوله، لقد توهّمنا أن وجود خمسة آلاف متطرّف في فرنسا يعني حسابياً أن التكفل بإيصالهم إلى سورية سيعني التخلّص منهم، وإدارة بعضهم، لكننا اكتشفنا أن إطلاق التعبئة لإرسالهم وحدها تكفّلت بجعل الرقم خمسين ألفاً ينتشرون في مسام المجتمع الفرنسي، وأنه كلما استعرت نيران الحرب في سورية زاد العدد في فرنسا، لقد لعبنا مع الشيطان وأطلقنا الأفاعي التي تصعب إعادتها إلى صندوق باندورا.
– مقابل المشروع السوري قام المشروع الأميركي على قرار تكسير الدولة السورية وشرعيتها وتحطيم جيشها، لأنها في خندق سياسي مخالف، وفي هذا السبيل فتح الباب للفوضى والتقسيم والحروب الأهلية، واستثمر في تنمية التطرف والإرهاب واستجلب مئات الآلاف من الإرهابيين، وفتح حدود سورية للألعاب الإقليمية، وتوهم معادلات مفبركة لنظام إقليمي بركن واحد اسمه العثمانية الجديدة محوره حكم الأخوان المسلمين ومركزه أنقرة، ثم نظام إقليمي محوره ثنائية إسرائيلية سعودية عنوانه صفقة القرن والعداء لإيران، وكلها مشاريع لا تحاكي حقائق الجغرافيا السياسية للمنطقة. وكانت النتيجة هي التساقط المتلاحق للرهانات الأميركية في كل مناحي هذا المشروع والهرولة نحو دمشق اليوم كما الانسحاب الأميركي، كما الحديث عن رفع الفيتوات على إعادة الإعمار وشروط العملية السياسية بقيادة الدولة السورية، تعبيرات عن انتصار المشروع السوري، حيث سورية الموحدة بشرعيتها الدستورية وجيشها القوي وحربها على الإرهاب بيضة قبان الشرق الجديد، تكفّ الشرور عن خصومها في العالم، وتحقق الأرباح لحلفائها في المنطقة والعالم.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 