In another blow to the sinister plots of the Turkish madman Erdogan, the US-led coalition to support ISIS in Syria and Iraq snatches a top ISIS commander who went astray, apparently, in an area under the Turkish illegal occupation in northern Syria.
In the early hours of dawn, today, the US-led coalition to support ISIS (ISIL) in Syria and Iraq carried out an airdrop operation in the outskirts of the Syrian city of Jarabulus currently under the occupation of the Turkish army and its slew of anti-Islamic Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups, the coalition claims they captured a top ISIS commander.
Simultaneously, the Syrian Arab Army units protecting the city of Saraqib in the southeastern countryside of Idlib repelled a large attack by terrorists of the Turkey-sponsored Al Qaeda Levant (aka Nusra Front, HTS, FSA, Moderate Rebels…), the attack was successfully repelled.
The following report by the Lebanese news channel Al Mayadeen covers both of the above news:
The US-led international coalition announced in a statement that its forces had arrested at dawn today a senior leader of ISIS during an operation in Syria, the statement indicated that the detainee is classified as one of the top commanders of the organization in Syria, and he is an expert in making bombs.
According to the statement, the coalition forces will continue to hunt down ISIS remnants wherever they are, to ensure their permanent defeat.
American helicopters had carried out an airdrop operation in the Jarabulus area, north of Aleppo, which is under the control of Turkish-backed militants, the airdrop took place between the villages of Al-Hamir and Ghandour, amid violent clashes.
In parallel, the Syrian army repelled an attack launched by armed groups on the Idlib countryside. According to Sputnik agency, the reconnaissance units of the Syrian army monitored armed groups that tried to advance toward military sites along the line of contact in the vicinity of the city of Saraqib, after which violent clashes erupted in which the Syrian army used artillery and missiles to stop the militants’ attack.
End of the transcript.
Aside from the obvious lies repeatedly spewed that the USA combats terrorism when in reality, its main goal was to achieve its goals through ‘creative chaos’ by sponsoring ‘moderate rebels’ and supplying them with ‘non-lethal weapons’ to effect regime change in Syria, as per official US statements, and as per the very admissions of current and former US officials, these highly choreographed and publicized operations to take out an ISIS commander here or there by US regimes are always carried out when a PR stunt is needed to be used on the domestic level in the USA itself and also to deliver messages to its regional allies that its army is still relevant in military terms, not only to steal oil and wheat from the poor people.
However, the main question we’ve asked before and continue to ask: how come the first and second ISIS leaders felt safe in areas under the control of the Turkish army, for the first, and inside Turkey itself for the second, and now this commander who the US also says it captured in areas under the control of fighters loyal to Erdogan?
Worth noting that Turkey is the second most important member of NATO after the USA, the same ‘defensive’ alliance that mastered distributing roles in games that cost the lives of millions of people, devastated millions of others, uprooted, displaced, maimed, raped, tortured, and many ended up being used as spare parts and sex-slaves around the world.
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صحيح أن العيون تتّجه إلى أوكرانيا لمعرفة نتيجة الحسم العسكري بين روسيا وحلف الناتو العدواني هناك، ولكن ما يجري بالتوازي من إعادة تشكُّلات وصياغات في عالم اليوم قد يكون هو الأهم.
لم تكن زلّة لسان الرئيس جورج بوش الابن لتحدث في ظروف أكثر مواءمة وخدمة لما تحاول الصين وروسيا أن تؤكداه، وسط أحداث متسارعة ومعقدة؛ فقد قال الرئيس بوش الابن: ” قرار رجل واحد لشن غزو وحشيّ غير مبرّر للعراق… آه… أقصد لأوكرانيا”، وضحك الجمهور، وأعاد هو: “العراق، العراق”، وسط أنباء جادة يتحدّث بها الرئيس الصيني شي جين بينغ عن شكل العالم المقبل، في كلمته المهمة في الـ 21 من نيسان/ أبريل لمنتدى بواو الآسيوي، ووسط إعلان وزارة الخارجية الروسية بعد مناقشة نسخة جديدة من مفهوم السياسة الخارجية الروسية في ضوء الحرب الغربية على روسيا باستخدام أوكرانيا.
زلّة لسان
وبدلاً من أن يستنكر القرّاء والمشاهدون كل القرارات الأحادية والحروب غير الشرعية التي شنّتها الولايات المتحدة على الشعوب الآمنة في أفغانستان والعراق وليبيا وسوريا واليمن، فقد أتت زلّة لسان جورج بوش الابن، المسؤول هو وأبوه عن مقتل الملايين من المدنيين العراقيين حصاراً وقتلاً وإرهاباً ووباءً، لتكشف ما حاول هو وإدارته والإدارات السابقة واللاحقة أن يخفوه، وبرهن (ولتبرهن) أنه يسكن في “لا وعيهم” من غزو ظالم وغير مبرر للعراق، ما زال الشعب العراقي يدفع ثمنه في كل يوم من حياة أبنائه.
كما أنّ عمليات النهب الأميركية للموارد العراقية والليبية والسورية جريمة تطال لقمة عيش جميع أبناء الشعب العربي في هذه البلدان، لأن هذا النهب الاستعماري لموارد الشعب السوري واحتلال أرضه وسرقة نفطه وقمحه قد تمثّل زلّات لسان لرؤساء ومسؤولين أميركيين في المستقبل، ولكنه (ولكنها) جريمة إبادة جماعية لما سببه (سبّبته) من آلام وموت للمدنيين المحاصرين.
ولكن العالم اليوم لم يعد بحاجة إلى الكشف عن المستور، لأنه لم يتبقَّ هناك مستور أصلاً سوى حملات التضليل الإعلامية التي يصدّرها الغرب للعالم، وينسج من خلالها أكاذيبه وأوهامه. والخطوة الأولى المجدية في عالم اليوم هي أن يتبنّى جميع الحريصين على حياة البشر إما مقاطعة هذا الإعلام الغربي المزيّف، وإما التساؤل بشأن كل سردية يتبنّاها حيال أي قضية في العالم. إنني أجد نفسي أعيد صياغة ما أقرأه من إعلام غربي حول سوريا أو فلسطين أو لبنان أو إيران أو أوكرانيا أو الصين، وأتساءل اليوم ما هي جدوى قراءة إعلام أصبحنا نعلم علم اليقين أنه مكرّس لخدمة أهداف استعمارية لمن يشنّون الحروب على دولنا ويقومون باحتلال أرضنا ودعم الإرهاب ضد شعبنا وتمويله وإرسال الإرهابيين وتسليحهم واحتلال أرض أشقائنا وأصدقائنا، ويعطّلون أيّ قرارات أمميّة تحاول أن تحقق ولو جزءاً من العدالة للشعوب المستضعفة؟؟
فإذا كان اجتماع وزارة الخارجية الروسية قد ناقش مهامّ السياسة الخارجية الروسية في ضوء الحقائق الجيوسياسية المتغيّرة جذرياً، فإن هذه الحقائق قد تغيّرت بالنسبة إلى العرب منذ وعد بلفور وسايكس بيكو واحتلال فلسطين من قبل عصابات الإرهاب الصهيونية، ومنذ غزو العراق وقصف ليبيا، وشنّ حرب إرهابية على مدى عقد ونيّف على سوريا، وتدمير حياة المدنيين العرب في اليمن، ومع ذلك لم يعقد العرب اجتماعاً واحداً لدراسة الوضع المستجد حيالهم، ودراسة الخطوات التي يمكن اتخاذها لحماية أنفسهم من سياسة التشظّي وتفتيت البلدان والشعوب إلى طوائف وأعراق وإثنيات على حساب اللُحمة الوطنية المنشودة، وهي سياسة فرّقْ تسُدْ الاستعمارية التي تستهدف العرب جميعاً.
إنّ النقاش الدائر في روسيا والصين يُري أن البلدين يدركان أن العالم قد تغيّر، وأن لا عودة تُرتجى إلى عالم ما قبل الـ 24 من شباط، وهو تاريخ انطلاق العملية العسكرية الروسية في أوكرانيا، ولذلك فإنهما منشغلان بوضع المرتسمات الجديدة لعالم ما بعد اليوم وعالم المستقبل. ومن يقرأ كلمة الرئيس شي جين بينغ يجد أنها تضع رؤية للتحديات التي طرأت على عالم اليوم، ومساراً للتعامل معها بجدية لضمان السير إلى الأمام رغم كل التحديات. ويؤكد خطاب بينغ أن زمن الحرب الباردة ونزعة الهيمنة وسياسة القوة ستكون جزءاً من الماضي، وقد طرح مبادرة الأمن العالمي من خلال التمسّك بمفهوم الأمن المشترك والشامل والتعاوني والمستدام، والعمل معاً على صيانة السلام والأمن في العالم، ومعارضة السعي إلى الأمن القومي على حساب الأمن القومي للغير.
في هذه المرحلة المفصلية بتشكُّل عالم جديد وسعي الأطراف في الشرق لأن تكون فاعلة في تشكيل هذا العالم، لاقتناعهم بأنّ أسس الهيمنة الغربية آيلة إلى الزوال، وأنها أصبحت مرفوضة وغير قادرة على الاستمرار، وأنها تخوض معركة منازعة أخيرة مهما بدت أنها طويلة اليوم، ولكنها ستكون الأخيرة.
في هذه المرحلة يتهدّد العرب جميعاً خطران أساسيان، إضافة إلى خطر الصهيونية الجاثمة على ضمير الأمة وأرض فلسطين والجولان، ألا وهما: الخطر العثماني الإخواني، وخطر أن لا يجد العرب لأنفسهم موطئ قدم إذا ما استمروا في حالة الفرقة والتشظّي التي يعيشونها اليوم، والتي لا يبدو أن هناك جهداً حقيقياً وواعداً للتخلص منها. فالخطر العثماني الإخواني اليوم حقيقي على سوريا والعراق وليبيا، حيث يحتل الأرض ويقيم القواعد وينشر لغته وثقافته وأكاذيبه وعملاءه من إخوان الشياطين، ويُلبس هيمنته لبوس الحرص على اللاجئين أو المسلمين أو محاربة التنظيمات الكردية، وهو لبوس لا يقل خطراً علينا جميعاً من وعد بلفور واتفاقية سايكس بيكو.
واللافت أنه بدأ بأسلوب مختلف بمحاولة تدنيس أرض الجزائر الطاهرة، من خلال اتخاذ الجزائر بوابة للدخول إلى شمال أفريقيا وأفريقيا، بعد أن فشل في أن تكون تونس منصة انطلاقه لنشر فكر الإخوان المسلمين وعقيدتهم في شمال أفريقيا. وفي هذه البلدان تتعدّد أساليبه وأدوات مكره؛ فحيث لا يستطيع (يتمكّن من) الاحتلال المباشر، قد يلجأ إلى التسلل الاقتصادي أو العقائدي كي يثبّت أقدامه في المكان، وينطلق منه لتحقيق غاياته وأهدافه التي لا تختلف بين شمال قبرص والشمال السوري والشمال العراقي والليبي والعمق الجزائري.
صحيح أن العيون تتّجه إلى أوكرانيا لمعرفة نتيجة الحسم العسكري بين روسيا وحلف الناتو العدواني هناك، ولكن ما يجري بالتوازي من إعادة تشكُّلات وصياغات في عالم اليوم قد يكون هو الأهم، لأنه هو الذي يُرسي أسس العالم الجديد وشكله، وسوف تكون الغلبة، ولا شكّ، لمن يخطط ويفكّر من اليوم أو من البارحة، أين سيكون تموضعه في هذا العالم، وكيف وما هي الميزات والأدوات التي يمتلكها كي يكون رقماً صعباً في عالم يسهم في بنيانه ويشكّل جزءاً من هويته وتوجّهاته.
إن الآراء المذكورة في هذه المقالة لا تعبّر بالضرورة عن رأي الميادين وإنما تعبّر عن رأي صاحبها حصراً
Valery Kulikov On April 23, during a tour of Latin America, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu announced that his country was closing its airspace to Russian military and civilian flights bound for Syria. But he added that this decision did not mean that Turkey was joining in the anti-Russian sanctions – it was simply that the agreement on an air corridor concluded between Moscow and Ankara was only valid for three months. That term is expiring at the end of April, and Turkey does not plan to renew it, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently informed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The two nations have agreed that Russia will not use Turkish airspace to transport its troops to Syria, Mr. Çavuşoğlu added.
Clearly, Ankara’s decision is related to a number of situations that have taken a more serious turn in recent months.
One of these is Turkey’s new military operation against the Kurds – not just the Kurdish armed groups in Iraq, but also those in Syria. Clearly Ankara does not wish Moscow to get in the way of its plays in some way.
It should be noted that this operation, Ankara’s third special operation against the Kurds, is clearly not being conducted at Washington’s behest, as it is, in part, directed against Kurdish formations loyal to the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Evidently, in an attempt to rein in Turkey’s military zeal, Washington has pressurized it into taking certain anti-Russian steps, and as a result Turkey has closed its airspace to Russian military and civilian aircraft.
The US itself is also concerned to limit Russia’s military operations in Syria, intending as it does to step up its aggressive operations there and, it seems, to open a “second front” in the confrontation with Russia. To this end, on April 23 the US sent a “convoy of 35 vehicles with trucks with munitions and technical supplies” as well as tankers for transporting oil from areas of Syria under Kurdish control. On April 25 another US military convoy arrived at the Kharab al-Jir aerodrome in the al-Malikiya area district of Al-Hasakah Governorate. According to a source from the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reporter it consisted of 36 vehicles loaded with boxes, cement panels and generators, supported by four US military armored vehicles.
In a bid to reinforce its position in its conflict with the Syrian state, Washington appears to have encouraged its ally Israel to launch military attacks on Syrian territory. In the morning of April 27 sites in the suburbs of Damascus were hit by Israeli rockets – the third such attack in less than a month.
Washington is also clearly concerned that Moscow may redeploy Russian forces and Syrian volunteers from its Khmeimim and Tartus bases to its special operation in Ukraine.
In short, it is clear that Turkey’s decision to close its airspace to Russia is entirely consistent with both its own and Washington’s interests.
In recent months Turkey, has been walking a tightrope in an attempt to avoid damaging its own interests by antagonizing either Washington or Moscow. It has made a point of showing Moscow that it is complying with the Montreux Convention, and doing all it can to prevent the clashes between NATO and Russian forces in the Black Sea. On April 26 it even initiated a new round of talks with Moscow on the purchase of a second Russian-made S-400 air defense system. The talks were led by Ismail Demir, head of Turkey’s Presidency of Defense Industries, who declared that “Ankara has no wish to discontinue its cooperation with Russia on arms supply issues because of the situation in Ukraine.”
It should also be noted that Ankara has urged all concerned to resolve the crisis in the Azovstal steel plant, and in particular to evacuate “the civilians and military personnel who are trapped there.” These initiatives are clearly not just spontaneous gestures or motivated by humanitarian considerations. After all, Turkey is continuing, along with other NATO members, to supply the Kiev regime with arms and other military equipment. These include Bayraktar TB2 drones, which have already been used in strikes on Russian territory.
Ankara’s concern is understandable, as it is now known that the fighters trapped in the Azovstal steelworks by Russian, PRD/PRL soldiers include hundreds of mercenaries from Turkey and Europe and high-ranking instructors from NATO countries, who are managing Kiev’s military operation in the Donbass. It would therefore clearly not be in the interests of the “collective West” for them to fall into Russia’s hands or for their presence to be made known to and judged by the international community, thus confirming what is already clear from the documentary evidence received by Moscow – namely the provocative role played by Washington and Brussels in inflaming the war in Ukraine. That is why in the last few days the West has allowed Ankara a much greater role in regulating the current situation.
As for Turkey’s closing of its airspace to Russian aircraft bound for Syria, that decision will certainly have an impact on the development of relations between Moscow and Ankara. Russia’s could potentially retaliate in any number of ways. It could, for example, restrict fruit and vegetable imports from Turkey, or limit the number of Russian tourists visiting the country. After all, 18% of Turkey’s national budget comes from Russian tourists, and given its current economic woes it can ill afford to lose this source of income. Or Moscow could take measures against the Turkish Stream project, promoted by Ankara in a bid to replace Ukraine as the leading gas hub in the region. Russia has many other sources of leverage over Turkey, including in Central Asia, and Ankara is well aware of this fact and has in recent years managed a fine balancing act to avoid losing Russia’s support.
It should also be remembered that Russia would have no problem finding alternative flight routes to Syria. Moscow could transport all the necessary supplies, including military equipment, via the Caspian Sea and Iran, which is happy to allow Russian military and civilian aircraft to use its airspace 24 hours a day for purposes related to the two countries’ joint military operations in Syria.
Armed Forces control the loading of the transport rocket-loading machine on a self-propelled launcher operational-tactical missile complex Iskander-M. Sergei Orlov/RIA Novosti
Late on March 5, a large-scale missile strike targeted oil traffickers’ facilities and equipment in Turkish-occupied areas in the northern countryside of Syria’s Aleppo.
At least two ballistic missiles hit the al-Himran crossing and a nearby oil market next to the town of Jarabulus near the border with Turkey. Traffickers smuggle oil illegally produced by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria to Turkish-occupied areas through the crossing.
A few minutes later, two other ballistic missiles and several artillery rockets struck makeshift oil refineries and storage tanks in the village of Tarhin north of the town of al-Bab.
The missiles and rockets were reportedly launched from the Syrian coast, where Russia’s Hemimim Air Base is located, and from the outskirts of Aleppo city.
According to an initial report by the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Right, a man was killed and at least ten others were injured as a result of the strikes.
Last week, a simllar missile strike targeted makeshift refineries and storage tanks in the village of Mazaalah southwest of the town of Jarabulus.
This was the largest missile strike on oil traffickers in Turkish-occupied Syrian areas yet. Russian forces and the Syrian Arab Army were clearly behind the strike. Moscow and Damascus are apparently determined to damge the illegal production and trafficking of Syrian oil by the SDF and Turkish proxies
Vladimir Platov Recently, you can very frequently see in the reports of the Middle Eastern media information that the United States is exporting military personnel and special equipment from Syria to Iraq.
In November alone the world saw several such reports:
– on November 29, the Syrian news agency SANA reported the advance of a military caravan consisting of 25 heavy weaponry vehicles from the Kharab al-Jir US military base in Syria to the Al-Walid checkpoint on the border with Iraq;
– On November 23, the United States transferred a convoy of 50 armored vehicles again through the Alwaleed border crossing;
– On November 16 and 20, 2 more American convoys with tanks and military trucks followed the border with Iraq from Syria;
– According to Syrian media, several dozen American servicemen have already left the US base in the village of Al-Malikiya.
An uninformed observer may be given the false impression that the Pentagon, in pursuance of repeated public statements by President Trump, is actively withdrawing its military presence from Syria. However, this fundamentally contradicts reality: there is a regular rotation of American troops in Syria and the strengthening of the US military presence in the country, including by increasing the presence of Washington-controlled private military campaigns (PMCs).
Media and eyewitness reports about dozens of American military convoys that were heading to Iraqi territory from Syria are primarily due to the need for a “combat escort” of oil stolen by the United States from Syria. Syrian media and many international observers have already repeatedly reported US caravans with illegally extracted Syrian oil crossing checkpoints permanently controlled by Washington bordering Iraq, evidence was clearly documented, including that obtained by the space reconnaissance of the Russian Aerospace Forces. SAR is sure that these minerals are mainly exported from the territories of oil fields in Deir ez-Zor and Hassek controlled by the American military and Kurdish formations. According to SANA, in November alone, more than 120 tanks with the stolen “black gold”, guarded by US troops and armored vehicles, crossed the Syrian border and headed towards Iraq …
Oil exports are carried out by the US-controlled Sadkab company, created under the so-called Autonomous Administration of Eastern Syria. The income from this smuggling, which even by rough estimates reaches $ 30 million a month, goes through the brokerage companies interacting with Sadcab to the accounts of American PMCs and the US intelligence services. When escorting caravans of oil stolen in Syria, US special forces units, heavy military equipment, and even combat aircraft are periodically used. Due to the fact that in this case “real money” is involved, amounting to tens of millions, which you do not need to report to anyone, either to Congress or to senators, US intelligence services actively engage in these operations to finance their so-called “gray” and black operations. And this practice is nothing new for the American special forces, which, in particular, can be confirmed by the famous Iran-Contra scandal or the CIA’s operations to transport drugs to the US and Europe from Asia during the Vietnam War, etc.
However, one must not forget that absolutely all hydrocarbon deposits and other minerals located on the Syrian territory do not belong to “American defenders against the terrorists of DAESH (prohibited in the Russian Federation – ed.)”, but solely to the Syrian Arab Republic. Therefore, what Washington is currently doing, namely, seizing and retaining oil fields in eastern Syria under its armed control is, simply put, international state banditry. Neither US law nor international law justify American troops protecting Syria’s hydrocarbon deposits from the Arab republic itself and its people. But the reason for Washington’s actions lies far from the ideals of freedom and slogans for the fight against terrorism it so loftily proclaims, from any legislative viewpoint.
However, in addition to stealing Syria’s national treasure – oil, the United States is also responsible for the policy of economic strangulation that harms the Syrian population. Due to unilateral US sanctions, the humanitarian crisis is aggravated in the SAR, which is a real economic genocide. By now, as a result of measures carried out by the Syrian government with the support of Russia, 2.5 million Syrians have already been able to return to their homeland. However, due to the package of anti-Syrian sanctions initiated by the United States under the general title of the “Caesar Act”, the restrictions affect almost all spheres of the economy and life of the Syrian Arab Republic. That is why it becomes obvious that the United States, in the face of the failure of its plans to forcefully remove the President of the SAR Bashar al-Assad, began to carry out an economic attack on the Middle Eastern state, staging an outright invasion using military force and economic leverage, and such actions should be served a clear international verdict.
The US has been in Syria for over six long years. During this time, the Americans captured a third of the country, controlling the situation on the ground through their junior allies in the person of the Kurdish people’s self-defense units. The only exception is Et-Tanf, where they often have to do all the dirty work themselves, including administrative, because there is now at least some stable opposition to Damascus, and besides, they have the largest and most effective military base.
However, the defeat of the terrorists means the inevitable expulsion of the Americans from Syria; it’s just a matter of time. Indeed, unlike even Afghanistan, where Washington has a controlled government, in Syria, US troops are in an extremely hostile environment. Do not forget that, along with the American military, there are many different Arab tribes in the Middle East, among most of which anti-American sentiments are constantly growing and, under certain conditions, they might attack to defend their soil. Even the Kurds, whom the United States has repeatedly insulted, betrayed, abandoned to be devoured by Ankara, are greatly offended at the United States and at some point may show Washington that it is not the boss in the region.
In addition to a possible armed confrontation, the cessation of US predatory activities and their military aggression in Syria can, of course, be facilitated by an intensification of the diplomatic offensive against Washington on this issue through various international forums and threats of court, where Russia, China, and other states friendly to Damascus will play the first fiddle.
Recent events clearly show the real goals of Washington’s policy in Syria, aimed not at finding a peaceful solution to the Syrian conflict and returning Syrian refugees to their homeland, but at continuing to plunder. The United States refused to participate in the International Conference in Damascus held by Moscow on November 11-12 to facilitate Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons and attempted to interfere with the event.
Simultaneously, the American military, in every possible way, protects and encourages the Kurdish militants. The US pumps oil in the northeast stealing Syria’s natural resources and national property and considers the Syrian Arab Republic a cheap resource. So, according to the Syrian Arab news agency SANA, the US armed forces, with the help of Kurdish militants of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), on October 28, took another batch of Syrian oil from Syria to Iraq in 37 oil tankers from the settlement of As Suwayda to the north of Iraq through the Al Waleed border crossing. They were accompanied by a convoy of cars and armored personnel carriers from Kurdish SDF fighters. US troops, together with SDF fighters, control most of the oil fields in eastern Syria, where a large number of trucks with weapons have been transferred in recent months.
Earlier, the United States tried to unilaterally “legalize” SAR’s oil flow by creating a fictitious company called Delta Crescent Energy LLC. The fact that the American military’s actions in Syria are an “international state racketeering” and cannot be justified by their fight against the terrorist group DAESH (banned in the Russian Federation – ed.) has already been repeatedly stated from the official tribunes by the governments of Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Russia, including before the UN.
Not only outright robbery characterizes US policy in Syria. According to a report published by the Qatar-based Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), attacks by the US-led “anti-terrorist coalition” have killed more than 3,000 Syrian civilians since 2014. The fate of 8,000 is unknown. Over six years of intervention, so-called “fighters against terrorism” have reportedly committed mass murder at least 172 times, bombed schools and markets, and put their allies, whose local core are Kurdish militants, in charge of the “liberated” regions.
It is necessary to pay special attention to the fact that, over the past year, the American administration, to implement its plan to fragment Syria, has been especially actively working to reconcile the Syrian Kurds’ political factions. In particular, Washington acted as an intermediary between the Kurdish national unity parties, the largest of which is the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is the political arm of the People’s Self-Defense Forces (YPG), which are the backbone of the SDF and the Kurdish National Council in Syria (KNC). Washington’s primary goal is to create Kurdish “autonomy” while creating preconditions for a US military presence in the country. Especially in the oil-producing region of Syria, which, no doubt, the United States will attach particular importance to in any post-war agreements.
To further destabilize Syria’s situation and implement plans to divide this country, Kurdish militants of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), on instructions from Washington, released from prisons more than 500 terrorists in eastern Syria in early November. As a result, the activity of terrorist cells has noticeably increased throughout Syria. For example, the London-based non-governmental organization Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), citing Syrian sources, reported severe losses of government troops due to a large-scale attack by the terrorist group Daesh’s militants in the east of Hama province. Twenty-one Syrian soldiers were killed in the attack near the Abu Fayyad dam east of the city of Salamiyah in the countryside of Hama, and the terrorists themselves lost more than 40 people. After the failed attack, the militants fled south towards the desert area of Badiya al-Sham.
On November 12, a convoy of Turkish Armed Forces heading from Kafr Shil was blown up in the north Syrian province of Aleppo, in outskirts of Afrin.
Almost simultaneously, an incident occurred in the south of the country – in the region of Daraa. A convoy of Russian Armed Forces accompanied by Syrian security forces was heading from Izraa to Sahwat al-Qamh when an improvised explosive device was detonated near the settlement of Musseifra.
On November 13, militants of the DAESH terrorist group (banned in the Russian Federation – ed.) attacked a Syrian Arab Army unit near the city of Al Sukhnah in the province of Homs, killing eleven soldiers and capturing and subsequently executing one soldier. According to observers’ estimates, all three events may have common roots associated with the consolidation of the Kurdish militants and DAESH’s efforts after releasing 500 militants from the American occupation administration prisons. According to published Al-Monitor reports, many DAESH “sleeping cells” have been deployed in villages on the Euphrates River banks, such as Al-Shuhayl, Hajin, Al-Susa, and Al-Baguz, and the recent release of 500 terrorists by SDF has helped with recruitment.
The situation becomes more complicated because Kurdish militants do not want to fight the terrorist underground in Syria’s occupied territory. The SDF wants the region to remain volatile to continue to receive support from the United States, Al-Monitor emphasizes. Besides, judging by previous reports from sources, Kurdish groups continue to get a share in the theft and smuggling of Syrian oil – and need to at all costs maintain their presence in the oil-rich region by simulating the fight against DAESH, which, by the way, fully satisfies Washington’s plans.
Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
President Bashar Assad and First Lady Asmaa Assad visited an exhibition in Damascus dedicated to Aleppan industrialists, during his visit President Assad exposed a grand theft of Syrian money by Lebanon.
“At the minimum, the estimates at the lowest were 20 billion dollars, and at the maximum, it was 42 billion dollars. We do not have a real figure,” President Assad told the crowd that surrounded the first couple, he added: “This number for an economy like Syria is a frightening number.”
President Assad did not belittle the US and EU blockade coupled with the blockade of their followers around the world against the Syrian people, he drew the timeline of the current crisis with the main factors of the war of terror and war of attrition waged on the country by NATO and stooges which the country is going through for nearly a decade; the Syrian President emphasized on the coinciding of the beginning of the current severe crisis, ‘that Syria never lived through since it independence – in 1945’, with the blocking of depositors accounts by the Lebanese Central Bank starting a year ago.
The following is the English translation transcript of the above video:
First of all thanks to you, were it not for your steadfastness in Aleppo, and if it were not for you decided from the beginning to be positive, effective and have a challenge, which any person needs to succeed, especially in these circumstances, had it not been for all of this, we would not have reached this successful beginning.
When we meet with producers in these special circumstances, difficult circumstances, and harsh conditions that Syria has not lived through since the days of independence, this carries a special message and full of meanings.
3 and 4 years ago, Aleppo was besieged from all sides and the bombing on it did not stop and its production did not stop, so the issue is not the subject of a siege, so if a siege on Aleppo could not affect, the siege on Syria, which is not more severe than the siege on Aleppo, would not be the cause of the problem that we are going through. With it, there are issues that we are affected by, such as the issue of (the United States’ theft of oil), the issue of wheat supplies, the burning of wheat in the northeastern regions, there is no doubt that all of this has an impact, but the economic problem has another reason that no one is talking about, and that is the money that the Syrians withdrew (from Syria) and deposited in Lebanon, and the banks in Lebanon were closed, so we paid the price, this is the essence of the problem that nobody is talking about.
It is easy to always blame the state and the government, mistakes exist with every one and this is another issue, but the current crisis is not related to the blockade, the blockade has been imposed on us for years, this does not mean that the siege is good and the Americans are innocent, no, the blockade directly harms all aspects of life, but the current crisis that started several months ago, caused by this issue (the closure of banks in Lebanon) because the crisis began before the Caesar Act and began years after the blockade, so what coincided with it? It is the money that’s gone.
At the minimum, the estimates at the lowest were 20 billion dollars, and at the maximum, it was 42 billion dollars. We do not have a real figure. This number for an economy like Syria is a frightening number.
End of the transcript.
This is not the first time Lebanon worked efficiently as a pawn in the US-led war of terror against Syria, it was a stage where the killing of its former PM Rafic Hariri led to a fruitless international tribunal that lasted for 15 years and cost the Lebanese people about a billion dollars to reach nothing, in the course of its trials it started by a false accusation against the Syrian state for killing the former Lebanese PM which led to the withdrawal of the Syrian troops from Lebanon in 2005, the accusations were dropped after they exhausted their political and economic purpose.
During the current episode of the US-led war of terror on Syria, Lebanon through a number of its pro-Saudi officials was instrumental in smuggling weapons, terrorists, and drugs to contribute to the war against the Syrian people.
This latest theft of the Syrian depositors in the Lebanese banking system upon the US instructions in the last quarter of last year was meant to break the will of the Syrian people to give up to the USA of their sovereignty and freedom what they refused to give to the US-sponsored terrorist groups including Al Qaeda and its offshoots Nusra Front and ISIS for almost a decade.
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Like the US, Turkey’s Erdogan pursues interests at the expense of peace and stability.
He favors war for extending Turkey’s borders to further his neo-Ottoman aims.
He, his family members and regime profited earlier from stolen Syrian oil.
He gave ISIS and other terrorists safe haven in Turkish territory, providing them with weapons, other material support, and a launching pad for attacks on Syrian soldiers and civilians.
Turkey under Erdogan is a fascist police state — speech, media and academic freedoms they way they should be banned.
So is dissent. Anyone publicly criticizing or insulting him risks prosecution for terrorism, espionage or treason, including children.
As long as he doesn’t act against US interests, as a NATO member and in other ways, his tyrannical rule and regional destabilizing actions are tolerated — if only barely.
On Wednesday, his Vice President Fuat Oktay said Ankara is ready to send troops to back Azerbaijan’s war on Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh (NK below).
In response to Turkey’s deployment of armed and directed jihadists to combat Armenian forces in NK, the country’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called on regional countries to unite against them and their Turkish paymaster.
“Regretably (they) have not responded to this reality seriously enough yet,” Pashinyan added.
“It is beyond doubt that the presence of foreign terrorists will pose a threat to the region in the future.”
“The region’s countries must deal with this issue more seriously.”
The Erdogan regime is also involved militarily in NK by providing Baku with command and control services, training of its military forces, and heavy weapons for warmaking.
He and hardliners surrounding him support war, not resolution in NK.
Pashinyan stressed it, saying “the Karabakh question…cannot have a diplomatic solution.”
“Everything that is diplomatically acceptable to the Armenian side…is not acceptable to Azerbaijan…”
Baku’s ruling authorities intend endless war until Armenian forces are driven from NK — no matter the human toll, according to comments from its leadership.Turkey’s Involvement in Nagorno-Karabakh
As Azeri forces advance, civilians in harm’s way are caught in the crossfire.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that they’ve taken control of areas bordering Iran and Armenia’s international border — increasing the risk of conflict spilling into both countries.
Armenia’s Defense Ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan accused Azerbaijan of sending “small…subversive groups…into villages and towns, film(ing) themselves there, spread(ing) those images…to feed their society. But, unfortunately, this also affects us.”
While conflict continues, foreign ministers of both warring sides will meet with Trump regime’s Pompeo for talks in Washington on Friday.
Yet on Tuesday, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said the following:
“We are fighting on our own land, giving martyrs and restoring our territorial integrity. These steps will continue to be taken.”
“Armenia must declare before it is too late that it is withdrawing from the occupied territories. After that the fighting may stop.”
From the above remarks and two failed Russian/Minsk Group arranged ceasefire, Aliyev is unwilling to compromise on his aims in NK.
With support from Turkey, including Erdogan’s willingness to send troops if asked, Aliyev rejects diplomacy while sending his foreign minister to discuss ceasefire with his Russian, French and US counterparts.
According to the Asia Times, Erdogan’s support for Azerbaijan is driven by energy interests in competition with Russia.
An unnamed Erdogan advisor said “Russia is neither an ally, nor an enemy, but we can’t negotiate if we are too dependent on them, especially when it comes to energy.”
“We have vital interests to protect,” including two pipelines from Azerbaijan to Europe, one for oil, the other for gas.
One runs close to NK, the other near northern Armenia, the unnamed advisor close to Erdogan adding:
“We can’t afford losing our sight on what’s going on around our pipelines in the Caucasus, especially in the Tavush region, where there have been several clashes (with Armenia) over the last years.”
The so-called BTC oil pipeline is owned by Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Britain’s BP.
The South Caucasus Pipeline runs from Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea field to Turkey, and Georgia — soon as well to Italy, Greece and Bulgaria.
Earlier in October, Erdogan accused Armenia of endangering supplies of energy to Turkey and other European countries.
Oil and gas pipelines from Azerbaijan to Europe are only endangered by its preemptive war on Armenia in NK.
No danger would exist if conflict resolution ended weeks of fighting.
Russia also supplies gas to Turkey through Turkstream 1.
Turkstream 2 is under construction, completion expected around yearend.
Azerbaijan will compete with Russia for the European natural gas market.
Moscow prioritizes cooperation with other nations, confrontation with none.
Turkey’s Erdogan prioritizes the advancement of his neo-Ottoman interests.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
A terror attack against a civilians bus killed three civilians and injured 12 others in the vicinity of Ras Al Ain, in the northwestern province of Hasakah, at the borders with Turkey.
A booby-trapped parked car was detonated in a road in the village of Tal Halaf next to a moving civilian passenger bus which immediately killed three of the passengers, injured 12 others, some of who sustained severe and life-threatening injuries.
The explosion of the parked vehicle left the passengers’ bus completely torched and large material damage in the area.
Terrorist groups loyal to the Turkish madman Erdogan infested the northern regions of Syria under the protection of the US forces and under false claims of ‘fighting terror’ referring to the other US and Israel-sponsored Kurdish separatists in the area. Turkey never fought ISIS or Nusra Front (al-Qaeda Levant) terrorist groups throughout the past 9.5 years, on the contrary, terrorists of these groups in their tens of thousands were hosted, trained, armed, and funded by and through the Turkish regime of Erdogan on Turkish territories then smuggled into Syria to kill and maim the Syrian people.
Neither Trump nor Erdogan, the two heads of criminality with forces operating in the northern regions of Syria, hide their ill intentions towards the Syrian people, Trump declares publicly he wants to steal the Syrian oil and Erdogan declares publicly he wants to be a leader in the ‘Greater Israel Project’ where he will steal more land and is dreaming of reviving the most-hated anti-Islamic Ottoman sultanate on the account of the people of the region of all religions. Both unindicted war criminals are depriving the Syrian people of their own riches in their country, especially the Syrian oil and Syrian wheat mainly coming from the Syrian northeastern provinces of Hasakah and Deir Ezzor.
The terrorist attacks as this one are meant to intimidate the local population to flee their homes after which Erdogan can Israelize the region with terrorists following his anti-Islamic Muslim Brotherhood doctrine.
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Years of US support to Al-Qaeda and ISIS and efforts to effect regime change in the country have culminated in the theft of Syria’s oil, but is that really America’s coup de gras in Syria?
Near the end of July, one of the most important recent developments in U.S. foreign policy was quietly disclosed during a U.S. Senate hearing. Not surprisingly, hardly anybody talked about it and most are still completely unaware that it happened.
Answering questions from Senator Lindsey Graham, Secretary of State Pompeo confirmed that the State Department had awarded an American company, Delta Crescent Energy, with a contract to begin extracting oil in northeast Syria. The area is nominally controlled by the Kurds, yet their military force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), was formed under U.S. auspices and relies on an American military presence to secure its territory. That military presence will now be charged with protecting an American firm from the government of the country that it is operating within.
Pompeo confirmed that the plans for implanting the firm into the U.S.-held territory are “now in implementation” and that they could potentially be “very powerful.” This is quite a momentous event given its nature as a blatant example of neocolonial extraction, or, as Stephen Kinzer puts it writing for the Boston Globe, “This is a vivid throwback to earlier imperial eras, when conquerors felt free to loot the resources of any territory they could capture and subdue.”
Indeed, the history of how the U.S. came to be in a position to “capture and subdue” these resources is a sordid, yet informative tale that by itself arguably even rivals other such colonial adventures.
To capture and subdue
When a legitimate protest movement developed organically in Syria in early 2011, the U.S. saw an opportunity to destabilize, and potentially overthrow, the government of a country that had long pushed back against its efforts for greater control in the region.
Syria had maintained itself outside of the orbit of U.S. influence and had frustratingly prevented American corporations from penetrating its economy to access its markets and resources.
As the foremost academic expert on Middle East affairs, Christopher Davidson, wrote in his seminal work, “Shadow Wars, The Secret Struggle for the Middle East,” discussing both Syria and Libya’s strategic importance, “the fact remained that these two regimes, sitting astride vast natural resources and in command of key ports, rivers, and borders, were still significant obstacles that had long frustrated the ambitions of Western governments and their constituent corporations to gain greater access.”
“With Syria,” Davidson wrote, “having long proven antagonistic to Western interests… a golden opportunity had presented itself in 2011 to oust [this] administration once and for all under the pretext of humanitarian and even democratic causes.”
US Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman meet with Syrians at the Yayladagi camp on the Turkish-Syrian border. April 10, 2012. Umit Bektas | Reuters.
The U.S., therefore, began organizing and overseeing a militarization of the uprising early on, and soon co-opted the movement along with allied states Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. Writing at the end of 2011, Columbia University’s Joseph Massad explained how there was no longer any doubt that “the Syrian popular struggle for democracy [has] already been hijacked,” given that “the Arab League and imperial powers have taken over and assumed the leadership of their struggle.”
Soon, through the sponsoring of extremist elements, the insurgency was dominated by Salafists of the al-Qaeda variety.
According to the DIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by 2013 “there was no viable ‘moderate’ opposition to Assad” and “the U.S. was arming extremists.” Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed that “although many in the American intelligence community were aware that the Syrian opposition was dominated by extremists,” still “the CIA-sponsored weapons kept coming.”
When ISIS split off from al-Qaeda and formed its own Caliphate, the U.S. continued pumping money and weapons into the insurgency, even though it was known that this aid was going into the hands of ISIS and other jihadists. U.S. allies directly supported ISIS.
U.S. officials admitted that they saw the rise of ISIS as a beneficial development that could help pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to give in to America’s demands.
Leaked audio of then-Secretary of State John Kerry revealed that “we were watching… and we know that this [ISIS] was growing… We saw that Daesh was growing in strength, and we thought Assad was threatened. We thought, however, we could probably manage — that Assad would then negotiate.” As ISIS was bearing down on the capital city of Damascus, the U.S. was pressing Assad to step down to a U.S.-approved government.
Then, however, Russia intervened with its air force to prevent an ISIS takeover of the country and shifted the balance of forces against the jihadist group. ISIS’ viability as a tool to pressure the government was spent.
The arsonist and the firefighter
So, a new strategy was implemented: instead of allowing Russia and Syria to take back the territories that ISIS captured throughout the war, the U.S. would use the ISIS threat as an excuse to take those territories before they were able to. Like an arsonist who comes to put out the fire, the U.S. would now charge itself with the task of stamping out the Islamist scourge and thereby legitimize its own seizure of Syrian land. The U.S. partnered with the Kurdish militias who acted as their “boots on the ground” in this endeavor and supported them with airstrikes.
The strategy of how these areas were taken was very specific. It was designed primarily to allow ISIS to escape and redirect itself back into the fight against Syria and Russia. This was done through leaving “an escape route for militants” or through deals that were made where ISIS voluntarily agreed to cede its territory. The militants were then able to escape and go wreak havoc against America’s enemies in Syria.
Interestingly, in terms of the oil fields now being handed off to an American corporation, the U.S. barely even fought ISIS to gain control over them; ISIS simply handed them over.
FILE – In this April 6, 2018 file photo, shows a former farmer working at a primitive refinery making crude oil into diesel and other products, in a village controlled by a U.S-backed Kurdish group, in Rmeilan, Hassakeh province, Syria. Syrians living in government-controlled areas have survived eight years of war now face a new scourge in the form of widespread fuel shortages. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
Syria and Russia were quickly closing in on the then-ISIS controlled oilfields, so the U.S. oversaw a deal between the Kurds and ISIS to give up control of the city. According to veteran Middle East war correspondent Elijah Magnier, “U.S.-backed forces advanced in north-eastern areas under ISIS control, with little or no military engagement: ISIS pulled out from more than 28 villages and oil and gas fields east of the Euphrates River, surrendering these to the Kurdish-U.S. forces following an understanding these reached with the terrorist group.”
A man works a primitive refinery making crude oil into diesel in a U.S-backed Kurdish village in Rmeilan, Syria, April 6, 2018. Hussein Malla | AP
Sources quoted by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that ISIS preferred seeing the fields in the hands of the U.S. and the Kurds rather than the Syrian government.
The rationale behind this occupation was best described by Syria expert Joshua Landis, who wrote that the areas of northern Syria under control of the Kurds are the U.S.’ “main instrument in gaining leverage” over the government. By “denying Damascus access to North Syria” and “controlling half of Syria’s energy resources” “the U.S. will be able to keep Syria poor and under-resources.” So, by “promoting Kurdish nationalism in Syria” the U.S. “hopes to deny Iran and Russia the fruits of their victory,” while “keeping Damascus weak and divided,” this serving “no purpose other than to stop trade” and to “beggar Assad and keep Syria divided, weak and poor.”
Or, in the words of Jim Jeffrey, the Trump administrations special representative for Syria who is charged with overseeing U.S. policy, the intent is to “make life as miserable as possible for that flopping cadaver of a regime and let the Russians and Iranians, who made this mess, get out of it.”
Anchoring American troops in Syria
This is the history by which an American firm was able to secure a contract to extract oil in Syria. And while the actual resources gained will not be of much value (Syria has only 0.1% of the world’s oil reserves), the presence of an American company will likely serve as a justification to maintain a U.S. military presence in the region. “It is a fiendishly clever maneuver aimed at anchoring American troops in Syria for a long time,” Stephen Kinzer explains, one that will aid the policymakers who hold “the view that the United States must remain militarily dominant in the Middle East.”
This analysis corroborates the extensive scholarship of people like Mason Gaffney, professor of economics emeritus at the University of California, who, writing in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, sums up his thesis that throughout its history “U.S. military spending has been largely devoted to protecting the overseas assets of multinational corporations that are based in the United States… The U.S. military provides its services by supporting compliant political leaders in developing countries and by punishing or deposing regimes that threaten the interests of U.S.-based corporations.”
In essence, by protecting this “global ‘sprawl’ of extractive companies” the U.S. Department of Defense “provides a giant subsidy to companies operating overseas,” one that is paid for by the taxpayer, not the corporate beneficiaries. It is hard to estimate the exact amount of money the U.S. has invested into the Syria effort, though it likely is near the trillion dollar figure. The U.S. taxpayer doesn’t get anything out of that, but companies that are awarded oil contracts do.
What is perhaps most important about this lesson however is that this is just a singular example of a common occurrence that happens all over the world. A primary function of U.S. foreign policy is to “make the world safe for American businesses,” and the upwards of a thousand military bases the U.S. has stationed across the globe are set up to help protect those corporate investments. While this history is unique to Syria, similar kinds of histories are responsible for U.S. corporation’s extractive activities in other global arenas.
So, next time you see headlines about Exxon being in some kind of legal dispute with, say, Venezuela, ask yourself how was it that those companies became involved with the resources of that part of the world? More often than not, the answer will be similar to how this U.S. company got involved in Syria.
Given all of this, it perhaps might seem to be too mild of a critique to simply say that this Syria enterprise harkens back to older imperial eras where conquerors simply took what they wished: the sophistication of colonialism has indeed improved by leaps and bounds since then.
Raqqa – Deir Ezzor – Hasaka, (ST) – A number of “Qasad” militia, supported by the American occupation forces, were killed and wounded when their vehicles were targeted by unknown persons in the countryside of Raqqa, Deir Ezzor and Hasaka.
Local sources reported to SANA that unknown persons targeted, with weapons and machine guns, the headquarters and locations of armed men from the “Qasad militia” near al-Til factories in the al-Jazra neighborhood and the National Hospital in the city of Tabqa and in the village of Abu Qubei`, west of the city of Raqqa, killing four armed militants from “Qasad” militia.
In the northeastern countryside of Deir Ezzor, civil sources indicated that a gunman from the “Qasad militia” was shot dead by unknown persons in the village of Al-Ezbet, which witnessed demonstrations calling for the expulsion of this militia from the area as it is daily stealing Syrian oil and property and attacking civilians.
Yesterday, the checkpoints of the “Qasad militia” were attacked by unknown persons in the towns of Al-Hawayj and Jadid Akidat in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor, which resulted in the injury of a number of its gunmen.
In the same context, a number of “Qasad militia” militants were killed and wounded when their vehicles was targeted with an explosive device at Jalal village, east of Al-Shaddadi city in the southern countryside of Hasaka, according to local sources in the region.
Most of the areas of the countryside of Deir Ezzor, Hasaka, and Raqqa, which are under the control of the “Qasad” militia, are witnessing a state of anger and popular rejection of that militia, which is depicted through widespread popular protests calling for its expulsion from their villages and towns as a result of the practices it carried out against the civilian population and the theft of oil and the region’s goods under the cover and support of the American occupation forces. The shooting at demonstrations by that militia caused the death of a number of civilians and the injury of others.
The US occupation forces have smuggled another batch of fuel from Syria in continuation of their illegal presence in the country’s oilfields.
The US occupation forces smuggled a convoy full of fuel to Iraq from the areas it occupies in the Syrian al-Jazeera area to Iraq.
State-run SANA news agency cited local sources in al-Yarubiya as saying that 35 vehicles including tanker trucks transporting fuel and a number of trucks crossed al-Yarubiya illegal border crossing northeast of Hasaka on Friday evening, heading from Syria to Iraq.
This is while based on an earlier report by SANA, the US forces smuggled another batch of Syrian fuel by 30 trucks.
In December 2019, the US army deployed armored vehicles, pickups, heavy construction equipment and about 150 rigs to the region despite widespread condemnation of the deployment as being tantamount to robbery.
The deployments came after US President Donald Trump said in October that the US troops would remain in Syria to “secure” the oilfields there. Damascus as well as regional movers and shakers voiced their strong opposition to Trump’s decision to seize Syrian oil fields.
ما تتعرّض له سورية منذ 2011 من حروب متواصلة وعقوبات وغارات وسطو على ثرواتها واحتلال لمناطقها من دون توقف يتجاوز بكثير محاولة إسقاط نظام سياسي أو حتى تدمير دولة.
فهناك استثمار أميركي في الإرهاب الداعشي – القاعدي والمعارضات الداخلية وأدوار دول الخليج والاحتلال التركي والرعاية الأردنية لإرهابيي الجنوب، وغارات اسرائيلية شبه يومية وتدخل عسكري – أميركي – اوروبي وحتى اوسترالي مباشر، الى جانب قطع كل بلدان المحور الأميركي للعلاقات الدبلوماسية والسياسية والاقتصادية مع سورية، مطبقين عليها نظام عقوبات اقتصادي صارم.
لكن الأميركيين لم يكتفوا بكل هذه الوسائل، فذهبوا لمصادرة النفط السوري وتأسيس معادلة دائمة لبيعه في اسواق تركيا الى جانب تغييرات ديموغرافية موازية مع إثارة أكبر قدر ممكن من الفتن المذهبية والعرقية والطائفية بما يكشف حجم الإصرار الأميركي على تدمير سورية لأسباب تتعلق حكماً بنجاحات يريدها النفوذ الأميركي العالمي في هذه المرحلة بالذات.
لذلك فإن تدمير سورية حاجة عاجلة للجيوبوليتيك الأميركي.
لماذا؟ النفوذ الأميركي خسر معاركه في سورية وإيران واليمن، ملتزماً بهدنة في العراق.
ومتراجعاً في لبنان ما أنتج ولادة معادلة إقليمية راسخة سورية – ايرانية، ومعها حزب الله والحشد الشعبي ودولة صنعاء.
عند هذا الحد، كان بالإمكان الاستمرار في القتال الأميركي بدرجات أعلى من الأساليب المنهزمة.
لكن لسورية أهمية استراتيجية في الجيوبوليتيك الأميركي للعديد من الأسباب، يتربّع على رأسها موقفها الثابت المانع لأي تصفية للقضية الفلسطينية وموقعها في قلب المشرق العربي، خصوصاً للجهة العراقية والأردنية ما يربطها بالخليج حتى حدود المتوسط ويصلها بروسيا عبر تحالفها العميق مع ايران، وهذا يعني ربطاً بالصين ايضاً هناك. هناك أهميات ايضاً أخرى تتعلق بالتنافس الأميركي مع كل من الصين وروسيا وايران، المرتبط بالصراع على هيكلية النظام العالمي الجديد وعديد أقطابه.
فسورية هي المعبر الضروري الذي يجب على روسيا والصين، التموضع فيه للانتقال آنفاً الى فضاءات اخرى.
لذلك فإن أي ضرر يحيق بالدولة السورية يتسبّب فوراً بفرط عقد تحالف شرق أوسطي كبير وتجميد الأدوار الجيوبوليتيكية الصينية – الروسية الى اجل بعيد.
هذا تعرفه الولايات المتحدة الأميركية بشكل عميق، لكنها كانت متأكدة من ان الوسائل العسكرية والاقتصادية والسياسية والإرهابية التي استعملتها من 2011 حتى 2020 اكثر من كافية لتدمير دولة سورية وإضعاف الادوار الايرانية والروسية والصينية.
لكنها بوغِتت بصمود سوري لافت في ظروف مستحيلة لا تنجو منها عادة حتى الدول الجبارة.
إلا أن هناك عنصراً اضافياً لا يمكن إغفاله ويتعلق بارتفاع حدة الصراع الأميركي – الصيني مع ما تسبب به جائحة كورونا من تراجع كبير للاقتصاد الأميركي.
لا بد من لفت النظر الى ان الصينيين قادرون على تحمل التراجع الاقتصادي «الكوروني» أكثر من أميركيين معتادين منذ ستينيات القرن الماضي على اعلى انواع الرفاه الاجتماعي.
وهذا ما ظهر من خلال الاضطرابات الاجتماعية التي تجتاح الولايات الأميركية منذ أسبوع تقريباً. صحيح انها تشكلت كنوع من الاعتراض على مقتل مدني اسود البشرة خنقه شرطي أميركي بوضع ركبته على عنقه حتى الموت، وجسّدت رفضاً للتمييز العنصري الأميركي التاريخي، لكنها تحمل في متن اتساعها في مجمل الولايات المتحدة الأميركية تعبيراً عن قلق من الأميركيين الفقراء على وضعهم الاقتصادي في ظل كورونا وبعدها. ويصادف ان الاقلية السوداء هي التي تحتل مرتبة الأكثر فقراً على المستوى الأميركي.
هذه هي الأسباب التي دفعت الأميركي الى وضع قانون قيصر موضع التنفيذ في سورية. وهو قانون يستهدف كل حركات الاقتصاد السوري الشعبي والرسمي. وهذا هو القتل بعينه الذي تنفذه دولة بمفردها وتفرض على العالم بأسره تطبيق نصوصه بقطع كل انواع العلاقات بسورية وإلا فإنها تخضع بدورها لعقوبات مماثلة.
يتبين اذاً أن سورية مستهدفة لاسباب داخلية تتعلق بجهادية دولتها، وخارجية لكونها المحور الاساسي المعادي للنفوذ الأميركي في المشرق العربي، ولأنها الضرورة الجيوبوليتيكية للتطور الصيني – الروسي في النظام العالمي الجديد.
لذلك فإن «قيصر الأميركي» يستعمل كافة قواه ومرة واحدة للقضاء على الدولة السورية أو اسقاط نظامها واستتباعها لمنظومته.
هذا هو الهدف الأميركي؟ فماذا عن ردود الفعل عليه؟
لا شك في أن سورية لن تبخل بأي قوة تمتلكها لمجابهة الأميركيين في الداخل والعراق ولبنان والاردن، ولها من العلاقات ما يؤهلها لهذا الدور، لكنه لن يكون كافياً ويتطلّب مسارعة المستهدفين لمد يد العون بسرعة، خصوصاً من الطرفين الصيني – الروسي، لان الاستمرار في سياسات التدبّر والتعقل لن يكون الحل في هذه المرحلة بالذات، وهذه ليست دعوة للحرب، بل مطالبة للردّ على الحرب الاقتصادية القاتلة، بأدوات اقتصادية رادعة.
بما يعني أن حماية سورية من طريق تزويدها بحاجاتها الاقتصادية من الصين وروسيا، هي مسألة تاريخية حاسمة لان النجاح فيها هو تعبيد الطريق أمام نظام دولي جديد، ينتزع من الأميركيين ثلاثة مقاعد: اثنان منهما في النظام العالمي الجديد لروسيا والصين وثالث اقليمي واعد لإيران.
فهل هذه ممكن؟
إن كسر العقوبات القيصرية الأميركية على سورية تعني أيضاً إنقاذ الشرق الأوسط من تمديد الهيمنة الأميركية عليه نحو قرن جديد، وتحرير موارد الطاقة، خصوصاً من الغاز في البحر المتوسط، والمعلوم ان الدول القطبية تستند دائماً على موارد طاقة أساسية كحال الولايات المتحدة الأميركية التي بنت الجيوبوليتيك الخاص بها على اساس الهيمنة على النفط العربي وأسواق الاستهلاك فيها، فلماذا نسمح لها إعادة إنتاج معاهدات مع العرب تشبه معاهدة كوينسي التي وقعها روزفلت الأميركي مع عبد العزيز السعودي 1945.
هذا كله رهن بدعم صيني اقتصادي حقيقي لسورية، باعتبار ان روسيا ماضية وبحزم نحو تلبية الحاجات العسكرية للدولة السورية.
يتبين بالاستنتاج أن نظام الحاجات المتبادلة بين الرباعي الروسي الصيني والإيراني السوري كفيل بالقضاء على قيصر الجديد وآخر ما تبقى من أحادية قطبية أميركية، لا تزال تقاتل قبل دخولها في النزع الأخير من عمرها المندثر.
No country could fail to be shaken by the kind of profound struggle between all its political groups that currently prevails in Iraq. The US does not need to make any great effort to sow discord between the parties because they are currently intrinsically fragmented. The removal of Major General Qassim Suleimani from the Iraqi scene– whose personal objective had been to bring the various political parties together – was a major event, but not a game-changer. It did not profoundly modify the Iraqi political scene because he had already failed, two months before his assassination by the US, to persuade the parties to agree on a single Prime Ministerial candidate, following the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi. Iraqi politicians put their differences above all else in order to protect their political influences, unmoved by the patriotic duty for unity in the light of the serious challenges facing their country.
Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi was not mistaken when he once told me: “We do not know how to rule. We are good at opposing the ruler.” No ruler in Iraq will be able to get the country out of its current severe financial crisis, the political acrimony, and COVID-19 health crisis, because the financial means are lacking. The pressure from the street, where protestors were demanding improved living conditions, will return stronger than ever. The low price of crude oil is undermining Iraq’s yearly income. The state’s budget deficit is skyrocketing; its external debts are persistent and its need for help from the World Bank, which is under US control, is greater than ever. America will not provide financial assistance until its demands are fulfilled and Iranian influence is removed from Iraq.
America rejects Iraq’s balancing policy. Iraq considers its relationship with the US only as important as its relationship with neighbouring Iran. Washington wants Iraq for itself, adopting one principle: “after me, the great flood” (après moi le deluge) an expression said to be often used by Louis XV of France to indicate that he is the centre of attention, no other consideration matter but his own self-obsession and that any other considerations are irrelevant.
The US is supporting Iraqi Kurdistan by expanding its “Harir” military base and establishing another large military base on the border with Iran. The message to Baghdad seems blunt: US forces will remain in the face of resistance from those parts of Iraq more subject to Baghdad’s authority. In Kurdistan, the central government authority is not as effective as in other parts of the country. The US supports the Kurdish Peshmerga and arms them through its allies, the United Arab Emirates, who are providing the Kurdish armed men with weaponry: four cargos full of weapons landed recently in Erbil.
It is not excluded, if Trump remains in power, that his administration will help the Kurdistan region detach itself from Iraq, as it may also support a Kurdish secession attempt in north-eastern Syria. In the part of Syria, the US is occupying with Kurdish help, US forces are stealing Syrian crude oil- even if its price is no longer sufficient to pay the expenses of the troops deployed around it- indicating that there is another reason for their presence, related to the US ally, Israel.
Iraqi protestors refer to the United States as the “Joker,” a powerful force exerting influence on events in Iraq, often covertly. This influence was evident in last year’s demonstrations, but most conspicuously in the Kurdistan independence movement. Kurdish officials already rejected the binding constitutional decision of the Iraqi parliament – in a clear rebellion against the authority of Baghdad –which demanded the US withdrawal from Iraq.
Iraqi decision-makers in Baghdad believe that US President Donald Trump acts only in accordance with his own country’s interests. He thanked Adel Abdul-Mahdi for his protection of the US embassy because it was attacked in Baghdad. The US President sent a positive message to Iran through Abdul-Mahdi and then, a few days later, killed the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. The US administration is also working for Israel’s interests in Iraq – and not according to the “declared” interest of the US in building a strong and friendly Iraq-US relationship.
Trump did not listen to his protests when Abdul-Mahdi called him personally and told him that US actions in attacking security forces were angering the Iraqis and that any unilateral action would have catastrophic consequences for everyone. Rather, Trump listened to his aides who consider the Middle East leaders as subordinates, not allies. This US condescension serves the interests of Iran, which knows how to benefit from American mistakes, said the sources.
There is no doubt that Iraq is facing a crisis, with severe domestic bickering adding to the difficult economic and sanitary situation affecting all countries. But the greatest danger to the country comes from the Trump administration, which can only imagine subduing states by force. The US will certainly end up “reaping the whirlwind” rather than gaining a robust alliance with Iraq.
There is no doubt that Iraq is experiencing difficult labour in the midst of severe domestic bickering, plus the difficult economic and sanitary situation affecting all countries. But even more dangerous is the fact that Iraq is in the eye of the storm, pulled off course by the winds of Trump, who can only imagine subduing states by force. The US will certainly end up “reaping the whirlwind” rather than gaining any kind of robust allies.
Proofread by: Maurice Brasher and C.G.B
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From the very beginning I’ve been a staunch critic of President Trump’s “Energy Dominance” policy. And I was so for a myriad of reasons, but mostly because it was stupid.
Not just stupid, monumentally stupid. Breathtakingly stupid.
And I don’t say this as someone who hates Trump without reservation. In fact, I continue to hope he will wake up one day and stop being the Donald Trump I know and be the Donald Trump he needs to be.
I don’t have Trump Derangement Syndrome of any sort. Neither MAGApede nor Q-Tard, an Orange Man Bad cultist or NPC Soy Boy, I see Trump for what he is – a well-intentioned, if miseducated man with severe personal deficiencies which manifest themselves in occasionally brilliant but mostly disastrous behavior.
Energy Dominance was always a misguided and Quixotic endeavor. Why? Because Trump could never turn financial engineering a shale boom into a sustainable advantage over lower-cost producers like Russia and the OPEC nations.
The policy of blasting open the U.S. oil spigots to produce a production boom built on an endless supply of near-zero cost credit was always going to run into a wall of oversupply and not enough demand.
The dramatic collapse of U.S. oil prices in the futures markets which saw the May contract close on April 20th at $-40.57 per barrel is the Shale Miracle hitting the fan of low demand and leaving the producers and consumers in a state which can only happen thanks to biblical levels of government intervention.
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It’s clear from this statement that Trump is ready to throw more trillions at the oil industry to keep it and the millions of jobs from disappearing as he does what he always does when confronted with a real problem, doubles down on the behavior that caused it in the first place.
Politicians, even the best ones, are ultimately vandals. They have no other tool than to reallocate scarce capital towards their ends rather than that demanded by the market.
And the main reason why Trump was never going to win the Energy Dominance War he started was because the world doesn’t want the type and kind of oil the U.S. produces at the quantities needed to “Win!”
Ultra-light sweet crude coming from the Bakken, Eagle Ford and Permian simply isn’t that high in demand for export. It’s of limited usage. And, in the end, if the price is right enough, offering oil for sale in ‘not-dollars’ only makes that demand curve even more elastic.
The collapse in oil prices which Trump is desperate to stop won’t simply because Trump stands there like King Canute, arms outstretched. He and his terrible energy policy stand naked now that the tide has gone out.
And the reason for this is simple. There is more to the world economy than money. Money is what makes the economy work but it, in and of itself, is incapable of creating wealth. All money does is act as a means to express our needs and desires at the moment of the trade.
Trump’s vandalizing the world’s energy markets for the past three and a half years now comes back to bite him. To prop up surging U.S. production he has:
Supported a disastrous war against the people of Yemen
Repurposed U.S. troops clinging to positions in Syria while stealing their oil
Nearly started a shooting war with Iran…. Twice.
Embargoed Venezuela, stole its money, attempted a failed coup and brought even more support to President Maduro from Russia and China.
Spent billions pointing missiles at Russia via NATO.
Supported a vicious war to prevent the secession of the Donbass.
Delayed the construction of Nordstream 2.
Sowed chaos enough to set Turkey to claiming the Eastern Mediterranean while fighting a losing war in Libya.
Started a massive trade war with China.
Spent trillions throwing the U.S. budget deficit for 2020 out beyond 20% of the U.S.’s 2019 GDP.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. None of these acts are defensible as anything other than immoral and counterproductive.
Having antagonized literally more than three-quarters of the world with this insanity, Trump will now turn his destructive gaze on the very people he purports to serve, the American people. Saving jobs through subsidies is capital destructive. It doesn’t matter who does it, Trump, Putin, Xi or FDR.
If Trump tariffs on imports it will only keep the cost of energy for Americans higher than it should be at a time when they need it to be as cheap as possible.
The incentive to improve performance by these companies, shutter expensive wells, default on debt or shift capital away from the unproductive will not happen. The healthy cleansing of bankruptcy is averted. The vultures who profited on the way up will not go bankrupt because the bust is avoided and those that were prudent waiting for this moment will not be rewarded with the reins of the means of production.
And again, we see another one-way trade for Wall St.
All Trump will do here is entrench the very powers that he thinks he’s been fighting, destroying small businesses, nationalizing, in effect, whole swaths of the U.S. economy and setting up the day when everyone else around the world shrugs when he bark.
Because the net effect has been to see the rise in more of the oil trade conducted in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. That trend will continue in a deflating price environment where the need to service dollar-denominated debt is soaking up the supply of dollars faster than the Fed can monetize the debt issued by the U.S. Treasury.
The oil trade will shift from dollars. Dollars will be used to pay off debt, the world will decouple from the dollar and all those dollars currently hoarded overseas and whose demand today will be supply tomorrow will ensure the U.S. economy suffers the worst kind of depression, one of rising commodity prices, falling asset prices and falling wages.
So, Trump will continue to be, as I put it recently, The Master of the Seen, choosing, as always, to ignore the unseen effects of propping up firms that should rightly go the way of all bad ideas, like Marxism.
The U.S. had a grenade dropped on its budget. It looks like a nuclear bomb, but that’s only because of the continued arrogance and necessity of politicians, like Trump, needing to be ‘seen’ doing something caused far more damage than it would have if they hadn’t intervened in the first place.
The adage, “never let a crisis go to waste,” is apropos here. Politicians use the cover of crisis to act. They have to be ‘seen’ acting rather than not. Trump is acutely aware of this because he truly can’t stand criticism.
A man without principles, Trump acts mostly out of his need to deflect criticism and be ‘seen’ by his base as their champion.
But no, Trump outs himself as the biggest Marxist of all time, defending the workers while robbing them of their future through the destruction of their real wealth. His policy mistakes become our real problems. And he compounded those problems by listening to the medical complex vultures about COVID-19 and now he’s trapped but everyone else will pay the price.
He is someone without the sense or the understanding that sometimes the best thing to do is admit defeat, reverse course and put down the scepter of power. But Trump doesn’t know how to do that. He doesn’t know how to actually lead.
Energy Dominance will turn into an Energy Albatross and it will weigh on Trump’s neck in his second term that will see him leave office reviled as the great destroyer of not only the U.S.’s wealth, but more importantly, its standing in the world.
فيما يعاني العالم من وباء كورونا الخبيث وتداعياته الاقتصادية وثم السياسية والاجتماعية، وفيما نصف سكان المعمورة يعيشون أجواء الحصار دون عمل وإنتاج، وكثير منهم دون دخل ثابت أو متقطع، ترى الحكومات والدول نفسها حائرة ومضطرة لابتداع صيغ تزاوج بين دوران عجلة الحياة بمناحيها المتعدّدة وبين هذا الفايروس المعادي الذي لا تستطيع حتى أكثر الدول بوليسية اعتقاله.
بعض دول العالم بصدد اتخاذ قرار بتخفيف القيود على حركة المواطنين وتتجه نحو السماح بعودة الحياة إلى شيء من طبيعتها. في الولايات المتحدة يرى ترامب بأنّ إغلاق البلاد لفترة طويلة يلحق أضراراً فادحة، ويشير إلى انه سيتمّ فتح البلاد تدريجياً قبل نهاية نيسان الحالي، فيما ألمانيا تنوي فتح بعض المحال التجارية في الرابع من أيار ثم إعاده الحياة الدراسية في المدارس والجامعات. أما إيطاليا وهي الأكثر إصابة فإنها ستتخذ قرارها بإجراء تخفيف على قيود حركة مواطنيها في مطلع أيار المقبل. في مشرقنا اتخذت بعض الحكومات إجراءات مشابهة، هذا في حين أنّ منظمة الصحة العالمية WHO تصيح بأنّ أيّ تخفيف لإجراءات الإغلاق والعزل هو خطأ فادح، ولكن صراخها يذهب ويتلاشى في البرية أمام حيرة الحكومات وعجزها.
من تداعيات جائحة الوباء، جائحة لا تقلّ هولاً وخطراً لا بل تزيد في آثارها على العالم بأسره وهي الجائحة الاقتصادية وانهيار أسعار البترول انهياراً فاق الخيال ولم يخطر على بال بشر وأدّى إلى انهيارات حادة في مؤشرات الاقتصاد وأسواق المال بتسارع عجيب.
في عام 1973 واثر حرب تشرين الأول أوقفت الدول العربية تصدير النفط الأمر الذي أدّى في غضون أيام قليلة إلى ارتفاع ثمن برميل النفط من 3 دولارات إلى 13 دولاراً. هذه الدولارات العشرة أربكت العالم ونقلت دول البترودولار العربية من حالة إلى حالة، اذ ترافق صعود أسعار البترول مع تعاظم مداخيلها وبالتالي تعاظم دورها السياسي والاقتصادي، وبدأت تأخذ مكانة تنافس بها قلب العالم العربي القديم المتمثل في سورية والعراق ومصر، وفي بعض الأحيان استطاعت أن تملي على بعض من هذه الدول مواقف وتمارس نفوذها المستمدّ من مساعداتها المالية السخية والمشروطة بالطبع. بحساب بسيط استطاع منتجو النفط رفع أسعار برميل نفطهم بنسبة 400% (من 3 دولارات إلى 13 دولاراً) خلال أيام عام 1973، لكنهم احتاجوا بعد ذلك إلى قرابة النصف قرن ليصل سعر البرميل إلى حدود 70 دولاراً، ولكن تداعيات الجائحتين أعادته إلى ما دون الصفر، فالآبار من الصعب إغلاقها، ومخازن النفط امتلأت ولم تعد تستوعب المزيد، وإمكانيه إتلاف فائض البترول تختلف عن إتلاف المحاصيل الزراعية التي قد تتحوّل إلى أعلاف أو أسمدة أما مادة النفط فهي مدمّرة للبيئة… إنه عالم مجنون، عالم يسير بلا قوانين ضابطة، وما كان مهماً بالأمس أصبح اليوم عديم الأهمية، وما كان يستدعي حشد الجيوش والأساطيل والجنود من أجله في أيام ماضية أصبح القتال من أجل الخلاص منه والابتعاد عنه هو العمل.
حتى قبل أيام قليلة افترضت الولايات المتحدة الأميركية أنّ ما يهمّها في بلادنا هو مناطق شرق الفرات، حيث ثروات بترولية ضخمة، وكانت الولايات المتحدة تدعم حلفاءها وصنائعها وعملاءها هناك بشكل سخيّ وبما يجعلهم قادرين على مناجزة الدولتين السورية والعراقية، فما هي قيمة شرق الفرات اليوم؟ وهل لا زال لأولئك الصنائع أو الحلفاء أهمية طالما أنّ البترول لم يعد يساوي شيئاً لا بل تحوّل إلى عبء على مالكه وعلى منتجه والمستثمر في مجاله، دولاً كانت أم شركات نفطية وشركات زيت صخري؟
داعش والنصرة والأكراد ومن لفّ لفّهم من جماعات تكفيرية وإرهابية أو انفصالية والتي تلقت دعماً سياسياً واسعاً، بعضها أتاها الدعم من دول البترودولار وبعضها من تركيا ودولة بترودولارية إضافة للولايات المتحدة وشريكتها الإقليمية (إسرائيل)، لكن هؤلاء لم يعودوا في السنوات الأخيرة يحتاجون إلى الدعم المالي، وذلك بعد أن سيطروا على آبار النفط وسرقوا إنتاجها ووجدوا أسواقاً لبيعه، فهل تستطيع تلك الجماعات الاستمرار في حربها، وليس للنفط من يشتريه؟
حرب اليمن، وهي جزء من حروب السعودية على إيران وعلى ما يعتبرونه التمدّد الإيراني، هذه الحرب التي طحنت رحاها ما يزيد على نصف تريليون دولار ذهبت عبثاًً ولم تحقق سوى الهزائم والخيبات. فهل من الممكن للسعودية أن تستمرّ في تمويل حربها هذه، السعودية التي رفعت سقف إنتاجها وخفّضت الأسعار في الأسابيع الماضية بهدف ضرب اقتصاديات إيران وفنزويلا وروسيا، حق عليها القول: من حفر حفرة لأخيه وقع فيها، خاصة أنّ أزمة الوباء قد أوقفت السياحة الدينية من حجّ وعمرة والتي كانت مصدر الدخل الثاني للخزينة السعودية بعد النفط، ولا تزال إمكانيات استنهاض سعر برميل النفط في عالم الغيب وغير منظورة في القريب. فالشتاء قد ولى والصيف قد أقبل الأمر الذي يضعف الطلب، ومصانع كثيرة عبر العالم توقفت عن الإنتاج أو أنها تعمل بشكل جزئي، ووسائط النقل الجوية والبحرية والأرضية لا تكاد تبارح مطاراتها وموانئها ومواقفها.
في رام الله اعتقدت حكومة د. اشتية أنّ اتصالاتها بالأوروبيّين والعرب وبنك التمويل الإسلامي وسواهم من المانحين ستؤتي ثمارها، ولكن بعد هذا الانهيار في الاقتصاديات العالمية فلا يظنّن احد بأنّ دعماً سيأتي. فالداعمون قد أصبحوا يحتاجون إلى من يدعمهم وفاقد الشيء لا يعطيه، ولن يكون أمام الفلسطيني والأردني واللبناني سوى الصدق والصبر وربط الأحزمة إلى أقصى قدر ممكن، وربما انتظار جائحة ثالثة شبيهة بالتي أعقبت تهجير الكويت 1990-1991، وذلك بعودة أعداد ضخمة من المغتربين في الخليج من فلسطينيين وأردنيين ولبنانيين إلى بلادهم.
في تل أبيب أعلن مساء الاثنين عن التوافق بين «الليكود» و«أبيض – أزرق» على تشكيل حكومة واسعة، ويذهب البعض للقول إنّ ما دفع لهذا الاتفاق هو الجائحة الاقتصادية، والتي تصيب دولة الاحتلال الثرية وذات الاقتصاد القوي، والتي يمثل الغاز جزءاً من مداخيلها الراهنة والمستقبلية. مطلوب من الحكومة هناك تخفيف الأضرار وإدارة الأزمة والاستفادة من حالة الانشغال الدولي والمحلي بضمّ الأغوار وأراضي المستوطنات وشمال البحر الميت وبرية الخليل في تموز المقبل.
في الموروث الديني حديث نبوي يقول: من بات آمناً في سربه، معافى في بدنه، مالكاً قوت يومه، فكأنما ملك الدنيا وما فيها. ماذا يملك الإنسان الذي تفتك الكورونا في بدنه، ويحول الانهيار الاقتصادي بينه وبين قوت يومه، وتهدّد التداعيات الاجتماعية والأمنية التي ستلي ما تقدّم بأمنه…. لقد فقد العالم عقله…
يثير التهديد الأميركي لآل سعود بقطع التعاون معهم على مستويات التغطية السياسية والاستراتيجية والتسليح والتدريب والرعاية وسحب المستشارين والعسكريين الاميركيين المنتشرين في الخليج، الدهشة لأنه لا يتصل بأي توتر سابق بين الطرفين ولا يعكس تاريخاً طويلاً ومتواصلاً من الولاء السعودي الكامل للسياسة الاميركية في كل بقاع الارض.
فهذه العلاقات تطورت بعد توقيع معاهدة كوينسي في 1945 بين الرئيس الاميركي روزفلت والعاهل السعودي عبد العزيز على اساس التغطية الكاملة مقابل الولاء والتسهيلات النفطية والتبعية الاقتصادية بما جعل هذا التاريخ رمزاً لانصياع سعودي كامل وعلني وضع كامل الإمكانات الاقتصادية والدينية في خدمة الجيوبوليتيك الاميركي متيحاً بدوره للسعودية فرصة حيازة ادوار في كبيرة في الخليج والتأثير في جوارهما المباشر في العراق واليمن والعالمين العربي والاسلامي.
على هذا الاساس قامت معادلة القطبية الاميركية التي تشكل السعودية جناحها في محوريها العربي والاسلامي مع أهمية دولية نسبية.
اللافت هنا ان هذا الوضع لا يزال معتمداً حتى هذا التاريخ ويبدو منفصلاً الى درجة غريبة من نوعين من التهديد الأميركي.
الاول اطلقه الرئيس دونالد ترامب محذراً صديقته السعودية ومنافسته روسيا من الاستمرار في رفع انتاجيهما النفطي وإلا فإنه متجه الى فرض ضرائب ورسوم على صادراتهما من البترول.
اما الثاني فكان أشد عنفاً واطلقه الحزب الجمهوري الاميركي الذي ينتمي اليه ترامب معلناً فيه استعداد الدولة الاميركية قطع كامل علاقاتها مع السعودية اذا لم تتراجع عن رفع انتاجها النفطي الى مستويات اقل مما كان عليه قبل شهرين فقط.
وهذا يعني إعادته من 13 مليون برميل يومياً كما هو الآن الى تسعة ملايين كما كان في كانون الثاني الماضي… مع امل على خفضه اضافياً في اطار خفض جماعي لدول منظمة اوبيك يتعادل مع التراجعات الاقتصادية التي فرضها انتشار جائحة الكورونا المتواصل حتى الآن.
المدهش هنا أن الاميركيين يصرون على هذا الخفض رافضين تحديد سقف لإنتاجهم من النفط الصخري الشديد الكلفة والبترول العادي ويبررون بأن نفوطهم تراجعت في الآونة الأخيرة بسبب تراجع اسعار البترول الى 23 دولاراً للبرميل بعد الرفع السعودي – الروسي لإنتاجيهما فكان ان توقفت شركات النفط الصخري عن العمل، لأن كلفة استخراج البرميل الواحد من هذا النوع تتعدى الأربعين دولاراً، ما ادى الى تدهور كبير في اقتصاديات هذه الشركات الاميركية وتريد خفض الاسعار العالمية لإعادة انعاش الشركات الاميركية التي تؤمن وظائف لعشرات آلاف العمال وتؤدي دوراً مركزياً في التفاعلات الاقتصادية الكبرى، لذلك فإن هذه التطورات تدعو الى التساؤل عن اسباب صمت الاميركيين عن رفع السعودية لإنتاجها النفطي في تاريخ رفعه قبل أشهر عدة، ولماذا يعترضون الآن؟
الواضح أنهم في المرحلة الأولى اعتقدوا ان رفع الإنتاج السعودي يؤدي فوراً الى ضرب الاقتصاد الروسي المعتمد على النفط والغاز بمعدل اربعين في المئة من موازناتهم ويضاعف مصاعب ايران التي يقاطعها الاميركيون ويحاصرونها مع نفر كبير من دول تؤيدهم او تخشاهم.
لكن انتشار الكورونا والشلل الاقتصادي في العام احدث شللاً كبيراً وخطيراً وعاماً في الاقتصاد الاميركي وشركات النفط الصخري وذلك عشية انتخابات رئاسية واصبح المشروع الاميركي بضرب روسيا عبر استخدام النفط السعودي كارثة على الاميركيين ايضاً.
وإذا كان إقناع السعوديين بخفض إنتاجهم عملاً ممكناً بسهولة، فإن إقناع الروس هو المشكلة الفعلية لانهم سارعوا الى رفض الطلب الاميركي مصرين على خفض متواز بين دول «اوبيك +» اي اوبيك زائد روسيا مع النفط الأميركي.
في حين أن الأميركيين يريدون خفضاً عالمياً يسمح لشركاتهم بالعودة الى الإنتاج والتوظيف بقوة ما يسمح لترامب بكسب أصوات الفئات الشعبية في الانتخابات المقبلة.
الموضوع اذاً بالنسبة للبيت الابيض هو اقتصادي في جانبه المتعلق بإنتاج النفط وتحديد اسعاره، وهو أيضاً سياسي لعلاقته بالانتخابات الرئاسية في تشرين الثاني المقبل، وهو أيضاً استراتيجي جيوبوليتيكي لتعاطفه مع حالة التنافس الشديد مع روسيا، وتحالفاتها في ايران والصين.
الأمر الذي يوضح ان رفع الانتاج السعودي هو قرار اميركي لكن العودة عنه لم تعد كذلك بل اصبحت معادلة تحتاج الى موافقة روسيا ومنظمة الاوبيك وهناك تكمن المشكلة، لان الروس يقبلون بالخفض بمعدل يواكب تداعيات كورونا على تراجع الاقتصاد العالمي لكنهم يشترطون ان يسري هذا الخفض على النفط الاميركي ايضاً بما يؤدي الى عرقلة عودة النشاط النفطي الى الاقتصاد الاميركي.
لذلك فإن اقتصار هذا الخفض على السعوديين لن يؤدي الى النتائج الاميركية المطلوبة، فجاء التهديدان الاميركيان للسعودية بمثابة إنذار لروسيا لحلحلة تصلبها وخطاباً عاطفياً للناخبين الاميركيين بأن الحزب الجمهوري الاميركي لن يتورع عن معاقبة صديقة بلاده الاساسية اي السعودية اذا اكملت سياسة رفع انتاجها الموازية لشركات النفط الصخري وآلاف الاميركيين العاملين فيها، الامر الذي يكشف انهما ليسا اكثر من دبلجة لغوية غير قابلة للتطبيق العملي لان السعودية هي البقرة الاميركية الحلوب التي تنعش الاقتصاد الاميركي وتؤمن للسياسة الاميركية مدى اسلامياً واسعاً يزداد انصياعاً لواشنطن عندما يستعمل آل سعود أهمية بلادهم الدينية والتغطية في خدمته.
اما على المقلب الآخر الذي يذهب الى التساؤل حول امكانية آل سعود مقاومة الاميركيين بطلب خفض انتاج نفطهم فيثير الضحك لان آل سعود لم يبنوا دولة متماسكة تؤمن بشعبها وتعمل على رفع مستويات النمو والتقدم، بل عملوا على مفهوم من القرون الوسطى يعتبر ان الارض والناس والثروات والمياه هي ملك للسلطان يوزعها على من يشاء ويمنعها عما يريد، فهو ولي الامر واحكامه مطبقة على السمع والطاعة.
هناك نقطة اضافية وهي ان الحكم السعودي لم يؤسس منظومة تحالفات عربية واقليمية تعينه في اوقات الشدة، فهو يعادي ايران معتمداً على اميركا لاسقاط جمهوريتها ويعبث بالامن الاجتماعي والسياسي للعراق متلاعباً بمكوناته وطوائفه ويرتكب مجازر في اليمن تطال مئات الآلاف في هجوم مستمر من خمس سنوات ويدعم الارهاب في سورية ويعادي قطر متدخلاً في ليبيا والسودان والجزائر ومتعاوناً مع «اسرائيل».
فكيف يمكن لبلد من هذا النوع يفتقد لتأييد شعبه مثيراً كراهية جواره السياسي ان يقاوم الاوامر الاميركية وهي اصلاً غير موجودة حتى الآن؟
يتبين ان السعودية لا تزال حاجة ماسة للاميركيين بوضعيتها السياسية الحالية، وهذا يعني ان آل سعود مرتاحون ويواصلون سياسة الاسترخاء السياسي مع خنق شعبهم بأساليب القرون الوسطى.
Trump illegals deliver weapons & trucks into Syria. Archive 6 August 2019.
The Trump regime’s logistical problems in dealing with COVID-19 due to lack of preparedness has not slowed America’s war crimes against Syria. The US media continue to incite hysteria in Americans, over possible shortages in PPE, ventilators, burial grounds and which have returned to the demonization of hydroxychloroquine treatment, remain silent over the regime’s ongoing war crimes.
On Monday, SANA reported that “the US occupation forces” again illegally entered Syria, this time with a convoy of 35 trucks filled with “military and logistic materials” to send to its criminal bases and criminal “occupation points” in the al Jazira area. Trump regime American illegals entered Syria from Iraq, through the “illegal al Walid crossing in al Ya’rubia countryside, to the far northeastern of Hasakah…” with most of the military supplies going to the American illegal base in the illegally occupied Khrab al Jeer Military Airport in the al Malikiyah area.
American illegals in Syria under the command of Donald Trump are there tosteal Syrian oil and “major crops,” despite Trump’s ongoing boasts that the US is oil independent.
Though there is no official government report on coordination, on Monday madman Erdogan also sent a “convoy of [twenty] military vehicles to the city of Ras al Ayn in Hasaka northwestern countryside.” The Muslim Brotherhood caliph wannabe thinks his criminal troops call halt the fratricide and fragging among his semi-independent terrorist mercenaries. These Captagon-fueled pathogens have occupied Ras al Ayn since October and more recently have begun to kill each other fighting over homes and other property they have stolen from Syrian civilians.
Erdogan’s al Qaeda thugs have created yet another offshoot: Firqat al Hamzat, looting homes and businesses in Ras al Ayn. Some kill each over for the stolen booty, but not enough.
Erdogan regime air force bombed the electricity gridof the Alouk Power Plant in October, twice. Twice it was repaired by the Syrian electricity army. The madman’s thugs — both conscripted members of Turkey’s military and assorted armed human detritus — subsequently occupied this region and have engaged in depriving the Syrian civilians of this water supply, for several weeks, with no condemnation from the UN.
After an unsuccessful deployment of thousands of young men fake refugees to crash through the Greek border, Erdogan sent buses to pick them up, and claimed he would house them in coronavirus quarantine areas and later ‘repatriate’ them to their countries of origin, though no one of sane mind believes the unindicted war criminal.
Official COVID-19 stats report Turkey with more than 30,000 confirmed cases and 649 dead, and the US with more than 360,000 confirmed and more than 10,000 dead.
The pandemic has not stopped the war criminal aggressions against Syria, by either madman.
‘Erdogan thinks he’s a Caliph’~ Syrian president Dr. Bashar al-Assad
DAMADCUS, (ST)_ President Bashar al-Assad received on Monday Russia’s Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu and the accompanying delegation. The talks dealt with the Russian-Turkish agreement reached on March, 5, 2020 and the terrorist groups’incessant violations of the agreement.
The two sides focused on the mechanism of implementing the agreement that provides for keeping the terrorists 6km away from Aleppo-Lattakia road. President al-Assad and the Russian minister also discussed the current situation in the Syrian al-Jazeera region , the US’s looting of Syrian oil and the measures adopted by the Syrian government to restore security and stability to all Syrian areas. The efforts being exerted by the Russian leadership at regional and international levels to break the seige and to lift sanctions imposed on the people of Syria were also on the table. There was an agreement between the two sides on the joint steps and policies to be adopted in the next stage.
During the call, Presidents al-Assad and President Putin reviewed the implementation of the Russian-Turkish agreements signed on March 5 to achieve stability in the region of Idleb and the recurrent violations of these agreements by terrorist organizations in addition to the political process.
President Putin congratulated President al-Assad and the Syrian people on the occasion of Isra’a and Mi’raj night, expressing wishes that Syria would overcome difficulties it is passing through and restore security and stability as soon as possible.
تتلاحق القرارات الأميركية بخصوص وضع قواتهم العسكرية في العراق، بشكل لا يخشون فيه من أي اتهام لهم باحتلاله.
فهم بالفعل محتلّون يُصدرون قرارات حاسمة معتمدين بتفتيته الى وجود مكوّنات ثلاثة متصارعة وشبه منقسمة بأبعاد عرقية وطائفية وجغرافية.
وهذا ينسحب على الرئاسات العراقية الثلاث الجمهورية «الكردية» والحكومية «الشيعية» والنواب «السنية» التي توالي سياسات مذاهبها، وبالتالي مناطقها بما ينتج ضياعاً للقرار الوطني الموحّد والتصاقاً بالسياسات الدولية والإقليمية.
هذه هي الوضعية التي يستفيد منها الأميركيون منذ احتلالهم للعراق في 2003، مرغمين سلطاته الدستورية في مراحل لاحقة بالاعتراف بهم في معاهدات الجديدة بأنهم قوى مساندة للدولة العراقية من أجل مكافحة الارهاب من جهة، ولتدريب القوات العراقية من جهة ثانية.
لكن هذه المهام لم تنته وكان يتوجب على الأميركيين الرحيل في 2013، ولم يفعلوا، بذريعة ان الارهاب لا يزال منتشراً حتى أنهم زادوا من قواتهم وقواعدهم في العراق وخصوصاً تلك المنتشرة على حدوده مع سورية.
بأي حال ليس هناك انتشار عسكري أميركي في بلاد غريبة من دون وظائف سياسية. وهذا يسري على العراق ايضاً.
بما يفرض الربط بين الحركتين الأميركيتين العسكرية والسياسية في بلاد الرافدين والجوار السوري.
فهل يمكن تجاهل زيارة الرئيس الأميركي ترامب لقاعدة أميركية في العراق من دون التقائه بالرؤساء العراقيين؟ صحيح أن هذا السلوك استخفافيّ بأصحاب الارض، لكن هناك ما هو أخطر ولم يكترث له السياسيون والعراقيون ولم يتجرأوا على انتقاده وهو تصريح لترامب اثناء «تسلله» الى العراق، يقول فيه إن بلاده باقية في العراق لادارة شؤون المنطقة وتبعه وزيرا الخارجية والدفاع الأميركيان بزيارات مماثلة أكملت ممارسة السياسة الاستخفافية الأميركية بالحكومات العراقية.
أما الخطوة الثالثة فترجمها الأميركيون على شكل تحصين عالي المستوى والمناعة لمقارهم الدبلوماسية في بغداد وكردستان وتزويد قواعدهم بأسلحة نوعية مع عديد ملائم.
وواكبوها بتعطيل متعمد وواضح لتشكيل أي حكومة عراقية جديدة إلا بمعادلة «مدبرة» تستطيع تعطيل أي مشروع لإخراج القوات الأميركية من العراق.
هناك أيضاً ما هو اخطر… وهو الاعلان الأميركي الصريح عن المباشرة بتزويد قواعدهم العسكرية بشبكة صواريخ متنوعة شديدة التطور للدفاع الجوي والقصف البري، هذا الى جانب إحداث ربط شديد ومحكم بين قواعدهم عند الحدود العراقية مع مناطق شرق الفرات السورية عبر دير الزور الى الحسكة والقامشلي والحدود السورية العراقية لناحية الشرق.
وتشير معلومات دولية أكيدة ان هذا الخط الأميركي له اهداف جيوبوليتيكية وسياسية واقتصادية.
لجهة الجيوبوليتيك فإن الاستمرار باحتلال هذه البقعة السورية العراقية تجعل الأميركيين على تماس مباشر مع تركيا والدولة السورية والعراق الرسمي في بغداد والجنوب، والسعودية لناحية الإنبار العراقية، وفي مواجهة إيران في كل مكان تقريباً وحيث توجد قواعدها في كردستان العراقية الى الكويت والبحرين والإمارات وعمان والسعودية وقطر، بما يمنع انهيار النفوذ الأميركي من منطقة الشرق الأوسط بكامله مع مواصلة خنق إيران ومنع روسيا من التمدد «السوفياتي الطابع». والحد من التوغل الصيني، يكفي ان هذا المشروع يجهض سياسياً تأسيس دولة عراقية قوية ذات دور إقليمي ويمنع استكمال الدولة السورية لسيادتها على كامل أراضيها، اي مشروع للتمديد للازمتين العراقية والسورية والاستيلاء على مساحات واسعة جداً هي الأكثر استراتيجية للمشروع الأميركي الجديد.
اقتصادياً يسيطر الأميركيون عبر هذه المساحة العراقية – السورية التي يمسكون بها على آبار النفط الاساسية في كردستان وشرق سورية وشمالها.
أليس هذا ما استشعره الرئيس التركي اردوغان، فحاول إشراك بلده في اللعبة الاستعمارية الأميركية، عبر تحاصص ثلاثي بين القوى الأكثر فاعلية في تلك المنطقة وهي الأميركية والروسية والتركية؟
يكفي هنا عرضه للأسباب التي دفعته الى هذا الاقتراع، وهي على حد زعمه ضرورة بناء مساكن للنازحين السوريين في الشمال والشرق بما يكشف عن استيعابه للمخطط الأميركي مع محاولة بناء منطقة حاجزة داخل الحدود السورية بعمق ثلاثين كيلومتراً يوطن فيها نازحين من جنسيات مختلفة، في مسعى لتغيير ديموغرافي بإبعاد الأكراد السوريين الى الداخل، فتصبح لأردوغان اهداف عدة: تفتيت سورية وطرد الأكراد والهيمنة على النفط مقابل طموح أميركي للسيطرة الجيوبوليتيكية بالاحتلال والسطو على النفط وتركيب أنظمة ومحاولة منع التراجع الأميركي.
بأي حال هذا ما يريده الأميركيون والأتراك.
فما هو الرد العراقي – السوري وبالطبع الإيراني. ومن خلفهم الردود الروسية – الصينية؟
إن كل هذه القوى المعنية تدرك ان الأميركيين يقطعون التواصل السياسي والاقتصادي بين العراق وسورية وإيران وروسيا بشكل مقصود.
لكنها تعي أيضاً ان معركة ادلب هي واحدة من الوسائل السورية – الروسية لمنع تحقيق المشروع الأميركي التركي في الشرق.
بما يوضح أسباب الإصرار الأميركي على منع استكمال عملية تحرير إدلب، مفسراً دواعي هذا الصراخ التركي المستمر.
لكن ما يتسبب بقلق فعلي، هو الوضع العراقي المطلوب منه مؤازرة السوريين إنما داخل العراق وليس خارجه، وذلك لأن الضغط على الأميركيين على طول المساحة المصرين على الإمساك بها يؤدي الى خسارتهم لمشروعهم، وتخفيف وقع عقوباتهم على إيران، بما يمنح الروس ظروفاً مناسبة للدخول في مجابهة فعلية في سورية وغيرها.
هذا إذا وثقوا بوجود وحدة وطنية عراقية تمهّد الشرعية السياسية لدورهم في العراق.
العراق إذاً هو النقطة الاستراتيجية التي يريد منها الأميركيون رعاية الخليج وخنق إيران وتفتيت سورية ومراقبة تركيا، والبدء بمشروع تأسيس دويلات كردية من إيران والعراق وسورية وربما تركيا.
لذلك فإن الميدان العراقي مرشح لصراعات قوية عراقية وإيرانية وأميركية وكردية وتركية وروسية، وربما اشتركت فيها قوى أوروبية.
فيبقى أن وحدة العراقيين هي وحدها الكفيلة بلجم هذه الحروب أو الانتصار عليها. وهذا يتطلّب الخروج من العرقية والطائفية والإيمان بأن الأميركيين لا يعملون الا في خدمة مصالحهم ويستعملون الآخرين حطباً لإضرامها.
April 23, 2020
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