The
currently stateless Kurds sit astride the Iraq-Syria border on land
blessed/cursed with oil, other resources, and geopolitical
significance. Is it any wonder that mega-corporations and their
client states are looking to use the Kurds, stoke conflict, and
exploit the situation?
by
Whitney Webb
Part
7 - Syria partition plan follows the Iraqi partition playbook
Iraq
is by no means the only Middle Eastern country that Western powers
are seeking to partition. The partition of Syria has been repeatedly
sold to the public as the “only” solution to Syria’s ongoing
“sectarian” conflict, now well into its seventh year. However,
this sectarianism was engineered and stoked by foreign powers to
bring about the current conflict in Syria. WikiLeaks revealed that
the CIA was involved in instigating anti-Assad and “sectarian”
demonstrations as early as March 2011. Declassified CIA documents
show the plan to engineer sectarianism in order to weaken the Syrian
state dates back to at least the 1980s.
The
partition idea was also repeatedly touted by the Obama
administration, which stated that it “may be too late” to keep
Syria whole.
In
2011, when the conflict was in its infancy, the U.S. and its allies –
namely Israel, Qatar, Turkey, France, the U.K. and Saudi Arabia –
began supplying tons upon tons of weapons to insurgent and sectarian
elements within Syria, heavily arming the so-called “moderate”
Wahhabi opposition like the Free Syrian Army and the Kurds. As the
conflict raged on – and the “moderate” opposition was exposed
time and again as sharing close ties with internationally recognized
terror organizations like al-Qaeda – Washington’s support began
to shift increasingly towards the Kurds.
As
in Iraq, the spread of Daesh in the area became a pretext for the
U.S. not only to arm the Kurds but also to allow them to take control
of areas, such as Raqqa, once held by Daesh. Media and government
sources repeatedly told the public that the Kurds must be armed, as
they were the only group that had proven “effective” in
countering Daesh. This past March, the Kurds declared the formation
of a Kurdish federation under democratic self-rule. This declared
federation has yet to obtain international recognition, but – given
what has transpired in Iraq and in U.S.-Syrian relations – such an
achievement doesn’t seem far off.
The
Kurds and their U.S. allies currently have gained effective control
of Syria’s north, which comprises about a quarter of the entire
country but boasts over 90 percent of Syrian oil and gas potential.
According to Yeni Şafak, the U.S. along with the Saudis, Egypt, and
Kurdish officials have held meetings where decisions were made to
extract, process and market the oil, with the Kurds being given a
handsome share of the profits. As of 2015, they were said to be
earning in excess of $10 million every month.
Syria’s
Kurdistan exports its oil to Iraq’s Kurdistan, with which it
conveniently shares a border. It is then refined and sold to Turkey.
Though no corporations are explicitly involved, the deal between
Syrian and Iraqi Kurds was brokered by unnamed “oil experts” and
“oil investors.” The Kurds in Syria and Iraq did not even sign
the agreement in person. They were subsequently “informed” and
instructed to supervise the operation.
A
source in Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) told NOW News
that “with regard to southern Kurdistan, it was a company and
not the KRG that signed the deal, and it is [the company] that
directly hands over the sums in cash every month.” Given that
over 80 foreign companies are involved in the KRG’s oil trade, most
of them based in the U.S., we can safely assume that many of the same
players have also been involved in developing the oil trade of
Syria’s Kurdistan.
Source,
links:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/geopolitics-corporate-profits-push-iraq-syria-towards-partition/230830/
Comments
Post a Comment