Oil tanks near the Syria-Iraq border decorated with pictures of past and present Syrian leaders. (photo: Richard Messenger)
The US Wants Syrian Oil, Not Democracy
18 June 13
"... the Persian Gulf, the critical oil and natural gas-producing region that we fought so many wars to try and protect our economy from the adverse impact of losing that supply or having it available only at very high prices." -John Bolton, George W. Bush's ambassador to the United Nations
ll the hubbub over Syria is all about oil. And if you don't believe me, believe John Bolton.
When there's something being talked about in the news
on a regular basis, and if one angle of the story is being consistently
reported by various reputable news organizations, you can be sure
there's something else to the story that isn't being told. Matt Taibbi
called this "chumpbait"
when referring to the media's unified dismissal concerning Bradley
Manning's court-martial. The same applies to the latest corporate media
stories speculating on US military involvement in Syria.
If the US were really concerned about spreading
Democracy in the Middle East, we'd be helping the Occupy Gezi movement
oust Turkish Prime Minister Ergodan and condemning his violent suppression
of human rights, rather than assisting the Free Syrian Army. And the
only reason the powers controlling the US would be interested in
intervening in Turkey would be if Turkish protesters or government
forces shut down the highly-productive Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which goes from Iraq through Southern Turkey.
All of the media has been atwitter about whether or
not the US should get involved in the civil war unfolding in Syria by
supporting anti-government forces. The atrocities recently committed by the Free Syrian Army are reminiscent of the kind committed against the Soviets in the 1980s by the Afghan mujahideen,
whom we actively funded and supplied with arms. (Remember the movie
Charlie Wilson's War?) It should be worth noting that the same
mujahideen fighters we funded to fight our enemies for us in the 1980s became our enemies even before the 9/11 attacks.
In a roundabout way, the US media is making the argument
that because the Assad regime is using chemical weapons on the Syrian
people, the US military should intervene by arming and training the Free
Syrian Army in the hopes of overthrowing President Assad. On the
surface, most Americans would agree that Assad is a brutal dictator and
should be removed from office. But if you asked most Americans whether
or not the US military should intervene in Syria to make sure the profit
margins of oil companies remain strong, it's likely most rational folks
would say no. Digging just beneath the surface, it's easy to see that
US interest in Syria isn't to provide Democracy to Syria, but to ensure
the Kirkuk-Banias oil pipeline will be restored to profitable status.
Even President Obama's press secretary said that foreign policy isn't
driven by what the people want, but by what is best for "American interests."
The Kirkuk-Banias pipeline
runs from Kirkuk in Northern Iraq, to the Syrian town of Banias, on the
Mediterranean Sea between Turkey and Lebanon. Ever since US forces
inadvertently destroyed it in 2003, most of the pipeline has been shut
down. While there have been plans in the works to make the Iraqi portion
of the pipeline functional again, those plans have yet to come to
fruition. And Syria has at least 2.5 billion barrels
of oil in its fields, making it the next largest Middle Eastern oil
producer after Iraq. After ten unproductive years, the oil companies
dependent on the Kirkuk-Banias pipeline's output are eager to get the
pipeline operational again. The tension over the Syrian oil situation is
certainly being felt by wealthy investors in the markets, who are thus dictating US foreign policy.
It's easy to see why the oil-dominated US government wants to be involved in Syria's outcome. The Free Syrian Army has since taken control
of oil fields near Deir Ezzor, and Kurdish groups have taken control of
other oil fields in the Rumeilan region. Many of the numerous
atrocities that Assad's government committed against unarmed women and
children were in Homs, which is near one of the country's only two oil refineries. Israel, the US's only ally in the Middle East, is illegally occupying
the Golan Heights on the Syrian border and extracting their resources.
The US wants to get involved in Syria to monopolize its oil assets,
while simultaneously beating our competition – Iran, Russia and China –
in the race for Syrian black gold.
Big oil's ideal outcome would be for US troops to back
the FSA's overthrow of the Assad regime, meaning that sharing in Syrian
oil profits would be part of the quid-pro-quo the US demands in
exchange for helping the Syrian rebels win. It would be very similar to
when the US, under Teddy Roosevelt, backed Panama's fight for
independence in exchange for US ownership of the Panama Canal. But even after numerous interventions, including the kidnapping of Panama's head of state, the Torrijos-Carter accords gave control of the Panama Canal back to Panama in 1999.
The imperialistic approach to Panama turned out to be more costly than
it would have been if we had just left Panama alone in the first place.
George Santayana said that those who do not learn from
history are doomed to repeat it. If we don't learn from our past
mistakes, like basing foreign policy goals on greed-inspired
imperialism, Syria will blow up in our faces.
Carl Gibson, 26, is co-founder of US Uncut, a
nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of
thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts
in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and
other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not
Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently
lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can contact him at
carl@rsnorg.org, and follow him on twitter at @uncutCG.
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