It’s common knowledge that the Middle East is a huge region full of miracles and wonder, where all things possible and improbable can happen. One such improbable event occurred recently – dozens of Saudi soldiers arrived in the largest Syrian Al Omar Oilfield, located in the Deir ez-Zor province in the east of the Arab Republic. This news, set to be sensational, comes from Turkish state news agency Anadolu, which claims to have been informed by ‘local sources.’ Therefore, the information must be correct. One can only be surprised at this boggling and frankly disappointing development. It seems that Saudi Arabia is already short on its own oil reserves and decided to simply borrow some from their ‘sworn ally’ Bashar al-Assad.
In reality, however, everything is much simpler and quite mundane. It is Washington that lacks the oil or, rather, the money, to pay for the USA’s ventures in the Middle East. And so, President Trump decided to go about it the ‘smart’ way and resorted to such an unusual trick, posting the Saudis to ‘guard’ Syrian oil, recover it and then transfer the profits to the US. As the Russian proverb goes, ‘the wolves are sated and the sheep are intact’, that is, both parties are pleased. After all, who will now say that it is the US military that returns to Syrian oil production plants in order to rob them?
And by the way, the Russian Ministry of Defense issued a statement earlier, which claimed it is precisely the US that engages in ‘national-scale robbery’ in Syria by extracting mineral resources in illegally occupied areas of the country. Further evidence for this is provided by the satellite images published by the Russian Ministry of Defense, which captured the process of Americans recovering oil on Syrian territory and subsequently exporting it. Ministry officials also point out that Syrian oil production was actively carried out and closely overseen by US military personnel both before and after the victory over DAESH (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation). Subsequently, the Americans transported the extracted hydrocarbons by fuel trucks for processing outside Syria.
At the same time, US drones struck an oil refinery plant in Syria near the city of Homs, as reported by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem during a meeting with Sergey Lavrov. He noted that the drones took off from an United States military base al-Tanf, which is based in Homs illegally. All this is taking place in the winter, when Syrians have an increased need for both oil and gas. It also doesn’t help that Syria, drained of its lifeblood, is fighting against numerous terrorists actively supported by the West. “On top of everything else, Syria is facing a “methodical plundering” of its oil by the United States,” said Walid Muallem.
The ‘miracles’ do not end here. The United Arab Emirates is lobbying in the United States Congress, pushing it to impose sanctions on Turkey, according to documents reviewed by the Anadolu News Agency. A week after the House of Representatives enacted its own sanctions legislation, Charles Johnson, a partner with the UAE-hired Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP lobbying group, sent an email seeking to secure the support of the vital United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations so that the chamber follows suit. “I am reaching out on behalf of our client, the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates, to underscore the UAE’s condemnation of Turkish aggression in Syria and support for sanctions measures against Turkey such as the House-passed ‘Protect Against Conflict by Turkey Act,’” Johnson writes in the missive obtained through the Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) website. “I hope this information is helpful as you continue to monitor developments in Syria, and as the Senate considers potential sanctions measures.” According to al-Monitor, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer is just one of over a dozen lobbying firms the UAE has contracted.
Once upon a time, the United States defended the Saudi and Emirate nationals wherever they could. Now the times have changed, and it is the Arabs that are covering for the United States, whose policies are bursting at the seams due to Donald Trump’s thoughtlessness and egotism. For example, the UAE was forced to help just when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warned that Turkey could potentially close down the US air bases İncirlik and Kürecik in response to Washington’s threats to impose sanctions. The Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey is the main base for US operations in the Middle East, and most recently in the fight against DAESH (banned in Russia). In addition, as Trump admitted, up to 50 nuclear charges are stored in the base. Meanwhile the Kurecik Air Base, located in East Turkey, is NATO’s key base and plays an important role for the Alliance’s policies in this region.
The US Congress was unanimous in its opposition to the latest actions of the Turkish president, feeling that Ankara, the USA’s and NATO’s important ally, is getting out of hand. Republican Senators were outraged at Turkey’s purchase of the S-400 missile system, which, as they say, poses a threat to F-35 fighter jets. Many NATO diplomats worry that Turkey, a member of NATO since 1952 and the Alliance’s most important ally in the Middle East, is acting increasingly unilaterally under the current president. Turkey, in turn, strongly criticizes its NATO allies for their reluctance to recognize its security problems on the Syrian border, leaving Turkey to fight against terrorist threats alone.
Moreover, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared that the Turkish parliament may adopt a resolution to recognize the mass slaughter of Native Americans during the colonial period as genocide, in response to the US Senate resolution which recognized the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.
At the same time, Turkey continues to very professionally and competently pressure the NATO states, using a number of very compelling arguments. “The Republic of Turkey intends to send DAESH militants back to their homeland. Ankara is not a hotel for foreign terrorists,” Turkey’s Minister of the Interior Süleyman Soylu said at a briefing in Istanbul. He also added: “The European countries’ refusal to repatriate their citizens, who fought for terrorist organizations in Syria, is unacceptable and irresponsible. Britain and the Netherlands were not the only EU powers that stripped some of the DAESH fighters of their nationality to prevent Ankara from sending them home,” the news service reports.
Soylu’s statements were made after Dutch lawmakers proposed a bill to prevent their government decision to return 23 female terrorists and 56 children back to their homeland. Turkish authorities claim that over 5,000 militants have been arrested in recent years. Since the start of Turkish counter-terrorism operations against DAESH in Syria, militants have started carrying out attacks within the country. According to government statistics, over 300 Turkish citizens were killed in terrorist attacks, as the country’s media reported.
This is why the Pentagon has now transferred its activity from Syria to its bases in Western Iraq, still sending weapons and military equipment to DAESH terrorist groups. “The American forces send aid from their bases to the ISIL terrorists in Makhoul mountains and their assistance still continues,” the Fars News Agency reported. The agency’s journalists also report that the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) discovered and seized US weapons during an operation against DAESH in Al-Azhar. Also, according to the Syrian State News Agency (SANA), US forces have transferred over 300 DAESH families from Syria (the al-Hawl camp in Syria’s Hasaka Province) to the neighboring Iraq. Syrian journalists have suggested that due to being based in Iraq under constant American control, these families will be ready to cross the Iraqi-Syrian border at any time and attack the Syrian troops.
Without doubt, the USA’s policy in the entire Middle East is collapsing. Sooner or later, the country will either have to leave this region or try to pursue a friendlier policy regarding the Middle Eastern states, especially Syria. The principled position of Russia is that Syria should be freed from the illegal presence of foreign troops as the country’s stabilization is possible only by maintaining its territorial integrity. Syria should be freed from the illegal presence of foreign troops; achieving long-term, sustainable stabilization in Syria is possible only by preserving its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Moscow is in favor of taking further steps to advance a peaceful political process in Syria, which the Syrians will conduct within the framework of the UN-authorized Constitutional Committee. “We believe it is necessary to continue to help Syrian refugees return to their homeland,” Putin declared. This will significantly ease the burden borne by the countries that have agreed to accept Syrians. The Russian President called on the international community, and especially on specialized UN agencies, to actively provide humanitarian aid to all returning Syrians without discrimination.
Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
