Eastern Christianity Fell into the Last Ambush in East Beirut, But ‘for Every Samir there’s a Habib’

ARABI SOURI OCTOBER 17, 2021

Samir Geagea, Lebanese politician, head of parliament bloc, war criminal, and US proxy is working overtime to ignite a redo of the Lebanese civil war that lasted 15 years between 1975 and 1990, the civil war that destroyed much of the country and led to a massive exodus of mainly the Christians. Naram Serjoon, a Syrian author has a radical idea to prevent new massacres and a new civil war in Lebanon, it worked before to wake up the Christians of Lebanon from sacrificing themselves for the evil plot Geagea is tasked by his western and Saudi sponsors, the following is the translation of his latest post.

It is said that the history of life on earth is a history of death, the process of extinction and fading affected 90% of the earth’s creatures; I fear that this prophecy will apply to the Eastern Christian existence, which is eroding and vanishing, it seems that a shot of mercy on this existence will be fired from Christian hands but at the same time, only a Christian hand will save Eastern Christianity.

I am writing these words and my pen is trembling, and my heart is trembling from the cold, and here I am writing a prophecy as if it were a vision, and a vision as if it was a prophecy, and my prophecy and my vision look to the East, which has changed a lot so that the Jews became more than the Christians in less than fifty years. The Zionist project was able to uproot Christianity from the East by uprooting its nails that were embedded like wedges throughout the East. I look around and I do not see except the bleeding of the Christian demography. This Eastern bleeding of Christians is not a coincidence and is not innocent, as if someone wants to say that the East is pure Islam and that the West is an overwhelming Christianity, and that the conflict between East and West is a conflict between Christianity and Islam, and it is Israel that will represent the remnants of Christianity through The Old Testament, and that the relationship of the East with Christianity will be limited to Jewish Israel.

In the twentieth century, the biggest loser from the friction with Western European colonialism was Eastern Christianity. Antioch and its church were appended to Turkey. Antioch Christians became isolated as a weak minority in a Turkish Islamic sea. The Christian presence isolated from the Christianity spread in the Levant kept shrinking and eroding until the Christian presence in Antioch almost became extinct, which is a natural result of isolating the Christian enclave of Antioch and separating it from the large natural Christian body in the Levant.

Then two projects were advanced in the region through the Sykes-Picot project. The most losers of these two projects were the remnants of the Eastern Christian bloc in the Levant, and these two projects are the Francophone project and the Anglo-Saxon project.

The Anglo-Saxon project created the Jewish-Zionist project that swallowed Palestine and completely eradicated its Christians, only 1% of the historical Christians of Palestine remain in all of Palestine today, that is, Christianity has been eradicated from Palestine, what is the use of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher when there is no demographic mass around it? Today, it has turned into a tourist attraction under the supervision of Israel.

The Francophone project created the state of Greater Lebanon and designated it to be a Christian state with a Christian majority. But this entity called Christian Lebanon separated the Christians of Lebanon from the Christians of Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and Jordan. The Christians of Lebanon were attached to European Christianity because this French Christian entity, by design, began to feel that it was threatened by its Arabic and Islamic environment and that there was no way to preserve it except by European protection. This made the relationship with his Arabic and Islamic surrounding tense which caused civilian wars in which all of the Christians joined and lost their youth in religious tribulations that led many of them to emigrate, and Christian Lebanon turned into a European protectorate at odds with its surroundings and always suspicious of it.

When the West invaded Iraq and launched the Arab Spring project in Syria and took care of the growth of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra (Nusra Front) and gave them names like Jaysh al-Islam, Jaysh al-Jolani, Ahrar al-Sham and Sultan Murad as armies of liberation and freedom, it was aware that the first to pay the price would be the Christian presence in the East. Nevertheless, it turned a blind eye to the violence that pushes Christians to emigrate and flee like what the Zionists did to the Jews of Iraq when they blew up synagogues and Jewish neighborhoods to force Iraqi Jews to flee to occupied Palestine. Indeed, the Christians disappeared from the Nineveh Plain and from the Syrian Jazira region, and the Christians evaporated from areas that were Christian for the past two thousand years. I learned from well-known and respected Syrian Christian personalities that the Christians of Syria received a share of the extinction, and that their numbers decreased, and that there were those who were working to displace them and facilitate their migration under the pretext of protecting them. The West dismantled the Iraqi army, which was the cover for all Iraqi Christians and Muslims, but Christians were targeted with covert violence, in particular, to force them to flee.

Likewise, the West, with its support for the so-called Syrian revolution, expelled the Syrian army and the Syrian state from the Syrian Jazira and from the Christian areas. In fact, the West saw that ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra were expanding in Lebanon from the Syrian border, nevertheless, it did the impossible to stop the Syrian army and Hezb Allah and prevent it from confronting ISIS and Al-Nusra in Lebanon although far and near knew that this Islamist terrorist wave would uproot Christians either by terrorizing and intimidating them or by launching religious guardianship on them to force them to leave. It is very difficult for anyone to convince me that the West did not see this fate and this path. The West is not naive to believe that the Islamists will leave the Christians to live in safety.

There is no doubt that the Islamist wave has annihilated a lot of Christian demography and kept it away from the scene and the demographic map, but the last remaining scene remains of the Christians of the East who are pushed to a new holocaust this time by a crazy and extremist Christian, Samir Geagea, the one who boasts that he has thousands of experienced fighters to defend Christianity and East Beirut even though these gunmen watched the advance of ISIS and al-Nusra in Lebanon and their spread and did not move a finger to protect any Christian, rather, Geagea’s effort was to defend Jabhat al-Nusra.

It is strange that Geagea realizes that any battle with any party in Lebanon will end with his complete crushing, Western countries will not intervene to protect him because he will not be more precious than the Christians of Al-Quds (Jerusalem,) Palestine, Iraq, and eastern Syria whom the West saw with its own eyes dispersing, shrinking and extinct and not move a finger.

Samir Geagea wants one thing, and that is to lure Hezb Allah into a battle with him, even if it is a losing battle, if Samir Geagea loses the battle, this will cause a natural sympathy and Christian bias towards him, and a part of the Christians of the Aounist movement will be inclined towards him.

This will divide the Christians more and open a Christian-Christian conflict, and if it appears that he is winning, it will be an attractive factor for Christian elements from the other Aounist camp as well because victory has an attraction like happened with the Islamists who won at the beginning of the battles of the Arab Spring and the Syrian war, which encouraged many to join them to enjoy victory and the attachment with the new glory.

What matters is that Christians will be lured to a Christian – Christian war or a Muslim – Christian war or a Shiite – Christian war, whatever the results are, it will be catastrophic on the Christians of the East. Their intense presence in Lebanon may end whatever the result of the conflict will be because the war will not be merciful and immigration will be easier for Christian youth because this violent engagement in free internal conflicts will only be bad results on Christians because they will find themselves in the midst of a long civilian battle will be bleeding their money and their youth, many of them will find the doors for immigration open and welcoming and this mass exodus will be the shot of mercy on the Christian presence in Lebanon.

Perhaps the Christians of the East and Lebanon, in particular, do not realize what trap and ambush they are being led into by the recklessness of Samir Geagea, who puts the Christians of Lebanon against their will in the face of Hezb Allah and the Axis of Resistance that challenged America itself and the West and will not allow Geagea to harm Hezb Allah. Samir Geagea will be extremely naive if he thought Israel would go to war for him. Rather, Israel’s ultimate ambition will be to split the alliance between Michel Aoun and Hezb Allah and for Geagea to relieve it from paying the blood of the confrontation with Hezb Allah, as it did with the Islamist youth who paid their blood and it left them to die on its behalf.

But if this war breaks out, it will isolate the Eastern Christians and turn them into a strained entity that is afraid for its existence that will end by natural shrinkage and contraction. And if the strong Christian presence in Lebanon ends, this will mean a message to those who remain from the Christians of the East that the East is no longer for them and they must prepare their departure because in any change in the political systems, trends, and conflicts, they will be forced to enter into alliances they do not want and they will be a weak minority that will be swept away by political passions.

Unfortunately, if Hezb Allah refrains from punishing Samir Geagea because it is aware of the sensitivity of the situation and the game targeting Christians, its main allies in Lebanon, it will encourage Samir Geagea to commit more foolishness and recklessness. Perhaps there will be no equation with the least losses, except to return to a Christian equation that said previously “for every traitor, there is a Habib, and for every Bashir (Gemayel) there is a Habib”. It is the equation established by the hero Habib al-Shartouni, the Lebanese national Christian, the son of the martyr hero Anton Saadeh.

As the hero, Jules Jamal, the Syrian Christian who carried out the death sentence against the French (Christian) destroyer Jean Bar in Port Said, Habib Al-Shartouni was a Lebanese Christian who executed a traitorous Lebanese Christian in defense of the name of the national Eastern Christianity. This heroic act was a reason for the Lebanese Christian national forces to wake up and take the initiative from the reckless and adventurous Christians and bring the Christians of Lebanon back to the heart of the national scene that created the fall of May 17 (accord), and that created the phenomenon of Hezb Allah, whose back was supported by Christian patriotism, without them, it would not have been easy to achieve the liberating of the south (from Israel in 2000) and defeating Israel in 2006.

Habib al-Shartouni’s work was a message that everyone understood, and heroism that saved a lot of Christian and Lebanese blood. Will the youth of Christian Lebanon do it and bring us a hero that saves us the trouble of punishing Samir Geagea and launches an equation (for every Samir there’s a Habib)? Be fully confident that this equation will awaken the lunatics in the Lebanese Forces (Radical right-wing LF Militia) from their delusions, dreams, and indiscretion, and restore many of them to their senses and rationality, which are manipulated by the Israeli propaganda outlets that publish scenes of violence in the name of the Lebanese Forces as if they are calling for holy Christian jihad.

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لماذا العراق؟….بقلم: أ. د. بثينة شعبان

 2021-09-06

 أ. د. بثينة شعبان

منذ الاحتلال البريطاني للعراق خلال الحرب العالمية الأولى التي انتهت عام 1918 لم تتوقف المحاولات الغربية لاحتواء العراق وخاصة لفصله عن امتداده الطبيعي إلى بلاد الشام حيث التبادل التاريخي والمعرفي والاقتصادي كان معروفاً بين مملكة إيبلا وبلاد الرافدين. وتشهد الرقم التاريخية والتطور الزراعي على التفاعل والتكامل والانسجام الحضاري والحياتي بين سورية والعراق على مرّ التاريخ إلى أن بدأت بالسعي لإلحاق العراق بسياساتها وربطه بمعاهدات متعددة في عشرينيات وثلاثينيات القرن الماضي وصولاً إلى حلف بغداد عام 1955 والذي كان يضم بالإضافة إلى المملكة المتحدة كلاً من العراق وتركيا وإيران الشاه وباكستان.

لقد كان الهدف الأول لهذا الحلف هو محاولة وقف نفوذ الاتحاد السوفييتي الذي كان قد وطّد ووسّع علاقته في تلك الفترة مع سورية ومصر. ومع أن الولايات المتحدة هي صاحبة فكرة إنشاء هذا الحلف ووعدت بتقديم الدعم الاقتصادي والعسكري للأعضاء إلا أنها لم تشارك فيه بشكل مباشر وإنما وكّلت بريطانيا للقيام بذلك، ولكن العراق انسحب من الحلف بعد ثورة 14 تموز 1958 التي أطاحت بالنظام الملكي الهاشمي وأعلنت الجمهورية واستقلّ العراق لأول مرة من النفوذ البريطاني، وانتقل مركز الحلف بعد ذلك من بغداد إلى أنقرة، وأقام العراق علاقات دبلوماسية واقتصادية وعسكرية مع الاتحاد السوفييتي، وبذلك أخفق هذا الحلف في وقف توسع نفوذ الاتحاد السوفييتي الذي وطّد علاقاته مع الدول العربية في تلك الفترة. ومع اندلاع الثورة الإيرانية عام 1979 أطلقت رصاصة الرحمة على حلف بغداد الذي اعتُبر من أضعف الأحلاف التي نشأت خلال الحرب الباردة.

ولكن محاولات احتواء العراق لم تتوقف وأسوأ تجلياتها على مرّ العقود الماضية كان نشوب الحرب العراقية الإيرانية بعد انتصار الثورة الإيرانية وبذل الجهود المستمرّة والمستميتة لفصل العراق عن عمقه العربي السوري، ومنع حتى إقامة أي علاقة وتواصل بين هذين البلدين المنسجمين تاريخياً وديموغرافياً وجغرافياً وحضارياً لأن التكامل والتفاعل بين سورية والعراق سيؤسس من دون شك لبنة عربية متينة قد تشكل قاعدة ومنطلقاً للعلاقات العربية السليمة والمجزية لكلّ المنخرطين فيها، ولذلك فقد كانت الحدود العراقية السورية دوماً أحد الأهداف الغربية وقد حرصت الدول الاستعمارية الغربية على خلق كافة الحجج والذرائع والمؤامرات لإبقاء هذه الحدود مغلقة في فترات طويلة من تاريخ البلدين.

إذ رغم كل الدعم الذي قدمه الغرب للعصابات الإرهابية منذ 2011 في حربها على سورية ورغم انشغاله في حرب إرهابية تدميرية في الداخل السوري فإن نظر الغرب لم يحد عن هذه الحدود وسعى إلى ضمان بقاء الإرهاب قربها كي يمنع فتحها والتواصل الحقيقي بين الشعبين السوري والعراقي لأن هذا التواصل سيعود بالفائدة الجمّة على البلدين انتماءً وثقافة وعروبة وحضارة واقتصاداً وتكاملاً حقيقياً. ولا شك أن كل الذرائع للإبقاء على هذه الحدود مغلقة تتلخص بأهداف الإدارة الأميركية القديمة الجديدة والتي تريد أن يكون العراق قاعدة للدول المنضوية تحت لواء الغرب وسدّاً في وجه روسيا والصين وإيران وفي وجه دخول الصين خاصة إلى منطقة الشرق الأوسط ومنع قيام أي مسعى وحدوي بين البلدين.

الغرب يعتبر العراق بوابة لنفوذه في الشرق الأوسط، ولا شك أن العراق بعمقه الحضاري ومؤهلات شعبه وثرواته الظاهرة والباطنة يشكّل عمقاً وحدوياً عروبياً وأن فصله عن سورية وإلهاءه بتحالفات غير قابلة للحياة وأثبتت فشلها على مرّ التاريخ يظهران أهمية العراق الحقيقية وإدراك الغرب لهذه الأهمية ومحاولاته تجيير كل مقدرات العراق لصالحه ونهب ثرواته وإلهاء شعبه بالخلافات الطائفية. من هذا المنظور يمكن أن نفهم كل محاولات التدمير والتهميش والاحتلال والحصار والعقوبات للعراق وشعبه على مدى العقود الماضية، وأن كل ما أثير من تهم له من أسلحة دمار شامل إلى غيرها كانت غطاءً بائساً لتنفيذ تلك الأهداف.

ولكن وبعد قرن ونيّف من أساليب وطموحات وطروحات الغرب هذه أصبح من البدهي أن يدرك أصحاب الشأن حقيقة ما يقال ومجافاته للواقع والهدف المراد منه؛ إذ لم يعد مقبولاً اليوم أن يشعر البعض بسعادة غامرة لأن مسؤولاً غربياً قرر أن يحضر مؤتمراً في بغداد وكأنّ هذا الحضور يشكل منّة أو قيمة مضافة في حين يهدف إلى تحقيق ما عجزوا عن تحقيقه من قبل من التواطؤ ضد نسيج العراق العربي وتواصله مع أهله وجيرانه واختراع تحالفات له لا مستقبل لها ولا تسمن ولا تغني من جوع بل تتركه فريسة لمن يتشدّق بحضارة بغداد، في حين تحلّ قواه العسكرية الطاغية قوة غاشمة على أرض العراق الطاهرة؛ تحتل الأرض وتنهب الخيرات وتدعم الإرهاب وتغزو الأسواق بمنتجاتها العثمانية وتروّج للطائفية وترسل الإرهابيين من الإخوان المسلمين في بلد تاريخه العيش المشترك والغنى الحضاري والتمازج الثقافي.

السؤال الذي يشغل بالي دائماً: لماذا لا نثق نحن العرب بقيمة ما لدينا؟ ولماذا لا نعرف أحياناً أهمية ما لدينا حتى يتم تسليط الضوء عليه من قبل الخصوم والأعداء؛ فنسعى حينذاك جاهدين إلى الاحتفاظ به أو تحريره من عدوانهم دافعين أغلى الأثمان في سبيل ذلك؟
لماذا لا نقتنع أن التكالب الغربي على بلداننا ومؤامراتهم ضدنا والتحالفات التي خلقوها لتمزيق صفوفنا وبناء الحواجز بين شعوبنا تعني أن لدينا ما هو ثمين وما يريدون الحصول عليه أو تدميره إذا لم يتمكنوا من انتزاعه منا؟ لماذا نحتاج إلى اعتراف الآخرين بأن موقعنا الجغرافي وثرواتنا الطبيعية والبشرية وعمقنا الحضاري وعيشنا المشترك عبر التاريخ يشكلون قيمة استثنائية لا يمتلكها الآخرون ويتوجب علينا الحفاظ عليها والاعتزاز بها من دون الحاجة إلى من يعترف لنا بذلك ومن دون الحاجة إلى شهادة من الخصوم والأعداء التاريخيين الذين ما زالوا يحطون من قدر بلادنا إلى أن يستولوا على مقدراتنا ويدمروها.

فهل تحتاج بغداد التاريخ إلى محتل عثماني ومتواطئ غربي كي تعرف قيمتها ومكانتها؟ وهل كانوا ليأتوا إليها لولا إدراكهم العميق لهذه القيمة؟ وهل يجوز أن تمتثل لما يريدون علماً أنهم برهنوا للمرة الألف أنهم يريدون للعراق التبعية فقط والوقوف في وجه التنين القادم من الشرق وأن تكون بغداد والقاهرة وعمّان سنداً لهم في وجه هذا التنين؟ إلى متى ستبقى المرجعية الغربية تذرّ الرماد في العيون ويبقى المستعمر الغربي متمادياً في نشر أوهامه عبر الأجيال أنه الأذكى والأقوى والأعرف؟ متى سيشكل العرب مرجعيتهم الخاصة بهم والمنطلقة من تقديرهم لذاتهم وتاريخهم وإمكاناتهم الاستثنائية ويمضون في التحالفات التي يختارونها هم بإرادتهم الحرة ولصالح شعوبهم وبلدانهم من دون ضغوطات أو إملاءات أو تهديدات من أحد؟ متى يكون الرأي حراً لا يتحكم به سوى الشأن الوطني والمصلحة العربية العليا؟

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RUSSIAN-SYRIAN GAS CONTRACT HINTS AT SYRIA’S RECOVERY

 Source

 09.04.2021

Submitted by Steven Sahiounie.

The Syrian government signed a 4-year contract in March with Capital Limited, a Russian firm, to conduct oil and gas exploration in the area known as block No. 1 in the Syrian exclusive economic zone in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of the Tartous province.

The disputed maritime area covers 2,250 square kilometers on the Syrian-Lebanese maritime borders in the Mediterranean Sea.

Large reservoirs of natural gas have been discovered under the seafloor of the eastern Mediterranean and the neighboring nations and energy exploration companies are eager to exploit these gas deposits.

The Levantine basin has proven reserves of more than 60 trillion cubic feet of gas. The US Geological Survey has estimated that 1.7 billion barrels of oil lie in the basin, and as much as 122 trillion cubic feet of gas. That amount of gas is equivalent to about 76 years of gas consumption in the European Union (EU).javascript:window[“$iceContent”]

Natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels and serves as a transition fuel towards more renewables, and to replace coal and nuclear electric generation across the EU.  Gas is the energy of demand for the EU, which is the biggest emerging gas market in the world.

In December 2013, Damascus entered into a major agreement with Moscow to explore oil and gas in the offshore territorial waters for 25 years.  Drilling and exploration costs were estimated at $100 million.  Russia would finance these activities with expenditures recovered from eventual production.

The 2013 deal for gas exploration involved Russia’s SoyuzNefteGaz; however, the current contract involves two Russian companies, Capital Limited and East Med Amrit.

The area in which Russian companies are being allowed to operate is disputed by the Lebanese, with the maritime borders drawn by the Syrians, especially in Block No. 1, overlapping significantly with Block No. 1 and Block No. 2 on the Lebanese side, and encroaching approximately 750 square kilometers within Lebanon’s maritime border.

Lebanon was busy demarcating its southern maritime and land borders with Israel for years, without making any progress.

On April 6, Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister Charbel Wehbe said that Lebanese President Michel Aoun held a phone conversation with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to discuss the demarcation of maritime borders between the two countries. Wehbe said Aoun confirmed in his call with Assad that “Lebanon won’t accept to diminish from its sovereignty over its waters”, and confirmed that his country sticks to demarcating the maritime borders via negotiations, and not court disputes.

The majority of the land borders between the two countries have been demarcated in 1971, while the maritime borders between Syria and Lebanon have not been delineated. Lebanon had previously demarcated its maritime borders in 2011, and in 2014 launched a round of primary licenses and invited bids for Block No. 1 in the north, but Syria did not recognize the Lebanese demarcation. Damascus objected to the unilateral Lebanese demarcation of its exclusive economic zone in the north, by sending a protest letter to the United Nations in 2014.

Wehbe said that Beirut must negotiate with Damascus about the demarcation of maritime borders.

“This is not an act of aggression but every state demands its rights according to its perspective,” Wehbe said, adding that negotiations must take place within the framework of international laws and the brotherly relations between the two countries.

In late 2010, a dramatic discovery was made in the eastern Mediterranean of a huge natural gas field offshore, in what geologists call the Levant or Levantine Basin. The discovery set into motion a geopolitical plan devised in Washington and Tel Aviv back in 1996.  By March 2011 Syria was immersed into a revolution instigated and fueled by the CIA on orders from President Obama.

In August 2011 findings were revealed by Syrian exploration companies of an immense gas field in Qara near the border with Lebanon and near the port of Tartus, which was leased to the Russian navy. The gas reserves are believed to be equal to or exceed those of Qatar.  The US-backed rebels kept the fighting focused in the area to prevent the recovery of the gas.

Trump ordered the US troops illegally occupying Syria to stay and steal the oil.  The US military prevents the Syrian government from using the oil in the northeast to rebuild or recover from 10 years of war.

The US, NATO, and the EU all worked in coordination to destroy Syria and keep it from reaching its potential as an energy-sufficient nation.

Washington’s ‘regime-change’ strategy was based on instigating internal chaos in Syria through the use of CIA training and weapons of armed fighters following Radical Islam, which they thought would end with an Islamic State as opposed to the existing secular government in Damascus, and supported through the coffers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both nations state sponsors of Radical Islam.

The US lost the war in Syria. But, Washington will continue to isolate Russia and try to prevent the unchanged government in Damascus from the gas reserves off-shore.

Turkey began the US-NATO war against Syria as a team player. Turkey was used as a transit point for all the hundreds of thousands of foreign terrorists from the four corners of the globe who flocked to Syria on Team-USA to oust the Syrian government, in favor of Radical Islam. However, Turkey feels left out of the lucrative gas deals, and envious of its neighbors in the eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey is trying to disrupt energy exploration. Meanwhile, it is the babysitter of the Al Qaeda terrorists in control of Idlib and determined to maintain the status quo in Idlib.

While Russia has been in the Syrian port of Tartus for decades, it was in 2015 that they were invited to Syria militarily in the darkest days of terrorist expansion.  The Russians have a long and bloody experience with Radical Islamic terrorists on Russian soil. With Syria laying on the southern front of Russia, it was seen as a national security threat to allow an Islamic state to be proclaimed in Damascus, even if it was only the Muslim Brotherhood politicians supported by the US and housed in hotels in Istanbul.

The Russians felt they could either defeat the terrorists in Syria or wait and fight them on the streets of Moscow. Radical Islam is neither a religion, nor a sect, but a political ideology that is very difficult to deal with once US weapons are placed in their hands.

In 2012, F. William Engdahl wrote a prophetic article “Syria, Turkey, Israel and a Greater Middle East Energy War”. He wrote, “The battle for the future control of Syria is at the heart of this enormous geopolitical war and tug of war. Its resolution will have enormous consequences for either world peace or endless war and conflict and slaughter.”

Engdahl theorized that Syria would ultimately be a major source for Russian-managed gas flows to the EU.

In late 2015, Pepe Escobar, a journalist with Asia Times, wrote a groundbreaking article “Syria: Ultimate Pipelineistan War”.

Escobar wrote, “Syria is an energy war. With the heart of the matter featuring a vicious geopolitical competition between two proposed gas pipelines, it is the ultimate Pipelinestan war.”

In the article, he takes you back to 2009 when Qatar proposed to Damascus the construction of a pipeline traversing Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria to Turkey, to supply the EU.

However, in 2010 Syria chose a competing project, the $10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline. That choice set into motion what the western media terms as the Syrian civil war, but in reality was never civil, and was a classic US ‘regime-change’ project which featured a cast of thousands, and among the supporters were the heads of state from most of the civilised world.

After 10 years of war, Syria may finally be approaching the endgame. President Assad’s government is looking to post-war recovery and reconstruction, which will need foreign and domestic investments. The energy sector is crucial. Syria’s oil exports accounted for 30% of pre-war revenue, and the prospect of gas output was revealed just as the war ramped up. US and EU sanctions will make foreign investment difficult, but the world is watching Russia in the waters off Syria.

Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist and political commentator.

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