Dangerous liaisons
Damascus was certainly pursuing a very complex two-pronged strategy -- at the same time linking with Turkey (and Iraqi Kurdistan) but also bypassing Turkey and incorporating Iran.
With Syria mired in civil war, no global investor would even dream of playing Pipelineistan. Yet in a post-Assad scenario all options are open. Everything will hinge on the future relationship between Damascus and Ankara, and Damascus and Baghdad.
The oil and gas will have to come from Iraq anyway (plus more gas from Iran); but the final destination of Syria Pipelineistan could be Turkey, Lebanon or even Syria itself -- exporting directly to Europe out of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Ankara is definitely betting on a Sunni-led post-Assad government not dissimilar to the AKP. Turkey already halted joint oil exploration with Syria and is about to suspend all trade relations.
Syria-Iraq relations involve two separate strands that seem a world apart; with Baghdad and with Iraqi Kurdistan.
Imagine a SNC-FSA Syrian government; it would definitely be antagonistic towards Baghdad, mostly on sectarian terms; moreover, the Shia-majority al-Maliki government is on good strategic terms with Tehran, and recently, also with Assad.
The Alawite mountains command the Syrian Pipelineistan routes towards the Eastern Mediterranean ports of Banyas, Latakia and Tartus. There's also much gas to be discovered -- following the recent exploits in Cyprus and Israel. Assuming the Assad regime is toppled but beats a strategic retreat towards the mountains, the possibilities for guerrilla sabotage of pipelines multiply.
As it stands, no one knows how a post-Assad Damascus will reconfigure its relations with Ankara, Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan -- not to mention Tehran. Syria, though, will keep playing the Pipelineistan game.
The Kurdish enigma
Most of Syria's oil reserves are in the Kurdish northeast -- which geographically lies between Iraq and Turkey; the rest is along the Euphrates, down south.
Syrian Kurds make up nine percent of the population -- some 1.6 million people. Even if they're not a sizable minority, Syrian Kurds are already considering that whatever happens in a post-Assad environment, they will be very well positioned in Pipelineistan, offering a direct route for oil exports from Iraqi Kurdistan, in theory bypassing both Baghdad and Ankara.
It's as if the whole region is playing a Bypassing Lotto. As much as the Islamic Gas Pipeline may be interpreted as bypassing Turkey, a direct deal between Ankara and Iraqi Kurdistan for two strategic oil and gas pipelines from Kirkuk to Ceyhan may be seen as bypassing Baghdad.
Baghdad, of course, will fight it -- stressing these pipelines are null and void without the central government having its sizeable cut; after all it pays for 95 percent of the budget of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Kurds in both Syria and Iraq have been playing a clever game. In Syria they don't trust Assad or the SNC opposition. The PYD -- linked to the PKK -- dismisses the SNC as a puppet from Turkey. And the secular Kurdish National Council (KNC) dreads the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.
So the absolute majority of Syrian Kurds have been neutral; no support for Turkish (or Saudi) puppets, all power to the pan-Kurdish cause. PYD leader Salih Muslim Muhammad has summed it all up: "What is important is that we Kurds assert our existence."
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