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 lying 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 that featured a cast of thousands, and among the supporters were the heads of state from most of the civilized 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
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
