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ENB Pub Note: I am visiting with George McMillian on key pipeline issues and have several podcasts recorded on the geopolitical impacts of Syria and the Middle East on energy. This article from Simon Watkins has a lot of great information.
The lightning-quick removal on 8 December of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad after 53 years of Assad family rule will have seismic effects on the Middle East for years to come. Geographically, it holds a vital strategic position in the region, bordering Iraq to the East, Jordan to the South, Israel and Lebanon to the West, and Turkey to the North, with a long Mediterranean coastline as well. It critical geopolitical importance reflects this, beginning with a crucial role in the resurgence of pan-Arabism under Bashar’s father, Hafez, and later occupying a key role in Russia’s projection of influence across the Middle East, and Iran’s too. That Bashar al-Assad has gone is catastrophic for many of these countries. That he has been overthrown by a loose-alliance of disparate militant groups, led by the radical Islamic paramilitary organisation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) may well prove at least equally catastrophic to many others.
No country yet will have felt the loss of Assad’s Syria more than Russia, as it became a turning point for President Vladimir Putin’s Middle East strategy after he ordered his forces into the country in 2015 to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s rule. Following the subsequent flow from Russia of money, munitions, and men to secure his power, al-Assad rewarded Putin with extraordinary deals for his military that dramatically enhanced the power he was then able to project across the Middle East and into southern and eastern Europe. After this, Russia identified Syria under the Assad regime as being crucial to it for four key reasons, as fully analysed in my latest book on the new global oil market order. First, it was the biggest country on the western side of the Shia Crescent of Power that Russia had been meticulously developing for years as a counterpoint to the U.S.’s own sphere of influence centred then on Saudi Arabia (for hydrocarbons supplies) and Israel (for military and intelligence assets). Second, it offered a long Mediterranean coastline from which Russia could send oil and gas products – or anything else it wanted – from itself or from its allies (notably Iran) for export either into major oil and gas hubs in Turkey, Greece and Italy or into north, west and east Africa. Third, it was a vital military hub, with one major naval base (Tartus – and Russia’s only Mediterranean port), one major air force base (Khmeimim) and one major listening station (just outside Latakia). And fourth, it showed the rest of the Middle East that Russia could and would act decisively on the side of the autocratic dynasties across the region. By happy coincidence for Russia, Syria also had significant oil and gas resources that could be used by the Kremlin to offset part of the costs it incurred by this geopolitical manoeuvring. What will happen to Russia’s military assets in Syria is currently unknown, as are the prospects for it being used a transport hub to various parts of south and eastern Europe and Africa. However, the fact that Vladimir Putin’s regime was unable to protect its man in Damascus has been noted by all world leaders, and the loss to his prestige in the Middle East is incalculable.
By extension in several key regards, Iran’s loss with the exit of the Assad’s from Syria is probably as great as Russia’s. Economically, the Islamic Republic’s oil exports through Syria was a significant part of its budget revenues and the route itself was one key component of its ability to keep generating income despite increasingly onerous sanctions imposed on it. Politically, efforts were being expedited to finalise a ‘Land Bridge’ running all the way from Iran, across Iraq, and into Syria that Tehran has desperately being trying to create since its 1979 Revolution brought it into being as a global Islamic power. The Land Bridge was intended to enable Iran and Russia to exponentially increase weapons delivery into southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights area of Syria to be used in attacks on Israel as part of a wider rolling plan to further destabilise the Middle East. Russia’s extensive military presence along the Syrian coast, at Tartus, Khmeimim, and Latakia, was to have formed the end point of this Land Bridge for a supply route that ran across several major oil and gas routes developed by Russian, Chinese and Iranian companies, as also analysed in my latest book on the new global oil market order. Under international law, oil and gas firms are entitled to station as many ‘security personnel’ as they wish in and around these high-value sites, including around the transport system that connects them. Although Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed that despite al-Assad’s removal from power the Iran-led ‘Axis of Resistance’ would only strengthen, this seems extremely unlikely. Aside from the suspension of the Land Bridge project, Syria was a key staging post for men and materiel to be used against Israel by Iranian proxy Hezbollah. With Syria currently out of Iran’s network, and Hezbollah and Hamas enormously debilitated by Israeli manoeuvres since the massacre of its citizens by Hamas on 7 October 2023, Tehran can only look to the Houthis in Yemen as an ongoing support for its agenda in the region over and above the militias it still backs in Iraq.
Having said this, there is no guarantee that all is lost for either Russia or Iran in the next phase of Syria. The most likely outcome is that there will be chaos for an extended period, as occurred elsewhere in the region after the removal of strong leaders before, and as still endures in Libya after the fall of longstanding President Muammar Gaddafi. Running through the core of Russian intelligence and military operations in the Middle East and Africa has been the ability to project the country into chaos and to emerge with something it wants, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. It would not be as beneficial to Russia as the Assad regime, but it would be something that might enable the country to keep its crucial bases in the country. Iran might also find itself a place in such an arrangement, although successfully engineering it for both countries would require an end to the money, men, and material currently being focused on the war with Ukraine. This ‘Libyan-style’ Syria with a Russian-Iranian influence might benefit both sides even more than Assad’s Syria did, given the potential for Islamic terrorism that could be centred on effectively a new Caliphate operating in such a geographically- and geopolitically-advantageous position.
The way could be clear for such an operation, as Donald Trump in his first term as president made repeated calls to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country, including those at the strategically vital At-Tanf exclusion zone that is the tri-border junction of Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. And very recently, Trump wrote that the U.S. “would have nothing to do” with Syria. That said, he may be reluctant not to follow through on the potential long-term advantages for the U.S. of denying both Russia and Iran their key client state in the Middle East, with its direct land and sea access into southern Europe, as well as being a key staging post for their expeditions into Africa. Several formerly impeccable senior security and energy sources in Washington, London, and Brussels exclusively told OilPrice.com last week that the sudden – and otherwise inexplicable – success of the Syrian rebels led by HTS was in no small part connected to a massive surge in U.S. and U.K. support for them in the run-up to the coup. “The U.S. wanted to put Moscow’s and Tehran’s leadership on notice that Washington can easily redraw and restructure borders and regimes in not just the Middle East but also in Eastern Europe, if it wants to,” a senior security source in the European Union told OilPrice.com last week. “In this sense, it also sends a clear message to President Vladimir Putin personally, ahead of the onset of peace negotiations this year between Russia and Ukraine,” he concluded.
By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com
The post What Does The Fall Of Assad’s Syria Mean To The Key Players In The Middle East? appeared first on Energy News Beat.
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