{"id":147221,"date":"2019-11-11T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=147221"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:41:22","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:41:22","slug":"us-seizure-of-oil-fields-escalates-tensions-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/11\/us-seizure-of-oil-fields-escalates-tensions-in-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"US Seizure of Oil Fields Escalates Tensions in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

8 Nov 2019 – <\/em>The US has deployed hundreds of troops backed by armored vehicles into oil fields located in Syria\u2019s northeastern Deir Ezzor province, where they are reportedly building two new bases. Turkish media have reported that large quantities of construction equipment and materials have been sent into the region, along with the troops, tanks, armored personnel carriers and ammunition.<\/p>\n

Pentagon officials defended the renewed deployment at a press briefing Thursday [7 Nov]. However, they resolutely refused to answer questions about US President Donald Trump\u2019s statements that the troops were there to \u201ctake the oil\u201d, and Defense Secretary Esper\u2019s acknowledgement last week that the US mission includes \u201cdenying access, preventing Russian or Syrian forces\u201d from laying claim to the oil, including through the use of \u201coverwhelming force\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

ISIL oil plunder in Syria now in the hands of the USA. Trump: ‘We are keeping it’. Imperial[ism] theft. [Getty]<\/p><\/div>\n

Rear Adm. William D. Byrne, Jr, the vice-director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, robotically repeated that the US operations in Syria remained unchanged from what they had been since 2016: \u201cthe defeat of ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria]\u201d. He repeatedly added that US forces were fighting \u201cshoulder to shoulder with our SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces] partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether the US forces were going to take over all of Syria\u2019s oil fields or only a portion of them, the naval officer suggested that this would be left to \u201ccommanders on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to whether they had authorization to fire on Syrian and Russian units approaching the fields, Byrne said he was \u201cnot going to get into specifics\u201d on \u201crules of engagement,\u201d while claiming that there were \u201cdeconfliction channels\u201d in place to prevent such an armed confrontation between the forces of the world\u2019s two major nuclear powers. He added that \u201ceveryone in the region knows where American forces are\u201d and that the US military would \u201cwork to ensure that no one approaches our forces.\u201d If they did, he said, \u201ccommanders always retain the right to self defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entire narrative put forward by the Pentagon was designed to erase the events of the past month, which began with Trump\u2019s green-lighting of the Turkish invasion aimed at driving the SDF (whose main units are comprised of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, viewed by Ankara as a \u201cterrorist\u201d extension of Turkey\u2019s own PKK Kurdish separatist movement) from the Turkish-Syrian border.<\/p>\n

This was followed by Trump\u2019s statements that he was putting an end to Washington\u2019s \u201cendless wars\u201d and would \u201clet someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand\u201d as all US troops would be withdrawn from Syria.<\/p>\n

Just as his earlier statement in December 2018 that he was withdrawing US troops from Syria led to the resignation of his defense secretary, Gen. James Mattis, so last month\u2019s announcement touched off a political firestorm in Washington, with denunciations of Trump’s \u201cbetrayal of the Kurds\u201d coming from both Democrats and Republicans, as well as large sections of the military brass and the US intelligence apparatus.<\/p>\n

In response, Trump shifted his position to a thuggish statement that US troops would remain in Syria to \u201ctake the oil\u201d and that he was considering contracting ExxonMobil to exploit it.<\/p>\n

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad responded to these statements by praising Trump\u2019s \u201ctransparency.\u201d Previous US presidents, he said, \u201ccommit crimes, but get Nobel prizes, and act like defenders of human rights and the noble unique US values\u2014or Western values\u2014but they are a group of criminals who act on behalf of lobbies.\u201d Trump, on the other hand declares \u201cwe want oil … at least that\u2019s honest,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon\u2019s claim of a continuity in the US \u201cmission\u201d has some truth to it, having nothing to do with either a \u201cwar on ISIS\u201d or protecting the Kurds.<\/p>\n

The US military is remaining in Syria, with an estimated 800 US troops as well as additional military contractors occupying its oil fields, in pursuit of the same strategic objectives that underlay the CIA-orchestrated war for regime change initiated under the Obama administration eight years ago.<\/p>\n

Washington still seeks the overthrow of the Assad government and its replacement with a more pliant puppet regime in Damascus. At the same time, it is determined to roll back the influence of the Assad government\u2019s principal backers — and US imperialism\u2019s principal regional rivals — Iran and Russia. And it wants to prevent China from expanding its role in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The war in Syria, as Trump acknowledges, is about oil, as have been the catastrophic US imperialist interventions in Iraq and Libya and its threats of military aggression against Iran. These wars, which have claimed over a million lives and decimated entire societies, have been aimed at asserting US control over the energy resources of the Middle East, upon which Washington\u2019s rivals, in particular China, depend. Their underlying purpose has been to employ military violence as a means of reversing the decline of the US dominance over the world capitalist markets.<\/p>\n

By seizing the oil fields of Deir Ezzor province, Washington aims to deny critical energy resources that are needed by the government in Damascus to reconstruct Syria\u2019s war-ravaged infrastructure and economy.<\/p>\n

It has pursued this aim throughout the Syrian civil war, in which the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate, the Al Nusra Front, first seized the oil fields, followed by ISIS and finally the Kurdish YPG militia.<\/p>\n

The US military took no action to stop either Al Qaeda or ISIS from exploiting the fields and shipping oil across the border to Turkey, reaping hundreds of millions of dollars used to finance their operations. It was the Russian forces that finally bombed both the fields and the tanker trucks used to transport the oil.<\/p>\n

The illegal US military occupation of the oil fields represents a direct provocation against Russia, which Syrian websites report has signed contracts with the Syrian government to extract oil, as well as China, which previously had oil investments in Syria and is poised to play a leading role in the country\u2019s reconstruction.<\/p>\n

Washington and its European allies have done everything in their power to strangle the Syrian government and starve the Syrian people into submission by denying the country energy supplies. Sweeping sanctions have been imposed against anyone buying Syrian oil, shipping oil to Syria or investing in its oil production.<\/p>\n

Before the launching of the war for regime change in 2011, Syria\u2019s oil production averaged about 400,000 barrels a day, making the country self-sufficient and accounting for roughly 35 percent of its export earnings. Some analysts suspect that the real output was substantially higher, with the excess turning those with regime connections into multi-millionaires.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s actions\u2014clearing the way for a Turkish invasion and then asserting control over the Syrian oil fields\u2014have created an extremely unstable situation in Syria, escalating the threat of a far wider war.<\/p>\n

Russian-backed Syrian government forces have already moved into oil fields in Hasakah province in the northeastern corner of Syria on the country\u2019s borders with Turkey and Iraq. Damascus aims to restore production in the area, which was previously held by the SDF. If the US were to attempt to extend its control over Syrian oil into these areas, a military confrontation with Syrian and Russian forces would inevitably ensue.<\/p>\n

As for Admiral Byrne\u2019s reliance on US-Russian \u201cdeconfliction\u201d agreements, Moscow has signaled that it is not prepared to cooperate with the US seizure of Syria\u2019s oil fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn this question, on the question of Syrian oil, we will not cooperate with our American colleagues,\u201d Russia\u2019s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin said Thursday. \u201cWe are convinced that it is the Syrian people who should be managing their natural resources, including oil.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever Washington\u2019s or Moscow\u2019s intentions, the reckless and provocative operations of US imperialism in Syria and the wider region threaten to ignite a far wider and even world war.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 wsws.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

8 Nov 2019 – The US has deployed hundreds of troops backed by armored vehicles into oil fields located in Syria\u2019s northeastern Deir Ezzor province, where they are reportedly building two new bases\u2026 Asked whether the US forces were going to take over all of Syria\u2019s oil fields or only a portion of them, the naval officer suggested that this would be left to \u201ccommanders on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":67396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,65,147,66,204],"tags":[120,433,267,1126,487,1050,866,504,950,583,88,651,1498,1497,263,234,767,883,291,780,91,86,109,287,818,821,718,278,880,413,265,572,249,395,639,292,95,70,126,118,965,172,75],"class_list":["post-147221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-militarism","category-anglo-america","category-energy","category-middle-east-north-africa","category-syria-in-context","tag-conflict","tag-europe","tag-geopolitics","tag-hegemony","tag-human-rights","tag-imperialism","tag-indigenous-rights","tag-international-relations","tag-invasion","tag-isis","tag-israel","tag-justice","tag-kurdistan","tag-kurds","tag-matw","tag-media","tag-middle-east","tag-migrants","tag-military","tag-military-intervention","tag-nato","tag-occupation","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-proxy-war","tag-refugees","tag-resistance","tag-russia","tag-state-terrorism","tag-syria","tag-terrorism","tag-torture","tag-trump","tag-turkiye","tag-uk","tag-un","tag-us-military","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-war-crimes","tag-west","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275096,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147221\/revisions\/275096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}