[Peace-discuss] FW: Vladimir Putin, Syria's pacifier-in-chief

Wed Oct 23 19:22:18 UTC 2019

Vladimir Putin, Syria's pacifier-in-chief

October 23, 2019

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share
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Pepe Escobar
ASIA TIMES
<https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/10/article/vladimir-putin-syrias-pacifier-in
-chief/> 

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<https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Screen-Shot-2019-
10-23-at-10.21.11-AM.png>
https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Screen-Shot-2019-1
0-23-at-10.21.11-AM.png

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Russia-Turkey deal establishes 'safe zone' along Turkish border and there
will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols

The negotiations in Sochi were long - over six hours - tense and tough. Two
leaders in a room with their interpreters and several senior Turkish
ministers close by if advice was needed. The stakes were immense: a road map
to pacify northeast Syria, finally.

The press conference afterwards was somewhat awkward - riffing on
generalities. But there's no question that in the end Russian President
Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan managed the
near impossible.

The Russia-Turkey deal establishes a safe zone along the Syrian-Turkish
border - something Erdogan had been gunning for since 2014. There will be
joint Russia-Turkey military patrols. The Kurdish YPG (People's Protection
Units), part of the rebranded, US-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces, will
need to retreat and even disband, especially in the stretch between Tal
Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, and they will have to abandon their much-cherished
urban areas such as Kobane and Manbij.  The Syrian Arab Army will be back in
the whole northeast. And Syrian territorial integrity - a Putin imperative -
will be preserved.

This is a Syria-Russia-Turkey win-win-win - and, inevitably, the end of a
separatist-controlled Syrian Kurdistan. Significantly, Erdogan's spokesman
Fahrettin Altun stressed Syria's "territorial integrity" and "political
unity." That kind of rhetoric from Ankara was unheard of until quite
recently.

Putin immediately called Syrian President Bashar al Assad to detail the key
points of the memorandum of understanding. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
once again stressed Putin's main goal - Syrian territorial integrity - and
the very hard work ahead to form a Syrian Constitutional Committee for the
legal path towards a still-elusive political settlement.

Russian military police and Syrian border guards are already arriving to
monitor the imperative YPG withdrawal - all the way to a depth of 30
kilometers from the Turkish border. The joint military patrols are
tentatively scheduled to start next Tuesday.

On the same day this was happening in Sochi, Assad was visiting the
frontline in Idlib - a de facto war zone that the Syrian army, allied with
Russian air power, will eventually clear of jihadi militias, many supported
by Turkey until literally yesterday. That graphically illustrates how
Damascus, slowly but surely, is recovering sovereign territory after eight
and a half years of war.

Who gets the oil? 

For all the cliffhangers in Sochi, there was not a peep about an absolutely
key element: who's in control of Syria's oilfields, especially after
President Trump's now-notorious tweet stating, "the US has secured the oil."
No one knows which oil. If he meant Syrian oil, that would be against
international law. Not to mention Washington has no mandate - from the UN or
anyone else - to occupy Syrian territory.

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<https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Screen-Shot-2019-
10-23-at-10.24.57-AM.png>
https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Screen-Shot-2019-1
0-23-at-10.24.57-AM-600x335.pngAbove: In blue, the Russo-Turkish buffer zone
agreed by Putin and Erdogan, guaranteeing security for Turkey, and eventual
territorial integrity for Syria. The Russo-Turkish buffer is far more
extensive than the one proposed by the US. 

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<https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Screen-Shot-2019-
10-23-at-10.26.34-AM.png>
https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Screen-Shot-2019-1
0-23-at-10.26.34-AM-350x195.png

Withdrawing US troops, pelted by Kurds.

The Arab street is inundated with videos of the not exactly glorious exit by
US troops, leaving Syria pelted by rocks and rotten tomatoes all the way to
Iraqi Kurdistan, where they were greeted by a stark reminder. "All US forces
that withdrew from Syria received approval to enter the Kurdistan region
[only] so that they may be transported outside Iraq. There is no permission
granted for these forces to stay inside Iraq," the Iraqi military
headquarters in Baghdad said.

The Pentagon said a
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-security-turkey-pentagon-idUSKBN1X
010M> "residual force" may remain in the Middle Euphrates river valley, side
by side with Syrian Democratic Forces militias, near a few oilfields, to
make sure the oil does not fall "into the hands of ISIS/Daesh or others."
"Others" actually means the legitimate owner, Damascus. There's no way the
Syrian army will accept that, as it's now fully engaged in a national drive
to recover the country's sources of food, agriculture and energy. Syria's
northern provinces have a wealth of water, hydropower dams, oil, gas and
food.

As it stands, the US retreat is partial at best, also considering that a
small garrison remains behind at al-Tanf, on the border with Jordan.
Strategically, that does not make sense, because the al-Qaem border between
Iran and Iraq is now open and thriving.

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<https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/map-syria-oil.png
>
https://www.greanvillepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/map-syria-oil.png

Map: Energy Consulting Group

The map above shows the position of US bases in early October, but that's
changing fast. The Syrian Army is already working to recover oilfields
around Raqqa, but the strategic US base of Ash Shaddadi still seems to be in
place. Until quite recently US troops were in control of Syria's largest
oilfield, al-Omar, in the northeast.

There have been accusations by Russian sources that mercenaries
<https://world-news-monitor.com/top-news/2019/08/02/pentagon-refutes-russian
-claim-of-us-private-military-companies-plundering-syrian-oil-facilities/>
recruited by private US military companies trained jihadi militias such as
the Maghawir al-Thawra ("Army of Free Tribes") to sabotage Syrian oil and
gas infrastructure and/or sell Syrian oil and gas to bribe tribal leaders
and finance jihadi operations. The Pentagon denies it.

Gas pipeline

As I have argued for years, Syria to a large extent has been a key
'Pipelineistan
<https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/201285133440424621.html>
' war - not only in terms of pipelines inside Syria, and the US preventing
Damascus from commercializing its own natural resources, but most of all
around the fate of the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline which was agreed in a
memorandum of understanding signed in 2012.

This pipeline has, over the years, always been a red line, not only for
Washington but also for Doha, Riyadh and Ankara.

The situation should dramatically change when the $200 billion-worth of
reconstruction in Syria finally takes off after a comprehensive peace deal
is in place. It will be fascinating to watch the European Union - after NATO
plotted for an "Assad must go" regime change operation for years - wooing
Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus with financial offers for their gas.

NATO explicitly supported the Turkish offensive "Operation Peace Spring."
And we haven't even seen the ultimate geoeconomic irony yet: NATO member,
Turkey, purged of its neo-Ottoman dreams, merrily embracing the
Gazprom-supported Iran-Iraq-Syria 'Pipelineistan' road map.

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