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Iraq crisis: West's 'mandate' is limited by national borders - and don't
dare mention oil
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President Obama says 'problem' will not be solved in weeks. So how long
will it take, asks Robert Fisk
ROBERT FISK
Sunday 10 August 2014
In the Middle East, the first shots of every war define the narrative we
all dutifully follow. So too, this greatest crisis since the last greatest
crisis in Iraq. Christians fleeing for their lives? Save them. Yazidis
starving on the mountain tops? Give them food. Islamists advancing on
Irbil? Bomb them. Bomb their convoys and "artillery" and their fighters,
and bomb them again and again until...
Well, the first clue about the timeframe of our latest Middle East
adventure came at the weekend when Barack Obama told the world - in the
most disguised "mission creep" of recent history - that "I don't think
we're going to solve this problem [sic] in weeks - this is going to take
time." So how much time? At least a month, obviously. And maybe six months.
Or maybe a year? Or more? After the 1991 Gulf War - there have actually
been three such conflicts in the past three-and-a-half decades, with
another in the making - the Americans and British imposed a "no-fly" zone
over southern Iraq and Kurdistan. And they bombed the military "threats"
they discovered in Saddam's Iraq for the next 12 years.
So is Obama laying the groundwork - the threat of "genocide", the American
"mandate" from the impotent government in Baghdad to strike at Iraq's
enemies - for another prolonged air war in Iraq? And if so, what makes him
- or us - think that the Islamists busy creating their caliphate in Iraq
and Syria are going to play along with this cheerful scenario. Do the US
President and the Pentagon and Centcom - and, I suppose, the childishly
named British Cobra committee - really believe that Isis, for all its
medieval ideology, is going to sit on the plains of Ninevah and wait to be
destroyed by our munitions?
No, the lads from Isis or the Islamic State or the caliphate or whatever
they like to call themselves are simply going to divert their attacks
elsewhere. If the road to Irbil is closed, then they'll take the road to
Aleppo or Damascus which the Americans and British will be less willing to
bomb or defend - because that would mean helping the regime of Bashar
al-Assad of Syria, whom we must hate almost as much as we hate the Islamic
State. Yet if the Islamists do try to capture all of Aleppo, besiege
Damascus, and push on across the Lebanese frontier - the largely Sunni
Mediterranean city of Tripoli would seem a choice target - we are going to
be forced to expand our precious "mandate" to include two more countries,
not least because they border the one nation even more deserving of our
love and protection than Kurdistan: Israel. Anyone thought of that?
[image: An oil drilling facility in Taq Taq, near Erbil]
An oil drilling facility in Taq Taq, near Erbil
And then, of course, there's the unmentionable. When "we" liberated Kuwait
in 1991, we all had to recite - again and again - that this war was not
about oil. And when we invaded Iraq in 2003, again we had to repeat, ad
nauseam, that this act of aggression was not about oil - as if the US
Marines would have been sent to Mesopotamia if its major export was
asparagus. And now, as we protect our beloved Westerners in Irbil and
succour the Yazidis in the mountains of Kurdistan and mourn for the tens of
thousands of Christians fleeing from the iniquities of Isis, we must not -
do not and will not - mention oil.
I wonder why not. For is it not significant - or just a bit relevant - that
Kurdistan accounts for 43.7 billion barrels of Iraq's 143 billion barrels
of reserves, as well as 25.5 billion barrels of unproven reserves and three
to six trillion cubic metres of gas? Global oil and gas conglomerates have
been flocking to Kurdistan - hence the thousands of Westerners living in
Irbil, although their presence has gone largely unexplained - and poured in
upwards of $10bn in investments. Mobil, Chevron, Exxon and Total are on the
ground - and Isis is not going to be allowed to mess with companies like
these - in a place where oil operators stand to pick up 20 per cent of all
profits.
Indeed, recent reports suggest that current Kurdish oil production of
200,000 barrels a day will reach 250,000 next year - providing the boys
from the caliphate are kept at bay, of course - which means, according to
Reuters, that if Iraqi Kurdistan were a real country and not just a bit of
Iraq, it would be among the top 10 oil-rich countries in the world. Which
is surely worth defending. But has anyone mentioned this? Has a single
White House reporter pestered Obama with a single question about this
salient fact?
Sure, we feel for the Christians of Iraq - although we cared little enough
when their persecution started after our 2003 invasion. And we should
protect the minority Yazidis, as we promised - but failed - to protect 1.5
million genocided Armenian Christians from their Muslim killers in the same
region 99 years ago. But don't let's forget that the masters of the Middle
East's new caliphate are not fools. The boundaries of their war stretch far
beyond our military "mandates". And they know - even if we do not admit -
that our real mandate includes that unspeakable word: oil.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
dare mention oil
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President Obama says 'problem' will not be solved in weeks. So how long
will it take, asks Robert Fisk
ROBERT FISK
Sunday 10 August 2014
In the Middle East, the first shots of every war define the narrative we
all dutifully follow. So too, this greatest crisis since the last greatest
crisis in Iraq. Christians fleeing for their lives? Save them. Yazidis
starving on the mountain tops? Give them food. Islamists advancing on
Irbil? Bomb them. Bomb their convoys and "artillery" and their fighters,
and bomb them again and again until...
Well, the first clue about the timeframe of our latest Middle East
adventure came at the weekend when Barack Obama told the world - in the
most disguised "mission creep" of recent history - that "I don't think
we're going to solve this problem [sic] in weeks - this is going to take
time." So how much time? At least a month, obviously. And maybe six months.
Or maybe a year? Or more? After the 1991 Gulf War - there have actually
been three such conflicts in the past three-and-a-half decades, with
another in the making - the Americans and British imposed a "no-fly" zone
over southern Iraq and Kurdistan. And they bombed the military "threats"
they discovered in Saddam's Iraq for the next 12 years.
So is Obama laying the groundwork - the threat of "genocide", the American
"mandate" from the impotent government in Baghdad to strike at Iraq's
enemies - for another prolonged air war in Iraq? And if so, what makes him
- or us - think that the Islamists busy creating their caliphate in Iraq
and Syria are going to play along with this cheerful scenario. Do the US
President and the Pentagon and Centcom - and, I suppose, the childishly
named British Cobra committee - really believe that Isis, for all its
medieval ideology, is going to sit on the plains of Ninevah and wait to be
destroyed by our munitions?
No, the lads from Isis or the Islamic State or the caliphate or whatever
they like to call themselves are simply going to divert their attacks
elsewhere. If the road to Irbil is closed, then they'll take the road to
Aleppo or Damascus which the Americans and British will be less willing to
bomb or defend - because that would mean helping the regime of Bashar
al-Assad of Syria, whom we must hate almost as much as we hate the Islamic
State. Yet if the Islamists do try to capture all of Aleppo, besiege
Damascus, and push on across the Lebanese frontier - the largely Sunni
Mediterranean city of Tripoli would seem a choice target - we are going to
be forced to expand our precious "mandate" to include two more countries,
not least because they border the one nation even more deserving of our
love and protection than Kurdistan: Israel. Anyone thought of that?
[image: An oil drilling facility in Taq Taq, near Erbil]
An oil drilling facility in Taq Taq, near Erbil
And then, of course, there's the unmentionable. When "we" liberated Kuwait
in 1991, we all had to recite - again and again - that this war was not
about oil. And when we invaded Iraq in 2003, again we had to repeat, ad
nauseam, that this act of aggression was not about oil - as if the US
Marines would have been sent to Mesopotamia if its major export was
asparagus. And now, as we protect our beloved Westerners in Irbil and
succour the Yazidis in the mountains of Kurdistan and mourn for the tens of
thousands of Christians fleeing from the iniquities of Isis, we must not -
do not and will not - mention oil.
I wonder why not. For is it not significant - or just a bit relevant - that
Kurdistan accounts for 43.7 billion barrels of Iraq's 143 billion barrels
of reserves, as well as 25.5 billion barrels of unproven reserves and three
to six trillion cubic metres of gas? Global oil and gas conglomerates have
been flocking to Kurdistan - hence the thousands of Westerners living in
Irbil, although their presence has gone largely unexplained - and poured in
upwards of $10bn in investments. Mobil, Chevron, Exxon and Total are on the
ground - and Isis is not going to be allowed to mess with companies like
these - in a place where oil operators stand to pick up 20 per cent of all
profits.
Indeed, recent reports suggest that current Kurdish oil production of
200,000 barrels a day will reach 250,000 next year - providing the boys
from the caliphate are kept at bay, of course - which means, according to
Reuters, that if Iraqi Kurdistan were a real country and not just a bit of
Iraq, it would be among the top 10 oil-rich countries in the world. Which
is surely worth defending. But has anyone mentioned this? Has a single
White House reporter pestered Obama with a single question about this
salient fact?
Sure, we feel for the Christians of Iraq - although we cared little enough
when their persecution started after our 2003 invasion. And we should
protect the minority Yazidis, as we promised - but failed - to protect 1.5
million genocided Armenian Christians from their Muslim killers in the same
region 99 years ago. But don't let's forget that the masters of the Middle
East's new caliphate are not fools. The boundaries of their war stretch far
beyond our military "mandates". And they know - even if we do not admit -
that our real mandate includes that unspeakable word: oil.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress