FULL ESSAY

The Anomaly of Barbarism: The brutality of Islamist terrorism has many precedents
By John Gray
Lapham’s Quarterly
Spring 2016

http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/disaster/anomaly-barbarism

The rise of ISIS is intensely unsettling to the liberal West, and not just because of the capacity the jihadist group has demonstrated to launch a mass-casualty terrorist attack in a major European city. The group’s advance confounds the predominant Western view of the world. For the current generation of liberal thinkers, modern history is a story of the march of civilization. There have been moments of regression, some of them atrocious, but these are only relapses into the barbarism of the past, interrupting a course of development that is essentially benign. For anyone who thinks in this way, ISIS can only be a mysterious and disastrous anomaly.

For those baffled by ISIS, however, it cannot be only ISIS that is mysterious. So too must be much of modern history. ISIS has brought with it many atrocious assaults on civilized values: the sexual enslavement of women and children; the murder of gay men; the targeted killing of writers, cartoonists, and Jews; indiscriminate slaughter at a rock concert; and what amounted to the attempted genocide of the Yezidi. All of these acts of barbarism have modern precedents, many of them in the past century. The use of sexual violence as a military strategy featured in ethnic cleansing in Bosnia in the 1990s; during Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971; in Nepal, Colombia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and many other conflict zones. The destruction of buildings and artworks, which ISIS has perpetrated at the ancient site of Palmyra among other places, has several twentieth-century precedents. Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks razed churches and synagogues in Russia. Mao Zedong demolished large parts of China’s architectural inheritance and most of Tibet’s, while the Pol Pot regime wrecked pagodas and temples and aimed to destroy the country’s cities. In these secular acts of iconoclasm, the goal was to abolish the past and create a new society from “year zero” – an idea that goes back to “year one” of the calendar introduced in France in 1793 to signal the new era inaugurated by the French Revolution. Systematically destroying not only pre-Islamic relics but also long-established Islamic sites, the aim of ISIS is not essentially different.

Nor is ISIS so different in its methodical use of terror as a means of consolidating its power. In his “Hanging Order” telegram of August 11, 1918, Lenin instructed communists to execute refractory peasants by public hanging: “This needs to be accomplished in such a way that people for hundreds of miles around will see, tremble, know, and scream out.” From its beginning and throughout much of its existence, the Soviet state relied on fear for its hold on power. The show trials of the 1930s continued a Bolshevik pedagogy that inculcated obedience by way of spectacular terror. Yet the system endured for nearly three-quarters of a century, much of the time commanding a significant following in the West. No doubt the regime had flaws, some hideous, but these were regarded as inheritances from tsarist and Asiatic despotism. A more plausible view would be that Soviet crimes came chiefly from implementing a modern European tradition of using terror to remodel society, emerging with the Jacobins in the aftermath of the French Revolution, which Lenin avowedly followed. But this view was rarely considered.

For those who find the rise of ISIS baffling, much of the past century can only be retro­gression from modern life. Even the regime that committed a crime with no precedent in history must be regarded as an example of atavism: the Nazi state has often been described as having taken Europe back to the Dark Ages. Certainly the Nazis exploited a medieval Christian demonology in their persecution and genocide of Jews, but Nazism also invoked a modern pseudoscience of race to legitimate these atrocities. Invoking a type of faux Darwinism, Nazi racism could have emerged only in a time shaped by science. Nazism was modern not just in its methods of killing but also in its way of thinking.

This is not to reiterate the claim – made by Marxian theorists of the Frankfurt School – that modern scientific thinking leads, by some circuitous but inevitable route, to Nazism and the Holocaust. It is to suggest that when it is invoked in politics modernity is a figment. The increase of knowledge in recent centuries is real enough, as is the enlargement of human power through technology. These advances are cumulative and accelerating and, in any realistically likely scenario, practically irreversible. But there have been few, if any, similar advances in politics. The quickening advance of science and technology in the past few centuries has not gone with any comparable advance in civilization or human rationality. Instead, the increase of knowledge has repeatedly interacted with human conflicts and passions to produce new kinds of barbarism.

Using the most advanced technologies to demonstrate its transgression of civilized norms, ISIS is a peculiarly modern form of barbarism. Of course, the group exhibits distinctive features. The Paris attacks show that, more than any other jihadist group, ISIS has the capacity to meld urban terrorism and guerrilla warfare into a unified strategy. Any setbacks ISIS suffers on the battlefield in Syria and Iraq are likely to evoke further attacks on civilian populations in Western cities. ISIS distinguishes itself from other jihadist groups in publicizing its atrocities through the sophisticated use of electronic media. Applying techniques presented in a handbook, The Management of Savagery, published online in 2004, these atrocities implement a carefully planned strategy (one that has provoked criticism from Al Qaeda, from which ISIS emerged as a spin-off). Again, ISIS differs from other jihadist groups in its lack of specific demands. While Al Qaeda aimed to force the U.S. to withdraw from the Middle East, ISIS is dedicated to the destruction of the entire existing world order – a goal that suggests the group is more eschatological in its view of the world than its current jihadist rivals. None of these features go any distance toward showing that ISIS is other than modern. A transnational crime cartel, rapidly expanding apocalyptic cult movement, and worldwide terror network, ISIS could have emerged only in modern conditions of globalization.

Theories of modernization have a common form: only one type of society can truly meet the needs of a society based on continual scientific and technological innovation. The trouble is that these theories specify incompatible types of social and political order. The nineteenth-century sociologist Herbert Spencer believed that only laissez-faire capitalism could fit the bill. In contrast, Spencer’s one-time disciple, the sociologist Beatrice Webb, came to believe that a type of collectivism prefigured in Stalin’s Russia was the next stage in modern development. In our own day, both neoconservatives and progressives have accepted the view propounded by Francis Fukuyama that only “democratic capitalism” can satisfy modern needs – a prognostication that is likely to prove no better founded. Modernity in politics is a species of phantom, constantly elusive because it is continuously mutating.

A pursuit of this ghost has shaped the ruinous “war on terror.” The course of the Iraq war illustrates some of the consequences. The effects on the West, which included a colossal waste of resources and the rehabilitation by the Bush administration of the barbarous practice of torture, are by now well known. Less well understood is the fact that disaster in Iraq flowed not only from mistakes in policy (grotesque as some of these were) but also from the attempt to remake the country as a democracy. The state of Iraq was built by the British from provinces of the Ottoman Empire by applying a divide-and-rule strategy that meant Iraq’s governance could never be democratic. One of the state’s chief architects, the British colonial officer, archaeologist, and scholar Gertrude Bell, wrote: “I don’t for a moment doubt that the final authority must be in the hands of the Sunnis, in spite of their numerical inferiority. Otherwise you’ll have a mujtahid-run theocratic state, which is the very devil.” Formulated some eighty years before the American-led attack, Bell’s analysis has been amply confirmed by events.

The invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in April 2003 destroyed the state of Iraq. Partly this was because of the policies of the occupying power, such as disbanding the Iraqi army in May 2003, a bizarre exercise that had far-reaching consequences. A more fundamental reason was the fact that the integrity of the state rested on Sunni hegemony, which the occupation undid. Iraq was a multiethnic and multisectarian state held together principally by force. Self-government for “the Iraqi people” was impossible, since nothing of the kind had ever existed. The only realistically imaginable outcome of regime change was the violent disintegration of the state.

Since the American-led invasion, three new states have emerged in Iraq: the Islamic State (as the territorial unit of ISIS is sometimes called), which is ruled according to ISIS’s extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam; a de facto Kurdish state in the north of the country; and a Shia state headquartered in Baghdad that operates in an expanded zone of Iranian influence in what remains of the historic state of Iraq. Of the three, only that of the Kurds can claim to be anything like the modern secular democracy that regime change was supposed to install. In most of Iraq, the result of attempting to install democracy has been to empower theocracy – just as Bell predicted.

Saddam’s Iraq was ruled according to the ideology of Baathism, a secular and modernizing creed in which a revolutionary vanguard uses the state to effect progress in society. Clear links can be traced between the destruction of Baathist Iraq and the rise of ISIS. Disbanding the army provided a source of recruitment for ISIS commanders, while the ensuing breakup of the state created zones of anarchy into which ISIS could expand. Without the American-led invasion of Iraq, ISIS would most likely not exist. The effect of regime change in Iraq was to destroy a modern secular despotism and empower a type of theocracy that is also modern. ISIS’s ideology is a version of Wahhabism, a highly repressive type of Sunni fundamentalism that developed during the eighteenth century in a region of what is now Saudi Arabia. Fundamentalism looks to the lost purity of an imaginary past; but in that they thrive in societies whose traditions are in disarray because of an encounter with new technologies and economic forces, fundamentalist movements are themselves essentially modern. Adopted as the official religion when the present Saudi state was founded in 1932 and promoted throughout the world in recent decades using the kingdom’s oil wealth, Wahhabist ideas have been a powerful means of recruitment to jihadist groups in societies where inherited patterns of life have been disrupted.

Drawing on the apocalyptic traditions of medieval Islam, ISIS exhibits many affinities with the millenarian movements that ravaged Europe in the late Middle Ages. That does not make ISIS a rerun of medieval beliefs and values, for modern history abounds with movements driven by apocalyptic myths. As Norman Cohn argued in his seminal study The Pursuit of the Millennium, twentieth-century totalitarian movements were fueled by secular versions of end-time myths. Cohn applied his analysis chiefly to Communism and Nazism, but later events suggest it can be applied more widely. From American flying-saucer cults to the bioterrorist Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan, there have been many examples of movements that have reframed apocalyptic beliefs in ersatz-scientific terms. Though its eschatological beliefs are explicitly religious, ISIS is the latest example of a recurring modern phenomenon.

While much remains unknown, there is nothing mysterious in the rise of ISIS. It is baffling only for those who believe – despite everything that occurred in the twentieth century – that modernization and civilization are advancing hand in hand. In fact, now as in the past some of the most modern movements are among the most barbaric. But to admit this would mean surrendering the ruling political faith, a decayed form of liberalism without which Western leaders and opinion formers would be disoriented and lost. To accept that liberal societies may not be “on the right side of history” would leave their lives drained of significance, while a stoical response – which is ready to fight while being doubtful of ultimate victory – seems to be beyond their powers. With mounting bewilderment and desperation, they cling to the faith that the normal course of history has somehow been temporarily derailed.

It is chiefly this faith that has driven the West’s interventions in countries such as Iraq, Libya, and Syria. The decision to topple Muammar Qaddafi in 2011 has left Libya an anarchic hellhole fought over by rival jihadist groups, fueling flows of migrants into Europe – some of whom must surely themselves be jihadists. Yet the West has continued its efforts to engineer the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria – a project that would create anarchy on an even larger scale. Only in the wake of the Paris attacks have Western governments begun to accept that dealing with ISIS may require a coalition of forces that include Assad’s army and Russian air power. Even now they continue to insist Syria can be restored to its historic shape while being reconstituted as a democratic polity under the rule of “moderate forces.” Yet to the extent that such forces actually exist, they are small in number, divided among themselves, and incapable of fighting ISIS and Assad simultaneously. As in Iraq and Libya, regime change in Syria would inexorably produce the collapse of the state, with ISIS being a beneficiary of the resulting anarchy.

Assessed by reference to any kind of strategic rationality, the West has displayed unfathomable stupidity. To invade a country, dismantle its institutions, create a failed state, exit from the ensuing chaos, and then return with unending bombing campaigns is imbecility of an order that has few historical parallels. To persist in this behavior after so many catastrophes betrays something other than mere imbecility, however extreme. Behavior of this kind looks more like an extreme version of cognitive dissonance – an attempt to expel disastrous facts from the mind. In an obsessive effort to remake the world according to an idealized image of their own societies, Western leaders have renounced a sense of reality. Each attempt only reinforces the fact of their impotence. Obeying a kind of repetition compulsion, they have found themselves returning again and again to the intractable actuality they are so anxious to avoid.

The prevailing mode of liberal thinking filters out any fact that might disturb its tranquility of mind. One such fact is that toppling despots does not of itself enhance freedom. If you are a woman, gay, a member of a religious minority, or someone who professes no religion, are you freer now in Iraq, Libya, or most of Syria than you were under the dictatorship of Saddam, Qaddafi, or Assad? Plainly, you are much less free. Another uncomfortable fact is that tyrants are often popular. According to today’s liberals, when large numbers of people flock to support tyranny it cannot be because they do not want to be free. They must be alienated from their true nature as human beings. Born liberals, human beings become anything else as a result of social conditioning. Only cultural and political repression stands in the way of liberal values becoming a universal way of life.

This strange metaphysical fancy lies behind the fashionable theory that when people leave advanced countries to join ISIS they do so because they have undergone a process of “radicalization.” But who radicalized the tens of millions of Europeans who flocked to Nazism and fascism in the interwar years? The disaster that ensued was not the result of clever propaganda, though that undoubtedly played a part. Interwar Europe demonstrates how quickly and easily civilized life can be disrupted and destroyed by the impact of war and economic crisis. Civilization is not the endpoint of modern history, but a succession of interludes in recurring spasms of barbarism. The liberal civilization that has prevailed in some Western countries over the past few centuries emerged slowly and with difficulty against the background of a particular mix of traditions and institutions. Precarious wherever it has existed, it is a way of life that has no strong hold on humankind. For an older generation of liberal thinkers such as Alexis de Tocqueville and Isaiah Berlin, these were commonplaces. Today these truisms are forbidden truths, which can no longer be spoken or in many cases comprehended.

Liberal civilization is not the emerging meaning of the modern world but a historical singularity that is inherently fragile. This is why it is worth preserving. Defending this form of life against ISIS requires a clear perception that the jihadist group is not an atavistic force that – with a little assistance from intensified bombing – will fade away with advancing modernization. If the threat is to be removed, ISIS will have to be defeated and destroyed.

The simpleminded reasoning that rejects any Western military action on the grounds that earlier interventions were counterproductive fails to take the measure of the challenge that ISIS now poses. The Paris attacks, which appear to have been a response to defeats in the field, show that the state that ISIS has created cannot simply be contained. Nor would containment be enough in ethical terms, since ISIS has demonstrated a capacity for genocide. But the aim must not be to replace ISIS’s theocratic totalitarianism with a replica of liberal democracy – a delusional project that has unleashed the forces by which we are now besieged. A functioning state that enjoyed a reasonable measure of local support and could keep the peace would be a sufficiently challenging objective for Western policy.

Whether the West is up to the task is unclear. The practical difficulties are formidable. After the fiasco in Iraq, putting large numbers of troops on the ground hardly seems possible for any Western government, while the regional powers that need to be part of any concerted military action – Turkey, the Kurds, the Saudis, and Iran – are pursuing their own goals and rivalries. Russia, too, has its own agenda. Everyone is threatened by ISIS, but no one has yet made fighting it their first priority.

The intellectual difficulties are greater, and possibly insuperable. For many in the West, the threat ISIS poses to their view of the world seems a greater disaster than the atrocities ISIS has committed and threatens to repeat. The bafflement with which the West approaches the group is a symptom of the senility of the liberal mind, a condition for which there is no obvious remedy. Perhaps what our culture lacks, in the end, is the ability to understand itself.

ARTICLES

ISRAELI DOCTORS, SPIES RALLY TO SAVE 5-YEAR-OLD SYRIAN GIRL

Israeli doctors, spies rally to save 5-year-old Syrian girl
Times of Israel
April 7, 2016

Almost from the start of the bloody conflict raging in Syria, Israel has agreed to treat in its hospitals any wounded Syrians who reached its border seeking help.

But one five-year-old girl from the war-torn land has led doctors, as well as Israel’s security services, to take unprecedented steps to try to save her life.

The girl arrived at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa in recent weeks with very serious wounds that she received after finding herself caught in a firefight between rival militias, according to an exclusive report Wednesday night on Channel 10.

Some two weeks after she arrived at the hospital, after her wounds had nearly healed, Rambam doctors discovered the young girl had cancer.

They refused to release her, insisting that they could not let her cancer go untreated. The girl had grown used to the hospital, and had friends among the other children being treated there, they said.

Security officials agreed.

And so a search began for a bone marrow donor, a search that led to a relative living in a Middle Eastern country designated an “enemy state” under Israeli law, a designation that prevented the relative from entering Israel.

It was at this point that Israel’s security services stepped in, mounting a secret operation in the enemy country that helped smuggle the relative out of that country and into Israel.

The relative arrived in Israel on Monday, Channel 10 reported. Both child and donor are now quarantined at the hospital, where the girl is expected to undergo a first round of treatment this month.

Nearly every detail about the girl’s identity and the operation to locate and retrieve her relative are classified.

 

REGIME SNIPER KILLS LAST DOCTOR IN BESIEGED SYRIAN TOWN

Sniper kills last doctor in besieged Syrian town
By Philip Issa
Associated Press
April 8, 2016

BEIRUT (AP) – Mohammed Khous was walking from the field hospital heading for his son’s house nearby to rest between operations. He would never make it: a sniper’s bullet to the head felled the 70-year-old in the street. With that, the Syrian town of Zabadani – under heavy siege by government forces and allied Hezbollah militia – lost its last doctor.

His killing last month drew attention to the continuing severity of Syria’s blockades, despite international efforts to defuse them as part of ongoing peace negotiations in Geneva.

Dozens of people have died in the past year from starvation or illness related to malnutrition in besieged areas across Syria. Nearly half a million Syrians are trapped in sieges, according to the United Nations, and humanitarian aid convoys have only been able to reach 30 percent of them this year. Most are besieged by government forces and another 200,000 by the Islamic State group, the Secretary General’s office told the U.N. Security Council on March 23.

“The daily misery in these areas shames us all,” Stephen O’Brien, the U.N.’s Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, told the Security Council.

Conditions in Zabadani – once a popular mountain resort – are a microcosm of the cruel reality that has beset Syrians across the country.

Dr. Khous was known to Zabadani residents as a generous and skillful surgeon who would recite poetry at the town’ s cultural center before he was sucked into the country’s spiraling civil war.

“He had a knack for verse,” said Amer Burhan, the administrator of the town’s field hospital. “He loved Zabadani. He would sing about it.”

After security forces launched a brutal crackdown against anti-government protests in 2011 in the prelude to the country’s bloodstained conflict, Dr. Khous began quietly treating wounded demonstrators in his clinic in the nearby town of Baqin. Security forces were tracking down medical personnel who treated demonstrators, and he could not afford to attract the attention of government informers.

In 2012, the Free Syrian Army, which is aligned with the protesters, expelled government forces from Zabadani.

When the last surgeon left the town in 2015, Dr. Khous moved there to staff the operating room. One employee of the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), which supports medical facilities in the country, said rebels forced Dr. Khous to fill the vacancy. The employee spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing repercussions.

It was there that Dr. Khous became trapped in one of the harshest sieges of the war, after Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia alongside government forces waged a pitiless campaign to dislodge rebel militias from the town. The Hezbollah campaign sent almost all of the town’s civilians fleeing to neighboring Madaya, which also fell under siege to government and Hezbollah forces last year. Engineers mined the areas around the two towns, and snipers took up positions to prevent anyone from entering or leaving.

For a while, Dr. Khous worked with Dr. Amal Awad Tatari, who did not have surgical training. But in January, she agreed to leave as part of a deal brokered by the U.N. between government and opposition forces to release injured people from four besieged towns across Syria.

She didn’t want to go, but she had sustained an injury a year earlier and the suffocating siege became too much for her to bear.

“It really exhausted us and my health deteriorated. I have a wound to my head, shrapnel in my hand and a slipped disk. It reached a point where I couldn’t walk,” she said from Turkey, where she is receiving treatment.

Tatari said the conditions inside the hospital were dire.

“We would have to ration the sterilization kits,” she said. “You can’t believe how difficult it was.”

Dr. Khous remained collected and professional, but the siege was taking its toll.

“You could sense he was living in another world, sometimes. We would be in the hospital for example, and there is shelling, but there are no injuries, and he’s sitting writing poetry,” Tatari said.

“We want to rebuild you, a paradise / O’, my heart, Zabadani,” he wrote in one poem shared by the SAMS with The Associated Press.

Dr. Khous continued to treat the gunshot and shelling wounds that regularly afflicted the 500 or so remaining residents on his own. SAMS was debating whether to cut support to the hospital, because most of those remaining in Zabadani were fighters.

Then, on March 25, Dr. Khous was shot by a sniper on his way back from work.

“We received a phone call that there was a martyr and we went and found Dr. Khous on the road,” said the hospital administrator, Burhan. “He was shot in the head – it was aimed to kill.”

The bullet came from the direction of the siege, said Burhan. “We are 95 percent sure he was killed by a government or Hezbollah sniper,” he said.

Tatari said two others in Zabadani were killed by snipers that day. She said there was no way Dr. Khous could have been confused for a militant. He never carried a weapon, she said, and he was always dressed as a civilian. “You could tell, too, that he was advanced in age. It was clear from a distance,” she said.

It took rescue workers three hours to remove his body from the street as snipers forced them to take cover.

A few days later, another man was shot in Zabadani. Ibrahim Ahmad Deeb was a close friend of the hospital administrator, Burhan. “He suffered a pretty serious wound, and as we do not have doctors, we didn’t know how to treat him,” Burhan said. “We watched him pass away.”

 

WASHINGTON POST: NO REAL CEASE-FIRE, NO REAL CONSEQUENCES

Syria: No real cease-fire, no real consequences
Editorial
The Washington Post
April 6, 2016

The Cease-Fire in Syria has now nominally lasted more than five weeks, at least in the sense that its death has not been declared by its international sponsors. It arguably has saved hundreds of lives: The Syrian Network for Human Rights counted 623 civilian deaths in the month of March, compared with previous monthly tolls well above 1,000.

It’s important to point out, however, what the accord brokered by the Obama administration with Russia has not accomplished. So far, it has not stopped the regime of Bashar al-Assad from continuing offensives against strategic territory held by rebel forces that joined the truce. It also has not opened corridors for humanitarian aid into those areas, which are occupied by hundreds of thousands of people.

Much of the regime’s military activity has been aimed at the suburbs of Damascus, including an area known as Eastern Ghouta. According to reports by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch, the government has continued to block aid to at least six areas in the region, populated by 250,000 people, since the cessation of hostilities began on Feb. 27. Even where humanitarian convoys have gotten through, aid workers say Syrian government forces have stripped them of vital medical supplies, including surgical equipment and antibiotics.

Meanwhile, the bombing continues. Last Thursday, a government airstrike hit the Damascus suburb of Deir al-Asafir, killing 33 people, including at least a dozen children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Last weekend, a government plane bombed a hospital in the rebel-held town of Azaz, near the border with Turkey.

By the end of last week, anti-Assad forces had launched their own offensives south of the city of Aleppo, and in an area north of Latakia. The attacks, aimed at retaking ground that the government gained when it was supported by Russian bombing, were led by the al-Qaeda offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra, which is not a party to the truce, but some elements of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army joined in. Commanders also said they were responding to the regime’s violations.

With the truce threatening to break down entirely, a task force set up by Russia and the United States to monitor violations looks virtually useless. With no enforcement mechanism, there has been no response to the attacks or to the blockage of aid. On Monday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that “what we have seen is that the Assad regime continues to be the biggest quote-unquote violator.” But as for consequences, he conceded: “That has not happened.”

As throughout the Syrian conflict, the Obama administration lacks the leverage to force compliance by the regime because of its refusal to take steps such as creating a no-fly zone or providing more military support to rebel forces. It can only hope that sheer jawboning by Secretary of State John F. Kerry with his Russian and Iranian counterparts will persuade them to bring Mr. Assad into line. Mr. Kerry will have to talk fast: At the rate events are moving, what’s left of the cease-fire doesn’t appear likely to last much longer.

 

ASSAD CLAIMS IS IN DEADLY GAS ATTACK ON SYRIA ARMY

IS in deadly gas attack on Syria army: state media
Agence France Presse
April 5, 2016

Beirut (AFP) - The Islamic State group has mounted a deadly gas attack against Syrian troops at a besieged eastern airbase, state news agency SANA said, the latest report of the jihadists’ use of chemical weapons.

SANA did not say precisely how many soldiers had been killed in the attack on the government-controlled airbase outside the divided eastern city of Deir Ezzor.

“Daesh (IS) terrorists attacked Deir Ezzor military airport with rockets carrying mustard gas, causing some people to suffocate,” it reported late Monday.

It is the latest in a string of suspected mustard gas attacks by the jihadists in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

On March 9, a suspected IS gas attack on the Iraqi town of Taza, south of Kirkuk, killed three children and wounded some 1,500 people, with injuries ranging from burns to rashes and respiratory problems.

While the chemical agents allegedly used by IS so far have been among their least effective weapons, the psychological impact on civilians is considerable.

A total of 25,000 people fled their homes in and around Taza last month, fearing another attack.

IS has been battling to capture Deir Ezzor airbase since 2014.

It provides the only supply route other than air drops to the government-held sector of the city, where more than 200,000 civilians are living under IS siege.

On Monday, an IS bombardment of two government-held districts of the city killed seven civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Two suicide bombers also blew themselves up in the village of Jafra near the airbase, the Britain-based monitoring group said.

Deir Ezzor province is vital for the jihadists because it lies between their de facto Syrian and Iraqi capitals Raqa and Mosul.

In recent weeks, IS has faced intense pressure in Syria at the hands of both the Russian-backed army and US-backed Kurdish-led rebels.

An offensive by the army pushed the jihadists out of the ancient city of Palmyra late last month, opening up the possibility of a strike across the desert to relieve the siege of Deir Ezzor.

 

PUTIN’S ATTACK HELICOPTERS AND MERCENARIES ARE WINNING THE WAR FOR ASSAD

Putin’s Attack Helicopters and Mercenaries Are Winning the War for Assad
By James Miller
Foreign Policy
March 30, 2016

The George W. Bush parallel was lost on very few analysts when Vladimir Putin proudly announced that he was withdrawing a significant amount of Russia’s forces from Syria because their “mission is accomplished.” The announcement came just four days after the Atlantic published an overview of “The Obama Doctrine,” wherein U.S. President Barack Obama told journalist Jeffrey Goldberg that Russia was “bleeding,” “overextended,” and that Putin had made a terrible mistake. In both Syria and Ukraine, Obama argued, the Russian ruler had pursued policies that made his country weaker.

“The notion that somehow Russia is in a stronger position now, in Syria or in Ukraine, than they were before they invaded Ukraine or before he had to deploy military forces to Syria is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of power in foreign affairs or in the world generally. Real power means you can get what you want without having to exert violence,” the U.S. president said.

Yet there was Putin, proudly proclaiming the opposite. According to him, Russia could draw down its mission in Syria because it had achieved its goals. The White House, and the U.S. intelligence community, appeared completely surprised at the announcement of Russia’s drawdown. Once again, Vladimir Putin had defied American expectations and seemingly came out on top.

Putin’s announcement was filled with lies and distortions, but one glaring truth underscored his words – unlike Bush’s now-infamous declaration from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, the Russian president indeed may have accomplished his mission.

Over the past two months, a coalition of international fighters – including Hezbollah militiamen, elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps troops, and Shiite militias sent from Iraq – have bolstered Bashar al-Assad’s depleted army. Supported by a massive Russian bombing campaign, the combined force seems to have broken the backs of the anti-Assad rebels, pushing them out of key areas that had threatened the Syrian regime. Rebel groups that were rapidly advancing just weeks before Russia’s air campaign began have been in full retreat. Rebel battle lines that had held for years were smashed, disorganized, or surrounded.
Most of this was accomplished in the northern part of the country around the city of Aleppo, Syria’s prewar financial capital, but Assad has also gained ground in the south, in Daraa province, which borders Jordan.

Contrary to the predictions of Obama, Russia has not been bled to death in Syria. Putin achieved exactly what he set out to do – and then left.

Or did he?

Since the abrupt announcement of Russia’s departure from the Syrian battleground, it has become clear that Moscow is once again defying expectations. Putin’s first mission – the crushing of the Western-backed moderate Syrian rebel groups – was largely accomplished, but Moscow is not yet done in Syria. It has just moved on to the next goal.

The first stage of Russia’s mission in Syria, which began militarily last September and diplomatically in 2011, was to ensure that a popular uprising was crushed, a democratic movement discredited, and a Shiite puppet state propped up. The next stage seems to be more focused on not just Assad’s survival, but also the restoration of the Syrian state’s power. And what better way is there to strengthen a government than to ensure it has plenty of fossil fuel to sell on the open market?

Russia’s involvement in Syria is steeped in mythology and misconception. The latest myth that needs dispelling is that despite Putin’s often repeated claim that he has withdrawn the bulk of his troops from Syria, Moscow has barely reduced its forces at all. The U.S. military estimates that Putin has only pulled out about 20 percent of its fixed-wing aircraft – fast-moving, long-range jets that could return to the country on short notice.

There are even signs of new Russian weapons in Latakia, where Moscow maintains a large, and recently revamped, forward-operating base. The Russian Defense Ministry released videos of these aircraft taking off from the Hmeymim air base, about 10 miles southeast of Latakia, and sharp-eyed analysts noticed two types of attack helicopters that had never been seen on the Russian air base before. The Mi-28 “Havoc” is a potent attack helicopter, boasting a formidable array of rockets, or missiles, and the 30 mm Shipunov 2A42 autocannon, capable of ripping through armored vehicles. It’s similar in many ways to the U.S. AH-64 Apache attack helicopter – a reliable weapon for supporting ground troops and defending entrenched positions. The second new arrival, the Kamov Ka-52 “Hokum,” is the updated companion to the Mi-28. While the Mi-28 was designed during the Cold War, the Ka-52 first took flight in 1997. It can be equipped with rocket pods or an array of high-powered antitank missiles, and it is armed with the same 30 mm gun as the Mi-28. Its heavy armor, ability to run on a single engine should the other get damaged, and its considerable firepower allow it to fly ahead of its older peers, providing valuable reconnaissance for the rest of the fleet to coordinate attacks. The Mi-28 has a long enough range to be effective against rebels in Idlib and Aleppo and can be equipped with fuel pods that extend its range further. The Ka-52, however, is more than capable of hitting targets from the Turkish border north of Aleppo all the way to Palmyra in central Syria and Daraa in the south, all while equipped with a full load of rockets or antitank missiles.

These helicopters may be sent to defend Russia’s bases in Latakia against enemy threats – which is important since troops and aircraft are still conducting missions from these bases but are doing so with a smaller garrison. But these helicopters may also be deployed in offensive missions, as we’ve seen on several occasions over the last six months. Whereas the Russian mission thus far in Syria has been about brute strength – carpet-bombing, cluster munitions, etc. – the addition of the Mi-28 and Ka-52 enable Moscow to conduct more discriminating counterinsurgency and close air-support missions.

It has now been more than two weeks since Putin announced his withdrawal, and there is more evidence that the Russian presence in Syria has not been significantly reduced. An analysis conducted by Reuters shows that Putin has sent more supplies to Syria since announcing that his mission was accomplished. While it’s likely that a large amount of this cargo is equipment to keep Russia’s bases operational, it’s also testament to the fact that the “drawdown” is just another volley from the Kremlin’s disinformation machine.

The second myth that needs to be dispelled is that Putin and Assad entered into this cease-fire in order to pursue an agenda of peace or political compromise. Instead, Moscow and Damascus are doing what they have done so many times since the start of this conflict – taking advantage of diplomatic developments to advance new goals. Since the end of February, two weeks before Putin announced the Russian drawdown, a cease-fire has been in effect in Syria. And while it is broken everyday by Russian airstrikes and attacks launched by the Assad regime, overall violence has been greatly reduced across much of the country. But a closer look at what the Russian and Syrian militaries have done since gives insight into their real motivation: to ensure Assad is not removed from power anytime soon.

In order to dispel this myth, however, we have to move to a third myth, one that has been proudly echoed by several people currently running for the White House – that Russia’s mission in Syria was about fighting terrorism and destroying the Islamic State. By now, this should have been thoroughly debunked. Somewhere between 80 percent and 90 percent of Russian sorties hit areas where Islamic State forces are not even located. If Moscow wanted to crush the Islamic State, why weren’t its forces bombing positions to the north of Aleppo, near the border with Turkey, since Islamic State fighters could easily slip across the border and reach Europe – or even Russia itself? Why weren’t they striking the Islamic State in the south, in Daraa province, on the Jordanian border, another area the Islamic State was exploiting rebel weakness to expand? At one point, the Russian government bragged that it was bombing Islamic State oil refineries, but an analysis of the videos released by the Russian Defense Ministry revealed that the targets were grain silos and water treatment plants – which one might suppose look like oil refineries to the untrained eye.

The truth is: Russia wasn’t attacking the Islamic State. Russia was simply trying to make it look like it was doing so.

Instead, Western-backed rebels and civilians were the ones bearing the brunt of the Russian bear. Meanwhile, Islamic State forces took full advantage of this situation and attacked some of these same rebel groups. And as long as the terrorist group was further weakening Assad’s enemies, it was fine with Damascus. Until, of course, these gains threatened the regime.

Southeast of Aleppo lies a major government base, the Kweres airport, which has been absolutely critical to Assad’s efforts to retake his former financial capital. While Assad was pummeling Aleppo’s non-Islamic State rebel groups before the cease-fire, the militant group was taking advantage of the situation and launching its own offensive against the embattled rebels. This one-two punch was devastating to the Western-backed groups, and the Islamic State was able to make significant advances in Aleppo province. But when the Islamic State got within sight of Kweres air base, a heavy Russian bombing effort ensured that the siege was broken. Islamic State forces were able to advance north of the city, however, an area not vital to the Assad regime at the moment.

When the Western-backed rebel groups had been crushed, a cease-fire was negotiated to stop the fighting. That cease-fire did not include the Islamic State, however, and as soon as the truce was announced, Russian airstrikes immediately shifted focus to bombing Islamic State positions south of Aleppo, which endangered the supply route between Assad’s positions in Aleppo province and the rest of the country.

Taking full advantage of the nominal cease-fire, the pro-Assad coalition of regime soldiers, foreign fighters, and Russian forces launched a substantial effort to recapture the city of Palmyra from Islamic State fighters. On March 27, Assad forces finally secured the city.

What has made fewer headlines, however, is that Russian ground forces played a significant role in the offensive. Just three days after the cease-fire was announced, Putin hosted a memorial service for four Russian soldiers who had been killed in fighting in Syria before the “withdrawal.” Nearly at the same time as Putin was holding the memorial service, the Islamic State was circulating a video of two recently killed men whom it claimed were Russian Spetsnaz, or special forces. An analysis of the equipment seen in the Islamic State video does suggest that the men were indeed Russian military, though another theory also circulated – that the soldiers were contract fighters, mercenaries working for either the Kremlin or Assad.

In fact, in 2013, it was discovered that a group of Russian mercenaries, the “Slavonic Corps,” were fighting the Islamic State in this area. Just two days ago, the St. Petersburg news agency Fontanka, which first broke the story about Russian mercenaries in 2013, published a major report of a new group of Russian “private military contractors” (PMCs) formed out of the remnants of the Slavonic Corps. The report details how a PMC group, named ChVK Wagner (after Hitler’s favorite composer), has been fighting major battles in both Ukraine and Syria – including near Palmyra. The more than 900 mercenaries in the group were reportedly each being paid 240,000 rubles a month (around $3,500), but 50 percent of their volunteers have been killed or wounded since the group was formed. When asked why they would take such a high risk for so little money, one of the fighters told a Fontanka reporter, “Have you been traveling outside your Petersburg recently? Beyond Moscow and Petersburg, there’s no work anywhere.”

The soldiers said that their company of mercenaries was leading the battles in Palmyra, directing artillery and airstrikes, and taking the brunt of casualties in each battle until Syrian special forces “merrily” joined the fight when it was already over – with “Russian state television crews with cameras at the ready to interview them.” The use of mercenaries significantly lowers the human and financial costs of Russia’s intervention. Still, mercenaries and attack helicopter sorties are not free. It’s indisputable that the Russian Air Force played a major role in the victory over the Islamic State in Palmyra, which suggests that the area has become a priority for the Assad regime and its ally in Moscow.

So, why Palmyra? The city is famous throughout the world for its ancient ruins, which have been threatened or destroyed by Islamic State occupiers. But Palmyra is strategically important for very different reasons. It is an oasis in a desert, a city that sits on the middle of a long road that travels from Syria’s capital all the way to the Iraqi border. This region is scarcely populated, which has allowed the Islamic State to move almost unseen between central Syria, its strongholds in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, and Iraq’s Anbar province. The road is a significant security threat to Assad, because it allows the Islamic State to strike Homs or Damascus. But it has also been largely ignored by the Assad regime for a large part of the conflict since both the Islamic State and the regime have had more urgent missions elsewhere.

Palmyra, however, is positioned near the largest natural gas fields in Syria. In 2013, the Slavonic Corps were deployed to this area to defend those fields but suffered heavy losses. Throughout 2014, the Islamic State launched several attacks against the Shaer gas field, Syria’s largest, and at times has controlled at least parts of Shaer, as well as several lesser fields. The two sides have been locked in back-and-forth combat in the area ever since. But events elsewhere forced a tactical retreat of government forces. In the summer of 2015, Western-backed rebels were advancing in Idlib province and threatening Latakia province. At the time, some analysts were again predicting the regime’s collapse.

Palmyra, located 120 miles from Latakia province and in the middle of a desert, was just not a priority for the Assad regime. When the Syrian military repositioned its forces to the northwest regions of the country, the Islamic State took advantage of the situation and conquered Palmyra. Now, with the rebels broken and parts of the conflict frozen, the regime and its allies can focus on their “reach goal” of ensuring that Assad is both militarily and economically protected.

It is hard to imagine the Assad regime ever being powerful enough to recapture the entire country, certainly not without a significant amount of outside help. This has led to some speculation that Putin, by withdrawing his troops, has somehow betrayed Assad. But Russia has never prioritized Assad retaking all of Syria. Instead, it has always been Russia’s goal to protect the Assad regime from collapse and prevent a pro-democratic (and potentially anti-Russian) government taking its place. And in the furtherance of that goal, Moscow seems content to play a game wherein Assad’s primary enemies – including the moderate Western-backed opposition, the Islamic State, and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units – are too busy fighting one another to turn their attention to the Syrian regime. Russia’s airstrikes have accelerated that process and stressed America’s credibility with its allies.

At the moment, Russia is content to embarrass the West and ensure that a friendly government reigns in Damascus and Tehran. And for the foreseeable future, that’s exactly what Putin has achieved.

 

ASSAD REGIME RELEASES AMERICAN HOSTAGE

Russia helps secure Syria’s release of US detainee
By Dave Clark
Agence France Presse
April 8, 2016

Washington (AFP) - Russia secured the release of a US citizen detained in war-torn Syria and has handed him over to American authorities, Moscow’s foreign ministry said Friday.

In Washington, the US State Department thanked Russia for its assistance in the case of a man who was abducted in 2012 after crossing the border from Turkey.

“ was transferred to Moscow in a military plane and handed over to US embassy representatives,” the Russian foreign ministry said.

“Shortly afterwards he left Russia. We hope he doesn’t put himself in a similar situation again and that Washington will appreciate Damascus’ gesture.”

According to an FBI missing persons report that was taken offline Friday, Dawes is a 33-year-old “freelance photographer” from California.

But reports in US media since his disappearance in October 2012 in northern Syria have portrayed him as an adventurer and would-be guerrilla who once took up arms in Libya.

The Russian statement said Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime had detained him for “entering Syria illegally” and that he had arrived in Moscow on April 1.

A US spokesman would not confirm the identity of the released captive but did not dispute media reports that named him as Dawes.

“This individual was released in the last few days. He is no longer in Syria,” spokesman Mark Toner said, refusing to say where he is now.

Citing US privacy law, the spokesman said he could give no further information about the former detainee’s identity nor the manner of his release.

But he thanked Assad’s ally Moscow for assisting in the case.

“We are appreciative of efforts on the behalf of the Russian government that it undertook on behalf of this US citizen,” he said.

A number of US citizens, including but not limited to 31-year-old photojournalist Austin Tice, are still reported as missing in war-torn Syria, Toner said.

He would not be drawn on the full number of missing Americans.

A detailed profile published in GQ Magazine portrayed Dawes as an adventurer and “have-a-go guerrilla.” He appears in photographs in body armor and carrying a rifle.

Prior to disappearing in Syria, Dawes had taken up arms with a militia fighting Moamer Kadhafi’s regime in Libya, according to an interview he gave to NPR radio in 2011.

Despite Dawes’ somewhat different profile, the unexpected release has given hope to campaigners seeking the better known freelance journalist Tice’s freedom.

The United States has no diplomatic relations with Syria, believing that Assad lost legitimacy after his crackdown on opposition protests triggered a civil war.

Nevertheless, Toner confirmed that US officials had direct contact with Syrian officials to lobby for information on the missing Americans.

And he thanked the Czech republic, whose embassy in Damascus represents the interests of Americans in Syria for their assistance in the matter.

“We continue to work through the Czechs on the ground to get information on the whereabouts of Austin Tice,” Toner said.

Tice is an American freelance journalist who worked for the Washington Post, McClatchy and other US media outlets until he went missing in Syria in August 2012.

According to the Post report, officials seeking Tice’s freedom see Dawes’ release as a positive sign. Tice’s family had no immediate comment.

Press watchdog Reporters Without Borders said it was “delighted that US citizen Kevin Dawes was released and hopeful that US journalist Austin Tice will be free soon.”

There have been reports that Washington has been leaning on the Russians to pressure Assad into giving up undeclared US hostages.

“We welcome Russia’s support wherever we can get it in terms of getting the release of any Americans who were detained in Syria,” Toner said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Moscow last month and held closed-door talks with President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

 

CIA: OBAMA REJECTED 50 PLOTS TO OUST ASSAD

Former CIA operative: Barack Obama rejected 50 plots to oust Syrian leader Bashar Assad
By Richard Spence
Daily Telegraph (London)
April 5, 2016

President Obama vetoed 50 plans put to him by the CIA to engineer the downfall of the Assad regime in Syria, according to a former operative working on the project.

According to a memoir he is publishing Tuesday, Douglas Laux was part of a team given the task of finding ways to put into effect Obama’s assertion in August 2011 that “the time had come for President Assad to step aside”.

The CIA, under then-leader David Petraeus, ended up running a scheme to arm rebels from the “non-jihadist” Free Syrian Army – but it never reached a scale that outweighed regime support from Iran and the Lebanese militia Hizbollah.

Laux now says that was because more elaborate schemes drawn up and backed not only by former General Petraeus, but by Hillary Clinton when secretary of state, and defence secretary Leon Panetta were all rejected by Obama.

“We had come up with 50 good options,” he said in an interview with the American television channel NBC.

“My ops plan laid them out in black and white. But political leadership? hadn’t given us the go-ahead to implement a single one.” Obama has been accused of vacillating on Syria since the start of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, and encouraging rebels by implying they had U.S. support but failing to intervene decisively.

Laux’s account is the fullest yet of the attempts by the CIA and its supporters in the administration to push through plans to overthrow Assad, in line with Obama’s apparent policy.

One element of the various plans was to pay regime associates of Assad to push him out.

However, full details are not given in the book, which had to be heavily vetted by the CIA prior to publication, a standard rule for former officers.

Much of the book is an account of Laux’s time working in Afghanistan and Syria, and describes his bitterness with failures of policy, including over Syria, which eventually led him to quit.

After his plans for Syria were rejected, he recommended that the CIA pull out altogether, but that idea was also turned down.

A CIA spokesman said: “Sadly, Laux’s career at CIA did not work out. We hope that someday, maybe with age and greater maturity, he will have better perspective on his time here.” However, the CIA has not disputed the facts.

ARTICLES

ISRAEL SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST OFFSHORE-GAS DEAL

Israel Supreme Court Rules Against Offshore-Gas Deal
By Orr Hirschauge and Rory Jones
The Wall Street Journal
March 28, 2016

TEL AVIV – Israel’s Supreme Court on Sunday ruled against a landmark deal to develop and export the country’s offshore gas reserves, a major setback for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who campaigned for it.

The panel of judges called the deal unconstitutional, citing a clause in its framework that gave energy companies pricing and regulatory stability for 10 years regardless of potential shifts in the government. The main stakeholders in the fields, U.S.-based Noble Energy Inc. and Israeli partner Delek Group Ltd, had argued that the stability clause was required for them to make the investments necessary to develop the fields.

The deal will be suspended for one year, the court said. Mr. Netanyahu’s government will be required to amend it during that period and potentially put the details to a vote in the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset.

Israel’s regulator ruled the plan anticompetitive in 2014, saying Noble and Delek held a monopoly.

The energy companies have already been through several rounds of regulatory and legislative hurdles that have significantly delayed development. In total, Israel sits on fields with more than 32 trillion cubic feet of gas.

“The supreme court’s resolution severely threatens the development of Israel’s gas reserves. Israel is seen as a country with exaggerated legal interference that makes doing business hard,” Mr. Netanyahu said on his official Twitter account. “We will seek alternative ways to overcome the serious harm inflicted on Israel’s economy by this hard to understand resolution.”

Delek and Noble issued a joint statement with other companies involved. “In its resolution the court accepted the framework in whole, opposing only the stability clause. We congratulate such a resolution,” it said. “We call upon the government to put into place terms that include stability in a timely fashion.)

The deal hasn’t been popular domestically. Thousands of Israelis took to the streets over the past year in protest, complaining it would line the coffers of big business, offer Israeli consumers uncompetitive pricing compared with other Western countries, and send too much gas outside Israel, an energy-security risk.

In December, Mr. Netanyahu signed off on the deal, invoking an antitrust clause for the first time to force it through on grounds of national security.

The Israeli leader said the development of the gas reserves would enable Israel to develop economic ties with countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus, Turkey and Greece, a diplomatic boon and a critical measure for national security.

In response to Mr. Netanyahu’s decision, opposition lawmakers filed a petition in the court that objected to the plans to circumvent the regulator. Mr. Netanyahu appeared before the court in February to defend his move, the first ever appearance there by a sitting prime minister.

 

ISRAELI COURT STRIKES DOWN NATURAL GAS DEVELOPMENT DEAL

Israeli Court Strikes Down Natural Gas Development Deal
By Isabel Kershner and Stanley Reed
The New York Times
March 28, 2016

JERUSALEM – Israel’s High Court of Justice struck down on Sunday a deal that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached in December to enable the development of a major offshore natural gas field.

The gas trove, called Leviathan, has the potential to transform Israel into an exporter of the fuel, but it has been plagued by delays.

The court specifically objected to a part of the agreement between the government and the project’s developers, which are led by Noble Energy, that prohibits changes to regulations affecting the project for 10 years.

Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, the court’s deputy president, said that the government did not have the authority to make such a long-term deal, which would bind its successors, especially “when the issue at hand is a matter of real political controversy.”

The court gave the government a year to work out an alternative solution, but that may lead to further delays in developing the field, which was discovered in 2010.

Noble Energy, based in Houston, has already reached preliminary agreements to export gas from Leviathan to Egypt and Jordan. The Obama administration has enthusiastically supported these efforts in the hope that energy ties would help build peaceful relations between Israel and its neighbors in the Middle East.

Plans to bring Leviathan’s gas to market have been slowed by a series of roadblocks, including a decision in 2014 by Israel’s antitrust commissioner that Noble and its partners would have too much power over the Israeli energy market. That ruling led Mr. Netanyahu to devise a deal under which Noble and its partners would divest part of their Israeli holdings, but now the court has objected to that arrangement.

Predictably, the Israeli government reacted with dismay to the court decision.

“The High Court of Justice decision severely threatens the development of the gas reserves of the State of Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement. “Certainly, nobody has any reason to celebrate that the gas is liable to remain in the depths of the sea and that hundreds billions of shekels will not reach the citizens of Israel.”

Mr. Netanyahu also said that Israel was “seen as a state with excessive judicial interference in which it is difficult to do business.”

In recent years, discoveries by Noble and its Israeli partners, the Delek Group conglomerate, have helped transform Israel from a country heavily dependent on energy imports to one with a growing natural gas industry. The companies currently operate a field called Tamar, whose gas is used to generate roughly half of Israel’s electricity. Leviathan is twice the size of Tamar.

For many Israelis, however, the benefits of a surging natural gas industry are outweighed by concerns that Noble and its partners were becoming too powerful.

“The judges chose today to protect the separation of powers and the rule of law in Israel, to halt the limitless recklessness for the benefit of the gas tycoons, and to put up a glowing stop sign in order to defend the public and Israeli democracy,” Shelly Yachimovich, a lawmaker from the center-left Zionist Union group, wrote on her Facebook page on Sunday.

(Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem, and Stanley Reed from London.)

 

HOW A COURT SANK ISRAEL’S ECONOMY

How a Court Sank Israel’s Economy
By Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary
March 28, 2016

For the first several decades of its existence, the state of Israel was the butt of the old Jewish joke about Moses leading the Jews to the one place in the Middle East without natural resources. But after the discovery of vast natural gas fields off its coast (as well as shale oil on land), the jest no longer made sense. As Arthur Herman wrote in a feature in the March 2014 issue of Commentary*, the potential bounty from the Tamar field that has already begun producing natural gas and the far bigger Leviathan site on which development has not yet begun had the potential to make Israel the world’s next energy superpower. The prospect of not only energy independence but also of a large export business that would not only enrich the Jewish state but enable economic ties that would create new relationships and alliances that would make it far more secure.

The only worry about all this was not whether the gas could be brought out or whether it would play a part in transforming Israel’s economy. The only problem was whether Israel’s fractious political system and over-regulated economy and a judiciary and bureaucracy that seem most comfortable when stifling innovation and growth rather than enabling it would find a way to gum up the works and stop the gas fields from being exploited. Unfortunately, we now have the answer to that question.

Yesterday’s ruling by Israel’s High Court of Justice struck down a deal that Prime Minister Netanyahu had brokered between the government and Texas-based Noble Energy – which has taken the lead in developing Israel’s big energy project – and an Israeli firm that would have allowed work on Leviathan to begin.

This decision is the culmination of years of maneuvering that pitted Netanyahu’s government against a coalition of left-wing opponents determined to stop the project.

Some Israelis objected to Nobel making too much money from Leviathan or that it would constitute a monopoly. Given that without the company’s foresight and investment, Israel’s energy revolution might never have taken place this was not as reasonable a complaint as it sounded. Nevertheless, Netanyahu and his government labored to come up with a compromise that was announced last June that brought the Delek company into the mix and limited Nobel’s control. The prime minister had to employ the power of the country’s Security Cabinet to override the decision of an anti-trust commissioner to spike the project. But his use of a national security rationale was justified since so much of Israel’s economic future rested on a common sense approach to the problem that would enable the project to start and allow the country to make deals with nations like Turkey for future export via pipelines.

The one catch in the agreement that Nobel needed was certainty. Netanyahu negotiated a “stability clause” that would ensure the producers that future governments would not try to swoop in and change the rules of the game. This was, again, a reasonable provision since Nobel would have already spent vast sums on developing the field and it would not be fair to it or its investors for Israel’s next government to demand a greater share of the profits or otherwise alter the arrangement. Without “stability” there is no way Nobel or any such developer would be willing to risk its financial life on doing business with Israel. But it is precisely this clause that the court struck down.

Israel has a well-earned reputation as the Start Up Nation where its brainpower and expertise have allowed it to become a new Silicon Valley of high-tech innovation and development. But that aspect of Israel’s economic culture has always competed with the socialist ethos that dominated its origins. The Labor Zionist movement worked wonders in helping to build the state of Israel, but it saddled the country with an economic model that might best be described as reminiscent of East Germany. The “start up” aspects of Israel’s economy grew up in industries that were not dominated by the Histadrut (an important institution that can best be understood as the moral equivalent of the AFL-CIO if the labor conglomerate also owned much of the nations’ leading companies). The deadening hand of regulation and state monopolies was largely freed up in the 1990s, but its spirit lives on.

Under Netanyahu, Israel’s economy has thrived, but the struggles of the middle class and other issues that are related to the transition from socialism, as well as the endemic problem of a small nation that is forced to support a relatively large army and security apparatus, continue to plague it. Combined with an environmental movement that exploits largely unreasonable worries about the impact of the gas fields on the coastline, there is a considerable constituency for slowing if not halting the project.

Add in a High Court that recognizes no limits on its power to intervene wherever it likes without a shred of authority that is actually rooted in law, and you have a perfect storm of factors that could doom Leviathan and expectations about Israel’s energy future.

For the moment, that is exactly what has happened. Unless Netanyahu’s government can think up some new stratagem that will enable it to circumvent the court, as the prime minister said, “the gas is liable to remain in the depths of the sea and that hundreds of billions of shekels will not reach the citizens of Israel.” He’s right about that. Unless the deal with Noble is saved, the Leviathan field will remain unexploited.

The battle over the natural gas fields was always whether people of vision and courage – like those involved in the development of the gas fields and a government that had the wisdom to back them – had the political power to ensure that naysayers could not prevail. As it turns out, that may not be the case. Without a political system that is ready to let those who invest in innovation profit from it, development of natural resources is always doomed along with a nation’s economic freedom and prosperity. With respect to what is probably the single most important battle to be fought for Israel’s economic future, the “Start Up Nation” appears to have beaten down by fear and envy. Though many Israelis – especially those who constitute Netanyahu’s socialist and populist critics – may cheer the prospect of Nobel being denied profits, they may be forfeiting a golden opportunity to ensure their nation’s future.

(* Tom Gross: You can see that article here: “Will Israel Be the Next Energy Superpower? It can be... if the Israelis allow it to happen” by Arthur Herman, Commentary magazine, March 1, 2014.)

 

NATURAL GAS JUDGMENT CASTS SHADOW OVER ISRAEL’S ENERGY PLANS

Natural gas judgement casts shadow over Israel’s energy plans
By Simon Henderson
Washington Institute
March 28, 2016

A new court decision could stunt exploitation of offshore gas reserves, open the possibility of a heavy punitive arbitration award, and hamper foreign investment in Israel.

***

On March 27, the Israeli High Court passed a judgement condemning a key aspect of the government’s planned “framework” deal with energy companies hoping to tap the country’s largest offshore natural gas field. The companies in question – Houston-based Noble Energy and its Israeli partner Delek – had pressed for a ten-year regulatory and pricing stability clause to facilitate the investment of around $6 billion needed to develop the giant Leviathan field, which lies eighty miles west of Haifa deep below the Mediterranean Sea. The court rejected that clause, ruling that the deal should be suspended for another year and requiring the government to amend the terms and obtain approval from parliament.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu described the judgment as “bizarre,” arguing via Twitter that it “severely threatens the development of Israel’s gas reserves.” He continued: “Israel is seen as a country with exaggerated legal interference that makes doing business hard. We will seek alternative ways to overcome the serious harms inflicted on Israel’s economy by this hard to understand resolution.”

Similarly, energy minister Yuval Steinitz called the judgement “miserable,” while Noble chief David Stover stated, “The court’s ruling... is disappointing and represents another risk to Leviathan timing. Development of a project of this magnitude, where large investments are to be made over multiple years, requires Israel to provide a stable investment climate... It is now up to the government of Israel to deliver a solution which at least meets the terms of the Framework, and to do so quickly.” If the issue cannot be resolved, Noble could resort to international arbitration against Israel, with a potential punitive award of up to $12 billion.

The ruling’s immediate consequence is to once again delay development of the Leviathan field, where the companies stopped working in December 2014 after the Israeli oil and gas regulator abruptly decided to reverse tentative approval of a compromise that would have spared the venture from being labeled a monopoly.

The issue has since become a political football, with opposition parties and activist groups claiming that the likely price for Leviathan gas will be unreasonably expensive and the profits for Delek and its Israeli partners too high. Netanyahu’s government, which survives with a single-seat majority in parliament, has countered by emphasizing the resultant boost to government revenues and Israel’s need to attract foreign investment.

The government had intended to issue new tenders this summer for more exploration, but enticing foreign gas companies with the necessary skills and financial reserves to drill in water 6,000 feet deep – where even an empty hole costs $100 million – could be challenging.

At present, Israel depends on gas from the offshore Tamar field, drilled by Noble in 2009 and in production since 2013. Less than half the size of Leviathan, it fuels nearly 60 percent of Israel’s electricity production. The government’s plans – now delayed if not derailed – are to increase the number of gas-fired power stations for domestic and industrial use while exporting surplus gas. Neighboring Jordan will receive a small amount of Tamar gas beginning next year, though plans for the multiyear sale of large volumes of Leviathan gas are on hold.

Meanwhile, gas development continues in other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean after years of quiet encouragement by the United States. In Cyprus, Noble discovered the Aphrodite field, which lies mainly in the island’s exclusive economic zone and stretches partly into Israel’s EEZ as well. Cypriot officials are currently trying to attract more companies to drill there. And last year the Italian conglomerate Eni found the Zohr field in Egypt’s EEZ; even bigger than Leviathan, it lies only three miles from Egypt’s maritime border with Cyprus. Various actors have drawn up elaborate schemes for Israel, Cyprus, Egypt, and Greece to cooperate in using and exporting this gas. Even Turkey, currently reliant on expensive Russian, Iranian, and Azerbaijani gas, had contemplated buying Israeli supplies – a commercial decision that would require political rapprochement with both Jerusalem and Cyprus, and which may be further complicated by the latest court judgement.

In short, hopes of Israel becoming a mini-energy giant in the Eastern Mediterranean have seemingly evaporated in little more than a year. Yesterday’s decision flies in the face of commercial realities inherent to twenty-year, high-cost energy projects. Theoretically, the parliament could pass a law allowing for the ten-year stability clause, but Netanyahu would likely be opposed by coalition partners eager to force new elections. Noble might also be able to obtain a different set of assurances that are acceptable to all parties. Without such a breakthrough, resolving the impasse would require broader societal awareness of the benefits of natural gas wealth and domestic political compromise, yet the prospects for either – never mind both – seem slim.

(Simon Henderson is the Baker Fellow and director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at The Washington Institute.)

 

SHIFTING EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN ALLIANCES

Shifting Eastern Mediterranean Alliances
by Emmanuel Karagiannis
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2016

http://www.meforum.org/5877/shifting-eastern-mediterranean-alliances

The exploitation of energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean has drawn together hitherto estranged states. In August 2013, Cyprus, Greece, and Israel signed onto the “EuroAsia Interconnector” project, which would install a 2000-megawatt underwater electric cable (illustrated above) to connect their power grids and to be a means by which “three nations ... [can] enhance their growth and prosperity” and build a “bridge of friendship between our nations.”

The Eastern Mediterranean is changing fast with its estimated 122 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas reserves (the equivalent of 21 billion barrels of oil) already having an impact on regional patterns of amity and enmity.[1] With Israel and Cyprus well underway to becoming gas exporters, the problematic Israeli-Lebanese and Cypriot-Turkish relationships have been further strained. At the same time, energy cooperation has been the driving force behind the nascent Greek-Cypriot-Israeli partnership, manifested in rapidly growing defense and economic cooperation. Clearly, the development of energy resources and their transportation will have far-reaching geopolitical implications for the Eastern Mediterranean and its nations.

THE STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GAS RESERVES

Natural gas is the fastest growing source of energy in the world, currently accounting for 22 percent of total global energy consumption.[2] It is both affordable and more environmentally friendly than other commercially feasible options, resulting in an increasing demand even in an era of dropping oil prices. That demand seems likely to be met in large part by the newly discovered gas reserves of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Israel, for one, has the potential to become an important regional producer.[3] Its Tamar field was confirmed to have estimated reserves of 9.7 tcf[4] while its Leviathan gas field has the potential of producing up to 16 tcf.[5] Meanwhile, in November 2011, U.S.-based Noble Energy announced a major gas discovery south of Cyprus: The Aphrodite field was estimated to contain 7 tcf.[6] In February 2013, a seismic survey south of Crete indicated that rich hydrocarbon resources may soon be found in Greek waters.[7] Most recently, the Italian company Eni announced the discovery of a huge gas field off the coast of Egypt.[8]

For reasons of geographical proximity, these Mediterranean energy resources concern first and foremost the European Union – the world’s third largest energy consumer behind China and the United States.[9] While oil is still the dominant fuel, accounting for 33.8 percent of total EU energy consumption, natural gas comes in second at 23.4 percent.[10] The Eastern Mediterranean gas reserves have three distinct advantages for European governments (and companies) and are thus viewed by them as a strategic priority. First, due to their smaller sizes and populations, the needs of Israel and Cyprus are relatively low and most of their gas could be exported. Second, Eastern Mediterranean gas could partly cover Europe’s energy needs and thereby decrease its dependence on an increasingly volatile Russia. Finally, since both Israel and Cyprus lack the capital and the offshore drilling technology to develop gas reserves on their own, foreign energy companies have identified them as investment opportunities that could generate significant financial returns.

As the Middle East implodes, security of energy supply has become an important policy objective for the EU. Indeed, there is a consensus among European governments that new initiatives are needed to address energy challenges. The EU is already directly involved to some extent in Eastern Mediterranean energy affairs because Greece and Cyprus are member states while Turkey is a candidate for membership and has a customs union with the EU. Although the governments of the EU and Israel are often at odds politically, economic relations between Jerusalem and Brussels are close and multifaceted.

The development of Israeli and Cypriot gas fields could help strengthen Europe’s energy security. Currently, European countries import liquefied natural gas (LNG) from politically unstable countries such as Nigeria and Algeria. But the Eastern Mediterranean could serve as a third gas “corridor” for Europe, alongside Russian gas and the southeast European pipelines for Azeri gas. The Italian Eni company, the British Premier Oil, and the Dutch Oranje-Nassau Energie have clearly shown interest by bidding in the second round of licensing for natural gas exploration in the Cypriot exclusive economic zone (EEZ),[11] a sea zone prescribed by the United Nations over which a state has special rights.

The U.S. administration views Eastern Mediterranean gas as an alternative source for its European allies who depend heavily on Russian supplies.

Given the prominence of the Middle East for U.S. energy policy, it is hardly surprising that the gas finds in Israel and Cyprus have drawn Washington’s attention as well. Although the U.S. is likely to become the largest gas producer in the world as a result of increased use of shale gas, the administration views Eastern Mediterranean gas as an alternative source for its European allies who depend heavily on Russian supplies.[12] Within the private sector, the American company, Noble Energy, has played a leading role in the exploration process; it has a 40 percent stake in the Leviathan fields, a 36 percent stake in Tamar, and a 70 percent stake in Aphrodite.

Not surprisingly, these discoveries have attracted Moscow’s interest as well due to a potential, adverse impact on its gas exports to European markets. Russian energy companies, which often act as the Kremlin’s long-arm, are particularly active in the region. In February 2013, for example, Gazprom signed a 20-year deal with the Israeli Levant LNG Marketing Corporation to purchase liquefied natural gas exclusively from the Tamar field.[13] Then in December 2013, the Russian company SoyuzNefteGas signed an agreement with the Assad regime to explore part of Syria’s exclusive economic zone. One month later Putin signed an investment agreement with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to develop gas fields off the Gaza Strip.[14]

WARMING ISRAELI-GREEK RELATIONS

Energy considerations have a long history of influencing the course of relations between states, and the new gas discoveries are no exception to this rule, affecting Israel’s relations with both Greece and Cyprus.

Greek-Israeli relations have been frosty for decades. The postwar Greek governments typically followed a pro-Arab foreign policy in order to protect the large Greek community in Egypt, secure Arab support on the Cyprus dispute in the United Nations, and maintain access to cheap Arab oil.[15] While there was de facto recognition of the Jewish State in 1949, legal recognition needed to wait until 1990 under the right-wing Mitsotakis government. But the formation of a Turkish-Israeli strategic partnership in the mid-1990s provoked a strong backlash with Athens reverting to its pro-Arab policy.[16]

This policy, too, has changed with the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in Turkey since the early 2000s. With Athens alarmed by Ankara’s growing regional assertiveness, and Jerusalem disturbed by the new regime’s fiercely anti-Israel approach, Greek-Israeli relations improved rapidly with the two countries signing a string of agreements in the fields of security, energy, trade, and tourism, and exchanging official visits at the ministerial, presidential, and prime-ministerial levels.[17] In March 2012, the air-naval exercise Noble Dina, involving U.S., Israeli, and Greek forces, was conducted in the Aegean Sea while, a month later, a joint Greek-Israeli air exercise was held in central Greece. Most recently, Minister of Defense Panos Kammenos stated that “[Greek] defense planning should take into account friends and allies who seek defense cooperation in the region. And I clearly mean eastward toward Israel.”[18]

Athens’s new Israel policy has been largely unaffected by the frequent change of governments in recent years. The last three prime ministers before the current one – George Papandreou (2009-11), Loukas Papadimos (2011-12), and Antonis Samaras (2012-15) – all met with Israeli officials and concluded agreements, all the more striking given the political and ideological differences among them: Papandreou is a moderate, left-of-center politician; Papadimos is known as a liberal technocrat, and Samaras, a right-wing politician.

In the wake of the economic crisis that has roiled domestic Greek politics and the austerity measures that the EU has sought to impose on Athens, Greeks took to the polls in January 2015 and brought to power the left-wing SYRIZA (Greek acronym of the Coalition of the Radical Left) party, in coalition with the small, right-wing party, the Independent Greeks. This caused considerable alarm in Jerusalem as many senior SYRIZA officials have strong pro-Palestinian sympathies: European Member of Parliament Sofia Sakorafa, for one, is a self-proclaimed friend of Hamas while Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has participated in pro-Palestinian rallies. In late December 2015, the Greek parliament passed a non-binding resolution recommending recognition of “Palestine” as a state.

And yet, the SYRIZA-led government has not distanced itself from Jerusalem. Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias identified Turkey as a source of threats[19] while Minister of Defense Kammenos, leader of the Independent Greeks, harbors strong pro-U.S. and pro-Israeli views.[20] In late November 2015, Tsipras visited Israel and, yet again, on January 27, 2016, together with six members of his cabinet when they held a joint meeting with the Israeli government.[21] So it seems likely that the Greek-Israeli partnership will continue.

Athens is seeking bids for an Eastern Mediterranean pipeline to carry Israeli and Cypriot gas to Europe.

Beyond common concerns about Turkey’s intentions, Athens and Jerusalem share significant energy interests. Both countries want to implement the 1982 U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to facilitate the exploration and exploitation of the seabed;[22] and both maintain that the Eastern Mediterranean could be unilaterally developed through its division into exclusive economic zones of 200 nautical miles. In contrast, Ankara has not signed on to UNCLOS and favors a settlement in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean that would take perceived Turkish interests into greater account.

Moreover, Greece’s location makes it a natural bridge between the energy-rich Eastern Mediterranean, including Israeli fields, and energy-consuming Europe, and Greeks see the country as a hub for bringing Eastern Mediterranean gas to European markets. In March 2014, Athens announced an international tender for a feasibility study of the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline to carry Israeli and Cypriot gas to Europe via Crete and the mainland.[23] While the proposed pipeline would be rather expensive and pass through disputed waters, Russian intervention in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine has given new momentum to the project as the EU looks for alternative sources of natural gas.[24] The European Commission has included the proposed pipeline in its list of “Projects of Common Interests” that could receive financial support.[25]

If Jerusalem and Nicosia decide to opt for liquefaction of their gas resources, then Greek-owned shipping could also play an important role in transporting liquid gas to the international market. During his visit to Israel in November 2015, Tsipras stated,

“One of the main issues in our discussions today was [sic] the opportunities arising in the fields of energy in the Eastern Mediterranean ... We are examining ways to cooperate in research, drilling, and the transportation of gas from Israel to Europe.”[26]

While energy is not the sole factor contributing to the improvement of bilateral relations, it has certainly played a crucial role in the convergence of Greek and Israeli interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.

JERUSALEM AND NICOSIA

The development and exploitation of Eastern Mediterranean energy resources have also given a boost to Israeli-Cypriot relations. Despite geographical proximity, the two countries have largely ignored each other for years. For most Israelis, Cyprus is either the site where Holocaust survivors were forcibly interned by the British (1946-49) as they sought refuge in mandatory Palestine or the closest place where couples unable or unwilling to contract a religious marriage in Israel are able to enter into a civil marriage.

For its part, Nicosia traditionally took a pro-Arab line in diplomatic settings that differed little from neighboring Greece; and just like in Greece, the AKP-induced chill in Turkish-Israeli relations had a warming effect on Cypriot-Israeli relations. In March 2011, Israeli president Shimon Peres hosted his Cypriot counterpart, President Demetris Christofias, who reciprocated this hospitality in November. Both sides came to view each other as potential counterbalances to Turkey’s presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. Cypriot defense minister Dimitris Iliadis signed an agreement on the “Mutual Protection of Confidential Information” in January 2012 with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak,[27] and a month later, Netanyahu paid a visit to Nicosia, the first ever by an Israeli prime minister, to discuss energy and defense cooperation. According to press reports, the Cypriot navy is planning to buy two Israeli-manufactured hi-tech offshore patrol vessels in order to patrol its exclusive economic zone.[28]

The energy dimension of the nascent Israeli-Cypriot relationship is particularly strong. Nicosia has announced plans to build a liquefied natural gas plant in its Vassilikos industrial area to process its gas. Since the current gas finds are not large enough to make this multi-billion dollar project economically viable, Nicosia has suggested to Jerusalem that the two countries pool their gas reserves to form a single producing unit. In 2013, Minister of Energy Yiorgos Lakkotrypis declared:

[W]e feel that through a close collaboration with Israel, we will be able to be a major player in the world energy market, something that might be too hard for each country to achieve individually.[29]

The future of the Israeli-Cypriot partnership will also depend on the export route of the Israeli gas. Jerusalem has examined a number of options for the optimum utilization of its gas fields but probably prefers to export gas westward in order to improve its relations with European countries.[30] From the Israeli perspective, energy cooperation with Greece and Cyprus could build a new web of alliances with the EU that would help Jerusalem to break out of its increasing geopolitical isolation. The Netanyahu government even lobbied on behalf of Greece in Europe and the United States for an economy recovery plan.[31] In late March 2012, during an energy conference in Athens, then Israeli minister of energy Uzi Landau spoke of “an axis of Greece, Cyprus, and Israel and possibly more countries, which will offer an anchor of stability.”[32] In August 2013, the three countries signed an agreement to install a 2000-megawatt underwater electric cable to connect their power grids – the first of its kind to connect Europe and Asia.[33]

Most recently, in December 2015, a series of trilateral consultations was held in Jerusalem in which a set of issues were taken up and discussed, with energy development topping the list. The parties agreed to further promote trilateral consultations and to meet on a regular basis, beginning with a meeting of their heads of state in Nicosia on January 28, 2016.[34]

LEBANON, CYPRUS, AND ISRAEL

While revenues from the sale of oil and gas can bring wealth and prosperity to societies, they also have the potential to upset regional balances of power. In the Eastern Mediterranean, where countries have been locked in conflicts over territory for decades, gas discoveries seem likely to increase the stakes. Contested ownership of gas resources has, in fact, destabilized already strained relations between Israel and Lebanon as well as between Turkey and Cyprus.

Although a delimitation agreement between Lebanon and Cyprus was signed in January 2007, the Lebanese parliament has refused to ratify it to date, and Hezbollah declared the agreement “null and void because the Lebanese side that signed it had its official capacity revoked ... The sea, like land, is a one hundred percent legitimate Lebanese right, and we shall defend it with all our strength”.[35]

When in December 2010, Nicosia signed an agreement with Jerusalem demarcating their maritime borders, Beirut accused both states of violating its maritime rights.[36] The following year, in a televised speech marking the fifth anniversary of Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel, the group’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened Israel with a strike against its energy infrastructure:

“We warn Israel against extending its hands to this area and steal[ing] Lebanon’s resources from Lebanese waters ... Whoever harms our future oil facilities in Lebanese territorial waters, its own facilities will be targeted.”[37]

These are not hollow threats. Hezbollah has the military capacity to attack Israel’s offshore gas platforms should it choose to do so. The 2006 war revealed that its vast arsenal of missiles and rockets includes Chinese-manufactured C-802 anti-ship missiles (range 75 miles) and Zelzal-2 rockets (range 125-250 miles).[38] For its part, the Israeli navy is acquiring at least two 1,200-ton patrol-class vessels, along with additional unmanned aerial vehicles and missile-armed, remote-control gunboats.[39] In this way, Jerusalem seeks to deter possible raids from Lebanon. The protection and exploitation of gas reserves is thus seen by the Israeli leadership as a matter of national security.

TURKEY, CYPRUS, AND ISRAEL

The relationship between Turkey and Cyprus is yet another example of a long-standing conflict with few prospects of imminent resolution, and the AKP’s rise to power has only exacerbated the situation.

In Erdoğan’s increasingly paranoid worldview, the possible economic and diplomatic revival of Cyprus as a result of gas development poses a clear and present danger to Turkish national security. In September 2011, Ankara signed a continental shelf delimitation agreement with the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,” and shortly afterward, the Turkish state oil company (TPAO) started its first drilling near the occupied Cypriot city of Famagusta.

While Ankara has invited foreign companies to explore its Mediterranean coast for energy resources, only the Royal Dutch/Shell has thus far expressed interest.[40] In late October 2014, a Turkish research vessel entered the Cypriot EEZ to collect seismic data. Nicosia viewed this as a violation of its sovereign rights, since it had already licensed parts of its EEZ to foreign energy companies.[41]

Israeli and Turkish officials have recently concluded secret talks about bilateral reconciliation.

The energy factor has also internationalized the “Cyprus Problem,” creating a new point of friction between Ankara and Jerusalem. The Turkish government did not anticipate the rapid improvement of Israeli-Cypriot relations and fears that the bilateral cooperation will not be limited to the energy sector. Even before this development, Erdoğan had threatened Jerusalem over its gas exploration initiatives, warning that while “Israel has begun to declare that it has the right to act in exclusive economic areas in the Mediterranean...[it] will not be owner of this right.”[42] For its part Jerusalem has not remained passive, requesting Cypriot permission for the use of the Paphos air base by Israeli fighter jets.[43] In early November 2015, the two countries conducted the second Onisilos-Gideon military exercise in the western part of the island.

The internationalization of the “Cyprus Problem” extends well beyond the region. Chinese companies have already bid for gas exploration and liquefaction projects in the Eastern Mediterranean and are negotiating an agreement with the Cypriot government to purchase LNG by 2020. Consequently, Beijing has closely followed the Cyprus peace negotiations.[44]

AN ENGINE FOR CONFLICT RESOLUTION?

The Eastern Mediterranean energy boom has helped warm traditionally chilly bilateral relationships between some countries while aggravating already strained relations with others. Can it also become an engine for promoting regional cooperation?

While the last few years have seen a great deal of saberrattling out of Ankara, the likelihood of a military confrontation between Cyprus and Turkey, or Israel and Turkey, seems small. The construction and operation of energy infrastructure (e.g., pipelines, refineries, natural gas plants) is a costly business requiring political stability, and Ankara may not wish to undermine its role as an energy transit state. Indeed, Israeli and Turkish officials have recently concluded secret talks about bilateral reconciliation that covered, among other items, the laying of a natural gas pipeline between the two countries. This would allow Turkey to reduce its energy dependence on Russia (relations with which have worsened following the downing of a Russian fighter jet in November 2015) as well as to open up a new market for Israel’s natural gas projects off its coast.[45]

In addition, Ankara has offered to build a “peace pipeline” to transport Cypriot gas to European markets via Turkish territory.[46] Nicosia has not rejected this plan provided there is a resolution to the “Cyprus problem,” including the reunification of the island and the withdrawal of Turkish troops from the northern section. This bolsters the argument, advanced by the U.S. State Department among others, that gas profits could contribute to the island’s unification as both Greek and Turkish Cypriots would have major additional incentives to accept a peace deal.[47] It is no coincidence that the special representative for regional energy cooperation for the newly-established State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources is based in the U.S. embassy in Nicosia.[48]

This optimism is rooted in the long-held, liberal view of international relations positing that economic benefits resulting from energy transportation can help resolve political conflicts. Yet if history offers any guide, an economic boom attending hydrocarbons exports can just as often lead to ethnocentrism and economic nationalism as to goodwill and shared prosperity. The production of large quantities of oil and natural gas in the North Sea, for example, has strengthened Scottish nationalism and may eventually lead to Scotland’s secession from the United Kingdom. Likewise, the Clinton administration’s promotion of a “peace pipeline” to carry Azerbaijani oil through the contested area of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia to the Turkish market failed because Armenia did not wish to make the necessary territorial concessions to Azerbaijan.[49] Then again, in 2004, Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili floated the construction of a Russian-Georgian oil pipeline through the breakaway republic of Abkhazia to facilitate a solution to the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, only to be rebuffed by both Russia and Abkhazia.[50] The proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline had the same fate in 2009 when the Indian government announced its decision not to participate in the project for security reasons.[51]

Evidently, such pipelines have failed to materialize because states were neither willing to surrender territory nor comfortable depending on hostile neighbors in return for possible economic benefits. Those who envisage the prospect of a “peace pipeline” positively affecting the current negotiations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots for the resolution of the “Cyprus Problem” may find themselves seriously disappointed.

CONCLUSION

The new substantial gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean are rapidly transforming regional orientations. Energy interests have brought Israel closer than ever diplomatically to Cyprus and Greece and have played an important role in the apparent thaw in Israeli-Turkish relations. At the same time, energy has generated new tensions between producing countries and countries that feel excluded from the regional natural gas development opportunities. Relations between Turkey and Cyprus as well as between Israel and Lebanon, poor at best, have come under further strain.

U.S. and European interests will be well served by the emergence of the Eastern Mediterranean as a gas-exporting region.

Undoubtedly, U.S. and European interests will be well served by the emergence of the Eastern Mediterranean as a gas-exporting region. However, this will only be possible if there is a resolution to the ownership issue that can accelerate the pace of private investment in the regional gas industry.[52]

Without a region-wide legal agreement, energy companies may not be able to secure the necessary funding to develop and implement gas projects. Washington, which enjoys good relations with all Eastern Mediterranean countries, could act as a broker in hosting multilateral regional talks to defuse tensions and promote mutual understanding between countries in the region.

(Emmanuel Karagiannis is senior lecturer at the department of defense studies, King’s College, London.)

(For footnotes to this article see -- http://www.meforum.org/5877/shifting-eastern-mediterranean-alliances )