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Is Syria defecting from Iran?

John Loftus - 6/9/2008

While I understand that no "final" understandings have been reached, the mere fact that Syrian and Israeli governments chose this week to openly acknowledge the ongoing peace talks gives credence to the Israeli Director of military intelligence's amazing assertion last weekend. Mr. Yadlin claimed that Syria may be planning to sever its ties with Iran, in favor of closer ties with the West.

DMI Yadlin's assessment of an imminent Syrian volte-face makes great economic sense to me, as China is working on completing the largest refinery in the Middle East. Its financial success will be largely dependent upon the importation of Iraqi oil, and only the blessings of the USA will make that happen. I think that the Assad Mafia believes there is more money to be made from refining Iraqi oil for the Americans and Europeans, than from Iranian handouts.

The Israeli, Syrian and American silence about the pair of nuclear weapons sites raided in Deir as Zour last year may have been the reason why Syria is now jumping ship. Look at it this way: last September 6, the Syrians got the message that the Israeli air force could slip through their new Russian air defense system without the slightest problem. If the IDF could bomb two nuclear development targets in Deir as Zour, then the IDF could bomb the nearby Chinese refinery any time they wanted.

Also, I hear Israeli commandos had a great success stealing Syrian hard drives in the Deir as Zour raids, with information directly linking Iran to hiding nuclear weapons projects in Syria. The Israelis have something valuable to trade with the Americans in return for lifting the Syrian embargo. My take is that most of the Syrian peace deal has already been done, and this is just a PR show to gradually educate the Syrian public that de facto recognition of Israel is coming. The fact that Yadlin, the Director of Israeli Military Intelligence, chose last weekend to give his first interview to the press and then chose to reveal the possibility of a Syrian breakaway is certainly no coincidence.

The proposed demilitarization of the Golan and Chabba farms and gradual return back to Syria does not necessarily detract from Israel's security, and if, as alleged, Syria will also cut its ties with Hezbollah and Hamas, will greatly increase Israeli security.

If Syria does in fact break with Iran, then that means the Bekaa Valley will no longer serve as a transit point for the delivery of Iranian arms to Lebanon. If Syria seals the border with Lebanon, this might encourage the UNIFIL force to change its status from "unimportant, timid tourists" to act as a military unit that has grown a pair, assisting the Lebanese army in conducting house to house searches for Hezbollah weapons sites south of the Litani River. Without the threat of rockets fired from Lebanon, Hezbollah would cease to be a major threat to Israel.

Moreover, if the ever greedy Assad clan really does change sides, Syria will no longer serve the Iranian IRGC as a staging area for attacks on Iraq. General Petraeus recent clearing of insurgent activity in Mosul could also pave the way for the export of Northern Iraqi oil to Syria through the old Hess pipeline. I note that the Chinese refinery in Deir as Zour is not far over the border from Iraq, and suspiciously convenient to the old Hess pipeline. Another interesting coincidence is the recent announcement that the proven oil reserves in Iraq are now greater than 350 mbbl, larger than Saudi Arabia's, formerly the largest in the world.

Thus, even though it may take another two years for the Saudis to finish their western pipeline to connect to Syria, it looks as if time is running out for the Iranian chokepoint on the straits of Hormuz, which means the end of their power. There is another oil pipeline across Jordan which the Saudis could use almost at once, but it ends up in Israel, so that is politically unlikely. But, if the Syrians can change sides, anything is possible.

Moreover, there is something in all of this for the House of Saud, the destruction of their Shiite enemy to the East. If, as the Israelis now publicly suggest, the US should now mount a blockade of Iranian oil exports, it would mean the end of the Iranian economy which is 90% dependent on oil exports. This, of course, would immediately send the oil speculators into a screaming frenzy, pushing prices above $200 bbl., but not for long.

The sudden Syrian-American announcement of the reopening of a pipeline to transport the new huge reserves of Iraqi oil to the new huge refinery in Syria would drop oil prices like a rock, and cut the feet out from under the speculators. If the EU could import its oil by Syrian tanker routes across the Mediterranean, rather than out from under the Iranian guns at the Straits of Hormuz, we could witness a sudden sharp and permanent drop in the price of oil, wiping out the speculators. Some economists think that as much as 60% of current oil prices are due to speculatory inflation and that the price bubble is ready to burst.

My cynical side says that oil and politics mix all too readily, and that we might see the timing of a Syrian-Israeli announcement of a final peace deal in time to elect McCain as President, but that of course is merely a hunch on my part. The smarter move may be to wait until the Saudi-Syrian pipeline is completed, which potentially moves most of Europe's oil out of the path of the Straits of Hormuz and away from Iranian revenge.

Like the Russian VLCC crude carriers, Syrian-chartered tankers could take a short trip down the coast, and offload their oil at Ashkelon, Israel. For Asian customers, this saves money and time in shipping oil around Africa. Instead the oil flows from Ashkelon, down the Israeli pipeline to Eilat, is reloaded back onto tankers, and shipped out the Red Sea for delivery across the Indian ocean to China.

This could explain the sudden interest of the Chinese in building the world's largest refinery in Syria, which has almost no oil of its own and is presently under an American-lead export embargo because of Syria's support for terrorism against Lebanon, Israel and Iraq. That could all change of course, if the peace deal gets signed, and Iraqi oil gets shipped to Syria.

The Iraqi - Syrian oil connection would be for the Chinese import as much as for the European markets. This need to guard the eastern oil shipping routes would also explain the mad Chinese rush to expand their naval forces, as well as the recent decision by the Government of India to purchase an American aircraft carrier.

I note the recent arrival of a second US carrier group off Iran. Since the navy now openly concedes that they have no defense to the Russian sunburst missile (let alone any of the new Chinese missiles), the US fleet would have to stay at least 220 miles off the Iranian coast to stay out of range. But a fleet standing that far off the coast could still blockade Iranian oil, as well as defend the Red Sea - Indian Ocean route from Iranian air attacks.

The US Navy is much better suited to defending sea lanes from a handful of long-range Iranian aircraft and ballistic missiles, than in supporting an offensive move against Iran. As much as I respect my old friend Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, I do not think we have either the target intelligence or the allied support for a military attack on Iran. Do the math. If we have 300 plus known Iranian targets, that means 600 plus air missions to ensure their destruction. We would need the augmentation of significant numbers of French and British fighter bombers to pull off a bombing campaign of that size, which is not likely to happen in this political climate.

Which leaves Israel. Suppose the rumors are true that North Korean tunnel builders have hidden the Iranian nuclear complexes beneath the Holy Shrine of Moshad in northeastern Iran, then the target would be off limits to Israeli bombers for political reasons as well as completely out of range. Israeli fighters lack equipment for carrier landing, as well as extended mid-air refueling capacity. They could not fly repeated round-trips to Moshad, even if they wanted to.

There are lots of airstrips in western Afghanistan, and a decent airport just north of the Iranian border in Khazekstan, but I do not think either Islamic government would permit their territory to be used as forward bases for American or Israeli airstrikes on Iran.

I do want to see what happens tomorrow in the UN when El Baradei returns his report that Iran is still refusing to cooperate on nuclear inspections. If in the next few months the security council votes for increasing sanctions, including an oil blockade against Iran, then that would tend to support Israeli intelligence' leader Yadlin's stunning assessment that a Syrian-Iran break is imminent, and the Israeli Prime Ministers near simultaneous call for a sea blockade of Iranian oil exports.

My Iranian friends tell me that they doubt Ahmadinejad's government could survive three weeks without oil revenue needed to keep their welfare state afloat. A blockade also means the end of Indian gasoline exports, which accounts for nearly half of Iran's daily consumption. The whole country would literally grind to a halt. Don't get your hopes up, this is still the Middle East where anything could happen. It would be ironic though, if an Israeli-Syrian peace deal provided the economic weapon to crush the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.