I’m going to string together a few links that shed light on the Middle East situation, present and longer term. Now, I will let everyone make their own judgment as to the relative weight to accord these stories but there is a backstory here that is actually quite hopeful, if peace is your thing.
Do you know of the “Four Seas” strategy? Until a week ago, I was clueless. But in chasing down some links from moonofalabama, I found this post over at pennyforyourthoughts. This is from June 21, 2011.
While China is moving west towards the Caspian Sea, Damascus is concurrently moving eastward. Since 2009, Bashar al-Assad has been promoting a “Four Seas Strategy” to turn Damascus into a trade hub among the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Persian Gulf/Arabian Sea and the Caspian Sea.
He described Syria’s nexus of “a single, larger perimeter [with Turkey, Iran and Russia]…we’re talking about the center of the world” [17]. Syria can thus act as a means of access for EU countries to markets in the Arab world and western Asian countries [18]. Assad discussed this vision with Medvedev in May this year, and in August 2009 he received Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s blessing when he presented this strategy [19].
Assad was pushing the idea that Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran form an economic hub that would become the common nexus of trade between Africa, China, Asia and Europe.
Our next stop is at something called OpenOil: ‘imagine an open oil industry…’ This is from March 28, 2012. Syria’s transit future: all pipelines lead to Damascus? They really push the Assad is history storyline here but it has some good background.
An oil importer in the 1950s and 60s with little production of its own, Syria became a net exporter of oil by the 1980s; it is now a country whose depleting reserves will lead to petroleum imports soon exceeding exports once again. With oil production approaching an apparent dead end, the Syrian government – that is, whoever succeeds the lame duck regime of Bashar al-Assad – will need to lean on oil transit fees for revenues, as the government of the 50s and 60s did with the IPC pipeline from Iraq to Syria’s Mediterranean coast. In this sense, once Assad goes he will leave his country’s energy sector in much the same situation his father found it in when he rose to power in 1971.
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In 2009, recognizing that the heady days of Syrian oil production in the 1980s were long gone and that the sector’s future lay in transit, Assad announced a `four seas strategy’ aimed at transforming the country into a regional hub for oil transportation between the Persian Gulf and the Black, Caspian and Mediterranean seas. He began taking steps to realize the country’s transit-center potential and bring the four seas strategy closer to reality.
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Only one thing seems sure: oil and gas transit is the safest bet for Syria’s energy future. The regional politics surrounding the construction of new pipelines are far murkier. The government after Assad will face a tough test of navigating this political minefield to reclaim any potential of a four seas strategy that remains.
Gee, why didn’t we hear about this…..
From something called the LibyaProject, dated June 13, 2012
What has gone unmentioned in the current year of Syria-bashing is the regional economic strategy proposed by Bashar al-Assad in 2009. Known as the ‘Four Seas” strategy, it called for Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran to unite in a bloc that would serve as a global crossroads for trade, connecting the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Persian Gulf. Assad announced this ambitious plan with Turkish President Gul in a joint press conference in Ankara in May 2009, stating “Once we link these four seas, we become the compulsory intersection of the whole world in investment, transport and more.”
Maybe Assad was telling Kerry of his plans in that cozy dinner picture. Silly Assad, didn’t he realize he would be sold out in a NY Minute?
Perhaps the biggest supporter of Assad’s regional strategy was Beijing, where the Communist Party called Syria “ning jiu li” or cohesive force. Beijing saw a possible cooperation in their foreign policy, increasingly looking west towards Europe, and Syria’s “four seas” mindset. Starting with Assad’s visit to Beijing in July 2004, the Chinese-Syria economic relationship began to blossom, and by 2008 China was Syria’s largest supplier of imported goods. Chinese energy companies have also invested hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade Syria’s energy infrastructure, and have entered into joint exploration deals with Syrian oil exploration companies. Another large development is “China City”, a large, popular industrial center in the Adra Free Trade Zone, located 25 km northeast of Damascus. China City was established by wealthy entrepreneurs, and its products–everything from office to factory equipment–are increasingly popular with Middle East Businessmen, especially from Iraq.
What’s China got to do with it? Let Pepe Escobar pull it all together. China stitches up (SCO) Silk Rd
Xi’s official “economic belt along the Silk Road” is a supremely ambitious, Chinese-fueled trans-Eurasian integration mega-project, from the Pacific to the Baltic Sea; a sort of mega free-trade zone. Xi’s rationale seems to be unimpeachable; the belt is the home of “close to 3 billion people and represents the biggest market in the world with unparalleled potential”.
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On Xi’s Silk Road trip, the final destination was Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, for the 13th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). And to cap it all off, nothing less than a graphic reminder of the stakes involved in the New Great Game in Eurasia; a joint meeting on the sidelines of the SCO, featuring Xi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
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Beijing is already massively investing in new roads and bridges along the Eurasian Land Bridge – another denomination of the New Silk Road. As Asia Times Online has reported, the New Silk Road is all about highways, railways, fiber optics and pipelines – with now the added Chinese push for logistics centers, manufacturing hubs and, inevitably, new townships.
Now we can see a grand picture emerging. The Four Seas countries are the western terminal to the New Silk Rd. It bypasses Israel and the southern Arab states and grabs a lot of Europe’s energy business from the sheiks. A lot of powerful interests not liking this trend, I bet. And the awesome part is that this process supports a peaceful international scene. It’s just business, not war. And only war can slow it down now.
