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by Imad Fawzi Shueibi (April 17th 2012)

The media and military attack against Syria is directly related to the global competition for energy, as explained by Professor Imad Shuebi in this masterful article. At a time when the euro area threatens to collapse, where an acute economic crisis has led the U.S. into a debt of up to 14 940 billion, and where their influence is dwindling in the face of the emerging BRICS powers, it becomes clear that the key to economic success and political domination lies mainly in the control of the energy source of the century: gas. It is because she is at the heart of the most colossal gas reserves in the world that Syria is being targeted. The wars of the last century were fought for oil, but a new era has dawned, that of wars for gas.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russians began to feel that the struggle for armament has exhausted them, especially in the absence of the necessary energy sources needed by any industrial country. The American presence in the oil zones for some decades enabled them to grow and have control over the international political decision without much struggle. Therefore, the Russians turned towards energy sources, be them oil or gas. Since the international apportionment does not bear much competition in oil sectors, Moscow sought to manipulate gas in the areas of gas production, transporting or marketing on a large scale.

The starting point was in 1995 when Putin set the strategy of Gasprom Co. to move within the area in which gas exists starting from Russia through Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iran (for marketing) and the Middle East. Certainly, the projects of the Nord Stream and South Stream will be a historical order of merit/insignia given to Vladimir Putin for his efforts in bringing Russia back to the International arena and for tightening the grip on the European economy which will depend, for decades, on gas as an alternative for oil or depend on gas as well as oil, yet with prioritizing the first; i.e., gas. At this point, it was a must for Washington to hasten to create its peer project; Nabucco, to compete against the Russian project as to gain an international apportionment on the basis of which the next century will be politically and strategically determined. Continue reading →