{"id":2481,"date":"2016-01-17T12:07:57","date_gmt":"2016-01-17T12:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/?p=2481"},"modified":"2017-01-18T20:56:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T20:56:00","slug":"war-in-syria-the-pipeline-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2016\/01\/17\/war-in-syria-the-pipeline-war\/","title":{"rendered":"War in Syria – the ‘Pipeline War’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saeed just sent this piece<\/strong><\/a> from Middle East Eye on oil and gas aspects of the Syrian horror. It’s one-sidedly silent on the designs of the west, and speaks of Russia’s “imbalanced reactions” to having one of its planes shot down by Turkey.\u00a0 I’m not sure what a “balanced” reaction to the latter would look like, and the author doesn’t enlighten us. Certainly, a case can be made for saying Moscow showed more restraint than Washington would have shown in responding to a provocation some middle east watchers link to Ankara defending its oil dealings<\/a> <\/strong>with Isis.<\/p>\n

All the same it’s well worth the read, not least for a good summary in its opening paragraphs of what Saddam was up to when he invaded Kuwait. Me, I see Russia’s involvement as on balance<\/em>\u00a0 a good thing, though (a) she is of course pursuing her own interests and (b) the situation in Syria is more dangerous as a result. It’s just that I don’t see anything more frightening right now than unchecked US dominance, and the doctrine of exceptionalism it unleashed.<\/p>\n

On that last, I’m in the early stages of a longer post on the games being played out between on the one hand the US and front organisations NATO and the IMF; on the other China and Russia. The war in Syria, dubbed the Pipeline War<\/strong><\/a> by some, is one strand of those games. Another is December’s changes in IMF rules to allow Ukraine to stiff Russia on a sovereign debt without jeopardising – indeed, making it a condition of – its ability to borrow from the IMF. There are signs here of recklessness and an overplaying of Washington’s hand. Cooperation between China and Russia – based on the former’s financial muscle, the latter’s energy reserves and the sidelining of both powers by a dollar driven financial order laid down after WW2 at Bretton Woods – may actually hasten the very scenario Washington has consistently and, since the fall of the USSR, brazenly sought to avert. That scenario being a global alternative to the dollar, to the IMF as sovereign lender of last resort and hence to US ability to bully nation after nation into a choice between on the one hand insolvency; on the other IMF dictated austerity:\u00a0 aka\u00a0<\/em> transfer of state assets to a global elite while living standards for the many go through the floor.<\/p>\n

We live in interesting times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saeed just sent this piece from Middle East Eye on oil and gas aspects of the Syrian horror. It’s one-sidedly silent on the designs of the west, and speaks of Russia’s “imbalanced reactions” to having one of its planes shot … Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}