Hundreds of American soldiers
are remaining in Syria to occupy its oil reserves and block the Syrian
government from revenue needed for reconstruction. Trump said openly, “We want
to keep the oil.”
By Ben Norton
US President Donald Trump has
reassured supporters that he is “bringing soldiers home” from the “endless” war
in Syria. But that is simply not the case.
While Trump has ordered a
partial withdrawal of the approximately 1,000 American troops on Syrian territory
— who have been enforcing an illegal military occupation under international
law — US officials and the president himself have admitted that some will be
staying. And they will remain on Syrian soil not to ensure to safety of any
group of people, but rather to maintain control over oil and gas fields.
The US military has already
killed hundreds of Syrians, and possibly even some Russians, precisely in order
to hold on to these Syrian fossil fuel reserves.
Washington’s obsession with
toppling the Syrian government refuses to die. The United States remains
committed to preventing Damascus from retaking its own oil, as well as its
wheat-producing breadbasket region, in order to starve the government of
revenue and prevent it from funding reconstruction efforts.
The Washington Post noted in
2018 that the US and its Kurdish allies were militarily occupying a massive “30
percent slice of Syria, which is probably where 90 percent of the pre-war oil
production took place.”
Now, for the first time, Trump
has openly confirmed the imperialist ulterior motives behind maintaining a US
military presence in Syria.
“We
want to keep the oil,” Trump confessed in a cabinet meeting on October 21.
“Maybe we’ll have one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly.”
Three days earlier, the
president tweeted, “The U.S. has secured the Oil.”
Just spoke to President @RTErdogan of Turkey. He told me there
was minor sniper and mortar fire that was quickly eliminated. He very much
wants the ceasefire, or pause, to work. Likewise, the Kurds want it, and the
ultimate solution, to happen. Too bad there wasn’t.....
.....this thinking years ago.
Instead, it was always held together with very weak bandaids, & in an
artificial manner. There is good will on both sides & a really good chance
for success. The U.S. has secured the Oil, & the ISIS Fighters are double
secured by Kurds & Turkey....
The New
York Times confirmed the strategy on October 20. Citing a “senior
administration official,” the newspaper reported:
“President Trump is leaning in
favor of a new Pentagon plan to keep a small contingent of American troops in
eastern Syria, perhaps numbering about 200, to combat the Islamic State
and block the advance of Syrian government and Russian forces into the
region’s coveted oil fields.
… A side benefit would
be helping the Kurds keep control of oil fields in the east, the official
said.”
Trump then explicitly
reiterated this policy in a White
House press briefing on the Syria withdrawal on October 23.
“We’ve secured the oil (in
Syria), and therefore a small number of US troops will remain in the area where
they have the oil,” Trump said. “And we’re going to be protecting it. And
we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future.”
Using ISIS as an excuse to
occupy Syria’s oil fields
US Secretary of Defense Mark
Esper – the former vice president of government relations at top weapons
manufacturer Raytheon, before being promoted by Trump to the head of the
Pentagon – revealed the actual US policy on Syria in a press conference on
the 21st:
“We have troops in towns in
northeast Syria that are located next to the oil fields. The troops in those
towns are not in the present phase of withdrawal.
… Our forces will remain
in the towns that are located near the oil fields.”
Esper added that the US military
is “maintaining a combat air patrol above all of our forces on the ground in
Syria.”
Unlike Trump, Esper offered an
excuse to justify the continued US military occupation of Syria’s oil fields.
He insisted that American soldiers remain to help the Kurdish-led Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF) hold on to the resources and prevent ISIS jihadists
from taking them over.
This led mainstream corporate
media outlets like CNN to
report, “Defense secretary says some US troops will temporarily stay in Syria
to protect oil fields from ISIS.”
But any observer who carefully
parsed Esper’s
comments during his press conference would have been able to detect
the real goal behind the prolonged US presence in northeastern Syria. As Esper
said, “A purpose of those [US] forces, working with the SDF, is to deny
access to those oil fields by ISIS and others who may benefit from
revenues that could be earned.”
“And others who may benefit
from their revenues earned” is a crucial qualifier. In fact, Esper used this
language – “ISIS and others” – two more times in his presser.
Who exactly Esper meant by
“others” is clear: The US strategy is to prevent Syria’s UN-recognized
government and the Syrian majority that lives under its control from retaking
their own oil fields and reaping the benefits of their revenue.
US military massacred hundreds
to keep control of Syrian oil fields
This is not just speculation.
CNN made it plain when it reported
the following in an undeniably blunt passage, citing anonymous US
senior military officials:
“The US military has long had
military advisers embedded with the Syrian Democratic Forces near the Syrian
oil fields at Deir Ezzoir ever since the area was captured from ISIS. The loss
of those oil fields denied ISIS a major source of revenue, a one-time source of
funds that has differentiated the organization from other terror groups.
The oil fields are assets that
have also been long sought after by Russia and the Assad regime, which is
strapped for cash after years of civil war. Both Moscow and Damascus hope to
use oil revenues to help rebuild western Syria and solidify the regime’s hold.
In a bid to seize the oil
fields, Russian mercenaries attacked the areas, leading to a clash that saw
dozens if not hundreds of Russian mercenaries killed in US airstrikes, an
episode that Trump has touted as proof he is tough on Russia. That action
helped deter Russian or regime forces from making similar bids for the oil
fields.
The US forces near the oil
fields remain in place and senior military officials had previously told CNN
that they would likely be among the last to leave Syria.”
CNN thus acknowledged that the
US military had killed up to “hundreds” of Syrian and Russia-backed fighters
seeking to gain access to Syria’s oil fields. It massacred these fighters not
for humanitarian reasons, but to prevent the Syrian government from using “oil
revenues to help rebuild western Syria.”
This shockingly direct
admission flew in the face of the popular myth that the US was keeping troops
in Syria to protect Kurds from an assault by NATO member Turkey.
The CNN report was an apparent
reference to the Battle of Khasham, a little known but important episode in the
eight-year international proxy war on Syria.
The battle unfolded on
February 7, 2018, when the Syrian military and its allies launched an attack to
try to retake major oil and gas reserves in Syria’s Deir ez-Zour governorate,
which were being occupied by American troops and their Kurdish proxies.
The New York Times seemed to
revel in the news that the US military massacred 200 to 300 fighters after
hours of “merciless
airstrikes from the United States.”
The Times repeatedly stressed
that Deir ez-Zour is “oil-rich.” And it cited anonymous US officials who
claimed that many of the slaughtered fighters were Russian nationals from the
private military company the Wagner Group. These unnamed “American intelligence
officials” told the Times that the alleged Russian fighters were “in Syria to
seize oil and gas fields and protect them on behalf of the Assad government.”
The Times noted that US
special operations forces from JSOC were working with Kurdish forces at an
outpost next to Syria’s important Conoco gas plant. The Kurdish-led SDF had
seized this facility from ISIS in 2017 with the help of the US military. The
Wall Street Journal noted at the time that the “plant is capable of producing
nearly 450
tons of gas a day,” and was one of ISIS’ most important sources of funding.
The newspaper added, “The
Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes,
are racing against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad for territorial
gains in Syria’s east.” The commodities monitoring websites MarketWatch and OilPrice.com were
closely following the story and analyzing which forces would take over one of
Syria’s most important gas plants.
Starving Syria of oil and
wheat, the basics of survival
For the Syrian government,
regaining control over its oil and gas reserves in the eastern part of its
territory is crucial to paying for reconstruction efforts and social programs —
especially at a time when suffocating US and EU sanctions have crippled the
economy, caused fuel shortages,
and severely hurt Syria’s civilian population.
The US has aimed to prevent
Damascus from retaking profitable territory, starving it of natural resources
from fossil fuels to basic foodstuffs.
In 2015, then-President Barack
Obama deployed US troops to northeastern Syria on the grounds of helping the
Kurdish militia the People’s Protection Units (YPG) fight ISIS. What started as
several dozen US special operations forces quickly ballooned into some 2,000
troops, largely stationed in northeastern Syria.
As these US soldiers enabled
the YPG retake territory from ISIS, they solidified Washington’s control over
nearly one-third of Syrian sovereign territory — territory that just so
happened to include 90 percent of Syria’s oil, as well as 70 percent of its
wheat.
The US subsequently forced the
Kurdish-led YPG to rebrand
as the SDF, and then treated them as proxies to try to weaken the Syrian
government and its allies Iran and Russia.
In June, Reuters confirmed
that Kurdish-led authorities had agreed to stop
selling wheat to Damascus, after the US government pressured them to do so.
The Grayzone has reported how
the Center for a New American Security, a leading Democratic Party foreign
policy think tank bankrolled by the US government and NATO, proposed using
the “wheat
weapon” to starve Syria’s civilian population.
A former Pentagon
researcher-turned-senior fellow at the think tank declared openly, “Wheat is a
weapon of great power in this next phase of the Syrian conflict.” He added, “It
can be used to apply pressure on the Assad regime, and through the regime on
Russia, to force concessions in the UN-led diplomatic process.”
Donald Trump appeared to echo
this strategy in his October 21 cabinet meeting.
“We want to keep the oil, and
we’ll work something out with the Kurds so that they have some money, have some
cashflow,” he said. “Maybe we’ll have one of our big oil companies to go in and
do it properly.”
While Trump has pledged to
bring US soldiers home and end their military occupation of Syrian territory –
which is illegal under international law – it is evident that the broader
regime change war continues.
A brutal economic war on
Damascus is escalating, not only through sanctions but through the theft of
Syria’s natural treasures by foreign powers.
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