Wiping Syria from the map

While researching the topic of oil embargoes and oil pipelines this morning I ran across this quote:

This is a new world order now. This is what things look like... particularly if we wipe out Syria... it is all about oil.

The speaker is James Akins, American ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the 1970's and a man who knew the oil business and petro-politics as well as anyone on the planet.

He's speaking in 2003 and quoted in a Guardian article about the feasibility of an Iraq-Haifa oil pipeline.

Those were heady times, those triumphalist months basking in the first blush of victory over Sadam. Anything was possible. The Pentagon had big plans for Ahmed Chalabi, international man of mystery and bullshitter supreme. With Chalabi in the driver's seat in Baghdad, not even the sky was the limit!

Then of course it all went for a shit.

Democracy, however imperfect, reared its head and cut short Chalabi's political career in Iraq. He is in many quarters today regarded as an Iranian agent.

The Israel-Iraq pipeline was never built, but according to a Guardian article by Richard Silverstein in 2008, the Haifa refinery met its crude oil needs by buying Iranian oil.

Also around that time, Iran and Iraq announced an agreement to build a pipeline from Basra in the south of Iraq to the Iranian city of Abadon. At the time, I believe the plan was to pump Iraqi crude to a refinery in the Iranian city.

One of the marvels of a pipeline is that its contents can flow in either direction. Would the Shia government in Iraq support their Shia brothers in Iran by shipping Iranian oil from Basra as Iraqi product? Just wondering.

A rise in Iraqi exports in step with a decline in Iranian exports could very well signal that this is happening.

The US-led embargo seems to be a fickle creature. Just the other day one of America's closest allies in Africa, Kenya, signed a major deal with Iran to import their oil.

One would almost think that the embargo is more about optics than about oil.

As for Syria, it looks like Akins' plan is running about ten years behind schedule.