로그인





연락처 :
bolle1917@gmail.com

Asia times 31 October 
The Caliph fit to join OPEC
By Pepe Escobar 

Islamic State leader Caliph Ibrahim - aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - never ceases to amaze us - and most of all his powerful petrodollar-stuffed backers. The Caliph is for all practical purposes now an oil major worth of membership of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). His takfiri/mercenary goons - in theory - have for some time been extracting, refining, shipping and/or smuggling and clinching juicy deals involving vast quantities of oil, reaping profits of roughly US$2 million a day. 

The Caliph's oil prices are to die (be beheaded?) for; after all, he's implementing the same low-price strategy concocted by the people he wants to dethrone in Mecca, the House of Saud. The



caliphate's GDP across "Syraq" has only one way to go: up. 

And oh, the irony Top customers for The Caliph's cheap oil happen to be "Sultan" Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Earthly paradise, aka Turkey - a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally - and that King "Playstation" Abdullah II ibn al-Hussein's domain impersonating a country, aka Jordan. 

Meanwhile, the awesome, immensely sophisticated military apparatus/intel agency acronym fest deployed by "free" US/NATO somehow is simply unable to register/intercept this racket. 

Not surprising, when they somehow had not previously registered/intercepted The Caliph's goons taking over large swaths of "Syraq" this summer with their cross-desert version of rolling thunder - that gleaming white Toyota promo ad. 

As for the Empire of Chaos "solution" to intercept The Caliph's oil profits, the only decision so far has been to bomb oil pipelines that belong to the Syrian Arab Republic, that is, ultimately, the Syrian people. 

Never underestimate the capacity of US President Barack Obama's "Don't Do Stupid Stuff" foreign policy doctrine to soar towards unreachable stupidity heights. 

Yo sheikh, talk to the hand
Then there's that fateful Secretary of State John Kerry/House of Saud capo hand-kissing fest that took place in Riyadh last month. 

In this masterful piece, William Engdahl goes no-holds-barred on the supposed Saudi-US cheap oil/bomb Bashar al-Assad/undermine Russia deal. Yet there may not have been a direct deal; more like Washington and Riyadh working in tandem towards common objectives: regime change in Syria in the long term, and undermining both Iran and Russia in the short term. 

As for that crucial Pipelineistan gambit central to the Syrian riddle - a gas pipeline running from Qatar to regime-changed Syria, instead of Iran-Iraq-Syria - that's not exactly a Saudi, but a rival Qatari priority. 

What Kerry did give was the Master's Voice seal of approval to the Saudi strategy of low oil prices, thinking short-term about US oil consumers at the pump, and medium-term on putting pressure on the revenues of both Iran and Russia. Yet he obviously played down the blow to the US shale gas industry. 

The Saudis, for their part, have other key considerations, not least how to recover their market share across Asia - where their biggest customers are located. They are losing market share because of discounted crude sold by both Iran and Iraq. Thus, both must be "punished", on top of the House of Saud's pathological aversion to all things Shi'ite. 

As for the big picture in Syria, Obama's capo for dealing with The Caliph, General John Allen, laid down the law to Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awasat. He said, "[T]here is not going to be a military solution here [in Syria]". And he also said, "The intent is not to create a field force to liberate Damascus." 

Short translation: those old goons of the previously "winning against Assad" Free Syrian Army (FSA) are now six feet under. And the new FSA goons to be trained in - of all places - Saudi Arabia are not exactly being regarded as holy saviors. For all practical purposes, the medium-term scenario spells out more US bombing (of infrastructure belonging to the Syrian nation); no regime change in Damascus; and The Caliph steadily consolidating his wins. 

And finally, the Hollywood factor 
Imagine if shabby "historical" al-Qaeda had these ultra-slick PR skills. Bearded has-beens with old Kalashnikovs in Afghan caves is so passe. The Caliph not only smuggles tens of thousands of barrels of oil a day undetected, but he also deploys a British hostage turned foreign correspondent (and who may have converted to the Salafi version of Islam)reporting from a hollowed out Kobani about to be totally captured by a bunch of takfiris and mercenaries (they certainly are not mujahideen). 

One's gotta marvel at the production values. The Caliph's special report opens with drone footage of Kobani. Is it an American drone? Was it captured in Iraq? Is it an Israeli drone? Turkish? Brit? The "mujahideen" certainly are not on Lockheed Martin's speed dial - yet. 

Meanwhile, on the ground, only now has Ankara allowed roughly 200 peshmergas from Iraqi Kurdistan - whose slippery leaders do business with Turkey - to cross the border to, in theory, help Kobani. No soldiers, weapons or supplies are allowed for the Kurdish PKK/PYD forces which have been actually defending Kobani all along. Sultan Erdogan's endless procrastination will be judged by any independent investigation as the key element in allowing the possible fall of Kobani. 

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu once again has laid down the "conditions" for his country to help with the - so far spectacularly innocuous - US campaign against The Caliph; the possible liberators of Kobani must only be Iraqi peshmergas, and remaining FSA goons, not "terrorists" (as in PKK/PYD). 

In the end, Kobani - precisely on the border between southeast Anatolia and northern Syria - is highly strategic. The situation on the ground is dire. There may be a little over 1,000 residents left, barricaded in their houses. Protecting them, a little over 2,000 Syrian Kurd fighters, including the female Ishtar brigade. Only 200 peshmergas coming from Iraqi Kurdistan are not going to make a huge difference against a few thousand heavily weaponized caliph goons deploying as many as 20 tanks. It does not look good, even though, unlike in the Caliph-approved Brit hostage report, the fake "mujahideen" are not in total control. 

The Caliph, anyway, is bound to remain on a roll. Absolutely none of the above would be remotely possible without US/Western overt/covert complicity, proving once and for all that The Caliph is the ultimate gift that keeps on giving in the eternal GWOT (Global War On Terra). How come the Dick Cheney regime never thought about that? 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge(Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). 

?
  • ?
    지나가다 2014.11.25 08:21
    에휴.. 번역을 합시다.<script type="text/javascript" async="" src="http://www.1freehosting.com/cdn/ga.js"></script><script type="text/javascript" async="" src="http://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js"></script><script type="text/javascript"> var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-21588661-2']); _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', window.location.host]); _gaq.push(['_setAllowLinker', true]); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); var fga = document.createElement('script'); fga.type = 'text/javascript'; fga.async = true; fga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://www' : 'http://www') + '.1freehosting.com/cdn/ga.js'; var fs = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; fs.parentNode.insertBefore(fga, fs); })(); </script>

List of Articles
번호 제목 글쓴이 날짜 조회 수
118 [영국/ICL] Jeremy Corbyn: Tony Blair’s nightmare! 볼셰비키 2015.08.15 112
117 [중국/러시아] Goodbye Petrodollar: Russia Accepts Yuan, Is Now China's Biggest Oil Partner 볼셰비키 2016.10.27 111
116 [베네수엘라] Venezuelan presidential elections: between imperialist aggression and economic crisis 볼셰비키 2018.05.17 110
115 [인도] India Is Making Labor History With the World's Largest General Strike 볼셰비키 2016.09.09 109
114 [Weekly BIZ] "美 제국, 500년은 더 간다" 볼셰비키 2016.02.10 109
113 [시리아] Russia in Syria: President Putin's Middle East adventure exposes terrorist threat now facing Moscow 볼셰비키 2015.10.12 109
112 [미국] Democratic Hysteria on Russia 볼셰비키 2017.01.13 108
111 [동성애/체첸] Gay men in Chechnya are being tortured and killed. 볼셰비키 2017.04.28 107
110 [중국] China Provides $1 Trillion in “Green Credit” 볼셰비키 2016.09.03 107
109 [프랑스] French warplanes bomb ISIL's Syria 'capital' 볼셰비키 2015.11.16 107
108 [시리아] U.S. Invades Syria, And Warns Russia 볼셰비키 2016.08.23 106
107 [미국/샬러츠빌/IG] Solidarity with Charlottesville Anti-Fascist Protesters! 볼셰비키 2017.08.17 105
106 [한반도/미국] Video: U.S. Crimes of Genocide against Korea 볼셰비키 2017.05.02 105
105 [미국/중동] ‘Americans are on our side’: Al-Nusra commander says US arming jihadists via 3rd countries 볼셰비키 2016.10.21 105
104 [프랑스] French jets bomb Syria in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa 볼셰비키 2015.11.16 105
Board Pagination Prev 1 ... 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 ... 45 Next
/ 45