THE ROVING
EYE Why Qatar wants to invade
Syria By
Pepe Escobar
Make no mistake; the Emir of
Qatar is on a roll.
What an entrance at the UN
General Assembly in New York; Sheikh Hamad bin
Khalifa al-Thani called for an Arab coalition of
the willing-style invasion of Syria, no less. [1]
In the words of the Emir, "It
is better for the Arab countries themselves to
interfere out of their national, humanitarian,
political and military duties, and to do what is
necessary to stop the bloodshed in Syria." He
stressed Arab countries had a "military duty" to
invade.
What he means by "Arab
countries" is the petromonarchies of the Gulf
Counter-Revolution Club (GCC), previously known as
Gulf Cooperation Council - with implicit help from
Turkey, with which
the
GCC has a wide-ranging strategic agreement. Every
shisha house in the Middle East knows that Doha,
Riyadh and Ankara have been
weaponizing/financing/providing logistical help to
the various strands of the armed Syrian opposition
engaged in regime change.
The
Emir even quoted a "similar precedent" for an
invasion, when "Arab forces intervened in Lebanon"
in the 1970s. By the way, during a great deal of
the 1970s the Emir himself was engaged in more
mundane interventions, such as letting his hair
down alongside other Gulf royals in select Club
Med destinations, as this photo attests (he's the
guy on the left).
So
is the Emir now preaching an Arab version of the
R2P ("responsibility to protect") doctrine
advanced by The Three Graces of Humanitarian
Intervention (Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and
Samantha Power)?
This is certainly bound to go
down well in Washington - not to mention Ankara
and even Paris, considering French president
Francois Hollande has just called for UN
protection of "liberated zones" in Syria.
As
for the Emir's Lebanon precedent, that's not
exactly uplifting, to say the least. The so-called
Arab Deterrent Force of 20,000 soldiers that
entered Lebanon to try to contain the civil war
overstayed its welcome by no less than seven
years, turned into a Syrian military occupation of
northern Lebanon, left officially in 1982 and
still the civil war kept raging.
Imagine a similar scenario in
Syria - on steroids.
A
'pretty influential guy' As for the Emir's
humanitarian - not to mention democratic - ardor,
it's enlightening to check out what US President
Barack Obama thinks about it. Obama -
who defines the Emir as a "pretty influential guy"
- seems to imply that even though "he himself is
not reforming significantly" and "there's no big
move towards democracy in Qatar", just because the
emirate's per capita income is humongous, a move
towards democracy is not so pressing.
So
let's assume the Emir is not exactly interested in
turning Syria into Scandinavia. That opens the way
to an inevitable motive - connected to, what else,
Pipelineistan.
Vijay Prashad, author of the
recent Arab Spring, Libya
Winter, is currently writing a series on the
Syria Contact Group for Asia Times Online. He got
a phone call from an energy expert urging him to
investigate "the Qatari ambition to run its
pipelines into Europe." According to this source,
"the proposed route would have run through Iraq
and Turkey. The former transit country is posing
to be a problem. So much easier to go north (Qatar
has already promised Jordan free gas)."
Even
before Prashad concludes his investigation, it's
clear what Qatar is aiming at; to kill the US$10
billion Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, a deal that
was clinched even as the Syria uprising was
already underway. [2]
Here we see Qatar in direct
competition with both Iran (as a producer) and
Syria (as a destination), and to a lesser extent,
Iraq (as a transit country). It's useful to
remember that Tehran and Baghdad are adamantly
against regime change in Damascus.
The
gas will come from the same
geographical/geological base - South Pars, the
largest gas field in the world, shared by Iran and
Qatar. The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline - if it's ever
built - would solidify a predominantly Shi'ite
axis through an economic, steel umbilical cord.
Qatar, on the other hand,
would rather build its pipeline in a non-"Shi'ite
crescent" way, with Jordan as a destination;
exports would leave from the Gulf of Aqaba to the
Gulf of Suez and then to the Mediterranean. That
would be the ideal plan B as negotiations with
Baghdad become increasingly complicated (plus the
fact the route across Iraq and Turkey is much
longer).
Washington - and arguably
European customers - would be more than pleased
with a crucial Pipelineistan gambit bypassing the
Islamic Gas Pipeline.
And of course, if there's
regime change in Syria - helped by the
Qatari-proposed invasion - things get much easier
in Pipelineistan terms. A more than probable
Muslim Brotherhood (MB) post-Assad regime would
more than welcome a Qatari pipeline. And that
would make an extension to Turkey much easier.
Ankara and Washington would
win. Ankara because Turkey's strategic aim is to
become the top energy crossroads from the Middle
East/Central Asia to Europe (and the Islamic Gas
Pipeline bypasses it). Washington because its
whole energy strategy in Southwest Asia since the
Clinton administration has been to bypass, isolate
and hurt Iran by all means necessary. [3]
That wobbly Hashemite
throne All this points
to Jordan as an essential pawn in Qatar's
audacious geopolitical/energy power play. Jordan
has been invited to be part of the GCC - even
though it's not exactly in the Persian Gulf (who
cares? It's a monarchy).
One
of the pillars of Qatar's foreign policy is
unrestricted support for the MB - no matter the
latitude. The MB has already conquered the
presidency in Egypt. It is strong in Libya. It may
become the dominant power if there's regime change
in Syria. That brings us to Qatar's help to the MB
in Jordan.
At the moment, Jordan's
Hashemite monarchy is wobbly - and that's a
transcendental understatement.
There's a steady influx of
Syrian refugees. Compound it with the Palestinian
refugees that came in waves during the crucial
phases of the Arab-Israeli war, in 1948, 1967 and
1973. Then add a solid contingent of
Salafi-jihadis fighting Damascus. Only a few days
ago one Abu Usseid was arrested. His uncle was
none other than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the infamous
former head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, killed in 2006.
Usseid was about to cross the desert from Jordan
to Syria.
Amman has been mired in protests
since January 2011 - even before the spread of the
Arab Spring. King Abdullah, also known as King
Playstation, and photogenic Washington/Hollywood
darling Queen Rania, have not been spared.
The MB in Jordan is not the
only player in the protest wave; unions and social
movements are also active. Most protesters are
Jordanians - who historically have been in control
of all levels of state bureaucracy. But then
neo-liberalism reduced them to road kill; Jordan
went through a savage privatization drive during
the 1990s. The impoverished kingdom now depends on
the IMF and extra handouts from the US, the GCC
and even the EU.
Parliament is a joke -
dominated by tribal affiliation and devotion to
the monarchy. Reforms are not even cosmetic. A
prime minister was changed in April and most
people didn't even noticed it. In an Arab world
classic, the regime fights demands for change by
increasing repression.
Into
this quagmire steps Qatar. Doha wants King
Playstation to embrace Hamas. It was Qatar that
promoted the meeting in January between the King
and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal - who had been
expelled from Jordan in 1999. That left indigenous
Jordanians wondering whether the kingdom would be
swamped by yet another wave of Palestinian
refugees.
Arab media - most of it
controlled by the House of Saud - has been
drowning in stories and editorials predicting that
after the MB ascends to power in Damascus, Amman
will be next. Qatar, though, is binding its time.
The MB wants Jordan to become a constitutional
monarchy; then they will take over politically
after an electoral reform that King Abdullah has
been fighting against for years.
Now
the MB can even count on the support of Bedouin
tribes, whose traditional allegiance to the
Hashemite throne has never been wobblier. The
regime has ignored protests at its own peril. The
MB has called for a mass demonstration against the
King on October 10. The Hashemite throne is going
down, sooner rather than later.
It's
unclear how Obama would react - apart from praying
that nothing substantial happens before November
6. As for the Emir of Qatar, he has all the time
in the world. So many regimes to fall - and become
Muslim Brothers; so many pipelines to build.
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