Natural Gas and the Syrian War - a fierce geopolitical game

After The Second World War, one of the most fierce- Syrian conflict has killed more than 400,000 people during 2011-2018 and 11 million were forced to become a refugee. This conflict began in 2011, when the country's government used force to suppress public tensions, in turn, the country has since been dragged into a heated civil war.

Main geopolitical players involved in the Syrian war

In the current conflict between the Syrian authorities and various anti-governmental forces, the main supporters of President Bashar Assad regime are Iran and Russia. The United States, EU, Turkey and Saudi Arabia support the United Opposition.

Russia, which has put military bases in Syria in 2015. In 2015 Russia launched military air campaign in Syria, as if it was fighting against “Islamic State”, but in reality Moscow was supporting the country's President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The above-mentioned factor reflected on the restoration of control over several provinces by the Syrian authorities and on weakening of moderate opposition.

According to Russian militaries, their goal was to fight against terrorists, However, many activists fighting against Bashar Assad's regime say that the Russian armed forces attacked civilians. During thousands of innocent people have been killed by these attacks

Russia's active involvement in the Syrian conflict can be explained by several reasons.

 

Under Obama's administration, after the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan,  America was refraining from active involvement  in Libya and then in the Syrian conflict. Russia had the opportunity to be more active in the Syrian conflict and " To fight against "Islamic State".
The Kremlin's action was a  based on a certain trade with the West, that Russia would do West’s work in Syria and destroy the "Islamic State" instead of easing  economic sanctions against Russia.
However, the events in the next period made it clear that Russia was  less interested in destroying "Islamic State", there are several reasons for that:

- Firs : The "Islamic State" controls   approximately 11 provinces of oil   in Iraq and Syria, this fact restricted the inflow of additional oil in the world market, And hindered the "black gold" price from falling, this situation was profitable for Moscow,  as Russia is one of the main oil producer and exporter in the world.

- As it is known, Russia has been supporting Bashar Assad's regime for many years, person who is undesirable political figure for the West.

Therefore, with the existence  of "Islamic State", West would stand in front of  the dilemma, they could support Bashar Assad’s regime or the ruler of the country could become “dark power”- Islamic State, Consequently, Russia has been carrying out missile strikes, mainly on the third power in Syria, on the positions of the country's relatively modest opposition.

- The existence of "Islamic State" on the territory of Syria and Iraq has been one of main nightmares for the West, because ultimately Europe had to be involved in the fight against “Jihadists”. According to the official Kremlin position , focusing on the problems of the Middle East will cause less involvement in the Post-soviet area from Europe  (Which Russia perceives as its sphere of influence) attention to the ongoing political events (first and foremost the problems of Georgia and Ukraine),  Russia would use to strengthen influence on post-Soviet republics.

Together with Russia, Bashar Assad's regime is supported by  Iran, this country brought thousands of military personnel in Syria and donated billions of dollars to the Assad regime.

With the support of Iran thousands of armed Shiite Muslims from Iran, Yemen and other Arab states have been involved in the conflict in favor of the Syrian government.

In turn, USA,  Great Britain, France and other Western allies support "Moderate" rebels. International Democratic Coalition Since 2014 is fighting against “Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq. Syria's democratic forces (SDF) were provided with different types of weapons from the west.
Saudi Arabia is also fighting  together with the west in Syria. Saudi Arabia is Iran's main geopolitical rival in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. So that’s why Riyadh opposed Tehran's influence growth in Syria.

In turn, Israel has been actively involved in the process by Air attack against Iran's terrorist organization called "Hezbollah".

Turkey has its own interests in the region, It is also interested in ending the Assad regime, but at the same time the official Ankara aims to stop the influence of Syrian Kurds in ongoing processes. For this purpose, the Turkish Armed Forces carried more active land and air strikes in the compact areas inhabited by Syrian ethnic Kurds, Which led to conflict with the interests of the US (which supported Syrian Kurds).

Gas pipelines as one of the main reasons for the war in Syria

The Syrian war, mainly  is related to the interests of the various geopolitical players, but one of the main factor is energy. Various experts note that there are different reasons for the war in Syria, including a 10 billion cubic meter gas pipeline.
For example, many questions were asked about why Russia was involved in the Syrian war.

Russia is one of the main exporters of natural gas for Europe. Over 60% of the produced Gas  by the Kremlin-controlled "Gazprom" is realized in Europe. However, Europe is seeking alternative sources of import for reducing dependence on Russian gas. In this direction, is actively working, one of the main oil miner in the world  the United States,however, it will take a long time before they could be able to export gas to the Europe through the ocean.

Syrian conflict and the pipeline issue on the example of Iran and Qatar's interest

Before the beginning of the civil war in Syria, Qatar and Iran were planning to transport natural gas to Europe via the Syrian territory. The Qatar Plan was first launched in 2009 and its purpose was to build a pipeline from Persia through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey.
According to various data, the Gulf of Persia is known to be one of the largest deposit of natural gas in the world. Qatar is controlling one-third of the deposit, but the official Doha can not fully implement it because it depends on the country's tankers to export gas to European countries. That is why the transportation of Qatar’s gas to Europe is more expensive than the Russian gas.
There were expectations that Europe would provide an alternate source of gas supplies, but Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, under the pressure of the Russian president, refused this idea. As a result of this refusal, Russia defended its business interests. Also official Moscow is irritated by the fact that the US military air base is located on the territory of Qatar.

At that time, Iran, which owns relatively small supplies of gas resources in the Persian Gulf, has decided to carry out its rival’s plan to bring 10 billion cubic meter pipeline to Europe through the Iraq, Syria and the Mediterranean Sea.
Russia has also supported Iran's position on the construction of  the gas pipeline. As it is known, Russia has close relations with Iran in nuclear and military sphere too.

Assad agreed on the plan proposed by Iran. The project should be completed in 2016, but it was not possible because of Arab Spring and Syrian civil war.

Major of United States of Amerika -Robert Tailor, made a  statement :  "From this geopolitical and economic point of view, the Syrian conflict is not a civil conflict; This conflict is a dispute between international players who try to find themselves on the geopolitical map and show their position about the new pipeline.

It is necessary to emphasize Turkey's interest in the Syrian Conflict. Turkish President Erdogan, several times invoked Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to dissolve.
According to Professor of Harvard University Michel Ornstein, in addition to the fact that Turkey has its own interests with ethnic Kurds population in Syria, Gas is still the main reason behind Turkey’s interests.  
As we know, because of Turkey’s geopolitical location it is considered as the best option for transiting gas from the Middle East to Europe. Also Turkey would play be the Hub’s role in this process. The Qatar government believes that Turkey can play an important role in reducing Russian energy dominance in Europe. Considering, Russia offers an interesting project to Turkey , Called "Blue Flow -2"(the project "Blue Stream -1" is already being implemented). According to this project, with the pipeline under the Black Sea will be possible to transport about 63 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

Conclusion. Will the war end?

 In the civil war in Syria, are involved various armed groups  and some influential geopolitical players of world politics, and all sides are certainly driven by their own interests. At the given stage, the end of hostilities is not expected.
also main factor for this is the fact that, because of different  interests, the formation of a united consensus about the future government of Syria and the form of governance is not  established. This makes the situation more complicated.
The only progress that has been achieved and where the positions of the parties are the same was the Fight against "Islamic State". Fortunately, the terroristic organization has lost control over the largest part of Iraq and Syria.
However, when the President of Syria categorically denies the opposition and the rebels demand the resignation of the president as a necessary precondition for peace talks, there is a high possibility that violence will continue in the country. It means that arms race is not over and both camps will continue armament of the parties.

Consequently, in this situation, for international community it will be difficult to solve this problem. The United Nations Security Council has adopted a relevant resolution in 2012 that aimed to conclude the Geneva Committee's conclusions, which in turn meant to create a temporary governing body based on bilateral consent in Syria.  However, the peace talks initiated by the United Nations have not brought any results yet.

Based on the above mentioned the future of Syria is still unclear.

Contributors:

Nika Chitadze

Ketevan Jebisashvili

Salome Bregvadze

Paul Tujesus