The Syrian streets were empty, the cars parked, and the only movement was from people walking and on bicycles. It looked like an environmental project such as ‘No Cars Day’, but this was not an Earth Day experiment. This was real life: what it looks like in a modern country when there is no gasoline available.
As of 2010, Syria was producing 380,000 barrels of crude oil, and 25 million cubic meters of natural gas per day. With a refinery at Banias, the country was meeting their needs and international oil companies were working on many projects across the country.
Additionally, a huge new oil and gas discovery was made, which was both off-shore and onshore which if developed had the potential of turning Syria into an oil rich nation. However, not long after that discovery was made public, the March 2011 conflict was instigated in Deraa, which many experts have said was directly tied to Syrian energy resources.
During the war, oil and gas wells were attacked, damaged and occupied at various times by armed groups, including ISIS, who was selling the crude oil to Turkey, and Turkey was selling the stolen product to the European Union. That ended with the fall of ISIS, and the oil wells came under the occupation of the US backed Kurdish militia, SDF, which is regarded as a terrorist group by Turkey and Syria.
The US goal of destroying Syria for the purpose of removing the government depends on the SDF remaining in control of the oil wells, thus preventing the Syrian government from their own resources, and bringing the population to its knees.
The US State Department works on a theory that if you make the Syrian civilians suffer enough, they will rise up against their government, and the Syrian Arab Army, which is made up of the sons, brothers, fathers and husbands of the Syrian civilians, will also turn against their President. This has been the game plan of the US-NATO attack on Syria since 2011, but it failed miserably, and cost hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, and in the process destroyed many parts of the country.
What the US ground forces, such as Free Syrian Army and their Al Qaeda and Jihadist allies could not accomplish in 8 years of combat, they are trying to achieve in defeat. The US has turned to “Plan B”: to deprive Syria from recovery, rebuilding and peace now that the major battles are over and the Syrian government controls the vast majority of territory.
The Trump administration has announced they will no longer issue waivers to countries buying oil from Iran. The goal is to prevent Iran from sales of their most valuable asset. Numerous countries will now have to find sources elsewhere, and Iran has threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz, which is a key shipping path in the Gulf. In 1988 Iran tried that tactic, and suffered a huge loss at the hands of the US Navy, who now claims they could re-open the Hormuz quickly should Iran follow through on their threats.
"This decision is intended to bring Iran's oil exports to zero, denying the regime its principal source of revenue," the White House said in a statement.
China and Turkey both criticized the US decision as counter to regional peace and stability, and cited concerns over the unilateral action, and the negative results on civilians. Many experts have come to view sanctions as a form of war crimes, as they often have little effect on governments, but devastate the suffering civilians caught in conflicts.
Syria had been receiving oil shipments from Iran; however, Egypt prohibited any Iranian tanker to pass through the Suez Canal if the final destination was Syria. To circumvent this, the Iranian vessels would dock in Turkey, and an agreement was reached whereby oil would be trucked by land from Turkey to Syria, for a fee. But the Us made a new decision that will prevent Iranian vessels from docking in Turkey. A land route from Iran, through Iraq and arriving in Syria has been discussed as an alternative delivery of much needed fuel for Syria.
"1200 Iranian tankers loaded with oil products reached Syria through Iraq in the past week," Al- Iraqia reports, adding, "The number of Iranian oil tankers are expected to reach 1500 per week, and after providing current Syrian needs, they will be fixed at 500 tankers per week."
In 1973 the tables were turned: it was the Arab world united in placing oil sanctions on America. King Feisal of Saudi Arabia shocked the world by turning off the flow of oil to US.
“We are deeply concerned,” the King said, “that if the United States does not change its policy in the Middle East and continues to side with Zionism, then, I am afraid, such course of action will affect our relations with our American friends because it will place us in an untenable position in the Arab world and vis‐a‐vis the countries which Zionism seeks to destroy.”
The King ended up paying the ultimate price for his stance of resistance to the occupation of Palestine: he was murdered. Since that lesson, learned the hard-way, the Saudis have never again put pressure on US; instead they have been manipulated in the opposite direction, as they have come closer and closer to the American demand of full recognition of Israel and establishing of formal diplomatic relations. The King of Saudi Arabia, regardless of which person sits upon the throne, is pressured by the realization that Trump, or any US President, can remove him in a matter of days.
The Americans have succeeded in shifting the Arab-Israeli conflict to an Arab-Arab conflict, when the Arab League expelled Syria, and most Arab countries actively supported the international attack on Syria. US imposes sanctions against any country which will not bow-down: Syria, Iran, Russia, Venezuela…
The policy is meant to starve the people in order to compel them into a popular uprising, which is designed to give way to a new American allied ‘regime’. The only hope for those under sanctions is to create new systems by which US sanctions are made useless and ineffective.
