The Next Morsel

Iraq has been supplying oil by pipeline to Syria for the past two years without the permisssion of the United Nations under the U.N. oil-for-food programme. Syria refines the Iraqi crude for domestic use, allowing it to export more of its own oil to Europe from its Mediterranean ports of Banias and Tartous.

Last spring, Powell went to Damascus and asked Assad to stop pumping Iraqi oil. According to David Mack, vice president of the Middle East Institute and a former senior Middle East hand at the State Department, Powell came away thinking he had Assad’s agreement to plug the pipeline. But, Mack said, Powell’s assumption was disproven. “Either there was a serious misunderstanding, or, as Powell believes, Bashar welched,” he said. Washington then publicly attacked Syria at the United Nations on the issue but dropped it after a while. The administration also opposed the Syria Accountability Act, a congressional effort to impose sanctions on Syria. In the meantime, Syria collaborated in hunting Al Qaeda operatives, kept a tight leash on Hezbollah and voted for the October 2002 Security Council resolution that administration cites as its authorization for war.

Western industry sources said the Iraq-Syria pipeline would have been deprived of supplies after US-led forces secured and then shut down Iraq’s southern oilfields which produce Basra crude.

U.S. special operations forces are said to have blown up an Iraqi pipeline that delivered more than 200,000 barrels of oil a day to Syria. The Kuwaiti Al Rai Al Aam daily reported on Wednesday that U.S. forces sabotaged the Iraqi oil pipeline to Syria last week in an operation in northwestern Iraq.

Britain would have “nothing whatever” to do with military action against Syria or Iran, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, signalled today. Mr Straw’s comments will be seen as an attempt to ensure that speculation about an Anglo-American attack on the two countries is quashed ahead of his meeting with EU foreign ministers tomorrow.

An Israeli daily, Ha’aretz, has reported that Israel is seriously considering restarting a strategically important oil pipeline that once transferred oil from the Iraqi city of Mosul to Israel’s northern port of Haifa … The US government’s growing anti-Syrian rhetoric, including accusing Syria of supplying military equipment to Iraq, may well be the initial stage toward the expansion of the war to Syria. If this happens, it could lead to a regime change there to serve various purposes, including the cooperation of Syria in future oil exports via the Mosul-Haifa pipeline.