Lebanon – the next front in the Great Gas War.

The Great Gas War has already two distinct fronts: The now relatively quiet Northern Front in Ukraine and the Southern Front in Syria in which the Western empire has been losing. It looks to me that Lebanon is being targeted as the next front, where the West hopes its loses might be recouped.

Yesterday, November 6th,  Reuters reported,

Saudi Arabia said on Monday that Lebanon had declared war against it because of attacks against the Kingdom by the Lebanese Shi‘ite group Hezbollah.

This comes after Israel, Saudi’s long time though largely un-offical best friend in the region,  has been very publicly preparing to renew its own war with Lebanon – or more accurately with Hezbollah.  As the American news journal Newsweek put it recently,

ISRAEL PREPARES FOR ANOTHER WAR WITH HEZBOLLAH AS IDF PRACTICES LEBANON INVASION.

Why now and why Lebanon?  Well the rulers of Saudi, a Sunni dominated country, will tell us that it is because Hezbollah is a Shia terrorist organisation. “Hezbollah” literally means the “Party of Allah” or “Party of God”.  Saudi Gulf affairs minister Thamer al-Sabhan yesterday pointedly referred to Hezbollah as, “the Lebanese Party of the Devil”.  Saudi is not alone of course, Hezbollah has also been listed as a terrorist organisation by America, Israel, the Arab League, the UK and the EU. It is also, however, part of the popular government of Lebanon having seats in its parliament.

I suggest, however, a powerful reason that a new war with Hezbollah may be in the offing is because Lebanon is the next link in any gas pipeline that could potentially bring Iranian Gas to Europe. That was the reason the West decided to “liberate” the Syrian people and it will be why they decide to enforce the same salvation upon the people of Lebanon. Having failed to liberate the Syrians, Saudi, the West, its Sunni Gulf allies and Israel will now see if they can succeed in blocking any Iranian gas ambitions by liberating the Lebanese from their own government.  I would not be surprised to hear quite soon from opposition groups vocally denouncing the government or at least Hezbollah. I expect spokes people from those groups to suddenly get a global platform along-side American and regional supporters such as Saudi.

When I look at Saudi I can’t help but notice that it has , all in a short space of time, begun wars in neighbouring Yemen and Syria, and declared first Qatar and now Lebanon supporters of terror if not actually themselves terrorists. Saudi has gone from a nation surrounded by allies or at least states with whom it had basic diplomatic relations, to a nation surrounded by enemies.  It begins to remind me of Israel in that respect.

Gas of course is not the be all and end all. In many ways it is a surface marker, the means for regional and global struggles for political power and influence.  For Saudi it is the basis of its struggle for regional supremacy with Qatar. For America it is the regional marker for its proxy struggle with Russia for political dominance and for control over gas supplies to Europe.  America has sided with Saudi. Russia and China have sided with Qatar.  Qatar struck a decisive blow for dominance and for a new Qatar focussed power structure when it opened the region’s only clearing house for settlement of Gas contracts in Yuan.

I see the political turmoil inside Saudi as a struggle between those who see the House of Saud’s only hope for a future to be to remain firmly aligned with America and therefore by extension, with Israel, versus those who might consider switching or at least splitting their allegiance so as to move closer to Russia/China. A move which might be correct but which would concede to Qatar some large portion of what has been up till now Saudi’s pre-eminence.

Wars in Yemen, Syria and soon Lebanon make the divide between these two possible futures for The House of Saud, very sharp.

For Israel it will mean war and troops on the ground. America will certainly help in the air but Israel will shed blood on the ground.

What will Russia do? I doubt it will put troops into Lebanon. But I could very easily see it extending in to Lebanon the air support it has deployed in Syria. I could see Iran being tempted to send troops or at least ‘advisors’ or perhaps just ‘allow’ zealots who want to go, to do so. And that itself may be part of what some in America would like – tempt Iran into lending support and then declare anew that Iran is, pointing at new evidence,  a state sponsor of international terror.  America has desired a confrontation with Iran for a long time and want a new excuse.

The Great Gas War has not finished. I suggest it is about to open a new front. A front that could ignite a wider conflict.

In case anyone should be interested to read my analysis of the Syrian front of the Great Gas War here are the links to the three articles in that series:

Syria Cui Bono – Part Three – Europe and the USA

Syria Cui Bono – Part Two – Qatar, Saudi, Russia and Gas

Syria – Cui Bono – Part One

 

65 thoughts on “Lebanon – the next front in the Great Gas War.”

  1. Yes, the new cold war is over the gas supply lines to Europe, but the Europeans are being conned by the US. European governments probably know what’s going on but they are all vassal states. The only European parties that will confront the US are right wing ones. What happened to the left? Corbyn only has a bit of wiggle room.

    *****

    Inessa Sinchougova — Busted: Americans supply Europe with gas, which they buy in Russia

    Excerpt:

    The United States supplies fuel to the liquefied gas terminal in Belgium’s Antwerp, which is purchased in Russia. This story was initially reported by TASS, the journalists of which were investigating activities of offshore companies.

    It turned out that the liquefied gas arriving in Antwerp is delivered by four tankers, which belong to the Navigator Holdings company registered in the Marshall Islands.

    Almost one third (31%) of Navigator Holdings shares belong to US Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross.

    The company buys gas from the Russian “Sibur” in the port of Ust-Luga.

    The investigation confirms the opinion of the Russian ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, that it is “naive to count on the arrival of liquefied gas from the United States in the terminals of Europe.”

    The terminals for liquefied gas in Europe were created to reduce the dependence of the EU countries on the export of fuel through Russian pipelines. However, the gas comes to the terminals not from the USA, but from the nearest source – Russia, at a higher price than for pipeline transportation.…

    Fort Russ

    http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/11/busted-americans-supply-europe-with-gas.html

    KtovKurse by Inessa Sinchougova

  2. Paul Craig Roberts stated how the US feared that Germany was getting too close to Russia because it would create an economic powerhouse with Germany’s technology and Russia’s resources so the US started the trouble in the Ukraine. When Crimea voted to re-join Russia (and allowing a referendum for re-joining Russia is written in Crimea’s constitution) Washington declared that Russia had annexed Crimea and imposed economic sanctions which ended Germany’s economic ties to Russia.

    I was very disappointed to read recently that a prominent German Green Party member asked for stricter sanctions against Russia.

    1. Me too. But without wishing to sound conspiratorial so much of Germany’s political life has been riddled with US influence. Much like the UK.

      As for the whole Ukraine and Crimea business I agree with Mr Roberts. I think both the EU and America meddled for their own purposes every bit as much as Russia. SO for them to claim any moral high ground and cat Russia as underhand, aggressive or anti-democratic is definitely a case of pot and kettle.

  3. Evening David,

    What is puzzling, is that if China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ is the future,
    then why is Iran not focused on directing its gas pipelines toward China,
    rather than to the bankrupt West?

    Cheers.

    1. I think that’s good question to which I have no considered answer.
      All I know is that at present Iran does export oil and condensates to China and they have been talking about extending a pipeline connection via Pakistan. But no agreement has been reached.

      So perhaps Iran is pushing on all fronts but we only hear of the push westward?

      1. Hello David,

        Thank you. Great big picture article, succinctly explains what’s (been) going on.

        I’d suggest that what may be missing from the picture is the fact that as the Sun has entered a long cycle quiet phase, and the global climate is forecast to move steeply into a significant cold period for the next 40 years or so, starting … well… now-ish, then in the next decades there will be a greatly increased demand for gas and oil, simply to keep Europe and the US warm and moving.

    2. Because the USA is in Afghanistan. The TAPI pipeline was a rival to the Iranian Peace Pipeline.
      Google ‘A Carpet of Gold or a Carpet of Bombs’.

  4. Qatar and Iran share the same humungus Gas field in the Gulf. Designated South Parrs by the Iranians and North Dome by the Qataris.
    With the Western and Gulf backed regime change operation in Syria defeated by the alliance of Russia , Iran and Hezbollah, real-politik has entered the equation with Qatar.
    The agenda for this war for Qatar and Saudi was to build a gas pipeline thru’ to the Meditteranean Coast and onward to Europe.
    Russia has a near monopoly on this supply and the competition would have weakened Russias economy, an agenda coinciding with the hegemonic plans of the USA.
    The Qataris have entered an agreement with the mortal enemy of the Sunnis the Shi’ite Iranian Govt.
    Qataar wishes to share the already completed Iranian pipeline to the East ,supplying India ,China and others.
    This Qatari alliance has brought it into a collision with Western and Gulf Council regimes and it is threading a very delicate path.
    It is a tremendously wealthy country with a miniscule population of approx 250k. It seeks a Protector to ensure it Independence.
    I believe the Protector will be Russia and its Gulf Allies Turkey and Iran. The cost of this protection will be a guarantee that Qatar exports its gas via Iran to the East.leaving Russia with its near monopoly of European supply and tremendous political and economic leverage.
    The Syrian debacle was a historic turning point for the USA and its Waterloo. All economic power is steadily moving East.
    The One Belt -one Road of China will create a multi-polar world ,connecting Vladivostock to Hamburg and all connections between.
    Washington understands this challenge to its destructive hegemonic policies and seeks to disrupt this old Silk Road route in multiple ways. Ukraine and Syria were but chess pieces in this programme.

    1. ”seeks to disrupt this old Silk Road route in multiple ways”

      I believe the shit stirring in Burma may be part of this. China is building a huge port in… Arakan state.

      Labour politicians thoughtlessly wading in on the side of Empire with their claims of ‘genocide’.

    1. @ Mike
      The Syrian regime change war had several agendas from the coalition of scoundrels, which were Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey ,Israel ,Nato and USA.
      israel ,of course had their Oded Yinon Plan,to create chaos and annex more territory, they also wished to disrupt the Shi’ite crescent via SyrIa, supply line from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
      Turkey under Erdogan ,had delusions of reclaiming the old parts of the Ottoman Empire and the oilfields extending to Mosul, they now support the resistance of Russia ,Iran and Hezbollah , but Erdogans is fluid in his alliances.
      Saudi and Qatar wished to punch a gas pipeline to the Meditteranean and on to Europe, which would undermine the Russian economy.
      The European Nato puppets wished to reduce their reliance on Russian gas supply.
      The Washington Orchestrator of this coalition of bandits was following its long term policy of securing the Heartland of Central Asia ,via Syria and then Iran,
      This is explained in Sir Halford Mackedries seminal treatise of the Heartlands Theory and plagiarised by Zbigniew Brezinski in his Grand Chessboard book.
      Who controls Cenral Asia ,controls the world.
      The New Silk Roads will destroy the US hegemony, bypassing the US Navy control of the sea route choke points,( outdated Mahan Theory)

    2. Hello Mike,

      I am aware of the Yinon plan. And I agree that for some parts of the Israeli ruling elite it remains a desire and plan. But saying that doesn’t mean that, for other players in this tragedy, it can’t also be about gas. Surely they are not mutually exclusive?

      I am not anyone’s propagandist. I am opinionated it is true. But the opinions are mine and mine alone. They are not and never have been in the service of anyone else.

      As for being stupid – I think I often don’t know as much as I should and worse am even sometimes unaware that I don’t know. But I hope I make up for that by being eager to learn and listen to other points of view.

      1. What Mike doesn’t realise is that these sorts of operations involve bringing a lot of the factions of the ruling elites on board. They aren’t a committee.
        Gas is part of it, I’m sure.

      2. As far as I know, the Transmediterranean gasline main obstacle is Turkey, that prefers the Russian connection that traverses it. Regarding Lebanon, it is a failed state, its power is nil. You mention that Israel will have to shed its blood – well we are not a spoiled American or European country, we have shown time after time that we are ready to sacrifices if necessary.

    3. I think the blog post used the words ”Gas of course is not the be all and end all. In many ways it is a surface marker”

      ; )

  5. War and natural resources are joined at the hip. My phrase

    The supply of natural resources have dwindled quickly this past century. Therefore the fight to control the last of mother earths natural resources, which represents true wealth, has intensified all across the Middle East.

    The fighting by factions in Lebanon has been going on for decades, ever since the geologist discovered the Leviathan gas field off the shore of Egypt, Israel and Lebanon.

    I believe the fighting to control Lebanon severs two purposes, to control the pipeline and the gas fields off shore.

    The big oil companies are going broke because there isn’t much sweet crude left in the world to produce, so natural gas is the next big thing to exploit for riches.

    So I agree with your statement that this is only the beginning of the gas wars.

    1. Hello Wolfhead, ( Good name by the way)

      I agree that the gas fields off Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and Cyprus have complicated and intensified the whole game of territorial claim and counterclaim.

    1. That sounds right to me as far as I can tell – Bibi is apparently due to face criminal charges so a distraction might come in handy. I imagine that the Wahhabi’s might not take it lying down. It’s all very Medieval with modern weaponry & seizing assets from the nobility can be a dodgy enterprise :

      Richard II: No matter where – of comfort no man speak.
      Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,
      Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
      Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
      Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.
      And yet not so – for what can we bequeath
      Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
      Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke’s,
      And nothing can we call our own but death;
      And that small model of the barren earth
      Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
      For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground
      And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
      How some have been depos’d, some slain in war,
      Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
      Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping kill’d,
      All murdered – for within the hollow crown
      That rounds the mortal temples of a king
      Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
      Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
      Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
      To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks;
      Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
      As if this flesh which walls about our life
      Were brass impregnable; and, humour’d thus,
      Comes at the last, and with a little pin
      Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
      Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
      With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
      Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;
      For you have but mistook me all this while.
      I live with bread like you, feel want,
      Taste grief, need friends – subjected thus,
      How can you say to me, I am a king?

    1. At the behest of the country that heads the UN human rights council & it’s friends but announced by the head of the UN. Earlier I read somewhere that the Houthi’s in reaction to the situation are planning to attack tankers flying the Saud flag of convenience, If they are I can’t say I blame them, if this isn’t genocide I don’t know what is – cockroaches probably have higher moral standards.

      http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-13/millions-face-starvation-yemen-due-us-ally-saudi-arabias-blockade

  6. Chris Hedges defends RT in Truthdig today.

    RT America Torched in Witch Hunt
    By Chris Hedges

    In one of the most horrendous blows to press freedom since the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s, the U.S. Department of Justice has forced the news broadcaster RT America to file under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

    The assault on RT America, on which I host the show “On Contact,” has nothing to do with the dissemination of Russian propaganda. It is driven by RT America’s decision to provide a platform to critics of American capitalism and imperialism, critics who lambast a system of government that can no longer be called democratic. And it is accompanied by the installation of algorithms by Google, Facebook and Twitter that divert readers away from left-wing, progressive and anti-war websites, including Truthdig. The World Socialist Web Site has seen its search traffic from Google fall by 74 percent since April. Google, in a further blow, this month removed RT from its list of “preferred” channels on YouTube. Twitter has blocked all advertising by the channel.

    Put the censorship campaigns together and the message is clear: Left-wing critics, already marginalized by the state, must be silenced.

    It would seem, given how we are locked out of the corporate media and public broadcasting, that the assault is overkill. But the ideology that sustains the corporate state, the “free market” and neoliberalism has lost all credibility. The corporate state has no counterargument to its critics. The nakedness of corporate greed, exploitation and repression is transparent across the political spectrum. The ideological fortress erected by corporate power and sustained by its courtiers in the press and academia has collapsed. All it has left is a crude censorship.

    The charge that RT and these left-wing sites disseminate “foreign propaganda” is the beginning, not the end, of a broad campaign against press freedom. Once this precedent of state censorship is normalized, far more tepid and compliant media outlets will be targeted. Max Blumenthal wrote two good pieces on AlterNet about the puppet masters behind the censorship campaign. [Click here and here.]

    https://www.opednews.com/populum/pagem.php?f=RT-America-Torched-in-Witc-by-Chris-Hedges-America-Culture-Of-Violence_American-Capitalism_American-Hypocrisy_Capitalism-171114-328.html

  7. Funny but over at unherd.com they are considering a future oil price of $10 we must be living in precarious times with such diverse possible futures threatening the actual.

  8. I just got this. It looks like fascism has hit the USA. Caitlin Johnstone says that she believes that some friends and relatives secretly believe she should be silenced, and that other people report people like her to the authorities. That’s Nazism.

    Caitlin Johnstone — I’ve Been Banned From Facebook For Sharing An Article About False Flags

    The censorship saga continues

    In a corporatist system of government, corporate censorship is state censorship. When there’s no meaningful space between corporate power and government power, it doesn’t make much difference whether the guy silencing your dissent is Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Sessions. America most definitely has such a system.

    If they’re going to get us locked down and propagandized into their vapid brain boxes, this will be how they’ll do it. Not by government censorship, but by corporate censorship. Government can’t make an overt attempt to stop a dissenting voice from speaking, but the corporations who own the venue of their speech can.
    Corporations working with government on policy has a name — corporate statism aka fascism aka transnational corporate totalitarianism.

    “It can’t happen here.”

    Looks like it is already in gear and shifting up.

    Medium

    https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/ive-been-banned-from-facebook-for-sharing-an-article-about-false-flags-678c24358fde says

    1. That’s ironic given that Dame Caitlyn has banned hundreds from her Medium feed. I’ve always thought that she is a right wing supported plant on the left.

  9. If war breaks out in Lebanon air superiority will be the deciding factor. Israel Saudi Arabia and the US do not need to hold territory they just need to make Lebanon uninhabitable for Hamas. The unanswered question is who has air superiority?

  10. I think, actually, that the mess in the Middle East is more a religious thing than anything based on objectives like Natural Gas or “Russia” and that the Saudi Wahhabi ideology is driving it.

    The reason I think this is because of the ordering of the “Regime Changes”.

    The Wahhabi way to “make friends and influence people” is to Kill, specifically:

    Kill the Apostates, Kill the Heretics, Kill the Infidels, finally Kill the Jews. It has to be done in that specific order, because killing the Jews will bring Armageddon – which would ruin the party of doling out righteous punishments so to speak.

    So we have:

    Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon -> Secular States, a.k.a. Apostates and most important to kill in the Wahhabi world order.

    Iran (Especially – but anything Muslim but not Wahhabi are Heretics). So there must be a war with Iran. Consequently, the US very much wants a war with Iran.

    Infidels -> Western Europe, Russia, China and the USA. So there must be a war with Russia started from European soil, with luck the retaliation strike will destroy Western Europe (They need USA around to make war on China, destroying both parties).

    Israel – A couple of Pakistani nukes should do the job really.

    Then Paradise Awaits the Believers!

    So, why should the liberal democracy (kinda) USA help out with this?

    One part is good business for the MIC, another part is destroying competition – especially world views not crated by Washington and the final part is pure crack-pottery. This cannot be ruled out because it seems that In order to rise to importance and influence within the US administration, one pretty much has to be a certified lunatic or at least a fanatic of the most narrow kind (Hoover, The Dulles Brothers, Curtis LeMay, Brzezinski … on and on …).

    I therefore suspect that there are at least *some* important, very powerful, people within the State Departmen and the MIC who actually, really, believe that if they can somehow perform “The ritual that brings on Armageddon”, they can effectively summon “Our Lord and Saviour”, skip The Tribulations and simply enter Paradise during their lifetimes and not whenever The Lord deems is the time. *That* kind of Lunatic Crazy!

    In my opinion straight-up apocalyptic religious nuttiness more clearly explains US policies in the Middle East and the unholy alliance with Saudi Arabia than the rational alternatives; we are thus in for a crazy, never-ending, ride of carnage and destruction!

    1. A world changing scenario in the Military balance of world power has just occurred.
      Vladimir Putin in an address to the Russian Federal Assembly on March 1st has unveiled new weapon systems which in effect make the US anti -ballistic systems redundant. Also their 11 Carrier groups are now just floating coffin ships.This news has been downplayed in the MSM, but rest assured the Pentagon and NATO have just been de-fanged.
      It would appear that Vlad has been playing for time, all the while absorbing the many provocations ,sanctions and humiliations from the West. I believe he was heading off a 1st strike option being considered by the looney psychopathic neo -cons of Washington.
      Probably he has not revealed all, as Russia has advanced EMP weapons ,which were demonstrated during Trumps attack on the Shaykan airbase in Syria ,where only 40% of US missiles got thru’, also the frying of the Aegis control system of the USS Donald Cook
      during a vist to the Black Sea.
      https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-02/putins-ultimatum-next-stage-war

    2. @ fajensen February 22, 2018 at 12:29 pm #

      Where does Petro Dollar Hegenomy fit in with your Thesis? Parts of your Thesis apply to some Evangelicals and their Zionism, the whole picture is complex and made up of many elements, World View explanations, They hate our freedoms etc are all part of a wider divide and rule against the best interests of the many etc etc…

      One of Davids Tenets of getting at the truth is Follow the money, it works pretty well, probably better than which sunday service people attend or Shule etc…

  11. Hello,I check your blog named “Lebanon – the next front in the Great Gas War. – Golem XIV – Thoughts” daily.Your writing style is witty, keep doing what you’re doing! And you can look our website about proxy list.

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