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<h1>US Army report calls for ‘military
support’ of Israeli energy grab</h1>
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<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even"><a
href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/users/nafeez-ahmed">Nafeez
Ahmed</a></div>
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Thursday 1 January 2015</div>
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<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/us-army-report-calls-military-support-israeli-energy-grab-57185571">http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/us-army-report-calls-military-support-israeli-energy-grab-57185571</a></small></small></small></b><br>
<p>A new report by the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies
Institute emphasises the need for “US security and military
support” to its key allies in the Eastern Mediterranean,
particularly Israel, over access to recent vast discoveries of
regional oil and gas.</p>
<p>The <a target="_blank"
href="https://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1243.pdf">Army
study</a>, released earlier in December 2014, concludes that
extensive US military involvement “may prove essential in managing
possible future conflict” in case of “an eruption of natural
resource conflict in the East Mediterranean,” due to huge gas
discoveries in recent years.</p>
<p>Visible US engagement is also necessary to ward off the regional
encroachment of “emerging powers and potential new peace brokers
such as Russia - which already entertains a strong interest in
East Mediterranean gas developments - and notably China.”</p>
<h3>Fossil fuel bonanza in the Levant</h3>
<p>Since 2000, the Levant basin - an area encompassing the offshore
territories of Israel, Palestine, Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Syria,
and Lebanon - has been estimated to hold as much as 1.7 bn barrels
of oil and up to 122 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas. As
much of the region’s potential resources remain undiscovered,
geologists believe this could be just a third of the total
quantities of fossil fuels in the Levant.</p>
<p>The new US Army report argues that these hydrocarbon discoveries
are of “tremendous economic and geostrategic significance,” not
just for its allies, but for the United States itself. Israel
especially stands to “gain considerably from their newly
discovered gas wealth” in terms of cost-effective energy for
domestic consumption and revenues from gas exports.</p>
<p>But while the discoveries offer the prospect for closer regional
cooperation, they also raise “the potential for conflict over
these valuable resources.” The potential for resource conflicts
over oil and gas relates directly to intractable border conflicts
between Israel, the Palestinians, Lebanon and Syria, as well as
the unresolved Cypriot question between Greece and Turkey. US
interests are to minimise the risk of conflict between its core
allies, while maximising their capacity to exploit these
resources.</p>
<p>“Israel, Cyprus, and Turkey are key strategic US allies,” the
report says. “Neighbouring Egypt, Syria and Lebanon play important
roles from the European and US perspective, both as direct
neighbours to Israel and the Palestinian Territories as well as
because of their strategically important location as the
geographic interconnection between Europe, North Africa, and the
Middle East.”</p>
<p>The new US Army report is authored by Mohammed al-Katiri and
Laura al-Katiri. Mohammed al-Katiri was previously research
director at the UK Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) Advanced Research
and Assessment Group (ARAG), but now heads up two private
intelligence consultancies, <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.menainsights.com/team1">MENA Insight</a> and
the <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.conflictstudies.org.uk/key-personnel.php">Conflict
Studies Research Centre</a> (CSRC), both of which provide
services to government and commercial sectors, including the oil
and gas industry.</p>
<p>The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) which published the report,
calls itself an Army “think factory” for “commanders and civilian
leaders.” SSI uses independent analysis to help “develop policy
recommendations” for the US Army on national security and to
“influence policy debate” across the military.</p>
<h3>Advancing Israel’s energy empire</h3>
<p>The SSI report on the risk of Middle East resource conflicts
notes that Israel’s massive offshore gas discoveries “have yet to
translate into proven gas reserves,” but that it’s total of 9.48
tcf of proven and 30 tcf estimated reserves, positions Israel
“ahead of all East Mediterranean countries in terms of gas
reserves and resource prospectivity.”</p>
<p>The Army report also reveals that Syria could hold significant
offshore oil and gas potential. In 2007, before the outbreak of
hostilities, President Bashar al-Assad launched a first bidding
round to secure investment into new exploration efforts, and
another in 2012 that was cancelled due to deteriorating security
conditions.</p>
<p>“Once the Syria conflict is resolved, prospects for Syrian
offshore production - provided commercial resources are found -
are high,” observes the report. Potential oil and gas resources
can be developed “relatively smoothly once the political situation
allows for any new exploration efforts in its offshore
territories.”</p>
<p>The report also mentions significant gas finds in the offshore
territories of Lebanon and Palestine, including the Gaza Marine,
which holds over 1 tcf – production of which has been “obstruction
by Israel over concerns regarding the flow of revenues to
Palestinian stakeholders.” But in addition to the Gaza Marine,
“Palestinian offshore territories near Gaza are believed to hold
substantial hydrocarbon potential,” whose total quantities are
still unknown because a lack of exploration there:</p>
<p>“Both Israel and Cyprus are key US allies and pillars of US
foreign policy in the region: Israel, with its long history of
close political ties with the United States, historically has
stood at the heart of American efforts to secure regional peace;
while Cyprus forms the most eastern part of Europe and is an
important strategic location for both US and British military
interests.”</p>
<h3><strong>Regional war</strong></h3>
<p>The region faces four main potential arcs of conflict. Firstly,
in Israel-Palestine, the US Army study warns that “the presence of
valuable natural resources in disputed territory may further feed
the conflict.”</p>
<p>Secondly, rival claims between Israel and Lebanon over maritime
boundaries could “complicate” the development of regional offshore
hydrocarbon resources and result in military confrontation.</p>
<p>Thirdly, that risk has, in turn, delayed efforts to define
Cypriot-Israeli and Cypriot-Lebanese exclusive economic maritime
zones.</p>
<p>Fourthly, in 2013 Israel granted oil exploration licenses in the
Syrian-claimed Golan Heights, spelling “potential for another
armed conflict between the two parties should substantial
hydrocarbon resources be discovered.” According to a report to the
UN Security Council in early December, Israel has been in regular
contact with Syrian rebels, including <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.ibtimes.co.in/un-report-israel-regular-contact-syrian-rebels-including-isis-616404">Islamic
State fighters</a>, raising the question of Israel’s role in
supporting anti-Assad extremists to cement its control of Golan’s
potential fossil fuel resources.</p>
<p>The US Army study highlights a real risk that tensions across
these flashpoints could escalate into a wider regional conflict:</p>
<p>“In the case of an armed conflict between Israel and Lebanon, the
security of the wider Levant region could once again be at stake,
with a possible escalation of the conflict into neighbouring Syria
and the Palestinian Territories, as well as (with historical
precedents) Jordan and Egypt. In combination, the pre-existing
political problems in all of these countries – Syria destabilizing
into de facto civil war, Egypt in the midst of political
instability, the Palestinians and Lebanese lacking stable
political cores – the potential for a new, escalating regional war
is a threatening scenario indeed.”</p>
<h3>War for peace (for gas)</h3>
<p>To stave off this disturbing prospect, the US report recommends
that Israel and other Levant gas hubs like Lebanon and Cyprus play
a key role in exporting Eastern Mediterranean gas to their Arab
neighbours, such as Egypt, Turkey and Jordan, given that Middle
East demand for gas is projected to rise dramatically in coming
decades.</p>
<p>Further, the report highlights the possibility of Israel piping
gas to Turkey, where it can be exported to European markets,
making Turkey a regional gas transhipment hub. This would allow
both Turkey and Europe to wean off their Russian gas dependence,
and integrate instead into a “peaceful” US-Israeli dominated
regional energy architecture.</p>
<p>As has been confirmed by Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair’s
energy advisor, Ariel Ezrahi, Gaza’s offshore gas resources are
seen as a <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/israel-s-looming-gas-empire-requires-final-solution-gaza-1582434143">potential
bridge</a> to overcome popular Arab public opposition to gas
deals with Israel. “Israeli as well as Palestinian offshore
hydrocarbon resources could play a significant role in
facilitating mutual trust and the willingness to cooperate,” the
US Army study suggests, “including between Israel and a few of its
other Arab neighbours, Jordan and Egypt.”</p>
<p>But ultimately this architecture cannot be installed without
extensive US intervention of some kind. “US diplomatic and
military support has a pivotal role to play in the East
Mediterranean’s complex geopolitical landscape, and its importance
will only grow as the value of the natural resources at stake
increases,” concludes the Army report:</p>
<p>“US security and military support for its main allies in the case
of an eruption of natural resource conflict in the East
Mediterranean may prove essential in managing possible future
conflict.”</p>
<p>Diplomatically, the US could play a significant role in mediating
between the various parties to facilitate successful oil and gas
development projects across the East Mediterranean, not just for
“Israel’s sake,” but also to shore-up allies like Jordan and Egypt
with “low-cost Israeli gas,” contributing to regional economic and
thus political stability:</p>
<p>“US support - diplomatic and, where necessary, military - can
form a potentially powerful element in the safeguarding of these
long-term economic benefits, at little cost in relative terms.”</p>
<p>If regional tensions escalate though, the report warns that “the
United States also holds an important military position that could
have an impact in securing the East Mediterranean,” including
“military training and equipment support” to defend Cyprus and
Israel from attacks on “their energy infrastructure and gas
developments.”</p>
<p>This Orwellian document thus reveals that in the name of
maintaining regional peace, a new Great Game is at play. To
counter Russian and Chinese influence while cementing influence
over its Arab allies, US military strategists are contemplating
the threat of war to redraw the Middle East’s energy architecture
around Israel.</p>
<p><strong><em> - Nafeez Ahmed</em> </strong><em>PhD, is an <a
href="http://www.nafeezahmed.com/" target="_blank">investigative
journalist</a>, international security scholar and bestselling
author who tracks what he calls the '<a
href="http://www.crisisofcivilization.com/" target="_blank">crisis
of civilization</a>.' He is a winner of the Project Censored
Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian
reporting on the intersection of global ecological, energy and
economic crises with regional geopolitics and conflicts. He has
also written for The Independent, Sydney Morning Herald, The
Age, The Scotsman, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Quartz,
Prospect, New Statesman, Le Monde diplomatique, New
Internationalist. His work on the root causes and covert
operations linked to international terrorism officially
contributed to the 9/11 Commission and the 7/7 Coroner’s
Inquest.</em></p>
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