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Page added on June 4, 2013
Russian Arms, Syria and the Price of Oil
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, in a broadcast this Thursday past, boasted of the Russian arms deliveries to the Syrian regime that would include deliveries of a highly advanced anti-aircraft weapons system. Whether accurate or not, the Russians are clearly stoking the fires of the Syrian debacle and now risking its spread beyond Syria’s borders. This in the face of the extensive efforts being made by the United States to organize a meaningful peace conference with all parties.
Immediate consternation to Russia’s continued support of the Syrian regime was expressed by our State Department and Secretary of State John Kerry, and perhaps most succinctly stated by Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security Council: “Providing additional weapons to Assad –including air defense systems — will only prolong the violence in Syria and incite regional destabilization.”
It also places Russia squarely on the side of Iran and Hezbollah in their support of the Syrian regime and in a posture of increasing divergence from the position of the United States, Great Britain, France and much of the rest to the European Union, given their sympathy and diplomatic support of the anti-Assad Syrian insurgency.
Unquestionably the Russian government has a touch of dissociative identity disorder in that their actions are making a sham of the proposed negotiations to end the Syrian civil war that curiously Russia had been trying to organize together with the United States, and was to have been scheduled to take place sometime this month. Russian policy seems to be in full thrust of supporting their old friend in Syria, President Assad, thereby joining with Iran’s massive support of the Syrian regime, all the while posturing under the guise of diplomatic reasonableness.
Curious behavior? But perhaps that’s the object of the exercise — to cause confusion and to leave the Middle East in a progressively dysfunctional state.
Russia is currently the world’s largest oil producer and is shipping massive quantities of oil and natural gas mostly to Europe, but also to the Far East through a vast and expanding network of pipelines.
Oil has become perhaps the key mainstay of the Russian economy. Oil and gas account for two-thirds of its exports, half its budget revenues and nearly one-third of economic output (“From Pump to Putin” Financial Times 06.02.13). In addition, Russia’s gas giant Gazprom exports massive quantities of gas to European consumers on contracts for which the price of gas is pegged to the price of Brent Crude, resulting in gas prices higher by a factor of more than three when compared to prices paid for American natural gas by American consumers and industry.
The sale of oil and gas, and their ability to deliver it to wherever the market dictates, together with the tie in between the price of oil and the price of gas in Russian gas supply contracts, has made oil a crucial element to the Russian economy and the Putin presidency. The Russian economy and “Putinism” has become deeply dependent on the price of oil.
In a refrain of that old adage “plus ca change…,” an article in the New York Times back in 2012 (“An Embargo and a Boon” 02.17.10) commented, “The Russian oil industry was already reaping the rewards of higher oil prices from Iranian tensions…” Back then, the Russians were cashing in brilliantly on higher oil prices, while rendering support to Iran by such acts as vetoing or emasculating any and all meaningful U.N. resolutions that would have forced Iran to comply with the terms of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency mandates. Iranian adherence to those resolutions would have dramatically abated tensions, forestalled the boycott of Iranian oil and sharply reduced the price of oil.
Clearly there is a correlation between Middle East tensions and high oil prices. Are we seeing a replay of Russian policies that solidified Iranian intransigence on matters nuclear, thereby exacerbating those tensions to bring about significantly higher oil prices?
You be the judge.
7 Comments on "Russian Arms, Syria and the Price of Oil"
dissident on Tue, 4th Jun 2013 11:29 pm
Garbage. Assad never claimed the S-300 would be delivered. But it is true that the contracts were signed several years ago.
Also, this f*ckwit article misses the fact that the oil and natural gas revenues constitute less than 14% of Russia’s nominal GDP.
Yeah, it’s not resource depletion, it’s those evil Russians. This is exactly the sort of idiocy that gave us the invasion of Iraq. All we need is just to grab more since we all “know” there is an infinite amount.
Plantagenet on Tue, 4th Jun 2013 11:50 pm
The Huffpost complains about the Russians arming the Syrian government but is silent about the arms and support Qatar, Turkey, the US, France, the UK etc. is giving to the rebels.
IF the Russians are sending arms to Syria as a sneaky way to raise oil prices, then why are the US, UK and France sending arms and money to Syria—-according the Huffpo logic, it must be that BOTH sides want higher oil prices.
DC on Wed, 5th Jun 2013 1:11 am
Isn’t HuffPo supposed to a ‘liberal’ source, at least be amerikan standards? If not for the link, I could swear Faux, CNN, or AP pennned this piece of garbage. If the Russians are providing (defensive) weapons systems to Syria-good. I am glad, I hope they get installed asap and begin knocking Israeli and US warplanes out of the (Syrian) skies. Apparently the propaganda dept @ Huffpo forgot to mention its US financed and controlled jihadists from just about everywhere in the ME *but* Syria, that are on the ground terrorizing people there now. Russia had nothing to do with any of it.
I saw a report(TV) the other day praising women snipers in Syria-except for one strange thing I found really odd. She said she had been fighting for 17 years! or something. Then she went on about how a lot of ‘rebels’ had been fighting since they were children. The people being praised as ‘rebel’ heroes were not even from Syria. I think they were chechens actually, Ironically…
Rest of the article is no better. I should have been a journalist.Ass never leave the chair, make up anything you like-get paid.
BillT on Wed, 5th Jun 2013 3:12 am
More propaganda from the M.I.C. that is arming the ‘terrorists’. The largest terrorist organization in the world, bar none, is the US.
Arthur on Wed, 5th Jun 2013 7:34 am
Huffpo: “the Russians are clearly stoking the fires of the Syrian debacle”
This is cynical beyond belief. The oil cartel US, UK, France, SA and Qatar are sicking foreign mercenaries against this tragic country and now they are complaining that the fountry wants to defend itself.
Juan Pueblo on Wed, 5th Jun 2013 7:59 pm
If the Russians were doing this on purpose, I would have to admit that it seems to be what’s best for them.
Syria is a failed state and will continue to be so. This was predictable when their oil production peaked. They will need to reduce the population drastically before living conditions there improve.
Lomax on Thu, 6th Jun 2013 8:58 am
A very on-sided article which ignores the fact that the other side (Sunni muslims and Sunni Jihadi’s) is getting reinforced and supplied by multiple countries including Turkey, Saudia Arabia and UAE.
The S300 weapon system could have no effect at all on the opposition in Syria, the only effect it will have though is in making western/Israeli intervention more difficult and potentially more costly.
To be honest I’m not sure why my government (UK, which I did not vote for) is busy arming and supporting the rebellion and jihadi’s. While Assad is likely no angel I do notice that he has Christians in his government, so whatever he is – he is not a religious fundementalist.
My guess is only that UK and co want to destabilise Syria and by proxy Iran, the costs seem very high (in lives and long term view of the UK) and the results will likely be very unpredictable. Perhaps the best thing here is if we run out of money, we would at least do less harm.