The multi-layered strategic importance of Syria to Russia was underlined in 2011 when President Vladimir Putin ordered his military to intervene to counter the popular uprising that threatened to depose then-President Bashar al-Assad at that time. A sustained and dramatic escalation of its armed forces there, working closely with Iraq’s key local sponsor Iran, ensured that Russia continued to benefit from the strategic advantages Syria offered it until the U.S.- and U.K.-backed overthrow of al-Assad in December 2024 by rebel groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). As was evidenced by the visit to Damascus of Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov on 28 January – the first high-level international visitor after the coup – Russia has been wasting no time in trying to reassert its authority in its key Mediterranean stronghold, both directly and indirectly through its Middle Eastern allies. Indeed, the very recent visit to Damascus of an Iraqi delegation led by the head of its National Intelligence Service, Hamid Al-Shatri, is part of this ongoing push by Moscow.

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Syria’s importance to Russia is based on three key factors, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. First, it is the largest country on the western side of the Shia Crescent of Power that Russia had been developing for years as a counterpoint to the U.S.’s own sphere of influence, centred then on Sunni-Islamic Saudi Arabia (for hydrocarbons supplies) and Israel (for military and intelligence assets). Second, it offers a long Mediterranean coastline from which Russia could send oil and gas products – or anything else – from itself or from its allies (notably Iran) for export either into major oil and gas hubs of Turkey, Greece and Italy in Europe, or into north, west and east Africa. And third, it is a vital military and intelligence hub for the Kremlin, with one major naval base (Tartus – and Russia’s only Mediterranean port), one major air force base (Khmeimim) and one major listening station (just outside Latakia). A happy adjunct to these crucial strategic advantages for the Kremlin was that there was every prospect that the mission in Syria could ultimately become self-financing by dint of the country’s sizeable oil and gas supplies. At the time civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, the country had been producing around 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from proved reserves of 2.5 billion barrels. Before recovery began to drop off due to a lack of enhanced oil recovery techniques being employed at the major fields – mostly located in the east near the border with Iraq or in the centre of the country, east of the city of Homs – it had been producing nearly 600,000 bpd. Its gas sector was at least as vibrant as its oil one, and less of that was damaged in the first few years of the conflict. With proven reserves of 8.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas, the full year 2010 – the last under normal operating conditions – saw Syria produce just over 316 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of dry natural gas. Russia signed several key deals with Syria from 2011 to become instrumental in developing these hydrocarbon assets.

Along with Iran, Iraq is also a key member of the Shia Crescent of Power that has been assiduously cultivated by Russia and China to disseminate their political, economic and military influence as widely across the Middle East as possible. As also detailed in my latest book Iraq has two positive elements going for it that Russia’s strongest ally in the Middle East – Iran – does not have, but which Moscow and Beijing require for their long-term plans in the region. The first is that Iraq, up until very recently,y was not sanctioned at all by the U.S. whereas Iran was. As an adjunct to this, oil originating from the reservoirs Iran shares with Iraq is impossible to distinguish from each other. This has allowed Iran to continue to export oil since widespread sanctions came into effect following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Russia and Iran share multiple connections in the oil and gas sectors in terms of current and planned projects, not least of which are their shared participation in the huge Caspian oil and gas fields and the ongoing oil-for-goods swap programme. In essence, Russia-Iran-Iraq can be regarded as an unbroken transport route for whatever any constituent member of the triumvirate wants to move, and this is precisely what is being worked on in the new Russia-Iran energy corridor plans, fully analysed by OilPrice.com. The second positive element in this context for Russia and China that feeds into the first is the criticality of Syria to the extension of this corridor all the way to the Mediterranean frontier of southern Europe. Plans for this ‘Land Bridge’ stretching from Iran to this frontier have been in place since the 1979 Revolution and, with Russia’s participation in them, would enable Tehran and Moscow to exponentially increase weapons delivery into southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights area of Syria to be used in attacks on Israel. The core aim of this policy is to provoke a broader conflict in the Middle East that would draw in the U.S. and its allies into an unwinnable war of the sort seen recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, and which the Israel-Hamas War was always intended to be. Additional support for these plans along much of the Land Bridge route is set to come from plans agreed between Iraq and China to construct the US$17 billion Strategic Development Road that will create its own transport corridor from Basra to southern Turkey (close to the Syrian border), and link in with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Against this backdrop, it is unsurprising to find that Iraq foresees no problem in raising the necessary funding for the reviving of the Iraq-Syria oil pipeline, which in effect becomes the Russia-Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, a senior source from the European Union’s security complex exclusively told OilPrice.com last week. “There is a lot of Russian backing for the idea, and China is supportive as well,” he said last week. The original pipeline, dating back to the 1950s, that once transported Iraqi oil to Syria and then into Europe stretched for 850 kilometres linking the Kirkuk region with Syria’s port of Banias. It was closed in 2003 after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but an agreement was made in 2010 to build two new pipelines that covered the same route – one each for lighter and heavier crude oil. “This approach [by Russia, and China] to the Syria situation looks indicative to us of the way in which they will try to reassert their influence in those areas in which the U.S. has in turn recently pushed back against their growing influence,” he said. “[U.S. President, Donald] Trump showed early on that although he may be willing to deal with Russia and China, he will do so from a position of strength, which is why he pushed for the removal of al-Assad,” he added. “It was designed to show Putin and Xi [Jinping, President of China] that the U.S. reach under Trump can be extended anywhere in the world and remove anyone it wants from power, no matter how entrenched they may appear,” he underlined. “But it seems Russia’s and China’s strategy for dealing with this is to wait for the dust to settle and then try to rebuild their influence on the ground systematically over time, and indirectly through allies such as Iraq,” he highlighted. “The idea seems to be centred on the knowledge that they can afford to play the long game whereas Trump’s time as U.S. president is limited,” he concluded.

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

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