Securing
Iraqi oil for Israel: The plot thickens
Mosul-Haifa pipeline said to be high
on US agenda
Analyst says link is gone: ‘There’s not a meter of it
left, at least in Arab territory. It was cannibalized over the
years’
Ed Blanche
Special to The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Israel, like the Bush administration, is backing
Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi in the scramble for
power in Baghdad because he is understood to be sympathetic to
opening some kind of relationship with the Jewish state and to
resurrecting the Mosul-Haifa oil pipeline that would transform
the region’s energy map.
Behind the scenes, the Americans
are seriously pushing both proposals with the Iraqi National
Congress (INC), the umbrella for a wide range of anti-Saddam
groups, most of which operated in exile until the Iraqi
dictator’s regime collapsed earlier this month. But
Washington’s game plan is running into stiff opposition from
Iraq’s Shiite majority, which seeks to dominate the
post-Saddam government and which is increasingly hostile to
the US and its Iraqi surrogates like the INC, including
Chalabi even though he is a Shiite.
Tehran’s
reported efforts to encourage leading Shiite clerics to demand
an Islamic republic are likely, if they are as widespread as
the Americans claim they are, to further spoil US efforts to
promote Israel’s interests in the post-Saddam era. Indeed, the
Bush administration’s support for Iraq to enter into what
eventually would have to be recognition of the Jewish state by
a country that has been one of its most implacable enemies
helps reinforce the widely held belief that the war in Iraq
was launched to strengthen Israel.
US sources said that
securing an Iraqi peace treaty with Israel would be high on
the administration’s agenda. Chalabi, who last week returned
to Iraq after four decades in exile, is understood to have
discussed recognition of Israel if he and the INC secure power
in Baghdad.
Chalabi has forged strong ties with the White
House and Pentagon in recent years. But there are many in the
State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, which
has worked closely with the INC since the 1991 Gulf War, who
do not believe his largely exile organization has enough
popular support in Iraq. Chalabi has also built a strong
following in the American Jewish community, whose influence on
US policy in the Middle East is considerable.
“There’s no
track record of anyone else in Iraqi leadership having a
relationship with the Jewish community,” the Jewish Telegraph
Agency (JTA) quoted Tom Neumann, executive director of the
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, as saying in
Washington this month.
Both sides saw benefits from this
relationship. The INC saw a way to tap Jewish influence in
America and Israel and to drum up increased support for its
cause. The Jewish organizations saw an opportunity to pave the
way for better relations between Israel and Iraq if and when
Chalabi’s group attains power.
“Because Saddam was so
anti-Israel, the hope is that all of Saddam’s policies will be
revisited, including his relationship with Israel and the
United States,” Neumann said. “There’s no reason for the Iraqi
people to have a problem with Israel.”
The INC’s
relationship with the Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs (JINSA) is of particular significance. It has been
developing for a decade. JINSA has close ties with the
Pentagon and US defense companies and counts among its board
such prominent figures as Vice-President Dick Cheney, his
chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz, and the eminence grise of the pro-Israel
neoconservatives, Richard Perle, recently forced to step down
as chairman of the Pentagon’s influential Defense Policy Board
because of his business interests. Retired US General Jay
Garner, who has been tasked with overseeing the reconstruction
of Iraq, has traveled with JINSA groups to Israel and
supported the organization’s agenda.
According to the JTA,
some observers worry that a public relationship could work
against the interests of Jewish groups and the Iraqi
opposition. Michael Amitay, executive director of the
Washington Kurdish Institute, said that Jewish groups might
run into problems by working only with Chalabi and Entifadh
Qanbar, director of the INC’s Washington office, because the
group does not have strong support in Iraq.
Jewish support
for Chalabi could “drive a wedge between Chalabi and other
forces in the Iraqi opposition,” said Amitay, whose father,
Morris, is vice-chairman of JINSA’s board of directors. It
would be “much more helpful if Jewish groups reached out to
other groups, such as the Kurds,” as well, he said, since
pressure to garner support from inside Iraq and the rest of
the Arab world could force the INC to abandon its pro-Israel
stance.
Qanbar has said that the INC reached out to the
Jewish community because it was the best way to get to the
Israeli government. Israel, he believes, should reciprocate by
reaching out to the group and getting more involved in
creating political change in Iraq. He believes good relations
with Israel are possible under a new regime because Saddam was
hostile toward Israel, not the Iraqi people. That sounds a lot
like wishful thinking, considering that Iraqi troops fought
Israel in 1948-49 and that the Iraqi people have been
subjected to decades of anti-Israel propaganda since then.
The Mosul-Haifa oil project came to light on March 31,
when Israel’s Haaretz daily reported that National
Infrastructure Minister Joseph Paritzky was seriously
considering the possibility of reopening the pipeline, which
has been closed since 1948.
According to Walid Khadduri,
editor in chief of the respected Middle East Economic Survey
(MEES) based in Cyprus, the old pipeline no longer exists.
“There’s not a meter of it left, at least in Arab
territory,” he told The Daily Star. “It was cannibalized over
the years and there are even built-up areas now where the
pipeline used to run. So any pipeline would have to be built
from scratch.”
It would also have to run through Jordan.
Israeli officials said that talks have been held with Amman on
this and they are “optimistic.” The Jordanians say there have
been no discussions, but given the anti-US hostility sweeping
the Arab world that’s something they would have difficulty
admitting to.
However, Amman, which depended on Iraq for
heavily discounted oil with UN agreement, had been negotiating
with Baghdad before the war to build a pipeline from the
Kirkuk oil fields to the kingdom rather than trucking the
fuel, so presumably any deal involving the Israelis as well
could simply mean extending that project to Haifa.
Paritzky has said the Americans support the idea, which
would also mean that the US could tap into Iraqi oil pumped to
the Mediterranean where it could be loaded onto tankers for
westward shipment. That would lessen American dependence on
Saudi oil, something the Bush administration has been striving
to achieve, particularly since Sept. 11. It is understood from
diplomatic sources that the Bush administration has insisted
that it would not support the lifting of United Nations
sanctions on Iraq unless Baghdad agreed to supply Israel with
oil.
James Akins, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia
and one of the leading US Arabists, has been quoted as saying:
“There would be a fee for transit rights through Jordan, just
as there would be fees for Israel from those using what would
be the Haifa terminal. After all, this is a new world order
now. This is what things look like, particularly if we wipe
out Syria. It just goes to show that this is all about oil,
for the United States and its ally.”
The weekly Observer
in London quoted a US intelligence official as saying the
Mosul-Haifa pipeline “has long been a dream of a powerful
section of the people now driving this administration and the
war in Iraq to safeguard Israel’s energy supplies as well as
that of the US. The Haifa pipeline was something that existed,
was resurrected as a dream and is now a viable project of a
powerful section of the people now driving this administration
and the war in Iraq to safeguard Israel’s energy supplies as
well as those of the US. The Haifa pipeline was something that
existed, was resurrected as a dream and is now a viable
project albeit one with a lot of building to do.”
|
