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https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/why-assad-fell-mercouris-explains

https://theduran.com/why-assad-fell-mercouris-explains-middle-east

WHY ASSAD FELL:

Mercouris explains Middle-East geostrategy, like no one else can.

8 January 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

Here that is, first in the video at The Duran, uninterrupted by ads; then in the transcript of that video from the youtube version of it — and his analysis in this blows away all others: 

——

https://theduran.com/qatar-syria-gas-pipeline/

“Qatar-Syria gas pipeline”

8 January 2025, Alex Christoforu interviews Alexander Mercouris

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkxcCaKPshU

transcript

0:00

CHRISTOFORU: All right, Alexander, let's talk about

0:03

Syria and, uh, pipelines, energy,

0:07

natural gas, and the the topic of, uh,

0:12

Syria, being being the regime change

0:15

happening in Syria and now opening the

0:17

way for

0:19

Qatar to via Syria to Europe, uh, pipeline

0:25

via it would have to go, it would have to

0:27

go Syria Turkey yeah Europe, yeah, I'm

0:31

yeah, I'm trying to, yeah, I'm picturing

0:32

the map right now so once again Turkey

0:35

would would be a, a gas hub of of sorts

0:39

to Europe but that's one of

0:43

the the the main theories as to as to

0:46

why the regime change was was so pursued

0:49

after, by the the collective West, all

0:51

about, uh, removing Russia, blowing up

0:53

Nordstream, removing Russia from Europe,

0:56

and eventually, uh, removing Assad and

0:59

opening up the way for gas to transit

1:01

via Syria into Europe and all of

1:04

your gas problems are solved yeah for

1:07

for the European Union is that the case?

1:11

MERCOURIS: Well, there is some something to this

1:14

story but it's a lot more complicated

1:17

and nuanced than people think and I'm going

1:19

to just venture it before I proceed my own

1:22

view, which is that this pipeline is

1:25

unlikely to happen for all kinds of

1:27

reasons which I'll come to in a moment,

1:29

but let's let's go back to to the

1:30

origins of this now um way back in the

1:33

early 2000s the European Union was

1:36

receiving pipelines from Russia oh gas

1:39

from Russia via pipelines which at that

1:41

time were mostly across Ukraine but

1:43

Northstream was already being built

1:45

Nordstream 1 and as we know it was all

1:47

going to be followed with Nordstream two

1:50

the European Union hated, that the

1:52

European commission absolutely hated,

1:55

dependence on Russia, so did the

1:57

Americans so did the British, so they

1:59

were looking for alternative ways of

2:02

getting gas to Europe now remember we're

2:06

talking now about the early 2000s at

2:08

that time the only game in town was

2:10

pipelined gas. LNG was being developed but

2:16

it did not yet exist in any substantial

2:19

quantities so the original idea floated

2:22

in the early 2000s was to build a

2:24

pipeline called the Nabuko pipeline. Now

2:28

that was originally supposed to send gas

2:32

through Turkey from

2:35

Azerbaijan. Now the problem is Azerbaijan never had

2:39

a lot of gas. Most of the gas ultimately

2:43

was supposed to come from Iran. Now that

2:45

was never said but that was undoubtedly

2:49

the

2:50

case. Um, there was also talk about

2:53

getting gas from Iraq and from um um

2:57

Egypt even, but basically the country

2:59

that was going to supply the gas was

3:01

Iran. Trouble was Iran at that time as

3:05

today had you know was the Islamic

3:07

Republic there was the supreme leader

3:10

Ayatollah hame and all of that and he's

3:13

still there, so people didn't really like

3:15

Iran. Now in

3:18

2009 when Nabuko was signed off, there

3:23

was a pretty obvious color revolution

3:27

attempt in Iran. Now, that's controversial

3:30

but that's as far as I'm concerned

3:32

exactly what it was, there was an attempt

3:35

to to dispute uh um the election result

3:40

in the presidential election that took

3:42

place in Iran in 2009, there was big

3:45

protests the protests were eventually

3:48

dispersed, the color Revolution attempt

3:51

failed, and um from that moment on it

3:56

became clear that Nabuko would never

3:58

have would never have gas it would there

4:01

would never be enough gas to keep mbuko

4:04

going so that project failed and it was

4:10

basically called off in 2013. Finally so

4:14

what do you do 2009 your color

4:16

Revolution attempt in Iran has failed

4:19

well you come up with a new plan and

4:21

this is in 2009 and it is in 2009 it's

4:25

not a coincidence that they start

4:27

talking about this new plan this new

4:29

pipeline from Qatar, which does have a

4:32

lot of natural

4:34

gas, and it was going to go through Saudi

4:36

Arabia uh Jordan and and Syria, and then

4:42

go up north into Turkey into the Turkish

4:47

gas hub and through Turkey it was going

4:51

to go into Europe, and um in

4:55

2010 this was then proposed to Assad and

5:00

there is a story that you read about all

5:03

the time that Assad said no, except he

5:07

didn’t, this isn't actually quite what

5:10

happened. What Assad said was, what he

5:14

actually said was maybe, maybe, I do want

5:18

a pipeline. I'm I'm absolutely up for

5:22

pipelines. What I want however is for the

5:25

great big hub that's going to get all

5:29

the gas to be located not in Turkey, why

5:33

in Turkey why not in Syria itself, so

5:38

that the gas can go directly from Syria

5:41

to Europe. Now remember in

5:43

2010 Assad was friends with the West.

5:48

He, his wife was British, he'd been

5:51

orienting

5:53

reorienting Syria more towards the West.

5:57

It's a misconception that at this time

6:00

he was a Russian Ally. I just want to

6:02

make that point because this has again

6:04

caused a huge amount of confusion. So he

6:08

basically was saying let's cut the Turks

6:10

out let's let's do this gas hub but

6:13

let's do it in Syria itself. After all we’ve

6:16

got a coastline, we could send the gas

6:18

from Tartus. It can go over the sea. We can

6:21

beat the gas up rather than Turkey.

6:24

Erdogan didn't like that at all and that

6:28

was one of the reason reasons why

6:30

Erdogan backed the Insurgency against

6:33

Assad, which started a year a year later.

6:37

So, that's that's the, that's it seems to

6:40

me, the real story of the pipeline

6:43

project then. Now of course the war came

6:46

there was no prospect of building any

6:48

kind of pipeline whilst Syria was at war, um

6:53

Assad had become persona non grata,

6:57

there was the Caesar sanctions, the whole

6:59

idea here of the gas pipeline across

7:01

Syria had basically been

7:04

abandoned. Now Assad has fallen so the

7:09

story of this pipeline is being revived

7:12

all over again and there are people like

7:16

the energy minister in Turkey Mr Bayraktar,

7:20

who's a relation by the way of Erdogan,

7:23

he's coming up with this um idea all

7:25

over again, but of course there are

7:28

problems. Firstly, Syria today is

7:31

extremely unstable, it'd be very difficult

7:34

to build a pipeline through Syria in

7:37

current conditions, but there is another

7:41

problem which nobody ever talks about,

7:44

which is that of course we are in a

7:46

different technological universe. Back in

7:50

2000 in the 2000s pipeline gas as I said

7:54

was the only way basically of

7:56

transporting gas. Now we have LNG [liquefied natural gas].

8:00

Qatar which is the ultimate source of

8:02

this gas is now a major supplier of LNG.

8:07

they have invested and built up their

8:10

entire gas export industry under

8:14

LNG. They don't need this pipeline and

8:18

why would they go for this pipeline at

8:20

all? It would mean piping gas across

8:25

Saudi Arabia with which Qatar has a

8:28

rocky relationship. A couple of years ago

8:32

during Trump's first turn Qatar and

8:35

Saudi Arabia almost went to war. It would

8:39

then mean transporting gas to Jordan

8:42

which potentially is unstable, to Syria,

8:46

which is extremely unstable, and of

8:50

course then sending it to Turkey. It

8:52

would mean paying Transit fees to all of

8:55

these countries. Um, why do it when you

8:59

can deal directly with your customers by

9:03

continuing with the LNG trade which is

9:06

working very very well for Qatar? So

9:10

I, I don't myself see, I'm not an energy

9:13

economist but I don't myself see why

9:16

Qatar would be would be interested in

9:19

this project. It belongs to another time.

9:23

So I don't think this thing is going to

9:25

happen. Straightforwardly because I don't

9:27

see the economics of it. Erdogan would

9:30

like it to happen but why would the Emir

9:33

of Qatar go out of his way to do

9:36

something that would benefit Erdogan,

9:38

when, as I said, he's already got a very

9:40

very successful and stable trade with

9:43

LNG already going and working well for

9:47

him. CHRSTOFORU: Yeah I'm looking at the map right

9:50

now, it’s, you're talking about four

9:51

countries getting transits, yeah Saudi

9:53

Arabia, Jordan Syria and Turkey, by the

9:57

time that gas reached uh uh Bulgaria, is

10:01

where it would reach Greece and Bulgaria,

10:03

yeah, four countries when Russia

10:05

pipelines LNG to to Europe, you're just

10:07

talking about one country. Correct. gets

10:09

the transit fees that's either, it was

10:11

Ukraine until recently, where it was

10:13

Turkey, yeah, and then Nordstream cut all

10:15

of that out, right, went direct to to

10:17

Germany (MERCOURIS: correct correct correct) Yeah,

10:19

that was the power of Nordstream, it was

10:21

directly to to Germany, then Germany

10:22

would funnel that gas out to, yes, to the

10:25

European Union countries, exactly. Why

10:28

would Qatar do this? I mean it doesn't

10:30

make any sense. MERCOURIS: it doesn't make any kind

10:32

of sense. I mean. in any situation when

10:35

you are um um selling a product you want

10:39

to cut out as many middle men as

10:41

possible, you don't want to give yourself

10:43

four, all of whom, you know, are extremely

10:46

unstable extremely unstable or or or not

10:49

always friendly to yourself. I mean the

10:51

Saudis are not friend, not always

10:52

friendly to Qatar, to put it mildly.

10:55

Jordan, and Syria, as I said, are

10:58

unstable, uh, and as we know, Erdogan is a

11:01

very volatile and unpredictable

11:04

personality. You know, maybe, he won't be

11:07

there forever, but we have no guarantee

11:10

that whoever replaces him is going to be

11:11

any more stable than the other one is, so I

11:14

mean I don't really see why Qatar would

11:17

want to do this and I don't think they

11:20

will I don't think they will go for it

11:22

that's my own view. CHRISTOFORU:  Yeah, why depend on on

11:24

someone like Erdogan? You're going to

11:26

depend on Erdogan one day, he one day he may

11:28

wake up in the morning and say you know

11:29

what these fees, I I need to change the

11:32

price. You never know with Erdogan. Syria

11:35

is a mess so you're going to build a

11:37

pipeline through Syria? I mean this is a

11:39

project too that's going to take many

11:42

many years. I mean you know, in in Cypress

11:45

in the, in the East Med, in the

11:46

Mediterranean in Cyprus, with the with

11:48

the gas it's been 20 25 years I don't

11:51

even know how long, yeah, and I mean you

11:54

know we're we're still waiting for all

11:56

of that to to be sorted out. I these

11:59

projects are going to take a long time,

12:02

and who knows what what shape Syria is

12:04

could even be in, in the next six

12:06

months, in the next year who knows what

12:08

shape it's going to be in? MERCOURIS: Well,

12:09

absolutely, I mean the other thing to say

12:11

is that with

12:12

LNG, Qatar not only has uh um you know a

12:18

a a well-established

12:20

trade which did not exist when this in

12:23

any fundamental way when this project

12:26

was first being talked about it, it but

12:29

it also has flexibility so if there's a

12:32

problem in Europe they can divert gas

12:34

they could sell their gas to China or

12:37

East Asia which is where the big

12:39

market is likely to be anyway, rather

12:43

than in Europe. They can play off the

12:45

various customers. If you build a

12:48

pipeline, the pipeline can't be moved

12:50

around, so you are committed to sending

12:54

your gas through the pipeline in one

12:56

particular direction, and again I don't

12:59

really see why Qatar would agree to this.

13:03

I mean none of this commercially

13:06

economically even

13:08

geopolitically makes any sense to me

13:11

from Qatar's point of view. As I said

13:14

back in 2009, you could see the logic, you

13:18

could see that this was a, you know Qatar

13:21

was developing its gas fields at that

13:24

time. You could argue that it could

13:26

build itself a pipeline

13:29

across you know the Arabian Peninsula to

13:32

Turkey and all of that then it made

13:35

sense. Today I don't see that it makes

13:38

much sense at all. CHRISTOFORU: No, the uh

13:41

geopolitically, the decision by the the

13:43

European Union to cut out Russian pipelined

13:47

gas is, is is awesome for Qatar, yeah, why

13:50

why would you why would you sabotage

13:53

this this this windfall of this windfall

13:55

of money and sales that which is going

13:58

to come from Europe

13:59

to build a pipeline which is going to

14:01

have to transit four countries, yeah, I

14:03

mean this is great news for Qatar that

14:04

the European Union is cutting off the

14:06

the Russian pipelined gas, absolutely

14:08

great news for them, why why would they

14:11

sabotage all of this by building a

14:13

pipeline through Syria? Doesn't make any

14:14

sense none of this. MERCOURIS: Absolute absolutely

14:17

you know I mean maybe there will be all

14:19

kinds of things happening in Qatar and

14:21

maybe they'll bribe the officials or the

14:23

pressure of the Emir who by the way

14:26

comes across to me as an extremely canny

14:28

man, how he understands this business

14:31

very well, as do his advisors, but

14:35

logically I can't see the sense of this

14:38

and I don't think it's going to happen.

14:40

CHRISTOFORU: So, just a quick question to wrap up the

14:42

video: so, Syria back then in 2000 what

14:45

was the time period 2009 2009 2010, so

14:48

back then Syria was going to be as the

14:51

LNG Market was developing, as the

14:53

infrastructure was developing, Assad's

14:56

Assad's thinking was that Syria was

14:58

going to be an LNG hub so they would get

15:00

the the LNG from Qatar. it would trans

15:03

would transit Saudi Arabia transit

15:05

Jordan yeah, go to Syria, and then they

15:08

would export it from Syria via LNG to to

15:12

Europe, that was, that was what they were

15:14

hoping. MERCOURIS: Or build a pipeline to Europe. I

15:17

mean Assad was floating something that he

15:20

called at the time, I remember, the four

15:22

seas initiative, that you know Syria was

15:24

going to connect all of these different

15:26

places and it was going to be the big

15:29

great LNG oh oh not just LNG, pipelined gas,

15:32

the gas hub of the Middle East, and that

15:35

was going to make Syria very rich very

15:37

successful that would have been

15:39

difficult though, yeah, well the only, it

15:42

was, it was utopian, um, it it antagonized

15:46

Erdogan, and it was the single thing I

15:49

think more than any other that uh caused

15:51

Erdogan to throw his weight behind the

15:54

jihadis who basically, who ultimately

15:57

overthrew Assad. It was a huge mistake, but

16:00

anyway um, to stress

16:04

again, Assad did not stop the pipeline,

16:09

cancel the

16:10

pipeline, when it was proposed in

16:14

2009-2010 under Russian influence. He wasn't

16:17

that close to the Russians at that time,

16:20

he did that because he wanted to keep

16:23

the cake for himself, he didn't want to

16:26

share any part of the cake with his

16:28

friend in Ankara who of course was Erdogan,

16:32

and that was, what set the two off

16:34

against each other. 

——

MY COMMENTARY: Mercouris, perhaps in order not to be totally offensive to the Rhodesists (a.k.a. “neoconservatives”)  who have actually been running things ever since 25 July 1945, doesn’t mention that the “Special Relationship” between the U.S. and UK Governments (“the Anglosphere” or U.S.-UK empire that Cecil Rhodes planned in 1877 and that ultimately — with the assistance of Churchill and General Eisenhower — suckered Harry Truman, on 25 July 1945, into implementing (commonly called the military-industrial-(and I would add intelligence)-complex or “MIC”)) created the EU, and that therefore, in Mercouris’s passages such as

1:50

the European Union hated, that the

1:52

European Commission absolutely hated,

1:55

dependence on Russia, so did the

1:57

Americans so did the British, so they

1:59

were looking for alternative ways of

2:02

getting gas to Europe

this Cold War, anti-Soviet-Union, attitude, that Mercouris simply takes for granted as-if it reflects some inevitable hatred of Russia on the part of Europe’s leaders, has actually had no rational justification for the benefit of those countries after the Soviet Union and the Cold War ended, EXCEPT in order to CONTINUE American dominance, the U.S. Government’s control over those nations, those colonies in the U.S. empire, AFTER its alleged reason-for-being had ENDED in 1991. The EU member-nations are U.S. colonies, NOT free and independent nations. Mercouris leaves a typical naive listener with the false impression that these are free and independent, not vassal, nations, and that they just happen to be doing what the U.S. regime wants them to be doing (assisting in its further conquests, such as against Russia and Iran).

But the analysis that Mercouris (and Christoforu) have provided here is the ultimate and by far most complete version of the post-2000 part of the history here. On 22 February 2016, RFK Jr. also did a very good article (except for its neocon hostility toward “Vladimir Putin’s stifling economic and political leverage [against Europe]” which is basically a lie: Russia simply had by far the lowest-priced energy for European countries and was keeping their economies afloat by selling it to them) providing there the history of the CIA’s deep involvement in Syria going back to 1947, when Truman created the CIA and the permanent-warfare U.S. Government that we have had since. (The malefactor here isn’t Russia’s Government like he says; it is and since at least since 1991 has been, America’s Government.)

So, among these three sources — by Mercouris, RFK Jr., and myself — one can get a good historical understanding of why Assad fell. Mercouris has done the best job of all at pointing out the implications for the future; and so it’s a pity that he won’t be the U.S. President’s top advisor (nor any advisor at all) on international relations. If he were, this would be a far better world than (tragically) it will be. He’s probably the world’s best intelligence analyst — at least in The West. Anyway, this video from him well exemplifies  his virtuosity at that craft.

PS: If you like this article, please email it to all your friends or otherwise let others know about it. None of the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media will likely publish it (nor link to it, since doing that might also hurt them with Google or etc.). I am not asking for money, but I am asking my readers to spread my articles far and wide, because I specialize in documenting what the Deep State is constantly hiding — what the ‘news’-media ignore if they can, and deny if they must. This is, in fact, today’s samizdat.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.