Wouldn’t it be nice to think, even if just for a while, that the world is a little less scary than it looked, say, six months ago? Here’s hoping:
A French oil company has pulled out of a deal with Iran:
The company had been planning to develop the huge South Pars gas field, but Christophe de Margerie says this will not now go ahead.
The announcement comes a day after Iran test-fired a series of missiles amid weeks of rising tensions with Israel and the US over its nuclear ambitions.
Analysts say Total’s move will be a big blow to the Iranian energy industry.
It means Iran is now unlikely to significantly increase its gas exports until late into the next decade, they add.
In further response to the test missiles, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday that Washington would defend the interests of America and those of its allies from attacks by Iran.
This looks like a tipping point against Iran, a tightening of the noose:
Total was the last major Western energy group to have seriously considered investing in the country’s huge gas reserves.
Wretchard notes that the French company announced its decision
Just as Iranian Revolutionary Guard general was boasting that Teheran’s “finger is always on the trigger and we have hundreds and even thousands of missiles ready to be fired against predetermined targets”,
Suitably Flip among many others, took note:
Charles Johnson of LGF was one of the first out of the gate with the fauxtography evidence of this farce. If it hadn’t been for his dogged efforts to bring many previous examples of fauxtography to the attention of the blogosphere (and the MSM), terrorist groups, buffoons like Ahmadinejad, non-state actors, insurgents, rebels, extremist political and religious groups, and others who challenge parts of the world order that they don’t like would continue to use the media to manipulate public opinion with impunity. That we now factor in “fauxtography” as a possibility (to be proven or dismissed) means that we’ve taken a step up the ladder on the learning curve we’ve been on since 9/11. Now, that is progress.
Wretchard notes another kind of progress against Iran. The country is being effectively squeezed:
The plain geographic fact is that Iran’s petroleum resources — the source of its livelihood — must pass through seas and land masses that are either heavily influenced by the United States or by Sunni-influenced countries which are hostile to it. By keeping Iranian supplies off the market, oil producers with access to the shipping lanes and secure pipelines can benefit from high prices. The Ayatollah’s loss is their gain. Teheran can turn to Russia for help to some extent. But Moscow cannot supply all the technology Iran needs nor can it overcome the fundamental constraints of geography without undue cost.
There are costs to us in this policy:
Oil, nuclear power, religion and international politics are tied together in the Iranian Gordian Knot. Throttling Iran means keeping energy prices higher than they would be if the restrictions were lifted. Throttling Iran means stunting Afghanistan economically, because that landlocked country’s primary overland transportation routes run to its West. It means pushing Afghanistan onto dependence on Pakistani ports and roads, despite the antagonisms between the two countries. Throttling Iran means objectively enriching Sunni Arab countries which are ideologically hostile to the United States.
There are higher costs to loosening the noose around Iran, however:
But lifting restrictions would supercharge Teheran’s nuclear program and enrich its proxies.
Next up on the good news front (though I admit this sounds overoptimistic to me) are the negotiations between Israel and Syria. Stratfor gets all excited:
The Middle East is a region rife with petit geopolitics. Since the failure of the Ottoman Empire, the region has not hosted an indigenous grand player. Instead, the region serves as a battleground for extra-regional grand powers, all attempting to grind down the local (petit) players to better achieve their own aims. Normally, Stratfor looks at the region in that light: an endless parade of small players and local noise in an environment where most trends worth watching are those implanted and shaped by outside forces. No peace deals are easy, but in the Middle East they require agreement not just from local powers, but also from those grand players beyond the region. The result is, well, the Middle East we all know.
All the more notable, then, that a peace deal — and a locally crafted one at that — has moved from the realm of the improbable to not merely the possible, but perhaps even the imminent.
Israel and Syria are looking to bury the hatchet, somewhere in the Golan Heights most likely, and they are doing so for their own reasons. Israel has secured deals with Egypt and Jordan already, and the Palestinians — by splitting internally — have defeated themselves as a strategic threat. A deal with Syria would make Israel the most secure it has been in millennia. [I told you there were getting overexcited. ---ed.]
Syria, poor and ruled by its insecure Alawite minority, needs a basis of legitimacy that resonates with the dominant Sunni population better than its current game plan: issuing a shrill shriek whenever the name “Israel” is mentioned. The Alawites believe there is no guarantee of support better than cash, and their largest and most reliable source of cash is in Lebanon. Getting Lebanon requires an end to Damascus’ regional isolation, and the agreement of Israel.
The outline of the deal, then, is surprisingly simple: Israel gains military security from a peace deal in exchange for supporting Syrian primacy in Lebanon. The only local loser would be the entity that poses an economic challenge (in Lebanon) to Syria, and a military challenge (in Lebanon) to Israel — to wit, Hezbollah.
Can we hope?
Why, yes we can.
