‘Israel launched air strikes into Syria in response to border fire from the Golan Heights. What is Israel’s role in the Syrian civil war? What is their hidden agenda? And what about the future of the Golan Heights? CrossTalking with Sabah Al-Mukhtar, Dan Arbell and Nabil Mikhail (27 March 2013)’.
Last year, I posted this: ‘Over the past months, Turkey has been one of the most vocal critics of the Assad regime. Tayyip Erdoğan has more than once called for Assad’s removal. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, on the other hand, has instead called for calm and deliberation in dealing with Damascus, insisting on the implementation of the Annan Plan. Earlier this year, the recently much-publicised U.S. whistleblower Sibel Edmonds declared publicly that her sources indicated that the Syrian armed opposition has been receiving logistic aid and military training since April 2011. Edmonds also declared that the U.S. and Turkey had been cooperating on this, and that the U.S. Air Force base in İncirlik (Turkey) is used as a training facility for the so-called Free Syrian Army and other opponents of the Damascus regime. At the same time, reports have surfaced that Libyan fighters from Misrata went to Syria in an effort to support attempts to overthrow Assad. In addition, rumours have equally abounded about Saudi Arabia and Qattar’s mobilization of Jihadi fighters to undermine the secular Baath regime in Syria’.[1]
[1] “Op-Ed: The Road to Intervention in Syria” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (06 June 2012). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/op-ed-the-road-to-intervention-in-syria/.
‘Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Israel needed Obama to broker Turkey deal as Netanyahu’s policies and unstable region put Israel in a precarious position (25 March 2013)’.
‘More than 100 detainees held in the U.S. military prison at GuantánamoBay are reportedly entering their fifth week of a hunger strike sparked by deteriorating conditions. News of the hunger strike first emerged last week, but it appears the action involves far more prisoners than previously thought. In a letter to his attorney, one detainee wrote: “We are in danger. One of the soldiers fired on one of the brothers a month ago. Before that, they send the emergency forces with M-16 weapons into one of the brothers’ cell blocks. … Now they want to return us to the darkest days under [George W.] Bush. They said this to us. Please do something. We’re joined by Pardiss Kebriaei, senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights and counsel for one of the hunger strikers (13 March 2013)’.
‘The Dollar Vigilante’s Jeff Berwick is back chatting about a myriad of economic and stock market-related issues with Cambridge House Live’s anchor, Bridgitte Anderson. Taped at Cambridge House International’s Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. (24 Jan 2013)’.
‘New research finds the planet is warming rapidly. Climate scientists say that’s actually the opposite of what the planet would be doing on its own (8 March 2013’.
This new study seems pretty conclusive and indicates that the time is up . . . Researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) and HarvardUniversity published their findings in the journal Science. The National Science Foundation released this statement on 7 March: ‘With data from 73 ice and sediment core monitoring sites around the world, [OSU and Harvard] scientists have reconstructed Earth’s temperature history back to the end of the last Ice Age. The analysis reveals that the planet today is warmer than it’s been during 70 to 80 percent of the last 11,300 years. Results of the study, by researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) and Harvard University, are published this week in a paper in the journal Science. Lead paper author Shaun Marcott of OSU says that previous research on past global temperature change has largely focused on the last 2,000 years. Extending the reconstruction of global temperatures back to the end of the last Ice Age puts today’s climate into a larger context’.[1]
Shaun Marcott states unequivocally that “We already knew that on a global scale, Earth is warmer today than it was over much of the past 2,000 years. Now we know that it is warmer than most of the past 11,300 years”.[2] Candace Major, program director in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences adds that “The last century stands out as the anomaly in this record of global temperature since the end of the last ice age This research shows that we’ve experienced almost the same range of temperature change since the beginning of the industrial revolution, as over the previous 11,000 years of Earth history–but this change happened a lot more quickly”.[3] Climate change or global warming continue to be two hot talking points, in spite of the fact that public opinion has turned away from these issues now . . . global apathy with regards to the effects of man-made climate change seems to reign supreme and the search for more fossil fuels to burn continues unabated. As a result, it would appear that the future of humanity on planet earth is not very rose-coloured anymore . . .
[1] “Earth Is Warmer Today Than During 70 to 80 Percent of the Past 11,300 Years” The Natural Science Foundation (07 March 2013). http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=127133&org=NSF&from=news.
[2] “Earth Is Warmer Today Than During 70 to 80 Percent of the Past 11,300 Years”.
[3] “Earth Is Warmer Today Than During 70 to 80 Percent of the Past 11,300 Years”.
‘Hundreds of anguished Venezuelans poured onto the streets of downtown Caracas, crying and shouting slogans in support of deceased President Hugo Chavez, after learning of his death on Tuesday. (5 March 2013)’.
On the World Socialist Web Site, Bill Van Auken writes that “Venezuela’s [14-year] president, Hugo Chavez, a former military officer and left nationalist, died in a military hospital in Caracas Tuesday [, 5 March 2013] afternoon following a two-year battle with cancer. Chavez, who was 58, came to national prominence as the leader of an abortive military coup against the corrupt regime of Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez, the leader of Accion Democratica, a social democratic bourgeois party. Andrés Pérez was responsible for the bloody repression of the “Caracazo”—a popular uprising against IMF-dictated austerity measures in which up to 3,000 were killed. Freed after two years of imprisonment, Chavez founded his “Bolivarian” movement and ran for president in 1998, claiming that he represented “neither the left nor the right,” but was committed to a program of social and economic reform and an end to the corrupt two-party system that had traded power over previous decades between Accion Democratica and the Christian Democratic Copei party. After gaining power, he began espousing a left populist political platform, identifying himself as both a nationalist and “socialist.” Chavez earned the implacable hostility of Washington with his populist and nationalist politics. This included clashes with US-based energy conglomerates sparked by his assertion of greater national control over the exploitation of the country’s petroleum resources, his partial nationalizations, his economic backing for Cuba, and his pursuit of closer economic ties with US imperialism’s rival, China”.[1]
Van Auken continues critically that “sections of the pseudo-left in Europe, North America and Australia sought to cast Chavez as a revolutionary leader of the working class, promoting his vaguely defined ‘21st century socialism’ as a new way forward for the masses of Latin America and beyond. In reality, Chavez’s policies were founded on the use of Venezuela’s oil revenues, which account for over 90 percent of the country’s earnings and are based for the most part on exports to the US, to fund various social assistance programs for the poor. While these programs undoubtedly improved literacy levels, health care, housing and income levels for Venezuela’s impoverished majority, the commanding heights of the economy remained firmly in the hands of a financial elite. The private sector constitutes a larger share of the country’s economy today than when Chavez first took office in 1998. Finance capital remained, along with the military, a pillar of his government. There is no reason to doubt Chavez’s professed sympathy for the oppressed working masses of Venezuela and Latin America. However, the politics of his ‘Bolivarian Revolution’, to be realized without the working class itself overthrowing capitalism or establishing its own organs of state power, had nothing to do with genuine socialism”.[2]
The World Socialist Web Site piece end thus: “Only hours before announcing Chavez’s death, Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro—anointed by Chavez as his political successor—announced the expulsion from Venezuela of the US Air Force attaché, Col. David Delmonaco, and his deputy for attempting to recruit Venezuelan military officers for ‘destabilizing projects’. President Barack Obama issued a statement indicating Washington’s hopes to exploit Chavez’s death to establish more favorable conditions for US imperialism in Venezuela. ‘At this challenging time of President Hugo Chávez’s passing, the United States reaffirms its support for the Venezuelan people and its interest in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government’, it read. Under the Venezuelan constitution, the death of the president is supposed to trigger a new presidential election within 30 days. Vice President Maduro is expected to emerge as the Chavista candidate, facing Henrique Capriles, the governor of Miranda state, whom Chavez defeated in a presidential election held last October [2012]. The future of Chavismo without Hugo Chavez is by no means certain. The former paratroop lieutenant colonel had ties to the military, a key pillar of his government, that Maduro, a former bus drivers’ union leader and the husband of Chavez’s attorney during his post-1992 imprisonment, lacks. The importance of these ties was underscored by the appearance on Venezuelan national television, directly following Maduro, of the chief of the country’s military, Admiral Diego Molero, who appealed for ‘unity, tranquility and understanding’ among Venezuelans and pledged the armed forces’ loyalty to the constitution”.[3]
[1] Bill Van Auken, “Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez dead” World Socialist Web Site (06 March 2013). http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/03/06/hugo-m06.html?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=t.co.
[2] Bill Van Auken, “Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez dead”.
[3] Bill Van Auken, “Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez dead”.
‘Barack Obama has officially begun his second Presidential term, after being sworn in at the White House. Later, on Monday, he will spell out his vision for the next four years in his inaugural address. But as RT’s Gayane Chichakyan reports many are still waiting for him to tackle some of his broken promises (21 Jan 2013)’.
On Sunday, 20 January, the news agency Reuters reports that a ‘senior aide to Iran’s supreme leader warned against the overthrow of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, saying his fate was a “red line”, in one of the Islamic state’s strongest messages of support for the Damascus government. Iran has steadfastly backed Assad’s rule since an uprising against his rule began almost two years ago and regards him as an important part of the axis of opposition against arch-foe Israel’.[1] Following President Obama’s much-publicised declaration that Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his adversaries would constitute a red line, now finally, President Assad’s only regional allies have come out with their own declaration. Speaking on Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen satellite television, Ali Akbar Velayati, who could very well be Ahmadinejad’s successor in June, declared the following: “If the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is toppled, the line of resistance in the face of Israel will be broken . . . We believe that there should be reforms emanating from the will of the Syrian people, but without resorting to violence and obtaining assistance from the (United States of) America”.[2]
It is assumed that about 60,000 people have perished in Syria as a result of the violent opposition to the Assad regime, which the mainstream media are at pains to portray as yet another chapter in the ongoing saga of the Arab Awakening. As I pointed out in a piece published in Hürriyet Daily News, it would even be foolhardy to regard these uprisings across the wider Arab world as spontaneous emanations of any popular will.[3] Even so, it seems to me that the situation in Syria is in many ways similar to the violent “Assisted Rebellion” in Libya, as an orchestrated uprising that could be seen as a proxy-conflict in the New Cold War between the U.S., its NATO allies and the up and coming superpowers of Russia and China, while at the same also targeting the Islamic Republic of Iran.[4]
At the same time, Turkey, that appears to have been part of the Syrian conflict since the very beginning,[5] is now in the process of receiving the promised Patriot missiles to “protect” its borders against Syrian incursions: ‘Germany has sent 240 soldiers to southern Turkey as part of a NATO mission using Patriot missiles to deter cross-border airstrikes from war-torn Syria. Units are also being provided by the Netherlands and the US. The main German contingent flew out of Berlin Sunday [, 20 January], headed for Kahramanmaras, 100 kilometers (62 miles) inside Turkey’s border with Syria, where two German Patriot units are to be fully operational by early February [2013]. An advance Bundeswehr team is already on site and the missiles with launch equipment arrived by ship in Turkey on Monday [, 21 January]. The deployment will number some 350 German soldiers, including medics’, as reported by the Deutsche Welle.[6] Using a somewhat warped form of logic, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere explains that these Patriot missiles are supposed to produce a “deescalating effect” on the Assad regime. The Minister explained further that “We learnt during the Cold War that deterrence can only function when in doubtful moments one is ready to use the weapons . . . Should Syrian rockets be fired at Turkey then NATO will use the Patriot missiles”.[7]
[1] “Assad’s overthrow “red line” for Iran: supreme leader’s aide” Reuters (20 Jan 2013). http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/20/us-syria-crisis-iran-idUSBRE90J08320130120.
[2] “Assad’s overthrow “red line” for Iran: supreme leader’s aide”.
[3] Cfr. C. Erimtan, “Behind the scenes of Egypt’s revolution”. http://tiny.cc/fz7tf.
[4] Cfr. C. Erimtan, “The Arab Awakening and the never-ending Cold War”. http://tiny.cc/p7q3b.
[5] Cfr. “Op-Ed: The Road to Intervention in Syria” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (06 June 2012). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/op-ed-the-road-to-intervention-in-syria/.
[6] “German Patriot missile troops arrive in Turkey” Deutsche Welle (21 Jan 2013). http://www.dw.de/german-patriot-missile-troops-arrive-inturkey/a-16536356.
[7] “German Patriot missile troops arrive in Turkey”.
Op-Ed: Pipelineistan and Turkey: The Geo-Political Realities behind Resource Rivalry and the Looming Climate Catastrophe
Recently, I wrote a piece of possibly wider interest for my column ‘The Erimtan Angle’ in the Istanbul Gazette.
In the 21st century, humanity has suddenly come face to face with the stupendous power of nature again. In the latter part of the previous century warnings regarding man-made or anthropogenic climate change started being voiced – arguably commencing in earnest with Professor Hansen’s testimony in front of the U.S. Senate during the summer of 1988. These dire words of caution arguably culminated in Al Gore’s sensational and “inconvenient” 2006 film. The Industrial Revolution and humanity’s subsequent immoderate burning of fossil fuels leading to a disproportionate increase in so-called greenhouse gases appear to be at the root of this apparently unnatural fluctuation in global temperatures – fluctuations which can lead to extreme weather events, such as hurricanes or floods. Very recently, in the first week of March this year actually, researchers from Oregon State University (OSU) and HarvardUniversity seem to have delivered the final verdict on anthropogenic climate change. They namely published the conclusions of their latest study in the journal Science, broadcasting to the wider world their concern with the state of the earth. Their findings reveal that our planet is warmer today than it has ever been during 70 to 80% of the last 11,300 years. As a result, the search for alternative fuels, fuels that would not lead to more greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere, should be the world’s leadership’s top priority given the looming threat of climate catastrophe that will eventually turn earth into a planet uninhabitable by humanity. In contrast, geo-political concerns and the simmering resource wars are such that attention remains focused on the remnants of earlier geologies. As a result, the consumption of fossil fuels continues unabated and the search for more hydrocarbon reserves follows suit – meaning that more and more greenhouse gases will keep on being added to the atmosphere for years and possibly decades to come. The war that in many ways started the 21st century can also be interpreted as having a close relationship to man’s endless thirst for ever-more fossil fuels.
The start of the invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001 was presented as an act of war in direct response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 9/11. But there is a back-story to Bush’s relationship with the land of Afghanistan. As such, the Taliban, in charge of the country since 27 September 1996 when they conquered the capital Kabul, sent a delegation to Texas in 1997. In Texas, the then-governor George W. Bush was instrumental in arranging meetings with the Texas oil firm Unocal. Quoting from a piece I wrote in 2010:
Unocal and its partners planned to build a 1,000-mile gas pipeline from resource-rich Turkmenistan to Multan in Pakistan [and then to India], passing through the Taliban heartland of Kandahar. In the waning years of the 20th century, the BBC dutifully reported that this deal was part “of an international scramble to profit from developing the rich energy resources of the Caspian Sea.” In other words, the Unocal deal with the Taliban was instrumental in the 21st-century development of what the Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid has termed the “New Great Game,” in reference to the 19th-century rivalry between the Russian and British empires for supremacy in Central Asia . . . In the south [of Afghanistan], Kandahar is [now] awaiting the completion of the TAPI pipeline, which will traverse the province on its way to Pakistan and India. In meetings held in the Turkmen capitol of Ashgabat [on] April 17-18, [2010] the go-ahead was given and work on the lucrative project started in May, with 2015 as the provisional completion date when Turkmenistan’s liquid gas will start flowing southward. The US government is one of the strongest backers of this project. How do these machinations surrounding the pipeline project relate to the [still ongoing] war in the Hindu Kush region? According to former Pakistani diplomat Niaz Naik, approximately two months prior to 9/11, the Bush administration had already decided to topple the Taliban regime and install a more amenable transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place. In July 2001 a four-day meeting was held in Berlin under the portentous heading of “brainstorming on Afghanistan.” The TAPI project was undoubtedly high on the session’s agenda. Literally one week after the attacks, the BBC’s former Pakistan correspondent George Arney related that Naik had “no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks.” And Niaz Naik proved right. Was he therefore really a man who knew too much? In early August 2009, Naik was tortured and murdered in his residence in Sector F-7/3 of Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad.
Did the TAPI project really play such an important role in the decision to invade Afghanistan? Was the outset of the continuing war against the Taliban (and “its Al-Qaeada allies” as the oft-repeated phrase goes) rather a calculated move to gain the initiative in the Central Asian resource war? Central Asia is a territory literally inundated with pipelines and in this context the investigative reporter Pepe Escobar coined the phrase Pipelineistan to refer to the CaspianBasin and the whole of Eurasia basically. And not just the West is addicted to fossil fuels being transported through this network of pipelines, the other global power which is China in equal measure relies on hydrocarbon assets being moved through Pipelineistan, converging in its Wild West, Xinjiang. From there, these assets are transported to mainland China in the east to fuel the ever-growing economy that has by now become the second-largest in the world. As for the TAPI pipeline, when the go-ahead, backed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), was given for the construction of this huge pipeline, measuring a staggering 1,735 kilometres, Turkey’s State Minister Zafer Çağlayan had also been present in Turkmenistan.
On Pipelineistan’s western edge, Turkey is now actively operating to be included in the scramble for the massive Turkmen gas reserves, located at the Dovletabad and the Galkynysh (‘Southern Yeloten – Osman’) deposits. In early 2012, Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammadov was in Turkey, visiting Ankara and Istanbul, and meeting Turkey’s President Abdullah Gül. And also signing a document containing this declaration: “The parties [, i.e. Turkey and Turkmenistan] confirmed the need for continuing work on the development of regional projects aimed at restoring the development of socio-economic spheres [in] Afghanistan. In this regard, the Turkish side expressed its interest in major projects, including the Turkmenistan – Afghanistan – Pakistan – India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, increasing supply of Turkmen electricity to Afghanistan, as well as projects of transport infrastructure development and expressed its support for these projects” – Turkey now clearly also wants to reap some benefits from the pipeline to transport Turkmen gas to the Arabian Sea.
Turkey also has its own stakes in the infrastructure of Pipelineistan. For starters, there is the BTC or Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline transporting Caspian oil to the Mediterranean. In 1992, the Turkish Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel first proposed the construction of such a pipeline connection. In the further course of the 1990’s, the pipeline project was personally supported by U.S. President Bill Clinton. And finally, on 18 November 1999, when the Ankara Declaration was signed by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, Clinton’s Energy Secretary Bill Richardson called the event “a major foreign policy victory” for the U.S. – a statement indicative of the continuing geopolitical importance of Turkey as a bridge between east and west. In the first instance, the sanctions on Iraq following the first Gulf War (2 August 1990-28 February 1991) meant that the Kirkuk-Yumurtalık pipeline was no longer able to transport Iraqi oil to the Mediterranean, thereby crippling the Turkish economy and depriving the world economy of an important source of oil, given that Ceyhan was (and still is) a world-class facility able to supply large tankers. In addition, the fall of the Soviet Union subsequently also meant that the vast Caspian oil and gas reserves could now be integrated into the West’s energy supplies’ system. On 25 May 2005, the BTC pipeline was inaugurated at the Sangachal Terminal on the Caspian by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili and Turkey’s President Ahmet Sezer, joined by President Nursaltan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and United States Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman. The pipeline now daily transports 1 million barrels of Capian oil to the Mediterranean.
Another outlier of Pipelineistan present in Turkey is the Nabucco gas pipeline project, which has been in the works since 2005 and aims to be “the new gas bridge from Asia to Europe and the flagship project in the Southern Corridor”, connecting the EU with the major hydrocarbon sources in the Caspian and the Middle East. The project, aimed at liberating Europe from Russia’s energy stranglehold, has been beset by many problems and financial woes – with the German investor backing out last December. At the beginning of this month, the consortium backing the projected Nabucco pipeline signed a memorandum of co-operation with the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), basically cutting the length of the Nabucco pipeline in two and limiting the cost considerably. Originally, the Nabucco pipeline was supposed to start its route from central Anatolia, but now the pipeline will only start its westward journey through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria at the Turco-Bulgarian border, relying on TANAP to supply gas from the Caspian and the Middle East. This shortened version has been called Nabucco West and would constitute a major rival for Russia’s South Stream pipeline project. And once again, Turkey’s trans-Atlantic friend is all but supportive as voiced by US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland last year: “We strongly support Nabucco. We think it’s a very important project. It’s going to bring energy diversification on both sides and market diversification”. In other words, the interpersonal relations between Tayyip Erdoğan and Barrack Obama have not been futile. The U.S. clearly supports Turkey’s new pseudo-Ottoman programme, as a stable Turkey could very well become another foundation for America to build its renewed bridges into the Arab world, following the recent ‘spring weather’ and its ‘unexpected’ consequences. The Obama administration’s support for the west-bound section of Pipelineistan that is Nabucco also seems congruent with the U.S. and Turkey’s joint stance on the Assad regime, Turkey’s erstwhile friendly neighbour.
In fact, the recent civil war in Syria has actually ensured that the Nabucco pipeline project was given another lease of life. The protests against the Assad regime started in March 2011 turning violent the next month, while backdoor negotiations between Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus were underway. These talks led to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding for the construction of a pipeline designed to deliver Iran’s natural gas to Iraq and Syria in the next three to five years at a cost of about $10 billion. From Syria, this pipeline could possibly also deliver gas to Lebanon and even to Europe in the future, securing a Mediterranean outlet for embattled Iran fighting sanctions and public disapproval. Now, the anti-Assad violence has ensured that this potential rival to Nabucco would not be able to emerge on the energy scene. Originally, Turkey planned to include Iran as a gas supplier to the pipeline, but the geo-political realities of the day and particularly the Obama administration’s continuation of the Bush era sanctions against Tehran, have managed to exclude Iran from the project. As a result, with the projected Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, Tehran would still have been able to supply the global market. In spite of Iran’s rich oil and gas holdings, the country is effectively excluded from the confines of Pipelineistan.
The leadership in Tehran, however, seems to be persistent in its effort to find alternative ways to find outlets for its hydrocarbon reserves. Now, Iran’s leadership is looking to the east. Recently, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari attended a ceremony at the Iran-Pakistani border, unveiling a plaque and inaugurating the construction of a pipeline ar a cost of some $1.5 billion. A joint statement read at the ceremony stated that “The completion of the pipeline is in the interests of peace, security and progress of the two countries. It will also consolidate the economic, political and security ties of the two nations”. Iranian gas is supposed to start flowing towards Pakistan at the end of next year. The Iranian gas would be most welcome in Pakistan as the country faces a shortfall of 2 billion cubic of natural gas feet per day and is actually going through a serious energy crisis at the moment. Pakistan is without electricity for up to six hours a day— leading to the loss of export revenues, the closure of tens of thousands of factories, and, most importantly, the loss of millions of jobs.
While the world’s leaders and oil corporations are devising more and more schemes to flood the global energy market with oil and gas to be burnt, the world actually appears to be approaching climate catastrophe at an increased pace. In his 2011 book Deep Future, the climatologist Curt Stager maintains that the effects of current climate change will persist for much longer than we can imagine – he paints the best-case scenario as a world that won’t fully recover from the effects of the burning of fossil fuels for tens of thousands of years, and possibly much longer. Still, the long-term has never been a great concern for Turkish, or any other, policy-makers and the decisions taken today, the pipelines built now and tomorrow, and the fossil fuels consumed in the years to come will change the world beyond recognition. Geo-political interests and the ongoing resource rivalries resulting from humanity’s acute addiction to fossil fuels, coupled with profit-hungry corporations eager to benefit from any kind of fossil fuels found anywhere, now seem to condemn humanity to a bleak future for the sake of short-term profits and power.[1]
[1] C. Erimtan, “Pipelineistan and Turkey: The Geo-Political Realities behind Resource Rivalry and the Looming Climate Catastrophe” ‘The Erimtan Angle’, The Istanbul Gazette (15 March 2013). http://istanbulgazette.com/pipelineistan-and-turkey-the-geo-political-realities-behind-resource-rivalry-and-the-looming-climate-catastrophe/2013/03/15/.
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