As November 2017 approaches, for proxies in Syria the war boils down to grabbing energy resources



Returning al-Tabiya plant to Syrian Army by SDF is no U.S. "endgame" in Syria.

Al-Tabiya plant was Syria's largest state-run gas field in Deir Ezzor with the capacity to produce 13 million cubic meters of natural gas per day. It was under ISIL control for 3 years and taken over by US-backed Kurdish SDF a few days ago. Surprisingly SDF agreed to hand it over to the Syrian army. According to several consistent reports, handover of al-Tabiya plant was based on lowkey negotiation between SDF and Russia. Involvement of Russia concerning Syria's energy resource-assets automatically implies involvement of US as well.

Quoting ZeroHedge "If indeed the Kurds are cutting separate deals with Russia, a US exit from Syria could be forced sooner rather than later" .... but never without a gigantic piece of the pie.

Observers are quick to presume that the seemingly silent understanding between the Kremlin and Washington on usurping Syria's wealth might be modified in Syria's favor. It's only a speculation at this point. To surmise gleefully that "US policy is paralyzed in Syria and Iraq" would be outright fantasy. Time will tell where this story is heading. Regardless of US coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon's deceitful statement to Reuters that they aren't in "the land-grabbing business," the most important facet of this episode remains unchanged that neither Russia nor America will offer any goodwill-freebies to Syria without their own large-scale monetary interest as top priority. If the sole objective of the WH was to defeat ISIL, US forces should have started dismantling their one dozen illegally operating bases in northern Syria. No indications of that; and SDF's generosity toward the Syrian government is still far from enough. After all, SDF is another US-proxy and they are still holding large swathes of Syrian energy reserves in the north. Neither is it a coincidence that nearly all of those US bases are located in Kurdish controlled oil/gas regions of northern Syria. How convenient that makes the task of sharing ill-gotten gains between friends!

Despite SDF having little authority to act independently, especially on matters of Syria's natural resources, Syrian Free Press mentions that Syrian officials are pretty much convinced that at the end of the day Damascus has a much bigger spot within Kurdish hearts than Washington. Pragmatism tells us not to bet on that yet. However SDF's real test of loyalty will depend on how they handle al-Omar oil field, the biggest oil producing site in Syria located in Deir Ezzor with an output of nearly 3 billion barrels of oil! What's happening at present is a struggle between Syrian Army/Hezbollah and US-proxy SDF for maximum control of Syrian natural resources. The US helped ISIL to occupy Deir Ezzor in January 2014 hoping to some day share the wealth with the terrorist group. That somehow didn't materialize as planned. Now they are assisting SDF with the same motive. SAA and Hezbollah are trying their best to secure al-Omar prior to SDF, and the US is doing all it can to ensure that does not happen.

Furthermore, there will eventually be more claimants to share the various goodies than just SDF and US. As soon as the possibility of reconstruction arose, the two persons most hated by the Syrians - US special envoy McGurk and Saudi minister Saban - pounced onto Raqqa. Saudi Minister of State for Gulf Affairs, Samer Saban, is infamous for his sectarian bias. He's the same man whom the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded to be kicked out of Baghdad as ambassador last year for making statements "beyond the bounds of diplomatic protocol." He's the same madman who called Hezbollah the "party of satan" and he should not be anywhere close to Syria. Yet they're all walking into Syrian territory like their grandma's cottage.

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