The outsized
role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and Iraqi
oil reveals how this powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of
U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.
KIRKUK, IRAQ — “We want to
bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers because we’re keeping the
oil,” President Trump stated on November 3, before adding, “I like oil. We’re
keeping the oil.”
Though he had promised a
withdrawal of U.S. troops from their illegal occupation of Syria, Trump shocked
many with his blunt admission that troops were being left behind to prevent
Syrian oil resources from being developed by the Syrian government and,
instead, kept in the hands of whomever the U.S. deemed fit to control them, in
this case, the U.S.-backed Kurdish-majority militia known as the Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF).
Though Trump himself received
all of the credit — and the scorn — for this controversial new policy, what has
been left out of the media coverage is the fact that key players in the U.S.’
pro-Israel lobby played a major role in its creation with the purpose of
selling Syrian oil to the state of Israel. While recent developments in the
Syrian conflict may have hindered such a plan from becoming reality, it
nonetheless offers a telling example of the covert role often played by the
U.S.’ pro-Israel lobby in shaping key elements of U.S. foreign policy and
closed-door deals with major regional implications.
Indeed, the Israel lobby-led
effort to have the U.S. facilitate the sale of Syrian oil to Israel is not an
isolated incident given that, just a few years ago, other individuals connected
to the same pro-Israel lobby groups and Zionist neoconservatives manipulated
both U.S. policy and Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in order to allow
Iraqi oil to be sold to Israel without the approval of the Iraqi government.
These designs, not unlike those that continue to unfold in Syria, were in
service to longstanding neoconservative and Zionist efforts to balkanize Iraq
by strengthening the KRG and weakening Baghdad.
After the occupation of
Iraq’s Nineveh Governorate by ISIS (June 2014-October 2015), the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) took advantage of the Iraqi military’s retreat and,
amidst the chaos, illegally seized Kirkuk on June 12. Their claim to the city
was supported by both the U.S. and Israel and, later, the U.S.-led coalition
targeting ISIS. This gave the KRG control, not only of Iraq’s export pipeline
to Turkey’s Ceyhan port, but also to Iraq’s largest oil fields.
Israel imported massive
amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the consent of
Baghdad. Israel was also the largest customer of oil sold by ISIS, who used
Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in areas of Iraq and Syria under its
control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq, the oil was sent
first to the Kurdish city of Zakho near the Turkey border and then into Turkey,
deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS did
nothing to impede the KRG’s own oil exports even though they easily could have
given that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had
occupied for years.
In retrospect, and following
revelations from Wikileaks and new information regarding the background of
relevant actors, it has been revealed that much of the covert maneuvering
behind the scenes that enabled this scenario intimately involved the United
States’ powerful pro-Israel lobby. Now, with a similar scenario unfolding in
Syria, efforts by the U.S.’ Israel lobby to manipulate U.S. foreign policy in
order to shift the flow of hydrocarbons for Israel’s benefit can instead be
seen as a pattern of behavior, not an isolated incident.
“Keep the oil” for Israel
After recent shifts in the
Trump administration in its Syria policy, U.S. troops have controversially been
kept in Syria to “keep the oil,” with U.S. military officials subsequently
claiming that doing so was “a subset of the counter-ISIS mission.” However,
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper later claimed that another factor behind U.S.
insistence on guarding Syrian oil fields was to prevent the extraction and
subsequent sale of Syrian oil by either the Syrian government or Russia.
One key, yet often
overlooked, player behind the push to prevent a full U.S. troop withdrawal in
Syria in order to “keep the oil” was current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, David
Satterfield. Satterfield was previously the assistant secretary of state for
Near Eastern Affairs, where he yielded great influence over U.S. policy in both
Iraq and Syria and worked closely with Brett McGurk, the former Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and later special presidential envoy
for the U.S.-led “anti-ISIS” coalition.
Over the course of his long
diplomatic career, Satterfield has been known to the U.S. government as an
Israeli intelligence asset embedded in the U.S. State Department. Indeed,
Satterfield was named as a major player in what is now known as the AIPAC espionage
scandal, also known as the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, although he was
oddly never charged for his role after the intervention of his superiors at the
State Department in the George W. Bush administration.
David Satterfield
David Satterfield, left,
arrives in Baghdad with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Joey Hood,
May 7, 2019. Mandel Ngan | AP
In 2005, federal prosecutors
cited a U.S. government official as having illegally passed classified
information to Steve Rosen, then working for AIPAC, who then passed that
information to the Israeli government. That classified information included
intelligence on Iran and the nature of U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing.
Subsequent media reports from the New York Times and other outlets revealed
that this government official was none other than David Satterfield, who was
then serving as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs.
Charges against Rosen, as
well as his co-conspirator and fellow AIPAC employee Keith Weissman, were
dropped in 2009 and no charges were levied against Satterfield after State
Department officials shockingly claimed that Satterfield had “acted within his
authority” in leaking classified information to an individual working to
advance the interests of a foreign government. Richard Armitage, a
neoconservative ally with a long history of ties to CIA covert operations in
the Middle East and elsewhere, has since claimed that he was one of
Satterfield’s main defenders in conversations with the FBI during this time
when he was serving as Deputy Secretary of State.
The other government official
named in the indictment, former Pentagon official Lawrence Franklin, was not so
lucky and was charged under the Espionage Act in 2006. Satterfield, instead of
being censured for his role in leaking sensitive information to a foreign
government, was subsequently promoted in 2006 to serve as the Coordinator for
Iraq and Senior Adviser to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In addition to his history of
leaking classified information to AIPAC, Satterfield also has a longstanding
relationship with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a
controversial spin-off of AIPAC also known by its acronym WINEP. WINEP’s
website has long listed Satterfield as one of its experts and Satterfield has
spoken at several WINEP events and policy forums, including several after his
involvement with the AIPAC espionage scandal became public knowledge. However,
despite his longstanding and controversial ties to the U.S. pro-Israel lobby,
Satterfield’s current relationship with some elements of that lobby, such as
the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), is complicated at best.
While Satterfield’s role in
yet another reversal of a promised withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria has largely
escaped media scrutiny, another individual with deep ties to the Israel lobby
and Syrian “rebel” groups has also been ignored by the media, despite his
outsized role in taking advantage of this new U.S. policy for Israel’s benefit.
US Israel Lobby secures deal
with Kurds
Earlier this year, well
before Trump’s new Syria policy of “keeping the oil” had officially taken
shape, another individual with deep ties to the U.S. Israel lobby secured a
lucrative agreement with U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in Syria. An official
document issued earlier this year by the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the
political arm of the Kurdish majority and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces
(SDF), a New Jersey-based company, founded and run by U.S.-Israeli dual citizen
Mordechai “Motti” Kahana, was given control of the oil in territory held by the
SDC.
Per the document, the SDC
formally accepted the offer from Kahana’s company — Global Development
Corporation (GDC) — to represent SDC in all matters pertaining to the sale of
oil extracted in territory it controls and also grants GDC “the right to
explore and develop oil that is located in areas we govern.”
The document also states that
the amount of oil then being produced in SDC-controlled areas was 125,000
barrels per day and that they anticipated that this would increase to 400,000
barrels per day and that this oil is considered a foreign asset under the
control of the United States by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
After the document was made
public by the Lebanese outlet Al-Akhbar, the SDC claimed that it was a forgery,
even though Kahana had separately confirmed its contents and shared the letter
itself to the Los Angeles Times as recently as a few weeks ago. Kahana
previously attempted to distance himself from the effort and told the Israeli
newspaper Israel Hayom in July that he had made the offer to the SDC as means
to prevent the “Assad regime” of Syria from obtaining revenue from the sale of
Syrian oil.
The Kurds currently hold 11
oil wells in an area controlled by the [Syrian] Democratic Forces. The
overwhelming majority of Syrian oil is in that area. I don’t want this oil
reaching Iran, or the Assad regime.”
At the time, Kahana also
stated that “the moment the Trump administration gives its approval, we can
begin to export this oil at fair prices.”
Given that Kahana has openly
confirmed that he is representing the SDC’s oil business shortly after Trump’s
adoption of the controversial “keep the oil policy,” it seems plausible that
Kahana has now received the approval needed for his company to export the oil
on behalf of the SDC. Several media reports have speculated that, if Kahana’s
efforts go forward unimpeded, the Syrian oil will be sold to Israel.
However, considering Turkey’s
aversion to engaging in any activities that may benefit the PKK-SDF – there are
considerable obstacles to Kahana’s plans. While the SDF — along with assistance
from U.S. troops — still controls several oil fields in Syria, experts assert
that they can only realistically sell the oil to the Syrian government. Not
even the Iraqi Kurds are a candidate, considering Baghdad’s firm control over
the Iraq-Syria border and the KRG’s weakened state after its failed
independence bid in late 2017.
Regardless, Kahana’s
involvement in this affair is significant for a few reasons. First, Kahana has
been a key player in the promotion and funding of radical groups in Syria and
has even been caught hiring so-called “rebels” to kidnap Syrian Jews and take
them to Israel against their will. It was Kahana, for instance, who financed
and orchestrated the now infamous trip of the late Senator John McCain to
Syria, where he met with Syrian “rebels” including Khalid al-Hamad – a
“moderate” rebel who gained notoriety after a video of him eating the heart of
a Syrian Army soldier went viral online. McCain had also admitted meeting with
ISIS members, though it is unclear if he did so on this trip or another trip to
Syria.
In addition, Kahana was also
the mastermind behind the “Caesar” controversy, whereby a Syrian using the
pseudonym “Caesar” was brought to the U.S. by Kahana and went on to make claims
regarding torture and other crimes allegedly committed by the Assad-led
government Syria, claims which were later discredited by independent analysts.
He was also very involved in Israel’s failed efforts to establish a “safe zone”
in Southern Syria as a means of covertly expanding Israel’s territory from the
occupied Golan Heights and into Quneitra.
Notably, Kahana has deep ties
— not just to efforts to overthrow the Syrian government — but also to U.S.
Israel lobby, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)
where Satterfield is as an expert. For instance, Kahana was a key player in a
2013 symposium organized by WINEP along with Syrian opposition groups
intimately involved in the arming of so-called “rebels.” One of the other
participants in the symposium alongside Kahana was Mouaz Moustafa, director of
the “Syrian Emergency Task Force” who assisted Kahana in bringing McCain to
Syria in 2013. Moustafa was listed as a WINEP expert on the organization’s
website but was later mysteriously deleted.
Kahana is also intimately
involved with the Israeli American Council (IAC), a pro-Israel lobby
organization, as a team member of its national conference. IAC was co-founded
and is chaired by Adam Milstein, a multimillionaire and convicted felon who is
also on the boards of AIPAC, StandWithUs, Birthright and other prominent
pro-Israel lobby organizations. One of IAC’s top donors is Sheldon Adelson, who
is also the top donor to President Trump as well as the entire Republican
Party.
Though the machinations of
both Kahana and Satterfield to guide U.S. policy in order to manipulate the
flow of Syria’s hydrocarbons for Israel’s benefit may seem shocking to some,
this same tactic of pro-Israel lobbyists using the Kurds to illegally sell a
country’s oil to Israel was developed a few years prior, not in Syria, but
Iraq. Notably, the individuals responsible for that policy in Iraq shared
connections to several of the same pro-Israel lobby organizations as both
Satterfield and Kahana, suggesting that their recent efforts in Syria are not
an isolated event, but a pattern.
War against ISIS is a war for
oil
In an email dated June 15,
2014, James Franklin Jeffrey (former Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey and current
U.S. Special Representative for Syria) revealed to Stephen Hadley, a former
George Bush administration advisor then working at the government-funded United
States Institute of Peace, his intent to advise the KRG in order to sustain
Kirkuk’s oil production. The plan, as Jeffery described it, was to supply both
the Kurdistan province with oil and allow the export of oil via Kirkuk-Ceyhan
to Israel, robbing Iraq of its oil and strengthening the country’s Kurdish
region along with its regional government’s bid for autonomy.
Jeffrey, whose hawkish views
on Iran and Syria are well-known, mentioned that Brett McGurk, the U.S.’ main
negotiator between Baghdad and the KRG, was acting as his liaison with the KRG.
McGurk, who had served in various capacities in Iraq under both Bush and Obama,
was then also serving Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran. A
year later, he would be made the special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led
“anti-ISIS” coalition and, as previously mentioned, worked closely with David
Satterfield.
James Jeffrey, left, meets
with Kurdish Regional Government President Massoud Barzani, April 8, 2011, at
an airport in Irbil, Iraq. Chip Somodevilla | AP
Jeffrey was then a private
citizen not currently employed by the government and was used as a
non-governmental channel in the pursuit of the plans described in the leaked
emails published by WikiLeaks. Jeffrey’s behind-the-scenes activities with
regards to the KRG’s oil exports were done clandestinely, largely because he
was then employed by a prominent arm of the U.S.’ pro-Israel lobby.
At the time of the email,
Jeffrey was serving as a distinguished fellow (2013-2018) at WINEP. As
previously mentioned, WINEP is a pro-Israel foreign policy think-tank that
espouses neoconservative views and was created in 1985 by researchers that had
hastily left AIPAC to escape investigations against the organization that were
related to some of its members conducting espionage on behalf of Israel. AIPAC,
the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, is the largest registered Israel
lobbyist organization in the US (albeit registration under the Foreign Agents
Registration Act would be more suitable), and, in addition to the 1985 incident
that led to WINEP’s creation, has had members indicted for espionage against
the U.S. on Israel’s behalf.
WINEP’s launch was funded by
former President of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Barbara
Weinberg, who is its founding president and constant Chairman Emerita.
Nicknamed ‘Barbi’, she is the wife of the late Lawrence Weinberg who was
President of AIPAC from 1976-81 and who JJ Goldberg, author of the 1997 book
Jewish Power, referred to as one of a select few individuals who essentially
dominated AIPAC regardless of its elected leadership. Co-founder alongside Weinberg
was Martin Indyk. Indyk, U.S. Ambassador to Israel (1995-97) and Assistant
Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (1997-99), led the AIPAC research
time that formed WINEP to escape the aforementioned investigations.
WINEP has historically
received funding from donors who donate to causes of special interest for
Zionism and Israel. Among its trustees are extremely prominent names in
political Zionism and funders of other Israel Lobby organizations, such as
Charles and Edgar Bronfman and the Chernicks. Its membership remains dominated
by individuals who have spent their careers promoting Israeli interests in the
U.S.
WINEP has become more
well-known, and arguably more controversial, in recent years after its research
director famously called for false-flag attacks to trigger a U.S. war with Iran
in 2012, statements well-aligned with longstanding attempts by the Israel Lobby
to bring about such a war.
A worthy partner in crime
Stephen Hadley, another
private citizen who Jeffrey evidently considered as a partner in his covert
dealings discussed in the emails, also has his own past of involvement with
Israel-specific intrigues and meddling.
During the G.W. Bush
administration, Hadley tagged along with neoconservatives in their numerous
creations of fake intelligence and efforts to incriminate Iraq for possessing
chemical and nuclear weapons. Hadley was one of the promoters from within the
U.S. government of the false claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with
Iraqi officials in Prague.
Hadley also worked with
then-Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Lewis Libby — a neoconservative and
former lawyer for the Mossad-agent and billionaire Marc Rich — to discredit a
CIA investigation into claims of Iraq purchasing yellowcake uranium from Niger.
That claim famously appeared in Bush’s State of the Union address in 2002.
What this particular claim
had in common with the ‘Iraq meets Atta in Prague’ disinformation, and other
famous lies against Iraq fabricated and circulated by the dense neocon network,
was its source: Israel and pro-Israel partisans.
The distribution network of
these now long-debunked claims was none other than the neoconservatives who act
a veritable Israeli fifth column that has long sought to promote Israeli
foreign policy objectives as being in the interest of the United States. In
this, Hadley played his part by helping to ensure that the United States was
railroaded into a war that had long been promoted by both Israeli and American
neoconservatives, particularly Richard Perle — an advisor to WINEP — who had
been promoting regime change in Iraq for Israel’s explicit benefit for decades.
In short, for covert
intrigues to serve Israel that would likely be met with protest if pitched to
the government for implementation as policy, Hadley’s resume was impressive.
Israeli interests pursued
through covert channels
Given his employment at WINEP
during this time, Jeffrey’s intent to advise the KRG to sustain Kirkuk’s oil
production despite the seizure of the Baiji oil refinery by ISIS is somewhat
suspect, especially since it required that 100,000 barrels per day pass through
ISIS-controlled territory unimpeded.
Jeffrey’s email from June 14,
therefore, demonstrated that he had foreknowledge that ISIS would not disturb
the KRG as long as the Kurds redirected oil that was intended originally for
Baiji to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline, facilitating its export and later
sale to Israel.
Notably, up until its
liberation in mid-2015 by the Iraqi government and aligned Shia paramilitaries,
ISIS kept the refinery running and, only upon their retreat, destroyed the
facility.
In July 2014, the KRG began
confidently supplying Kurdish areas with Kirkuk’s oil per the plan laid out by
Jeffrey in the aforementioned email. Baghdad soon became aware of the
arrangement and lashed out at Israel and Turkey, whose banks were used by the
KRG to receive the oil revenue from Israel.
One would normally expect
ISIS to be opposed to such collusion given that the KRG, while a beneficiary of
the ISIS-Baghdad conflict, was not an ally of ISIS. Thus, a foreign power with
strategic ties to ISIS used its close ties to the KRG and assurances that it
was on-board for the oil trade, to deliver a credible guarantee that ISIS would
‘cooperate’ and that a boom in production and exports was in the cards.
This foreign power — acting
as a guarantor for the ISIS-KRG understanding vis-a-vis the illegal oil
economy, represented by Jeffrey and clearly not on good terms with Iraq’s
government — was quite clearly Israel.
Israel established
considerable financial support as well as the provision of armaments to other
extremist terrorist groups active near the border between the Israeli-occupied
Golan Heights and Southern Syria when war first broke out in Syria in 2011. At
least four of these extremist groups were led by individuals with direct ties
to Israeli intelligence. These same groups, sometimes promoted as ‘moderates’
by some media, were actively fighting Syria’s government – an enemy of Israel
and ally of Iran – before ISIS existed and eagerly partnered with ISIS when it
expanded its campaign into Syria.
Furthermore, Israeli
officials have publicly admitted maintaining regular communication with ISIS
cells in Southern Syria and have publicly expressed their desire that ISIS not
be defeated in the country. In Libya, Israeli Mossad operatives have been found
embedded within ISIS, suggesting that Israel has covert but definite ties with
the group outside of Syria as well.
Israel has also long promoted
the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, with Israel having provided Iraq’s Kurds
with weapons, training and teams of Mossad advisers as far back as the 1960s. More
recently, Israel was the only state to support the KRG independence referendum
in September 2017 despite its futility, hinting at the regard Israel holds for
the KRG. Iraq’s government subsequently militarily defeated the KRG’s push for
statehood and reclaimed Kirkuk’s oil fields with assistance from the Shia
paramilitaries which were responsible for defeating ISIS in the area.
Iraq ISIS control map
A 2014 map shows the areas
under ISIS and Kurdish control at the time. Source | Telegraph
This arrangement orchestrated
by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli agenda of empowering
the Kurds, selling Iraqi oil to Israel and weakening Iraq’s Baghdad-based
government.
WINEP’s close association
with AIPAC, which has spied on the U.S. on behalf of Israel several times in
the past with no consequence, combined with Jeffrey’s long-time acquaintance
with key U.S. figures in Iraq, such as McGurk, provided an ideal opening for
Israel in Iraq. Following the implementation of Jeffrey’s plan, Israeli imports
of KRG oil constituted 77 percent of Israel’s total oil imports during the
KRG’s occupation of Kirkuk.
The WINEP connection to the
KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S. pro-Israel
Lobby, not only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and
ratcheting up tensions with Israel’s adversaries but also in facilitating the
more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of
policies that favor Israel.
Yet the role played by the
U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil
sale agreements for Israel’s benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can
accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior.
Feature photo | Graphic by
Claudio Cabrera
Agha Hussain is an
independent researcher based in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He specialized in Middle
Eastern affairs and history and is an editorial contributor to Eurasia Future,
Regional Rapport and other news outlets. Read more of his work on his personal
blog.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress
News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent
media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and
21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances
and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in
Journalism.