Why Energy Independence Is Important For All Countries

Yesterday the U.K. Telegraph posted a story about an interesting development in the Syrian civil war. Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda off-shoot has become the strongest faction of the rebels around the city of Raqqa and in the desert region to its east. The group is violently anti-Western.

The article reports that the group:

…has been steadily extending its control in the region, is selling the crude oil to local entrepreneurs, who use home-made refineries to produce low-grade petrol and other fuels for Syrians facing acute shortages.

The article explains:

In the battle for the future of the rebel cause, the oil-fields may begin to play an increasingly strategic role. All are in the three provinces closest to Iraq – Hasakeh, Deir al-Zour, and Raqqa, while the Iraqi border regions are the homeland of the Islamic State of Iraq, as al-Qaeda’s branch in the country calls itself.

We may have freed Iraq from the horrors of Saddam Hussein, but because we did not stay to finish the job, Iraq is not a free country–it is a satellite of Iran.

The article reports:

General Selim Idriss, the head of the western-backed opposition Military Council, has appealed for Western help specifically to seize the fields from Jabhat, but the forces required – he put it at 30,000 men – make that a pipe dream. Even pro-Western rebel militias in the area admit that the level of support received from the council is at present minimal.

They have promised to take on Jabhat al-Nusra once the fighting is over, but they are split and fighting among themselves, with their lack of money forcing some to turn to looting and extortion to fund themselves, further alienating the local population.

Arming the rebels in Syria right now would be a mistake–it would be arming al-Qaeda at the risk of having the weapons given used against us in the Middle East or in terrorist attacks elsewhere. The rebels that we would be arming are not in control, and arming them would be somewhat futile. So what is our option? We need to do everything we can to get innocent civilians out of the country and to provide them with food and shelter. We can let the anti-Western Islamists fight among themselves–there are no good guys with any power in this war. If we were actually dumb enough to enter this war, the rebels and the government forces would probably unite against us–after all, we are the infidels.

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