With today’s shooting down of a Russian SU24 by Turkey, the war in Syria just took a new twist – and one that sends a powerful message to the UK as it contemplates joining in bombing raids on Islamic State militants.

And for those who are hard of hearing, that message is: ‘keep well out!’

Up until now, the war in Syria has looked complicated. On the one side the Syrian state led by President Bashar Assad, supported by its long term ally Russia, Iran and Iraq – ‘Them’.

On another side, Islamic State (IS) and allied terrorist groups.

And finally the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France and Israel as a silent partner, allied with ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria whom they equip and finance. Very possibly to be joined by the UK, at least if David Cameron gets his way. Collectively, ‘Us’.

Of course there have been well-supported allegations that those last two sides are actually one and the same. Much as the US supported Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan to attack Russia in the 1980s (and has been suffering the blowback ever since), the theory goes, so it is now supporting IS as a proxy force against Syria to advance its geopolitical goals.

But now it really looks like it’s all true. NATO member Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian SU24 that was, so the Russians insist, a full kilometre inside Syrian air space, was described by Vladimir Putin as “a stab in back delivered by terrorist accomplices”, going on to add:

“We have long been recording the movement of a large amount of oil and petroleum products to Turkey from ISIS-occupied territories. This explains the significant funding the terrorists are receiving. Now they are stabbing us in the back by hitting our planes that are fighting terrorism.

“This is happening despite the agreement we have signed with our American partners to prevent air incidents, and, as you know, Turkey is among those who are supposed to be fighting terrorism within the American coalition.”

What is beyond doubt is the many credible accusations that Turkey has long been allied with IS as a proxy force in its own internal and external war against the Kurds – a downtrodden and disenfranchised People in Eastern Turkey, but increasingly empowered in their autonomous regions of Iraq and Syria, where they have been highly effective at the sharp end of the fight against IS.

Turkey is also, specifically, training and supplying the ‘moderate’ Turkmen rebels in Syria near its border in order to create a ‘safe zone’ for armed opponents to the Syrian regime. It is these ‘Allahu Akbar’ shouting ‘moderates’ that shot at the parachuting air crew in direct violation of the laws of war – from the 1923 Hague Rules to the 1997 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions.

So what about all that talk from the US, the UK and other governments that IS represents an existential threat that must be destroyed? A rhetoric that has, of course, grown all the stronger since the horrific attacks in Paris of 13th November?

I am reminded of the fabled words of St Augustine: ‘Lord, grant me chastity. But not yet.’ Yes, IS is an evil, even genocidal organisation that represents a long term threat to civilisation everywhere. But for now, it’s serving Us far too well. The time will come to turn against IS – once Assad is finally defeated.

It was all going so well! Until Russia stepped in

And it has to be said, things were all going to plan. Syrian government forces were outnumbered and outgunned by IS which had been gaining ground across the country, seizing key oilfields and associated infrastructure (earning it a reputed $1.5 million a day in oil sales), and armed by sophisticated mainly US weaponry supplied to ‘moderate’ rebels who promptly joined up with IS.

But then this summer Russia moved into the Latakia air base in western Syria, beefed up its defences, and moved in its military aircraft. Bombing of IS and other rebel positions began in late September and have continued ever since with increasing ferocity and effectiveness.

Suddenly – after IS had somehow survived and flourished after a full year of US bombing raids – IS was suffering serious damage from the air, while re-emboldened Syrian ground forces, working under Russian air support, began to regain territory and key strategic objectives such as the Kweyris military base east of Aleppo which may now form a second base for Russian aircraft.

And for all Our complaints that Russia was mainly attacking ‘moderate’ rebel forces supported by Us, rather than IS, IS was upset enough – or so it seems – to place a bomb in a Russian tourist aircraft returing from Sharm-el-Sheikh to St Petersburg on 31st October and kill all 224 occupants above Egypt’s Sinai desert.

The US was forced to step up to the mark and show that it really was taking the IS threat seriously. For the first time, for example, US aircraft attacked convoys of oil tankers travelling to the Turkish border last week, destroying 116 of them and another 283 over the weekend.

This certainly adds up to a credible military action – but gives rise to the question – why did it take them so long?

Into the cauldron of fire?

It is into this highly unstable situation that David Cameron wants to commit UK armed forces and get bombing. Last time he sought Parliamentary approval for bombing in Syria, remember, he lost the vote on 30th August 2013. And that time, it was President Assad’s forces he wanted to bomb.

Now, barely two years after that well-earned Parliamentary disaster, he’s even keener to get bombing. Only this time, it’s the other side he’s after destroying – IS. But is it really? Or is the truth that it’s the same old game plan all along?

It increasingly looks as if the sudden enthusiasm for bombing IS in Syria has more to do with claiming territory in the east of a broken up and Balkanised Syria for Our so-called ‘moderate’ rebels, and hold Assad and his Russian allies at bay. And that goes not just for the US but for the UK as well.

So what’s going on? One often ignored dimension is the ‘battle of two pipelines‘ to carry natural gas from either Qatar or Iran across Syria to European markets. The Qatari pipeline would transect Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey on its way to Europe. The Iranian pipeline would go across Iraq and Syria before dipping undersea across the Mediterannean to Greece.

As reported on ZeroHedge, “Knowing Syria was a critical piece in its energy strategy, Turkey attempted to persuade Syrian President Bashar Assad to reform this Iranian pipeline and to work with the proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline, which would ultimately satisfy Turkey and the Gulf Arab nations’ quest for dominance over gas supplies.

“But after Assad refused Turkey’s proposal, Turkey and its allies became the major architects of Syria’s ‘civil war’ … now we’re seeing what happens when you’re a Mid-East strongman and you decide not to support something the US and Saudi Arabia want to get done.”

And it so happens that with a good chunk of eastern Syria under Our belts, Qatar could have its pipeline up through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey after all – while also blocking Iran’s pipeline route to the Med.

Is this really where we want to be sending ‘our boys’

Now all of this is a dangerous game for our airmen and aircraft to be getting involved in. With increasing rancour between Us and Them likely to develop, and hardening competition for land and key pipeline routes across Syria, Turkey’s downing of the Russian SU24 may be only the first of a number of miltary encounters that could ultimately lead to direct confrontation between the US and Russia.

If so, many might feel that his would be something the UK would be best off taking no part in. Despite Cameron’s desire to please the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and other allies, it’s hard to see anything at stake here that could really be called a ‘national interest’.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has rightly sounded a cautious note over the UK joining in air strikes on Syria, calling for a “political solution” rather than a military one:

“The experience of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya has convinced many of our own people that the elite’s enthusiasm for endless military interventions has only multiplied the threats to us – while leaving death and destabilisation in their wake. It is the conflict in Syria and the consequences of the Iraq war which have created the conditions for Isis to thrive and spread its murderous rule.”

He could also point out that there are other far more effective ways in which the UK government could make life difficult for IS if that really is its objective. For example, it could investigate the means by which funds are transferred to IS both within the UK and in other countries that have dealings with the UK and our financial institutions, and act to cut off the flow of funds.

And it could do more to ensure that weapons sold to friendly states like Saudi Arabia do not end up in IS hands. Yet, as former Lib-Dem leader Paddy Ashdown pointed out on the BBC Today Programme this morning, the UK has in fact been singularly reluctant to do either:

“The failure to put pressure on the Gulf states – and especially Saudi and Qatar – first of all to stop funding the Salafists and the Wahhabists, secondly to play a large part in this campaign, and other actions where the Government has refused to have a proper inquiry into the funding of jihadism in Britain, leads me to worry about the closeness between the Conservative Party and rich Arab Gulf individuals.

“Talking about Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular. I’m not saying their governments have been doing it but their rich businessmen have, and in states like Saudi Arabia you’d imagine the government could stop it.”

Stop and think … are we even on the right side of this war?

And if anyone should be out there bombing IS, he added, it is those same countries that have been funding it: “The one thing the Gulf States haven’t been doing is playing a part in the military coalition which they are committed to. The last Saudi plane seen flying as part of the coalition over Syria was three months ago, the last Qatari plane was nearly a year ago.”

There is indeed a problem that no amount of bombing will solve: other key members of the very military coalition that the UK wants to join in bombing IS in Syria are entirely unwilling to do any such thing themselves, indeed they appear to be closely allied to IS both in their actions (and lack of them) and their geopolitical motivations.

So if there’s any side of the war we should be joining, it’s not with Us, it’s with Them. How about a request from President Assad to Prime Minister Cameron for fraternal military assistance in wiping out IS from his national territory? Because there is one thing for sure here: They really do want to annihilate IS completely and utterly.

And who knows, that might even be an idea that Jeremy Corbyn could agree to. It won’t happen, of course. Cameron climbs out of bed in the morning muttering “Assad must go” and the words are still on his lips as he goes to bed at night. But then again, France’s President Hollande is very serious about wanting to finish off IS after the Paris attacks and is coordinating with Russia – and by association, Assad – to that end.

It may be that we are in the midst of a profound shift in international loyalties and alliances in the Middle East and the wider world. A time of opportunity perhaps, but above all a time of danger: one in which discretion is most definitely the better part of valour.

Anyone for tennis?

Last night President Obama defended Turkey’s right to “defend its sovereign territory”. It’s still not clear whether or not the downed SU24 actually entered Turkish air space, but even if it did, it was a for a period of just 17 seconds, and by the time it was shot down it was some 6km inside Syria.

But think. If Turkey is allowed to shoot down foreign aircraft that enter its territory for a mere 17 seconds, Syria and its ally Russia may reasonably feel it can do the same to those of hostile states. Currently Our aircraft from a number of nations are flying over Syria with no permission from President Assad. They too must be seen as ‘fair game’ to be shot down.

Russia is now beefing up Syria’s air defences with additional installations of its fearsome S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, and with naval support off Syria’s coast. Last night Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi, a spokesman for Russia’s General Staff, released a statement in which he said:

“The General Staff is currently working out additional measures to ensure the security of the Russian air base. First: all actions of strike aircraft will be carried out only under cover of fighter planes. Second: measures will be taken to strengthen defense. To this end, the cruiser Moskva, equipped with Fort air defense system, similar to S-300, will assume position in the coastal region of Latakia.

“We caution that any targets, representing a potential danger for us, will be destroyed.”

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

The fossil fuel industry may waste as much as US$2.2 trillion (£1.45 tn) in the next decade if it persists in pursuing projects that prove uneconomic in a world beginning to turn its back on carbon.

An independent thinktank, the Carbon Tracker Initiative (CTI), says the industry faces “a perfect storm” of factors, including international action to limit global average temperatures to 2C above their pre-industrial level, and rapid advances in clean technologies.

The CTI report says there will be no need for new coal mines, oil demand will peak around 2020, and growth in gas will disappoint industry expectations if world leaders agree and then implement the policies needed to meet the UN commitment to keep climate change below 2C – the threshold agreed by most governments.

Next week’s UN climate change conference in Paris will be trying to reach such a global agreement.

The report warns: “If the industry misreads future demand by underestimating technology and policy advances, this can lead to an excess of supply and create stranded assets. This is where shareholders should be concerned.”

James Leaton, CTI’s head of research and co-author of the report, says: “Too few energy companies recognise that they will need to reduce supply of their carbon-intensive products to avoid pushing us beyond the internationally-recognised carbon budget.

“Clean technology and climate policy are already reducing fossil fuel demand. Misreading these trends will destroy shareholder value. Companies need to apply 2˚C stress tests to their business models now.”

At greatest risk: US, Canada, China, Russia, Australia

The US has the greatest financial exposure, with $412 billion of unneeded fossil fuel projects to 2025 at risk of becoming stranded assets. They are followed by Canada ($220 bn), China ($179 bn), Russia ($147 bn), and Australia ($103 bn).

The companies that represent the biggest risk to the climate and to their shareholders include oil majors Royal Dutch Shell, Pemex and Exxon Mobil, and coal miners Peabody, Coal India, and Glencore.

Around 20%-25% of oil and gas majors’ potential investment is in projects that will not be needed in a 2C scenario, and cancelling them would mean seeing very little or no growth (known as ex-growth).

The report examines production to 2035 and capital investment to 2025. It warns that energy companies must avoid projects that would generate 156 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (156Gt CO₂) by 2035 in order to be consistent with the carbon budget in the International Energy Agency 450 demand scenario, which sets out an energy pathway with a 50% chance of meeting the 2C target.

Mark Fulton, a CTI adviser and co-author of the report, says the group had found that coal had “the most significant overhang of unneeded supply in terms of carbon of all fossil fuels on any scenario. No new mines are needed globally in a 2C world.”

New technologies undermine old business models

Carbon Tracker warned last month that big energy companies are ignoring rapid advances in clean technologies – such as renewables, battery storage and electric cars – that threaten to undermine their business models.

For example, an experimental version of a lithium-air battery under development at Cambridge University, England, may allow electric vehicles to challenge conventional oil-fuelled cars head on within a decade on cost, performance and range – potentially putting oil out of business.

Anthony Hobley, CEO of Carbon Tracker, says: “Business history is littered with examples of incumbents [dominant companies] who fail to see the transition coming.

“Fossil fuel incumbents seem intent on wasting capital trying to hold onto growth by doing what they have always done … Our report offers these companies both a warning and a strategy for avoiding significant value destruction.”

The report says: “It is the end of the road for expansion of the coal sector.” And on oil, it concludes: “In the 450 scenario, oil demand peaks around 2020. This means the oil sector does not need to continue to grow, which is inconsistent with the narrative of many companies.”

In a 2C world, gas growth will be “at a lower level than expected under a business as usual scenario.”

Fossil fuels to join pornography, tobacco and arms as ‘no-go’ investments

Carbon Tracker’s analysis assumes that carbon capture and storage (CCS) will remove 24Gt of CO₂ by 2035, but says this would require a huge expansion of CCS – a technology that remains unproven at a commercial scale, and which many scientists doubt will work soon enough.

In the UK, a significant group of corporate investors is being warned that they may need to screen out fossil fuels, as many do with other types of investment, such as tobacco, armaments and pornography.

The warning stems from a legal opinion expressed by a prominent lawyer, Christopher McCall QC.

This says that it is at least arguable that investing in fossil fuels could be said to be irreconcilable with the intentions behind charities concerned with the environment, health, poverty reduction, and “the consequences of dangerous climate change”.

Charities in England and Wales have a combined income of almost £70bn ($106 bn), and the legal opinion is being referred to the body that regulates them, the Charity Commission. 

And for those wondering how to finance the global shift to renewables, a simple solution dubbed ‘QE for climate‘ is presented today on The Ecologist: to use the growth in global money supply from central banks that’s needed to sustain economic growth to finance the Green Climate Fund.

The report: ‘The $2 trillion stranded assets danger zone: How fossil fuel firms risk destroying investor returns‘.

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network.

The scenes which emerged from Paris almost two weeks ago ago were horrific, and undoubtedly only scratch the surface of the true devastation upon the families and friends of those involved.

There is still little detail about how the attacks in Paris were planned. Given the close association of those involved in the attack, it seems unlikely that high-tech ‘command and control’ via encrypted communications from Syria were an essential component of the planning process.

Likewise the source of the weapons for the attack probably has little to do with the Syrian conflict directly. They are most likely the legacy of the NATO-led conflict in the the Balkans two decades ago.

The fall-out from the present conflicts in Libya, Syria and Iraq – given the large stockpiles of conventional arms those states had amassed – are also likely to create regional instability for some years to come.

The trade in conflict

For the financial traders in New York and London, however, the Paris attacks have been, quite literally, a bonus.

In the age of ‘vulture capitalism’ what might be a tragedy for society – both in France and in Syria (where bombings increased after the attack) – has turned out to be highly lucrative for corporate investors. There are a number of people in boardrooms and finance trading rooms who may see a boost to their forthcoming annual bonus as a result.

What these events highlight is a truly ghastly moral issue. One which is rarely described within the panics which ensue after events such as those in Paris.

It’s not just the arms trade which makes a killing from its core business. Both within the financial sector, and more widely across the lobby groups and think tanks who make noise about these issues, the ‘war on terror’ has created a powerful group of vested interests whose aggressive rhetoric is fanned by ideological and corporate interests.

For example, in times of crisis the UK media regularly feature ‘independent’ commentators from the Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI – who also regularly advise Parliamentarians. Like other defence think-tanks, RUSI is largely funded by the defence and aerospace industry, as well as directly from the Ministry of Defence.

Yet this underlying ‘conflict’ to their impartiality over issues such as terrorism is rarely explored by the media when they feature RUSI.

False profits

In the weeks leading up to the Paris attack global stock markets were declining – worried about the state of the Chinese economy and other related issues. What’s really interesting were the stock prices of leading defence and aerospace companies.

If we take a ‘basket’ of defence sector shares in the run-up to the Paris attacks, while the markets had been falling steadily the share prices of defence contractors were falling faster than the market value overall. As terrorism fell off the agenda over the Summer, driven instead by concerns over refugees, the profile of the defence industry was on the wane.

Then came the attacks in Paris on 13^th November.

In the USA later that day, and in the following days globally, defence stocks started to climb. By the beginning of the next working week, when the main markets were properly open, defence stocks were rising significantly faster than the average rate of the market overall.

With terror now back at the top of the agenda in Europe and the USA, and the likelihood of stronger military action in Syria, the ephemeral money of short-term investors was flowing back into the defence and aerospace sector.

‘The terror dividend’

How much ‘value’ was generated in the stock market is always going to be a vague figure:

If we take the market capitalization of the basket of defence companies, and measure the uplift in capitalization created following the Paris attacks, the value of the defence sector was boosted by at least £7 billion to £8 billion – more than £55 million to £60 million per fatality (who said the price of human life was cheap?).

Of course there are other factors at play here. One of the reasons why the market rose in the USA were the Federal Reserve’s statements on interest rates. Even so, one week after the Paris attack the NASDAQ was still trading below its value of two weeks before – in contrast to defence industry companies who were trading around 5% higher than two weeks before the Paris attack.

It’s not just those in defence companies who have benefited from this trend. In London and New York, those who trade bets on the values of stocks, as well as taking income from trading directly, probably made tens of millions of additional income – a proportion of which they will personally receive in their commission and/or annual performance bonus.

Given the influence these corporations have over governments, there’s a clear hazard to our ability to resolve global conflict. If terror attacks and their resultant military actions are good for business, how will growth-obsessed politicians ever find the will to make peace?

Enter the ‘hyena lobbyists’

If the defence companies are the ‘vultures’ of capitalism, profiting from death, then that would make the industry’s scavenging lobbyists the noisy ‘hyenas’ of this process – screaming over the bones of the victims.

RUSI, highlighted earlier, is one of the more ‘learned’ members of the global network of defence lobbyists. Taken as a whole the more shadowy work of those in the background, such as Interel Consulting or the Henry Jackson Society, is probably more significant.

Interel describes itself as “one of the world’s leading Public Affairs defence and security practices”, and represents many defence industry contractors in Europe and the USA. In the UK it has close links to the defence industry and government, and has many former political special advisers on its staff.

The Henry Jackson Society has close links to influential figures in the Conservative Party and those on the right of Labour. Over the last few years it has developed a whole project around talking-up the risks of the ‘war on terror’ and the radicalization of minorities. Its key role in the recent rise of ‘British neo-conservatism’ was highlighted in a recent report by Spinwatch.

The lack of evidence over how these attacks were planned hasn’t stopped the advocates of more authoritarian restrictions on our civil rights from wading into the ideological fray. Their diagnosis: recent concerns about civil liberties and digital communications has nullified the ability of state security agencies to counter terrorism.

Some went as far as saying that NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has “blood on his hands” as a result of the Paris attacks – despite the evidence that those carrying out the attacks didn’t use the types of communications highlighted in Snowden’s disclosures.

For example, relative to other groups, particularly nation states, there is little evidence that ISIS / Daesh have the capacity to launch a systematic cyber-attack, certainly of anything like the lethality of the Paris attacks. And yet one of the responses has been a clamour from ‘defence analysts’ to demand more powers for state surveillance to prevent Daesh cyber-attacks.

Perversely, there is even evidence that corporate lobbyists in the US have used the media-generated fear over the flow of refugees from the Syrian conflict as a political tool to block federal environmental regulations.

The revolving door of defence companies and civil servants (especially senior ex-military figures), probably more publicised in the USA than in the UK, is also a significant factor determining why government policy often defaults to the ‘spend on conflict’ option.

The moral hazard of the ‘war on terror’

What recent events highlight, not just in Paris but since the attacks of 2001, is a clear moral hazard. There is a well-funded lobby for spending more conflict, but not for spending on conflict-resolution and peace.

In the world of ‘pay-per-view’ politics, peace doesn’t offer a great enough financial return to their major donors; free expression doesn’t involve as much ‘corporate welfare’ as mass surveillance.

The technological-response to terrorism, from bombs and drones to hacking people’s mobile phones and Internet services, might make a lot of money for certain interests. Question is, does it solve the problem of modern terror, or exacerbate it?

Or are the vested interests in the political world simply using terror as a proxy for their own ideological battles – drowning-out any alternative solutions which don’t increase their financial or political rewards, and kicking off the whole cycle of fear, defence lobbying and spending on violence once again.

The reality is that, since the end of the Cold War, the defence sector and leading terror groups have been inextricably linked into a new ‘terror industry’ – they are symbiotic organisms feeding off one another’s need to control the public dialogue.

The most recent example of this unholy relationship is armed drones – which drive people to extremist causes, which in turn creates a greater lobby for more drones.

If the response to the Paris attacks is an escalation of military force and domestic surveillance then, on the evidence of the last fifteen years, it will fail.

We need a new response, based upon the resolution of conflict rather than the funding of offensive responses to it.

That must begin by highlighting how the whole network of political and financial interests surrounding conflict, not just the industrial manufacture of the physical tools of conflict, benefit from this barbaric cycle of violence – and lock us into this perpetuating cycle through their political lobbying.

Whether it be directly via arms manufacturing, or indirectly via share trading or political lobbying, profiting from the human suffering created by terror and militarism are as immoral as the direct use of weapons to inflict that violence.

Paul Mobbs is an environmental and peace campaigners. He runs the Free Range Activism Website (FRAW) and is the author of A Practical Guide to Sustainable ICT – available free on-line.

For a fully referenced version of this article is available on FRAW.

With today’s shooting down of a Russian SU24 by Turkey, the war in Syria just took a new twist – and one that sends a powerful message to the UK as it contemplates joining in bombing raids on Islamic State militants.

And for those who are hard of hearing, that message is: ‘keep well out!’

Up until now, the war in Syria has looked complicated. On the one side the Syrian state led by President Bashar Assad, supported by its long term ally Russia, Iran and Iraq – ‘Them’.

On another side, Islamic State (IS) and allied terrorist groups.

And finally the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France and Israel as a silent partner, allied with ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria whom they equip and finance. Very possibly to be joined by the UK, at least if David Cameron gets his way. Collectively, ‘Us’.

Of course there have been well-supported allegations that those last two sides are actually one and the same. Much as the US supported Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan to attack Russia in the 1980s (and has been suffering the blowback ever since), the theory goes, so it is now supporting IS as a proxy force against Syria to advance its geopolitical goals.

But now it really looks like it’s all true. NATO member Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian SU24 that was, so the Russians insist, a full kilometre inside Syrian air space, was described by Vladimir Putin as “a stab in back delivered by terrorist accomplices”, going on to add:

“We have long been recording the movement of a large amount of oil and petroleum products to Turkey from ISIS-occupied territories. This explains the significant funding the terrorists are receiving. Now they are stabbing us in the back by hitting our planes that are fighting terrorism.

“This is happening despite the agreement we have signed with our American partners to prevent air incidents, and, as you know, Turkey is among those who are supposed to be fighting terrorism within the American coalition.”

What is beyond doubt is the many credible accusations that Turkey has long been allied with IS as a proxy force in its own internal and external war against the Kurds – a downtrodden and disenfranchised People in Eastern Turkey, but increasingly empowered in their autonomous regions of Iraq and Syria, where they have been highly effective at the sharp end of the fight against IS.

Turkey is also, specifically, training and supplying the ‘moderate’ Turkmen rebels in Syria near its border in order to create a ‘safe zone’ for armed opponents to the Syrian regime. It is these ‘Allahu Akbar’ shouting ‘moderates’ that shot at the parachuting air crew in direct violation of the laws of war – from the 1923 Hague Rules to the 1997 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions.

So what about all that talk from the US, the UK and other governments that IS represents an existential threat that must be destroyed? A rhetoric that has, of course, grown all the stronger since the horrific attacks in Paris of 13th November?

I am reminded of the fabled words of St Augustine: ‘Lord, grant me chastity. But not yet.’ Yes, IS is an evil, even genocidal organisation that represents a long term threat to civilisation everywhere. But for now, it’s serving Us far too well. The time will come to turn against IS – once Assad is finally defeated.

It was all going so well! Until Russia stepped in

And it has to be said, things were all going to plan. Syrian government forces were outnumbered and outgunned by IS which had been gaining ground across the country, seizing key oilfields and associated infrastructure (earning it a reputed $1.5 million a day in oil sales), and armed by sophisticated mainly US weaponry supplied to ‘moderate’ rebels who promptly joined up with IS.

But then this summer Russia moved into the Latakia air base in western Syria, beefed up its defences, and moved in its military aircraft. Bombing of IS and other rebel positions began in late September and have continued ever since with increasing ferocity and effectiveness.

Suddenly – after IS had somehow survived and flourished after a full year of US bombing raids – IS was suffering serious damage from the air, while re-emboldened Syrian ground forces, working under Russian air support, began to regain territory and key strategic objectives such as the Kweyris military base east of Aleppo which may now form a second base for Russian aircraft.

And for all Our complaints that Russia was mainly attacking ‘moderate’ rebel forces supported by Us, rather than IS, IS was upset enough – or so it seems – to place a bomb in a Russian tourist aircraft returing from Sharm-el-Sheikh to St Petersburg on 31st October and kill all 224 occupants above Egypt’s Sinai desert.

The US was forced to step up to the mark and show that it really was taking the IS threat seriously. For the first time, for example, US aircraft attacked convoys of oil tankers travelling to the Turkish border last week, destroying 116 of them and another 283 over the weekend.

This certainly adds up to a credible military action – but gives rise to the question – why did it take them so long?

Into the cauldron of fire?

It is into this highly unstable situation that David Cameron wants to commit UK armed forces and get bombing. Last time he sought Parliamentary approval for bombing in Syria, remember, he lost the vote on 30th August 2013. And that time, it was President Assad’s forces he wanted to bomb.

Now, barely two years after that well-earned Parliamentary disaster, he’s even keener to get bombing. Only this time, it’s the other side he’s after destroying – IS. But is it really? Or is the truth that it’s the same old game plan all along?

It increasingly looks as if the sudden enthusiasm for bombing IS in Syria has more to do with claiming territory in the east of a broken up and Balkanised Syria for Our so-called ‘moderate’ rebels, and hold Assad and his Russian allies at bay. And that goes not just for the US but for the UK as well.

So what’s going on? One often ignored dimension is the ‘battle of two pipelines‘ to carry natural gas from either Qatar or Iran across Syria to European markets. The Qatari pipeline would transect Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey on its way to Europe. The Iranian pipeline would go across Iraq and Syria before dipping undersea across the Mediterannean to Greece.

As reported on ZeroHedge, “Knowing Syria was a critical piece in its energy strategy, Turkey attempted to persuade Syrian President Bashar Assad to reform this Iranian pipeline and to work with the proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline, which would ultimately satisfy Turkey and the Gulf Arab nations’ quest for dominance over gas supplies.

“But after Assad refused Turkey’s proposal, Turkey and its allies became the major architects of Syria’s ‘civil war’ … now we’re seeing what happens when you’re a Mid-East strongman and you decide not to support something the US and Saudi Arabia want to get done.”

And it so happens that with a good chunk of eastern Syria under Our belts, Qatar could have its pipeline up through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey after all – while also blocking Iran’s pipeline route to the Med.

Is this really where we want to be sending ‘our boys’

Now all of this is a dangerous game for our airmen and aircraft to be getting involved in. With increasing rancour between Us and Them likely to develop, and hardening competition for land and key pipeline routes across Syria, Turkey’s downing of the Russian SU24 may be only the first of a number of miltary encounters that could ultimately lead to direct confrontation between the US and Russia.

If so, many might feel that his would be something the UK would be best off taking no part in. Despite Cameron’s desire to please the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and other allies, it’s hard to see anything at stake here that could really be called a ‘national interest’.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has rightly sounded a cautious note over the UK joining in air strikes on Syria, calling for a “political solution” rather than a military one:

“The experience of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya has convinced many of our own people that the elite’s enthusiasm for endless military interventions has only multiplied the threats to us – while leaving death and destabilisation in their wake. It is the conflict in Syria and the consequences of the Iraq war which have created the conditions for Isis to thrive and spread its murderous rule.”

He could also point out that there are other far more effective ways in which the UK government could make life difficult for IS if that really is its objective. For example, it could investigate the means by which funds are transferred to IS both within the UK and in other countries that have dealings with the UK and our financial institutions, and act to cut off the flow of funds.

And it could do more to ensure that weapons sold to friendly states like Saudi Arabia do not end up in IS hands. Yet, as former Lib-Dem leader Paddy Ashdown pointed out on the BBC Today Programme this morning, the UK has in fact been singularly reluctant to do either:

“The failure to put pressure on the Gulf states – and especially Saudi and Qatar – first of all to stop funding the Salafists and the Wahhabists, secondly to play a large part in this campaign, and other actions where the Government has refused to have a proper inquiry into the funding of jihadism in Britain, leads me to worry about the closeness between the Conservative Party and rich Arab Gulf individuals.

“Talking about Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular. I’m not saying their governments have been doing it but their rich businessmen have, and in states like Saudi Arabia you’d imagine the government could stop it.”

Stop and think … are we even on the right side of this war?

And if anyone should be out there bombing IS, he added, it is those same countries that have been funding it: “The one thing the Gulf States haven’t been doing is playing a part in the military coalition which they are committed to. The last Saudi plane seen flying as part of the coalition over Syria was three months ago, the last Qatari plane was nearly a year ago.”

There is indeed a problem that no amount of bombing will solve: other key members of the very military coalition that the UK wants to join in bombing IS in Syria are entirely unwilling to do any such thing themselves, indeed they appear to be closely allied to IS both in their actions (and lack of them) and their geopolitical motivations.

So if there’s any side of the war we should be joining, it’s not with Us, it’s with Them. How about a request from President Assad to Prime Minister Cameron for fraternal military assistance in wiping out IS from his national territory? Because there is one thing for sure here: They really do want to annihilate IS completely and utterly.

And who knows, that might even be an idea that Jeremy Corbyn could agree to. It won’t happen, of course. Cameron climbs out of bed in the morning muttering “Assad must go” and the words are still on his lips as he goes to bed at night. But then again, France’s President Hollande is very serious about wanting to finish off IS after the Paris attacks and is coordinating with Russia – and by association, Assad – to that end.

It may be that we are in the midst of a profound shift in international loyalties and alliances in the Middle East and the wider world. A time of opportunity perhaps, but above all a time of danger: one in which discretion is most definitely the better part of valour.

Anyone for tennis?

Last night President Obama defended Turkey’s right to “defend its sovereign territory”. It’s still not clear whether or not the downed SU24 actually entered Turkish air space, but even if it did, it was a for a period of just 17 seconds, and by the time it was shot down it was some 6km inside Syria.

But think. If Turkey is allowed to shoot down foreign aircraft that enter its territory for a mere 17 seconds, Syria and its ally Russia may reasonably feel it can do the same to those of hostile states. Currently Our aircraft from a number of nations are flying over Syria with no permission from President Assad. They too must be seen as ‘fair game’ to be shot down.

Russia is now beefing up Syria’s air defences with additional installations of its fearsome S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, and with naval support off Syria’s coast. Last night Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi, a spokesman for Russia’s General Staff, released a statement in which he said:

“The General Staff is currently working out additional measures to ensure the security of the Russian air base. First: all actions of strike aircraft will be carried out only under cover of fighter planes. Second: measures will be taken to strengthen defense. To this end, the cruiser Moskva, equipped with Fort air defense system, similar to S-300, will assume position in the coastal region of Latakia.

“We caution that any targets, representing a potential danger for us, will be destroyed.”

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

The fossil fuel industry may waste as much as US$2.2 trillion (£1.45 tn) in the next decade if it persists in pursuing projects that prove uneconomic in a world beginning to turn its back on carbon.

An independent thinktank, the Carbon Tracker Initiative (CTI), says the industry faces “a perfect storm” of factors, including international action to limit global average temperatures to 2C above their pre-industrial level, and rapid advances in clean technologies.

The CTI report says there will be no need for new coal mines, oil demand will peak around 2020, and growth in gas will disappoint industry expectations if world leaders agree and then implement the policies needed to meet the UN commitment to keep climate change below 2C – the threshold agreed by most governments.

Next week’s UN climate change conference in Paris will be trying to reach such a global agreement.

The report warns: “If the industry misreads future demand by underestimating technology and policy advances, this can lead to an excess of supply and create stranded assets. This is where shareholders should be concerned.”

James Leaton, CTI’s head of research and co-author of the report, says: “Too few energy companies recognise that they will need to reduce supply of their carbon-intensive products to avoid pushing us beyond the internationally-recognised carbon budget.

“Clean technology and climate policy are already reducing fossil fuel demand. Misreading these trends will destroy shareholder value. Companies need to apply 2˚C stress tests to their business models now.”

At greatest risk: US, Canada, China, Russia, Australia

The US has the greatest financial exposure, with $412 billion of unneeded fossil fuel projects to 2025 at risk of becoming stranded assets. They are followed by Canada ($220 bn), China ($179 bn), Russia ($147 bn), and Australia ($103 bn).

The companies that represent the biggest risk to the climate and to their shareholders include oil majors Royal Dutch Shell, Pemex and Exxon Mobil, and coal miners Peabody, Coal India, and Glencore.

Around 20%-25% of oil and gas majors’ potential investment is in projects that will not be needed in a 2C scenario, and cancelling them would mean seeing very little or no growth (known as ex-growth).

The report examines production to 2035 and capital investment to 2025. It warns that energy companies must avoid projects that would generate 156 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (156Gt CO₂) by 2035 in order to be consistent with the carbon budget in the International Energy Agency 450 demand scenario, which sets out an energy pathway with a 50% chance of meeting the 2C target.

Mark Fulton, a CTI adviser and co-author of the report, says the group had found that coal had “the most significant overhang of unneeded supply in terms of carbon of all fossil fuels on any scenario. No new mines are needed globally in a 2C world.”

New technologies undermine old business models

Carbon Tracker warned last month that big energy companies are ignoring rapid advances in clean technologies – such as renewables, battery storage and electric cars – that threaten to undermine their business models.

For example, an experimental version of a lithium-air battery under development at Cambridge University, England, may allow electric vehicles to challenge conventional oil-fuelled cars head on within a decade on cost, performance and range – potentially putting oil out of business.

Anthony Hobley, CEO of Carbon Tracker, says: “Business history is littered with examples of incumbents [dominant companies] who fail to see the transition coming.

“Fossil fuel incumbents seem intent on wasting capital trying to hold onto growth by doing what they have always done … Our report offers these companies both a warning and a strategy for avoiding significant value destruction.”

The report says: “It is the end of the road for expansion of the coal sector.” And on oil, it concludes: “In the 450 scenario, oil demand peaks around 2020. This means the oil sector does not need to continue to grow, which is inconsistent with the narrative of many companies.”

In a 2C world, gas growth will be “at a lower level than expected under a business as usual scenario.”

Fossil fuels to join pornography, tobacco and arms as ‘no-go’ investments

Carbon Tracker’s analysis assumes that carbon capture and storage (CCS) will remove 24Gt of CO₂ by 2035, but says this would require a huge expansion of CCS – a technology that remains unproven at a commercial scale, and which many scientists doubt will work soon enough.

In the UK, a significant group of corporate investors is being warned that they may need to screen out fossil fuels, as many do with other types of investment, such as tobacco, armaments and pornography.

The warning stems from a legal opinion expressed by a prominent lawyer, Christopher McCall QC.

This says that it is at least arguable that investing in fossil fuels could be said to be irreconcilable with the intentions behind charities concerned with the environment, health, poverty reduction, and “the consequences of dangerous climate change”.

Charities in England and Wales have a combined income of almost £70bn ($106 bn), and the legal opinion is being referred to the body that regulates them, the Charity Commission. 

And for those wondering how to finance the global shift to renewables, a simple solution dubbed ‘QE for climate‘ is presented today on The Ecologist: to use the growth in global money supply from central banks that’s needed to sustain economic growth to finance the Green Climate Fund.

The report: ‘The $2 trillion stranded assets danger zone: How fossil fuel firms risk destroying investor returns‘.

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network.

The scenes which emerged from Paris almost two weeks ago ago were horrific, and undoubtedly only scratch the surface of the true devastation upon the families and friends of those involved.

There is still little detail about how the attacks in Paris were planned. Given the close association of those involved in the attack, it seems unlikely that high-tech ‘command and control’ via encrypted communications from Syria were an essential component of the planning process.

Likewise the source of the weapons for the attack probably has little to do with the Syrian conflict directly. They are most likely the legacy of the NATO-led conflict in the the Balkans two decades ago.

The fall-out from the present conflicts in Libya, Syria and Iraq – given the large stockpiles of conventional arms those states had amassed – are also likely to create regional instability for some years to come.

The trade in conflict

For the financial traders in New York and London, however, the Paris attacks have been, quite literally, a bonus.

In the age of ‘vulture capitalism’ what might be a tragedy for society – both in France and in Syria (where bombings increased after the attack) – has turned out to be highly lucrative for corporate investors. There are a number of people in boardrooms and finance trading rooms who may see a boost to their forthcoming annual bonus as a result.

What these events highlight is a truly ghastly moral issue. One which is rarely described within the panics which ensue after events such as those in Paris.

It’s not just the arms trade which makes a killing from its core business. Both within the financial sector, and more widely across the lobby groups and think tanks who make noise about these issues, the ‘war on terror’ has created a powerful group of vested interests whose aggressive rhetoric is fanned by ideological and corporate interests.

For example, in times of crisis the UK media regularly feature ‘independent’ commentators from the Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI – who also regularly advise Parliamentarians. Like other defence think-tanks, RUSI is largely funded by the defence and aerospace industry, as well as directly from the Ministry of Defence.

Yet this underlying ‘conflict’ to their impartiality over issues such as terrorism is rarely explored by the media when they feature RUSI.

False profits

In the weeks leading up to the Paris attack global stock markets were declining – worried about the state of the Chinese economy and other related issues. What’s really interesting were the stock prices of leading defence and aerospace companies.

If we take a ‘basket’ of defence sector shares in the run-up to the Paris attacks, while the markets had been falling steadily the share prices of defence contractors were falling faster than the market value overall. As terrorism fell off the agenda over the Summer, driven instead by concerns over refugees, the profile of the defence industry was on the wane.

Then came the attacks in Paris on 13^th November.

In the USA later that day, and in the following days globally, defence stocks started to climb. By the beginning of the next working week, when the main markets were properly open, defence stocks were rising significantly faster than the average rate of the market overall.

With terror now back at the top of the agenda in Europe and the USA, and the likelihood of stronger military action in Syria, the ephemeral money of short-term investors was flowing back into the defence and aerospace sector.

‘The terror dividend’

How much ‘value’ was generated in the stock market is always going to be a vague figure:

If we take the market capitalization of the basket of defence companies, and measure the uplift in capitalization created following the Paris attacks, the value of the defence sector was boosted by at least £7 billion to £8 billion – more than £55 million to £60 million per fatality (who said the price of human life was cheap?).

Of course there are other factors at play here. One of the reasons why the market rose in the USA were the Federal Reserve’s statements on interest rates. Even so, one week after the Paris attack the NASDAQ was still trading below its value of two weeks before – in contrast to defence industry companies who were trading around 5% higher than two weeks before the Paris attack.

It’s not just those in defence companies who have benefited from this trend. In London and New York, those who trade bets on the values of stocks, as well as taking income from trading directly, probably made tens of millions of additional income – a proportion of which they will personally receive in their commission and/or annual performance bonus.

Given the influence these corporations have over governments, there’s a clear hazard to our ability to resolve global conflict. If terror attacks and their resultant military actions are good for business, how will growth-obsessed politicians ever find the will to make peace?

Enter the ‘hyena lobbyists’

If the defence companies are the ‘vultures’ of capitalism, profiting from death, then that would make the industry’s scavenging lobbyists the noisy ‘hyenas’ of this process – screaming over the bones of the victims.

RUSI, highlighted earlier, is one of the more ‘learned’ members of the global network of defence lobbyists. Taken as a whole the more shadowy work of those in the background, such as Interel Consulting or the Henry Jackson Society, is probably more significant.

Interel describes itself as “one of the world’s leading Public Affairs defence and security practices”, and represents many defence industry contractors in Europe and the USA. In the UK it has close links to the defence industry and government, and has many former political special advisers on its staff.

The Henry Jackson Society has close links to influential figures in the Conservative Party and those on the right of Labour. Over the last few years it has developed a whole project around talking-up the risks of the ‘war on terror’ and the radicalization of minorities. Its key role in the recent rise of ‘British neo-conservatism’ was highlighted in a recent report by Spinwatch.

The lack of evidence over how these attacks were planned hasn’t stopped the advocates of more authoritarian restrictions on our civil rights from wading into the ideological fray. Their diagnosis: recent concerns about civil liberties and digital communications has nullified the ability of state security agencies to counter terrorism.

Some went as far as saying that NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has “blood on his hands” as a result of the Paris attacks – despite the evidence that those carrying out the attacks didn’t use the types of communications highlighted in Snowden’s disclosures.

For example, relative to other groups, particularly nation states, there is little evidence that ISIS / Daesh have the capacity to launch a systematic cyber-attack, certainly of anything like the lethality of the Paris attacks. And yet one of the responses has been a clamour from ‘defence analysts’ to demand more powers for state surveillance to prevent Daesh cyber-attacks.

Perversely, there is even evidence that corporate lobbyists in the US have used the media-generated fear over the flow of refugees from the Syrian conflict as a political tool to block federal environmental regulations.

The revolving door of defence companies and civil servants (especially senior ex-military figures), probably more publicised in the USA than in the UK, is also a significant factor determining why government policy often defaults to the ‘spend on conflict’ option.

The moral hazard of the ‘war on terror’

What recent events highlight, not just in Paris but since the attacks of 2001, is a clear moral hazard. There is a well-funded lobby for spending more conflict, but not for spending on conflict-resolution and peace.

In the world of ‘pay-per-view’ politics, peace doesn’t offer a great enough financial return to their major donors; free expression doesn’t involve as much ‘corporate welfare’ as mass surveillance.

The technological-response to terrorism, from bombs and drones to hacking people’s mobile phones and Internet services, might make a lot of money for certain interests. Question is, does it solve the problem of modern terror, or exacerbate it?

Or are the vested interests in the political world simply using terror as a proxy for their own ideological battles – drowning-out any alternative solutions which don’t increase their financial or political rewards, and kicking off the whole cycle of fear, defence lobbying and spending on violence once again.

The reality is that, since the end of the Cold War, the defence sector and leading terror groups have been inextricably linked into a new ‘terror industry’ – they are symbiotic organisms feeding off one another’s need to control the public dialogue.

The most recent example of this unholy relationship is armed drones – which drive people to extremist causes, which in turn creates a greater lobby for more drones.

If the response to the Paris attacks is an escalation of military force and domestic surveillance then, on the evidence of the last fifteen years, it will fail.

We need a new response, based upon the resolution of conflict rather than the funding of offensive responses to it.

That must begin by highlighting how the whole network of political and financial interests surrounding conflict, not just the industrial manufacture of the physical tools of conflict, benefit from this barbaric cycle of violence – and lock us into this perpetuating cycle through their political lobbying.

Whether it be directly via arms manufacturing, or indirectly via share trading or political lobbying, profiting from the human suffering created by terror and militarism are as immoral as the direct use of weapons to inflict that violence.

Paul Mobbs is an environmental and peace campaigners. He runs the Free Range Activism Website (FRAW) and is the author of A Practical Guide to Sustainable ICT – available free on-line.

For a fully referenced version of this article is available on FRAW.

With today’s shooting down of a Russian SU24 by Turkey, the war in Syria just took a new twist – and one that sends a powerful message to the UK as it contemplates joining in bombing raids on Islamic State militants.

And for those who are hard of hearing, that message is: ‘keep well out!’

Up until now, the war in Syria has looked complicated. On the one side the Syrian state led by President Bashar Assad, supported by its long term ally Russia, Iran and Iraq – ‘Them’.

On another side, Islamic State (IS) and allied terrorist groups.

And finally the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France and Israel as a silent partner, allied with ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria whom they equip and finance. Very possibly to be joined by the UK, at least if David Cameron gets his way. Collectively, ‘Us’.

Of course there have been well-supported allegations that those last two sides are actually one and the same. Much as the US supported Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan to attack Russia in the 1980s (and has been suffering the blowback ever since), the theory goes, so it is now supporting IS as a proxy force against Syria to advance its geopolitical goals.

But now it really looks like it’s all true. NATO member Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian SU24 that was, so the Russians insist, a full kilometre inside Syrian air space, was described by Vladimir Putin as “a stab in back delivered by terrorist accomplices”, going on to add:

“We have long been recording the movement of a large amount of oil and petroleum products to Turkey from ISIS-occupied territories. This explains the significant funding the terrorists are receiving. Now they are stabbing us in the back by hitting our planes that are fighting terrorism.

“This is happening despite the agreement we have signed with our American partners to prevent air incidents, and, as you know, Turkey is among those who are supposed to be fighting terrorism within the American coalition.”

What is beyond doubt is the many credible accusations that Turkey has long been allied with IS as a proxy force in its own internal and external war against the Kurds – a downtrodden and disenfranchised People in Eastern Turkey, but increasingly empowered in their autonomous regions of Iraq and Syria, where they have been highly effective at the sharp end of the fight against IS.

Turkey is also, specifically, training and supplying the ‘moderate’ Turkmen rebels in Syria near its border in order to create a ‘safe zone’ for armed opponents to the Syrian regime. It is these ‘Allahu Akbar’ shouting ‘moderates’ that shot at the parachuting air crew in direct violation of the laws of war – from the 1923 Hague Rules to the 1997 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions.

So what about all that talk from the US, the UK and other governments that IS represents an existential threat that must be destroyed? A rhetoric that has, of course, grown all the stronger since the horrific attacks in Paris of 13th November?

I am reminded of the fabled words of St Augustine: ‘Lord, grant me chastity. But not yet.’ Yes, IS is an evil, even genocidal organisation that represents a long term threat to civilisation everywhere. But for now, it’s serving Us far too well. The time will come to turn against IS – once Assad is finally defeated.

It was all going so well! Until Russia stepped in

And it has to be said, things were all going to plan. Syrian government forces were outnumbered and outgunned by IS which had been gaining ground across the country, seizing key oilfields and associated infrastructure (earning it a reputed $1.5 million a day in oil sales), and armed by sophisticated mainly US weaponry supplied to ‘moderate’ rebels who promptly joined up with IS.

But then this summer Russia moved into the Latakia air base in western Syria, beefed up its defences, and moved in its military aircraft. Bombing of IS and other rebel positions began in late September and have continued ever since with increasing ferocity and effectiveness.

Suddenly – after IS had somehow survived and flourished after a full year of US bombing raids – IS was suffering serious damage from the air, while re-emboldened Syrian ground forces, working under Russian air support, began to regain territory and key strategic objectives such as the Kweyris military base east of Aleppo which may now form a second base for Russian aircraft.

And for all Our complaints that Russia was mainly attacking ‘moderate’ rebel forces supported by Us, rather than IS, IS was upset enough – or so it seems – to place a bomb in a Russian tourist aircraft returing from Sharm-el-Sheikh to St Petersburg on 31st October and kill all 224 occupants above Egypt’s Sinai desert.

The US was forced to step up to the mark and show that it really was taking the IS threat seriously. For the first time, for example, US aircraft attacked convoys of oil tankers travelling to the Turkish border last week, destroying 116 of them and another 283 over the weekend.

This certainly adds up to a credible military action – but gives rise to the question – why did it take them so long?

Into the cauldron of fire?

It is into this highly unstable situation that David Cameron wants to commit UK armed forces and get bombing. Last time he sought Parliamentary approval for bombing in Syria, remember, he lost the vote on 30th August 2013. And that time, it was President Assad’s forces he wanted to bomb.

Now, barely two years after that well-earned Parliamentary disaster, he’s even keener to get bombing. Only this time, it’s the other side he’s after destroying – IS. But is it really? Or is the truth that it’s the same old game plan all along?

It increasingly looks as if the sudden enthusiasm for bombing IS in Syria has more to do with claiming territory in the east of a broken up and Balkanised Syria for Our so-called ‘moderate’ rebels, and hold Assad and his Russian allies at bay. And that goes not just for the US but for the UK as well.

So what’s going on? One often ignored dimension is the ‘battle of two pipelines‘ to carry natural gas from either Qatar or Iran across Syria to European markets. The Qatari pipeline would transect Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey on its way to Europe. The Iranian pipeline would go across Iraq and Syria before dipping undersea across the Mediterannean to Greece.

As reported on ZeroHedge, “Knowing Syria was a critical piece in its energy strategy, Turkey attempted to persuade Syrian President Bashar Assad to reform this Iranian pipeline and to work with the proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline, which would ultimately satisfy Turkey and the Gulf Arab nations’ quest for dominance over gas supplies.

“But after Assad refused Turkey’s proposal, Turkey and its allies became the major architects of Syria’s ‘civil war’ … now we’re seeing what happens when you’re a Mid-East strongman and you decide not to support something the US and Saudi Arabia want to get done.”

And it so happens that with a good chunk of eastern Syria under Our belts, Qatar could have its pipeline up through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey after all – while also blocking Iran’s pipeline route to the Med.

Is this really where we want to be sending ‘our boys’

Now all of this is a dangerous game for our airmen and aircraft to be getting involved in. With increasing rancour between Us and Them likely to develop, and hardening competition for land and key pipeline routes across Syria, Turkey’s downing of the Russian SU24 may be only the first of a number of miltary encounters that could ultimately lead to direct confrontation between the US and Russia.

If so, many might feel that his would be something the UK would be best off taking no part in. Despite Cameron’s desire to please the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and other allies, it’s hard to see anything at stake here that could really be called a ‘national interest’.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has rightly sounded a cautious note over the UK joining in air strikes on Syria, calling for a “political solution” rather than a military one:

“The experience of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya has convinced many of our own people that the elite’s enthusiasm for endless military interventions has only multiplied the threats to us – while leaving death and destabilisation in their wake. It is the conflict in Syria and the consequences of the Iraq war which have created the conditions for Isis to thrive and spread its murderous rule.”

He could also point out that there are other far more effective ways in which the UK government could make life difficult for IS if that really is its objective. For example, it could investigate the means by which funds are transferred to IS both within the UK and in other countries that have dealings with the UK and our financial institutions, and act to cut off the flow of funds.

And it could do more to ensure that weapons sold to friendly states like Saudi Arabia do not end up in IS hands. Yet, as former Lib-Dem leader Paddy Ashdown pointed out on the BBC Today Programme this morning, the UK has in fact been singularly reluctant to do either:

“The failure to put pressure on the Gulf states – and especially Saudi and Qatar – first of all to stop funding the Salafists and the Wahhabists, secondly to play a large part in this campaign, and other actions where the Government has refused to have a proper inquiry into the funding of jihadism in Britain, leads me to worry about the closeness between the Conservative Party and rich Arab Gulf individuals.

“Talking about Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular. I’m not saying their governments have been doing it but their rich businessmen have, and in states like Saudi Arabia you’d imagine the government could stop it.”

Stop and think … are we even on the right side of this war?

And if anyone should be out there bombing IS, he added, it is those same countries that have been funding it: “The one thing the Gulf States haven’t been doing is playing a part in the military coalition which they are committed to. The last Saudi plane seen flying as part of the coalition over Syria was three months ago, the last Qatari plane was nearly a year ago.”

There is indeed a problem that no amount of bombing will solve: other key members of the very military coalition that the UK wants to join in bombing IS in Syria are entirely unwilling to do any such thing themselves, indeed they appear to be closely allied to IS both in their actions (and lack of them) and their geopolitical motivations.

So if there’s any side of the war we should be joining, it’s not with Us, it’s with Them. How about a request from President Assad to Prime Minister Cameron for fraternal military assistance in wiping out IS from his national territory? Because there is one thing for sure here: They really do want to annihilate IS completely and utterly.

And who knows, that might even be an idea that Jeremy Corbyn could agree to. It won’t happen, of course. Cameron climbs out of bed in the morning muttering “Assad must go” and the words are still on his lips as he goes to bed at night. But then again, France’s President Hollande is very serious about wanting to finish off IS after the Paris attacks and is coordinating with Russia – and by association, Assad – to that end.

It may be that we are in the midst of a profound shift in international loyalties and alliances in the Middle East and the wider world. A time of opportunity perhaps, but above all a time of danger: one in which discretion is most definitely the better part of valour.

Anyone for tennis?

Last night President Obama defended Turkey’s right to “defend its sovereign territory”. It’s still not clear whether or not the downed SU24 actually entered Turkish air space, but even if it did, it was a for a period of just 17 seconds, and by the time it was shot down it was some 6km inside Syria.

But think. If Turkey is allowed to shoot down foreign aircraft that enter its territory for a mere 17 seconds, Syria and its ally Russia may reasonably feel it can do the same to those of hostile states. Currently Our aircraft from a number of nations are flying over Syria with no permission from President Assad. They too must be seen as ‘fair game’ to be shot down.

Russia is now beefing up Syria’s air defences with additional installations of its fearsome S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, and with naval support off Syria’s coast. Last night Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi, a spokesman for Russia’s General Staff, released a statement in which he said:

“The General Staff is currently working out additional measures to ensure the security of the Russian air base. First: all actions of strike aircraft will be carried out only under cover of fighter planes. Second: measures will be taken to strengthen defense. To this end, the cruiser Moskva, equipped with Fort air defense system, similar to S-300, will assume position in the coastal region of Latakia.

“We caution that any targets, representing a potential danger for us, will be destroyed.”

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

The scenes which emerged from Paris almost two weeks ago ago were horrific, and undoubtedly only scratch the surface of the true devastation upon the families and friends of those involved.

There is still little detail about how the attacks in Paris were planned. Given the close association of those involved in the attack, it seems unlikely that high-tech ‘command and control’ via encrypted communications from Syria were an essential component of the planning process.

Likewise the source of the weapons for the attack probably has little to do with the Syrian conflict directly. They are most likely the legacy of the NATO-led conflict in the the Balkans two decades ago.

The fall-out from the present conflicts in Libya, Syria and Iraq – given the large stockpiles of conventional arms those states had amassed – are also likely to create regional instability for some years to come.

The trade in conflict

For the financial traders in New York and London, however, the Paris attacks have been, quite literally, a bonus.

In the age of ‘vulture capitalism’ what might be a tragedy for society – both in France and in Syria (where bombings increased after the attack) – has turned out to be highly lucrative for corporate investors. There are a number of people in boardrooms and finance trading rooms who may see a boost to their forthcoming annual bonus as a result.

What these events highlight is a truly ghastly moral issue. One which is rarely described within the panics which ensue after events such as those in Paris.

It’s not just the arms trade which makes a killing from its core business. Both within the financial sector, and more widely across the lobby groups and think tanks who make noise about these issues, the ‘war on terror’ has created a powerful group of vested interests whose aggressive rhetoric is fanned by ideological and corporate interests.

For example, in times of crisis the UK media regularly feature ‘independent’ commentators from the Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI – who also regularly advise Parliamentarians. Like other defence think-tanks, RUSI is largely funded by the defence and aerospace industry, as well as directly from the Ministry of Defence.

Yet this underlying ‘conflict’ to their impartiality over issues such as terrorism is rarely explored by the media when they feature RUSI.

False profits

In the weeks leading up to the Paris attack global stock markets were declining – worried about the state of the Chinese economy and other related issues. What’s really interesting were the stock prices of leading defence and aerospace companies.

If we take a ‘basket’ of defence sector shares in the run-up to the Paris attacks, while the markets had been falling steadily the share prices of defence contractors were falling faster than the market value overall. As terrorism fell off the agenda over the Summer, driven instead by concerns over refugees, the profile of the defence industry was on the wane.

Then came the attacks in Paris on 13^th November.

In the USA later that day, and in the following days globally, defence stocks started to climb. By the beginning of the next working week, when the main markets were properly open, defence stocks were rising significantly faster than the average rate of the market overall.

With terror now back at the top of the agenda in Europe and the USA, and the likelihood of stronger military action in Syria, the ephemeral money of short-term investors was flowing back into the defence and aerospace sector.

‘The terror dividend’

How much ‘value’ was generated in the stock market is always going to be a vague figure:

If we take the market capitalization of the basket of defence companies, and measure the uplift in capitalization created following the Paris attacks, the value of the defence sector was boosted by at least £7 billion to £8 billion – more than £55 million to £60 million per fatality (who said the price of human life was cheap?).

Of course there are other factors at play here. One of the reasons why the market rose in the USA were the Federal Reserve’s statements on interest rates. Even so, one week after the Paris attack the NASDAQ was still trading below its value of two weeks before – in contrast to defence industry companies who were trading around 5% higher than two weeks before the Paris attack.

It’s not just those in defence companies who have benefited from this trend. In London and New York, those who trade bets on the values of stocks, as well as taking income from trading directly, probably made tens of millions of additional income – a proportion of which they will personally receive in their commission and/or annual performance bonus.

Given the influence these corporations have over governments, there’s a clear hazard to our ability to resolve global conflict. If terror attacks and their resultant military actions are good for business, how will growth-obsessed politicians ever find the will to make peace?

Enter the ‘hyena lobbyists’

If the defence companies are the ‘vultures’ of capitalism, profiting from death, then that would make the industry’s scavenging lobbyists the noisy ‘hyenas’ of this process – screaming over the bones of the victims.

RUSI, highlighted earlier, is one of the more ‘learned’ members of the global network of defence lobbyists. Taken as a whole the more shadowy work of those in the background, such as Interel Consulting or the Henry Jackson Society, is probably more significant.

Interel describes itself as “one of the world’s leading Public Affairs defence and security practices”, and represents many defence industry contractors in Europe and the USA. In the UK it has close links to the defence industry and government, and has many former political special advisers on its staff.

The Henry Jackson Society has close links to influential figures in the Conservative Party and those on the right of Labour. Over the last few years it has developed a whole project around talking-up the risks of the ‘war on terror’ and the radicalization of minorities. Its key role in the recent rise of ‘British neo-conservatism’ was highlighted in a recent report by Spinwatch.

The lack of evidence over how these attacks were planned hasn’t stopped the advocates of more authoritarian restrictions on our civil rights from wading into the ideological fray. Their diagnosis: recent concerns about civil liberties and digital communications has nullified the ability of state security agencies to counter terrorism.

Some went as far as saying that NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has “blood on his hands” as a result of the Paris attacks – despite the evidence that those carrying out the attacks didn’t use the types of communications highlighted in Snowden’s disclosures.

For example, relative to other groups, particularly nation states, there is little evidence that ISIS / Daesh have the capacity to launch a systematic cyber-attack, certainly of anything like the lethality of the Paris attacks. And yet one of the responses has been a clamour from ‘defence analysts’ to demand more powers for state surveillance to prevent Daesh cyber-attacks.

Perversely, there is even evidence that corporate lobbyists in the US have used the media-generated fear over the flow of refugees from the Syrian conflict as a political tool to block federal environmental regulations.

The revolving door of defence companies and civil servants (especially senior ex-military figures), probably more publicised in the USA than in the UK, is also a significant factor determining why government policy often defaults to the ‘spend on conflict’ option.

The moral hazard of the ‘war on terror’

What recent events highlight, not just in Paris but since the attacks of 2001, is a clear moral hazard. There is a well-funded lobby for spending more conflict, but not for spending on conflict-resolution and peace.

In the world of ‘pay-per-view’ politics, peace doesn’t offer a great enough financial return to their major donors; free expression doesn’t involve as much ‘corporate welfare’ as mass surveillance.

The technological-response to terrorism, from bombs and drones to hacking people’s mobile phones and Internet services, might make a lot of money for certain interests. Question is, does it solve the problem of modern terror, or exacerbate it?

Or are the vested interests in the political world simply using terror as a proxy for their own ideological battles – drowning-out any alternative solutions which don’t increase their financial or political rewards, and kicking off the whole cycle of fear, defence lobbying and spending on violence once again.

The reality is that, since the end of the Cold War, the defence sector and leading terror groups have been inextricably linked into a new ‘terror industry’ – they are symbiotic organisms feeding off one another’s need to control the public dialogue.

The most recent example of this unholy relationship is armed drones – which drive people to extremist causes, which in turn creates a greater lobby for more drones.

If the response to the Paris attacks is an escalation of military force and domestic surveillance then, on the evidence of the last fifteen years, it will fail.

We need a new response, based upon the resolution of conflict rather than the funding of offensive responses to it.

That must begin by highlighting how the whole network of political and financial interests surrounding conflict, not just the industrial manufacture of the physical tools of conflict, benefit from this barbaric cycle of violence – and lock us into this perpetuating cycle through their political lobbying.

Whether it be directly via arms manufacturing, or indirectly via share trading or political lobbying, profiting from the human suffering created by terror and militarism are as immoral as the direct use of weapons to inflict that violence.

Paul Mobbs is an environmental and peace campaigners. He runs the Free Range Activism Website (FRAW) and is the author of A Practical Guide to Sustainable ICT – available free on-line.

For a fully referenced version of this article is available on FRAW.

With today’s shooting down of a Russian SU24 by Turkey, the war in Syria just took a new twist – and one that sends a powerful message to the UK as it contemplates joining in bombing raids on Islamic State militants.

And for those who are hard of hearing, that message is: ‘keep well out!’

Up until now, the war in Syria has looked complicated. On the one side the Syrian state led by President Bashar Assad, supported by its long term ally Russia, Iran and Iraq – ‘Them’.

On another side, Islamic State (IS) and allied terrorist groups.

And finally the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France and Israel as a silent partner, allied with ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria whom they equip and finance. Very possibly to be joined by the UK, at least if David Cameron gets his way. Collectively, ‘Us’.

Of course there have been well-supported allegations that those last two sides are actually one and the same. Much as the US supported Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan to attack Russia in the 1980s (and has been suffering the blowback ever since), the theory goes, so it is now supporting IS as a proxy force against Syria to advance its geopolitical goals.

But now it really looks like it’s all true. NATO member Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian SU24 that was, so the Russians insist, a full kilometre inside Syrian air space, was described by Vladimir Putin as “a stab in back delivered by terrorist accomplices”, going on to add:

“We have long been recording the movement of a large amount of oil and petroleum products to Turkey from ISIS-occupied territories. This explains the significant funding the terrorists are receiving. Now they are stabbing us in the back by hitting our planes that are fighting terrorism.

“This is happening despite the agreement we have signed with our American partners to prevent air incidents, and, as you know, Turkey is among those who are supposed to be fighting terrorism within the American coalition.”

What is beyond doubt is the many credible accusations that Turkey has long been allied with IS as a proxy force in its own internal and external war against the Kurds – a downtrodden and disenfranchised People in Eastern Turkey, but increasingly empowered in their autonomous regions of Iraq and Syria, where they have been highly effective at the sharp end of the fight against IS.

Turkey is also, specifically, training and supplying the ‘moderate’ Turkmen rebels in Syria near its border in order to create a ‘safe zone’ for armed opponents to the Syrian regime. It is these ‘Allahu Akbar’ shouting ‘moderates’ that shot at the parachuting air crew in direct violation of the laws of war – from the 1923 Hague Rules to the 1997 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions.

So what about all that talk from the US, the UK and other governments that IS represents an existential threat that must be destroyed? A rhetoric that has, of course, grown all the stronger since the horrific attacks in Paris of 13th November?

I am reminded of the fabled words of St Augustine: ‘Lord, grant me chastity. But not yet.’ Yes, IS is an evil, even genocidal organisation that represents a long term threat to civilisation everywhere. But for now, it’s serving Us far too well. The time will come to turn against IS – once Assad is finally defeated.

It was all going so well! Until Russia stepped in

And it has to be said, things were all going to plan. Syrian government forces were outnumbered and outgunned by IS which had been gaining ground across the country, seizing key oilfields and associated infrastructure (earning it a reputed $1.5 million a day in oil sales), and armed by sophisticated mainly US weaponry supplied to ‘moderate’ rebels who promptly joined up with IS.

But then this summer Russia moved into the Latakia air base in western Syria, beefed up its defences, and moved in its military aircraft. Bombing of IS and other rebel positions began in late September and have continued ever since with increasing ferocity and effectiveness.

Suddenly – after IS had somehow survived and flourished after a full year of US bombing raids – IS was suffering serious damage from the air, while re-emboldened Syrian ground forces, working under Russian air support, began to regain territory and key strategic objectives such as the Kweyris military base east of Aleppo which may now form a second base for Russian aircraft.

And for all Our complaints that Russia was mainly attacking ‘moderate’ rebel forces supported by Us, rather than IS, IS was upset enough – or so it seems – to place a bomb in a Russian tourist aircraft returing from Sharm-el-Sheikh to St Petersburg on 31st October and kill all 224 occupants above Egypt’s Sinai desert.

The US was forced to step up to the mark and show that it really was taking the IS threat seriously. For the first time, for example, US aircraft attacked convoys of oil tankers travelling to the Turkish border last week, destroying 116 of them and another 283 over the weekend.

This certainly adds up to a credible military action – but gives rise to the question – why did it take them so long?

Into the cauldron of fire?

It is into this highly unstable situation that David Cameron wants to commit UK armed forces and get bombing. Last time he sought Parliamentary approval for bombing in Syria, remember, he lost the vote on 30th August 2013. And that time, it was President Assad’s forces he wanted to bomb.

Now, barely two years after that well-earned Parliamentary disaster, he’s even keener to get bombing. Only this time, it’s the other side he’s after destroying – IS. But is it really? Or is the truth that it’s the same old game plan all along?

It increasingly looks as if the sudden enthusiasm for bombing IS in Syria has more to do with claiming territory in the east of a broken up and Balkanised Syria for Our so-called ‘moderate’ rebels, and hold Assad and his Russian allies at bay. And that goes not just for the US but for the UK as well.

So what’s going on? One often ignored dimension is the ‘battle of two pipelines‘ to carry natural gas from either Qatar or Iran across Syria to European markets. The Qatari pipeline would transect Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey on its way to Europe. The Iranian pipeline would go across Iraq and Syria before dipping undersea across the Mediterannean to Greece.

As reported on ZeroHedge, “Knowing Syria was a critical piece in its energy strategy, Turkey attempted to persuade Syrian President Bashar Assad to reform this Iranian pipeline and to work with the proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline, which would ultimately satisfy Turkey and the Gulf Arab nations’ quest for dominance over gas supplies.

“But after Assad refused Turkey’s proposal, Turkey and its allies became the major architects of Syria’s ‘civil war’ … now we’re seeing what happens when you’re a Mid-East strongman and you decide not to support something the US and Saudi Arabia want to get done.”

And it so happens that with a good chunk of eastern Syria under Our belts, Qatar could have its pipeline up through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey after all – while also blocking Iran’s pipeline route to the Med.

Is this really where we want to be sending ‘our boys’

Now all of this is a dangerous game for our airmen and aircraft to be getting involved in. With increasing rancour between Us and Them likely to develop, and hardening competition for land and key pipeline routes across Syria, Turkey’s downing of the Russian SU24 may be only the first of a number of miltary encounters that could ultimately lead to direct confrontation between the US and Russia.

If so, many might feel that his would be something the UK would be best off taking no part in. Despite Cameron’s desire to please the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and other allies, it’s hard to see anything at stake here that could really be called a ‘national interest’.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has rightly sounded a cautious note over the UK joining in air strikes on Syria, calling for a “political solution” rather than a military one:

“The experience of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya has convinced many of our own people that the elite’s enthusiasm for endless military interventions has only multiplied the threats to us – while leaving death and destabilisation in their wake. It is the conflict in Syria and the consequences of the Iraq war which have created the conditions for Isis to thrive and spread its murderous rule.”

He could also point out that there are other far more effective ways in which the UK government could make life difficult for IS if that really is its objective. For example, it could investigate the means by which funds are transferred to IS both within the UK and in other countries that have dealings with the UK and our financial institutions, and act to cut off the flow of funds.

And it could do more to ensure that weapons sold to friendly states like Saudi Arabia do not end up in IS hands. Yet, as former Lib-Dem leader Paddy Ashdown pointed out on the BBC Today Programme this morning, the UK has in fact been singularly reluctant to do either:

“The failure to put pressure on the Gulf states – and especially Saudi and Qatar – first of all to stop funding the Salafists and the Wahhabists, secondly to play a large part in this campaign, and other actions where the Government has refused to have a proper inquiry into the funding of jihadism in Britain, leads me to worry about the closeness between the Conservative Party and rich Arab Gulf individuals.

“Talking about Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular. I’m not saying their governments have been doing it but their rich businessmen have, and in states like Saudi Arabia you’d imagine the government could stop it.”

Stop and think … are we even on the right side of this war?

And if anyone should be out there bombing IS, he added, it is those same countries that have been funding it: “The one thing the Gulf States haven’t been doing is playing a part in the military coalition which they are committed to. The last Saudi plane seen flying as part of the coalition over Syria was three months ago, the last Qatari plane was nearly a year ago.”

There is indeed a problem that no amount of bombing will solve: other key members of the very military coalition that the UK wants to join in bombing IS in Syria are entirely unwilling to do any such thing themselves, indeed they appear to be closely allied to IS both in their actions (and lack of them) and their geopolitical motivations.

So if there’s any side of the war we should be joining, it’s not with Us, it’s with Them. How about a request from President Assad to Prime Minister Cameron for fraternal military assistance in wiping out IS from his national territory? Because there is one thing for sure here: They really do want to annihilate IS completely and utterly.

And who knows, that might even be an idea that Jeremy Corbyn could agree to. It won’t happen, of course. Cameron climbs out of bed in the morning muttering “Assad must go” and the words are still on his lips as he goes to bed at night. But then again, France’s President Hollande is very serious about wanting to finish off IS after the Paris attacks and is coordinating with Russia – and by association, Assad – to that end.

It may be that we are in the midst of a profound shift in international loyalties and alliances in the Middle East and the wider world. A time of opportunity perhaps, but above all a time of danger: one in which discretion is most definitely the better part of valour.

Anyone for tennis?

Last night President Obama defended Turkey’s right to “defend its sovereign territory”. It’s still not clear whether or not the downed SU24 actually entered Turkish air space, but even if it did, it was a for a period of just 17 seconds, and by the time it was shot down it was some 6km inside Syria.

But think. If Turkey is allowed to shoot down foreign aircraft that enter its territory for a mere 17 seconds, Syria and its ally Russia may reasonably feel it can do the same to those of hostile states. Currently Our aircraft from a number of nations are flying over Syria with no permission from President Assad. They too must be seen as ‘fair game’ to be shot down.

Russia is now beefing up Syria’s air defences with additional installations of its fearsome S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, and with naval support off Syria’s coast. Last night Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi, a spokesman for Russia’s General Staff, released a statement in which he said:

“The General Staff is currently working out additional measures to ensure the security of the Russian air base. First: all actions of strike aircraft will be carried out only under cover of fighter planes. Second: measures will be taken to strengthen defense. To this end, the cruiser Moskva, equipped with Fort air defense system, similar to S-300, will assume position in the coastal region of Latakia.

“We caution that any targets, representing a potential danger for us, will be destroyed.”

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

With today’s shooting down of a Russian SU24 by Turkey, the war in Syria just took a new twist – and one that sends a powerful message to the UK as it contemplates joining in bombing raids on Islamic State militants.

And for those who are hard of hearing, that message is: ‘keep well out!’

Up until now, the war in Syria has looked complicated. On the one side the Syrian state led by President Bashar Assad, supported by its long term ally Russia, Iran and Iraq – ‘Them’.

On another side, Islamic State (IS) and allied terrorist groups.

And finally the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France and Israel as a silent partner, allied with ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria whom they equip and finance. Very possibly to be joined by the UK, at least if David Cameron gets his way. Collectively, ‘Us’.

Of course there have been well-supported allegations that those last two sides are actually one and the same. Much as the US supported Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan to attack Russia in the 1980s (and has been suffering the blowback ever since), the theory goes, so it is now supporting IS as a proxy force against Syria to advance its geopolitical goals.

But now it really looks like it’s all true. NATO member Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian SU24 that was, so the Russians insist, a full kilometre inside Syrian air space, was described by Vladimir Putin as “a stab in back delivered by terrorist accomplices”, going on to add:

“We have long been recording the movement of a large amount of oil and petroleum products to Turkey from ISIS-occupied territories. This explains the significant funding the terrorists are receiving. Now they are stabbing us in the back by hitting our planes that are fighting terrorism.

“This is happening despite the agreement we have signed with our American partners to prevent air incidents, and, as you know, Turkey is among those who are supposed to be fighting terrorism within the American coalition.”

What is beyond doubt is the many credible accusations that Turkey has long been allied with IS as a proxy force in its own internal and external war against the Kurds – a downtrodden and disenfranchised People in Eastern Turkey, but increasingly empowered in their autonomous regions of Iraq and Syria, where they have been highly effective at the sharp end of the fight against IS.

So what about all that talk from the US, the UK and other governments that IS represents an existential threat that must be destroyed? A rhetoric that has, of course, grown all the stronger since the horrific attacks in Paris of 13th November?

I am reminded of the fabled words of St Augustine: ‘Lord, grant me chastity. But not yet.’ Yes, IS is an evil, even genocidal organisation that represents a long term threat to civilisation everywhere. But for now, it’s serving Us far too well. The time will come to turn against IS – once Assad is finally defeated.

It was all going so well! Until Russia stepped in

And it has to be said, things were all going to plan. Syrian government forces were outnumbered and outgunned by IS which had been gaining ground across the country, seizing key oilfields and associated infrastructure (earning it a reputed $1.5 million a day in oil sales), and armed by sophisticated mainly US weaponry supplied to ‘moderate’ rebels who promptly joined up with IS.

But then this summer Russia moved into the Latakia air base in western Syria, beefed up its defences, and moved in its military aircraft. Bombing of IS and other rebel positions began in late September and have continued ever since with increasing ferocity and effectiveness.

Suddenly – after IS had somehow survived and flourished after a full year of US bombing raids – IS was suffering serious damage from the air, while re-emboldened Syrian ground forces, working under Russian air support, began to regain territory and key strategic objectives such as the Kweyris military base east of Aleppo which may now form a second base for Russian aircraft.

And for all Our complaints by that Russia was mainly attacking ‘moderate’ rebel forces supported by Us, rather than IS, IS was upset enough – or so it seems – to place a bomb in a Russian tourist aircraft returing from Sharm-el-Sheikh to St Petersburg on 31st October and kill all 224 occupants above Egypt’s Sinai desert.

The US was forced to step up to the mark and show that it really was taking the IS threat seriously. For the first time, for example, US aircraft attacked convoys of oil tankers travelling to the Turkish border last week, destroying 116 of them and another 283 over the weekend.

This certainly adds up to a credible military action – but gives rise to the question – why did it take them so long?

Into the cauldron of fire?

It is into this highly unstable situation that David Cameron wants to commit UK armed forces and get bombing. Last time he sought Parliamentary approval for bombing in Syria, remember, he lost the vote on 30th August 2013. And that time, it was President Assad’s forces he wanted to bomb.

Now, barely two years after that well-earned Parliamentary disaster, he’s even keener to get bombing. Only this time, it’s the other side he’s after destroying – IS. But is it really? Or is the truth that it’s the same old game plan all along?

It increasingly looks as if the sudden enthusiasm for bombing IS in Syria has more to do with claiming territory in the east of a broken up and Balkanised Syria for Our so-called ‘moderate’ rebels, and hold Assad and his Russian allies at bay. And that goes not just for the US but for the UK as well.

So what’s going on? One often ignored dimension is the ‘battle of two pipelines‘ to carry natural gas from either Qatar or Iran across Syria to European markets. The Qatari pipeline would transect Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey on its way to Europe. The Iranian pipeline would go across Iraq and Syria before dipping undersea across the Mediterannean to Greece.

As reported on ZeroHedge, “Knowing Syria was a critical piece in its energy strategy, Turkey attempted to persuade Syrian President Bashar Assad to reform this Iranian pipeline and to work with the proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline, which would ultimately satisfy Turkey and the Gulf Arab nations’ quest for dominance over gas supplies.

“But after Assad refused Turkey’s proposal, Turkey and its allies became the major architects of Syria’s ‘civil war’ … now we’re seeing what happens when you’re a Mid-East strongman and you decide not to support something the US and Saudi Arabia want to get done.”

And it so happens that with a good chunk of eastern Syria under Our belts, Qatar could have its pipeline up through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey after all – while also blocking Iran’s pipeline route to the Med.

Is this really where we want to be sending ‘our boys’

Now all of this is a dangerous game for our airmen and aircraft to be getting involved in. With increasing rancour between Us and Them likely to develop, and hardening competition for land and key pipeline routes across Syria, Turkey’s downing of the Russian SU24 may be only the first of a number of miltary encounters that could ultimately lead to direct confrontation between the US and Russia.

If so, many might feel that his would be something the UK would be best off taking no part in. Despite Cameron’s desire to please the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and other allies, it’s hard to see anything at stake here that could really be called a ‘national interest’.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has rightly sounded a cautious note over the UK joining in air strikes on Syria, calling for a “political solution” rather than a military one:

“The experience of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya has convinced many of our own people that the elite’s enthusiasm for endless military interventions has only multiplied the threats to us – while leaving death and destabilisation in their wake. It is the conflict in Syria and the consequences of the Iraq war which have created the conditions for Isis to thrive and spread its murderous rule.”

He could also point out that there are other far more effective ways in which the UK government could make life difficult for IS if that really is its objective. For example, it could investigate the means by which funds are transferred to IS both within the UK and in other countries that have dealings with the UK and our financial institutions, and act to cut off the flow of funds.

And it could do more to ensure that weapons sold to friendly states like Saudi Arabia do not end up in IS hands. Yet, as former Lib-Dem leader Paddy Ashdown pointed out on the BBC Today Programme this morning, the UK has in fact been singularly reluctant to do either:

“The failure to put pressure on the Gulf states – and especially Saudi and Qatar – first of all to stop funding the Salafists and the Wahhabists, secondly to play a large part in this campaign, and other actions where the Government has refused to have a proper inquiry into the funding of jihadism in Britain, leads me to worry about the closeness between the Conservative Party and rich Arab Gulf individuals.

“Talking about Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular. I’m not saying their governments have been doing it but their rich businessmen have, and in states like Saudi Arabia you’d imagine the government could stop it.”

Stop and think … are we even on the right side of this war?

And if anyone should be out there bombing IS, he added, it is those same countries that have been funding it: “The one thing the Gulf States haven’t been doing is playing a part in the military coalition which they are committed to. The last Saudi plane seen flying as part of the coalition over Syria was three months ago, the last Qatari plane was nearly a year ago.”

There is indeed a problem that no amount of bombing will solve: other key members of the very military coalition that the UK wants to join in bombing IS in Syria are entirely unwilling to do any such thing themselves, indeed they appear to be closely allied to IS both in their actions (and lack of them) and their geopolitical motivations.

So if there’s any side of the war we should be joining, it’s not with Us, it’s with Them. How about a request from President Assad to Prime Minister Cameron for fraternal military assistance in wiping out IS from his national territory? Because there is one thing for sure here: They really do want to annihilate IS completely and utterly.

And who knows, that might even be an idea that Jeremy Corbyn could agree to. It won’t happen, of course. Cameron climbs out of bed in the morning muttering “Assad must go” and the words are still on his lips as he goes to bed at night. But then again, France’s President Hollande is very serious about wanting to finish off IS after the Paris attacks and is coordinating with Russia to that end.

It may be that we are in the midst of a profound shift in international loyalties and alliances in the Middle East and the wider world. A time of opportunity perhaps, but above all a time of danger: one in which discretion is most definitely the better part of valour.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.