Published in the Jerusalem Post, 4 August 2026
On July 8, on the sidelines of the
NATO summit in Ankara, US President Donald Trump had a face-to-face
meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
According to the official Syrian
read-out and US reporting, they discussed strengthening US-Syrian relations,
Syria’s economic recovery, and foreign investment. Following their meeting
Trump announced he was removing Syria from the US list of State Sponsors of
Terrorism, a designation Syria had borne since 1979.
Reuters reported that Trump handed
Sharaa a personal letter during the meeting. The key passages were: "I
promised to remove all barriers stopping you from rebuilding your country, and
very soon, you will finally be able to do so," and "We have US
companies ready to invest in Syria and help make your country greater and more
prosperous than ever before."
Speaking to the media after their
meeting, Trump praised Sharaa in unusually strong terms. He’s: “doing an
unbelievable job in unifying Syria….Syria was a mess…now it's just come
together….He's done a fantastic job." All the indications are that
Trump has decided to adopt post-Assad Syria as a working partner in developing
a reinvigorated Middle East.
One week later, Trump was
entertaining Iraq’s prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, at the White House.
Once again the meeting was notable for its tone. Trump repeatedly praised Zaidi and spoke of their "tremendous chemistry." He made it clear that he regarded Iraq’s new prime minister also as a partner with whom Washington could build a stronger long-term relationship.
The discussion covered expanding
economic relations between the two countries, while both sides endorsed a
series of memoranda of understanding (MoU) involving US participation in Iraq's
oil and gas sector. Zaidi reiterated his government's intention of
bringing all armed groups, including Iran-backed militias, under state control,
while confirming that the remaining US forces in Iraq are expected to complete
their withdrawal by September 30, 2026.
What was not specifically referred
to by either party – and not mentioned either following Trump’s discussion with
Sharaa – was the US-Syria-Iraq plan to revive the historic 500-mile pipeline
from the oilfields of Kirkuk in northern Iraq to the town of Baniyas, on
Syria's Mediterranean coast – a determined effort to reduce Iran’s control of
the Strait of Hormuz.
Tom Barrack, Trump’s ambassador to Turkey and envoy to Syria and Iraq, had been working on the details of the agreement before Zaidi’s visit.
The pipeline was completed in 1952
by Iraq’s Petroleum Company with a capacity of around 300,000 barrels per
day. Baghdad shut the pipeline in the 1980s after Syria sided with Iran
during the Iran-Iraq war.
The pipeline will almost certainly
have to be wholly replaced – a project calculated to last up to three
years.
A glance at the map shows that
reviving the pipeline would give Iraq a strategic alternative to exporting oil
through the Strait of Hormuz. Unlike Gulf exports, shipments through the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline would avoid the Persian Gulf altogether. It would
spare tankers the need to negotiate the strategic Hormuz chokepoint on both
their outbound and return voyages. Oil reaching Syria's Mediterranean coast via
the pipeline could be shipped directly to European markets.
Routing Iraqi oil this way could
cut a tanker's voyage to European refineries by roughly 3,000 nautical miles
and more than a week at sea, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in normal
shipping costs while avoiding the war-risk insurance and disruption associated
with the Strait of Hormuz.
Although it has clearly been agreed between the parties to keep the resurrection of the historic pipeline low-key, Reuters and other media outlets indicate that the project has advanced well beyond the conceptual stage. It is claimed that the US is officially backing restoration of the 891 km (about 550 mile) long pipeline, and that the US expects American firms to take part in rebuilding the line. Chevron has been widely mentioned as a potential participant, although the company has declined to comment publicly.
Other pipeline projects with
outlets on Syria’s Mediterranean coast are also under consideration, and could
link major energy producers in the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar,
directly to Syria’s ports. Indeed, with Syria shorn of its sanctions
and established as a fully-fledged partner, it has the potential to
become a major energy transit hub. It has about 2.5 billion
barrels of proven oil reserves, but some geological estimates suggest its
undiscovered onshore and offshore petroleum resources could ultimately exceed
20 billion barrels.
In February 2026, Chevron signed a
memorandum of understanding with Syria's state-owned petroleum company and
Qatar's Power International Holding to develop the country's first offshore oil
and gas field. Days later, Saudi and American energy companies formed a
consortium to explore four or five oil and gas blocks and rebuild energy
infrastructure in north-east Syria.
Finding gas is, of course, only
the beginning. Syria would ultimately need to sell it. Trump's decision to
remove Syria from the US list of State Sponsors of Terrorism signals that
Washington now regards Sharaa's government as a legitimate partner. That political
endorsement encourages investors who might otherwise have stayed away, and it
makes it much easier to construct pipelines, use Mediterranean export
terminals, attract investment and conclude long-term gas sales contracts with
foreign buyers.
Were Israel to follow Trump’s lead
in considering Syria's potential as a commercial partner, several
hazards would need to be overcome. One is the
strong influence that Turkey, no friend of Israel, exercises on
Sharaa.
Then there is the fact
that Russia has retained a significant military and commercial presence in
Syria. President Vladimir Putin has preserved his strategic
foothold on the eastern Mediterranean, having negotiated continued access
to Russia’s naval facility at Tartus and its Khmeimim air base near
Latakia. At the same time, according to reliable media reports, a
Russian commercial logistics hub is expected to become operational at Tartus
very soon, handling Russian cargo and providing a maritime link between the
Syrian coast and Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.
Trump seems determined to enfold
both Syria’s Sharaa and Iraq’s al-Zaidi into a close commercial and economic
embrace. In Israel, however, both are viewed rather more
cautiously. Trust cannot simply be bestowed; it will have to be earned.
Published in the Jerussalem Post and the Jerusalem post online tgitled Iran’s proxy army
By Neville Teller
On July 28 Iran’s IRGC (Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps) launched ballistic missiles at US forces in Jordan.
The US, in association with Saudi
Arabia, directed its response not at the IRGC direct, but at a number of
Iran-backed militias based in Iraq. They accused these heavily armed groups,
acting under the direction of the IRGC, of past attacks on US forces, and of carrying
out drone strikes on Saudi oil facilities.
In short the US and its allies have
recognized that the amalgamation of Iran-linked Shiite militias operating in
Iraq are, taken together, an extremely powerful military force in effect acting
as a functioning wing of Iran’s IRGC.
This network of Shiite militias, spread
across Iraq, was put together by Qasem Soleimani, the one-time commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force. Responsible for Iran’s external operations and
covert activities, it took him roughly 17 years – from the 2003 US-led invasion
of Iraq until his death in 2020 by a US drone on the orders of US President
Donald Trump.
His network has since become an
invaluable adjunct to Iran’s military potential. The militias, with Iranian
financial and military support, have accrued arsenals which include long-range
missiles and anti-aircraft weapons. They
are, in short, a formidable proxy army capable of engaging the US and Arab
countries in long, costly conflict.
That was precisely Soleiman’s
intention. The militias were built to
fight Iran’s enemies beyond its borders, dragging conflict away from the
Islamic Republic itself. With the US and
Saudi Arabia striking Iraq instead of Iran, Soleimani’s plan appears to be
working.
The UK’s Daily Telegraph
reported a Tehran-based analyst’s unconventional opinion of the militias.
“They are nothing and have no
power,” he declared, “but they have the potential to expand the war to Iraq and
add more actors into it. Their main job is to move the war from Iran to Iraq…If
America wants to destroy them, it is a matter of one week. But that would
officially bring the war to Iraq, and this is what Iran wants. More actors and
fronts will make it expensive and hard for Trump to carry on.”
Although most of these Iran-aligned
factions are nominally part of the Iraqi state's Popular Mobilization Forces
(PMF), the main groups retain their own command structures, intelligence
networks, missile and drone arsenals, and political organizations.
The PMF as a whole is an umbrella
organization comprised of dozens of militias that were mobilized in 2014 to
fight ISIS. In 2016, Iraq formally
incorporated the PMF, which numbers well over 200,000 personnel, into the
state's security structure. It remains separate from the army and reports
through its own command framework under the Iraqi government.
The principal Iran-aligned militia
organizations operating within Iraq include Kataib Hezbollah, Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq,
Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, the Badr Organization, and Kataib Sayyid
al-Shuhada. They are estimated to field around 50,000 frontline fighters.
Despite recent US and allied
strikes, which have damaged their facilities and killed commanders, they remain
militarily formidable. They possess rockets, ballistic missiles, armed drones,
anti-tank weapons and sophisticated intelligence capabilities. Several have
extensive combat experience from Iraq, Syria and, more recently, operations
linked to the wider Iran-Israel-US confrontation.
Moreover, rather like the position
that Hezbollah in its heyday achieved within Lebanon, the militia organizations
have embedded themselves deeply in Iraq’s political, economic and social
fabric. Many militia leaders also head
political parties represented in parliament, hold ministerial portfolios or
influence appointments throughout the security bureaucracy. Moreover they command substantial financial
resources through various economic enterprises, border crossings and
reconstruction contracts.
Not all the
money acquired is illicit. Many PMF
units are officially part of Iraq's security apparatus and receive government
funding. Salaries, equipment, and
operational budgets come from the Iraqi state budget and are legal.
But Iraq's
borders with Iran, Syria, and other neighbors handle billions of dollars in
trade annually. Reports from Iraqi officials, researchers, and international
organizations have described militia influence at certain border crossings,
where groups allegedly extract unofficial "fees" from importers and
truckers, facilitate smuggling operations, manipulate customs procedures and gain
control over transportation and logistics services.
After the war against Isis, Iraq set
aside large amounts of finance for rebuilding damaged cities and
infrastructure. Militia-linked
businessmen and companies have been accused of winning government contracts
through political influence, demanding kickbacks from contractors seeking
permits or security access, and controlling local economic activity in areas
where the militia is dominant.
Consequently, the Iran-linked militias
function not merely as armed groups, but as an entrenched political-economic
network embedded within the Iraqi state.
This is a situation that Iraq’s
recently elected prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi – very much like Lebanon’s
president, Joseph Aoun – finds intolerable.
Both have declared their intention to bring all non-state military
groups within their respective nation‘s control. Al-Zaidi has gone so far as to set September
2026 as a target for significant progress. His pledge enjoys support from
Washington and from many Iraqis who wish to strengthen national sovereignty.
The obstacles are formidable. The strongest militias reject complete
disarmament. With powerful parliamentary allies and independent sources of
finance, they are in a position to frustrate any attempt by al-Zaidi to bring
them under government authority. In any
case, many of those within the groups do not see themselves as part of Iraq’s
security forces, but as integral to Iran's wider "Axis of
Resistance".
A complete dismantling of these
organizations therefore appears unlikely in the short term. Al-Zaidi may succeed in reducing their
autonomy, but not in eliminating their independent military and political
influence.
An Iranian official is reported in
the Telegraph as describing the militias as “indispensable”.
“They are the backbone of the
resistance forces in the region,” he said, “and their nature of multiple groups
and closeness to Iran are their biggest strengths.” He added that “some of them were in Iran
during the war to help our armed forces control the streets” – that is, to subdue
anti-government protesters – an indication of how deeply the militias are woven
into Iran’s war machine.
For the foreseeable future Iran
can continue to rely on this substantial external military power to bolster its
own military capacity.
Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled "Trump’s Syria-Iraq pipeline plan aims to weaken Iran’s leverage", 4 August 2026:
