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| Iraq |
| ISIS benefitting from its control of oil and water resources - WaPo |
| 2014-07-02 |
| IS is gaining momentum in the struggle to control two natural resources that have defined the history of the Middle East -- oil and water. With its conquest of Mosul and Tikrit, IS gained a stranglehold over Iraq's northern oil export pipeline and the country's largest refinery. It is IS's turn to flex its hydrological muscles. In February 2013, IS took control of the Tabqa Hydroelectric Dam (Syria), once a showcase in Hafez al-Assad's development plan and a major electricity source for Aleppo. Earlier this spring, IS opened up dikes around Fallujah to impede the Iraqi army as it tried to besiege the stronghold, causing flooding as far away as Najaf and Baghdad. With its recent advances, IS now controls the hydroelectric dam at Mosul, Iraq's largest, and IS is poised to take the dam at Haditha, the country's second largest. With the tables turned, the Iraqi government finds itself considering a preemptive opening of the Haditha floodgates to block IS's path. According to New York Times reporter Thanassis Cambanis, IS left the staff at the Tabqa Dam unharmed and in place, allowing the facility to continue operations and even selling electricity back to the Syrian government. Similarly, oil fields under IS control continue to pump. Indeed, IS has shrewdly managed these resources to help ensure a steady and sustainable stream of revenue. Beside revenue from oil and water, IS collects a variety of commercial taxes, including on trucks and cellphone towers. It has also imposed the jizya on Christian communities under its control. According to the Chaldean patriarch, so far there has been no violence committed against the significant Christian population around IS-controlled Mosul. Whereas resources like diamonds or drugs motivate rebel forces to take as much as they can as quickly as they can, the need to manage capital and technology-intensive natural resources has actually increased the interdependence between IS and civilians in the territory it controls. Oil and water, unlike diamonds or drugs, contribute to the coherence to the Islamic State and the discipline of its governance. While both the United States and (even more significantly) Iran have dispatched military advisers to Iraq, full-blown outside intervention is difficult to imagine. Other forms of non-violent interventions, such as placing sanctions or embargoing IS's oil production, are unlikely to be effective. Alternatively, coming to agreements on the disposition and distribution of water and oil resources could form the basis for some modes of negotiation. |
| Posted by:Anguper Hupomosing9418 |
| #2 ISIS is a puppet, seems a bit to competent for the Saudis though. Probly just their money. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2014-07-02 18:27 |
| #1 Que nueva? (What's new) |
| Posted by: borgboy 2014-07-02 16:30 |