In the event you wanted any extra proof that the anti-American, pro-Russia, pro-Iran, pro-China, anti-Israel wing of the Democrat Celebration has captured the White Home flag, final week we discovered Team Biden plans to put the kibosh on a natural-gas pipeline with US involvement that would cut back Europe’s dependence on Russian power.
The Jap Mediterranean Gasoline Pipeline, which might carry Israeli and Cypriot pure fuel, is yet one more power useful resource serving America’s strategic pursuits that the Biden White Home desires gone. EastMed joins an extended record that began on Day One with the Keystone XL pipeline, a ban on oil and gas leases on public lands and the October federal courtroom ruling that ended drilling within the Nationwide Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
All these actions, demanded by “local weather change” alarmists, have reversed America’s long-sought power independence received at nice political price by President Donald Trump.
They haven’t solely made us dependent as soon as once more on overseas oil; they’ve despatched oil prices skyrocketing, enriching America’s adversaries in Russia and Iran.
The Trump administration backed the $7 billion EastMed pipeline, a challenge of Israel, Cyprus and Greece, nicely earlier than it was signed in January 2020. The 1,200-mile-long pipeline would convey 10 billion cubic meters of pure fuel from Israel’s Leviathan and Tamar offshore to Europe, offsetting provides that in any other case would come from Russia. Plans referred to as for doubling capability in future years.
US oil main Chevron is the principle operator of the Israeli fuel fields. And because of the Abraham Accords that opened commerce and diplomatic relations between Israel and 4 of its Arab neighbors, the United Arab Emirates bought a 22% stake within the Tamar area from Israeli pursuits in Could.
However Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought to undermine the deal from the beginning. His overseas ministry called it “the newest occasion of futile steps, aiming to exclude Turkey and the [Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus] from the area. Any challenge disregarding Turkey . . . can not succeed.”
Erdogan despatched warships and deep-sea exploration vessels to place enamel into that menace, conducting navy patrols in disputed waters between Greece and Turkey. In December 2019, he signed an settlement with the disputed authorities in Tripoli, Libya, that created a “maritime hall” between Turkey and Libya that primarily cut off Israel from any access to Europe.
So Erdogan flexed his muscle tissues at each Israel and Cyprus — and Workforce Biden’s transfer is to reward him.
The State Division despatched its newly minted adviser for world power safety, Amos Hochstein, to Israel in November to present a heads up on the administration’s plans to ditch assist for the pipeline.
And this month, it quietly sent a “non-paper” to the federal government of Greece, which leaked to the Greek and Turkish press, warning that the pipeline posed a safety menace to the area. The US embassy in Athens lastly clarified the American place: “We stay dedicated to bodily interconnecting East Med power to Europe,” its statement read, however “are shifting our focus to electrical energy interconnectors that may assist each fuel and renewable power sources.”
Humorous: The president didn’t have an issue giving waivers to Russia’s non-green pipeline to Europe, Nord Stream 2.
Erdogan crowed out loud. If Israeli fuel “shall be dropped at Europe, it could solely be carried out by Turkey,” he informed journalists final week, saying Israeli President Isaac Herzog “may go to us in Turkey” to debate the pipeline.
America’s relationship with Turkey soured mightily in the course of the ultimate Trump years when it booted Turkey from the F-35 program as a result of Ankara was shopping for Russian S-300 and S-400 missile-defense methods and couldn’t present ensures it could not share delicate US expertise with the Kremlin.
Whereas Erdogan revels in throwing his weight round, he is also desperate to get back in America’s good graces, assembly with Biden on the G20 summit in Rome in October in an try to patch issues up.
And Biden? His woke national-security and foreign-policy B-team appear extra desperate to subsidize electrical automobiles for the wealthy than to supply low cost oil and fuel to the American center class or to discourage America’s adversaries.
Kenneth R. Timmerman is the best-selling creator of “ISIS Begins: A Novel of the Iraq War.” He lectured on Iran on the Pentagon’s Joint Counter-Intelligence Coaching Academy from 2010-2016.
