Voice of the White House
December 15, 2015
Washington D.C.: The turmoil in the Middle East is religious and commercial in background. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are Sunni Muslim. The Sunni's control the Muslim holy sites and the Shiites wish they did. America badly needs oil, and for some time, oil-rich Saudi Arabia has been a willing supplier. Russia has enormous oil fields, either untapped or under production. The United States does not like this. Saudi oil fields are starting to run out. In the Shiite part of Iraq also are large and untapped oil deposits. President Assad of Syria is not liked by the Sunnis, The United States, or Israel. They want to get rid of him and get control of the Syrian oil fields. The ISIS people were founded by the Saudis, trained by the CIA, and armed with American weapons. Now Turkey, in association with US intelligence, is challenging Putin, safe as they think, with promises of America and American-controlled NATO support in the event the Russians become too threatening. (Remember Georgia?) The Turkish president personally ordered the Russian plane shot down, but when Putin responded with severe economic sanctions against Turkey, the US, as usual, did nothing. Promises are one thing and action is another. The Russians are now arming the rebel Kurds who want their own country. As a portion of Kurdistan lies in what is now eastern Turkey, that country is boiling with a mixture of anger and fear. Religious motivation and oil are what move events in the Middle East and to date, Russia has been well ahead of the game. The American press constantly refers to 'US-led coalitions' but that does not include Russia, whose attacks on rebel and ISIS forces have killed a number of CIA personnel and have obliterated convoys of tanker trucks carrying ISIS-looted Syrian oil for reshipment to Israel via US firms.