What does Washington Want from Announcing an “Oil Agreement” in Syria?

Before getting into an evaluation of the reactions to the declaration, one should consider the “agreement” itself and its meaning. Only then can reactions be evaluated not only in terms of their veracity or erroneousness, but even further to whose interest?

The Necessity of the Unnecessary

If the discussion revolves around who is the beneficiary of Syrian oil in the regions where the influence of the US occupier is present, then the answer is the same before and after the announcement: the US was stealing Syrian oil, the US is still stealing Syrian oil, so what changed?

On the ground, as far as oil is concerned, nothing has changed. What has changed is that the announcement turned into a portal to achieve a set of several US goals:

First: Perpetuating and escalating the state of tension between (Autonomous Administration / Syrian Democratic Council (SDC)) and Damascus on the one hand, and Ankara on the other hand, and the political and societal forces in the northeast that are not affiliated or at least compatible with SDF.

Second: This escalation aims to close the door on the multiple dialogues that SDC has tried to initiate in recent months, and primarily to close the door on dialogue with Damascus, and then with the remaining forces on the Syrian scene.

Third: Closing the doors of dialogue, means opening the door to tension and escalation, and means perpetuating a state of isolation for SDC through which the US wants to maximally weaken this side and turn it into an obedient tool in its hand to the maximum limits.

Fourth: It is also no secret that an announcement of this kind would raise additional problems for SDC, not only with the forces inside Syria, but also across the region, including Turkey and Iran.

In one word, this announcement from the US point of view has two goals, a minimum one and a maximum one. The minimum goal is to preserve the tension and isolation, and to try to employ the Kurdish card to set things off to obstruct the implementation of UNSC Resolution 2254. The maximum goal that the US aims to achieve is to get the region to explode again.

The Bad Guy

Does all of this mean that the US is the only “bad guy” in this story? Absolutely not. The extremists within the Autonomous Administration shoulder the responsibility of accepting this agreement and the announcement, and the extremists within the regime and in Ankara as well. In short, anyone who bets on the failure to reach a solution and on the non-implementation of Resolution 2254, now hides behind “patriotic and national considerations” to produce positions that feed the US mill, hoping this may lead to the undermining and obstruction of the solution.

In Summary

If it is assumed from the Syrian national point of view that the “oil” agreement with the US is condemned, then what must be dealt with, with the utmost degree of wisdom, is that this announcement (which is philanthropic and has no meaning in reality) does not reach the subversive goals that the US wants to achieve through it.