07.04.2016
Iran Links to Eurasia with Persian Canal
Creative, Unifying -while allowing Regional and Local Development and Liberties, Culture and Traditions?!
Peaceful, encouraging and supporting -through Trade and the consequently co-attending Cultural Exchanges and Consert- the Common Understanding, the Empathy and the Human Values among one and all?!
Diplomacy, Labour, Capital and Technology intensive?! Establishing Prosperity in Harmony?!
Omniversal and Omnidimensional Gratification?!
Everyone and all Gaia's Citizens pursuing their Happiness and Well Being in Considerate Compassion through such Projects as this?!
Eeeeh!...Uhhh!..Eeeeh!...Dohhhh!...Well,...okay, ...YEAAAAAAAH!!! m.l.p.
"...My personal observation from a recent
visit to Teheran is that the Iranians are fed up with war, having not
fully recovered from the tragic death and destruction from the
US-instigated Iran-Iraq war in the 1980’s as well as subsequent US
destabilizations. Rather, they want peaceful economic development and
national security. The Iranian Persian Canal project is a beautiful step
in this direction...."F.W.Engdahl
With
the US and EU economic sanctions gone, it’s becoming clear that Iran
today wants to build not destroy as the West seems hell-bent to do. The
latest is announcement that Teheran has decided to proceed with a major
infrastructure project which will take perhaps a decade to complete—an
inland canal linking the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf for the first
time across Iran. Given Iran’s very mountainous topography, it is no
simple dig. It will also be a big benefit for Russia and other nations
along the Caspian Littoral as well as nicely fitting China’s One Belt,
One Road infrastructure Great Project.
Since the time of the Romanov Czars,
Russia has sought a link to warm water seas for its navy and its
commerce. Today, Russian ships must pass through the Turkish Bosphorus
straits, a very narrow waterway going through Istanbul from the Black
Sea to the Sea of Marmara, and on via the Dardanelles, to the Aegean and
Mediterranean Seas. Given the frozen relations between Moscow and
Ankara today since the Turkish Air Force late last year deliberately
downed a Russian jet inside Syrian airspace in violation of all norms of
international law, passage of Russian vessels through the Bosphorus is a
highly uncertain business, despite international treaties on freedom of
passage.
As well, for Iranian ships or Chinese
for that matter, to reach the Mediterranean ports of Europe, they now
must pass via the Suez Canal owned by the Egyptian government. Despite
the 1888 Convention of Constantinople, which grants the right of free
access to all nations and ships in wartime or peace, the Egyptian
government, as was clear during the Muslim Brotherhood US-backed coup of
Mohammed Morsi, is also subject to dramatic political risk. The Iranian
Canal also gives Russia and other states on the shortest way to the
Indian Ocean bypassing the Turkish Straits and the Suez Canal in Egypt.
Tehran has now unveiled plans to build
an artificial channel that will link the Caspian Sea and the Persian
Gulf for the first time. It is scheduled to be complete in about a
decade. It has huge economic, military and economic implications.
The Iranian ‘Suez Canal’
In every sense it will be a rival in
economic and geopolitical terms to the Suez Canal. According to a report
in Russia’s Sputnik News, the project was endorsed in 2012 by Iran’s
former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while Western sanctions were still
in place. The cost then was estimated by Khatam-al Anbiya, an
engineering company owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC), at approximately $7 billion. At that time in a move to block the
project, Washington imposed economic sanctions on companies that were
involved in the project. Now for other geopolitical reasons, Washington
has lifted many sanctions and Teheran is going ahead.
The Iranian Caspian Canal has a major security advantage. It runs strictly through Iranian space, space which is well-defended.
Two routes for the Iran ‘Suez Canal’ are considered. The shortest in the west would pass mountainous terrain while the longer would allow irrigation of vast desert regions of eastern Iran and avoid the narrow Strait of Hormuz between Oman and Iran.
The Eastern route Gulf of Oman to the
south-east Caspian Sea has a total length of between 1465 – 1600
kilometers depending on internal routing. It would have the added
advantage of allowing irrigation and development of agriculture in the
dry east and central provinces of the country where shortage of rainfall
has caused a massive drought in recent decades. The waterway would
allow recharging the underground water resources.
The western route, while the shortest
distance, has major drawbacks. The Western route of some 950 Km via
partially navigable river beds would have to go through the Zagros
mountains valleys for 600 Km. A major disadvantage of this route is the
passage through the high Zagros and in Kurdistan and Hamedan provinces
where it must climb to heights above 1800 meters.
Whichever route has been decided, and
apparently reasons of national security have kept it discreet until now,
several major advantages will grow out of the canal linking the Caspian
to the Indian Ocean. First it will create the shortest marine link
between the Persian Gulf and India on one side with the Eastern, Central
and Northern Europe, on the other in direct competition with the
politically unstable Egyptian Suez Canal. For Russia it will have a
major geopolitical advantage of giving direct, easy access to the Indian
Ocean independent of the Suez Canal and of Turkey’s Bosphorus straits.
In economic terms for Iran, it would be a major jobs-creator adding some
two million new jobs in construction and maintenance of the long canal.
It will also allow Teheran to revitalize isolated parts of eastern Iran
supporting infrastructure , including construction of a new modern port
in Bam and Tabas free economic zones, shipyards and airports , and
planned cities. It will also prevent or greatly reduce the
desertification creating a barrier to the spread of the desert to
fertile lands in Iran.
This is coming as Iran prepares to
become a full member of the Eurasian Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Iran has held Observer Nation status in SCO since 2008 but UN sanctions
prevented full membership until this January. Both Russia and China
strongly back full membership, likely to be approved later this summer
at the annual meeting. China’s President Xi Jinping in a February, 2016
visit to Teheran discussed Iran’s participation in China’s major
Eurasian infrastructure project for creation of a network of ports and
high-speed rail networks criss-crossing Eurasia from Beijing to Belarus
and beyond. It is highly likely that Xi and Prime Minister Rouhani also
discussed China’s participation in the financing and possibly also
construction of Iran’s Persian Canal, the Iranian Suez Canal alternative.
My personal observation from a recent
visit to Teheran is that the Iranians are fed up with war, having not
fully recovered from the tragic death and destruction from the
US-instigated Iran-Iraq war in the 1980’s as well as subsequent US
destabilizations. Rather, they want peaceful economic development and
national security. The Iranian Persian Canal project is a beautiful step
in this direction.
F. William Engdahl is
strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics
from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and
geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
http://journal-neo.org/2016/04/07/iran-links-to-eurasia-with-persian-canal/
http://journal-neo.org/2016/04/07/iran-links-to-eurasia-with-persian-canal/