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Since the day of its foundation in 1980, PETA has done a lot for animal rights.1980 : PETA is formed and organizes the first World Day for Laboratory Animals protest in the U.S. and the first demonstration against chicken slaughter at Arrow Live Poultry, which was subsequently closed, in Washington, D.C.1981 : PETA conducts an undercover investigation exposing the suffering of the Silver Spring monkeys in a Maryland research facility, resulting in the first-ever police raid on a laboratory.1981 : A PETA undercover investigation results in the first conviction of an experimenter for animal abuse and the first withdrawal of federal research funds because of cruelty to animals.1982 : PETA makes legal history by filing the first-ever lawsuit to become the guardian of animals used in experiments.1983 : PETA gets a U.S. Department of Defense underground “wound lab” shut down and achieves a permanent ban on shooting dogs and cats in military wound laboratories.1984 : PETA closes down a Texas slaughterhouse operation in which 30,000 horses were trucked in and left to starve in frozen fields without shelter.1985 : After PETA publicizes the gross mistreatment of animals at City of Hope in California, the government suspends more than $1 million of the laboratory’s federal funding.1986 : As a result of PETA’s campaign, the SEMA research laboratory in Maryland stops confining chimpanzees to isolation chambers.1987 : PETA stops a plan by Cedars-Sinai, California’s largest hospital, to ship stray dogs from Mexico to California for experiments.1988 : For the first time, PETA conducts a year-long undercover investigation at Biosearch, a cosmetics and household product testing laboratory, uncovering more than 100 violations of federal and state anti-cruelty laws.1989 : PETA persuades Avon, Benetton, Mary Kay, Amway, Kenner, Mattel, and Hasbro to stop testing on animals. Note: Many of these companies have started testing on animals again in order to sell their products in China.1990 : After PETA exposes the backstage beating of orangutans by Las Vegas entertainer Bobby Berosini, his wildlife permit is suspended and his show closes.1991 : PETA’s “Silver Spring monkeys” case marks the first animal experimentation case ever heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.The court gives a unanimous, positive ruling.1992 : PETA’s undercover investigation into foie gras production prompts the first-ever police raid on a factory farm. PETA convinces many restaurants to stop selling the vile product.1993 : All car-crash tests on animals stop worldwide following PETA’s hard-hitting campaign against General Motors’ use of live pigs and ferrets in crash tests.1994 : A California furrier is charged with cruelty to animals after a PETA investigator films him electrocuting chinchillas by clipping wires to the animals’ genitals. In another undercover exposé, PETA catches a fur rancher on videotape causing minks to die in agony by injecting them with a weedkiller. Both fur farms agree to stop these cruel killing methods.1994 : Less than a month after PETA supporters occupy Calvin Klein‘s office in New York—an action that leads to a meeting between the designer and a PETA representative—Klein announces that he will no longer design with fur, the first major fashion designer to do so.1995 : PETA persuades Mobil, Texaco, Pennzoil, Shell, and other oil companies to cover their exhaust stacks after showing how millions of birds and bats have become trapped in them and been burned to death.1995 : PETA’s efforts lead to the first-ever cruelty charges filed against a factory farmer for cruelty to chickens for allowing tens of thousands of chickens to starve to death. The president of the company ultimately pleads guilty.1996 : Following PETA’s campaign, NASA pulls out of Bion—a joint U.S., French, and Russian experiment in which monkeys wearing straitjackets were to have electrodes implanted in their bodies and be launched into space.1996 : PETA convinces Gillette to observe a moratorium on animal testing after a colorful years-long campaign, including the presentation of shareholder resolutions at Gillette’s annual meetings and support from compassionate celebrities Paul McCartney, Lily Tomlin, Hugh Grant, and Elizabeth Hurley.1997 : A PETA investigation that documented the anal electrocution of foxes leads to the first-ever guilty plea by a fur rancher to cruelty-to-animals charges.1998 : PETA succeeds in getting Taiwan to pass its first-ever law against cruelty to animals after the group rescues countless dogs from being beaten, starved, electrocuted, and drowned in Taiwan’s pounds.1999 : Undercover investigations into pig-breeding factory farms in North Carolina and Oklahoma reveal horrific conditions and daily abuse of pigs, including the fact that one pig was skinned alive, leading to the first-ever felony indictments of farm workers.1999 : PETA conducts an undercover investigation into the Nielsen Farms puppy mill in Kansas, which reveals extremely small enclosures and rampant sickness, abuse, and death. Our investigation leads to the closure of the facility and a $20,000 fine from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Nielsens are also “permanently disqualified from being licensed” by the USDA.2000 : Following the group’s investigation, PETA convinces Gap Inc., J.Crew, Liz Claiborne, Clarks, and Florsheim to boycott leather from India and China, countries in which leather production causes immense animal suffering.2000 : After a campaign that lasts 11 months and includes more than 400 demonstrations at McDonald’s restaurants in more than 23 countries, as well as advertising and celebrity involvement, McDonald’s becomes the first fast-food company to agree to make basic animal-welfare improvements for farmed animals.2001 : PETA persuades Burger King to adopt sweeping animal-welfare improvements, including conducting unannounced slaughterhouse inspections and giving hens more cage space.2001 : Shortly thereafter, following a vigorous PETA campaign, Wendy’sfollows suit, announcing plans to change some of its rules regarding the handling and slaughter of the animals used for its food.2002 : PETA’s efforts lead to the confiscation of six undernourished polar bears from a tropical circus, in which they were underfed, whipped, and forced to perform in sweltering temperatures.2003 : Evidence submitted by PETA leads to the mandatory relinquishment of all 16 elephants used by the Hawthorn Corporation, an elephant-rental company.2004 : PETA persuades chemical companies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to drop plans for numerous painful chemical tests, sparing tens of thousands of animals.2005 : Following PETA’s campaign, Honda, PUMA, Keds, and other companies pull their commercials featuring great apes. Several corporations pledge never to use great apes in advertising in the future.2005 : Thanks to PETA’s lengthy campaign to push PETCO to take more responsibility for the animals in its stores, the company agrees tostop selling large birds and to make provisions for the millions of rats and mice in its care.2006 : PETA convinces Polo Ralph Lauren to stop selling fur. The furs were pulled from store shelves and donated to those in need in Mongolia.2007 : After uncovering cruel experiments funded by major beverage manufacturers, PETA convinces POM Wonderful, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola to end all animal tests.2008 : PETA elicits agreements to make major improvements in farmed-animal welfare from Safeway, Harris Teeter, and the company that controls the purchase of chickens for KFCs in Canada, which also start offering faux-chicken menu items.2008 : The Ad Council signs PETA’s Great Ape Humane Pledge. In 2012, it extends its pledge to include a ban on all wild animals in advertising.2008 : PETA’s investigation into Aviagen Turkeys, Inc., part of the self-proclaimed “world’s leading poultry breeding company,” reveals that workers tortured, mutilated, and maliciously killed turkeys. Three former employees are indicted on felony cruelty-to-animals charges—the first felony charges for abusing factory-farmed poultry in U.S. history—and two become the first factory farmers to be convicted of abusing turkeys. One man is sentenced to one year in jail—the strongest penalty levied for abusing a factory-farmed animal in U.S. history—and all three are barred from owning or living with animals for five years.2008 : PETA investigates a pig-breeding factory farm in Iowa and uncovers horrific treatment of sows, boars, and piglets. The manager of the farm is fired, and the evidence results in 22 criminal charges against six workers, all of whom admit guilt and are sentenced to serve up to two years’ probation.2009 : PETA’s investigation into animal dealer U.S. Global Exotics prompts the largest animal seizure in history—more than 26,000 animals. The owner flees the country to evade federal charges.2009 : After receiving the video of PETA’s exposé of extreme suffering in the trade in exotic-animal skins, Stockholm-based international retailer H&M becomes the first retailer to adopt a policy banning products made from exotic skins in all of its 1,800 stores worldwide.2009 : After nearly a month of intense PETA campaigning against horrific combat training exercises conducted by the Bolivian military—in which live dogs are shown in a video tied down, repeatedly stabbed, and screaming in agony—the Bolivian Ministry of Defense ends the killing by issuing the military’s first-ever animal protection regulation, which “prohibit[s] all acts of violence, exploitation, [and] mistreatment that provokes the death of animals.”2010 : A petition co-filed by PETA leads a court to determine thatUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison staff members may face prosecution for violating state law by killing sheep in decompression experiments.2010 : Following a year of vigorous campaigning, NASA cancels plans fora $1.75 million study in which dozens of squirrel monkeys would have been exposed to a harmful dose of radiation.2010 : After discussions with PETA, Japan’s ITO EN, Ltd.—the world’s largest green-tea manufacturer—institutes a new policyprohibiting all animal testing. Also after discussions with PETA,Lipton tea soon follows suit.2010 : Just one week after PETA releases the results of its shocking undercover investigation into Professional Laboratory and Research Services and files a complaint with the USDA, the North Carolina–based contract animal testing facility surrenders nearly 200 dogs and more than 50 cats and closes its doors. This is only the second time in U.S. history that a laboratory has been forced to surrender animals and shut down.2010 : Less than six months after PETA releases its undercover investigation into laboratories at the University of Utah, Utahlegislators vote overwhelmingly to amend an archaic state law so that government-run animal shelters will no longer be forced to sell dogs and cats to laboratories on demand.2011 : The USDA fines Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus $270,000—the largest fine ever paid by an animal exhibitor—for violations of the Animal Welfare Act after PETA presents the agency with unequivocal evidence of animal abuse, including beatings, the negligent death of a lion, lame elephants forced to perform despite chronic pain, and a baby elephant who died during a training routine.2011 : PETA blows the lid off Ringling Bros.‘ violent training methods when a whistleblower shares photographic evidence from Ringling’s training compound revealing how baby elephants are torn away from their mothers and subjected to violent training sessions so that they will learn how to perform tricks.2011 : PETA releases video footage from an investigation showing howelephants used by Ringling Bros. are whipped, beaten, and yanked by heavy, sharp steel-tipped bullhooks behind the scenes prior to performing.2011 : In the first case of its kind, PETA, three marine-mammal experts, and two former orca trainers file a lawsuit asking a federal court to declare that five wild-caught orcas forced to perform at SeaWorld are being held as slaves in violation of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The filing—the first ever seeking to apply the 13th Amendment to nonhuman animals—names the five orcas as plaintiffs and seeks their release into their natural habitats or seaside sanctuaries.2011 : After intensive campaigning by PETA, the U.S. military ends the use of monkeys in the Army’s cruel chemical-attack training course.2012 : All the top 10 advertising agencies in the United States—McCann Erickson, BBDO, Y&R, DDB, Ogilvy & Mather, TBWA, Draftfcb, Grey, JWT, and Campbell Ewald – sign PETA’s Great Ape Humane Pledge, banning the use of great apes in their advertising.2012 : After meeting with PETA, apparel and accessories companyHaband removes all down-filled items from among its offerings and becomes the first company to implement an official policy banning the sale of down feathers.2012 : After PETA donates simulators to Egypt, the country ends all use of animals for medical trauma training.2012 : PETA exposes disturbing video footage taken by a whistleblower during a trauma training session conducted by military contractor Tier 1 Group for members of the U.S. Coast Guard, which shows thestabbing, shooting, and dismemberment of live goats. Following an official complaint from PETA, the USDA cites Tier 1 Group for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act for failing to provide the goats with adequate anesthesia before they were mutilated.2012 : After two years of PETA campaigns and a lengthy lawsuit brought by PETA and local residents, the Supreme Court of Puerto Riconixes a plan by the Bioculture corporation to set up a monkey-breeding facility and sell monkeys to U.S. laboratories.2012 : By funding scientists to train Chinese government officials in the use of non-animal testing methods, PETA launches an effort to stop China from requiring tests on animals for cosmetics and household products. As part of its effort, PETA convinces cosmetics company Urban Decay to reverse its decision to sell its products in China, and John Paul Mitchell Systems pulls out of the Chinese market rather than having its products tested on animals.2012 : PETA’s exposé documenting that cosmetics companies were secretly paying for tests on animals in China and our funding of scientists to train officials there lead to that nation’s acceptance, by the end of 2012, of its first non-animal tests for cosmetics ingredients.2012 : The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission bans the use of furosemide, or Lasix, a commonly used drug that can mask other drugs and lead to horse breakdowns.2012 : The horse-racing industry implements its first-ever industry-supported retirement plan for thoroughbreds.2012 : After decades of conducting cruel experiments and just six months after PETA purchases stock in the company in order to introduce a shareholder resolution on animal testing, BIOQUAL announces that it will end its use of chimpanzees. Formerly known as SEMA, BIOQUAL was first exposed in 1986, when PETA released footage of chimpanzees locked inside tiny isolation chambers at the facility.2012 : After two horses die on the set of the HBO horse-racing series Luck, PETA goes public with information obtained by whistleblowers as well as necropsy reports from the racing board revealing that older, arthritic horses had been used in dangerous and deadly racing sequences and that the horses appeared not to have been provided with adequate protection. After a third horse dies on the set, HBO announces the cancellation of Luck and ceases all production on the series.2012 : After a long and hard-fought battle by PETA, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and concerned citizens, Ben the bear is rescued from abhorrent conditions at a North Carolina roadside zoo. FedEx transports Ben free of charge (dubbing the mission “Bear Force One”) to the Performing Animal Welfare Society’s beautiful accredited wildlife sanctuary in northern California. There, Ben will live out the rest of his days splashing in his own pool, basking in the sun, and rolling in the grass in a 2-acre habitat designed especially for him.2012 : After a two-month PETA undercover investigation documenting that thousands of animals were being neglected and dying and many more are being cruelly killed, law-enforcement officials raid Global Captive Breeders—a company in Lake Elsinore, California, that bred and sold reptiles and rats for the “pet” trade. This results in the largest rescue of neglected rats in U.S. history and the largest seizure of animals, including more than 600 reptiles and 18,000 rats, ever in California. Local authorities charge the owner and manager with a total of 223 felony cruelty-to-animals and related charges.2012 : PETA prevails in a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for illegally issuing captive-bred wildlife permits. This victory allows PETA to keep a closer eye on animals bred in captivity, weigh in on permit applications, and bring legal challenges against permits that are improperly issued to Ringling Bros., SeaWorld, Have Trunk Will Travel, and other animal abusers.2013 : PETA—along with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, investigative journalists, a political journalist, a university history professor, and animal rights advocate Amy Meyer, who had recently been arrested for filming a downed cow at a Utah slaughterhouse—files a groundbreaking lawsuit challenging Utah’s “ag-gag” law, which prohibits the documenting of animal abuse at agricultural operations. The plaintiffs contend that this agribusiness law amounts to an unconstitutional attack on investigators’ First Amendment rights.2013 : After years of imprisonment in concrete pits at Chief Saunooke Bear Park in Cherokee, North Carolina, 11 bears were finally freed following a years-long campaign and PETA undercover investigation that forced the roadside zoo to pay a fine and surrender its exhibitor’s license to settle more than a dozen charges for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. After a private benefactor generously offered to purchase the bears, they were quickly transferred to their new home at the International Exotic Animal Sanctuary in Dallas, where they can now walk through tall grass, dig in the dirt, climb trees, take a dip in a pond, and just live as bears are supposed to live.2013 : Following decades of campaigning by PETA, the U.S. Army announces that it will reduce its use of animals for deadly trauma training exercises and restrict training for many military personnel to exclusively modern non-animal methods.2013 : After hearing from PETA that many sheep used for their wool endure a painful procedure called “mulesing,” in which huge chunks of skin and flesh are cut from their backsides without any painkillers, more than 50 national and international clothing retailers, including Abercrombie & Fitch, Liz Claiborne, H&M, Kenneth Cole, Perry Ellis International, and Express, state that they will use wool that comes only from nonmulesed sheep, as the industry begins to phase out the cruel practice.2013 : In 2013, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to support a bullhook ban showing PETA’s undercover footage of baby elephant training during the hearing. The ban, which goes into effect in 2017, is the first to pass in a major city where Ringling Bros. travels.2013 : Following PETA’s efforts to end dehorning in the dairy industry, in which calves have their horn buds burned off with no pain relief, companies such as Chipotle, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, and Amy’s Kitchen begin to pressure their suppliers to stop this cruel mutilation. Aurora Organic Dairy, the leading producer of private-brand organic milk and butter, is now breeding exclusively with bulls who carry the hornless gene.2013 : PETA’s 2013 exposé of Taiwan’s pigeon racing industry resulted in a national sweep of pigeon racing clubs. Police confiscated cash and equipment and froze over $4.5 million of apparent illegal gambling proceeds in two clubs’ bank accounts.2013 : Following PETA’s groundbreaking investigation from 2010, three pigeon racing organizers pleaded no contest to charges of commercial gambling—the first time in history that anyone has been held responsible for illegal conduct associated with cruel pigeon races.2014 : In the wake of the 2013 release of the film Blackfish and PETA’s relentless campaign against marine animal abusement park SeaWorld reached a fever-pitch. As a result, public condemnation of SeaWorld led to a tanking stock price, and the company’s attendance, revenue, and profits continued to plummet.2014 : The first ever undercover investigation into the angora wool industry showed screaming rabbits being tied down and their fur ripped from their bodies, leading to a ban on its sale by more than 70 companies from around the world including H&M, Calvin Klein, and Tommy Hilfiger.2014 : I, Chicken, the first-ever empathy-building virtual-reality experience—which allows people to view life from a chicken’s perspective before being sent to slaughter—travels to more than 150 universities across the US, including Harvard, Stanford, Brown, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton.2014 : The scientific and regulatory expertise of PETA and its affiliates are consolidated to form the PETA International Science Consortium Ltd. Accepted as an accredited stakeholder with the agency that oversees the largest chemical testing program in the world, the Science Consortium works with industry, private research facilities and governments to promote non-animal tests around the world.2014 : In a first of its kind, international exposé of the wool industry in both Australia and the US, PETA released shocking footage of sheep-shearers punching, stomping, and cutting gentle sheep—some of whom died and were kicked and dragged aside like garbage.2014 : After intensive efforts led by PETA India and with scientific support from PETA US and the PETA International Science Consortium Ltd., India officially bans animal-tested cosmetics from being imported into the country. PETA India rallied support from scientists, ethical companies, celebrities, and powerful Indian government leaders.

Gas price rise is partly due to the anti-oil policies of Biden as well as other factors. Together the future is grim for consumers, but not for oil companies who will profit from Biden’s foolish energy goals. Unreliable wind and solar renewables are the problem. They only work in electrical grids with back up from fossil fuels as they lack storage capacity.s Big oil is now fully supportive as these unreliable renewable ensure fossil fuel longevity and increased profits from the inefficiency of double operations.Why are Gasoline Prices Rising?March 23, 2021|MainBy Mary Hutzler, distinguished senior fellow, Institute for Energy Research (IER)“As of March 18, 2021, gasoline prices in the United States are averaging $2.88, 30 percent higher than a year ago. From an economic standpoint, supply and demand have been mostly responsible for the increases.On the global stage, demand has recovered in China and India and is on the upward spiral in Europe as well as the United States. Oil stockpiles that rose during the coronavirus pandemic have decreased due to output cuts by OPEC+ (OPEC and its partners) and lower production in the United States. U.S. oil production was further curtailed by more than 10 percent, 1 million barrels per day, due to the freezing weather hitting oil producing states, particularly Texas. Adding to that, OPEC+ recently agreed to continue its production cuts through the end of April with minor exceptions. A March 7 attack on a Saudi oil port had further increased global oil prices.The result is that consumers in the United States are facing gasoline prices that are inching up to near $3 a gallon on average. Consumers in California have already seen gasoline prices above $4 per gallon.Gasoline prices are composed of four main components:1.) supply and demand for oil in a global market( the largest component),2.) taxes levied by federal, state and local governments,3.) distribution and market costs(ex. the costs incurred by local gas station owners), and4.) the cost of refining crude oil to turn it into gasoline.Supply and Demand for Oila.) World Oil Demand Growth: World crude oil and liquid fuels demand increased after the height of the coronavirus pandemic and is 8 million barrels per day greater than production. U.S. petroleum demand, as measured by total petroleum products supplied, was 19.4 million barrels per day in January 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), a 4 percent increase from December and a decrease of only 2.3 percent compared with January 2020. If world demand for oil rises faster than oil companies can produce the oil, prices will go up, which is what is occurring now.b.) Domestic Supply: According to the EIA, the United States produced 3 million barrels per day of oil and natural gas liquids in January 2021, down from 17.9 million barrels per day in January 2020 before the pandemic — a 26 percent decline. More domestic oil could be produced on federal lands if the federal government permitted it and if its regulatory procedures were commensurate with state regulation that is more conducive to exploration and drilling. This is exasperated by President Biden’s current moratorium on drilling on U.S. federal lands.c.) OPEC Production Restraints: OPEC+ has restricted the production of oil in order to increase prices which fell when demand bottomed out during the pandemic. OPEC+ is rolling over current production cuts to the end of April. Russia and Kazakhstan were the only exceptions and were allowed to increase production by 130,000 and 20,000 barrels per day, respectively, due to “continued seasonal consumption patterns”. Saudi Arabia also extended its voluntary output cut of one million barrels per day through the month of April. That cut was due to expire at the end of March. OPEC+ is responding to the uncertainty concerning the demand outlook by taking a more cautious approach. Further, OPEC+ does not believe that U.S. oil production will be able to respond to the higher price environment any time soon. Forecasters are looking at $75 or $80 a barrel oil in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of this year.OPEC exporting nations possess much of the world’s known conventional oil reserves, and as such, have excess production capacity. However, in order to maintain favorably high oil prices to fund their governments and sustain their production capabilities, these nations agree on production targets that curtail the supply of oil from member states.In addition, oil prices are buoyed due to unrest in the Middle East. Recently, Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels attacked a major Saudi Arabian oil port on the Persian Gulf (Ras Tanura) with drones and missiles. Despite Saudi authorities indicating the strike caused no casualties or damage, oil prices increased after the market opened in New York following the attack. Brent crude added more than 2.5 percent, rising above $71 a barrel. Prices surged to their highest level since May 2019.Saudi Arabia responded by dropping bombs on Yemen’s rebel-held capital San’a. The coalition blamed the Biden administration for the attacks after it removed them from U.S. terror lists. The price of Brent crude dropped to $68.76 a barrel, after hitting a high of $71.38. It was the first time the global benchmark traded above $70 since January 2020. The Houthis stepped up aerial attacks on Saudi Arabia following President Biden’s inauguration in January. Biden pledged to end the six-year-old civil war in Yemen and recalibrate Washington’s relationship with Riyadh.d.) Oil Imports and North American Oil Supplies: Petroleum is a globally-traded commodity. On net, the United States exported more oil and petroleum products than it imported in 2020 and in the first month of 2021 due to hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling greatly increasing U.S. oil production. The United States still imports some crude oil and petroleum products due mostly to geography and type of crude oil since U.S. refineries are set up to use heavier oil. For example, the United States purchases crude oil from Canada, its largest foreign supplier, and sells Canada a small amount of crude oil produced in Alaska. The United States also purchases oil from Mexico and sells Mexico gasoline in return.Canada, our neighbor and ally, has the third largest reserves of oil in the world at 170 billion barrels. It currently sells us about 4 million barrels per day and could easily sell us more if the transportation infrastructure were in place to move it to U.S. refineries. However, with the Biden administration shutting down construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, more expensive forms of transportation such as rail are moving some of this oil to U.S. markets. Because Canadian crude is currently land-locked, its price is much below that of Brent crude, making more expensive rail transportation economic.U.S. crude oil that is land-locked in North Dakota and at Cushing, Oklahoma storage terminals also is lower priced than foreign overseas oil. Ships could be used to move this lower priced oil to East Coast markets where overseas oil is used if the 1920 Jones Act were repealed. The Jones Act requires that shipments from one U.S. port to another be carried on vessels built in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and operated by a U.S. crew.Federal and State TaxesThe second main cost of the price of gasoline is government taxes. In January 2021, federal, state and local taxes accounted for 21 percent of the price of gasoline. The federal tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon, while the volume-weighted average state and local tax is 36.8 cents per gallon. This amounts to a 55.2 cent nationwide average tax on gasoline that governments get each time the consumer pumps a gallon.Distribution and Marketing CostsThe third component of the price of gasoline is the retail dealer’s costs and profits, which constituted a combined 15 percent of the cost of a gallon of gasoline in January 2021. From the refinery, most gasoline is shipped first by pipeline to terminals near consuming areas and then loaded into trucks for delivery to individual stations. Ethanol (currently about 10 percent of a gallon of gas) must also be transported by truck or train since it cannot be transported by most pipelines prior to delivery due to its affinity to absorb water.Even though many gas stations are branded as Shell, Exxon, BP or another major oil company, the major oil companies actually own less than 5 percent of gas stations. The vast majority of gas stations are independent businesses that purchase gasoline for resale to the public. In addition, some retail outlets are owned and operated by refiners.The price at the pump reflects both the retailer’s purchase cost for the product and the other costs of operating the service station. It also reflects local market conditions and factors, such as the desirability of the location, ease of access for bulk fuel transport and the marketing strategy of the owner.Refining CostsThe last cost affecting the price of gasoline is the refining process, where oil is “cracked” and formulated into its chemical components and made into gasoline. In January 2021, refinery costs comprised 12 percent of the retail price of gasoline. This figure varies regionally because different parts of the country require different additives and processing steps in their gasoline formulations. The 12 percent figure also varies over different months, owing to seasonal changes in refinery operations. For example, in the spring when refineries need to retool to produce summer-blend gasoline and to meet summer gasoline demands, the cost of refinery operations is higher.Currently, gasoline production is at a low because refineries have been affected by the low demand from the coronavirus pandemic and the freeze experienced last month throughout parts of the south and Midwest, which points to the lack of excess refining capacity in this country. As a matter of fact, China will surpass the U.S. in refining capacity this year for the first time in history.ConclusionGasoline prices are high and increasing because of a variety of global and domestic events. World oil demand growth is outpacing oil supply output, thereby increasing oil prices and gasoline prices to consumers. This is mainly due to the lower oil production caused by the lowered demand from the coronavirus pandemic and the supply cuts by OPEC+. Further exasperating world markets are the geopolitical factors occurring in the Middle East, combined with uncertainties of government policies in the United States, the world’s largest oil producer. Gasoline prices are further being boosted because of lack of available refining capacity due to the recent freeze and lowered demand from the coronavirus pandemic. President Biden’s policies have added to the issue of rising oil prices by banning the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring lower priced oil from Canada and lower transportation costs from the Bakken fields of North Dakota. He has also placed a moratorium on oil and gas drilling on federal lands that could affect future production.’Mary Hutzler is a distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute for Energy Research. She holds more than 25 years experience at the Energy Information Administration (EIA), where she served as Acting Administrator and specialized in data collection, analysis, and forecasting.Important to understand the world’s economy depends of oil and coal for energy and the Biden attacks are not nor will they change that reality. This means the Biden bully pulpit is much to be blamed for the jump in gas prices after the election. No doubt the attack of Biden on fossil fuels and oil in particular will be counter productive and will increase the cost of energy to consumers.The future of energy and climate is purchased by the present and here are the current energy and climate facts proving little change in demand notwithstanding all the jet setter international agreements that also fail.Notwithstanding huge wasteful subsidies to so called non renewable renewable wind and solar they are failing and indeed they have not I repeat not replaced a single coal or oil fired power plant. NOT ONE. Why? Because these technologies suffer major intermittency without adequate battery storage to cover up when the wind does not blow and sun does not shine - every night by the way.The proof is in the pudding or the data today as less than 3% of global energy supply is by wind and solar while oil and other fossil fuels including coal dominate.. This report just in -“Oil Use Will Not Plunge Because of the Energy Transition“T. Paraskova, Oil PriceThe energy transition and the growing share of electrification of transportation will not lead to a fast decline in global oil demand—any drop in consumption will be very gradual, Argus analysts said at the Argus Crude forum during the IPWeek conference on Tuesday. The trend of world oil demand will be a "tug of war" between increased efforts at green recovery and electrification in Europe, the United States, and China to some extent, versus growing oil demand amid strong economic growth in emerging economies, according to Euan Craik, global head of oil at Argus.”**Chart 6. World primary energy supply by share in 2017 **(the share of marine energy is too small to show). Data: Calculated using IEA(2019) online free version. This dataset is the only available that shows all energy sources.WAKE UP CALL - “Without coal and oil wind and solar will be impossible.”‘Big Oil’ Now Promotes Renewable Energy - Wind & Solar Spur GROWTH In Fossil Fuel Energy GenerationWhile it may seem counterintuitive, the expansion of wind and solar energy necessarily leads to the preservation and eventual growth in fossil fuel energy generation. This “paradox” hasn’t gone unnoticed. As good business practice, fossil fuel companies are now actively advocating for and investing in wind and solar technologies. In an analysis of energy return on investment , the installation of solar photovoltaics (PV) ultimately results in a net energy loss ( Ferroni and Hopkirk, 2016 ). This is significantly due to the associated intermittent (and thus unreliable) availability, requiring backup from sources that provide continuous, all-day-long energy (gas, coal, nuclear, etc.). Solar energy investment therefore leads to a greater dependence on fossil fuel energies. Likewise, as more wind parks are installed across the Earth’s pristine landscapes, more fossil fuel energy sources are needed to back them up ( Marques et al., 2018 ). In order for solar and wind technologies to grow their market share, fossil fuel technologies will necessarily be needed to grow alongside them. This is referred to as the “renewable energy policy Paradox” ( Blazquez et al., 2018 ). Fossil fuel companies have certainly recognized the capacity for wind and solar energy to benefit them financially. BP, for example, proudly acknowledges they are “partnering” their gas with solar and wind, or “using gas to complement the intermittency of renewables”. Simply put, wind and solar energies are helpful to fossil fuel companies both for public relations purposes and for growing their bottom line. Image Source: BP Exxon is now investing in wind and solar too. Shell is putting $2 billion into solar and wind technologies as well. Chevron has added an entire renewable energy division and operates wind farms and solar projects. With their growing advocacy for solar and wind energy, the characterization of fossil fuel companies as the enemies of “green” or climate change-friendly technologies seems to be increasingly unsupportable. “Big Oil” may very well be on the same side as those championing (perceived) global warming solutions. It’s just that each side may not be promoting wind and solar energies for the same reasons.https://notrickszone.com/2019/05/30/big-oil-now-promotes-renewable-energy-wind-solar-spur-growth-in-fossil-fuel-energy-generation/By Kenneth Richard on30. May 2019While it may seem counterintuitive, the expansion of wind and solar energy necessarily leads to the preservation and eventual growth in fossil fuel energy generation. This “paradox” hasn’t gone unnoticed. As good business practice, fossil fuel companies are now actively advocating for and investing in wind and solar technologies.In an analysis of energy return on investment , the installation of solar photovoltaics (PV) ultimately results in a net energy loss (Ferroni and Hopkirk, 2016). This is significantly due to the associated intermittent (and thus unreliable) availability, requiring backup from sources that provide continuous, all-day-long energy (gas, coal, nuclear, etc.). Solar energy investment therefore leads to a greater dependence on fossil fuel energies.Likewise, as more wind parks are installed across the Earth’s pristine landscapes, more fossil fuel energy sources are needed to back them up (Marques et al., 2018).In order for solar and wind technologies to grow their market share, fossil fuel technologies will necessarily be needed to grow alongside them. This is referred to as the “renewable energy policy Paradox” (Blazquez et al., 2018).Image Sources: Ferroni and Hopkirk, 2016, Marques et al., 2018, Blazquez et al., 2018Fossil fuel companies have certainly recognized the capacity for wind and solar energy to benefit them financially.BP, for example, proudly acknowledges they are “partnering” their gas with solar and wind, or “using gas to complement the intermittency of renewables”.Simply put, wind and solar energies are helpful to fossil fuel companies both for public relations purposes and for growing their bottom line.Image Source: BPExxon is now investing in wind and solar too.Image Source: HPPR.orgShell is putting $2 billion into solar and wind technologies as well.Image Source: GreenTechMedia.comChevron has added an entire renewable energy division and operates wind farms and solar projects.Image Source: ChevronWith their growing advocacy for solar and wind energy, the characterization of fossil fuel companies as the enemies of “green” or climate change-friendly technologies seems to be increasingly unsupportable.“Big Oil” may very well be on the same side as those championing (perceived) global warming solutions.It’s just that each side may not be promoting wind and solar energies for the same reasons.Image Source: Teklu, 2018CAVEAT: Wind and solar are not renewable if you consider how they are manufactured.The myth of renewable energyBy Dawn Stover, November 22, 2011“Clean.” “Green.” What do those words mean? When President Obama talks about “clean energy,” some people think of “clean coal” and low-carbon nuclear power, while others envision shiny solar panels and wind turbines. And when politicians tout “green jobs,” they might just as easily be talking about employment at General Motors as at Greenpeace. “Clean” and “green” are wide open to interpretation and misappropriation; that’s why they’re so often mentioned in quotation marks. Not so for renewable energy, however.Somehow, people across the entire enviro-political spectrum seem to have reached a tacit, near-unanimous agreement about what renewable means: It’s an energy category that includes solar, wind, water, biomass, and geothermal power. As the US Energy Department explains it to kids: “Renewable energy comes from things that won’t run out — wind, water, sunlight, plants, and more. These are things we can reuse over and over again. … Non-renewable energy comes from things that will run out one day — oil, coal, natural gas, and uranium.”Renewable energy sounds so much more natural and believable than a perpetual-motion machine, but there’s one big problem: Unless you’re planning to live without electricity and motorized transportation, you need more than just wind, water, sunlight, and plants for energy. You need raw materials, real estate, and other things that will run out one day. You need stuff that has to be mined, drilled, transported, and bulldozed — not simply harvested or farmed. You need non-renewable resources:• Solar power. While sunlight is renewable — for at least another four billion years — photovoltaic panels are not. Nor is desert groundwater, used in steam turbines at some solar-thermal installations. Even after being redesigned to use air-cooled condensers that will reduce its water consumption by 90 percent, California’s Blythe Solar Power Project, which will be the world’s largest when it opens in 2013, will require an estimated 600 acre-feet of groundwater annually for washing mirrors, replenishing feedwater, and cooling auxiliary equipment.• Geothermal power. These projects also depend on groundwater — replenished by rain, yes, but not as quickly as it boils off in turbines. At the world’s largest geothermal power plant, the Geysers in California, for example, production peaked in the late 1980s and then the project literally began running out of steam.• Wind power. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the 5,700 turbines installed in the United States in 2009 required approximately 36,000 miles of steel rebar and 1.7 million cubic yards of concrete (enough to pave a four-foot-wide, 7,630-mile-long sidewalk). The gearbox of a two-megawatt wind turbine contains about 800 pounds of neodymium and 130 pounds of dysprosium — rare earth metals that are rare because they’re found in scattered deposits, rather than in concentrated ores, and are difficult to extract.• Biomass. In developed countries, biomass is envisioned as a win-win way to produce energy while thinning wildfire-prone forests or anchoring soil with perennial switchgrass plantings. But expanding energy crops will mean less land for food production, recreation, and wildlife habitat. In many parts of the world where biomass is already used extensively to heat homes and cook meals, this renewable energy is responsible for severe deforestation and air pollution.• Hydropower. Using currents, waves, and tidal energy to produce electricity is still experimental, but hydroelectric power from dams is a proved technology. It already supplies about 16 percent of the world’s electricity, far more than all other renewable sources combined. Maybe that’s why some states with renewable portfolio standards don’t count hydropower as a renewable energy source; it’s so common now, it just doesn’t fit the category formerly known as “alternative” energy. Still, that’s not to say that hydropower is more renewable than solar or wind power. The amount of concrete and steel in a wind-tower foundation is nothing compared with Grand Coulee or Three Gorges, and dams have an unfortunate habit of hoarding sediment and making fish, well, non-renewable.All of these technologies also require electricity transmission from rural areas to population centers. Wilderness is not renewable once roads and power-line corridors fragment it. And while proponents would have you believe that a renewable energy project churns out free electricity forever, the life expectancy of a solar panel or wind turbine is actually shorter than that of a conventional power plant. Even dams are typically designed to last only about 50 years. So what, exactly, makes renewable energy different from coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power?Renewable technologies are often less damaging to the climate and create fewer toxic wastes than conventional energy sources. But meeting the world’s total energy demands in 2030 with renewable energy alone would take an estimated 3.8 million wind turbines (each with twice the capacity of today’s largest machines), 720,000 wave devices, 5,350 geothermal plants, 900 hydroelectric plants, 490,000 tidal turbines, 1.7 billion rooftop photovoltaic systems, 40,000 solar photovoltaic plants, and 49,000 concentrated solar power systems. That’s a heckuva lot of neodymium.Unfortunately, “renewable energy” is a meaningless term with no established standards. Like an emperor parading around without clothes, it gets a free pass, because nobody dares to confront an inconvenient truth: None of our current energy technologies are truly renewable, at least not in the way they are currently being deployed. We haven’t discovered any form of energy that is completely clean and recyclable, and the notion that such an energy source can ever be found is a mirage.The only genuinely sustainable energy scenario is one in which energy demands do not continue to escalate indefinitely. As a recent commentary by Jane C. S. Long in Nature pointed out, meeting ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gases cannot be accomplished with “piecemeal reductions,” such as increased use of wind power and biofuels. Long did the math for California and discovered that even if the state replaced or retrofitted every building to very high efficiency standards, ran almost all of its cars on electricity, and doubled its electricity-generation capacity while simultaneously replacing it with emissions-free energy sources, California could only reduce emissions by perhaps 60 percent below 1990 levels — far less than its 80 percent target. Long says reaching that target “will take new technology.” Maybe so, but it will also take a new honesty about the limitations of technology. Notably, Long doesn’t mention the biggest obstacle to meeting California’s emissions-reduction goal: The state’s population is expected to grow from today’s 40 million to 60 million by 2050.There are now seven billion humans on this planet. Until we find a way to reduce our energy consumption and to share Earth’s finite resources more equitably among nations and generations, “renewable” energy might as well be called “miscellaneous.”The myth of renewable energy - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists"Clean." "Green." What do those words mean? When President Obama talks about "clean energy," some people think of "clean coal" and low-carbon nuclear power, while others envision shiny solar panels and wind turbines. And when politicians tout "green jobs," they might just as easily be talking about employment at General Motors as at Greenpeace. "Clean" and "green" are wide open to interpretation and misappropriation; that's why they're so often mentioned in quotation marks.https://thebulletin.org/2011/11/the-myth-of-renewable-energy/WORLD ENERGY CONSUMPTION GROWTH IS FOSSIL FUELS NOT WIND AND SOLARNot possible to imagine a world where wind solar really matter as alternatives to fossil fuels. The hope seems just a pipe dream when after a trillion or more in subsidies they do not exceed 2% of world energy consumption.The evidence of excessive consumer costs when renewables are added is well documented and I submit this factor alone means renewable energy future is dim. Wind and coal are coupled to ensure reliable power as this next photo shows. How is that renewable power when it depends on coal?Wind turbines in Europe, with a coal power plant in the distance.Ina Fassbender/ReutersThese Countries Have The Highest Energy Usage Per PersonThe world's biggest energy users may not be who you'd think.https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-with-highest-energy-users-per-person-2014-10THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING RENEWABLES CAUSE HIGH RETAIL ELECTRICITY RATESSOUTH AUSTRALIA, DENMARK and GERMANY have the most investment in wind and solar renewables for its grid and the highest cost electricity as a result. It is a matter of math renewables demand two producers one unreliable (wind and solar) and one fully reliable (fossil fuels)Electricity prices in selected countries 2018Published by N. Sönnichsen, Aug 25, 2020This statistic shows electricity prices in leading economies worldwide in 2018. In the United States, electricity prices stood at 0.13 U.S. dollars per kilowatt hour. In the United Kingdom, electricity users paid 0.22 U.S. dollars per kilowatt hour.Electricity prices in selected countriesElectricity prices by country can vary widely and even within a country itself, depending on factors like infrastructure and geography. Among developed countries, Sweden enjoys some of the cheapest electricity in the world. For global electricity prices, Germany topped the list of countries with the highest electricity prices worldwide in 2018. German customers were charged around 0.33 U.S. dollars per kilowatt hour plus value added tax.The selection of fuels used to generate electricity remains a main driver behind Italy’s high electricity prices. There are no nuclear power plants in the country. Due to the fact that Italy is located in a seismically active area, all nuclear power plants were closed following a popular referendum in the late 1980s, when an explosion in Chernobyl reminded Europeans of the dangers of nuclear power. As a result, the country’s electricity generation mix consists mainly of natural gas, renewable energy, petroleum products and coal. Although Italy has one of the largest proved natural gas reserves in Europe, the Mediterranean country produces very little natural gas and is heavily dependent on imports. The main source countries for Italian natural gas imports include Algeria, Russia and Libya. In light of political instability in the said countries, Italy might turn to producing more electricity from renewable energy sources, including hydropower, geothermal power and solar electricity. In 2017, Italy’s cumulative solar photovoltaic capacity reached 19.7 gigawatts, making it the fifth largest market for solar PV power.Read moreGlobal electricity prices in 2018, by select country(in U.S. dollars per kilowatt hour)Electricity prices by country 2020 | StatistaThe cheapest electricity in the world was three cents per kWh, while the cost of electricity in German was nearly 13 times higher.https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/These graphs tell the story as more renewables go into the grid the price of electricity goes up. Why? Intermittency of wind and solar require backup of fossil fuel reliability.Power Supply Fiasco: Green Energy Blackout Hits Germany! Fossil Fuels To The RescueFirst, many of you surely have heard of a widespread purge of followers and account suspensions happening at Twitter, most notably that of the U.S. President, Donald Trump and Sidney Powell. NoTricksZone lost 3oo followers since January 6. Tony Heller’s account has lost 3000 in just a matter of hours. Moving to Gab, Parler Currently I’m moving from Twitter to Gab and Parler , as I expect things at Twitter to get far worse. Clearly they’re convinced they can get away with anything. Where will it all end? Who knows! The way things are going, it wouldn’t surprise me if others started freezing bank accounts, denying mobile phone service or even electric power. Remember these people stole an election and got away with it! My handle to search for at Gab and Parler: NoTricksZone. I encourage you all to open an account there. The denial of electrical power may even be necessary soon in the future, anyway – like it was in communist Romania in the wonderful Ceausescu days. Just look at how Germany’s 50 GW – yes, gigawatts – of solar power have performed since January 1st. Image cropped from Agora . The dark blue curve depicts Germany’s total electric power consumption, which ramped up again Sunday evening, January 3rd, as factories started up again. The yellow shaded nubs depict the solar energy produced over the period, same as nothing. Over the past couple of days, many installations have been blanketed by snow. Germany’s weather has been much more overcast and gray recently, including periods of low wind activity. Let’s look at how solar power has performed over the past 45 days: Image cropped from Agora . This is the plan that sleepy-brain Biden and the leftwing environmental crazies want to implement for America. No wonder they want to censor us, when we present the reality. Supply disaster When we include wind power, with another 60 GW of installed capacity – total 110 GW with sun – we see the following performance. Image cropped from Agora . Though it looks much better, the combined massive 110 GW of installed wind and solar capacity don’t even come close to meeting Germany’s electricity demand. There are some periods where both are practically absent. It’s no way to operate a power grid. Germany’s power grid, once one of the most stable worldwide, is headed for ruin. America should not mimic such a fiasco. Donate - choose an amount 5 10 15 20 50 100 250 500 1000https://notrickszone.com/2021/01/09/power-supply-fiasco-green-energy-blackout-hits-germany-fossil-fuels-to-the-rescue/

Yes, but the sources are hard to find.Here is a source showing that ISIS was created by the West:HOW THE WEST CREATED ISISThe following is a repost of an article that appeared at the Italian site Nena News in 2014. This article puts context to the Russian report, which in turn puts context to the amazing confession “we’re going to keep the oil.” As this Nena News report makes clear, the idea of keeping other people’s oil goes back over a decade and fits in neatly with the cooperation with both ISIS (and other terrorist groups) and the Kurds. It shows that the Kurds have long been part of the West’s oil theft scheme. It also shows that the idea of partitioning Iraq and Syria was an Israeli idea that was wholeheartedly endorsed by the Western powers.Many Westerners have complained bitterly of the uncontrolled migration to Europe and many have alleged high crime among immigrants, while others insist immigration is good for us no matter what. The upshot of this controversy is a split between the rank and file on the one hand and the elites on the other, and between the EU and individual states. And, let us recall, between US and European conservatives on the one hand and Western liberals on the other. And if we can rely on the information provided below, the answer is neither to hate, nor to pander to, people of any religion or lack thereof, or any ethnicity. And not to claim that Westerners are exempt of all blame and it is all the fault of the Arabs who lost their homes and families to Western bombs.Yet very few are willing to admit that the root of the problem is the West’s support for the Arab Spring, starting in the early 2000s, and the fact that the West was in fact, wittingly or not, supporting terrorists who were ripping apart individual Middle Eastern countries, especially Syria, Iraq and Libya. Wahhabist terrorists in territories that had never known Wahhabists. The report below clearly shows that this Western support, military training, materiel (guns, ammo, ordnance, missiles, etc), money – in exchange for the same oil as today, notably from Deir Ez-Zor – and moral support via the msm and the political class on both the left and the right, in the supposedly disparate administrations of mostly Bush Jr., Obama and Trump, is the main driver of the conflicts, without which the immigration to Europe would have been but a manageable trickle. If the Westerners suffering from the fallout of these Middle Eastern conflicts could bring themselves to admit that it was their own nations that generated the massive waves of migration, perhaps they could find reconciliation and redemption, tone down the internecine Western conflicts and start to solve them peacefully and in a civilized and brotherly way. But today, the West is far from achieving anything resembling reconciliation or brotherhood, either amongst each other or between them and their international guests.The contribution appearing below is intended as a possible first step toward understanding why the West is in this crisis and how the next one can be averted. The answer is simple: The West – starting with the US – needs to start tending to its own business and stop pretending to know what is best for others. I am reminded of the last sentence in Voltaire’s novel Candide: Il faut cultiver notre jardin.Yes, indeed. It is way past time to tend our own garden.This commentary and notes [in brackets] are by Vince Dhimos.HOW THE WEST CREATED ISISHow the West created the Islamic StateSept 13, 2014A deep analysis of the roots of Islamic State, created and founded by Us, Arab regimes and Israel to counter the Iranian influence in the region and the tools that today it can use to grow, writes Nafeez Ahmed.by Nafeez Ahmed – CountepunchPart 1 – OUR TERRORISTS“This is an organisation that has an apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision which will eventually have to be defeated,” Gen Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon press conference in August.Military action is necessary to halt the spread of the ISIS “cancer,” said President Obama. Yesterday he called for expanded airstrikes across Iraq and Syria, and new measures to arm and train Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces.“The only way to defeat [IS] is to stand firm and to send a very straightforward message,” declared Prime Minister Cameron. “A country like ours will not be cowed by these barbaric killers.”Missing from the chorus of outrage, however, has been any acknowledgement of the integral role of covert US and British regional military intelligence strategy in empowering and even directly sponsoring the very same virulent Islamist militants in Iraq, Syria and beyond, that went on to break away from al-Qaeda and form ‘ISIS’, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or now simply, the Islamic State (IS).Since 2003, Anglo-American power has secretly and openly coordinated direct and indirect support for Islamist terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda across the Middle East and North Africa. This ill-conceived patchwork geostrategy is a legacy of the persistent influence of neoconservative ideology, motivated by longstanding but often contradictory ambitions to dominate regional oil resources, defend an expansionist Israel, and in pursuit of these, re-draw the map of the Middle East.Now despite Pentagon denials that there will be boots on the ground – and Obama’s insistence that this would not be another “Iraq war” – local Kurdish military and intelligence sources confirm that US and German special operations forces are already “on the ground here. They are helping to support us in the attack.” US airstrikes on ISIS positions and arms supplies to the Kurds have also been accompanied by British RAF reconnaissance flights over the region and UK weapons shipments to Kurdish Peshmerga forces.Divide and Rule in Iraq“It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs,” said one US government defense consultant in 2007. “It’s who they throw them at – Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr [a Shiite cleric leader in Iraq, who opposes Sunni terror], Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah [Hezbollah saved Lebanon from a deadly Israeli attack in 2006. This is probably the main reason they are hated in the West. Lebanon – where the Sunnis, the West’s, and Israel’s, darlings –are outnumbered by Christians plus Shiites, was supposed to be destroyed] and Iran.”Early during the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, the US covertly supplied arms to al-Qaeda affiliated insurgents even while ostensibly supporting an emerging Shi’a-dominated administration.Pakistani defense sources interviewed by Asia Times in February 2005 confirmed that insurgents described as “former Ba’ath party” loyalists – who were being recruited and trained by “al-Qaeda in Iraq” under the leadership of the late Abu Musab Zarqawi – were being supplied Pakistan-manufactured weapons by the US. The arms shipments included rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, ammunition, rockets and other light weaponry. These arms “could not be destined for the Iraqi security forces because US arms would be given to them”, a source told Syed Saleem Shahzad – the Times’ Pakistan bureau chief who, “known for his exposes of the Pakistani military” according to the New Yorker, was murdered in 2011. Rather, the US is playing a double-game to “head off” the threat of a “Shi’ite clergy-driven religious movement,” said the Pakistani defense source.This was not the only way US strategy aided the rise of Zarqawi, a bin Laden mentee and brainchild of the extremist ideology that would later spawn ‘ISIS.’According to a little-known November report for the US Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) and Strategic Studies Department, Dividing Our Enemies, post-invasion Iraq was “an interesting case study of fanning discontent among enemies, leading to ‘red-against-red’ [enemy-against-enemy] firefights.”While counterinsurgency on the one hand requires US forces to “ameliorate harsh or deprived living conditions of the indigenous populations” to publicly win local hearts and minds,” the reverse side of this coin is one less discussed. It involves no effort to win over those caught in the crossfire of insurgent and counterinsurgent warfare, whether by bullet or broadcast. On the contrary, this underside of the counterinsurgency coin is calculated to exploit or create divisions among adversaries for the purpose of fomenting enemy-on-enemy deadly encounters.”In other words, US forces will pursue public legitimacy through conventional social welfare while simultaneously delegitimising local enemies by escalating intra-insurgent violence, knowing full-well that doing so will in turn escalate the number of innocent civilians “caught in the crossfire.” The idea is that violence covertly calibrated by US special operations [think Hong Kong, Kiev, Bolivia] will not only weaken enemies through in-fighting but turn the population against them.In this case, the ‘enemy’ consisted of jihadists, Ba’athists, and peaceful Sufis, who were in a majority but, like the militants, also opposed the US military presence and therefore needed to be influenced. The JSOU report referred to events in late 2004 in Fallujah where “US psychological warfare (PSYOP) specialists” undertook to “set insurgents battling insurgents.” This involved actually promoting Zarqawi’s ideology, ironically, to defeat it: “The PSYOP warriors crafted programs to exploit Zarqawi’s murderous activities – and to disseminate them through meetings, radio and television broadcasts, handouts, newspaper stories, political cartoons, and posters – thereby diminishing his folk-hero image,” and encouraging the different factions to pick each other off. “By tapping into the Fallujans’ revulsion and antagonism to the Zarqawi jihadis the Joint PSYOP Task Force did its ‘best to foster a rift between Sunni groups.’”Yet as noted by Dahr Jamail, one of the few unembedded investigative reporters in Iraq after the war, the proliferation of propaganda linking the acceleration of suicide bombings to the persona of Zarqawi was not matched by meaningful evidence. His own search to substantiate the myriad claims attributing the insurgency to Zarqawi beyond anonymous US intelligence sources encountered only an “eerie blankness.”The US military operation in Fallujah, largely justified on the claim that Zarqawi’s militant forces had occupied the city, used white phosphorus, cluster bombs, and indiscriminate air strikes to pulverise 36,000 of Fallujah’s 50,000 homes, killing nearly a thousand civilians, terrorising 300,000 inhabitants to flee, and culminating in a disproportionate increase in birth defects, cancer and infant mortality due to the devastating environmental consequences of the war.To this day, Fallujah has suffered from being largely cut off from wider Iraq, its infrastructure largely unworkable with water and sewage systems still in disrepair, and its citizens subject to sectarian discrimination and persecution by Iraqi government backed Shi’a militia and police. “Thousands of bereaved and homeless Falluja families have a new reason to hate the US and its allies,” observed The Guardian in 2005. Thus, did the US occupation plant the seeds from which Zarqawi’s legacy would coalesce into the Frankenstein monster that calls itself “the Islamic State.”Bankrolling al-Qaeda in SyriaAccording to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, Britain had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009: “I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business,” he told French television: “I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria.”Leaked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, including notes from a meeting with Pentagon officials, confirmed that as of 2011, US and UK special forces training of Syrian opposition forces was well underway. The goal was to elicit the “collapse” of Assad’s regime “from within.”Since then, the role of the Gulf states – namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan (as well as NATO member Turkey) – in officially and unofficially financing and coordinating the most virulent elements amongst Syria’s rebels under the tutelage of US military intelligence is no secret. Yet the conventional wisdom is that the funnelling of support to Islamist extremists in the rebel movement affiliated to al-Qaeda has been a colossal and regrettable error.The reality is very different. The empowerment of the Islamist factions within the ‘Free Syrian Army’ (FSA) was a foregone conclusion of the strategy.In its drive to depose Col. Qaddafi in Libya, NATO had previously allied itself with rebels affiliated to the al-Qaeda faction, the Islamic Fighting Group. The resulting Libyan regime backed by the US was in turn liaising with FSA leaders in Istanbul to provide money and heavy weapons for the anti-Assad insurgency. The State Department even hired an al-Qaeda affiliated Libyan militia group to provide security for the US embassy in Benghazi – although they had links with the very people that attacked the embassy.Last year, CNN confirmed that CIA officials operating secretly out of the Benghazi embassy were being forced to take extra polygraph tests to keep under wraps what US Congressman suspect was a covert operation “to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels.”With their command and control centre based in Istanbul, Turkey, military supplies from Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular were transported by Turkish intelligence to the border for rebel acquisition. CIA operatives along with Israeli and Jordanian commandos were also training FSA rebels on the Jordanian-Syrian border with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. In addition, other reports show that British and French military were also involved in these secret training programmes. It appears that the same FSA rebels receiving this elite training went straight into ISIS – last month one ISIS commander, Abu Yusaf, said, “Many of the FSA people who the west has trained are actually joining us.”The National thus confirmed the existence of another command and control centre in Amman, Jordan, “staffed by western and Arab military officials,” which “channels vehicles, sniper rifles, mortars, heavy machine guns, small arms and ammunition to Free Syrian Army units.” Rebel and opposition sources described the weapons bridge as “a well-run operation staffed by high-ranking military officials from 14 countries, including the US, European nations [My highlighting. See? The same countries that are now overrun with migrants and complain of their bad behaviour were the ones who sponsored the terror in the first place!] and Arabian Gulf states, the latter providing the bulk of materiel and financial support to rebel factions.”The FSA sources interviewed by The National went to pains to deny that any al-Qaeda affiliated factions were involved in the control centre, or would receive any weapons support. But this is difficult to believe given that “Saudi and Qatari-supplied weapons” were being funnelled through to the rebels via Amman, to their favoured factions.Classified assessments of the military assistance supplied by US allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar obtained by the New York Times showed that “most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups… are going to hardline Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster.”Lest there be any doubt as to the extent to which all this covert military assistance coordinated by the US has gone to support al-Qaeda affiliated factions in the FSA, it is worth noting that earlier this year, the Israeli military intelligence website Debkafile – run by two veteran correspondents who covered the Middle East for 23 years for The Economist – reported that: “Turkey is giving Syrian rebel forces, including the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, passage through its territory to attack the northwestern Syrian coastal area around Latakia.”In August, Debkafile reported that “The US, Jordan and Israel are quietly backing the mixed bag of some 30 Syrian rebel factions”, some of which had just “seized control of the Syrian side of the Quneitra crossing, the only transit point between Israeli and Syrian Golan.” However, Debkafile noted, “al-Qaeda elements have permeated all those factions.” Israel has provided limited support to these rebels in the form of “medical care,” as well as “arms, intelligence and food…“Israel [my highlighting] acted as a member, along with the US and Jordan, of a support system for rebel groups fighting in southern Syria. Their efforts are coordinated through a war-room which the Pentagon established last year near Amman. The US, Jordanian and Israeli officers manning the facility determine in consultation which rebel factions are provided with reinforcements from the special training camps run for Syrian rebels in Jordan, and which will receive arms. All three governments understand perfectly that, notwithstanding all their precautions, some of their military assistance is bound to percolate to al-Qaeda’s Syrian arm, Jabhat Al-Nusra, which is fighting in rebel ranks. Neither Washington or Jerusalem or Amman would be comfortable in admitting they are arming al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front in southern Syria.” [Yes, publicly, the US, Israel and Jordan would not want to admit this but in reality, they obviously were totally unconcerned that terrorists might soon seize all of Syria. Otherwise, ISIS would not have been able to take over the lion’s share of the nation’s territory by September 2015 when the Russians came and turned around the nation’s fate. This isn’t hard. The nation with the biggest armed forces in the world had claimed to be waging a “war on terror.” Yet a less powerful country with a much smaller air force was able to immediately turn around the war. It is painfully clear then that the goal of the united West was to enable the terrorists to establish a caliphate in Syria. Later in this report we read that the terrorists were stealing Syrian oil and selling it cheap to Western countries. This oil seized from the war-weary and impoverished Syrian people by Western-backed terrorists, became the genuine motive for persecuting the war.]This support also went to ISIS. Although the latter was originally founded in Iraq in October 2006, by 2013 the group had significantly expanded its operations in Syria working alongside al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra until February 2014, when ISIS was formally denounced by al-Qaeda. Even so, experts on the region’s Islamist groups point out that the alleged rift between al-Nusra and ISIS, while real, is not as fraught as one might hope, constituting a mere difference in tactics rather than fundamental ideology.Officially, the US government’s financial support for the FSA goes through the Washington DC entity, the Syrian Support Group (SSG), which was incorporated in April 2012. The SSG is licensed via the US Treasury Department to “export, re-export, sell, or supply to the Free Syrian Army (‘FSA’) financial, communications, logistical, and other services otherwise prohibited by Executive Order 13582 in order to support the FSA.”In mid-2013, the Obama administration intensified its support to the rebels with a new classified executive order reversing its previous policy limiting US direct support to only nonlethal equipment. As before, the order would aim to supply weapons strictly to “moderate” forces in the FSA.Except the government’s vetting procedures to block Islamist extremists from receiving US weapons have never worked.A year later, Mother Jones found that the US government has “little oversight over whether US supplies are falling prey to corruption – or into the hands of extremists,” and relies “on too much good faith.” The US government keeps track of rebels receiving assistance purely through “handwritten receipts provided by rebel commanders in the field,” and the judgement of its allies. Countries supporting the rebels – the very same which have empowered al-Qaeda affiliated Islamists – “are doing audits of the delivery of lethal and nonlethal supplies.”Thus, with the Gulf states still calling the shots on the ground, it is no surprise that by September last year, eleven prominent rebel groups distanced themselves from the ‘moderate’ opposition leadership and allied themselves with al-Qaeda.By the SSG’s own conservative estimate, as much as 15% of rebel fighters are Islamists affiliated to al-Qaeda, either through the Jabat al-Nusra faction, or its breakaway group ISIS. But privately, Pentagon officials estimate that “more than 50%” of the FSA is comprised of Islamist extremists, and according to rebel sources neither FSA chief Gen. Salim Idris nor his senior aides engage in much vetting, decisions about which are made typically by local commanders.Part 2 – THE LONG WARFollow the MoneyMedia reports following ISIS’ conquest of much of northern and central Iraq this summer have painted the group as the world’s most super-efficient, self-financed, terrorist organisation that has been able to consolidate itself exclusively through extensive looting of Iraq’s banks and funds from black market oil sales. Much of this narrative, however, has derived from dubious sources, and overlooked disturbing details.One senior anonymous intelligence source told Guardian correspondent Martin Chulov, for instance, that over 160 computer flash sticks obtained from an ISIS hideout revealed information on ISIS’ finances that was completely new to the intelligence community.“Before Mosul, their total cash and assets were $875 m [£515 m],” said the official on the funds obtained largely via “massive cashflows from the oilfields of eastern Syria, which it had commandeered in late 2012.” Afterwards, “with the money they robbed from banks and the value of the military supplies they looted, they could add another $1.5 bn to that.” The thrust of the narrative coming from intelligence sources was simple: “They had done this all themselves. There was no state actor at all behind them, which we had long known. They don’t need one.”“ISIS’ half-a-billion-dollar bank heist makes it world’s richest terror group,” claimed the Telegraph, adding that the figure did not include additional stolen gold bullion, and millions more grabbed from banks “across the region.”This story of ISIS’ stupendous bank looting spree across Iraq made global headlines but turned out to be disinformation. Senior Iraqi officials and bankers confirmed that banks in Iraq, including Mosul where ISIS supposedly stole $430 million, had faced no assault, remain open, and are guarded by their own private security forces.How did the story come about? One of its prime sources was Iraqi parliamentarian Ahmed Chalabi – the same man who under the wing of his ‘Iraqi National Congress’ peddled false intelligence about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda.In June, Chalabi met with the US ambassador to Iraq, Robert Beecroft, and Brett McGurk, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran. According to sources cited by Buzzfeed in June, Beecroft “has been meeting Chalabi for months and has dined at his mansion in Baghdad.”Follow the OilBut while ISIS has clearly obtained funding from donors in the Gulf states, many of its fighters having broken away from the more traditional al-Qaeda affiliated groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, it has also successfully leveraged its control over Syrian and Iraqi oil fields.In January, the New York Times reported that “Islamist rebels and extremist groups have seized control of most of Syria’s oil and gas resources”, bolstering “the fortunes of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and the Nusra Front, both of which are offshoots of al-Qaeda.” Al-Qaeda affiliated rebels had “seized control of the oil and gas fields scattered across the country’s north and east,” while more moderate “Western-backed rebel groups do not appear to be involved in the oil trade, in large part because they have not taken over any oil fields.”Yet the west had directly aided these Islamist groups in their efforts to operationalise Syria’s oil fields. In April 2013, for instance, the Times noted that al-Qaeda rebels had taken over key regions of Syria: “Nusra’s hand is felt most strongly in Aleppo”, where the al-Qaeda affiliate had established in coordination with other rebel groups including ISIS “a Shariah Commission” running “a police force and an Islamic court that hands down sentences that have included lashings.” Al-Qaeda fighters also “control the power plant and distribute flour to keep the city’s bakeries running.” Additionally, they “have seized government oil fields” in provinces of Deir al-Zour [alternately spelled Deir Ez-Zor] and Hasaka, and now make a “profit from the crude they produce.”Lost in the fog of media hype was the disconcerting fact that these al-Qaeda rebel bread and oil operations in Aleppo, Deir al-Zour and Hasaka were directly and indirectly supported by the US and the European Union (EU). One account by the Washington Post for instance refers to a stealth mission in Aleppo “to deliver food and other aid to needy Syrians – all of it paid for by the US government,” including the supply of flour. “The bakery is fully supplied with flour paid for by the United States,” the Post continues, noting that local consumers, however, “credited Jabhat al-Nusra – a rebel group the United States has designated a terrorist organisation because of its ties to al-Qaeda – with providing flour to the region, though he admitted he wasn’t sure where it comes from.”And in the same month that al-Qaeda’s control of Syria’s main oil regions in Deir al-Zour and Hasaka was confirmed, the EU voted to ease an oil embargo on Syria to allow oil to be sold on international markets from these very al-Qaeda controlled oil fields. European companies would be permitted to buy crude oil and petroleum products from these areas, although transactions would be approved by the Syrian National Coalition. Due to damaged infrastructure, oil would be trucked by road to Turkey where the nearest refineries are located.“The logical conclusion from this craziness is that Europe will be funding al-Qaeda,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma.Just two months later, a former senior staffer at the Syria Support Group in DC, David Falt, leaked internal SSG emails confirming that the group was “obsessed” with brokering “jackpot” oil deals on behalf of the FSA for Syria’s rebel-run oil regions. “The idea they could raise hundreds of millions from the sale of the oil came to dominate the work of the SSG to the point no real attention was paid to the nature of the conflict,” said Falt, referring in particular to SSG’s director Brian Neill Sayers, who before his SSG role worked with NATO’s Operations Division. Their aim was to raise money for the rebels by selling the rights to Syrian oil.Tacit Complicity in IS Oil SmugglingEven as al-Qaeda fighters increasingly decide to join up with IS, the ad hoc black market oil production and export infrastructure established by the Islamist groups in Syria has continued to function with, it seems, the tacit support of regional and western powers.According to Ali Ediboglu, a Turkish MP for the border province of Hatay, IS is selling the bulk of its oil from regions in Syria and Mosul in Iraq through Turkey, with the tacit consent of Turkish authorities: “They have laid pipes from villages near the Turkish border at Hatay. Similar pipes exist also at [the Turkish border regions of] Kilis, Urfa and Gaziantep. They transfer the oil to Turkey and parlay it into cash. They take the oil from the refineries at zero cost. Using primitive means, they refine the oil in areas close to the Turkish border and then sell it via Turkey. This is worth $800 million.” He also noted that the extent of this and related operations indicates official Turkish complicity. “Fighters from Europe, Russia, Asian countries and Chechnya are going in large numbers both to Syria and Iraq, crossing from Turkish territory. There is information that at least 1,000 Turkish nationals are helping those foreign fighters sneak into Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. The National Intelligence Organization (MIT) is allegedly involved. None of this can be happening without MIT’s knowledge.”Similarly, there is evidence that authorities in the Kurdish region of Iraq are also turning a blind eye to IS oil smuggling. In July, Iraqi officials said that IS had begun selling oil extracted in the northern province of Salahuddin [possible alternate form of Saladin or Salah ad Din]. One official pointed out that “the Kurdish Peshmerga forces stopped the sale of oil at first, but later allowed tankers to transfer and sell oil.”State of Law coalition MP Alia Nasseef also accused the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of secretly trading oil with IS: “What is happening shows the extent of the massive conspiracy against Iraq by Kurdish politicians… The [illegal] sale of Iraqi oil to ISIS or anyone else is something that would not surprise us.” Although Kurdish officials have roundly rejected these accusations, informed sources told the Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat that Iraqi crude captured by ISIS was “being sold to Kurdish traders in the border regions straddling Iraq, Iran and Syria, and was being shipped to Pakistan where it was being sold ‘for less than half its original price.’” [Today, the Kurds are still an ally of the US, and now they are guarding the oil deposits in Deir Ez-Zor, with the only difference that Trump now proudly admits “we are keeping the oil,” in the full knowledge that by now the brainwashed masses would accept the message]An official statement in August from Iraq’s Oil Ministry warned that any oil not sanctioned by Baghdad could include crude smuggled illegally from IS: “International purchasers [of crude oil] and other market participants should be aware that any oil exports made without the authorisation of the Ministry of Oil may contain crude oil originating from fields under the control of [ISIS].”“Countries like Turkey have turned a blind eye to the practice” of IS oil smuggling, said Luay al-Khateeb, a fellow at the Brookings Doha Center,” and international pressure should be mounted to close down black markets in its southern region.” So far there has been no such pressure. Meanwhile, IS oil smuggling continues, with observers inside and outside Turkey noting that the Turkish government is tacitly allowing IS to flourish as it prefers the rebels to the Assad regime.According to former Iraqi oil minister Isam al-Jalabi,“ Turkey is the biggest winner from the Islamic State’s oil smuggling trade.” Both traders and oil firms are involved, he said, with the low prices allowing for “massive” profits for the countries facilitating the smuggling.Buying ISIS Oil?Early last month, a tanker carrying over a million barrels in crude oil from northern Iraq’s Kurdish region arrived at the Texas Gulf of Mexico. The oil had been refined in the Iraqi Kurdish region before being pumped through a new pipeline from the KRG area ending up at Ceyhan, Turkey, where it was then loaded onto the tanker for shipping to the US. Baghdad’s efforts to stop the oil sale on the basis of its having national jurisdiction were rebuffed by American courts.In early September, the European Union’s ambassador to Iraq, Jana Hybášková, told the EU Foreign Affairs Committee that “several EU member states have bought oil from the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist organisation that has been brutally conquering large portions of Iraq and Syria,” according to Israel National News. She however “refused to divulge the names of the countries despite being asked numerous times.”A third end-point for the KRG’s crude this summer, once again shipped via Turkey’s port of Ceyhan, was Israel’s southwestern port of Ashkelon. This is hardly news though. In May, Reuters revealed that Israeli and US oil refineries had been regularly purchasing and importing KRG’s disputed oil.Meanwhile, as this triangle of covert oil shipments in which ISIS crude appears to be hopelessly entangled becomes more established, Turkey has increasingly demanded that the US pursue formal measures to lift obstacles to Kurdish oil sales to global markets. The KRG plans to export as much as 1 million barrels of oil a day by next year through its pipeline to Turkey.Among the many oil and gas firms active in the KRG capital, Erbil, are ExxonMobil and Chevron. They are drilling in the region for oil under KRG contracts, though operations have been halted due to the crisis. No wonder Steve Coll writes in the New Yorker that Obama’s air strikes and arms supplies to the Kurds – notably not to Baghdad – effectively amount to “the defense of an undeclared Kurdish oil state whose sources of geopolitical appeal – as a long-term, non-Russian supplier of oil and gas to Europe, for example – are best not spoken of in polite or naïve company.” The Kurds are now busy working to “quadruple” their export capacity, while US policy has increasingly shifted toward permitting Kurdish exports – a development that would have major ramifications for Iraq’s national territorial integrity. [The ultimate unspoken goal of Western powers, bowing to Israel, is to break up Syria and Iraq into sectors along sectarian and ethnic lines, as we see further on. This is one of the main motives for the Iraqi and Syrian wars. Russia was the unforeseen saviour of these sovereign countries]To be sure, as the offensive against IS ramps up, the Kurds are now selectively cracking down on IS smuggling efforts – but the measures are too little, too late.A New MapThe Third Iraq War has begun. With it, longstanding neocon dreams to partition Iraq into three along ethnic and religious lines have been resurrected.White House officials now estimate that the fight against the region’s ‘Islamic State’ will last years, and may outlive the Obama administration. But this ‘long war’ vision goes back to nebulous ideas formally presented by late RAND Corp analyst Laurent Muraweic before the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board at the invitation of then chairman Richard Perle. That presentation described Iraq as a “tactical pivot” by which to transform the wider Middle East. [to better understand this, read about the Israeli Yinon plan to break up the Middle East and sow chaos. Supposedly, if the Middle Eastern ethnicities and tribes can be made to hate and mistrust each other, Israel will be more secure. Seriously?]Brian Whitaker, former Guardian Middle East editor, rightly noted that the Perle-RAND strategy drew inspiration from a 1996 paper published by the Israeli Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, co-authored by Perle and other neocons who held top positions in the post-9/11 Bush administration.The policy paper advocated a strategy that bears startling resemblance to the chaos unfolding in the wake of the expansion of the ‘Islamic State’ – Israel would “shape its strategic environment” by first securing the removal of Saddam Hussein. “Jordan and Turkey would form an axis along with Israel to weaken and ‘roll back’ Syria.” This axis would attempt to weaken the influence of Lebanon, Syria and Iran by “weaning” off their Shi’ite populations. To succeed, Israel would need to engender US support, which would be obtained by Benjamin Netanyahu formulating the strategy “in language familiar to the Americans by tapping into themes of American administrations during the cold war.” [Russia spoiled this plan for good]The 2002 Perle-RAND plan was active in the Bush administration’s strategic thinking on Iraq shortly before the 2003 war. According to US private intelligence firm Stratfor, in late 2002, then vice-president Dick Cheney and deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz had co-authored a scheme under which central Sunni-majority Iraq would join with Jordan; the northern Kurdish regions would become an autonomous state; all becoming separate from the southern Shi’ite region. [To set the record straight, on average, Iraq is majority Shiite, and that is the problem for the West and Israel, which favour Sunnis. Iraq is 70% Shiite]The strategic advantages of an Iraq partition, Stratfor argued, focused on US control of oil:“After eliminating Iraq as a sovereign state, there would be no fear that one day an anti-American government would come to power in Baghdad, as the capital would be in Amman [Jordan]. Current and potential US geopolitical foes Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria would be isolated from each other, with big chunks of land between them under control of the pro-US forces.“Equally important, Washington would be able to justify its long-term and heavy military presence in the region as necessary for the defense of a young new state asking for US protection – and to secure the stability of oil markets and supplies. That in turn would help the United States gain direct control of Iraqi oil and replace Saudi oil in case of conflict with Riyadh.”The expansion of the ‘Islamic State’ has provided a pretext for the fundamental contours of this scenario to unfold, with the US and British looking to re-establish a long-term military presence in Iraq.In 2006, Cheney’s successor, Joe Biden, also indicated his support for the ‘soft partition’ of Iraq along ethno-religious lines – a position which the co-author of the Biden-Iraq plan, Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations, now argues is “the only solution” to the current crisis.In 2008, the strategy re-surfaced – once again via RAND Corp – through a report funded by the US Army Training and Doctrine Command on how to prosecute the ‘long war.’ Among its strategies, one scenario advocated by the report was ‘Divide and Rule’ which would involve “exploiting fault lines between the various Salafi-jihadist groups to turn them against each other and dissipate their energy on internal conflicts.”Simultaneously, the report suggested that the US could foster conflict between Salafi-jihadists and Shi’ite militants by “shoring up the traditional Sunni regimes… as a way of containing Iranian power and influence in the Middle East and Persian Gulf.”One way or another, the plan is in motion. Last week, Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Leiberman told US secretary of state John Kerry: “Iraq is breaking up before our eyes and it would appear that the creation of an independent Kurdish state is a foregone conclusion.” [the only thing preventing this is Russia.]The rise of the ‘Islamic State’ is not just a direct consequence of this neocon vision, tied as it is to a dangerous covert operations strategy that has seen al-Qaeda linked terrorists as a tool to influence local populations – it has in turn offered a pretext for the launch of a new era of endless war, the spectre of a prolonged US-led military presence in the energy-rich Persian Gulf region, and a return to the dangerous imperial temptation to re-configure the wider regional order.Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is a bestselling author, investigative journalist and international security scholar. He has contributed to two major terrorism investigations in the US and UK, the 9/11 Commission and the 7/7 Coroner’s Inquest, and has advised the Royal Military Academy Sandhust, British Foreign Office and US State Department. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian where he writes about the geopolitics of interconnected environmental, energy and economic crises. He has also written for The Independent, Sydney Morning Herald, CounterPunch, The Age, The Scotsman, Foreign Policy, Prospect, New Statesman, Le Monde diplomatique, among many others.