A fireball in the desert: In Syria, the 'energy corridor' project caught up in geopolitics

While global markets tremble amid threats to energy supplies following Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Damascus is positioning itself as an alternative transit corridor. The objective quickly garnered diplomatic backing. As early as March, U.S. envoy for Syria and Iraq Tom Barrack called on Damascus to capitalize on the country’s central position and become an energy bridge. The desert route became operational much more quickly than skeptics had predicted. According to The Syria Report, the volume of Iraqi fuel passing through Syria, mainly via the al-Tanf-al-Walid border crossing, increased 33-fold between March and September, rising from 245,000 to 8.43 million barrels. Plans to rehabilitate the Kirkuk-Banias oil pipeline are also on the table. But the corridor ultimately ran into geopolitics.The first sign came in July, when...