VALCO’s DEBT: It Is Killing The Volta River Authority

Minister of Energy, Emmanuel Kofi Buah

By Ekow Mensah

The Volta Aluminum Company's (VALCO) indebtedness to the Volta River Authority appears to be suffocating the power generator to death.

Documents available to “The Insight” indicate the VALCO owes the VRA as much as US $37 million.

This is in spite of the fact that VALCO gets power at a heavily subsided rate of only 5 cents per KWH.

An internal review of the power sector done by the Chief Executive of the VRA said VALCO is not in a position to pay its debts.

VALCO forecasted a net loss of US $16 million for 2012 and similar level of loss is expected this year.

The relevant section of the internal review done by the VRA is published below unedited.

As of December 15, 2012, VALCO is operating one potline, and producing about 40,000 metric tonnes of a year, approximately 20% of overall plant capacity. It is forecasting a net loss of US$[16] million for 2012 and a similar level of loss in 2013 if it continues to operate only one potline. Meanwhile, VALCO has accrued debts to VRA in the amount of US$37 million, despite the fact of receiving a favourable tariff of US cents 5.1kWh, for which VALCO unilaterally declared it could not honour so long as it was operating less than two potlines.

Progress towards an integrated aluminum industry, the justification of the special dispensation for VALCO, is not in evidence. A Chinese company is understood to have taken over the development of one of the major bauxite concessions; how and in what manner it is tied to VALCO's future is not clear. Equally, the plan to provide the required 350 MW of electricity required to run VALCO at a 100% capacity is yet to be delivered. VALCO appears torn between insisting on its special place in Ghana's industrial development landscape for some portion of the country's meagre electricity capacity, and developing and building its own dedicated power plant that will ensure that VALCO does not have to compete with the needs of the rest of the country.

Regardless of the intentions for the future, VALCO's current impact on VRA's operations and finances is unequivocally negative. 70 MW of baseloaded power supplied to VALCO eroded reserve margins below 10% in 2012; it was a matter of course that there would be nation-wide load-shedding once the WAGP pipeline was damaged taking out 200 MW of power supplied by the Sunon Asogli plant. The exercise needs to be performed to verify whether the Consumer Reliability Cost ("CRC,,)³ from the nation-wide load shedding more than offset the benefits, such as can be described, from running one potline at VALCO in the same period.

GRIDCo's 2011 Reliability Report estimated the CRC in 2010, when Akosombo/Kpong registered its highest operating level, there was no load shedding, and generation was thought to be adequate, at US$113.5 million, less than 0.5% of the country's GDP, versus a CRC in 2007 when the country faced significant load shedding, of US$3.3. billion, or 22% of the country's GDP.⁴

Unfortunately, the generation picture for 2013 does not provide the reserve margins that were originally hoped for. First of all, Asogli's 200 MW power capacity will not be available until late 1 st Quarter/early 2^nd Quarter, which means system reserve will remain below [5%] for the first quarter of 2013. The Bui hydro plant, originally expected to come on schedule in the 4th Quarter 2012, is now expected to come on over the course of 2013; the first 133 MW by the 2^nd Quarter, and then the full complement of 400 MW by September/October assuming appreciable inflows into the Black Volta. No other new capacity is expected in 2013; the earliest new capacity will be VRA's 200 MW Kpone Thermal Power Plant ("KTPP") which is expected sometime in the 2^nd Half of 2014.

VRA therefore does not see a supply situation in 2013 that would warrant VALCO operating at more than one line for at least the first three quarters of the year; any more would erode system reserve margins further, and put the entire system at increased supply risk. At the same time, VALCO does not believe it can pay its rapidly mounting bills to VRA if it does not increase production to more than one potline. This essential conundrum suggests a radical solution is required for the successful resolution of the VALCO problem.

VALCO's expanded operation to more than one potline, then, should be determined by Government's strategic commitment to it. Strictly, Government should shut down VALCO, if the CRC for a one-line VALCO operation can be demonstrated to outweigh the benefits of a one-line VALCO operation for the first nine months of 2013. If such a scenario is deemed unfeasible, then Government must make a specific subsidy provision for VALCO until such time it can run profitably, and pay up the US$37 million in arrears to VRA, and provision to subsidise it until such time VALCO can expand beyond a one potline operation.

In parallel and as soon as practicable, VALCO should complete the development and commence the implementation of a dedicated power plant that supports 100% VALCO operation and provisions for its future expansion, one that would complement rather than compete with the needs of a rapidly growing economy.

VALCO has two options in respect of choice of fuel to power its plants. The first would be to receive a portion of Akosombo/Kpong's hydro resource, which would have the net effect of raising electricity tariffs to the general populace, who will no longer benefit from low-cost hydro blended into the wholesale tariff. The second is the more feasible option: VALCO would receive a special dispensation on price and quantity on gas received from Ghana's gas fields. A 60 mmmscfd allocation of gas supply, possibly from the first tranche of gas supply from the Jubilee field, would also allow VALCO to run three potlines. Ghana gas delivered at any price up to US$4/mmbtu to a combined cycle power plant should yield an electricity price of less than US cents 6/kWh to VALCO, and allow it to comfortably run its operations at two lines or more.

This latter scenario suggests 3-4 years before VAL CO's combined cycle operation is available, assuming it is a greenfield operation; less, if existing capacity is acquired or expanded. Until then, VALCO should not operate beyond 1¹/₂ -2 lines, at all times ensuring that the system reserve margin is 10% or more. If generation supply is not adequate to run VA LCO at 1¹ /₂ or more, it should be shut down, or Government must make explicit provision to subsidize it until it can run at those levels. Further, Government should layout a feasible timeline with clear milestones for how the development of the country's bauxite mines will tie into the construction of an alumina refinery, and the operation and consequent expansion of the VALCO smelter. Absent that, the current operation of VALCO at any level is moot.

Finally, it is not clear that Government alone can successfully motivate a long-term solution for VALCO: the dynamics of the aluminium industry; its capital intensive nature; the nature of supply contracts required, all suggest that a private sector investor with a substantial balance sheet, would better optimize VALCO's current assets than the Government of Ghana itself. 

Editorial

COLLECT THE BILLS

Total indebtedness to the electricity sub-sector is estimated at more than Gh¢1 billion.

The Insight believes that if this huge amount is collected it will not be necessary to increase the tariffs of the electricity companies.

The level of indebtedness to the companies is a clear case of gross inefficiency which much be dealt with seriously.

If the current management of the companies cannot perform this task, then they ought to be shown the exit.

These companies need to collect these monies to survive and everything possible has to be done to ensure that the indebted entities pay up.

There can be no compromised on this.

2015: Who will defeat Jonathan?

By Chido Onumah

Let me say from the outset that it would be scandalous and a grave mistake for the opposition – and by this, I refer to the All Progressives Congress (APC) – to look toward any of the gladiators in the current war of attrition in the People’s Democratic Party, Aminu Tambuwal, Babangida Aliyu, Sule Lamido, etc., as a candidate for the presidency in 2015. With all due respect to these men, and not minding the fact that there are PDP elements in the APC, it would not only smack of unseriousness, but would leave voters no choice in 2015.

Having exorcised the incubus of a PDP takeover of the opposition, let’s pose the fundamental question: who will defeat President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015? We need to pose this question frontally and be sincere in our answers. That is the only way the opposition can assess its strength and chances as we head into the battle of 2015.

Too often, we hear the beer parlour assertion that, “President Jonathan is incompetent; he has to go in 2015”. Clearly, President Jonathan has performed woefully; but when was the last time incompetence cost anybody reelection in Nigeria? It didn’t happen with Shehu Shagari in 1983; certainly, not with Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003.

What is needed, therefore, is a comprehensive strategy to defeat PDP in 2015. And top on the agenda would be the urgent need to market a national candidate who provides a clear and credible alternative to President Jonathan. If free and fair elections were held today (even though the PDP would never permit free and fair elections), chances are that President Jonathan will emerge victorious. I say this with all sense of responsibility.

This is not Nigeria of June 12, 1993, even though Bashir Tofa, the defeated presidential candidate of the National Republican Convention (NRC) in that election and now a chieftain of APC would want us to forget the election and its significance.

Of course, I sympathize with Tofa. I would bury any thoughts of that election if I had been in his position. It is not easy on one’s reputation and psyche running a presidential election and getting trounced in your home constituency. That must go down as one inglorious record for the Guinness World Records.

Back to reality. The country is fractured today as never before. There are still many out there who will vote on the basis of religion; many who will vote because of money, ethnicity and other mundane considerations. Of course, we have to grant them their right to poor judgment. That is the nature of democracy.

There are those who have argued, from their limited understanding of the issue, that one way of addressing the minorities’ question in Nigeria is for President Jonathan to go for a second term whether he deserves it or not. These are the issues that will come to play whether we accept them or not. It is this fracture – add money and rigging – that will determine the outcome of the 2015 election.

So, is the opposition ready to compete in 2015? The answer, of course, will depend on who you ask. Even though the PDP appears like a party that faces imminent implosion, the campaign for 2015 has started in earnest, the glib talk by the president and his handlers notwithstanding. 

Nigerians are yearning for an alternative to Goodluck Jonathan; not just an alternative, but a credible alternative. Talking about the presidency in 2015, the APC, undoubtedly, is a party of immense potentials. But if elections were held today, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd) is perhaps the only person with the pedigree, name recognition and national appeal who can give President Jonathan and the PDP a run for their money.

However, Gen. Buhari has not shown enough statesmanship to make him a winning candidate across the country. By his actions and inaction, the former head of state seems to be saying, “I don’t need the vote of majority of Nigerians to be elected president”. Lately, Gen. Buhari has been assailed by those who accuse him of making “unguarded and insensitive” statements. His handlers have repeatedly affirmed that he is a victim; one who is misunderstood and often misquoted. It may well be true. Leaving aside the issue of his comments, the expectation is that for a man who has run for president thrice and plans a fourth attempt, Gen. Buhari ought to be much more visible and active across the country.

He ought to be out on the street either comforting victims of various acts of terror across the country and offering them hope and a new vision for Nigeria or dousing the perception that he is a provincial leader. He has earned that right. Perhaps he ought to take a cue from Uzor Orji Kalu, a man who should be on trial for his ruination of Abia State.  

We may not like it, but the truth is that after 14 years in power the PDP has managed to reach every nook and cranny of the country. The opposition needs do much to ingrain in the mass of our people the need for a better and workable alternative.

Time is certainly running out.

Globalising Media & Information Literacy  

Next week (June 26-28), the global media and information literacy (MIL) movement will converge on Nigeria for the Global Forum for Partnerships on MIL (GFPMIL), incorporating the International Conference on MIL and Intercultural Dialogue.

With the theme “Promoting Media and Information Literacy as a Means to Cultural Diversity”, the conference which draws upon over 40 years of UNESCO’s experience in MIL, is a joint initiative of UNESCO, the Federal Ministry of Information, the Government of Saudi Arabia, the Swedish International Development Agency, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, and other key stakeholders around the world.   

The GFPMIL will be a permanent mechanism and seeks to globally reposition MIL around the core objectives of: articulating key strategic partnerships to drive MIL development and impact globally focusing on seven development areas: 1) governance and citizenship; 2) education, teaching and learning; 3) linguistic and diversity intercultural dialogue; 4) women, disabled and other disadvantaged; 5) health and wellness; 6) business, industry, employment and economic development; 7) agriculture, farming, wildlife protection, forestry and natural resources conservation.

With Africa as a Global Priority for UNESCO, the International MIL and Intercultural Dialogue Conference will focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa and will be the first global partnership project in this domain. It will set the way forward for future partnerships, enabling the MIL community to speak as one voice on certain critical matters, particularly as it relates to policies.

Let’s hope that Nigeria’s participation will go beyond the conference to embrace this global phenomenon that seeks to provide the vital life skill for students and youth to become critical thinkers and consumers of information and media messages and, therefore, active participants in their societies.

conumah@hotmail.com

Zizi Harina Nyanga

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe

By Dr Gary K. Busch

There is an old Shona saying, “Zizi harina nyanga”. In essence it means that things are not always what they appear to be. There is an upswell of insincere advice washing over Zimbabwe from ‘disinterested’ African leaders of the Southern African Development Council (SADC), declaring that in spite of the rulings of the Zimbabwe Constitutional Court, Mugabe should postpone the national elections beyond the Court’s July 31 deadline. It is more than insincere advice; it is a deliberate play by the SADC elite to prevent the victory of ZANU-PF in these upcoming elections.

Right now any political poll will tell the world that the Zimbabwe electorate is fed up with the stalemate in the efforts of the country to escape the stranglehold of economic sanctions and demonstrate the complete collapse of any credibility and support for the MDC’s disloyal opposition. In a fair election, if the apathy of the disenchanted voters could be overcome, Tendai Biti would find it hard to get elected dogcatcher at Sam Levy’s.

The West, especially Britain and the EU, and the fanatical anti-Mugabe zealot Susan Rice in the U.S., are trying everything to prevent a free and fair election in Zimbabwe. They have pulled out all the stops in recent years to try and block any growth or recovery in Zimbabwe and have foisted a shotgun marriage between ZANU-PF and the two flavours of the MDC in a condominium of political operations whose time has come to its legal end. Morgan Tsvangirai, Biti and their ilk have served their term of occupation of the political heights of Zimbabwe and now must show in a free poll that they command the respect and support of the population. They know they do not have that support so are adducing all kinds of red herring proposals called “reform” in a last-ditch effort to block their public shame in the upcoming election.

They are supported in this by an aggregation of part-time democrats occupying the leadership positions in SADC. It is more than ironic that these leaders spend their days passing endless resolutions about the sanctity of the Constitutions, the need to respect the judiciary and the Rule of Law and then turn around and lecture the Zimbabwe Government about the urgent need toextend the constitutional deadline beyond the legal cut-off of July 31 and to ignore the ruling of the Zimbabwe Constitutional court. Mugabe was forced to use a presidential decree to bypass Parliament to fast-track changes to election laws and declare the voting date. The opposition parliamentarians were dead set against following the ruling of the Court; it is always difficult for turkeys to vote to support Christmas.

The supposed urgent need for reform is a sham. The justice minister has denied any need for the so-called ‘media or security reforms’ that Morgan Tsvangirai's party says must be enacted before an election takes place.

Despite this the SADC leaders, many of whom have defied term limits, ignored endless rulings of their domestic courts, rigged electoral rolls and allowed and fostered a level of domestic corruption that swells their personal coffers,  decided that democracy would be served best in Zimbabwe by defying the courts and the Constitution. These are the same leaders who have tolerated the Rajoelina coup democracy in Madagascar and are now backing away from any commitment there for free and fair elections. Hypocrisy is not only a Western failing.

Mugabe knows that if he allows the date for the election to slip by, he, too, will have his legitimacy questioned. Right now he has a mandate from the Zimbabwe people expressed in a popular vote to run the country. Tsvangirai and his followers no longer have such a mandate. Their periods in office are up under the terms of the agreement made to put them into the condominium. Mugabe is not stupid enough to fall into the trap of overstaying his mandate and is willing to have the election as required.

No amount of foreign pressure is going to get Mugabe and ZANU-PF to countervail the Constitutional Court and the new Constitution. What Mugabe fears is not the MDC or the age-old battle against Western powers. He fears that all this delay, bitterness and indecision fostered by the condominium will create a level of apathy among the voters who seem to be fed up with all this chicanery and posturing.

The owl may not have horns, despite the ability of the SADC to appear to see them behind every bush. The answer to “Who Rules?” is to have an election. Why is this so difficult to understand?

The Village Mourners Association

Wole Soyinka

By Wole Soyinka

Nigerians who are old enough will surely recall the source of the above title. For others, I ought to narrate its origin. Fortunately, early this year, I delivered a lecture at the University of Ibadan, where I made a passing reference to the true owners of that copyright. Here is the relevant section:

“At the passing of a short-lived dictator, his successor decreed two weeks of mourning, two weeks during which the nation went into a coma. Even the television and radio stations closed down – nothing but martial and funereal music was played, while churches and mosques took over the abandoned air-waves to drown the nation in suras and canticles of lachrymose outpouring. A very sharp group quickly formed something that was called the National Mourners Association – clever lot! While the nation was quarantined and bogged down in the orgy of lamentation, they were touring the world, sponsored by government, to take the gospel of anguish to every corner of the world that boasted a Nigerian diplomatic mission.”

Yes, that was at the death of General Murtala Mohammed. But now, we turn to address the latest progenies of that association, operating in a different clime and context, but cacophonously enmeshed in variations on that ancient tune.

When that day comes that individuals encounter hostility over their sensibilities in dealing with loss in their own way, privately, away from public eye, with or without symbolic public gestures, then we are witnessing the end, not simply of plain civility, but of civilization, and the enthronement of Fascism. It is not the intolerance and excess of a moment’s excitation, but of a cultivated arrogance and will to imposition, one that attempts to dictate the private responses of others to shared events. Once again we are confronted with the Nigerian phenomenon of the egregious appropriation of what is not on offer and thus, is not subject to dispute. Where frustrated, these claimants reel out chapters from their Book of Imprecations.

Let it be stated here, for the avoidance of doubt, that I am a solid believer in the collective rites of Farewell. I believe in Ritual. Humanity is often assisted to reconcile with loss in a collective, and even spectacular mode. The choice to participate or not, however, belongs to each individual, including even those who arrogate to themselves the mission of imposing on others their own preferred mode of bidding farewell. These self-righteous clerics are dangerous beings, especially where they flaunt the credentials of secular learning and gather in caucuses of presumed Humanities. From the herd, the mindless Internet fiddlers for whom the landing of a planetary probe, or a medical breakthrough is simply distraction from fraudulent internet mailing, nothing less is expected. What menaces the collective health of society is when the deserving highs of intellectual application of the former, become indistinguishable from the loutish low of the latter.

I do not pander to the expectations of the sanctimonious. I can absent myself from any event, for reasons that are personal to me. I can absent myself as the result of a mundane domestic situation, as legitimately as from a visceral rejection of occupancy of the same space, at the same time, in the same cause, with certain other participants. I may absent myself for the very reason of my disdain for that breed which is certain to cavil at the very fact of my absence. Such specimens pollute the very space they claim to honour. Sputter and rage they may, but even the most illustrious of that ilk cannot control that choice, neither will they be permitted free passage to encroach upon, and abuse the private spaces of human responsiveness.

I shall speak to them directly: your psychological profile is commonplace. It is not the honour to Chinua that agitates you, no, it is your own self-regarding that seeks to be reflected in the homage to a departed colleague. It does not take a psycho-analyst to recognize this phenomenon of greedy acquisitiveness, even of immaterial products. Like emotional parasites, you feed off others, but you have never learnt to value what others give, or be thereby nourished. I recognize you, atavistic minds – was it not your type that once disseminated an unbelievably primitive accounting for Chinua Achebe’s motor accident? Here goes the story, for those who seek light relief from ponderous unctuousness:

What happened was that I found myself unable to return to Nigeria for a Colloquium in honour of Chinua’s sixtieth birthday. My dramatic mind immediately scrambled for some striking manner of compensation. So I telephoned a business friend who had some agricultural connections in Delta State and told him: find the chunkiest, spotless ram in Delta State – all white or all black, but a thoroughbred of striking physique. Find a leather pouch, tie it to its neck with the following message and deliver it at the venue of the Colloquium. I no longer recall the exact dictated wording, nothing inspirational, just the usual felicitations and injunctions to turn that ram into asun for general feasting.

Those who attended the event will recall the grand entry of the gift - as reported by one and all, including the foreign visitors, and Chinua’s reported reaction, seated on the podium. He shook head and said, “Typical of Wole”. The ram was then led off to meet its destiny at the hands of the gathered. (As a side note, it was I who took a gift away from his seventieth at Bard University – a sobering flash of time past that resulted in my ELEGY FOR A NATION. I had that poem re-published to mark the day of his funeral.)

Our story is only beginning. On the way back from that celebration, Chinua had his accident and was flown to the United Kingdom. At the first opportunity, I made my way there and called up the High Commissioner, Dove-Edwin, who was certain to know the hospital location. It turned out that he also planned a visit that afternoon, and he agreed to give me a ride. We waited – I was joined by two others – waited, and waited, then a phone call came from him that the visit had been called off. The High Commissioner would explain why, on arrival – over a promised dinner, as compensation.

That explanation was this: Dove-Edwin had received communication that some of “Chinua’s people” – a university professor among them, who was named – had pronounced publicly that “Chinua should have known better than to accept a spotless ram from his enemy” – yes, that was the word used – “enemy”. I verified this report from various other sources. Later, an alternative diagnosis surfaced: “Chinua had been too long away from the chieftaincy politics of his hometown, otherwise he would have realized that the title that he took was coveted by some others – and these were deeply steeped in traditional psychic combat”. In short, those rivals “did him in”. Both diagnoses competed for dominance for a while, petering out eventually.

Before the promotion of that alternative cause-and-effect however, Dove-Edwin had re-scheduled, and we had a most bracing, optimistic afternoon with Chinua. Yes, our patient was eventually told the cause of the earlier postponement, and he had a good laugh. On my return to Nigeria, I could not wait to take the opportunity of a public lecture to invite all desperate enemies to please send me their rams of choice – spotless, spotted, piebald, striped or nondescript – so I could treat starving writers to free meals in my home for the rest of the year. And I promised to taste a piece of each ram before serving.

Yes, it is that same breed that continues to sow poison in the minds of the susceptible. Alas for you, it so happens that some of us insist on our own way of commemorating, of being there, even when absent. You, by contrast were never there, however ostentatiously you position yourselves at the event, or at vicarious gatherings to denounce, attribute sinister motivations, and inseminate hate against those whom your pedestrian vision cannot see. Your very loudness proclaims your absence. You were always absent. You will always be absent. So, this communication is not really meant for you but for those potential almajiri – whose minds you corrupt daily with your jeremiads in that accomodating madrassa known as Internet. As a teacher, I lament your failure to use the opportunity of the passing of a revered writer to turn your younger generation in enlightened directions. You have chosen instead to coarsen their sensibilities and breed in their minds misunderstanding, suspicion and above all – hate!

You will have understood by now how I have come to view you as no different from the homicidal clerics who arm youths with kerosene and match, cudgel and knife, a few Naira in their beggars’ bowls, and dispatch them to set fire to structures of comradely cohabitation, of reflection, of mind enlargement, and destroy communities of learning. Your gospel of separatism goes beyond the geographical – in which I have not the slightest interest! – but the humanistic. The difference is in the weapon – in your case, poison, mind corrosion. The means – Internet, and its wide open, undiscriminating generosity. That is where you lay spores of poison, and doom future generations to a confinement of human relationships within the darkest corners of the mind.

You are beyond pity. Kindly absent your selves from my funeral, when that event finally intrudes.

5 Rules for Arming Rebels

Before going to war in Syria, the Obama administration should heed the lessons of history.

By Edward Luttwak 

These are the rebels Obama supports in Syria

It was for several good and solid reasons that U.S. President Barack Obama's administration long resisted pressures to intervene more forcefully in Syria's civil war. To start with, there is the sheer complexity of a conflict at the intersection of religious, ethnic, regional, and global politics, as illustrated by the plain fact that the most Westernized of Syrians (including its Christians) support the Assad government that the United States seeks to displace, while its enemies are certainly not America's friends and, indeed, include the most dangerous of Muslim extremists.

But no matter: After two years of restraint, the administration -- having decided to send "direct military assistance" to the rebels -- has chosen sides and is now choosing sides within sides.

By now, after failed attempts at managing complexity in Iraq and Afghanistan, all should soberly recognize that any successful intervention requires the terrible I-win, you-lose simplicity of war. When that is absent, so too is success. In the end, regardless of the costs in blood and treasure of U.S. efforts -- costs that in this case also include a greater enmity with Russia -- it is still likely that all sides will blame the American infidel for anything that displeases them, as in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, and Libya. Neither complexity nor the inevitable accusations of sinister American motives (greed for oil, war on Islam, or both) can be helped, but the Obama administration has stepped forward anyway. Even if conditions on the ground in Syria virtually exclude the possibility of a good outcome, the following five rules -- derived from bitter experience in arming other rebels (some of it personal) -- could at least serve to minimize the damage.

Rule 1: Figure out who your friends are.

The first rule, politically, is to identify one's allies. When Obama finally, officially, makes the announcement that Washington is arming the rebels, it must include the key phrases: "We are acting with our allies in the region" or, better, "our close allies in the region and beyond it."

But once the obligatory words are spoken, it is essential that all U.S. personnel all the way down the chain of command be fully aware of the brutal truth that explains the survival of Bashar al-Assad's regime: America's "allies in the region" are remarkably ineffectual, in spite of every apparent advantage.

Early on, Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani proclaimed his total support for the "Syrian people," sending money and buying weapons at ridiculous prices (and delivering very few). And though his armed forces are small and poorly placed to provide any combat support, he does have billions of dollars at his disposal that he can and does spend on every passing whim. The same goes for the Saudis, who are much less noisy than the Qataris in supporting the rebels but are the real leaders of the Sunni crusade against Assad -- and they too are not short of funds.

Yet in spite of the most ample promises by Qatar and the Saudis, Syrian refugees in Jordan have been living in misery -- there are even persistent reports of the sale of child brides by desperate families. Likewise, the actual flow of weapons to the rebels has been notably meager. In neither case it is just a matter of simple avarice, but rather reflects the operational incapacity of both governments. For more than a year, Washington has been content to allow others to funnel weapons and money, but with Assad's recent victories against the rebels, Obama was forced into action. The Saudi and Qatari rulers just do not have honest, efficient officials whom they can rely on to distribute money or weapons wisely. In the bad old days, the Saudis would just hand over sacks of $100 bills to Osama bin Laden, before he turned against them. Now, too, they would willingly hand over sacks of bank notes to a chief if there were one, but they simply cannot field officials on the ground who can choose between the great number of Syrian claimants, given U.S. injunctions not to arm the most extreme jihadists, including those who accept the "al-Nusra" label.

A much greater surprise is Turkey's all-round incapacity. Early on, with characteristic bombast, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan more or less ordered Assad to stop shooting and start talking. With 75 million inhabitants, a fast-growing economy, a million men under arms, and a 510-mile border with Syria, Turkey should have been the dominant power in the confrontation. But instead of being intimidated into surrender, or just moderation, the Assad regime publicly ridiculedErdogan and Turkish imperial pretensions, denounced Turkey's Islamist government as nothing more than Sunni fanatics, and then proceeded to shoot down a stray Turkish jet fighter before repeatedly sending artillery rounds into Turkish towns. The Turkish response to this insult and attack? Nothing. And that is what Turkey will do as an ally of the United States in Syria: nothing.

It turns out that the country's 15 million to 20 million Bektashis and other Alevis, long cruelly persecuted by Sunni rulers, oppose any action that would strengthen the Sunnis of Syria. In addition, there are also some 2 million Alawites along the border with Syria, mostly in Hatay, the piece of Syria annexed by Turkey in 1939, who vehemently support their compatriot Assad. Then there are the Kurds who predominate in the provinces along the border with Syria and automatically oppose any action by the Turkish armed forces they have so long resisted. On top of that, Turkey's ruling AKP Islamist party has used conspiracy charges, arising from the supposedly vastErgenekon plot, against dozens of very senior officers to immobilize the armed forces, which are guilty in the party's eyes of both defending secularism and menacing democracy. They have succeeded all too well, but this leaves Turkey as a non-power -- a richly ironic outcome given the solemn debates of recent years on whether Ankara is a regional power, a middle power, or a neo-Ottoman power as Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu kept claiming. The world has discovered that Turkey is not even a small power. The bottom line is that the United States will not only lack an ally in fighting Assad, but will also have to operate in a hostile environment, given the many people in Turkey who support the Syrian regime -- some of them ready and willing to attack any U.S. personnel they encounter, or at least help Assad's agents in trying to kill Americans.

Rule 2: Be prepared to do all the work.

Given these "allies," the United States will have to do the lifting -- and not just the heavy part. There should be no illusions now that anyone will be of much help, with the possible exception of whatever money can be extracted from Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

That, in turn, raises the issue of which Americans should do the dirty work of funneling weapons. Always bureaucratically adept, even if operationally incompetent in far too many cases, the CIA already has the Washington end of the action. But if weapons are to be supplied, it is essential to call on the only Americans who can tell the difference between Sunni bad guys who only want to oppress other Syrians and the really bad guys who happen to be waging their global jihad in Syria.

What's needed are true experts, people who really speak the region's Arabic: the regular U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers who successfully sponsored and then effectively controlled the Sunni tribal insurgents in Iraq whose "awakening" defeated the jihadists who were attacking U.S. troops. Some of them are already involved in supporting the rebels under Joint Special Operations Command, but if the mission were expanded it would be a good idea to call for volunteers from the reservists who did the same job in Iraq.

Rule 3: Don't give away anything that you would want to have back.

That includes expertise in identifying and handling any chemical weapons that might be encountered, as well as the supply of any portable anti-aircraft weapons. There are likely already a great number of them in Syria, some of them much more effective than the old 9K32 "Strela-2" or SAM-7 models that have already been used by terrorists against civilian aircraft. Whatever happens, the U.S. counterpart to these weapons -- the current version of the FIM-92 Stinger -- cannot be supplied, as it is even more lethal than the original that was used to such great success against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

Indeed, the Syrian government's use of aircraft for bombing rebel targets might have to be deterred by threats alone -- under-the-table threats, of course, given the impossibility of obtaining Russian or Chinese consent at the U.N. Security Council. Any U.S. intercepts of Syrian aircraft would amount to a drastic escalation, but Assad knows full well that American strike aircraft could reach Syrian airspace in minutes from nearby bases, including from the British staging facilities in Cyprus.

Rule 4: Do not invite an equal and opposite response by another great power.

The prospect of any such drastic escalation immediately brings us to Rule 4, which might as well be Rule 1, or Über 1: Nothing should be done, not even the supply of the smallest of small arms, without a serious, full-dress effort to find some understanding with Russia, for which Assad is not one ally among many, but arguably its only extant military ally. After being cheated over Libya, where a no-fly zone was illegally converted into a free-bombing zone, the Russians will want compensation in Syria if they cooperate at all, including a continuing if diminished role for Assad. That will not satisfy Sunni supremacists but should satisfy Washington, for which neither a rebel defeat nor a rebel victory constitutes a successful outcome. In exchange for the keeping of Assad, the Russians would have to secure the essential quid pro quo for Washington: a clean and final break with Iran and Hezbollah -- which, by the way, would satisfy the Saudis too, as well as Israel.

Rule 5: Lay some ground rules for the endgame.

The fifth and final rule reflects some more bitter experience: Whatever happens, but especially if the regime collapses, it is imperative to maintain a sharp distinction between the government that must be purged and the state that must be preserved. This includes institutions like the regular army and police, as well as the Ministry of Agriculture and other such agencies. Under the Assads, decades of nominally Baathist (but actually secular) rule favored the rise of Alawites, Christians, Druze, and Ismailis in the bureaucracy. If U.S. arms prove to be the factor that gives Sunni rebels victory, and if Sunnis fire them all, the Syrian state will disintegrate -- with all the disastrous consequences experienced in Iraq. Unpaid soldiers and police become bandits and insurgents; public services and utilities, including water and electricity, go to pot; chaos and sectarianism flourish. As it is, Syria after Assad is likely to fragment into ethnic ministates, but if its state apparatus is also dissolved, the ensuing anarchy will be especially miserable and uncontrollably violent, with plenty of evil consequences for all near and far. The last thing the Levant needs is another Somalia, or several of them. 

Putin Draws Red Line on Syria

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin can take credit for standing up to the G8 warmongers on Syria. Thanks to the feisty Russian leader’s political courage, an all-out war in Syria may have been averted - at least for now.

Only days ago, Western media were touting that Putin would be given a political drubbing at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland this week by the US, Britain and France - the three main NATO powers pushing for regime change in Syria.

The arrogance and spite awaiting Putin was summed up by Washington’s Canadian puppet prime minister, Stephen Harper, when he accused, through media channels, the Russian president of supporting “thugs in Syria”.

Harper said: “I don't think we should fool ourselves. This is G7 plus one. We in the West have a very different perspective on this situation. Mr Putin and his government are supporting the thugs of the Assad regime.”

When the conference opened, Putin didn’t waste time on a minion like Harper. He had bigger fish to fry. During the summit, Putin told Obama, Cameron and Hollande face-to-face that Russia was standing firm in its support for the government of President Bashar al Assad in Damascus. He warned that any plans by the Western powers to openly supply weapons to anti-government militants in Syria was against international law and would destabilize the region; and Putin refused to revoke a deal by Russia to deliver anti-aircraft defence missiles to Syria, pointing out that the transaction was a legal bilateral agreement between sovereign countries. 

In one fell swoop, Putin used the auspices of the annual G8 forum to debunk Western lies and propaganda on Syria and to reiterate the facts of international relations, namely, that Syria is a sovereign country with a sovereign government.

Earlier, British Prime Minister David Cameron, who hosted the two-day summit in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, was betting along with US President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande that the G8 meeting would cause Putin to wilt under their combined pressure.

Far from wilting, the Russian leader stood his ground and ended up tying his pusillanimous adversaries up in knots. Putin showed the courage of conviction; the others had the courage of conmen.

Last week, the Americans, British and French tried to pile the pressure on Putin with lurid claims that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons of mass destruction. Those claims were of course bogus, but they were aimed at creating a red line pretext for the NATO powers to openly begin sending weapons to their proxy mercenaries fighting in Syria to bring down Assad.

Washington duly followed last week with official approval for supplying weapons, at least in principle, just as the British and French had done in preceding weeks. The gang of three also mulled the setting up of “no-fly zones” on Syria’s southern flank over the border from Jordan. News that the Americans were leaving F-16 fighter jets, Osprey troop-carrying planes and Patriot missiles inside Jordan following recent war exercises may also be seen as a calculated threat of NATO intervention in Syria.

So, as the leaders of the G8 countries gathered in Northern Ireland at the start of this week, the pressure was on Putin to give ground on policy towards Russia’s ally, Syria. In particular, the objective of the US, Britain and France was to get the Russian leader to throw Syria’s Assad to the wolves.

The ousting of Assad has been the top foreign political priority of the Western regimes for more than two years. Under the cynical guise of supporting a “pro-democracy uprising”, Washington and the two former colonial powers have plunged Syria into a maelstrom of violence that has resulted in more than 90,000 deaths. The NATO brigands have in effect been holding a gun to the Syrian people’s head in a bid to enforce their criminal scheme of regime change.

Last weekend, former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas confirmed this criminal conspiracy. Dumas told French media how British officials had briefed him on a secret plan for sabotaging Syria - more than two years before conflict in that country flared up in March 2011.

We also know from the American neocon Project for a New American Century and separate disclosures by former US NATO General Wesley Clark that Washington was working on a similar pernicious plot against Syria more than 10 years ago.

The Russians fell for the NATO charade on Libya, with the much-vaunted “no-fly zone” and “responsibility to protect” turning into a murderous blitzkrieg to topple Muammar Gaddafi.

But Moscow seems now to have rumbled NATO’s rolling plan across the Middle East. Russia knows that this regime change is predicated on permanent war that won’t stop at Syria. It is an agenda for total domination across the oil- and gas-rich region that is also targeting Moscow’s other ally, Iran, and will eventually target Russia itself.

At the G8 meeting, British Prime Minister David Cameron did his best to sound consensual. “We have overcome our fundamental differences,” he said with fake tones of fraternity. Cameron was probably still wincing from the rhetorical slap in the face he received from Putin before the G8 summit began, when the Russian leader effectively accused Britain at a press conference in Downing Street of wanting to support organ-eaters and cannibals in Syria.

The G8 summit ended this week with a vaguely stated commitment to end the violence in Syria. That commitment is not worth the paper that it is written on given the underlying criminal intent of Washington, London and Paris. But, importantly, the final G8 communiqué had the glaring omission of calling for President Assad’s ouster. Officially, at least, that American, British and French demand has been given short shrift under G8 terms.

The Western regime-change plan in Syria - already suffering major military defeats on the ground - just received another blow from President Putin who defiantly resisted NATO pressure for betrayal.

Putin stood up to the NATO bullies, showed them to be non-entities, and he drew his own red line on Syria. His courage on display in Northern Ireland this week may just be enough to avert the all-out war that the Western imperialist states have been recklessly driving towards.