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Iran is on track to out-produce Qatar, the worldsbiggest LNG exporter, at the vast natural gas deposit they share in the Persian Gulf.Its officials want to gain market share and attract foreign capital, even as U.S. President Donald Trump ratchets up confrontational rhetoric against Iran. But as much as they might want, the Iranians wont have much gas to export because they are likely to use most of the new production themselves.

Almost nothing. Iran has 18.2 percent of proven gas reserves, ahead of Russia and Qatar, according tothe BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Unlike its competitors, which have built far-flung pipelines and liquefied natural gas plants to reach foreign buyers, Iran exported 8.4 billion cubic meters (300 billion cubic feet) in 2015 while importing 7.5 billion cubic meters the same year. Until recently, it was a net importer, buying or bartering for gas from Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan because its domestic distribution network doesnt supply the entire country. Iran exports less gas by pipeline than Myanmar or Kazakhstan, which together hold less than 1 percent of global reserves.

Half of it goes to warming homes, 21 percent to generating power and 18 percent for industrial use, including petrochemicals production, according to Cedigaz, an industry research group. Iran, withabout 80 million people, is the fourth-biggest market for natural gas, after the U.S., Russia and China. New production can barely keep up with demand. Gas consumption almost doubled to 191.2 billion cubic meters in 2015from 102.7 billion in 2005, according to BP statistics, while output rose over the same period to 192.5 billion cubic metersfrom 102.3 billion.

Iranplans this year to start sending gas by pipeline to Baghdad in neighboring Iraq, a step that would make it the 15th-biggest exporter, up seven spots from its current rank. But Iraq is planning its own pipeline to export gas to Kuwait and may not prove to be a long-term customer. Irans development of LNG plants stalled for years due to international sanctions, and such facilities arent a priority given the impending glut of liquefied gas.

The country is considering pipelines to Oman, Pakistan and other countries, though cross-border links are scarce in the turbulent region.Floating LNG plants, a temporary fix until permanent facilities for liquefying gas can be built, are also an option. Ali Amirani, marketing director at the National Iranian Gas Export Co., concedes that the nation will consume most of its gas until at least 2024.

By March 2018, Irans outputat the giant South Pars gas field in the Gulf will have surpassed Qatars production at the connected North Field,Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on March 7.Additional development phases at South Pars should give Iran more room for exports in the future. For now, Irans motivation for producing more gas is to re-inject it underground into crude reservoirs, especially into some of the shared oil fields with Iraq. The other incentive is to supply the domestic market, Stephen Fullerton, a research associate at consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd., said in a January interview.

Gas re-injection, which isnt considered part of marketed consumption, can increase the production and recoverable reserves of oil. The entire output from one South Pars phase went into Iranian oil fields, Fullerton said. They have huge demand for that, especially with the ramp-up of new projects for oil, he said.

For more on Irans natural gas export plans, click here.

Exactly. Iran is seeking to attract $100 billion of foreign investment into its energy industry. To boost crude output, it needs gas -- much more gas than its currently injecting. Iran required 93 billion cubic meters of gas for re-injection in 2014 but could only allocate 32 billion, according to Cedigaz. Gas used for oil production,together with domestic consumption of the fuel, is sapping volumes available for export.

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Qatar has placed a moratorium on new drilling in the North Field since 2005, and its international expansion signals a plan to preserve domestic reserves for as long as possible.The North Field-South Pars reservoir has enough gas for both countries to exploit, according to Wood Mackenzies Fullerton. Even though science shows few risks to the field from shared production, a perception that Qatar has already extracted at least twice as much gas as Iran may cause tensions, Jean-Francois Seznec, a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, wrote in an August study.

Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar Petroleums chief executive officer, denied that his company halted drilling to allay Iranian concerns. Irans development of South Pars has nothing to do with what we do with the moratorium, he told reporters in February. It never did and never will.

Read more from the original source:
Why Trump Doesn't Have to Do Anything to Stop Iran's Gas Plans - Bloomberg

Do you know about the Iranian Feast of NowRuz? Its the Persian New Year, and falls on March 21. Now means new and ruz means day, so NowRuz means new day. Here we know it as the vernal equinox and the start of springtime. In Iran, its also a pre-Muslim holy day for Zoroastrians, a day when Iranian families visit each other and talk about what they hope to see in the new year.

It would be a good opportunity for President Trump to mark a new day in US-Iran relations one that corrects his predecessors poor treatment of the Iranian people.

March 21, 2017, will be the 38th NowRuz since the 1979 fall of the shah and the Khomeinist revolution. How cruel the promise of a happy new year must have seemed during all those years!

Have you seen photos from pre-Khomeini Iran? Theyre heartbreaking. They show women fashionably dressed in the city or in bathing suits at the beach, boys and girls together on the sidewalks of Tehran.

Iranians who conducted themselves like that today would be busted by the countrys morality police. Theyre everywhere. Some of its members are simply volunteer busybodies, some are looking for the perks the regime has to offer college slots for their kids, government jobs, bank loans. At NowRuz theyll be out in force, to police those doffing winter coats to greet the sun.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has criticized the morality police but hasnt reined them in. Last year at this time, the regime announced that an additional 7,000 undercover officers would patrol the streets to arrest women who had too much hair showing from under a headscarf or were out walking with a boyfriend.

For criticizing the morality police, Rouhani was slapped down by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man the morality police answer to, and thats put Rouhani on the defensive. Hes up for re-election on May 19, and its by no means a sure thing. He is opposed by several hardliners, and in any event the possibility of real liberalization is constrained by the real powers in Iran: the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Thats why change will come to Iran, if at all, from the streets, from an Iranian Spring. And the Iranians who want to rid their country of its oppressive regime must be told that America shares their goals. Unlike the Arab Spring movements in Egypt and Libya, an Iranian Spring would replace an implacable foe of the United States with a more liberal and pro-Western government.

Elsewhere, Arab Spring movements replaced friendly governments in Egypt, or defanged ones in Libya, with the anti-American Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Islamic jihadists who killed our ambassador to Libya. Those were the kinds of uprisings President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton supported.

That was American foreign policy over the last eight years. For our friends betrayal. For our enemies submission.

What Obama and Hillary didnt support were the street protests in Tehran after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2009. Tens of thousands of people marched down the streets of Tehran shouting Down with dictatorship! while fighting running battles with the Revolutionary Guards. Obamas response was a tepid statement that its up to Iranians to make decisions about who Irans leaders will be, and that we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran.

By contrast, an Obama spokesman supported the Tahrir Square protesters in Egypt even before the Mubarak government fell.

Its time to show our solidarity with the people of Iran. With Obama in office, we sided with one of the worlds greatest human-rights abusers, but they no longer have a friend in the White House.

I have a suggestion for Trump. After we ignored the street protests against the Iranian dictatorship, after we cut our disastrous Iran deal, after we abandoned Israel to the threat of medium-range missiles from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, after American hostages were allowed to rot in Iranian jails, let the president welcome NowRuz with a message to the Iranian people.

Let him wish them a happy and prosperous new year, and the freedom that all men deserve from their cruel oppressors.

F.H. Buckley teaches at Scalia Law School. His most recent book was The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America.

Read more:
Show Iran's oppressed people they have a friend in the White House - New York Post

Iran is home to one of the oldest civilisations on Earth, where turquoise-domed mosques, glittering palaces, and the tombs of long gone poets reveal the mysteries and intrigues of the ancients. Yet beneath the footprints of man lies an even lesser known, wilder Iran, brimming with remarkable geologic formations, ancient forests, and overgrown monuments that nature has reclaimed as its own.

In the northern Mazandaran Province, a striking panorama of rust-colored travertine terraces cuts across the mountains. The stepped, limestone formations were created over thousands of years by the flowing and cooling of water from two mineral hot springs. While travertine terraces are found in other placeslike Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone and Pamukkale in TurkeyBadab-e Surts distinctive colouring results from a high concentration of iron oxide sediments. Not only does it make for dreamy views, but one of the springs is thought to have healing properties due to its high salinity and mineral content.

Hikers descendMount Damavand, the highest peak in the Middle East. PHOTOGRAPH BY DIETMAR DENGER, LAIF/REDUX

Sixty-five kilometres northeast of Tehran, Mount?Damavands iconic ivory-frosted cone soars 5,671 meters into the clouds, claiming the title highest peak in the Middle East. Located in the Alborz mountain range, the 1.8 million-year-old dormant volcano is literally a thing of legends, immortalised in ancient Persian folklore and poetry. Climbers can take one of 16 major routes up Damavand in two to five days, navigating its rocky terrain, mineral hot springs, and rich flora and fauna. Mount Damavand was nominated for World Heritage status in 2008 and remains on Iran's Tentative List.

A rock formation rises from the desert floor in Dasht-e Lut, Iran. PHOTOGRAPH BY JAKOB FISCHER, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

In south-east Iran, the shifting sands of Lut Desert forge a living work of art. Between June and October, subtropical tempests sweep over the landscape, creating aeolian formscorrugated ridges caused by wind erosion. The same phenomenon has also been observed on other planets like Mars, giving it an otherworldly quality. In 2016, Dasht-e Lut was inscribed as Irans first and only natural UNESCO World Heritage site for being an exceptional example of ongoing geological processes. Its also one of the hottest places on Earth, according to NASA. In 2005, it reached a record temperature of 159.3F (70.7C), beating out the previous record held by El Azizia, Libya.

Certain climatic conditions produce a type of algae that periodically turns Lake Urmia bright red. PHOTOGRAPH BY FRIEDRICHSMEIER, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Nestled in the Iranian territory between East and West Azerbaijan, Lake Urmia was once the largest saltwater lake in the Middle East. Over the past 45 years, the lake has shrunk at an alarming speed due to decreased rainfall, agriculture, and irresponsible environmental practicesit now holds less than 10 percent of its original volume, an issue that has prompted thousands of Iranian protestors to take to the streets in recent years. What remains of Urmias salt-caked shores continues to increase in salinity as more water evaporates, promoting a breeding ground for a specific type of algae that periodically turns the emerald lake bright red.

The verdant hills of Turkmen Sahra in Golestan Province, Iran PHOTOGRAPH BY ALI MAJDFAR, GETTY IMAGES

Bordering Turkmenistan and the Caspian Sea, an endless tableau of rolling green hills announces Turkmen Sahra, a region of Golestan Province inhabited by seminomadic Iranian Turkmen. Notable landmarks are the Khalid Nabi cemetery, known for hundreds of mysterious genitalia-shaped tombstones, and Gonbad-e Qabus, an 11th-century Ziyriad tower and UNESCO World Heritage site. The structure is considered a testament of cross-cultural exchange, and an outstanding example of early Islamic innovative structural design based on geometric formulae that became a prototype for tomb towers across Iran, Anatolia, and Central Asia.

Qeshm's salt caves are among the world's longest. PHOTOGRAPH BY ARV, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Off the southern coast of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, Bandari villages, monumental forts, and ancient shrines dot the rocky coastline of Qeshm, whispering of a long, storied past. The significance of the islandthe largest in the Persian Gulfdates back to the pre-Islamic era, when it was a strategic trade and navigation centre, and consequently a frequent target for invaders. Today the islanders are primarily fisherman, salt miners, and date and melon farmers. The biodiverse isle is also home to salt caves, mangroves, coral reefs, turtle hatching sites, and the Hara forestsfeatures that earned its place as Irans first UNESCO Geopark.

Margoon Waterfallmeaning snake-likesurges through Iran's Fars province. PHOTOGRAPH BY ALI MAJDFAR, GETTY IMAGES

Shiraz will forever be the birth and resting place of Irans most beloved poet, Hafez, but just an hour west, the 60-meter Margoon Waterfall surges through the north-west Fars province. True to its namewhich translates to snake-like in Persianwater streams down its slopes in a serpentine fashion. The region is also home to several plant communities and wildlife, including eagles, bears, hyenas, and boars. Scientists have warned that unregulated tourism has led to the erosion of these ecosystems, and called for increased protections.

Header Image:The rising sun illuminates the stacked terraces of Badab-e Surt, Iran.PHOTOGRAPH BY JAKOB FISCHER, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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Iran's Most Wild and Beautiful Places - National Geographic Australia

If the Trump administration is serious about taking on Iran in the Middle East it must transform its strategy in Syria for fighting the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS). Our current strategy will only continue to strengthen Tehrans grip on the region.

The US needs a new approach that gives it the independence and leverage it needs to begin pushing back successfully.

It wont be easy. The strategy the administration inherited from President Obama sees Iran as a partner in the fight. The U.S. has therefore done nothing to contain the dramatic and alarming Iranian expansion of military power in Syria.

Yet the expansion was avoidable.

Tehran had used Syria as a base for Lebanese Hezbollah, HAMAS, and its own subversive activities for decades at no cost. The 2011 uprising against Syrian President Bashar al Assad was a blow to its position. Therefore Iran rushed to support Assad, sending in special Qods Force operatives, then advisors from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

As the revolt against Assad deepened, Tehran added thousands of fighters from Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqs Shia militias. Conventional combat forces of the IRGC joined in when a Russian air campaign in support of Assad started in late 2015.

Today, Iran commands tens of thousands more fighters in Syria than it did before the Arab Spring uprising. It has established its own military headquarters and embedded troops and advisors so deeply in the Assad regime that it cannot survive without them.

President Obama not only saw Iran as an ally against ISIS, but also feared that weakening Assad would hand Syria over to ISIS and al Qaeda. Washingtons single-minded focus on ISIS enabled the expansion of Irans military footprint and will continue to do so.

The U.S. fear was unfounded in 2011 and 2012, when secular forces dominated the opposition to Assad. Obamas failure to support the opposition at that time was an enormous missed opportunity.

But now, Al Qaeda has thoroughly co-opted the opposition. Current American strategy, with its anti-ISIS focus, has thus trapped us in a dilemma. Defeating ISIS in the current situation will leave Iran permanently entrenched in Syria and the U.S. will have no partner on the ground it can use to weaken Irans position.

This dilemma requires a counter-intuitive solution, which we have outlined in a report, Americas Way Ahead in Syria.

The U.S. must reframe its strategy away from the rush to retake territory from ISIS and toward building a new Sunni Arab partner force that can fight Al Qaeda as well as ISISand that we can ultimately support against the Iranian presence in Syria and the Assad regime.

We will not find such a force in northern Syria, where our current military efforts are concentrated.

The neighboring Turkish government has helped its proxies, heavily infiltrated and partly controlled by Al Qaeda, to dominate the opposition in the north, especially after the fall of Aleppo destroyed the last remaining acceptable opposition forces there.

The U.S. currently relies on minority Kurdish forces in Syria. They cannot form the nucleus of a Sunni Arab opposition movement even though they have brought some Sunni into their campaign.

The problem is not primarily ethnicArab vs. Kurdbut rather political. The Kurdish objective of carving out an autonomous or independent Kurdish zone, thereby precipitating the partitioning of Syria, alienates the overwhelming majority of Syrias Arabs. We will not be able to build an Arab partner in Syria on the basis of that political program.

The U.S. must therefore shift the focus of its efforts to southeastern Syria, where neither the Kurds nor Al Qaeda have yet coopted Sunni tribes. We must send troops to fight alongside the tribes, first against ISIS, then ultimately against Al Qaeda, Assad, and the Iranians.

Only then will we escape the dilemma that paralyzes usthe fear that weakening Iran and Assad will hand Al Qaeda or ISIS the victory.

Weve tried the hands-off, no-boots-on-the-ground approach for six years, and it has brought us to this unacceptable dilemma.

This is no call for a 2003-style invasion of Syria. The U.S. must work primarily through local partners. But we must choose the right partners, not the most expedient ones.

In the current situation, when no good partners exist, we must help create them.

Kimberly Kagan is the president of the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, D.C,-based think tank

Frederick W. Kagan is the Christopher DeMuth Scholar and the director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute.

Read more here:
It's time for the US to quit enabling Iran in Syria - Fox News

A current senior official at the State Department was a key component of President Obamas operation to sell the Iran nuclear deal to the American people under false pretenses. Chris Backemeyer, who serves as deputy assistant secretary for Iranian affairs under Sec. Rex Tillerson, was intimately involved in convincing public and private agencies of the Iran deals supposed merits.

As part of his duties under Obama, Backemeyer as the U.S.principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy traveled throughout the country (and the world) hoping to convince multinational corporations to do business with the theocratic Iranian regime. Moreover, he was the lead sanctions negotiator in the P5+1 talks that resulted in the disastrous Iran deal.

Right now, Backemeyer is the highest-ranking official at the State Department when it comes to Iran policy.

Backemeyer reassured mega-companies such as Boeing that investing in Iran was a safe bet, while at the same time the Iranian regime was exporting its caliphatist ideology across the globe. Iran is the worlds foremost state-sponsor of international terrorism. The dictatorship in Tehran funds and aids several terrorist groups throughout the Middle East and the world at large.

The Iran deal was a windfall for Tehran. As part of the deal, Iran received an estimated $100-plus billion in assets for agreeing to stop its rapid nuclear development. But that hasnt quite worked out. In fact, the Iran deal gives Tehran an accelerated path to a nuclear weapon. In the end, Chris Backemeyer helped charter a deal that served as a lifeline to a regime that was in dire straits due to a flailing economy (further compounded by international sanctions).

Last year, it was revealed that President Obama paid a $1.7 billion ransom to Iran for the release of American hostages. Testifying before Congress on the matter, Backemeyer misled the American people, claiming that the money would go to serve the critical needs that Iran has had. Instead, some of the cash was handed over to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the group responsible for conducting Irans worldwide terrorist operations.

Last year, the State Department official spoke at an annual confab hosted by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a group that many Iranian dissidents consider to be a front group for Tehran. NIAC, with its deep ties to the regime, consistently pans skeptics of the deal as warmongers.

Looking forward to joining @NIACouncil today to provide update on @TheIranDeal and discuss US policy toward Iran. #NIAC2016

Chris Backemeyer (@chrisbackemeyer) September 25, 2016

The group is known for its attacks on Jewish leaders and pro-Israel institutions. In 2015, NIAC published an arguably anti-Semitic advertisement in The New York Times, alleging that supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are disloyal to America. In a recent op-ed, NIACs leadership alleged that a group of Jewish leaders are responsible for an apparent anti-Iranian climate in America.

Backemeyer is far from the only prominent Obama-era official to maintain his position at the highest echelons of the State Department.

Michael Ratney, who is currently in charge of the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio at the State Department, was one of John Kerrys closest confidants in the former secretary of states demonization campaign against Israel.

Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, who was another driving force for Obamas Iran deal, is currently in charge of Iran and the Persian Gulf on Secretary Tilllersons policy planning staff.

Why Rex Tillerson continues to allow for so many Obama loyalists to retain their posts in the State Department remains a mystery.

Jordan Schachtel is the national security correspondent for CR. Follow him on Twitter @JordanSchachtel

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The top Iran official at the State Department is an Obama loyalist who sold Iran deal lies - Conservative Review