Internationale Konferenz 2012 | Schiller-Institut

A recurring problem I face in talking about our programs to people in South West Asia, which I have done for more than 18 years, is that they say how can you come up with an economic proposal to someone who is being shot at by a fire squad. And they have been wrong in every case they present this kind of image. The reason is that they did not listen and implement these programs earlier on when presented to them, long before the death squad came. Otherwise, many people argue that it was not up to them to decide because the world is run by the big powers and not by these smaller nations. That can be discussed, but there should be no excuses. If our American friends impeach Obama and our friends in England put Tony Blair in Prison, we would have a much fresher environment to discuss these things. And can somebody, please, tell Frau Merkel to wake up, because it is soon 2013.

Human nature is not about fighting, competing, and seeking vengeance. Human existence is about implementing our creative powers to change the universe around us. You don't have to necessarily be a physicist or astronaut to change the universe around you. You could be a farmer, a teacher or iron smith who finds joy in applying his creativity and passion to his area of work.

“The fact that neither technology nor reaching beyond Earth is exactly new, but natural growth options exercised before, puts the human reality of our time into perspective. The reality has two anchor points: (1) That the chlorophyll molecule and the human brain are the only true superpowers on this planet. They must find a way to coexist, and, not being intrinsically incompatible, they can. (2) That humanity does not live as a mankind but is "organized" as an aggregate of some 140 nations. Most of these nations strive to improve their standard of life or safeguard social standards achieved and extend them to the less advantaged. Without the means to grow--and, like it or not, these means include material resources and the ability to process them--general stagnation will create a shrinking-water-droplet world in which competition for growth turns into a grim struggle for survival.”
Dr. Krafft A. Ehricke, The Extraterrestrial Imperative

The purpose of governments and political leaders is to secure the environment within which these individuals can practice their creativity. Our job as citizens and political activists is to kick those elected politicians and governments in the back to do their job.

We can also give them some useful suggestions about what needs to be done. Which we are going to do here. The research and compiling of this material here was done by a team from EIR: Dean Andromidas, Ali Sharaf, Marcia Mary Baker, and myself. Animations are made by Chance Macgee from the LaRouche Action Committee's Basement team.
The perspective from which to act against this geopolitical madness, involves conceptualizing what should instead be going on here in this region, from the highest-level perspective of the “Strategic Defense of the Earth”—true development of mankind and the universe they inhabit!
· We will consider this in terms of three main principles—1) upgrading the resource base, in particular water, by organizing what is present to higher levels, 2) and by making new "natural" resources; and by upgrading the power per unit area, and 3) through the productive platform (agro-industry; transportation; social advance, etc.) These principles are those of LaRouche’s famous "Oasis Plan" approach to the entire region. They are embodied in his 1974 Intl Dev Bank presentation in Baghdad; and in subsequent iterations. In many cases, specific project proposals, which have a role in the "Oasis Plan" implementation, have pre-existed and been thwarted for decades.

We start with the larger picture.

In the past two decades, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Lyndon LaRouche and their associates in the International Schiller Institute and Executive Intelligence Review have developed the idea of Eurasian Landbridge and World Bridge making it a key concept even within economic and strategic planning of many nations. LaRouche has raised the urgency of replacing the IMF's financial system with a new Bretton Woods, and build great transcontinental infrastructure projects for pulling the world economy from the precipice. The lines represent NOT SIMPLY EXISTING RAILWAYS, but are development corridors that include railways, water canals, oil and gas pipelines, roads and new agro-indusrial and urban centers.

-World Deserts: description

When you look at the map of the World Landbridge, what will strike you when you look at the landscape of this region is the vast desert regions stretching almost continuously from the Atlantic coast of North Africa through the Arabian peninsula and all the way to western China. The size of that transcontinental stretch of desert is about 13 million square kilometers. In general, those regions are considered deserts that receive an average annual rainfall of 250 mm or less. The semi-desert or semi-arid areas, are those that are between 250 and 500 mm of annual rainfall. Map 2, the shaded area covers the deserts and semi-deserts, i.e. regions where the annual rainfall is 500 mm or less. Many parts of the great deserts get less than that and sometimes no rainfall at all. he major deserts of the world are located within these regions. The world's largest desert, the Sahara Desert covers about 9.1 million km². The second largest (3.7 million km²), is actually a series of deserts in China and Central Asia (the Gobi and the Taklamakan and others), which are cold deserts. The third is Arabian Desert with 2.3 million km².

Now consider the relationship between the deserts and the development corridors World Land-Bridge. The first thing to note is that when talking about developing the deserts, we are proposing the most difficult task of planetary development. But this challenge will help us develop technologies for dealing with and developing life in harsh climates and even on other planets such as Mars.

- Sand storms/ a different war: War on the desert:

If you follow the satellite images of how a sandstorm or dust storm originates, develops, and moves, in the region of Southwest Asia or so-called Middle East, you will find out that it all starts in the border region between Iran and Syria.

These Images were taken by a combination of NASA and EAS satellites in March 2011.

Now, sending jihadist terrorist from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to kill civilians and policemen in Iraq and Syria would not solve this problem. I assure you!

What we need here is a new type of war. A war on the desert! I hope environmentalists won't attack me for saying this. The war on the desert has to start at different fronts simultaneously. All potential technologies, human knowledge and efforts have to be invested in it, exactly as in any real war. The goal of these projects is to spread vegetation and allowing chlorophyll to do its magic work to create new potentials for life, altering the dry climate to a milder and more moist one, allowing more precipitation through which a self-sustaining water cycle can be created. Civilization can once again return to these areas which were Gardens of Eden at the end of the latest ice age.

The Fertile Crescent/

This area in green is called the FERTILE CRESCENT for obvious reasons. However, it is not so fertile any more, due to wars, sanctions and lack of development. What is required is regional and international cooperation to wage this war on the desert, and create new manmade “natural” resources of land and water. This involves greenbelts, trees and vegetation selection, advanced agronomy and animal husbandry, and especially space-era science and capabilities. Instead of the natural boundaries delineating the Fertile Crescent , a new full moon of productive activity can be established where once was desert!

First consider, pushing back the sands.

In the past decades, green belts have been planned for eastern Syria, western Iraq and parts of eastern Jordan. Row after row, kilometer after kilometer, you can push the desert back and surround it, like you do when you corner a tiger. In Iraq for example, a plan to create a green belt in the west of the country was laid out decades ago. It is as old as I am. I remember when I was a little school kid, that this thing fascinated me when I heard about it. But it was never realized... yet! Due to the series of geopolitical war and destruction of Iraq's infrastructure and agriculture, these plans were never implemented. Furthermore, the degradation of the soil and land has expanded the arid areas. However, now there are active operations, although limited in scope, to return to this idea. Iraq and Iran signed an agreement in 2010 to invest about US$ 2.1 billion in projects to create green belts in the southwestern part of Iraq, especially in the region of the religious cities of Karbala and Najaf, which are frequently hit by sand and dust storms.

In Karbala, south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad , a project was launched in 2006 aimed at fighting worsening desertification in the region. A green belt was established of a 27-kilometre crescent, lined with thousands of young trees in orderly patterns, irrigated by dozens of wells. The area is now the front line of Karbala's battle against increasingly frequent sandstorms and salinization of the soil. The project has involved the planting of 62,000 olive trees, 20,500 palm trees, 37,000 eucalyptus trees, and 4,200 tamarind trees, all of which were chosen for their root strength as well as for the food and wood they will eventually produce. The Iraqi Agricultural Ministry has established a special agency for dealing with desertification.

{From the Quran: Al-Kahf Soura (The Cave) verses 32-35: And present to them an example of two men: We granted to one of them two gardens of grapevines, and We bordered them with palm trees and placed between them fields of crops. Each of the two gardens produced its fruit and did not fall short thereof in anything. And We caused to gush forth within them a river.}

CHINA. The Tarim Desert Highway, which runs 552km from north to south across the Taklamakan Desert, in Xinjiang, has an extensive irrigation network, which was laid down to sustain this artificial ecosystem, utilizing pumped water from underground reservoirs, which is then distributed throughout. The water has a high salt content. Nevertheless, , this greenbelt has successfully taken root, because the types of vegetation utilized in the project is of special salt-resisting character developed for this specific region.

EGYPTIAN PLAN BY GERMAN-EGYPTIAN SCIENTIST HANY EL-KATEB FROM THE MUNICH TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY USING WASTE WATER.

WE WILL COME BACK TO THE AGRICULTURAL TECHNIQUES REQUIRED!

There are lessons to be learnt from greenbelt projects underway in different parts of Africa and Asia to deter the expanding desert. They are small steps, which attempt to deal with the problem locally, in spite of the fact that the problem is continental and planetary. However, these examples can give an image of what needs to be generalized.
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NOW The obvious question any thinking person would ask is, of course, where would all the water come from to back this massive war on the desert.

WATER

- Back to world deserts: Divided by different water sheds (will be important later in discussing the ground water too)

WATER SOURCES:

There are three categories of water source under consideration here, which are available or can be made available both in the short immediate term and long term. Of course, the other ultimate source is to allow the natural hydrological cycle to take a life of its own. But, mother Nature who is always pregnant needs a midwife to make it deliver. We humans are, as Socrates would love to hear, the midwives of Mother Earth.

FIRST CATEGORY A- NAWAPA-like water diversions:

1. Arctic Sib-Aral canal/
2. Arctic Pechora-Kama-Volga River and Caspian Sea.
3. Extension to Iran (Iran Rood)
4. MOVE TO AFRICA 4. Transaqua/Chad Lake and
5. Africa Pass/African Great Lakes to Qattara in Egypt trough South and North Sudan
6. Turkish Gap and Peace Pipeline

1- SIB-Aral: One of the largest water diversion projects in Eurasia, besides what the Chinese are doing, is diversion of water to the Aral Sea region from the Ob river, which flows into the Arctic Kara Sea, and the Irtysh river, by creating a huge reservoir through the construction of a dam where the two rivers meet at Khanty Mansivsk. The water would then be channeled via a 2,550 kilometer canal, and lifted a total of 100 meters through a system of six pumps into the Aral sea. This had been dubbed the Sib-Aral canal. This would have taken about 7 percent of the discharge of the two rivers which in the first phase would have transferred 27 km³ of water along a line Kurgan- Turgay Irgiz and then pass on the eastern side of the Aral Sea to first cross the Syr Darya river in Kazakhstan which flows into the Aral from the east of the sea and then on south to cross the Amu Darya river in Uzbekistan which also flows into the Aral from the Sea’s southern coast. In the second phase it would transfer 60 km³ through increased pumping and increasing the dimensions of the canal to a width of 100 meters and a depth of 15 meters so as to be capable of carrying larger ships.

2- Another major water diversion project on the west side of the Ural divide is to divert water from the Pechora river which flows into the Arctic Ocean, into the Volga via the latter’s tributary, the Kama. This was first developed in the context of the "Reconstruction of the Volga and Its Basin" plan of 1933. The purpose was to transfer an additional 19 km³ of water to the Caspian. The project would not only increase the water flow but maintain and control water levels throughout the river basin. An increase in the water availability would not only benefit Russia most important grain producing regions but could be channeled, through building canals or water carriers from the lower Volga along the western coast of the Caspian into the Caucuses.

We move on to Iran and the Persian gulf

Rather than making the terminus of the canal the Caspian sea, a water carrier in the form of a large diameter underground pipe four or five meters in diameter could draw water from the Turkmen Canal down into Iran’s highly fertile Caspian coastal regions which at this point are suffering a serious water shortage. This could be a more attractive option then desalinating Caspian Sea water since the region all along the water carrier would have access to the water. The water could be pumped over and through the Elburz mountains into central Iran.

Water could even be piped into the region of the Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut, two of the driest and hottest of desert regions on the planet. The Iranian government in April of 2012 initiated a project to establish a desalination plant with a capacity of 200 million cubic meters a day along the coast of Caspian to eventually channel desalinated water through a pipeline hundreds of kilometres in length to the cities of the provinces of Simnan, Yazd, and Kerman. The project would include hydro power plants, pumping stations, electricity transmission lines and reservoirs. In inaugurating the project Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that in recent years droughts have intensified creating fears that the forests could disappear within 50 years. He also said that Iran is cooperating on plans with Tajikistan to build a canal/pipeline from the latter to Iran’s Khorasan province through the full east-west length of Afghanistan from through Heart and on the Iranian border, to bring water into this region. This could create significant development corridor from Herat, near the Iranian border where Iran is building a rail line linking it to the Iranian network through Kabul and to Tajikistan.

There are two other proposed water canal projects aimed at linking the Caspian with the Indian Ocean. One of them is in the northwestern region of Iran. According to unconfirmed and confused press reports the Iranian government wants to build a navigable waterway between the Caspian and the Persian Gulf. The idea is not new but was first developed in the 1970s. Under the Presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani, a feasibility study was commission. The project would link the Sefid-Rud (White River), which flows into the Caspian Sea. It is Iran’s second largest river. It cuts a water gap through the Alborz Mountains, the Manjil Gap. It is presumed that the project would link this river with the Karkheh and then the Karun River, which flows into the Gulf and is Iran’s only navigable river. All these rivers, which are the three largest in Iran, have gone under some form of development with major dam and hydro electric projects having be built or in the planning stage.
Another celebrated project would link the Caspian directly with the Indian Ocean through the construction of a canal along a north-south line from Turkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea through the Iranian city of Gorgan, across the Dasht-e Kavir desert through the city of Tabas on through the Dasht-e Lut desert and terminating at Chabahar Bay on the Indian Ocean.

The proposal, popularly called Iran Rood (The Iran River) calls for turning the two desert depressions into huge salt water lakes on the assumption that they could moderate the climate. This would even impact the climate further east in Afghanistan. With water desalination plants placed at different locations of these lakes and the canals connecting them, new agricultural land would be reclaimed and the impact on the climate and precipitation levels would increase positively both in the Iranian east and Afghanistan. The project would not only have to overcome the fact that the Caspian Sea is 28 meters below sea level, but would have to pas through a mountain range. It would be an ambitious project indeed.

Iran and Afghanistan, two countries that were tragically affected by more than 200 years of the British Empires geopolitics and imperialism, were ironically a key part of American President Franklin D. Roosevelt's plans for a post-WWII world free from imperialism and a world of sovereign nation states. He chose Iran and later Afghanistan as two countries which the U.S. intended to help to become examples of how formerly victim nations of colonialism can stand on their own feet and prosper with methods of development used in the U.S. itself under FDR's presidencies. President Roosevelt's sent his personal representative, Gen. Patrick J. Hurley, to that region in 1943-44. At FDR's instruction, Hurley drafted the "Declaration Regarding Iran" during the Teheran Conference in late 1943. The declaration guaranteed the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Iran, and promised assistance in dealing with the postwar economic situation. FDR instructed Gen Hurley to draft a program for the economic development of Iran. Hurley's report to Roosevelt included the following provisions: "Inauguration in Iran of the American pattern of self-government and free enterprise will be an assurance that [the] proceeds from development of Iranian resources will be directed substantially to the building of schools, hospitals, sanitary systems, irrigation systems, and improvement of all facilities contributing to the health, happiness and general welfare of the Iranian people. This plan of nation building may be improved through our experience in Iran and may become the criterion for the relations of the United States toward all nations which are now suffering from the evils of greedy minorities, monopolies, aggression, and imperialism."

5. TURKEY'S GAP

One of the most ambitious water infrastructure projects in the region has been under way in the last two decades. It is called the South Eastern Anatolian Project (in Turkish abbreviation GAP). The GAP is modeled on the famous Tennessee Valley Authority. Begun over 20 years ago, the GAP envisions 22 dams, to provide 7.4 GW of electricity, water management, irrigation, and flood control. Located in southeastern Turkey, the project covers 10% of the country's land area, and 20% of its arable land. The project includes the development of infrastructure of all types required for integrating the entire region, including transportation, power, tunnels, canals, etc. The project area covers 75,000 square km and 9 provinces in the Euphrates - Tigris basins and south eastern plains (Adiyaman, Batman, Diyarbakir, Gaziantep, Kilis, Mardin, Siirt, Sanliurfa and Sirnak). According to Turkish government estimates, when the projects are completed, 1.7 million hectares of land will be effectively irrigated. Around 20 % of total irrigable land in the country is in this region and the region represents 28 % of Turkey's total hydraulic potential.

ATATURK DAM

ON THE EUPHRATES NORTH OF THE SYRIAN BORDER. The center-piece of the GAP is the 85 million-cubic-meter rock and earth-fill Ataturk Dam, one of the largest of its type in the world. It was completed in 1992. The dam embankment is 169 m high and 1,820 m long. The hydroelectric power plant has a total installed power capacity of 2,400 MW. The reservoir Lake Ataturk Dam, extending over an area of 817 km² has a water volume of 49 km³, an amount comparable to a whole year's flow of the Nile River when it enters Egypt. This is just to give you a sense of the magnitudes involved here.

PEACE PIPELINE

Peace Pipelines and FDR

One of the interesting projects which was suggested in the 1980 by the Turkish government of th time and gained more steam at the start of the Arab-Israeli peace process and the Oslo Peace Accords of 1993 (which is now practically dead and buried under Israeli bombardment waves of Palestinian territories) was the Turkish Peace Pipeline. That project which never left the drawing board to reality and ignored by the United States and Europe, envisaged the moving of water from Turkey to Israel, Palestine and further to Jordan and the Arabian Desert states in the Gulf region.

Water from Seyhan and Ceyhan Rivers, both flowing into the Mediterranean sea in Adana, not affecting the Tigris and Euphrates water flow, would be moved through two separate pipelines, one to the west of the Arabian Peninsula through Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine and Saudi Arabia and one on the east through Syria, Iraq to Kuwait and the other gulf states. The pipelines, with a length of 2,700 km and 3,900 km respectively, could carry 16 million cubic meter of water a day.

This project is similar to Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration's "the four quarters" plan reagarding the Colorado river The Hoover Dam, which was completed in 1935, was at the time the world's largest and allowed agriculture to thrive throughout Southern California, including the Imperial Valley, thanks to the large amount of water brought from the Colorado River to the region by the All American Canal. The Imperial Valley before the construction of these works was part of the Great American Desert. It is a good example for what can be done in Southwest Asia through water transfer.

B- SECOND WATER SOURCE
SEA WATER DESALINATION:

2. SECOND SOURCE: WATER DESALINATION

One thing has become totally clear for the governments of the Gulf and other dry regions in the world, that the best solution to secure water for drinking, other urban usage and in industries is the desalination of sea water. Obviously large steps have been taken by the countries in the region to build conventional desalination plants on a large scale investing heavily in the combined water desalination/power generation process with the use of fossil fuels such as natural gas and oil.

More than two thirds of the world's production of fresh water by desalination occurs in the region. Saudi Arabia alone produce 25 million cubic meter of water per day, which is estimated to be one half of the world's total. The UAE produces around 3 million cubic meters per day. The largest desalination plants are located on the Gulf, near the locations of oil and gas production and petrochemical industries such as by the industrial city of Jubail. The plant at Jubail has a capacity of 950 million c/m per day.

However, these countries will have to more than double that amount of desalinated water in the next decade and triple it in the decade beyond. Water consumption will rise from 8 billion cubic meters in 2012 to about 11 billion cubic meters in 2016. Massive investments are already projected in this area.

A major problem in these projections is that the desalination of sea water is reliant on thermal power plants run by oil and gas. Reportedly, Saudi Arabia, for example, uses 1.5 million barrels of oil daily to produce the electricity and heat used for desalination. Not only the cost, but the physical production burden and the environmental impact of doubling and tripling the amount of fuels used for desalination has to be taken into account seriously. In addition, it is a net physical economic loss in the sense that a valuable industrial raw material that can give many times its value if used as a base for petrochemical and other products rather than burned to achieve a relatively low energy flux-density compared with nuclear power.

NUCLEAR DESALINATION

One of the key solutions to this problem is the use of nuclear power for these purposes and for the increased industrial activities in the petrochemical field.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency's studies, medium sized nuclear reactors are suitable for desalination, often with cogeneration of electricity using low-pressure steam from the turbine and hot seawater feed from the final cooling system.

There are of course many new technologies being tested in this field, all of which point at the direction of higher temperature and pressure, something that can only be achieved efficiently through nuclear power. The fourth generation high-temperature nuclear power plants have long ago been proven as the most efficient, but almost no effort is being taken to invest in it.

At the moment, Iran is the only country in the region which has an operating large civilian nuclear power plant, besides Israel. The Bushehr plant, which is a product of cooperation between Iran and Russia, was inaugurated officially in September 2001, and reached its full capacity of power production (1000 megawatts) in August 2012. In the original design made by the German company Siemens in the early 1970s, the construction of sea water desalination plant was included. However, in the new Russian design, that part is still not accomplished. In spite of all kinds of threats, sanctions and sabotage by the United States, Britain, Israel and the EU, Iran is planning to build several new nuclear reactors, with the expressed aim of increasing the energy output of the country and desalinating sea water.

In December 2006, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) announced that the Council was commissioning a study on the peaceful use of nuclear energy. In 2007 the member states signed an agreement with the IAEA to cooperate on a feasibility study for a regional nuclear power and desalination program.

The UAE was the first of the countries in review to launch its nuclear power program. The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) was established in 2009 in Abu Dhabi as an investment vehicle for the nuclear program. In December 2009, ENEC announced its acceptance of the bid offered by the South Korean Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco) to build four 1400 MW nuclear plants by 2020 for the cost of $US 20 billion. (BY THE WAY, ABU DHABI HAS BEEN PAYING 25 BILLION DOLLARS EACH YEAR SINCE 2009 TO ITS SISTER EMIRATE DUBAI TO PAY BACK DEBT ACQUIRED BY THE REAL-ESTATE FRENZI THERE. The construction of the first of the four plants was started in July 2012, and the fourth and last would be completed in 2020.

Saudi Arabia in its turn announced in April 2010 the establishment of King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy by royal decree of King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud. Shortly after that, the Saudi government announced plans to build 16 nuclear power reactors by 2030.

Unlike the Iranian nuclear program, the GCC's programs are sanctioned and approved by the United States and the West generally, for obvious geopolitical reasons.

THE OASIS PLAN

Oasis Plan: Justice for the Palestinians and key to peace.

From 1974 forward, economist Lyndon LaRouche had argued that the only possible route to a lasting peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis, would be through the adoption of an economic development plan that would demonstrate to both populations that the conditions of peace and cooperation were to the benefit of themselves, and their posterity. Over time, LaRouche's proposal came to be known as the "Oasis Plan," especially because it revolved around the development of new water resources for the now water-starved region. This plan was the subject of intensive organizing activity with Israelis, Palestinians, and representatives of other nations as well.

Commenting on the recently-signed Oslo accord between the Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat and Israel's Yitzak rabin and Shimon Peres, LaRouche said in an interview on Sept. 8, 1993:

"The urgent thing here is that we must move with all speed to immediately get these economic development projects, such as the canal from Gaza to the Dead Sea, going, because if we wait until we discuss this thing out, enemies of progress and enemies of the human race, such as Kissinger and his friends, will be successful, through people like Sharon's buddies, in intervening to drown this agreement in blood and chaos."

And guess what happened!

Nonetheless, without these projects, any decent future for any of the parties cannot be guaranteed.

These projects include two canals, one linking the Mediterranean with the Dead Sea, and another linking the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, using the Dead Sea's low alleviation point at 430 meters below sea level to generate electricity from the down-ward flowing water from the other seas. This power would be used for water desalination and stabilizing the level of water in the Dead Sea. Moreover, large-scale desalination would be built in the next phase through the use of fourth-generation meltdown-proof high-temperature nuclear reactors, which would simultaneously provide abundant electrical energy for the people of the region.

LaRouche proposed building "nuplexes," complexes of nuclear power and industrial-agricultural production. Complementing them would be the construction of railroad lines, necessary for the movement of people and freight. LaRouche's Oasis Plan also included a "soft infrastructure" component, involving the provision of housing, health care, education, and all manner of social infrastructure. But such improvements in living standards would be absolutely impossible to sustain, without the agro-industrial base fed by new and adequate water resources. In turn, the provision of those resources absolutely depends upon the use of nuclear power.

3- THIRD SOURCE: GROUND WATER

The Source of the Aquifers in many regions are believed to receive their water from surface recharge called primary permeability of the water, which is the runoff and absorption of the soil (infiltration), where the water slowly sips through the sedimentary layers moving through the various subsurface formations and rock. It is also believed that the bedrock underlying the sedimentary layers keeps the water at its level where the Aquifer is found.

Most of the precipitation is thought to disappear in pathways created by topographical features (runoff) in a certain area, and in the process where the soil absorbs its share of the rain and/or snow. The boundary of the area, where such investigation are accounted for, is called the catchment basin, which is also called watershed area. This is considered the basic unit of the study of hydrology.

Watershed models as they are used today in hydrological models are based on a limited basin area and account only for local precipitation. The so-called hydrological cycle is therefore subject to the data input from the meteorological stations and gauges situated in altitudes and locations reachable for investigators. Gauges in the higher mountains are rare and a great margin of error is the result of the precipitation measurement.

According to Earth water technology (a company founded by RoberT A. Bisson, co-author of the Megawatershed Exploration model together with Former NASA scientist Egyptian-American Farouk EL-Baz) at least 80% more than the current water accounted for through precipitation, falls in the high altitude mountains.

Megawatershed refers to many basins (orders of magnitude larger) and the source of recharge extends from tens of to hundreds of kilometers, and covers areas in the tens of thousands of square kilometers. Further the model relies on exploration rather than modeling, treating water as a mineral, and subject to mining. However a new class of Aquifers are to be found in the fracture system much deeper than the traditional close to the surface Aquifers. the Mega-watershed system states that through out the process of the creation of mountain ranges and the subsequent tectonic shifts have created a vast network of cracks and faults inside these mountain ranges, and that water infiltrates these cracks and fault and lead vertically to greater depth than the horizontal aquifers and longer distances. Therefore, these create underground rivers that move very long distances. and can be tapped at other locations.

Runoff and evaporation, according to the conventional model, constitutes more than 90% of the precipitation, while only 3-7% is recharged in the horizontal aquifers, lying in a close to the surface depth of few hundred meters.

Horizontal Aquifers are quickly depleted (when subjected to over discharge/use) and the management of those spars water results into a triage. [CASE OF GAZA AQUIFER]

THE MEGA WATERSHED AND SPAPCE TECHNOLOGY

The Mega-watershed is a concept of the behaviour of groundwater in vast watershed area. The design of this hypothesis was developed by Farouk El Baz and Robert A. Bisson and was presented in 1990. The authors of the hypothesis draw a distinction between their approach to finding groundwater, exploration, and the "quatitive hydrological model".

This flow is called the secondary permeability, where as the first, is referred to the surface runoff and absorption in alluvial areas and other sedimentary hence evaporation.

The report states that in most cases the groundwater has its direct source in precipitation.

The oil industry that pump an immense amount of oil and gas on a daily basis and transport it over land and sea in 1000s of kilometres, does pose the question why such an effort have not been made to the water mining. By way of space technology oil and gas industry have localized large amounts of oil that otherwise thought to be exhausted. These oil industries did not dig blindly but followed a very specific scientific procedure aided with remote sensing to search for new reserves.

Examples for groundwater discoveries: (note: numbers of water amount does not exist)

1- In Egypt, a satellite image showed how one of the oasis was connected through under ground vesculars to waters coming from a distance. The oasis of Salima as is seen in the image, receives water from the Gilf Kebir to the west. The region of East Uweinat in south west Egypt is a proof that water is to be found under sand sheets. the Selima oasis to west where it feeds farms. Capacity proven is enough to support agriculture in 150,000 acres for more than hundred years.

2-Kufra and Sarir Oasis in east Libya. These oasis were caused by two ancient rivers that were discovered.These are two well field that have a capacity and produces 5.5 m³ of water per day, are centre in the Great Man Made River. 3- Two images showing a strip being removed from the image to the left. What is revealed by radar imaging, which can penetrate the sand a course of an ancient riverstreams in the area of Darfur, adjacent to the Mega lake. Later the Mega lake was discovered after studying accurate linear features at elevation of 573m above sea. The lake when filed, can contain 2530 km³.

Darfur is both south to the East Uweinat region and the Kufra area in Libya. Both imaged are from Farouk El-Baz Remote Sensing of the Earth:Implications for Groundwater in Darfur.

4-Empty Quarter has recently been exploiting underground water, started pumping water to many districts of Najran in 2011.Water is supplied by 17 wells, collected at a location 130 kilometers east of Najran city. The wells are now capable of pumping 50,000 cubic meters of water daily

5- Wahiba Sands in Oman. The Wahiba basin contains, based on observation, a 100m thick Aquifer covering 1000 km² and holds ca. 12 billion m³ of groundwater.

6-Arabia River was discovered as seen in the image, water flowed here in the periof of 5000 and 11000 years ago, according to estimation. Other rivers are also hypothesized in the Arabia. El-Baz argues that this ancient river system has fed the groundwater of the Al Qassim region. In Al Qassim region wells were drilled to the depth of more than 1 km.

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NOW THAT WE STUDIED THE SOURCES OF WATER, LET'S LOOK WHAT WE CAN DO AND NOT DO WITH THEM!

AGRICULTURE—The True Economic Value of Water

To start with, and to remove any linear thinking about quantities of water and monetary quantifications, we should use the methods of LaRouche in determining physical economic value. 1 m³ of water is not really 1 m³ of water. It depends on the way that water is organized, ie, the technological level of the economy that shapes the way that exploits the cubic meter. In a sense, that's obvious, but we also face a fundamental problem relating to measurement in an economy. You cannot measure with fixed units, whether monetary or physical, because the metric changes depend on the physical economic and technological level of the entire economy.

LaRouche talked about something similar on the issue of energy. For starters, energy is not the right word, since in its modern sense, “energy” communicates a scalar concept, or algebraic. It should speak rather of power. LaRouche has stressed the role of the energy flux density of a process: the efficiency of a kilocalorie or a kilowatt hour of energy, depends on how concentrated is that use. For example, a laser is more efficient than a thousand flashlights, or one million candles, although they have the same energy scalar value. Likewise, you may also have to start talking about the density of hydraulic flow, and not simply of cubic meter of water. Hence, we should talk about water flux density.

Environmentalists and other experts use a standard measurement of the use of water which states that so and so amount of water is needed to produce so and so amount of wheat or cotton. However, that measurement is misleading because it does not take into consideration in which climate that crop is produced and how scarse the water in that region is and so forth. For example a ton of wheat to produce Cous Cous in Morocco requires four time the water required for producing a ton of wheat in France or Holland. Therefore the Cous Cous people eat in Morocco comes to a large degree from France and Holland. In return for a smaller amount of water Moroccans can produce citrus fruit and olives to sell to the French and other Europeans.

Another aspect that should be considered in using water in these regions is its effect on the overall climate and productivity of the economy.

GAMBLING WITH MONOCULTURES: THE CASE OF TURKISH COTTON

There are dangerous tendencies in the regions of South-West Asia, whenever enough water resources are secured for agricultural projects. The reliance on monocultures and export-based cash crops drain the region of the invaluable water resources it has, its labor force and future potentials. One of the most dangerous economic developments in Turkey around the GAP Project in recent years has been the orientation of the government to turn this region into a cheap cash cow by focusing on such water consuming monster monocultures as the production of cotton. The government of Turkey, with aid and credit from the United States, is turning the Harran fields and the other plains to a center of globally-traded new type of Turkish cotton, which is competing with the famous Egyptian cotton. The lessons from the drying of the Aral Sea, partly as a result of this type of Soviet-Era monocultures (cotton too) don't seem to have been learnt by the Turkish leadership. Cotton production is the single most water- consuming crop in the world. It is estimated, that it in such regions takes 10,000 cubic meters of water to produce 1 ton of cotton. In comparison, wheat requirements are between 1300-1600 m³/ton. Turkish cotton production area has almost doubled since 2009, and reached reach 410,000 hectares, and 600,000 MT in 2011.

Seen in the long term and even in immediate physical terms, not monetary ones, this is not a cheap story. This is also comparable to the Saudi wheat-production mistake (se below). The amount of water that is being diverted from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to support this cheap monoculture is creating such a shortage of water downstream in Syria and Iraq, that the whole region south from the borders of Turkey is turning into a dust bowl

THE CASE OF SAUDI WHEAT

A very big experiment was made by Saudi Arabia, using the desert soil and the water beneath it. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Saudi government undertook a massive restructuring of agriculture in the country. The stated objective was food security through self-sufficiency and improvement of rural incomes. Within 12 years, between 1980 and 1992, wheat production in Saudi Arabia grew 29-fold--from 142,000 tons in 1980 to 4.1 million tons in 1992-- making the Saudi desert-land the world's sixth-largest wheat exporting country. To achieve this enormous growth, wheat-producing areas were increased by 857,000 hectares; or by 14-fold, from 67,000 hectares in 1980 to 924,000 hectares in 1992. The overall irrigated surface increased during the same period by almost a million hectares.

This looks impressive. Doesn't it?

Ground water was pumped massively and rotating sprinkler systems were installed in the middle of the desert area. Large spots of the desert were suddenly green, but for a short time. The agricultural sector in Saudi Arabia never really had a leg to stand upon. In its entire agricultural production process, which was a success for a brief while, basic ingredients necessary to build up a strong agricultural sector such as infrastructure, fertilizers, farm equipment, and skilled and semi-skilled labor, remained wholly import-dependent.

During those wheat-growing years, water used for irrigation came from aquifers, but it could not sustain irrigation. As a result, within four years, by the end of 1996, 76 percent of the new wheat-growing surface added between 1980 and 1992 was abandoned--650,000 hectares out of the 857,000 hectares. Wheat production dropped during the same period by 70 percent, from 4.1 million tons in 1992 to 1.2 million tons in 1996.

The legendary wheat production did not have either long term or temporary positive impact on the climate and had a very high "water cost". Between 1980 and 1999, an incredible volume of water–300 billion cubic meters, the equivalent to six years’ flow of the Nile River into Egypt–was used in Saudi Arabia’s agricultural adventure.

SOUND AGRICULTURAL PROCESSES

However, in order to deal with the enormous scope of the desert and its expansion, major efforts and grand designs are need in which many countries collaborate. Special agricultural institutions and research centers have to be built in the region to determine and develop (and even create new) the kinds of plants which are the most suitable for this project. Palm trees, olive trees, tamarind trees, Castor oil trees, and heat and salinity-resistant bushes are already proven to be effective plants.

WE LOOKED AT THIS IN PRESENTING THE GREEN BELT CONCEPT

What should be put in mind is that this reclamation of the desert should be combined with food production, and not simply spreading vegetation. An Egyptian agricultural engineer, Juma'a Toughan, who is calling on the Egyptian government to launch a program to green the Sinai Peninsula, has experimented with olive trees and certain types of South African mango, which was introduced in Egypt a few years ago. In one experiment, he found out that olive trees, which are under the shadow of palm trees, produce 50% more and richer olives than olive trees planted by themselves. The reason is that the heat affects the productivity of the top part of the tree, leading to shrinkage of the olive fruits. Palm trees are considered as an excellent high barrier against sand and burning sun, as they can grow to between 15 and 20 meters.

The role of agricultural research centers, is to develop new types of plants and seeds that can survive in such climate, to develop water-saving irrigation techniques, and the best modes of animal husbandry. Most importantly, space technology has to be utilized to determine the causes of sand storms, location of ground water, changes in the vegetation cover, temperatures, humidity, etc.

For food production, the most water-efficient agriculture practices of all, are forms of hydroponics, which can be conducted well in the sunny latitudes, as they are in Arizona, Mexico and Israel. Large greenhouses and other forms of protected structures can be handily located near population centers. Arizona-based Merle Jensen, a “protected agriculture” specialist, points out, “For water efficiency purposes, the yield of edible product per unit volume of water to produce that product, is far greater with greenhouse/hydroponics than with open field irrigated cultivation.” He gives the quantification for how much less water is required for hydroponic cultivation of three vegetables, than in open fields:

Edible product	Hydroponic greenhouse	Open field
(1 kilogram)	(liters of water)	(liters of water)
Cucumber	10	205
Lettuce	30	96
Tomato	13	123

All that is required for various kinds of soilless agriculture, is plentiful, inexpensive energy, and organizational-systems, to conduct such specialty-production operations. Otherwise, for open-field agriculture, there are advances in salt- and drought-tolerant food crops, which are important for both deterring desertification, and at the same time providing for the food supply. The well known tree varieties include the date palm, coconut, tamarind, and Indian jujube, and many more. Very salt-tolerant barley varieties have been bred up.

What is critical, is to end the lock on botanical research imposed over the last 40 years, by the British imperial move for patent-rights on seeds and plant types, wrongfully done in the name of “intellectual property rights,” by the tight cartel of agro-chemical firms, especially Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF, DuPont and others.

irrigation techniques

Most of the middle east depend on ground water for irrigation. Many hectares of land are irrigated by surface irrigation. In Iraq and Syria farm lands on the river banks use small diesel pumping generators to irrigate their land. Elsewhere, as in Saudi Arabia and some gulf countries, where financial means vastly surpasses that of the other middle east countries, pivot irrigation and sprinklers are used, supplied by ground water. The salt surfacing from the soil after a large quantity of water have saturated a given area result later on in the lowering of the productivity and leads to soil deterioration.

When salt concentrations in the soil are high, the movement of water from the soil to the root is slowed down. When the salt concentrations in the soil are higher than inside the root cells, the soil will draw water from the root, and the plant will wilt and die.

The introduction of sprinklers (which admittedly are used in some areas in the Middle East), drip irrigation and subsurface irrigation have found their way in different countries, recently. Israel is one of the leading countries in these technologies.

In the dry, arid and hot areas spray or sprinkler irrigation should be used for crop while drip irrigation should be used for trees. These two method when compared with the surface irrigation (furrow), especially in arid areas, but also generally, show a distinct difference in efficiency.

The drip irrigation delivers the water close to the root, thereby eliminating, to a great degree, the evaporation rate and the runoff. This is called subsurface drip irrigation, SDI. In some commercial systems this process is computerized. The soil evaporation losses is also reduced. This technique is not wide spread in agriculture except in horticultural production in commercial entities. Development of this technique is being taken up by manufaturers to decrese the cost by producing cheaper solutions. In addition to the methods mentioned, the areas in the northern Arabian Peninsula have many salt flats and dried salt lakes. The inclusion of these salt-rich soil areas by introducing salt resistant crops and improved drainage system for leaching of salt, would be crucial for the future expansion of green lands on the expense of the desert. There is a need for increased research into the salt tolerant plants.

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TRANSPORTATION

B- TRANSPORT:
CROSS-ROAD OF CONTINENTS

In a speech given at the Zayed Center in Abu Dhabi in May 2002, Lyndon LaRouche presented the economic perspective for the gulf nations being "on the cross-roads" of the Eurasia-Africa continents. Indeed, what is interesting, other than the oil and gas resources of these countries, for the long term perspective, is their geographical location on the most vital trade, technological transfer and transport routes. If these nations were to integrate and transform their economies to accommodate to the future economic development on the Eurasian landmass and Africa, they would play a key role in these developments ensuring at the same time their economic, political and cultural survival beyond fossil fuels and imperial geopolitical wars. Just in the region adjacent to the Gulf, the greatest growth potential lies in countries like Iran and Iraq on the Asian side, and Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia on the African side. The combined population in the regions immediately bordering the states in review is about 477 million (Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia) which is growing rapidly and the population of some of them enjoy much higher levels of education than the Gulf states themselves. Beyond those countries, lies the larger region of Central Asia, Afghanistan and west China. Onward to Europe is the growing economy of Turkey. Already in 2011, the largest reshipment markets for the hyperactive ports of the UAE were number one Iran and number two Iraq!

-CONNECTION TO THW WORLD LANDBRIDGE - MISSING LINKS / LOCAL RAILWAY PLANS:

- EXTENDING THE LOCAL NETWORKS TO THE WORLD NETWORK:
1- TO ASIA FROM IRAQ TO IRAN AND FROM SYRIA-IRAQ TO IRAN/
2- FROM SYRIA DOWN TO SAUDI ARABIA'S WEST COAST ALONG THE RED SEA TO YEMEN AND AFRICA ACROSS BAB EL-MANDAB STRAIT ON THE RED SEA
3- FROM IRAQ DOWN TO KUWAIT-SAUDI ARABIA-QATAR-BAHRAIN-UAE OMAN AND ACROSS THE HORMUZ STRAIT TO IRAN
4- FROM OMAN TO YEMEN AND AFRICA

1. The planned "Saudi Railway Landbridge" linking the Gulf to the Red Sea with new rail lines between Riyadh and Jeddah and between Dammam and Jubail. The project will involve the construction of a 950 km new line between Riyadh and Jeddah and the construction of a 115 km new line between Dammam and Jubail, and upgrading the existing rail link between Riyadh and Dammam, including connection to the new Riyadh-Jeddah and Dammam-Jubail lines. This will mean the integration of the new lines with Jeddah Islamic Port (Red Sea), King Abdul Aziz Port, Dammam (Arabian Gulf) and Riyadh Dry Port, turning the railway and port facilities on both sides of the country into one unit. The railway will be both a passenger as well as a cargo line. It will have a major impact on the transport potential, as it will enable freight of cargo imported from East Asian countries markets in general via King Abdul Aziz Port in Dammam, and from Europe and North America via Jeddah Islamic Port, thereby attracting more transit cargo and realizing savings in regional freight economy. The number of handled containers is estimated to be in 2015 to be in excess of 700,000 standard containers.

2. The “Haramain High speed Railway”: This rail line, which is under construction will be an electrified, high-speed (360 km/h design speed) railway linking the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah via Jeddah. It will mainly serve as a passenger train for the part of the 6-8 million international pilgrims attending the Hajj and other rituals annually.

3. The "North-South Mineral Line" between the northern regions, Ras Al Khair/Jubail and the capital Riyadh, including the connection to the proposed railway network in Jordan via Al Haditha. This railway was initially designed to serve the mining companies operating the large Phosphate and Bauxite mines in the far north-east of the country.

4. Connections to the proposed GCC - railway network, with lines between Batha at the UAE Border - Hofuf and Jubail - Ras Al Khair - Kuwait Border, as well to Qatar and Bahrain. The feasibility studies for the project has been conducted by the GCC and is planned to become operational in 2017.

The route of the GCC train project starts from Kuwait via Dammam in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the Kingdom of Bahrain through the proposed causeway to be built parallel to the King Fahd Causeway. And from Dammam to the State of Qatar through Salwa. The GCC train would also link Qatar with Bahrain via the Qatar – Bahrain Causeway to be established between them, and from Saudi Arabia through Al Batha to the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi - Al Ain) and then to end up in Oman across Sohar to Muscat. The total project length is approximately 2116 km, and the length of the track inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia totaling 663 km.

In November 2009, the Qatari government had signed a $26 billion contract with the German company Deutsche Bahn to construct a railway system over the next 20 years. The network will connect the country itself, and will include an international link with neighboring states as part of a larger rail network being constructed across the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. A railway link is also under construction between Qatar and Bahrain as part of the Qatar Bahrain Causeway.

There is also an intention to expand the project to other Arab countries. Saudi Arabia is a member of The Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) and has signed the International Railways agreement of the East Arabian countries to be linked with the other Arab countries.

The Saudi Arabian Railway Organisation has set up other future plans but with lower degree of priority such as railway along the Red Sea coast southwards to Jazan west of the Asir mountains, and to Khamis Mshait in the south but on the eastern side of the Asir mountains. These areas have a high population density and agricultural potential. They also border with Yemen which is a key economic partner with Saudi Arabia and a future bridge to Africa through the Bab El-Mandab Strait.

There are also feasible plans propagated by Egypt and Jordan to connect Sinai to Saudi Arabia across the Tiran Strait in the south of the Gulf of Aqaba, thus establishing a landbridge between Africa and Asia. The Jordanian government has been calling for the rebuilding of the Hijaz Railway connecting Turkey (Europe) to Saudi Arabia through Syria and Jordan. In 2009, it offered to finance part of the 1590 km-long railway. However, Saudi Arabia has not shown clear interest in this project.

DESERT ON THE ROADS

No matter how big these railway and transport projects might seem to be, they would be almost impossible to construct or operate in the long term without dealing with the problem of the desert. The climate and the terrain of the region are inimical to rail/road-building. Burning hot deserts and high mountain ranges, pose different but equally challenging problems. Due to its harsh climate as well as the absence of maintenance management systems, the roads in the region require major re-construction and re-design, which in turn increases the cost of operations.

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INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT

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SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

In South West Asia there is a very paradoxical situation when it comes to the correlation of living standards, culture, education and economic and financial wealth. traditionally, or since the oil crisis of 1973, these countries have been divided into two categories, the so-called rich ones and the poor cousins. The rich ones are the oil exporting countries in the Gulf or the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), with small populations and large mineral wealth. They are also members of the British imperial club, and are cuddled by the U.S. and Europe. The other ones have less such resources and larger populations, but has been cursed by the British and the United States. These are Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, The Palestinian people and Egypt. Jordan has vacillated between these two camps. The paradox here is that the population in the seemingly poorer countries have much higher levels of education, labor skills, and a deeper sense of historical identity. The former ones are living in a strange dichotomy between material wealth and primitive traditions and religious fundamentalism, mostly dominated by the Salafi/Wahhabi doctrine. These so-called rich societies are framed on the model of the Venetian oligarchic system. Technological progress is welcome, but only as a pragmatic power tool, not for the improvement of the cultural and physical conditions of the citizens of the states or their future missions. An educated middle class is obviously a political threat to the ruling families. The discrepancy between the small native labor force and the foreign workers (constituting 80-90% of the labor force in the private sector in most of these countries) will pose serious questions and problems in the near future, as mass unemployment among the natives increase, and the lack of basic labor rights among guest workers become more tangible as their wages do not match the real increase in prices globally. Obviously it is difficult to sustain a society of half slaves.

In the other group of nations, a great number of the best brains and educated persons had to flee these countries due to the many wars, civil wars, political oppression, and invasions of foreign armies in the case of Iraq or foreign- backed terrorist groups as in the case of Syria today. Economic sanctions against Iraq, Iran and Syria and IMF/World bank policies imposed on Egypt have led to the deterioration of living standards, infrastructure and educational systems. All this has led to sending back these nations many decades backward.

Our program for the development of the region would shift this imbalance dramatically as both the financial wealth, mineral wealth, human resources and skills would be directed towards one unified mission for all the countries. Youth among the natives would be trained to join the labor force to build their nations and green the desert in similar fashion as Franklin Roosevelt era's (1933) New Deal and associated Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) program which pulled unemployed people in the Depression's America off the streets into the national reconstruction projects would turned the United States into the most powerful economic power on earth during and after the WWII. The brain drain would be stopped and hundreds of thousands of scientists and well-educated people working in exile or as expatriates in Europe and the Americas would feel safe to come home and serve their nations. The financial mineral wealth and whatever national credit that can be generated in the rich countries can be balanced against the skills of the labor of the others in the short term to launch the reconstruction process and immediately.

Through constituting a common authority as an executive organ among the relevant states in the region, taking responsibility for implementing these proposed projects jointly, and providing credit among theses nations, rather than sending militants and arms across the borders of each other, these projects can be started immediately. Each nation would be working simultaneously on its national projects and the regional projects by unifying the objectives of the infrastructure development and relevant standards of construction and operation of the different systems. A common credit system established through a "development bank", or a Marshal Fund, can fill the credit gaps among the oil-poor or water-poor countries. Nations like Yemen and Jordan will not be left for the mercy of the IMF or just because they cannot pull together their credit potentials to launch an economic development process. A nation like Jordan will be aided to build its first nuclear power plants and utilize human and natural resources (such as phosphate and Uranium) and upgrade them and become a rich nation within one generation, rather than waiting desperately for hand outs from the U.S., EU or the IMF and World Bank.

Sharing of the know how, for example in dealing with desert condition, agricultural questions can be dealt with most effectively through establishing a unified scientific research center functioning under the common executive authority.

Right now and due to the Anglo-Saudi and U.S. policies of sowing religious strife and wars in the whole region all the to the Caucasus and China's west, the whole region is threatened by thirty-years religious/sectarian war from which this region might never recover. It took hundreds of years to heel the wounds of the crusades and Mongol invasion of the eastern Islamic state and its center in Baghdad. Even after many hundreds of years, the region had hardly any resemblance of what it was during the early Abbasid Khaliphate and the renaissance Baghdad had ushered in the 8th and 9th centuries. The crusades and the Mongol invasion in 1258 were preceded by almost a hundred years of similar sectarian and religious strife, disputes and political manipulations through religion, exactly as we see happening today.

This vicious cycle can and have to be broken. There are global preconditions of course, such as shifting the murderous geopolitical system of divide and conquer of the British Empire, that are required to give these nations a signal of shift of focus from destruction to construction.

"According to [Henry] Carey, national wealth depends on the outstanding, perfected domination of a people over the gratuitous powers of nature. The more a nation is capable of increasing 1) the richness and abundance of her soil and the diversity of her natural products; 2) by perfection of tools, by which the powers of nature are made to serve man (capital); 3) through the intellectual education of her people (human labor) -- to acquire that domination, the more her advance in wealth ahead of other nations will be.

Wilhelm von Kardorff, Gegen den Strom

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