The lengthy implementation and the heavy capital investment required to kick start the gas pipeline projects designed to meet Europe’s spiking demand and to diversify its supply sources are very revealing about Atlanticist ambitions in the region.

The Nabucco project - intended to connect Turkey to Central Europe and whose profitability hinged on a change of regime in Iran (that country being the project’s main source of supply) - is fading off the radar screen.

In fact, Iran, Iraq and Syria agreed in August 2011 on a route stretching across the three countries to the Mediterranean shore, bypassing Turkey. Taking note of this decision, Turkey and Azerbaijan, a secondary source of the Nabucco project, have meanwhile clinched an agreement to build a gas pipeline between their two countries.

The choice to embark on such heavy investments denotes the empire’s change of heart about overthrowing the Iranian and Syrian governments in the short to medium term.