33: Chapter 33 can only provide 3.8 million barrels of oil.

After the battalion commander's report, Lieutenant Colonel Haidari immediately ordered the troops around the Glass House to prepare for air defense.

After all, an Israel drone had been shot down. If Israel went crazy and sent fighter jets to retaliate with air strikes, and they weren't prepared, it would be a huge disaster.

Fortunately, until the second batch of Tianlei Series Anti-Aircraft Missiles was transported to the Glass House, no Israel fighter jets were detected flying over the Glass House.

After Lieutenant Colonel Haidari arranged for personnel to receive the second batch of Tianlei Series Anti-Aircraft Missiles, he immediately ordered all battalions and brigades that had not yet upgraded their anti-aircraft missiles to switch to the Tianlei Series Anti-Aircraft Missiles.

After the upgrade was completed, although it would take some time to adapt to operating the new Tianlei Series Anti-Aircraft Missiles, there had already been a significant improvement in airspace defense.

Once all units at the Glass House had completed the upgrade to the Tianlei Series Anti-Aircraft Missiles, Lieutenant Colonel Haidari reported to Major General Rahim.

After hearing about the upgrade, Major General Rahim said, "Have the various units strengthen their training and ensure they familiarize themselves with the new equipment as quickly as possible to strike down any enemy aircraft that dares to fly over the Glass House. As for the replaced anti-aircraft missiles, provide them all to Syria and have them send people to receive them."

"Also, you need to communicate with Syria and have them prepare the oil needed to pay for the second and third batches of Tianlei Series Anti-Aircraft Missiles. It would be best to confirm the data on the oil they can raise when you deliver the anti-aircraft missiles to them."

After leaving Major General Rahim's office, Lieutenant Colonel Haidari immediately contacted Syria.

Syria was quite excited to hear that they could obtain 250 sets of man-portable air-defense systems, 80 sets of medium-to-long-range anti-aircraft missiles, and an additional 500 anti-aircraft missiles.

After all, they had already collected over 1.6 million barrels of oil and transported them to Iran. Now, receiving this batch of anti-aircraft missiles could offset their expenses and strengthen Syria's military capabilities.

However, when Lieutenant Colonel Haidari proposed that they continue to raise over 7 million barrels of oil, their expressions changed immediately.

Syria only produced over 28 million barrels of oil a year, of which over 22 million barrels were stolen by the USA and the Opposition Armed Forces they supported, leaving them with only over 6 million barrels under their own control.

The 1.6 million-plus barrels of oil collected previously were from stocks accumulated over the past few months.

Now Iran was demanding they pay over 7 million barrels of oil. Syria hadn't even produced that much in a year, so how could they pay Iran?

After hearing Syria's clear refusal, Lieutenant Colonel Haidari had to lower his demands and asked how much oil Syria could provide; he figured getting any amount of oil was better than nothing.

Only then did Syria propose that they could raise 3 million barrels of oil; anything more would have to wait until next year.

Lieutenant Colonel Haidari naturally disagreed, and after haggling with Syria for a while, he got them to agree to increase it to 3.8 million barrels of oil; the remaining oil would just have to be raised by Iran itself.

Moreover, after providing these 3.8 million barrels of oil, it would effectively exhaust all the oil stocks from previous years.

In the future, they would only be able to use newly produced oil to meet domestic demand or export it for funds.

Lieutenant Colonel Haidari was still not very satisfied to see that only 3.8 million barrels of oil could be raised, as the shortfall to fully pay the remaining balance for the anti-aircraft missiles was nearly 3.5 million barrels.

But seeing that Syria really couldn't squeeze out any more oil, he had to give up helplessly.

After confirming the oil that could be obtained, Lieutenant Colonel Haidari contacted Major General Zaha. Deir ez-Zor, controlled by Major General Zaha, was the main area for oil collection.

"Major General Zaha, we are about to hand over a batch of anti-aircraft missiles to Syria. You should hurry and push for it to get more anti-aircraft missiles. When the time comes, I will directly arrange for them to be provided to you first."

Hearing that Lieutenant Colonel Haidari's promise had finally been fulfilled, Major General Zaha quickly said, "Good! I will apply to equip anti-aircraft missiles immediately. You must help delay the other units; only give the remaining anti-aircraft missiles to the other units after I have received mine."

"Fine. There is one more thing. Syria will be raising 3.8 million barrels of oil to hand over to Iran, and the main source is the oil from Deir ez-Zor. You need to help keep an eye on it and mobilize enough oil as soon as possible."

"No problem. As long as you provide me with the anti-aircraft missiles, I will keep an eye on the allocation of the oil."

Major General Zaha naturally knew that if he wanted to obtain anti-aircraft missiles from Iran, it was impossible to do nothing and just get them for free.

He had no reason to refuse the things Lieutenant Colonel Haidari wanted him to help with. In any case, he was just executing orders; it was just that the efficiency of execution would be improved.

Seeing that communication with Syria had been settled, Lieutenant Colonel Haidari quickly reported the situation to Major General Rahim.

"Major General, Syria can currently only provide 3.8 million barrels of oil; they don't have that much oil in stock. We still need to pay Chaos Company 7.2708 million barrels of oil, leaving a shortfall of 3.4708 million barrels."

"Why is Syria providing so little oil?"

"The USA has seized most of Syria's oil, and the oil Syria can control is too little. Unless they can retake control of more oil wells, they cannot provide more oil."

Major General Rahim understood now that there was no hope in counting on Syria. It was impossible for Syria to retake more oil wells on its own, and neither Russia nor Iran currently had the troops to help them retake the oil wells. It seemed he would have to find a way to get the oil himself.

"Then let's pay Chaos Company 3.8 million barrels of oil first. 3.8 million barrels of oil is enough for the payment for the second batch of Tianlei Series Anti-Aircraft Missiles. Let's have Chaos Company deliver the third batch of Tianlei Series Anti-Aircraft Missiles first."

"Very well." Lieutenant Colonel Haidari then reminded him, "If Chaos Company delivers the third batch of Tianlei Series Anti-Aircraft Missiles immediately, according to the supplementary agreement signed later, we need to pay an additional 942,700 barrels of oil. That means the shortfall will reach 4.4135 million barrels of oil."

"This amount is not much. If Iran can provide the oil domestically, it's only two days of production. I need to communicate with the high-level military leadership of Iran first to determine the time of payment."

"After Syria has raised enough of the 3.8 million barrels of oil, I will communicate with Chaos Company first," Lieutenant Colonel Haidari said immediately.

After Lieutenant Colonel Haidari left, Major General Rahim thought, "It seems I need to do my homework with the high-level military leadership now and strive to get more oil so that the Glass House can be equipped with more anti-aircraft missiles."

In this process, if he could not obtain enough anti-aircraft missiles beforehand, the number of anti-aircraft missiles he could get later would be very small.

Iran also needed to equip many anti-aircraft missiles domestically, and their priority was much higher than his. He definitely couldn't outcompete the domestic military forces.

However, if Chaos Company could accept payment in oil, the amount of anti-aircraft missiles that could be purchased would be very large, and by then, he would still be able to arm all his units.