Tour of a lifeline

The hulking legs of this monster of the northern Arabian Gulf sink deep into the sea bed, holding steady for three and a half decades, through more than 100 feet of sometimes thrashing water.

Its spine arches up and down for nearly a mile, 40 feet above the surface.

Two rusty pipelines are the vein of the country’s economy, connecting the lifeblood from storage tanks on shore, 31 miles away, to the al-Basra Oil Terminal, where four berths await some of the world’s largest oil tankers to f…