[Peace-discuss] Caspian oil

[patton paul]

Here's a good article about the role of oil in US involvement in Central
Asia.
-Paul P.

The New Great Game
The 'War on Terror' is Being Used as an Excuse to Further US Energy
Interests in the Caspian
by Lutz Kleveman


Nearly two years ago, I traveled to Kyrgyzstan, the mountainous ex-Soviet
republic in Central Asia, to witness a historical event: the deployment of
the first American combat troops on former Soviet soil.

As part of the Afghan campaign, the US air force set up a base near the
Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. Brawny pioneers in desert camouflages were
erecting hundreds of tents for nearly 3,000 soldiers. I asked their
commander, a wiry brigadier general, if and when the troops would leave
Kyrgyzstan (and its neighbor Uzbekistan, where Washington set up a second
airbase). "There is no time limit," he replied. "We will pull out only
when all al-Qaeda cells have been eradicated."

Today, the Americans are still there and many of the tents have been
replaced by concrete buildings. Bush has used his massive military
build-up in Central Asia to seal the cold war victory against Russia, to
contain Chinese influence and to tighten the noose around Iran. Most
importantly, however, Washington - supported by the Blair government - is
exploiting the "war on terror" to further American oil interests in the
Caspian region. But this geopolitical gamble involving thuggish dictators
and corrupt Saudi oil sheiks is only likely to produce more terrorists.

For much of the past two years, I have researched the links between
conflict in Central Asia and US oil interests. I traveled thousands of
kilometers, meeting with generals, oil bosses, warlords and diplomats.
They are all players in a geostrategic struggle - the new Great Game.

In this rerun of the first great game - the 19th-century imperial rivalry
between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia - players once again
position themselves to control the heart of the Eurasian landmass. Today,
the US has taken over the leading role from the British. Along with the
Russians, new regional powers, such as China, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan,
have entered the arena, and transnational oil corporations are also
pursuing their own interests.

The main spoils in today's Great Game are Caspian oil and gas. On its
shores, and at the bottom of the Caspian Sea, lie the world's biggest
untapped fossil fuel resources. Estimates range from 110 to 243bn barrels
of crude, worth up to $4 trillion. According to the US department of
energy, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan alone could sit on more than 130bn
barrels, more than three times the US's reserves. Oil giants such as
ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and BP have already invested more than $30bn in
new production facilities.

"I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to
become as strategically significant as the Caspian," said Dick Cheney in a
speech to oil industrialists in 1998. In May 2001, the US vice-president
recommended in the national energy policy report that "the president makes
energy security a priority of our trade and foreign policy", singling out
the Caspian basin as a "rapidly growing new area of supply".

With a potential oil production of up to 6m barrels per day by 2015, the
Caspian region has become crucial to the US policy of "diversifying energy
supply". It is designed to wean the US off its dependence on the
Arab-dominated Opec cartel, which is using its near-monopoly position as
pawn and leverage against industrialized countries. As global oil
consumption keeps surging and many oil wells outside the Middle East are
nearing depletion, Opec is expanding its share of the world market. At the
same time, the US will have to import more than two-thirds of its total
energy demand by 2020, mostly from the Middle East.

Many people in Washington are particularly uncomfortable with the growing
power of Saudi Arabia. There is a fear that radical Islamist groups could
topple the corrupt Saud dynasty and stop the flow of oil to "infidels". To
stave off political turmoil, the regime in Riyadh funds the radical
Islamic Wahabbi sect that foments terror against Americans around the
world. In a desperate effort to decrease its dependence on Saudi oil
sheiks, the US seeks to control the Caspian oil resources. However, fierce
conflicts have broken out over pipeline routes. Russia, still regarding
itself as imperial overlord of its former colonies, promotes pipeline
routes across its territory, including Chechnya, in the north Caucasus.
China, the increasingly oil-dependent waking giant in the region, wants to
build eastbound pipelines from Kazakhstan. Iran is offering its pipeline
network via the Persian Gulf.

By contrast, Washington champions two pipelines that would circumvent both
Russia and Iran. One would run from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to
the Indian Ocean. Construction has already begun for a $3.8bn pipeline
from Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, via neighboring Georgia to Turkey's
Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. BP, its main operator, has invested billions
in oil-rich Azerbaijan, and can count on support from the Bush
administration, which recently stationed about 500 elite troops in
war-torn Georgia.

Washington's Great Game opponents, particularly in Moscow and Beijing,
resent what they perceive as arrogant imperialism. Worried that the US
presence might encourage internal unrest in its Central Asian province of
Xingjiang, China has recently held joint military exercises with
Kyrgyzstan. The Russian government initially tolerated the intrusion into
its former empire, hoping Washington would in turn ignore the atrocities
in Chechnya. However, the much-hyped "new strategic partnership" against
terror between the Kremlin and the White House has turned out to be more
of a temporary tactical teaming-up. For the majority of the Russian
establishment it is unthinkable to permanently cede its hegemonic claims
on Central Asia.

Two weeks ago, Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, demanded publicly
that the Americans pull out within two years. Ominously, President Putin
has signed new security pacts with the Central Asian rulers, allowing
Russian troops to set up a new military base in Kyrgyzstan, which lies
only 35 miles away from the US airbase.

Besides raising the specter of inter-state conflict, the Bush
administration is wooing some of the region's most tyrannical dictators.
One of them is Islam Karimov, the ex-communist ruler of Uzbekistan, whose
regime brutally suppresses any opposition and Islamic groups. "Such people
must be shot in the head. If necessary, I will shoot them myself," Karimov
once told his rubber-stamp parliament.

Although the US state department acknowledges that Uzbek security forces
use "torture as a routine investigation technique", Washington last year
gave the Karimov regime $500m in aid and rent payments for the US air base
in Chanabad. The state department also quietly removed Uzbekistan from its
annual list of countries where freedom of religion is under threat. The
British government seems to support Washington's policy, as Whitehall
recently recalled its ambassador Craig Murray from Tashkent after he
openly decried Uzbekistan's abysmal human rights record.

Worse is to come: disgusted with the US's cynical alliances with their
corrupt and despotic rulers, the region's impoverished populaces
increasingly embrace virulent anti-Americanism and militant Islam. As in
Iraq, America's brazen energy imperialism in Central Asia jeopardizes the
few successes in the war on terror because the resentment it causes makes
it ever easier for terrorist groups to recruit angry young men. It is all
very well to pursue oil interests, but is it worth mortgaging our security
to do so?

z Lutz Kleveman is the author of 'The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in
Central Asia' (Atlantic Books)