[Peace-discuss] Some sense on Georgia/Russia

[C. G. Estabrook]

rlangenh at illinois.edu wrote:
> The presence of a major oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to the Black Se,
> aoffering egress for the oil of the Caspian Basin to Europe without Russian
> control, of course, has nothing to do with all of this.  Ralph Langenheim

It has of course a great deal to do with it, as I pointed out in an earlier 
post.  It's the US principal concern, and the reason the US has been shipping 
arms and military trainers (often Israeli) to Georgia.

It's the cornerstone of US foreign policy in the region, shared by Reps and Dems 
alike, that the US must control ME energy resources, in order to have a lever to 
use against its primary economic competitors in the world -- not Russia, of 
course, but Europe and northeast Asia.

The Georgians know what the US interest in their country is.  That's why the 
Georgian Prime Minister immediately claimed that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan 
pipeline had been bombed by Russian planes. (It hadn't.)

BP operates the 1,109-mile pipeline -- the world's second largest -- that 
carries oil from Azerbaijan to Western markets via the Turkish Mediterranean 
port of Ceyhan.  It's been out of action since Wednesday, but not because of the 
Russians -- because of a fire caused by an explosion in eastern Turkey for which 
Kurdish separatists claimed responsibility.

But note that the world oil price hasn't risen with the Russian counterattack. 
That says more about the world economy than anything else, but it certainly 
implies that people recognize that the Russian action is not a challenge to US 
hegemony over ME oil.  --CGE