“I congratulate you for focusing on Central Asian oil and gas reserves and the role they play in shaping U.S. policy,” Ambassador John J. Maresca, former vice president of international relations for Unocal Corporation, said on February 12, 1998.

Once again, the self-righteous rhetoric has been spewing forth from Washington. In a recent press briefing, President Bush stated, “With its actions in recent days, Russia has damaged its credibility and its relations with the nations of the free world. Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.” In a later briefing, the man who ordered the invasion of Iraq added, “Georgia’s borders should command the same respect as every other nation’s.”
Bush’s statements are blatantly absurd and hilarious, as bullying and intimidation have been the two pillars of the Washington regime’s failed foreign policy. Commenting on the farcical U.S. attempts to use these tactics on Russia over its response to Georgia’s assault, Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins said last month that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin “would die laughing if he read this week’s American newspapers.”
What lies behind the United States’ latest rhetorical confrontation with Russia? Once again, it’s about oil, just as it has been in Iraq and Afghanistan, and like Afghanistan, it has to do with securing U.S. interests in a pipeline. Over ten years ago in testimony before the U.S. House Committee on International Relations, Ambassador John J. Maresca emphasized the need to build pipelines to transport Central Asian oil to markets and for U.S. intervention in order to create “appropriate investment climates in the region.”
Mr. Maresca spoke enthusiastically about the Caspian region’s “tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves, much of them located in the Caspian Sea basin itself,” adding, “some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels.” If these estimates turn out to be true, the Caspian region’s oil reserves would approach Saudi Arabia’s estimated reserves of 260 billion barrels. In any case, the U.S. Energy Information Agency estimates that by 2010, the region will export more oil than South America’s leader Venezuela.
Because of U.S. foreign policy, the problem was then and still is how to get the oil to market while avoiding pipeline routes that would traverse either Russia or Iran. Hence, a route across Russia terminating at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk would be ruled out, as would be the “obvious potential route south” for a pipeline “across Iran.”
Lamenting that “there is no easy way out of Central Asia,” Mr. Maresca presented several possible alternatives. One route would begin at Baku, Azerbaijan, and run west across Georgia through Tbilisi and end at the Black Sea port of Supsa with a possible extension from Tbilisi across Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Another route, from the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, would start from Chardzhou, Turkmenistan, continue through Afghanistan and terminate in Pakistan on the Arabian Sea.
Mr. Maresca cited a World Bank study indicating that the pipeline route across Afghanistan “would provide more favorable netbacks to oil producers through access to higher value markets than those currently being accessed through the traditional Baltic and Black Sea export routes.” Unfortunately, construction could not begin “until an internationally recognized Afghanistan government is in place.” Conveniently, the “war on terror” gave the U.S. the pretext to install a compliant regime.
Sharing common boundaries in the Caspian Basin, Russia and Iran have existing oil contracts and signed an additional cooperative energy agreement in July 2008. Recent agreements between Russia and Turkmenistan greatly strengthen Moscow’s control over Caspian energy reserves and have dealt a major blow to U.S. plans.
To summarize the U.S. dilemma, Russia and Iran are major competitors with the U.S. for control over the energy reserves in the Caspian Basin. Pipeline routes must avoid both Russia and Iran, and should terminate on the Mediterranean or the Arabian Sea, but should not end at Black Sea ports, due to congestion and restrictions on shipping in Turkey’s Bosporus strait. This is the case with the Baku-Tbilisi-Supsa (BTS) route, which terminates at Supsa on the Black Sea. The remaining routes are from Azerbaijan through Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean Sea, and from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea, but the latter route is now effectively under Russian control.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline was completed in May 2005 and is operated by a consortium led by BP that includes Conoco Philips, Chevron Texaco (formerly Unocal) and Exxon Mobil. While the BTC route avoids the problems of shipping oil via the Bosporus, it runs through Georgia within targeting range of the provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. A principal backer of the pipeline was former Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze, who saw it as a means to insure U.S. support for Georgian independence. Of course, the suspected presence of Al-Qaeda fighters in Georgia was the pretext for initial U.S. military involvement back in 2001.
Realistically, there is little that the Washington hawks can do beyond talking tough to Russia, unless they are ready to risk a confrontation with a formidable nuclear power. The U.S. even tried to apply pressure through NATO, but alliance members seemed reluctant to risk any response beyond issuing a warning. Russia, on the other hand, has made it quite clear to U.S. “ally” Poland that it risks a nuclear attack because of its agreement to play host to a battery of 96 Patriot missiles and 110 U.S. military personnel, scheduled for deployment in 2012.
Commenting on the Crawford Cowboy’s obvious double standards for national sovereignty and his sanctimonious threats against Russia, Pravda columnist Lisa Karpova wrote, “And you expect your words to be heeded or even listened to? You are joking!”
So it seems the Russians have called the neocons’ bluff, and Bush and company have no more cards up their sleeves