Spiriting It Out of the Formerly Evil Empire
No one can fault the US's Caspian policy for lack of boldness. Put
succinctly, that policy is to take the spoils of the cold war -- the
oil in the former components of the Soviet Union that are now broke
but independent -- and get it to market without having it transit
Russia. q.v. Leaving aside the chutzpah, the trouble with the policy
has been that progress has been painfully slow or nonexistent.
Pipelines that should have been well on their way to completion aren't
even financed yet. No matter. Architects of the strategy, such as US
ambassador for Caspian energy policy John Wolf, have now decided how
to move the biggest prize of all, the at least two mighty pools of oil
found along the northern border of the Caspian in Kazakhstan. They'll
just tack on an underwater pipeline across the Caspian and take it to
Ceyhan,Turkey from Baku in Azerbaijan. It's certainly thinking big.
But does it make sense? Kazakhstan was already well integrated into
the Russian pipeline system. Iran, the other state bordering the
Caspian, also offers pipeline opportunities to the Persian Gulf. By
ignoring/slighting Russia and Iran, the US is forced to accept
considerably more delay in getting the oil to market, angering two
important potential allies, and probably undercutting efforts to
stabilize a particularly volatile region of the world. Perhaps the
new administration will see fit to revisit this one.
http://qv3.com/PolicyPete/policypete.htm
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