Georgia Watch: The New Great Game

For months now, I've been following a story dealing with the former
Soviet province of Georgia, and it's neighboring breakaway province
Adjara. Here's some background info, but for a more in depth look click
here, here, or here:

• The Adjaran Government (on the SW border of Georgia) is claiming to have uncovered a secret Georgian plot to seize the republic and it's capitol city of Batumi
  
  
• The Head of Emergency Situations Department of Adjara was shot in the head by an unknown gunman on February 22.
  
  
• An intrinsic part of today�s oil transport network is the Batumi Oil Transport Facility.
  
  
• Both Anadarko and Chevron have been "long time users" of the Batumi Oil Transport Facility in Adjara.
  
  
• Condoleeza Rice was on the Board of Directors for Chevron.
  
  
• Bush created/served as a consultant to Anadarko.
  
  
• On February 28, Colin Powell went to Georgia to offer the new president a "symbolic stamp of U.S. approval."

Click for detailed maps of Caspian oil/natural gas pipelines

Today, I came across this article which sums up the situation very well:

In March 2001 Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham told the
National Energy Security Summit that �America faces a major energy
supply crisis over the next two decades. The failure to meet this
challenge will threaten our nation�s economic prosperity, compromise
our national security and likely alter the way we lead our lives.�
This taken-for-granted imperial outlook was subsequently spelled out in
Dick Cheney�s National Energy Policy statement and George W. Bush�s
national security pronouncements. But an energy policy that rests upon
controlling the world�s oil, seeking permanent military superiority
over all potential rivals, and, in the words of political analyst Tom
Barry, pursuing a policy of global �warlordism,� can only be a
recipe for disaster. In no other part of the world is this pursuit of
dominion more volatile than in the Caspian Sea Basin, which takes in
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,
Iran and Russia. Speaking to oil industrialists in 1998,
then-Halliburton CEO Dick
Cheney remarked, �I cannot think of a time when we had a region
emerge as suddenly to become strategically significant as the
Caspian.� Under the cover of its �war on terrorism� the Bush
administration has initiated what British Guardian writer Lutz Kelveman
refers to as �The New Great Game,� a rerun of the 19th Century
imperial rivalry between Czarist Russia and the British Empire. Only
now it is the United States that �seeks to control the Caspian oil
resources.� For now Georgia is the epicenter of the new great game.
It represents the bridge carrying Caspian oil on its journey to the
port destination of Ceyhan, Turkey. The U.S. has invested substantial
political-economic resources in Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline venture.
[...]
On Nov. 30 Eric Margolis of the Toronto Sun wrote that the Russians
�will try to limit U.S. influence in Georgia and extend its own
influence by stirring the pot and finding new Georgian allies.
Washington will shore up its man in Tbilisi, Saakashvili, and may send
Special Forces troops under the pretext of faux war on terrorism.�
Margolis warns, �The entire Caucasus is near a boil. The sharply
increasing rivalry between the U.S. and Russia for political and
economic influence over this vital land bridge between Europe and the
oil-rich Caspian Basin promises a lot more intrigue, skullduggery and
drama.� In their article entitled �Georgia�s �Rose
Revolution�: a Made in American Coup,� Barry Grey and Vladmir
Volkov write: �Not only is U.S. policy in the Caucasus predatory, it
is reckless in the extreme. The Bush administration is challenging
Russian interests in a highly provocative manner, openly working to
split away the former Soviet republics from Moscow and virtually
surrounding Russia with American military installations.� A new, very
dangerous �great game� has begun.

Indeed. Don't be surprised if the next front in the War on Terror opens up in the Caspian region.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 12, 2004 at 03:55 PM | Permalink