Posted on 22-10-2003
The
New Great Game
By Lutz Kleveman,The Guardian, 20 October 2003
The 'war on terror' is being used as an excuse to further US
energy
interests in the Caspian.
Nearly two years ago, I travelled 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 neighbour 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been
replaced by concrete buildings.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 travelled thousands
of
kilometres, 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 industrialised 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 neighbouring
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 defence 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 spectre 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 jeopardises
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?
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