The Snake Brotherhood
16-05-2009, 20:09
Since the Iraqi war, some people have said it's all about oil and gas, well, I've come across this article and it tells all, from Clinton to now. Here's a warning: this article is long and is not directly related to the internal US politics, so you can skip this post if you don't care. Nevertheless, I found it very interesting of how governments in the Middle-East, Russia, China and of course the US, are dealing with the ever increasing need for energy resources. Your views?
(can't put a link yet, so type in Google "Pipeline-Istan: Everything You Need to Know About Oil, Gas, Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan and Obama"
Some useful quotes:
"...The immense energy battlefield that extends from Iran to the Pacific Ocean. It's there that the Liquid War for the control of Eurasia takes place.
"We've already seen Pipelineistan wars in Kosovo and Georgia, and we've followed Washington's favorite pipeline, the BTC, which was supposed to tilt the flow of energy westward, sending oil coursing past both Iran and Russia.
"As much as Washington may live in perpetual denial, Russia and Iran together control roughly 20% of the world's oil reserves and nearly 50% of its gas reserves.
"Pakistan, after all, is an energy-poor, desperate customer of the Grid ... IPI (the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline), far more than any form of U.S. aid (or outright interference), would go the extra mile in stabilizing the Pak half of Obama's Af-Pak theater of operations, and even possibly relieve it of its India obsession.
"Though currently only holding "observer" status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), sooner or later [Iran] will inevitably become a full member and so enjoy NATO-style, an-attack-on-one-of-us-is-an-attack-on-all-of-us protection.
"One key reason the Central Asians love to do business with China is that the Middle Kingdom, unlike both Russia and the United States, carries little modern imperial baggage. And of course, China will never carp about human rights or foment a color-coded revolution of any sort.
"The [China-Turkmenistan] agreement explicitly states that "Chinese interests" will not be "threatened from [Turkmenistan's] territory by third parties." In translation: no Pentagon bases allowed in that country.
"There are to be no Russian-Chinese antagonisms, as befits the main partners in the SCO, because the Asian Energy Security Grid story is really and truly about them.
"It remains to be seen how the Obama national security team decides to counteract the successful Russian strategy of undermining by all possible means a U.S.-promoted East-West Caspian Sea energy corridor, while solidifying a Russian-controlled Pipelineistan stretching from Kazakhstan to Greece that will monopolize the flow of energy to Western Europe.
"In the ever-shifting New Great Game in Eurasia, a key question -- why Afghanistan matters -- is simply not part of the discussion in the United States. (Hint: It has nothing to do with the liberation of Afghan women.)
""Losing" Afghanistan and its key network of U.S. military bases would, from the Pentagon's point of view, be a disaster.
"...don't forget the narco-dollar angle -- the fact that the global heroin cartels that feast on Afghanistan only work with U.S. dollars, not euros.
"Nothing of significance takes place in Eurasia without an energy angle
"As in any game of high stakes Pipelineistan poker, it all comes down to the top two global players - Washington and Beijing."
(can't put a link yet, so type in Google "Pipeline-Istan: Everything You Need to Know About Oil, Gas, Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan and Obama"
Some useful quotes:
"...The immense energy battlefield that extends from Iran to the Pacific Ocean. It's there that the Liquid War for the control of Eurasia takes place.
"We've already seen Pipelineistan wars in Kosovo and Georgia, and we've followed Washington's favorite pipeline, the BTC, which was supposed to tilt the flow of energy westward, sending oil coursing past both Iran and Russia.
"As much as Washington may live in perpetual denial, Russia and Iran together control roughly 20% of the world's oil reserves and nearly 50% of its gas reserves.
"Pakistan, after all, is an energy-poor, desperate customer of the Grid ... IPI (the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline), far more than any form of U.S. aid (or outright interference), would go the extra mile in stabilizing the Pak half of Obama's Af-Pak theater of operations, and even possibly relieve it of its India obsession.
"Though currently only holding "observer" status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), sooner or later [Iran] will inevitably become a full member and so enjoy NATO-style, an-attack-on-one-of-us-is-an-attack-on-all-of-us protection.
"One key reason the Central Asians love to do business with China is that the Middle Kingdom, unlike both Russia and the United States, carries little modern imperial baggage. And of course, China will never carp about human rights or foment a color-coded revolution of any sort.
"The [China-Turkmenistan] agreement explicitly states that "Chinese interests" will not be "threatened from [Turkmenistan's] territory by third parties." In translation: no Pentagon bases allowed in that country.
"There are to be no Russian-Chinese antagonisms, as befits the main partners in the SCO, because the Asian Energy Security Grid story is really and truly about them.
"It remains to be seen how the Obama national security team decides to counteract the successful Russian strategy of undermining by all possible means a U.S.-promoted East-West Caspian Sea energy corridor, while solidifying a Russian-controlled Pipelineistan stretching from Kazakhstan to Greece that will monopolize the flow of energy to Western Europe.
"In the ever-shifting New Great Game in Eurasia, a key question -- why Afghanistan matters -- is simply not part of the discussion in the United States. (Hint: It has nothing to do with the liberation of Afghan women.)
""Losing" Afghanistan and its key network of U.S. military bases would, from the Pentagon's point of view, be a disaster.
"...don't forget the narco-dollar angle -- the fact that the global heroin cartels that feast on Afghanistan only work with U.S. dollars, not euros.
"Nothing of significance takes place in Eurasia without an energy angle
"As in any game of high stakes Pipelineistan poker, it all comes down to the top two global players - Washington and Beijing."