Tracking the Oil Scent
by Matthew Riemer
Dissident Voice
December 16,
2002
If recent history
is a reliable indicator of things to come, then the Caspian Sea region may well
become one of the world's leading centers of international conflict. The past
has invariably shown that areas rich in resources are rife with conflict. With
the addition of multiple states vying for those resources and a dash of
instability, one has the necessary ingredients for war and protracted conflict.
Such has been
the case in the Middle East over the course of the last half-century. Beginning
in 1953 with the CIA's overthrow of the democratically elected Mohammad Mosadiq
government in Iran for nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) to
the U.S.' Operation Desert Storm to today's bogus war with one of the charter
members of the "axis of evil," oil has always played a central role.
There's
currently conflict in one of the world's leading oil producers and third
largest exporter to the U.S. -- Venezuela. Following the failed coup in April
to overthrow elected leader President Hugo Chavez, much to Washington's glee
unrest is once again brewing, as strikes fueled by anti-Chavez generals, employers,
and oil executives beholden to foreign corporations are destabilizing the
country. They believe that Chavez, the populist socialist, who doesn't
necessarily think that foreign business interests come first when governing his
country, has no place heading a state as critical as Venezuela.
Following the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, the fledgling Russian Federation scrambled to
maintain its intimidating image as well as its resources by cracking down on
the breakaway republic of Chechnya, which lay in the crucial avenue of the
North Caucasus on the Western shores of the Caspian Sea. That was in 1994 and
there's been a war going on ever since. And if the writing on the wall is
correct, the situation is going to continue to deteriorate, further destabilizing
the region.
Georgia, partial
home to the under construction Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, is also
experiencing turbulence as it grapples with breakaway republics of its own as
well as continued threats from Moscow regarding the harboring of Chechen
guerrillas. This has obviously not gone unnoticed in Washington, as military
personnel and "trainers" have been dispatched to Georgia to shore up
their ailing military.
Azerbaijan,
whose capital is the origin of the BTC pipeline, is playing a delicate
diplomatic and economic game with Iran; there's no love lost between the two
neighbors, but they need one another economically. As debates over offshore
drilling in the Caspian continue unresolved, this relationship may prove more
tenuous than once thought.
On November 25th
in Turkmenistan, there was an attempted assassination of eccentric Turkmen
President Saparmurat Niyazov. The removal of Niyazov is a desire spoken about
openly in Moscow; it's unclear whether Russian intelligence had any hand in the
events, though this is widely rumored.
The Caspian
region has all the earmarks of potential instability and inevitable war
--multiple countries and companies jockeying for a finite amount of resources
and wealth, lack of a legal framework to determine who has legitimate access to
that wealth, a plethora of ethnicities looking for independence, and rampant
government corruption and organized crime. (See "Asian states battle over
Caspian wealth")
Now, highly
organized, international terrorist groups with economic disruption as their
calling card are proving themselves worthy opponents for the best intelligence
and military skills the "civilized world" has to offer. With the
strikes on the USS Cole, the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon, right
through to the most recent terrorist targets in Bali and Mombasa, Kenya, the
pace of the attacks has not been deterred. (See "Terrorism's threat to
globalization")
Recently, a
senior Al Qaeda member alluded to Central Asian and Caucasian oil pipelines as
being possible targets; analysts see this as fully within the organization's
capabilities and interests. These threats are now made all the more real by the
increasing tension between Chechnya and Russia, as the Chechen cause is
increasingly seen as one of utmost importance to many Islamists.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin has also threatened to use nuclear weapons to achieve
his goals of ending the Chechen problem once and for all. Such rhetoric is
countered by Chechen guerrillas who threaten to strike at nuclear facilities or
use "dirty bombs" of their own design.
So, with the
situation in Chechnya becoming more globally significant and Islamists becoming
more involved there, it is a safe bet that the Caucasus and Central Asia will
become the next war zones for the nebulous terrorist networks. Combine that
with the recent threats from al Qaeda, and attacks in the region are really a
matter of when. And the more President Putin fans the flames, not only with
Chechnya but also with Georgia, the greater the chance the Caspian region will
become the next battle ground between "good" and "evil."
Matthew Riemer has written for years about a myriad of
topics, such as: philosophy, religion, psychology, culture, and politics. He
studied Russian language and culture for five years and traveled in the former
Soviet Union in 1990. He is a columnist and editor with Yellow Times.org, where this article first appeared.
Matthew lives in the United States, and he encourages your comments: mriemer@YellowTimes.org