The five Caspian Sea border states met in Tehran today to discuss oil, gas water and nukes. President Putin professed his support for a nuclear Iran, and condemned the proposal of placing NATO and/or American forces in Azerbaijan. Some bloggers have taken this warning as tantamount to a military pact, but I differ. I shared my thoughts at RCP:
As it stands, the five nations–Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan–all have a proportional claim to the oil reserves that reflect the size of their coast line. Iran has claimed more, and acted on it in 2001 when they sent a gunship into Azeri waters to halt BP exploration.
For the Russians, their biggest fear is a proposed gas pipeline deal between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. This would cut into the Russian energy monopoly over the West, which would hurt the already struggling Russian economy.
So my guess is the deal goes as follows–no more talks of a gas pipeline, no NATO forces in Azerbaijan, and Iran sucks it up and takes their 13% of the water. Yay team Caspian!
So what say you folks? If the U.S., France and Israel went around UN conditions in order to strike Iran, would it provoke Russian intervention?
Would they both run to the Chinese?
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1 Michael van der Galiën
October 16, 2007 @ 8:03 pm CESTWhat’s Russia’s going to do? Attack the US? Attack France? No, just posturing.
2 Kevin Sullivan
October 16, 2007 @ 8:04 pm CESTWell, Yglesias thinks they might build a bomb for them.
3 Chris
October 16, 2007 @ 8:26 pm CESTYeah, Michael is right. The United States is the only country crazy enough to do something like that.
4 daveinboca
October 16, 2007 @ 10:15 pm CESTAs an Amoco Entry-Strategy Exec, I was in Baku at many of the events leading to the inception of the Baku/Ceyhan pipeline in the mid-90s and even then, the Russians opposed the Amoco-sponsored [along with BP] project which would serve as an alternative artery of crude oil to the West. Now with the possibility of Turkmen gas looped to the pipeline, the ante has skyrocketed.
I have written several times on my blog about the Russians’ steadfast opposition to alternative energy sources from the Caspian. Now with his visit to Tehran, Putin, whose subtlety matches the brutal political culture of his Motherland, openly claims some sort of primus-inter-pares role for Russia and Iran on the Caspian littoral. The pro-rata apportionment claim has gone nowhere & is off the table, as the Azeris export the vast majority of their crude via Ceyhan. The alternate route through Chechnya has been a debate of more than a decade, and at one point during the negotiations, Russia claimed that any offshore resources should be shared equally by all littoral states, even if they were only a few miles offshore from Baku, for example.
Putin and Ahmad…d are trying to pull a power play on Gaidar Aliyev, the Azeri President [whom I had the privilege of escorting to a Chicago Bulls game over a decade ago] who must depend almost entirely on American and Turkish geo-strategic support to maintain a balance of power in his beleaguered republic.
The overarching strategy of the Russian/Iranian entente is to diminish American influence in the Caucasus and eventually in the Middle East, a goal toward which the US Congress with its Armenian declaration [which insults both Azerbaijan & Turkey] appears willing to lend a helping hand.
5 Kevin Sullivan
October 16, 2007 @ 10:49 pm CESTGreat info, Dave. Very interesting.