Robert M. Cutler on Energy and Eurasia

Russia and Iran's nuclear program

Takeyh and Gvosdev are right on target when they write:

It should be abundantly clear that Moscow and Washington do not see eye-to-eye on the Iranian question. When [U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza] Rice declared last Saturday that Iran had no need for even a civilian nuclear program, [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov countered that Iran had a full right to possess a nuclear fuel cycle.

Indeed, the only puzzle is why this should have ever been doubted. It was only "during her recent trip to Moscow that [the U.S. Secretary of State learned that] Russia would actively oppose any push to refer Iran's case to the [U.N. Security] Council." Russia's recent abstention in the IAEA Council was meaningless because it neither cost nor changed anything.

     The Europeans have an excuse, albeit a poor one, for such naîvété: they (specifically, significant and influential sections of West European elite opinion) are still seeing the after-images of the 1848-49 revolutions when Russia suppressed an uprising in Hungary in behalf of the Habsburgs and also convinced Prussia not to accept a liberal constitution. These acts earned Russia the reputation, now disclaimed by candid Russian analysis itself, of being the "gendarme of Europe".

     Unreflective opinion in Western Europe even believes that somehow Russia will save the Continent from the political effects of the steady demographic increase of its Islamic population. This irrational and emotional view is based upon the satisfaction of seeing Russia "rejoin" Europe after decades of Bolshevik/Communist rule. It ignores the cultural fact that the Bolshevik movement was firmly rooted in West European tradition and thought (here I mean not Marx but Rousseau: see for instance J.L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy), but those who hold that view also inhabit social strata sympathetic to Russia’s suppression of the liberal current in mid-19th century Europe. So it is all of a piece.

      But why should the U.S. Secretary of State have hoped for Russian support on the Iranian nuclear question? Her worldview was not formed by the aforesaid European circles. But also, it is unlikely that her background as a Sovietologist comes into play here. Probably, her social background and career trajectory have simply not allowed her to develop the practical Machiavellianism characterizing such of her predecessors as James Baker and Henry Kissinger. Indeed, her public pronouncements occasionally evoke nostalgia amongst other great-grandchildren of the Enlightenment. Sadly, the times call for a Mazarin, not a Masaryk.

      One more observation may be made. A politically weak Europe is not necessarily antithetical to Russia's interests. The report of sub rosa Russian assistance in transferring nuclear missile technology from North Korea to Iran, so as to extend the reach of the Iranian Shahab-3 missile to Europe, makes sense in this respect. Think "SS-20": the Soviet missile targeted on Western Europe, implanted in Eastern Europe in the late 1970s, which gave no real military advantage but was deployed for the purpose of political intimidation and weakening of political will at both the elite and mass levels. What does Russia lose if Europe is politically weak? It already has the epoch-making but little-noticed North-European Gas Pipeline (NEGP) project in its pocket.

Gazprom trying to move into South Asia

The head of Gazprom is making his first ever trip to Pakistan in order to sign a Memorandum of Understanding concerning the company's investment in the long-talked-about Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline. Gazprom is a major shareholder (along with TotalFinaElf and Petronas) in Iran's South Pars field, which would furnish the gas. This is part and parcel of an informal Russian-Iranian alliance against Western geo-economic penetration into Central and South Asia. The invitation to Russia is Pakistani state policy, although it is hardly surprising that no reports have surfaced of Russian interest in participating in the possible Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline.

Be wary of translations

A Russian news agency has reported in an English-language dispatch, concerning a meeting by the Armenian secretary of energy with his U.S. counterpart, that the latter "expressed his readiness for negotiations over the ways of development of Armenian power engineering and interest in construction of Iran-Armenia gas pipeline."

     It would be understandable to interpret this as stating that the U.S. would be interested in supporting construction of said pipeline. However, the Russian original reads, in full and correct translation:

[U.S. Energy Secretary] Samuel Bodman reflected a readiness to examine, through familiarization with the American experience in this sector, ways to develop Armenia's power engineering [industry]. The American side also was interested in the situation and the construction program of the Armenia-Iran gas pipeline.

Now that is slightly different. It would be possible to suppose that the difference is due to a poor translation, until one observes, also in the original Russian, a sentence totally omitted in the translated text: "[The Armenian Energy] Minister also suggested organizing an Armenian-American forum in the field of power engineering, in which the participation not only of the private sector but also of financial organizations would be advisable/expedient [tselesoobrazno]." This omission makes it clear that the other mistranslation was no mistake, but instead designed to mislead.

India, Iran and Europe

What seems a surprise is that India's rise to sustained attention on the global world energy agenda has happened so much sooner than at least some observers (admittedly this report was written before 11 September 2001 and thus while the Taliban still held power in Kabul) expected it to happen.

     An article earlier this year by an RFE/RL analyst gives background to relatively recent developments concerning (and threats to the realization of) the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. Political pressure from third parties aside, it is interesting that Tehran insists on exporting "lean" gas (i.e., gas not containing such other petrochemicals as propane, ethane or butane) whereas India wants gas enriched by them; and the Tehran insists on a "take-or-pay" contract, meaning India must pay for contracted gas even if it does not take delivery, while India prefers a "supply-or-pay" contract, meaning Iran is responsible for delivery of gas through third countries or must pay for contracted gas even if it is not delivered. (Iran has been burnt on take-or-pay contracts with Turkey in the past but has no recourse because its Constitution does not recognize jurisdiction by international courts.) Qatar is a competitor with Iran for the Indian market, and Oman and Kuwait are potential recipients of Iranian gas other than India. Ukraine is also a possible market for Iranian gas, through Armenia and Georgia and then either through Russia or under the Black Sea. (I have written about these issues in the past but the materials are not on the website. I will do my best to post them soon and then insert links into this weblog entry.)

     The RFE/RL analyst, and much North American commentary and analysis in general fails to mention the Nabucco pipeline project, on which construction began a few months ago. One reason for this is deserved skepticism that the project may not be fully realized anytime soon. (Nabucco, the title of an opera by Verdi, is the Italian name for the Babylonian king known in English as Nebuchadnezzar (605–562 BCE), architect of the possibly fictional Hanging Gardens of Babylon—of which no record exists in contemporary accounts and no archeological trace has been found—who conquered Jersualem in 586 BCE, razed the First Temple and, through what is now called "forced population transfer", initiated the period known in Bible studies as the Babylonian captivity of the Jews.) The Nabucco project is supposed to take natural gas to Europe from the Caspian Sea region including Iran, and putatively Iraq not to mention Egypt and North Africa, via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria. Earliest deliveries are projected for the end of the current decade, but schedules for these things have a way of slipping. Parts of the pipeline designated for Nabucco may be built, but there are significant strategic obstacles to the realization of the whole project. Every segment of it will require multilateral international negotiations. Even the relatively simple Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline was long in the making, and only strategic political and economic decisions by main European players made it a reality in the end.