Robert M. Cutler on Energy and Eurasia

PetroKazakhstan and all that

Fred Halliday has an interesting report of a conference in Cambridge, although it is more of a survey, albeit knowledgeable, of the whole CIS-space. For what it's worth, this I find characteristic of the openDemocracy site in general: it's good for general orientation and some commentary, but it is seldom that the specialists who write there give the full benefit of their specialized knowledge to the reader, in terms of explicating detailed background or bringing clear analytical power to bear. As always, there are exceptions, but this article isn't one of them

     Amongst the commentaries and reports on the CNPC/PetroKazakhstan affair are an articles at Jamestown Foundation, Asia Times onLine, and Gulf Times, the last of which plays up the Russia-vs.-China angle. According to Tehran Times

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.

CACO Integrates EurAsEc

The Central Asian Co-operation Organization (CACO, comprising Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and since October 2004 Russia) has taken a decision to meld itself into the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEc, which includes also Belarus and has until now excluded Uzbekistan). CACO, established in February 2002, started out in 1994 as the Central Asian Union (KZ+KG+UZ) and changed its name to the Central Asian Economic Community when TJ joined in 1998.

      EurAsEc on the other hand started out as the Group of Four (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia), an attempt to implement a CIS Customs Union, before expanding its membership and changing its name. EurAsEc now includes, as independent states, the nine republics in Gorbachev's 1991 Nine-plus-One Agreement: minus Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Ukraine (but of which the last two, with Moldova, have observer status in EurAsEc).