Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
Available in weekly or daily dosage.
|
"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. Available in weekly or daily dosage. |
|
| 
|
|
|
|
|
Based on pipelines, the "Cold War" IS over -- if only the US-UK would shut up by Marie K. Thursday, August 21, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Re Long & large by Chris M. Sadly the remaining credibility of the US is being battered by the really stupid comments of Bush and Rice related to Russia and Georgia. They overlook the actual facts of the situation. They act like Russia's been in Georgia 5 YEARS, the length of time the US has been in Iraq, when the fighting only lasted about 5 days. They are increasing the potential of a split in NATO and ramping up tension in general. Rice's latest comment that Russia is isolating itself is another ridiculous idea. In fact, Russia's foreign policy people are extremely active and many agreements have been signed while the US remains bogged down in its illegal pre-emptive wars -- as this article points
RECENT REAL FOREIGN POLICY EXAMPLES (1) To start a war against Iraq and create a country called "Kurdistan" -- why? This is because Israel wants easy access to Kirkuk oil for their Kirkuk-Mosul-Jordan-Haifa oil pipeline -- oil they can send to their Red Sea port for shipment in supertankers to Asia. (2) To create "chaos" in Sudan and Somalia -- why? This is to keep these countries so distracted that they cannot get their oil fields up and producing so that they can send their oil to Asia from the Red Sea. (3) To trick Saakashvili into attacking South Ossetia (I've updated my thinking) -- why? This is because Israel has probably determined that getting natural gas from the eastern Caspian Sea countries using pipelines through the Georgia corridor is too problematic. Thus, the idea of using Georgia as an energy corridor has to be ended so that turning to Iran is seen as the only option. Of course, Russian natural gas may also need to be used, secretly. (4) To create the "Rose Revolution" that got Saakashvili into his current position -- why? No doubt, at that point in time the undersea pipelines from the eastern Caspian countries to Azerbaijan were seen as feasible while now they are viewed as too dangerous/costly. Now those countries' natural gas will be dealt with by Russia (and perhaps Iran) with some of the pipelines based on joint ventures with Western companies. There already are Russian pipelines that are not totally owned by Russia (see below). (5) To weaken Syria and Lebanon (before finally letting up a little) -- why? I assume that this was at least partially related to getting a land based version of Medstream (see below). I once wrote this when I encountered this article dated Nov. 9, 2007 mentioning an "undersea infrastructure corridor" which I then only partially saw the significance of -- Israel sending oil to its Red Sea port and on to Asia. NOW, it seems that Israel is finally getting its very own pipeline from Turkey called Medstream, but I guess it isn't going to be publicized much (it has no Wikipedia article). I only found it by chance in an article from India. In fact, it is a cluster of five pipelines carrying oil, natural gas, water, electricity, and fiber optic cables. There's still no news of it here in Turkey. It seems that Russia's Gazprom will be providing gas through the Blue Stream pipeline which I've always thought was for Turkey's domestic consumption (it's a Netherlands based joint venture of Gazprom and Italian Eni). Besides the natural gas going from Medstream to India, the article says, "the bigger plan is for the oil and gas sourced to also travel to China, Taiwan and South Korea, basically opening up eastern Asia's big markets to central Asian oil and gas." Of course, as the article notes "Turkmenistan virtually promised most of its gas resources to Russia" based on recent agreements. NOTE: this article indicates that earlier pipelines, the Iranian IPI and US's TAPI, are no longer seen as viable. The "P" in both is Pakistan which has now been dumped/"chaosed" by the US. Recent events in Turkey have led me to believe that natural gas from Iran will also be used. As this article indicates, Turkey will be negotiating with Iran and "hopes the talks will yield results in one month." On TV Turkey's Energy Minister indicated they were "important" talks. Thus, I assume the agreement reached will be for natural gas for the Nabucco pipeline that will send the gas to Europe and/or for Israel's Medstream pipeline. Of course, the article says that Turkey is acting "independently," but sadly I no longer believe such claims. At least Turkey can still truthfully claim that it wants peaceful relations with all the countries it deals with -- it's just held a summit with African countries. The article also mentions the fact that President Ahmadinejad was in Turkey for talks (Aug. 14-15). It was called a "working visit" and the location was Istanbul. In fact, despite being not quite official, it WAS a significant event. It's been 12 years since an Iranian leader has come to Turkey, and it was the first time that Ahmadinejad has been to a NATO member country. The article brings up the issue of whether the US approved and indicates they "reportedly" did as long as no energy deals were concluded. After Ahmadinejad left, it was cryptically indicated that a 2nd pipeline from Iran to Turkey was being planned. There already is a natural gas pipeline from Iran called the Iran-Turkey pipeline (I also assumed for domestic consumption). However, it is connected to the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) natural gas pipeline with both of them slated to be connected to the still to be built Nabucco pipeline and also to one to Greece and one to Italy. Based on the info. above and the P.S.'s below, it can be concluded that Russia and Western oil and natural gas companies are WORKING TOGETHER just fine while even experts get fooled into thinking that Russia is blocking Western efforts and/or that WWIII is only minutes away. Basically, the same goes for Iran. SO, the Cold War really IS over if only the US and UK would tone it down a bit -- but it is election time. The NATO business is another story, though. Although I may be wrong on this, I assume that the Russians don't have to spend all of their time lying about their plans like the US does. Turkey is also pretty open about its efforts, except for the ones related to Israel. For Russia and Turkey, it's a matter of national pride to announce new projects. Of course, I will be on the lookout for more "real foreign policy" examples. Marie K. P.S. The Wikipedia article on the Blue Stream pipeline had info. indicating that it could be expanded into a Samsun-Ceyhan link and this sentence: "the planned Samsun-Ceyhan land pipeline and the Ceyhan-Ashkelon (Israel) subsea pipeline will allow export of Russian natural gas to Israel." A Wikipedia article called the "Samsun-Ceyhan Pipeline" (SCP) says it provides "an alternative route for Russian and Kazakhstan's OIL." Another article says that Shell is likely to join the SCP project. P.P.S This article confirms that the SCP oil pipeline is still a possibility and confirms that Russia is planning to transfer natural gas to Israel through Turkey. It also says that "the Russia-led Southstream project did not conflict with the European Union's Nabucco gas pipeline because Europe needs both pipelines." In other words, Russia is NOT trying to block Nabucco nor is the project dead because of Russia.  |
|
