Joe Biden says the US won't try to stop secession in Iraq?

Quoteth the New York Times:

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. told Iraqi leaders on Friday that he and President Obama were committed to helping them resolve their political differences, but he warned that the United States would be unlikely to remain engaged in Iraq if the country reverted to sectarian violence, American officials said.

First of all, I doubt this is true. Even if the American public would not tolerate another over internvetion in the case of possible secession, I have no doubt that the Obama administration would pick sides and try to throw money and guns at whoever is promising to keep Iraq whole.

But besides that – what kind of message does Joe Biden think he's sending, exactly? I assume he intended it towards Malaki and his parochial interests, but it sounds like something that would please the Sunnis and Kurds (and even Malaki's rivals among the Shiites, like Ayad Alawai).

The reason I think that Joe Biden's promise of nonintervention is hollow is that the secession of the Kurds – who would likely be the first to split if the US declared a hands-off approach – would greatly offend US ally Turkey, which is doing everything it can to keep hold on to its own restive Kurdish region. The US would lose a rare friend in the Middle East, and Europe might lose the opportunity to break Russia's monopoly on transiting natural gas from the Caspian Sea with the Nabucco pipeline (though admittedly the Russians have already all but killed the deal).

I imagine that the inspiration for Joe Biden's remarks are his own personal convictions – back in 2006, when he was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his play for Iraq was to split it up into three autonomous regions loosely bound into one nation. That was probably the most intelligent thing I'd ever heard Biden say, though I wish he'd gone further and called for three totally independent states, Turkey be damned.

Confusing Eurasian toponyms

Do you ever look at a map from a couple hundred years ago and think, "I thought that country was on the other side of Europe...?"

• Iberian Peninsula vs. Caucasian Iberia (modern day Georgia)
• Albania vs. Caucasian Albania (in present day Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan)
• Bulgaria vs. Volga Bulgaria (around present day Kazan) vs. Old Great Bulgaria (northeast of the Black Sea)
• Armenia vs. Kingdom of Armenia (from the South Caucasus to the Black Sea to Damascus) vs. Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (what is now southern Turkey)

Russia and the Middle East

I found this article on Stratfor about the geopolitics of the Middle East, and they have intelligence that Russia is beefing up its presence in the Middle East and likely looking to return to its prominent Cold War role in the Middle East. There's so much information in the article that I'll just quote a huge chunk of it:

With Israel sorting itself out internally and the neighboring Arabs lying in wait for the final outcome, this brief respite presents an opportunity for the Russians in the Middle East theater. Russia brought the world back into a Cold War paradigm with its August invasion of Georgia. The idea of a revived Cold War gained further traction in recent weeks when key Russian leaders emerged from the shadows and started popping up in places such as Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua to sit down with their old Latin American drinking buddies and discuss a slew of arms deals.

While the Russians appear to be paying a lot of attention to Latin America, the Middle East remains a viable playing ground for Russia to turn the screws on the West. In fact, Stratfor already has been getting indications that Russian intelligence officers are pouring into Beirut — a traditional Cold War battleground.

Of course, much has changed since the days of Soviet-sponsored chaos in the Middle East. Many of the Palestinian leftist leaders with whom the Soviets worked are either dead or retired. Groups have gone extinct. Alliances have shifted.

Nonetheless, the Russians still have a menu of options in getting back into the Middle East game. They will find no shortage of disaffected Palestinians who are sick of the current state of affairs and would be more than happy to have a foreign state sponsor. Former Marxist groups such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey, after being beaten heavily in the past year by the Turks in northern Iraq, would likely jump at the opportunity to link up with their old Russian backers. Lebanon, which is now experiencing a higher-than-usual degree of communal volatility, has a range of factions for the Russians to choose from. And the list goes on.

Should the Russians decide that it is worth their while to incur the risk of provoking both Israel and Turkey, the Middle East is the next logical place for Moscow to ramp up covert activity. And the time to do so is now, while the Israelis are still distracted.

Turkey already sees the Russians coming. The Turks were extremely displeased to see Russia at war in the Caucasus, and they now are doing everything they can to keep the Russians as far away from the Middle East as possible. For this reason, Stratfor is hearing that the Turks are growing more and more insistent that the peace talks between Israel and Syria move forward — and quickly.

Syria, meanwhile, is in an interesting position. On the one hand, they can listen to their Turkish mediators and pursue an opening with the United States through a peace deal with Israel. On the other hand, they can choose to jump back into the Cold War game with the Russians and work against Western interests, taking all the risks that come with such a plan. In any case, the Syrians will have a lot of hard thinking to do over the next several weeks.

What the article didn't mention (though Stratfor has mentioned it before, as have Turkish journalists) is the suggestion that Russia might already have contracted out at least one operation with the PKK: the bombing of the BTC pipeline right before the South Ossetia war.

There's also no mention of Iran, though Russia's policy vis-à-vis Iran has been quite successful. It has enabled Iran to remain a minor pariah, just isolated enough to prevent the West from being willing to depend on Iran as a transit point of energy from the east, but not crazy enough to start any wars (though this would drive up energy prices and further bog down the US/Israel, which could be useful to Russia). This is significant because besides through Iran, the only other two ways to get energy from the east into Europe are through Russia and through the Caucasus. Russia obviously controls its own territory, and with the South Ossetia war, has successfully closed the Caucasus to Western energy pipelines (all three of them).

A Russian hand in the Niger Delta?

Robet Coalson at Radio Free Europe has an interesting commentary on Russia's unique position as a petrostate. Unlike most petrostates (and this includes states whose money comes also from natural gas and energy transit), whose fortunes rise and fall with energy prices, Russia has perhaps the unique position among all of them to actively influence the price of energy. Along with a vast amount of territory rich in oil and natural gas, the Russian state also seeks to shore up reserves outside of Russia and retain a monopoly on energy transshipments to western markets. In addition to enticing and cowering Central Asia and its vast gas resources, Russia has also managed to shore up the Caucasian route out of Europe. Also, conveniently, its foreign policy towards Iran seems to encourage the Iranian leadership to remain isolated, cutting off that route for energy pipelines. It's clear that Russia still uses the espionage and foreign policy tools (like al-Qaeda, the FARC, and possibly the PKK) that the Cold War leaders supposedly left behind, but before reading this article, I'd never heard anyone suggest that the recent flare-up in tensions in the Niger Delta in Nigeria might have been orchestrated by Russia:

In Nigeria, once the fifth-largest supplier of oil to the United States, well-armed and organized rebels have cut production by 20 percent by targeting pipelines and other infrastructure. No one knows where their weapons – including powerful speedboats – come from, but they have "more serious weaponry than any other Nigerian militia to date," according to the Christian Science Monitor in 2006. On September 14, the rebels declared an "oil war" and have launched numerous attacks this week, including destroying a flow station on September 16 and disabling a pipeline the following day. Although there is no evidence linking Moscow to these activities, it is an example of how oil prices could be manipulated to the Kremlin's benefit.

Nabucco: on, or off?

Right after the South Ossetian conflict I wrote about articles foretelling the Nabucco gas pipeline's demise, and now I have some follow-up information. Radio Free Europe reports that there was a conference held in Baku where a few potential gas-producing/gas-transiting counties came together and pledged their support, but it included firm promises from only Azerbaijan and Turkey. And even then, Azerbaijan – the only committed country with natural gas supplies – admits that without others, it can't produce enough gas to fill the pipeline. And even Azerbaijan's commitment is not firm. The Moscow Times reports:

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has failed to win Azerbaijan's support for the construction of a new gas pipeline from the Caspian that would bypass Russia.

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev indicated to Cheney during talks in Baku on Wednesday that he did not want to anger Russia in the wake of its invasion of neighboring Georgia, Kommersant reported, citing an official in Aliyev's administration. Cheney was so disappointed that he did not attend an official dinner in his honor, the report said.

Azerbaijan has also increased flows of oil through a pipeline to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, the newspaper reported, citing a Russian energy official.

Other than Azerbaijan, the only gas-producing countries that would possibly be in on the deal are Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan isn't certain, according to RFE:

Turkmen officials at the Baku conference have not yet said what level of participation, if any, Turkmenistan would have in Nabucco. Furthermore, Turkmenistan has committed itself to pumping more gas to Russia and China in recent weeks.

...and the RFE article doesn't mention anything about Kazakhstan's involvement in the conference, nor does it cite any Kazakh or other sources as to the possibility of Kazakh contributions to the pipeline. Kazakhstan's participation in another pipeline – the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline – has been uncertain, with officials supporting the project in public but ruling it out in private conversations. It's shown the same tendency with the Nabucco gas pipeline, supporting it in public but throwing its weight behind Russia when it comes to actually building pipelines.

BTC pipeline is "dead," says Russian

From the increasingly interesting Turkish daily Hürriyet, an oddly candid admission of Russia's intentions with the BTC pipeline:

An adviser to the Russian parliament also claimed the closed pipeline would not be opened again and declared the line is "dead."

"The world and countries in the region have seen that not NATO, but Russia is the only one who could secure the energy routes," Alexander Dugin, international politics advisor to the Russia's Duma, told Turkish Cumhuriyet daily.

"In this context, regarding Turkey's energy politics, it should be said that the BTC is not running at the moment and it will not run again."

Stratfor on the not-so-PKK bombing

Right before the outbreak of the war in South Ossetia, a respectable private intelligence agency, Stratfor*, wrote about the PKK's attack on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline earlier that day. It notes all the reasons why it seems unlikely that the PKK ordered and carried out the attack by themselves (emphasis mine):

Although the PKK has explicitly threatened attacks on the pipeline since 2005, the group has focused its attacks instead on a natural gas pipeline between Iran and Turkey that runs straight through some of southeastern Turkey’s most volatile areas, making it far more vulnerable to attacks than the BTC pipeline. For the PKK to carry out an attack on the BTC, the group would have to expand beyond its usual area of operations. That could prove difficult at the present time, however, considering the amount of pressure the militant group has been facing since Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government began cooperating with Turkey and the United States in early 2008 in uprooting PKK safe havens in northern Iraq. But the PKK also has a desire to make a strong comeback after spending the last several months under pressure from Turkish forces, and striking the BTC pipeline would certainly be a coup for the group. The PKK also might look to its former allies in Moscow for support at a time when Russia is seizing upon every opportunity to use energy resources to apply political pressure on Europe.

Such attacks would not come without risks, however. A “success” would likely be immediately followed by a military crackdown the likes of which the Kurds have not suffered since the height of Turkish-PKK clashes in the 1990s.

This article was published before anyone knew how the Russian-Georgian conflict was going to play out. But in retrospect, it happened right when Moscow would have wanted it to happen. Two crisis events – the PKK bombing and a Russian invasion of Georgia – would stick in Western investors minds, and make them seriously think twice about the risk inherent in building new pipelines through Georgia to bypass Russia. And by using the PKK (which had ties with the USSR) as a "subcontractor" Russia doesn't risk raising the ire of the West.

* The site is subscription-only, but it allows you to see articles if you click a link from Google. So, do a search for the title of the article and click on the link from Google's search results page. Sorry, Stratfor!

Georgian pipeline deathwatch

This morning I wrote about Western oil firms fleeing from Georgia, and now, the Nabucco natural gas pipeline is in jeopardy, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Though the pipeline doesn't go through Georgia, it is a westward expansion through Turkey of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline (BTE, not to be confused with its oil counterpart, the BTC pipeline), which is already built and flows through Georgia, and so would be vulnerable if the BTE pipeline were interrupted.

Russia Today (a state-owned Russian news organization) reports, citing industry analysts, that "Europe and America will drop Georgia from a new oil and gas project" after the recent scuffle in Georgia. And who, conveniently enough, is ready to fill in the void left by the likely cancellation of the Nabucco pipeline? Russia, of course:

Rival Russian gas pipeline projects South Stream and Pre-Caspian are ready to fill the gap. Konstantin Batunin, Oil and Gas Analyst at Alfa-Bank says they are more certain than the alternatives.

"Those projects being pursued by Russia they have a future. But all those projects involving Georgia they used to be kind of vague in the past, now they're getting even more vague."

Being from a biased state news organization, the author of the article says that "President Saakashvili's erratic behaviour is wiping out Tbilisi's strategic and geographic advantages." But it's quite obvious that this is Russia's desire and Russia's doing, as they've been trying to provoke a Georgian invasion of South Ossetia or Abkhazia for months.

The West flees from Georgia, Russians achieve their goal

There are two major energy pipelines owned by non-Russian foreign consortia running through Georgian territory: the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, and the Baku-Supsa pipeline. While the former pipeline had been shut down coincidentally a few weeks before the recent fighting began (supposedly because of sabotage by Kurdish separatists, but I have my doubts), the Baku-Supsa pipeline was still operational. And though the pipeline was not damaged in the fighting, BP (the operator) has shut down the line as a "security precaution."

From the NYT, analysts and oil bosses believe the incident has destroyed any chance of more energy pipelines in Georgia:

“It is hard to see through the fog of this war another pipeline through Georgia,” said Cliff Kupchan, a political risk analyst at Eurasia Group and a State Department official during the Clinton administration. “Moving forward, multinationals and Central Asian and Caspian governments may think twice about building new lines through this corridor. It may even call into question the reliability of moving existing volumes through that corridor.” [...]

But Mr. Verrastro, a former senior executive with Pennzoil, said it would be very hard now to build a new Western [natural gas] pipeline.

This was Russia's intention from the start: to destabilize Georgia and make foreigners think twice before investing money in Georgia, an alternative route for directing oil and natural gas across the Caspian Sea without going through Russian territory. Russia didn't need to damage actual infrastructure (though it looks like they might have at least tried in both Poti and the crucial BTC pipeline) – all they needed to do was increase the risk premium that investors saw in Georgia, and their goal is achieved – to channel all the oil and natural gas they can through their own territory.

This is all part of the New Great Game, a fight between Russia and the West over control of Central Asia's increasingly important energy reserves. Russia has been quite active in the Caucasus, fomenting tension that will scare off Western investors, such as its recent antics in Nagorno-Karabakh – arming and encouraging both the Armenians and Azerbaijanis, hoping that they'll eventually go to war over the disputed territory. Such a war, like the current one in Georgia, would surely set back Western energy companies' plans to use the countries as energy conduits to avoid Russia.

Russia, the PKK, and the South Ossetian energy war

Apparently I'm not the only one who has doubts about the supposed PKK sabotage of a Turkish section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline a few weeks ago. Enis Berberoğlu, in the high-circulation Turkish daily Hürriyet, writes (through a terrible translator) of his own suspicions that the PKK – supposed attackers of the pipeline – is a "subcontractor" of Russia, working to destabilize the BTC pipeline. Though the article's light on evidence (not uncommon in east-of-Western-Europe news organizations), it recalls a 1998 press conference, when the military wing of the PKK declared its opposition to the BTC pipeline project, then in the planning stages. Also joining Berberoğlu in his accusations of Russian involvement in the PKK's anti-pipeline actions is Hürriyet's editor-in-chief Fatih Çekirge, who also believes that the pipeline sabotage was not "a simple terror attack," but rather "a by-product of an international war on energy security," undertaken by Russia with the PKK as a mere proxy.