Playing chess in Eurasia

[Jefferson23]

December 22, 2011

By Pepe Escobar

Bets are off on which is the great story of 2011. Is it the Arab Spring(s)? Is it the Arab counter-revolution, unleashed by the House of Saud? Is it the "birth pangs" of the Greater Middle East remixed as serial regime changes? Is it R2P ("responsibility to protect" legitimizing "humanitarian" bombing? Is it the freeze out of the "reset" between the US and Russia? Is it the death of al-Qaeda? Is it the euro disaster? Is it the US announcing a Pacific century cum New Cold War against China? Is it the build up towards an attack on Iran? (well, this one started with Dubya, Dick and Rummy ages ago ...)

Underneath all these interlinked plots - and the accompanying hysteria of Cold War-style headlines - there's a never-ending thriller floating downstream: Pipelineistan.


That's the chessboard where the half-hidden twin of the Pentagon's "long war" is played out. Virtually all current geopolitical developments are energy-related. So fasten your seat belts, it's time to revisit Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski's "grand chessboard" in Eurasia to find out who's winning the Pipelineistan wars.

Got tickets to the opera?
Let's start with Nabucco (the gas opera). Nabucco is above all a key, strategic Western powerplay; how to deliver Caspian Sea gas to Europe. Energy execs call it "opening the Southern Corridor" (of gas). The problem is this Open Sesame will only deliver if supplied by a tsunami of gas from two key "stans" - Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.

remainder: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/ML22Ag02.html

[Old and In the Way]

1. Excellent read!

You really can see this developing into a Central Asia energy security block, consisting of Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and China. I really don't see how the US and NATO can stop it. Instead of trying to interdict ourselves into the geopolitics of this region, we ought to be focusing on North/Central/South America and becoming a better partner in this region of the world.

[Jefferson23]

2. I agree, we ought to be focusing our efforts very differently...but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Thank you for the recommend.

[Bucky]

3. I should bookmark Escobar's column. He always makes me think.

I often disagree with his politics, but his perceptions are dead on and often unique.

[Jefferson23]

4. On occassion he can come off as though he is off the deep end..but when you look closer,

he brings for the most part, a clear look at what the powers have in store for the rest of us.