Rights take backseat to oil, Iran

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Associated Press
http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2006/05/04/458/

Searching for energy supplies and allies against Iran, the Bush administration is reaching out to leaders who rule nations that are rich in oil and gas but accused of authoritarian rule and human rights violations.

The presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Equatorial Guinea are all getting special attention. The effort sometimes seems at odds with President George W. Bush’s stated second-term goal of spreading democracy.

“If those countries were not oil producers, we would probably not be meeting with their leaders,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a foreign-policy analyst at the Brookings Institution. “There is some tension with Bush’s democracy-promotion agenda. They are pulling in different directions.”

The search goes on for stable supplies of oil from areas other than the volatile Persian Gulf — a search joined by China and India. But much of the world’s remaining accessible oil is controlled by governments not particularly friendly to U.S. interests.

report: http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2006/05/04/458/