Putin: "I Love the Smell of Cordite and Crude Oil in the Morning"Oil Pipeline to the West Is Shut in Georgia and Turkey

Russia's Vladimir Putin would personally like to tighten the noose around Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and hang him from a lightpost on Rustaveli Boulevard in Tbilisi. The former KGB agent loathes the man and the vibrant, pro-American democratic regime that began to flourish on Russia's southwestern border. [See the author's "Georgia on My Mind," November 2007]

There's no doubt that Putin is dedicated to undermining Saakashvili's government, one that seeks to join NATO and that provided -- until last week -- the third largest contingent of troops to the American coalition in Iraq. Frankly, some analysts thought that Georgia's pro-American policies would lead to Moslem terrorist attacks from al Qaeda or Chechyan bombers. Not enough attention, however, was paid to the champion of a resurgent new Soviet-like hegemony, Vladimir Putin, who may have just wrangled a treacherous diplomatic agreement that effectively gives him control of Georgia.

But pay attention to Putin's energy designs, as well. He's not only the new Russian czar; he's the energy czar. His aggressive foreign policy is buoyed by Russia's oil exports. High oil prices helps him; competition, particularly from new oil fields in nearby former Soviet vassal states, hurts him. And the new oil pipelines that go around Russia also deny him royalties.

One of the most demonstrative efforts to circumvent Russia was the construction of the 1,100-mile long Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which began pumping oil in 2005 from Azerbaijan to a Turkish port on the Mediterranean Sea via Georgia. The BTC has a capacity of 1.2 million barrels of crude oil a day, with much of the oil destined for Europe, the United States and even the Far East (shipped to Israel's port of Ashkelon from where it can be pumped to Eilat and oil tankers).

As explained in a New York Times analysis today, "American policy makers hoped that diverting oil around Russia would keep the country from reasserting control over Central Asia and its enormous oil and gas wealth and would provide a safer alternative to Moscow’s control over export routes that it had inherited from Soviet days."

Not now. Georgian news reports claimed that Russian aircraft tried to hit the pipeline. Whether they did or not, British Petroleum, the pipeline's operators, shut down the oil pipeline and a gas pipeline that pass through Georgia out of fear of the hostilities.

Strange that last week an explosion in Turkey also shut down the BTC at that point. According to Turkish press accounts, "The BTC pipeline explosion took place late Tuesday in a pump at a section near the eastern town of Refahiye, in Erzincan province. The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) claimed responsibility for the blast."

Maybe not so strange. Think KGB.

Recommended reading:

1. Yesterday's analysis buried in the Washington Post's business section, Russia's Strike Shows the Power of the Pipeline by Steven Pearlstein. "It was surely not lost on Russia's bully in chief, Vladimir Putin, that the oil giant BP decided to shut down the pipeline that runs through parts of Georgia controlled by Russian troops. Indeed, that was one of the aims of the cross-border incursion," Pearlstein wrote.

2. The New York Times analysis Conflict Narrows Oil Options for West by Jad Mouawad. "Some analysts believe the armed conflict between Russia and Georgia is rooted not only in historical enmity, but also an outgrowth of Russia’s fears that Georgia, with its pro-Western bent, could prove to be a lasting competitor for energy exports," wrote Mouawad. 'Russians treasured the fact they had a monopoly on oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia, as it gave them considerable clout,' said Marshall I. Goldman, a senior scholar for Russian studies at Harvard... By agreeing to having an oil pipeline, Georgia made itself more vulnerable.'”

Sphere: Related Content