Conflict in Georgia threatens U.S. effort to secure access to Central Asian energy [View All]

[jaybeat]

Recommended reading for the "Did dat big, bad Beaw huwt Mamma's wittle Georgie-worgie? Well, Mamma's gonna tell dat mean ol' Beaw dat he betta cut it out or else!" camp.

Published: August 14, 2008

The International Herald Tribune
By Jad Mouawad

NEW YORK: When the main pipeline that carries oil through Georgia was completed in 2005, it was hailed as a major success in the U.S. policy to diversify its energy supply. Not only did the pipeline transport oil produced in Central Asia, helping move the West off its dependence on the Middle East, but it also accomplished another American goal: It bypassed Russia.

U.S. policy makers hoped that diverting oil around Russia would keep it from reasserting control over Central Asia and its enormous oil and natural gas reserves, and would provide a safer alternative to Moscow's control over export routes that it had inherited from Soviet days. The tug-of-war with Moscow was the latest version of the Great Game, the 19th-century contest between Imperial Britain and Czarist Russia for dominance in the region.

A bumper sticker that U.S. diplomats distributed around Central Asia in the 1990s summed up Washington's strategic thinking: "Happiness is multiple pipelines."

Now energy experts say that the hostilities between Russia and Georgia could threaten U.S. plans to gain access to more of Central Asia's energy resources in a year when booming demand in Asia and tight supplies helped push the price of oil to records.

Much more here: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/14/europe/oil.php?page=1

For the rest of us, it looks like another one for the "No shit, Sherlock!" file. Please rec to help "spread the word"...

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