I'll bet this is what Rome felt like when Nero and Caligula were partying down.
One of the many catastrophic side effects of a delusional US government with an obsessive-compulsive streak is that things that really, really matter fall through the cracks. Bhradrakumar's analysis today is an excellent case in point:
From the details coming out of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan and Moscow over the weekend, it is apparent that the great game over Caspian energy has taken a dramatic turn. In the geopolitics of energy security, nothing like this has happened before. The United States has suffered a huge defeat in the race for Caspian gas. The question now is how much longer Washington could afford to keep Iran out of the energy market.
Gazprom, Russia's energy leviathan, signed two major agreements in Ashgabat on Friday outlining a new scheme for purchase of Turkmen gas. The first one elaborates the price formation principles that will be guiding the Russian gas purchase from Turkmenistan during the next 20-year period. The second agreement is a unique one, making Gazprom the donor for local Turkmen energy projects. In essence, the two agreements ensure that Russia will keep control over Turkmen gas exports.
The implications of this move are huge, on several levels:
First, this is the disastrous end to a twenty-year effort by the United States to lock down control of the gigantic gas resource base in Turkmenistan (fourth largest in the world with proven reserves of 100 trillion cubic feet, about half US proven reserves of 211 trillion cubic feet). For longtime Central Asia watchers like Ahmed Rashid, the entire Neocon's Excellent Adventure™ in Central Asia, from arming Bin Laden in the 1980's to turning a blind eye to Pakistani exports of rogue nuclear technology, can be traced back to continuing efforts by the United States to gain access to Turkmenistan, and to build a gas pipeline through one of the most unstable regions on the planet to India and Pakistan. In a very real sense, the long and bloody path from the disastrous Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, through 9/11, to the disastrous US invasion of Iraq, can be walked back to this moment of defeat.
Second, India has a problem. Russian control of Turkmen gas not only implies that Russia wins the Great Game as far as natural gas is concerned, it means that India probably doesn't get access to that resource. China has already locked down a 30 Tcf gas deal with Turkmenistan, a deal that will now be facilitated by Gazprom. Without access to a long-term gas resource, it's not clear what India does next.
Third, Europe has a problem. Plans for a US-Euro controlled gas route from the Caspian Basin are no longer viable:
The agreements with Turkmenistan further consolidate Russia's control of
Central Asia's gas exports. Gazprom recently offered to buy all of Azerbaijan's gas at European prices. (Medvedev visited Baku on July 3-4.) Baku will study with keen interest the agreements signed in Ashgabat on Friday. The overall implications of these Russian moves are very serious for the US and EU campaign to get the Nabucco gas pipeline project going.
Nabucco, which would run from Turkey to Austria via Bulgaria, Rumania and
Hungary, was hoping to tap Turkmen gas by linking Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan via a pipeline across the Caspian Sea that would be connected to the pipeline networks through the Caucasus to Turkey already existing, such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
But with access denied to Turkmen gas, Nabucco's viability becomes doubtful. And, without Nabucco, the entire US strategy of reducing Europe's dependence on Russian energy supplies makes no sense.
The most interesting part of all of this is that Russia closed the deal by actually offering Turkmenistan what the gas is actually worth, about double what they've been offered to date. Gazprom won't make much money on this deal. But they will lock down one of the last free range gas supplies in the world, assuring the effectiveness of any future move towards a global gas supplier cartel.
The most hilarious part of all of this, of course, is that India, and Europe, and the US really have only one option left if they want natural gas without going through Russia - Iran, with about 940 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves. This makes it much harder to bully Iran about the rogue nuclear technology that they got from Pakistan while the US was propping up the corrupt and totalitarian government there so that they would support Bin Laden and the Taliban who were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan so that we could run a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan.
In the immortal words of Malcom X, the chickens are coming home to roost.
Hat tips to Juan Cole.