Cultural Divides and Caspian Oil-5
Samuel Huntington's notion of "conflict of civilizations", by
identifying Orthodox Christianity as a civilization in conflict with the West and its
famous "values", has offered an ideological cover for the "divide and
conquer" strategy, which has less appeal, but is not incompatible with, the
"humanitarian" justification. It has been taken up by influential writer Robert
D. Kaplan, who sees a "real battle" that is "drawn along
historical-civilizational lines. On the one side are the Turks, their fellow Azeri Turks
in Azerbaijan, the Israelis and the Jordanians [...]. On the other side are those who
suffered the most historically from Turkish rule: the Syrian and Iraqi Arabs, the
Armenians, the Greeks and the Kurds". It is not hard to see
whose side the United States must be on in this battle, or which must be the winning side.
Kaplan places Kosovo "smack in the middle of a very unstable and important
region where Europe joins the Middle East" while "Europe is redividing along
historic and cultural lines".
"There is a Western, Catholic, Protestant Europe and an Eastern Orthodox
Europe, which is poorer, more politically unsettled and more ridden with organized crime.
That Orthodox realm has been shut out of NATO and is angrier by the day, and it is
fiercely anti-Moslem", Kaplan declares.
An oddity of these "cultural divide" projections is that they find the
abyss between Eastern and Western Christianity far deeper and more unbridgeable than the
difference between Christianity and Islam. The obvious short, three-letter explanation is
"oil". But there is a complementary explanation that is more truly cultural,
relating to the transnational nature of Islam and to the importance of its charitable
organizations. Steve Niva has noted a split within the US foreign
policy establishment between conservatives (clearly absent from the Clinton
administration) who see Islam as a threat, and "neo-liberals" for whom the
primary enemy is "any barrier to free trade and unfettered markets".
These include European leaders, oil companies and Zbigniew Brzezinski. "Incorporating
Islamists into existing political systems would disperse responsibility for the state's
difficulties while defusing popular opposition to severe economic `reforms' mandated by
the IMF. Islamist organizations could also help fill the gap caused by the rollback of
welfare states and social services...", Niva observed.
In any case, all roads lead to the Caspian, and through Kosovo. Kaplan publicly
advises the nation's leaders that an "amoral reason of self-interest" is needed
to persuade the country to keep troops in the Balkans for years to come. The reason is
clear. "With the Middle East increasingly fragile, we will need bases and fly-over
rights in the Balkans to protect Caspian Sea oil. But we will not have those bases in the
future if the Russians reconquer southeast Europe by criminal stealth. Finally, if we tell
our European allies to go it alone in Kosovo, we can kiss the Western Alliance
goodbye"(19).
Looking at a map, one may wonder why it is necessary to go
through Kosovo to obtain Caspian oil. This is a good question. However, U.S. strategists don't simply want to obtain oil, which is a simple matter
if one has money. They want to control its flow to the big European market. The
simple way to get Caspian oil is via pipeline southward through Iran. But that would evade
U.S. control. Or through Russia; just as bad. The preferred U.S. route, a pipeline from
Azerbaijan to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan has been rejected as too costly.
Turkey has vetoed massive oil tanker traffic through the Bosporus on ecological grounds.
That leaves the Balkans. It seems the U.S. would like to build a
pipeline across the Balkans, no doubt with Bechtel getting the building contract -- former
Bechtel executive and Reagan administration Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger is a
leading Kosovo warhawk. Bechtel has already obtained major contracts in Tudjman's Croatia.
It is interesting that the Danube, likely to fall under German control, has been blocked
for serious transport by NATO's bombing of Serbia's bridges.
On the way to the Caspian, the next stop after Yugoslavia could be the big prize:
Ukraine, which like the other former Soviet Republics is already under U.S. influence
through NATO's "Partnership For Peace". Early this year, asked by a German
magazine whether NATO should be the world policeman, NATO commander Wesley Clark observed
that the "countries on the Caspian Sea are members of the `Partnership for Peace'.
They have the right to consult NATO in case of threat." Clark "didn't want to
speculate on what NATO might then do..."
[ Clinton Doctrine ] [ Importance of War Crimes ] [ Humanitarian Realpolitik ] [ Cultural Divides ] [ Scenarios Reach the TV Screen ] [ Abramowitz-Albright Policy For Yugoslavia ] [ How to sabotage the OSCE ] [ How to obtain "Justice" ] [ Unified Empires ] [ History as Melodrama ].
