THE ROVING
EYE Why
Putin is driving Washington
nuts By Pepe Escobar
Forget the past (Saddam, Osama, Gaddafi)
and the present (Assad, Ahmadinejad). A bet can be
made over a bottle of Petrus 1989 (the problem is
waiting the next six years to collect); for the
foreseeable future, Washington's top bogeyman -
and also for its rogue North Atlantic Treaty
Organization partners and assorted media shills -
will be none other than back-to-the-future Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
And make no
mistake; Vlad the Putinator will relish it. He's
back exactly where he wants to be; as Russia's
commander-in-chief, in charge of the military,
foreign policy and all national security matters.
Anglo-American elites still squirm at the
mention of his now
legendary Munich 2007
speech, when he blasted the then George W Bush
administration for its obsessively unipolar
imperial agenda "through a system which has
nothing to do with democracy" and non-stop
overstepping of its "national borders in almost
all spheres"."
So Washington and its
minions have been warned. Before last Sunday's
election, Putin even advertised his road
map The essentials; no war on Syria; no war on
Iran; no "humanitarian bombing" or fomenting
"color revolutions" - all bundled into a new
concept, "illegal instruments of soft power". For
Putin, a Washington-engineered New World Order is
a no-go. What rules is "the time-honored principle
of state sovereignty".
No wonder. When
Putin looks at Libya, he sees the graphic,
regressive consequences of NATO's "liberation"
through "humanitarian bombing"; a fragmented
country controlled by al-Qaeda-linked militias;
backward Cyrenaica splitting from more developed
Tripolitania; and a relative of the last king
brought in to rule the new "emirate" - to the
delight of those model democrats of the House of
Saud.
More key essentials; no US bases
encircling Russia; no US missile defense without
strict admission, in writing, that the system will
never target Russia; and increasingly close
cooperation among the BRICS group of emerging
powers.
Most of this was already implied
in Putin's previous road map - his paper A
new integration project for Eurasia: The future in
the making. That was Putin's ippon - he
loves judo - against the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), the International Monetary
Fund and hardcore neo-liberalism. He sees a
Eurasian Union as a "modern economic and currency
union" stretching all across Central Asia.
For Putin, Syria is an important detail
(not least because of Russia's naval base in the
Mediterranean port of Tartus, which NATO would
love to abolish). But the meat of the matter is
Eurasia integration. Atlanticists will freak out
en masse as he puts all his efforts into
coordinating "a powerful supranational union that
can become one of the poles of today's world while
being an efficient connecting link between Europe
and the dynamic Asia-Pacific Region".
The
opposite roadmap will be Obama and Hillary's
Pacific doctrine.
Now how exciting is that?
Putin plays
Pipelineistan It was Putin who almost
single-handedly spearheaded the resurgence of
Russia as a mega energy superpower (oil and gas
accounts for two-thirds of Russia's exports, half
of the federal budget and 20% of gross domestic
product). So expect Pipelineistan to remain key.
And it will be mostly centered on gas;
although Russia holds no less than 30% of global
gas supplies, its liquid natural gas (LNG)
production is less than 5% of the global market
share. It's not even among the top ten producers.
Putin knows that Russia will need buckets
of foreign investment in the Arctic - from the
West and especially Asia - to keep its oil
production above 10 million barrels a day. And it
needs to strike a complex, comprehensive,
trillion-dollar deal with China centered on
Eastern Siberia gas fields; the oil angle has been
already taken care of via the East Siberian
Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline. Putin knows that
for China - in terms of securing energy - this
deal is a vital counterpunch against Washington's
shady "pivoting" towards Asia.
Putin will
also do everything to consolidate the South Stream
pipeline - which may end up costing a staggering
$22 billion (the shareholder agreement is already
signed between Russia, Germany, France and Italy.
South Stream is Russian gas delivered under the
Black Sea to the southern part of the EU, through
Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Slovakia). If South
Stream is a go, rival pipeline Nabucco is
checkmated; a major Russian victory against
Washington pressure and Brussels bureaucrats.
Everything is still up for grabs at the
crucial intersection of hardcore geopolitics and
Pipelineistan. Once again Putin will be facing yet
another Washington road map - the not exactly
successful New Silk Road (See US's
post-2014 Afghan agenda falters, Asia Times
Online, Nov 4, 2011.)
Ant then there's the
joker in the pack - the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO). Putin will want Pakistan to
become a full member as much as China is
interested in incorporating Iran. The
repercussions would be ground-breaking - as in
Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran coordinating not
only their economic integration but their mutual
security inside a strengthened SCO, whose motto is
"non-alignment, non-confrontation and
non-interference in the affairs of other
countries".
Putin sees that with Russia,
Central Asia and Iran controlling no less than 50%
of world's gas reserves, and with Iran and
Pakistan as virtual SCO members, the name of the
game becomes Asia integration - if not Eurasia's.
The SCO develops as an economic/security
powerhouse, while, in parallel, Pipelineistan
accelerates the full integration of the SCO as a
counterpunch to NATO. The regional players
themselves will decide what makes more sense -
this or a New Silk Road invented in Washington.
Make no mistake. Behind the relentless
demonization of Putin and the myriad attempts to
delegitimize Russia's presidential elections, lie
some very angry and powerful sections of
Washington and Anglo-American elites.
They
know Putin will be an ultra tough negotiator on
all fronts. They know Moscow will apply
increasingly closer coordination with China; on
thwarting permanent NATO bases in Afghanistan; on
facilitating Pakistan's strategic autonomy; on
opposing missile defense; on ensuring Iran is not
attacked.
He will be the devil of choice
because there could not be a more formidable
opponent in the world stage to Washington's plans
- be they coded as Greater Middle East, New Silk
Road, Full Spectrum Dominance or America's Pacific
Century. Ladies and gentlemen, let's get ready to
rumble.
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