Why Putin is driving Washington nuts
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/NC09Ag01.html
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.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is
Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a
snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His most recent book, just out, is Obama
does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
He may be reached at pepea...@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2012 Asia
Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please contact us about sales, syndication and
republishing.)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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