Editorial: Echoes of an oil boom

Azerbaijan: Where Russia, Iran and the West meet
Opinion: Editorials & Letters: Story

Vice President Dick Cheney visited Azerbaijan last October, and the consul general for Azerbaijan’s new consulate in Los Angeles visited Eugene earlier this month. The two events are connected: Both are a result of the oil boom in the Caspian Sea region, which has Azerbaijan at its center.

Azerbaijan is friendly toward the United States, and the United States needs all the friends it can get in that part of the world. As Cheney found, however, Azerbaijan’s friendliness extends only so far.

Cheney hoped to secure a commitment for a pipeline that would transport natural gas from the Caspian region to the West, bypassing Russia. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, wary of alienating neighboring Russia, would make no such commitment. Cheney responded by skipping a reception in his honor.

Azerbaijan’s deference to Russia should not have surprised Cheney. Russia had invaded Georgia, another neighbor of Azerbaijan’s, just months before. Like Azerbaijan, Georgia had cultivated close relations with the West, but the West responded to Russia’s incursion with little but bluster. A pipeline that transports oil from Azerbaijan to Turkey and the West passes through Georgia, so its invasion put Russia in a position to place its heel on Azerbaijan’s economic lifeline.

And it is a lifeline. Azerbaijan’s per-capita gross domestic product has doubled since the pipeline opened in 2005. Oil wealth is financing investments domestically and raising Azerbaijan’s profile abroad; a new consulate in Los Angeles, headed by Consul General Elin Suleymanov, is just one example.

Suleymanov, stopping in Eugene during a tour of the Northwest, said Azerbaijan would like the United States to see his country as a natural ally — a secular Muslim state that has supported U.S. policy by sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, and a nation that can act as a counterweight to the larger powers of the region: Russia and Iran.

Azerbaijan’s biggest immediate problem lies with yet another neighbor: Armenia. An Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan seceded in 1988, leading to a war that ended with a cease-fire in 1994. The cease-fire left Armenia in control of 16 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory, and 1 million people remain displaced.

The Armenian stalemate illuminates Azerbaijan’s sympathy for Georgia — Suleymanov said Russia had encouraged Armenia to act “irrationally,” just as it encouraged separatism in breakaway regions of Georgia. Suleymanov said the United States and other Western nations had been particularly unhelpful when they recognized the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, thereby legitimizing separatism.

Oil wealth could break the deadlock. Armenia hungers to benefit from the boom, but can do so only by cooperating with Azerbaijan, Turkey and other historic antagonists on pipeline routes.

Iran presents another set of worries. Ethnic Azeris make up about a quarter of Iran’s population; in fact, more live in Iran than in Azerbaijan. Iran’s policies are guided by a fear that these people will draw closer to Azerbaijan, particularly as the country grows more wealthy.

Suleymanov accused Iran of trying to foment its brand of radical Islam in Azerbaijan. He said Iran is helping Armenia build a hydroelectric dam in occupied Azerbaijan.

Suleymanov said Azerbaijanis are heartened by signs of President Obama’s interest in reaching out to the Muslim world. But he added that the U.S. government should remember that most Muslims are neither Arabs nor radicals. If the United States is looking for a model Muslim nation, he said, it would be more likely to find one emerging in Azerbaijan today than in Iraq at some time many years in the future.

Azerbaijan does not yet qualify as a model nation — Aliyev’s election fell far short of international standards, and corruption is pervasive. But it’s a better model than most in the area. And because it sits atop the world’s third largest oil basin, Cheney won’t be the last top U.S. official to visit. We all can expect to be hearing more about Azerbaijan.

Source: The Register-Guard
www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/opinion/8288727-47/story.csp

Posted by admin February 2009

Post A Comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website