Blood for oil!

[GHOST OF RONBO]

The more I look at the crisis in Georgia, the more I realize how important it is to American interests. It is not just the moral imperative of supporting a free nation against an authoritarian aggressor, and it is not just reassuring the other nations of Eastern Europe that we will support their independence from Moscow. Above all of that, it is important to recognize that the invasion of Georgia is Vladimir Putin's war for oil.

This is not the beginning of Putin's war for oil. I have extensively covered the Putin regime's persecution of independent oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and its subsequent seizure of his Yukos oil company. Having secured the Kremlin's total power over all domestic oil production, Putin has now moved on to the next step: controlling the oil supplies of Russia's neighbors.

The article below describes the importance of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which links the oil-producing center of Baku in Azerbaijan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan—by way of Tbilisi in Georgia. Putin's Russia is already one of Europe's main suppliers of oil and natural gas, giving him tremendous leverage over the Europeans. This is his attempt to cut off an important independent competitor.

Putin's oil grab would have an impact on both sides of the pipeline. By giving Moscow control over all of the energy transit points between Central Asia and Europe, it would enable Moscow to intimidate the producers of oil on one end and the consumers of oil on the other. It is, in short, a foreign policy disaster almost as big as Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

We must do everything we can practically do to stop it.

"A Pipeline Runs Through It," Investor's Business Daily, August 13

Russia's aggression is not only about toppling a pro-Western democracy and potential NATO member. It's about the only pipeline bringing Caspian Sea oil to the West not controlled by Moscow or Iran.
Georgia is only the latest instance of Russia's plans to reassemble the "evil empire" and neuter NATO expansion, using energy as both a weapon and a means of financing its rapid military expansion. Russia has doubled its military in the past five years, thanks in large part to the "windfall profits" it has reaped from skyrocketing energy prices.

One of the Russian targets in Georgia is a pipeline carrying oil from the Caspian to the West….

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, in which British Petroleum is the lead partner, can carry up to a million barrels of oil a day. It runs from Kazakhstan through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey and breaks Russia's stranglehold on supplying energy to Europe. Moscow currently supplies 25% of Europe's energy needs.

Another pipeline, the South Caucasus Pipeline, will carry natural gas along the same route. It has a capacity of 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas a year and is needed to get Turkmenistan's vast natural gas reserves to European customers.

Georgian officials claimed that Russian aircraft dropped at least 30 bombs but failed to damage or disable the underground BTC pipeline. "The Russian bear is trying to choke the vital east-west energy arteries in the Caucasus, specifically the BTC oil pipeline and the gas pipeline," says Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation.