Oct 23rd 2008
\nFrom Economist.com<\/p>\n
Deciding between Nabucco and South Stream<\/p>\n
WHICH will it be? The next American president will have to decide.
\nEither Europe gets natural gas from Iran, or Russia stitches up the
\ncontinent’s energy supplies for a generation.<\/p>\n
In one sense, it is hard to compare the two problems. Iranian nuclear
\nmissiles would be an existential threat to Israel. If Russia sells it
\nrocket systems and warhead technology, or advanced air-defence systems
\n(or vetoes sanctions) it matters. By contrast, Russia’s threat to
\nEuropean security is a slow, boring business. At worst, Europe ends up
\na bit more beholden to Russian pipeline monopolists than is healthy
\npolitically. But life will go on.<\/p>\n
Europe’s energy hopes lie in a much discussed but so far unrealised
\nindependent pipeline. Nabucco, as it is optimistically titled (as in
\nVerdi, and freeing the slaves) would take gas from Central Asia and
\nthe Caspian region via Turkey to the Balkans and Central Europe. That
\nwould replicate the success of two existing oil pipelines across
\nGeorgia, which have helped dent Russia’s grip on east-west export routes.<\/p>\n
Russia is trying hard to block this. It is reviving the idea of an
\ninternational gas cartel with Qatar and Iran. It also wants to kybosh
\nNabucco through its own rival project, the hugely expensive ($12.8
\nbillion) South Stream. Backed by Gazprom (the gas division of Kremlin,
\nInc) and Italy’s ENI, it has already got support from Austria,
\nBulgaria and Serbia. The project has now been delayed two years to 2015.<\/p>\n
But politicking around it is lively. This week the Kremlin managed to
\nget Romania\u2014until now a determined holdout on the Nabucco side\u2014to
\nstart talks on joining South Stream. As Vladimir Socor, a veteran
\nanalyst at the Jamestown Foundation, notes, that creates just the kind
\nof contest that the Kremlin likes, in which European countries jostle
\neach other to get the best deal from Russia. Previously, that played
\nout in a central European battle between Austria and Hungary to be
\nRussia’s most-favoured energy partner in the region. Now the Kremlin
\nhas brought in Slovenia to further increase its leverage.<\/p>\n
All this works only because the European Union (EU) is asleep on the
\njob. Bizarrely, Europe’s leaders publicly maintain that the two
\npipelines are not competitors. They have given the task of promoting
\nNabucco to a retired Dutch politician who has not visited the most
\nimportant countries in the project recently (or in some cases even at
\nall).<\/p>\n
The main reason for the lack of private-sector interest is lack of
\ngas. The big reserves are in Turkmenistan, but Russia wants them too.
\nSecuring them for Nabucco would mean a huge, concerted diplomatic push
\nfrom the EU and from America. It would also require the building of a
\nTranscaspian gas pipeline.<\/p>\n
That is not technically difficult (unlike, incidentally, South Stream,
\nwhich goes through the deep, toxic and rocky depths of the Black Sea).
\nBut it faces legal obstacles, and could be vetoed by both Russia and
\nIran. As Zeyno Baran of the Hudson Institute argues in a new paper,
\n“the fortunes of the two pipelines are inversely related”.<\/p>\n
That is America’s dilemma. Befriending Iran would create huge problems
\nfor Russia. An Iranian bypass round the Caspian allows Turkmen gas
\n(and Iran’s own plentiful reserves) to flow to Turkey and then on to
\nEurope. But the same American officials, politicians and analysts who
\nare most hawkish about Russia tend also to be arch-sceptics about
\nstarting talks with the mullahs (or even turning a blind eye to
\nIranian gas flowing through an American-backed pipeline).<\/p>\n
If Iran can make it clear that does not want to destroy Israel and
\npromote terrorism (and stops issuing rhetorical flourishes on the
\nsubject) it stands to benefit hugely. The “grand bargain” has never
\nlooked more tempting\u2014or more urgent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oct 23rd 2008 From Economist.com Deciding between Nabucco and South Stream WHICH will it be? The next American president will have to decide. Either Europe gets natural gas from Iran, or Russia stitches up the continent’s energy supplies for a generation. In one sense, it is hard to compare the two problems. Iranian nuclear missiles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":56869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,42,34],"tags":[176],"class_list":["post-6156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iran_","category-russia","category-usa","tag-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}