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This may answer two questions: The first, what are Bush’s political objectives? It is not so much Iraq’s WMD as we were led to believe; it is more about Iran. Bush will try to outflank Iran and not allow oil and gas pipelines to run through Iran from the Northern Caspian region, Russia, Caspian Sea, and Turkmenistan/ Kazakhstan, South to the Persian Gulf and into Pakistan. Bush, inextricably tied to western oil interests, wants to run their pipelines through Afghanistan into Pakistan as the counter weight on the Eastern front. Then pipelines through Iraq, an Iraq controlled by the U.S., is the counterweight on the Western front. Control Baghdad, you control the Euphrates and Tigris rivers’ trade waterways.
But Russia will try to dominate in the North, with pipelines running North and Northwest into Russia and across to the Black Sea; China will try to dominate the East with pipelines running East and Southeast into China, "The Silk Road" route. Put succinctly: Russia wants the Black Sea routes, China the Silk Road routes, Bush wants everything to flow South from the entire region into his deep pockets via the Persian Gulf routes. Geography rules even if borders no longer matter.
Also, recently reported (Jan/May 2003 NYT), Russia is negotiating massive pipeline routes from its Siberian oil fields: one from Angarsk into the northern industrial region of China and a separate one which would bypass China. Negotiating with the Japanese for a pipeline which would run from Lake Baikal to the port of Nakhodka, near Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan. Oil is the Great Game and everyone is in on it. Russia and China have already opened dialogue on security issues with India, and Japan will not remain in economic doldrums forever.
The second is control of the future; the encirclement of Iran, isolating its oil and gas production, is again, but one of many goals. Control of these routes is primary to western interest’s control of the future. Thus, while Russia and China seem "out of it" today, they along with India have been holding trilateral security meetings regularly since Bush removed the Taliban, and have gone further since the invasion and occupation of Iraq. They see the chessboard. Bush may be pressing the United States into a highly lucrative new Cold War with this trilateral formation; Iran will not sit idle while this takes place. Iran is more the target than Iraq. To control, or dominate Iran, Mr. Bush has to encircle it: Afghanistan to the East, Turkey/Azerbaijan to the North, Iraq to the West, the South are already U.S. stooges. Pipelines, in effect, will become the new Berlin Wall. See the map attached.
The Caspian News Agency reported during the height of the invasion plans, 16:12 16.01.2003/ Iran and Azerbaijan nearing agreement on Caspian Sea: Baku(CNA). The Iranian Deputy Foreign minister Mekhti Safari arrived at Baku to hold talks with the Azeri officials on the Caspian sea. Azerbaijani and Iranian officials have considered dividing the Caspian Sea, which is believed to contain large oil and gas reserves, into five equal parts. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the sea's status was regulated by treaties between the Soviet Union and Iran. Azerbaijan says it is nearing an agreement with Iran on the legal status of the Caspian Sea.
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Azerbaijan is key to understanding the region and the power. During the past decade the only western source of power and force projection into the region was with the USACC: The United States Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. It was this body that has, and remains, the source of negotiations, planning and structure in the region. Prior to many of its board members entering the present White House along with Mr. Bush, they were the force behind the U.S. Congressional effort called the Silk Road Strategy of 1996-1998; the Caspian initiative; Black Sea pipeline routes and the division of the Caspian Sea, etc.
The USACC Advisory Board consisted of “only” these seven men: Dr. Henry Kissinger, James A Baker III, Lloyd Bentsen, Zibigniew Brzezinski, Dick Cheney, Brent Scowcroft, John Sununu. It is noted here that the current Vice President’s daughter, Elizabeth Cheney-Perry, has been named Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs for regional economic issues; she left Armitage Associates for the job. The USACC Vice-Chairman of the Board is James A Baker IV (Baker Botts, L.L.P.); Chairman Emeritus is T. Don Stacy (VP, Amoco); with Richard Armitage as Board President, until he resigned to become Colin Powell’s Deputy, which rounds out the US elite running the USACC in the past and whose policies remain in place.
*Sorry, I forgot to paste the URL of this when I copied it from DU. This does explain the complicated reasons for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, most likely the reason why J. Kerry and J.Edwards backed both invasion and still maintain both countries need to be occupied by the USA.
The Neo Fascist and Dems will not publicly state the reasons. It is easier to state "democracy" and War On Terror bullshite reasons.
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