Meltdown In Armenia Demands Reassessment, Redirection Of U.S. Policy In The Caspian Basin
(Washington, D.C.): The apparent theft
of the election in Armenia by a
government increasingly indifferent to
the rights of its own people and aligned
with Moscow and Tehran should be a
wake-up call for policy-makers in
Washington and elsewhere in the West:
While the handwriting has been on the
wall for many months, it is now
indisputably clear that an imbalanced
U.S. policy toward the Caspian Basin has
done immense damage to American strategic
and economic interests — some of which
may be irreparable. The United States
simply cannot any longer afford to
accommodate a domestic constituency
determined to give preferential treatment
to Armenia at the expense of a secular,
Western-oriented Muslim Azerbaijan that
is America’s natural partner in the
region.
As the attached
editorial published in today’s Washington
Post makes clear, the Armenian
government of Levon Ter-Petrossian has
mutated into an increasingly
authoritarian and despotic regime:
“…More than a year ago,
[Ter-Petrossian] started down the
slope toward rule by Diktat,
banning a major opposition party and
gagging much of the press.
Parliamentary elections last year
were widely condemned for violations
of fairness….According to
international observers, the vote [in
the just-completed presidential
election] was marred by ‘significant
and serious breaches in the
law’…leaving the legitimacy of
[Ter-Petrossian’s] victory in strong
doubt.”
Worse yet, the Armenian government
employed brutal repression to silence
legitimate, peaceful protests of
Ter-Petrossian’s election fraud. As the Post
put it: “…The incumbent has sent
troops and tanks into the capital,
imposing a virtual state of emergency.
Opposition deputies have been beaten and
kicked out of parliament. Troops have
stormed into opposition party
headquarters and shut them down.”
That this is occurring in a country
that receives “more U.S. aid per
capita than any other country besides
Israel” (1)
and that has just received
congressional approval of a further gift
of $95 million (2)
from unwitting American taxpayers (in
addition to the roughly $500 million
already disbursed to Armenia in past
years) is reprehensible. Insult is added
to injury by what even a newspaper like
the Washington Post, which is
reflexively sympathetic to U.S.
diplomatic sensibilities, called “a
mealy-mouthed American response” to
Ter-Petrossian’s sacking of his nation’s
fledgling democracy.
Reckless Endangerment of
U.S. Interests
The gravity of the strategic mistake
being made by U.S. policy-makers towards
key countries of the Caspian Basin is
highlighted in a newly-released summary
of a Roundtable Discussion sponsored last
spring by the William J. Casey Institute
of the Center for Security Policy. Held
on 13 March 1996 in Washington, the
Roundtable examined the enormous
strategic and economic implications of
the approximately 200 billion barrels of
oil believed to be recoverable from the
Caspian Sea region — a quantity larger
than the combined reserves of the North
Sea and the North Slope of Alaska. More
than sixty participants took part in the
half-day conference, including
representatives of the Departments of
Defense, State and Energy, diplomats,
industry experts, senior congressional
staff and members of the press. The three
lead discussants during the symposium
were:
- Senator Jon Kyl,
Republican of Arizona — a member
of the Center’s Board of Advisors
and recipient of its prestigious
1994 “Keeper of the
Flame” award who serves on
the Senate’s Energy and National
Resources and Intelligence
Committees — who provided a
valuable overview of the
strategic implications of the
Caspian Basin’s vast oil
reserves; - Dr. T. Don Stacy
— the Chairman and President of
Amoco Eurasia Petroleum
Corporation — who gave a
detailed briefing on the physical
location, size and geo-political
complexities associated with
bringing to market what he
characterized as potentially the
world’s second largest oil
reserves; and - Hon. Richard Perle
— the former Assistant Secretary
of Defense for International
Security Policy who argued that
America has interests virtually
everywhere around the globe, in
particular in such areas as the
Caspian Sea, where secular
governments like that of
Azerbaijan are seeking to emerge
from decades of Communist misrule
and aspiring to become integral
elements of the Western financial
and trading systems.
To receive a copy
of the seven-page summary of this
important Roundtable Discussion, please
contact the Center.
The Bottom Line
Against this strategic backdrop, the
meltdown of any pretense of democracy in
Armenia must occasion an immediate U.S.
policy course-correction toward the
nations of the Caspian Basin. Elements of
such a course-correction should include
the following:
- An immediate White House
invitation to President Heydar
Aliyev of Azerbaijan to meet with
President Clinton in Washington,
D.C. to consolidate U.S.
strategic and investment
interests in the region. - The convening of hearings in both
the Senate and House — ideally
in both the respective energy and
foreign affairs committees — to
increase congressional and public
awareness of the opportunities
and stakes involved in bringing
Caspian oil to international
markets on an accelerated basis
while thwarting Russian and
Iranian efforts to contest and
control such export activities. - Towards this end, as well, the
dispatch of congressional
delegations to the region —
including Azerbaijan. - The immediate revocation of
Section 907 as a necessary
first-step toward establishing a
genuinely balanced U.S. policy
toward the region.
(Interestingly, this Section is
practically unique insofar as it
fails to provide the President
the latitude to waive its
strictures on the grounds of
national security or other vital
interests.)
– 30 –
1. See on this
point Caspian Watch #4:
House-Senate Conference Must Strike
Proper Balance for American Interests,
(No. 96-D 85,
17 September 1996).
2. Fortunately,
Congress narrowly rejected an effort that
would have compounded the misbegotten
favoritism shown Armenia at Azerbaijan’s
expense enshrined in Section 907 of the
Freedom Support Act of 1992, which bars any
direct U.S. humanitarian or other
assistance flows to Azerbaijan. The
latest effort took the form of an
amendment offered by Rep. John Porter
(R-IL) to the FY1997 foreign operations
appropriations bill, a measure that was
rejected in conference committee
following the publication of Caspian
Watch #4.
- LIVE NOW – Weaponization of US Government Symposium - April 9, 2024
- CSP author of “Big Intel” is American Thought Leaders guest on Epoch TV - February 23, 2024
- Four weeks after release, Big Intel remains a #1 Amazon bestseller - February 13, 2024