The Great Game: Where Happiness Is Multiple Pipelines

The international struggle for power in Central Asia —
which Rudyard Kipling
100 years ago popularized as “The Great Game” — has been reignited by the
breakup of the Soviet Union and the discovery of new oil fields around the
Caspian Sea.

By S. Rob Sobhani
The Washington Post, 08 March 1998

As I sat outside the president of Azerbaijan’s office waiting for my bimonthly meeting with
74-year-old statesman Heydar Aliyev, I noticed that his assistant was watching CNN. Eight years
ago, as I waited to see the first secretary of Azerbaijan’s Communist party in the same room, the
only option was Soviet television. How Azerbaijan has changed.

I first visited Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in November 1990, at a time when the world’s
attention was focused on Kuwait. Back then, the first secretary’s office was adorned with the
Soviet flag, while a huge bust of Lenin looked over his shoulder. I remember the first secretary
asking my opinion as an American professor (I had been invited by the Soviet Academy of
Sciences) about a possible U.S.-Azerbaijani partnership based on oil. I reminded him of America’s
support for Kuwait and quoted John Quincy Adams’s statement about America’s foreign policy
goals: “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there
will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.”

Today, Aliyev’s office is decorated with the tricolors of the Azerbaijani flag. Lenin is gone,
replaced by a framed copy of the newly adopted constitution of this oil-rich country. He and I
talked about the influx of foreigners to Baku. Eight years ago, the Soviet airline, Aeroflot, had the
monopoly on travel to and from Azerbaijan. I remember waiting at Moscow’s Domodeyedovo
airport for my flight on “Aeroflop,” as the planes were commonly known. These days, British
Airways, KLM, Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines compete for the hearts and minds of those seeking
their fortune in Azerbaijan. The Americans have arrived but so have the Germans, Japanese,
French and Italians, not to mention the traditional actors in the regional power struggle long
known as the “Great Game”: the Russians, British, Turks and Iranians.

All are here competing for Azerbaijan’s oil and the prize of pipeline routes from Baku to
international markets. Caspian Basin oil reserves could, according to the U.S. State Department,
exceed 150 billion barrels, placing it second only to the Persian Gulf. As Azerbaijan transforms
itself into the Kuwait of the former Soviet Union, the key question for the United States is: Will
the Clinton administration and Congress begin to craft a more farsighted policy toward the
country?

“You Americans are naive when it comes to Russians,” Aliyev’s foreign policy adviser, Vafa
Gulizade, tells me in another meeting. “Moscow wants to keep the region in frozen instability,
thereby justifying a ‘peacekeeping’ role for itself.”

Gulizade firmly believes, as do a majority of the Azerbaijanis with whom I have spoken during
my
visits here, that Moscow hopes to force the country back into Russia’s sphere of influence. At the
Azerbaijani state oil company, energy experts agree that Russia aims to “hold the region by the
pipeline” by ensuring that the Russian port of Novorossiysk becomes the only terminus for all
regional oil exports. Not surprisingly, the hottest bumper sticker these days in Baku is “Happiness
is multiple pipelines.”

Russian apologists in Washington vehemently object to views like Gulizade’s. Strobe Talbott,
the
architect of President Clinton’s Russia policy, argues that Russia is willing to pursue its interests
in the Caucasus and Central Asia in cooperation with the West. It is a shame Talbott did not
witness Russian Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov’s antics last November when told he was
to speak after U.S. Energy Secretary Frederico Pena at the celebration of the first oil extracted
from the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. Nemtsov, a fierce Russian nationalist, insisted that
he had to speak before Pena. He demanded — Russian officials rarely ask — that the Azerbaijanis
change the protocol. Nemtsov proceeded to give a backstage interview in which he echoed Boris
Yeltsin’s complaint about America’s growing influence in Russia’s backyard.

In short, Russia views the U.S.-Azerbaijan partnership, forged through oil, as a dual threat
that
solidifies Azerbaijan’s break from Russian domination and promotes U.S. ascendancy in Russia’s
traditional zone of influence.

Another country worried about America’s presence in the region is the Islamic Republic of
Iran.
At the Martyrs Cemetery, Azerbaijan’s equivalent of Arlington National Cemetery, the local
caretaker walks you through the carnation-filled memorial where Jews, Christians and Muslims
are buried side by side. Although Azerbaijan is a Shiite Muslim nation, Aliyev has declared, “We
are Muslims but will never allow our country to become an Islamic state.”

In the face of intense Iranian pressure, Aliyev pushed for a constitution in 1996 that calls for a
separation of church and state. Furthermore, he banned the activities of Azerbaijan’s
Iranian-sponsored Islamic Party and rejected demands that Baku terminate its friendly relations
with Israel.

In retaliation, the Islamic regime has forged strong ties with Azerbaijan’s current enemy,
Christian
Armenia, and has sided with Russia on the Caspian Sea demarcation issue, challenging
Azerbaijan’s right to develop its sub-sea resources. A top policy adviser to Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, Iran’s supreme religious leader, has said, “The U.S. oil companies’ presence in the
Caspian Sea is aimed at paving the ground for the U.S. military presence in this sensitive oil-rich
region.”

Thus, Tehran and Moscow have found common ground. Neither one wishes to see American
influence grow in the Caucasus or Central Asia. Nor do either Russia and Iran wish to see the
influence of Turkey — with its linguistic and cultural links to the region — grow. Russia and Iran,
along with Armenia as the junior partner, have formed an alliance designed to keep America out
of the Caucasus.

The underlying reason for Iran’s concern is Azerbaijan’s transformation over these eight years
into a vibrant country — with a little help from the “Great Satan.” More and more Iranians are
coming to Baku for rest and relaxation. On many nights, the Karevansaray restaurant (where
Marco Polo once ate) plays host to Iranian businessmen who sip chilled vodka and enjoy the belly
dancers.

The biggest problem in U.S.-Azerbaijan relations, one with a potentially devastating impact
for
American interests in the region, is a provision of a 1992 law that is unknown to most Americans
but well known to both the powerful and the powerless in Baku: Section 907 of the 1991
Freedom Support Act, designed to assist former republics of the Soviet Union. At the time it was
enacted, Azerbaijan and Armenia were at war. Section 907, written at the behest of Armenian
Americans, was intended to punish Azerbaijan for cutting off gas supplies to Armenia. As a result,
Azerbaijan is the only country in the world forbidden by U.S. law from receiving direct
humanitarian assistance from the United States.

Clinton has questioned the appropriateness of this punitive measure, taken against a country
that
has never made a negative gesture toward America. In fact, during a meeting with Aliyev at the
White House last August, Clinton promised to take decisive action. Nothing has happened so far.

The law is the object of widespread resentment in Azerbaijan. Aliyev, mindful of domestic
public
opinion, has made it clear that he is not beholden to U.S. interests. His government recently
disappointed several U.S. companies by awarding Mitsui, a Japanese company, a major interest in
one of Azerbaijan’s most promising oil properties.

Whenever I look out the window on my 45-minute drive to Baku’s airport, I am always struck
by
the incredible change since the oil boom. I pass privately owned American-style gas stations, a
Chrysler dealership, a carwash. Billboards advertising cigarettes and bottled water dot the
landscape. Meanwhile, the taxi driver accepts dollars, is proud to own his own cabs and talks
freely about politics. But when Azerbaijanis talk, will Americans listen?

S. Rob Sobhani is a business consultant and adjunct professor of government at
Georgetown
University.