The ‘great game’ in play in Azerbaijan

By S. Rob Sobhani
Washington Times, 20 February 1997

During her recent confirmation hearing before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright identified the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan
over the territory of Nagorno-Karabagh as a priority of the
Clinton foreign policy team. This was most welcome since U.S.
involvement in the peaceful settlement of this little-known
conflict would enhance America’s security interests immeasurably
in the volatile, but ever more important, Caucasus region.

Unfortunately for Washington, however, it may be too late
fully to recover the ground lost during the first four years of
the Clinton administration due to its unduly cautious approach
toward the Caspian Sea Basin. If the United States is to secure
its enduring national security interests there, it must now play
catch-up with the traditional powers of the region (notably,
Russia and Iran) in the strategic contest long known as “the
Great Game.”

Those interests are: the rapid and uninterrupted development
of Caspian Sea oil so as to reduce Western dependency on Persian
Gulf sources of oil; containment of Iran’s Islamic
fundamentalism; restraining Russia’s lingering expansionist
tendencies; creating export opportunities and jobs; and the
nurturing of truly independent, pro-Western and democratic states
with market-oriented economies. More than any other newly
independent state of the region, Azerbaijan has aligned itself
with America’s interests. Clearly, it deserves our support.

Azerbaijan can be critical to U.S. efforts to diversify oil
supplies since it is the key to unlocking the estimated 200
billion barrel hydrocarbon reserves of the Caspian Sea region.
The initial oil projects signed thus far in Azerbaijan are
expected to produce more than 2 million barrels per day —
roughly equivalent to what the U.S. imports from OPEC’s Arab
members.

Azerbaijan is also on the front line of America’s containment
policy toward Iran.

Although Azerbaijan is a Shi’ite Muslim nation, its
government has striven to maintain a secular character. For
example, in the face of intense Iranian pressure, Azerbaijan
adopted a constitution in 1996 that calls for a separation of
church and state. Furthermore, at Washington’s urging, Azerbaijan
denied Iran entry into the consortium of countries invited in
1994 to develop its offshore oil resources in the Caspian Sea. It
has also firmly resisted Iranian demands that Baku terminate
friendly relations with Israel.

Azerbaijan is the only former republic of the Soviet Union
with no Russian troops on its territory. Azerbaijani President
Heydar Aliyev has refused to cooperate with Russia on border
defense, frustrating Moscow’s desire to have a unified defense
perimeter in the Caucasus. No less than Iran, Russia has viewed
with horror the prospect of the U.S. benefiting from access to
new oil resources, export opportunities and a strategically
situated pro-Western regime. On June 21, 1996, Iran’s foreign
minister and the deputy speaker of Russia’s Duma stated at a
joint press conference that: “Iran and Russia should
cooperate with regional states to prevent the presence of [U.S.]
power in the Caspian Sea.”

Largely in deference to Russia, the Clinton administration
has thus far hesitated to deepen its close working relationship
with the government of Azerbaijan, pursuing instead a policy of
episodic engagement with Baku.

Regrettably, the cost to American interests of accommodating
Russia in this way has been high. According to industry sources,
President Aliyev has, since 1994, signed production-sharing
agreements governing the extraction of some 8 billion barrels of
oil that could equate to more than $16 billion in service-related
work (read jobs). The preponderance of these contracts have gone
to European and Japanese companies that have, with the full
support of their respective governments, moved aggressively to
develop a presence in Azerbaijan.

Another factor contributing to America’s loss of strategic
and economic opportunities in Azerbaijan over the past few years
has been discriminatory U.S. legislation, notably Section 907 of
the Freedom Support Act. Thanks to this legislation, Azerbaijan
is the only country in the world forbidden by law from receiving
direct humanitarian assistance from the United States. Even Cuba,
Libya, North Korea, Iran and Iraq — all avowed adversaries of
this country — are allowed to obtain U.S. humanitarian
assistance.

Due to this prohibition, the United States has been unable to
provide relief assistance to the refugee population dislocated by
the war in Nagorno-Karabagh, many of whom are children. According
to the Centers for Disease Control, 44 percent of the Azeri
refugee children between the ages of 1 and 5 are at immediate
risk from life-threatening disease. Unfortunately, even after
Congress in 1995 created some latitude for the president to waive
this prohibition and provide humanitarian aid to Azerbaijan, the
administration has not acted decisively.

The time has come to adopt a new, more thoughtful and
sustainable policy toward Azerbaijan. The occasion this week of a
visit to Washington by Ilham Aliyev — first vice president of the
Azerbaijani State Oil Co. and son of President Aliyev — affords
an excellent opportunity for the Clinton administration to
announce the following steps:

First, President Clinton should invite President Aliyev to
the White House. This would be a signal to both Iran and Russia
that the United States recognizes the strategic significance of
Azerbaijan and intends to develop a close, long-term relationship
between Washington and Baku.

Second, the administration should immediately launch a
high-level diplomatic initiative to seek an equitable settlement
to the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict. In so doing, the U.S. could
deny Russia its present pretext for continuing adventurism in the
region. Once a settlement has been reached, President Clinton
should invite the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to
Washington to sign the peace agreement and cement America’s
cordial relations with both parties.

Third, the administration should immediately waive the ban on
humanitarian assistance to Azerbaijan embodied in Section 907 of
the Freedom Support Act. Even modest sums could save the lives of
many thousands of beleaguered refugees — and provide a tangible
demonstration of America’s desire to play a constructive role in
the Caspian Sea basin.

As Azerbaijan develops into a new Kuwait, significantly
increasing the stakes of the Great Game, the key question is:
Will the United States at last begin to act in a more farsighted
and proactive manner so as to position itself to succeed in what
promises to be the primary new energy play of the 21st century?

S. Rob Sobhani is a lecturer at Georgetown University and
travels frequently to the Caspian Basin region on business.