The crude games of the world

Crude is the central subject of the world politics. Washington came to the realization of that, when they launched the war in Afghanistan, the final goal of which was to gain entry to the republics of the former Soviet Union that are rich with crude and gas. The USA thinks about crude, when it is working on its strategy in the Russian Caucasus. Russia, Georgia, the USA, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been already involved in this conflict. The American petroleum lobby invested big money in the construction of Baku-Tbilisi-Jeikhan oil pipeline, and it wants the payback as soon as possible.

The black gold is Saddam Hussein’s star and death. Iraq has very rich reserves of this raw material and the struggle for the control over its reserves allows Saddam to stay at power up until now, to find the support both in the countries of the Arab world, and in Europe, in Russia, first and foremost.

Hussein himself is not of interest to anyone really. All the players are interested in crude. The USA is dreaming to get hold of the Iraqi oil, which will automatically lead to the refusal from the Saudi crude. Saudi Arabia is dreaming to get rid of the competitor from the crude market. Russia wants to pay its debts and counts on the development of the Iraqi deposits. The Kremlin wants to get rid of OPEC’s dictating role and to deliver as much oil to the USA as it wishes, without any restrictions, taking account of the fact that the future economic rise in America is giving more optimism to the Russian economists and politicians.

They think about crude in the Mid East too, but for other reasons. The Israeli politicians are intended to help Russia to compensate for the damage in connection with the fact that the crude prices dropped. As Yury Stern, a deputy from the faction Our Home Israel said to RIA Novosti, that initiative was confirmed at the meeting with the speaker of the Federation Council Sergey Mironov. As Stern said, he was conducting negotiations with the influential politicians from different countries, with the American politicians as well, in order to convince them to refuse from purchasing oil in the Arab countries. According to Stern's opinion, the Americans could be buying oil from Russia. This would solve a whole range of problems, connected with the use of petrodollars for supporting the extremist groups, which are responsible for escalation of terror in different parts of the world.

The offer is rather attractive, it may bring good profit for the Russian exporters of oil, but the price that should be paid for that is too high. Moscow will lose its face in the Arab world, if it betrays Arafat and Hussein - this is not good from the point of view of economy and politics. The infuriated Arabs will stir up their militant activities in Chechnya and in the Caucasus, which is a very strong headache for Russia. Washington is not a reliable ally, because it is doing everything for its own sake only.

Dmitry Litvinovich PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov