BY MEGAN ARNEY
On July 18, U.S. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns announced that an upcoming "important Administration statement" would be delivered at "an on-the-record event."

Burns was referring to the speech U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott delivered three days later at the Central Asia Institute of John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Talbott's presentation outlined a major foreign policy shift for Washington - a drive to establish unquestionable U.S. domination over the huge oil reserves and other natural resources in the Caspian Sea region, Caucasus, and Central Asia.

Talbott described in some detail the measures the Clinton administration is preparing to accomplish this goal. The U.S. rulers will use their economic superiority over competing imperialist powers and their military muscle to speed the reestablishment of capitalist social relations in these former Soviet republics on Washington's terms.

The Caspian Sea, Caucasus, and Central Asia are some of the world's richest regions in natural resources. In Kazakstan, for example, reserves are estimated to be more than 2 billion barrels of oil and 18,000 cubic feet of natural gas. Azerbaijan's Oguz field reportedly contains 40 million tons of crude; the Nakhichevan field could prove to be even larger; and another unnamed Azeri field is said to have 115 million tons of oil. U.S. oil moguls Exxon, Mobile, and Chevron have recently just signed a $10 billion deal for the exploitation of 250 million tons of Caspian crude.

In total, oil industry experts say the Caspian Sea region contains up to 200 billion barrels of oil, worth as much as $4 trillion, plus comparable reserves of natural gas.

Major imperialist investors include Texaco from the United States, the British BG Exploration and Production, and Agip from Italy. All of these companies have, or are seeking to get, major stakes in the oil- and gas-rich region.

U.S. gov't plan to dominate oil reserves
Talbott began his speech by referring to the recent NATO summit in Madrid, where the Atlantic imperialist alliance invited the workers states of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to join NATO despite Moscow's strong opposition. "It was in Madrid, at a meeting of the 44 countries that make up the new Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council," Talbott said. "President Clinton found himself seated between the prime minister of the United Kingdom and the foreign minister of Uzbekistan, and directly across from the foreign minister of Armenia and the president of Azerbaijan. The protocol may have been an accident of the alphabet, but it was symbolically appropriate nonetheless."

"The Euro-Atlantic Community is evolving and expanding," the U.S. government official continued. "It stretches to the west side of the Atlantic and to the east side of the Urals. The emergence of such a community represents a profound break with the past for all the peoples involved."

Talbott pointed to openings for foreign investment and attempts by the ruling regimes to integrate the economies of these former Soviet republics in the world capitalist market.

"The United States has a stake in their success," he said. "If reform in the nations of the Caucasus and Central Asia continues and ultimately succeeds, it will encourage similar progress in the other New Independent States of the former Soviet Union, including Russia and Ukraine. It will contribute to stability in a strategically vital region that borders China, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, and that has growing economic and social ties with Pakistan and India. The consolidation of free societies, .. stretching from the Black Sea to the Pamir mountains, will open up a valuable trade and transport corridor along the Silk Road, between Europe and Asia."

In a threatening tone Talbott pointed to the challenges Washington faces along this road. "The ominous converse is also true," he said. "If economic and political reform in the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia does not succeed .. the region would become a breeding ground of terrorism, a hotbed of religious and political extremism and a battleground for outright war.

"It would profoundly matter to the United States," he continued, "if that were to happen in an area that sits on as much as 200 billion barrels of oil. That is yet another reason why conflict resolution must be Job One for U.S. policy in the region."

The big-business media - from London's Financial Times to the Wall Street Journal - have written extensively about the possible openings for investment in the area. In an article in the August 25 Forbes, Caspar Weinberger, the magazine's chairman and a former adviser in the administration of Ronald Reagan, was even more blunt about Washington's goals.

"One of the U.S.'s major foreign policy priorities should be to have a firm, unwavering and clearly understood program that enables us to import oil and gas from the Caspian Sea region," Weinberger wrote. "The U.S. currently consumes more than a quarter of the world's oil, even though we have only about 2% of its proven reserves." The U.S. population today represents barely 5 percent of the world's people, a fact Weinberger failed to mention.

"We cannot run our economy or defend our nation without an assured supply of oil," Weinberger continued. "As it happens, there is another supply available - in the Caspian Sea area. If we were to take the proper steps, this region could be far more stable than the Middle East... Azerbaijan, which borders the Caspian, has one of the area's largest supplies. Cultivating and strengthening our relationship with this former Soviet republic must become a priority. This should not prove difficult. Azerbaijan welcomes Western investment and has signed many contracts with U.S. energy companies, although competition from others is increasing. Azerbaijan is the only former Soviet state to refuse Russia's demands to deploy soldiers there - part of Russia's greater plan to regain control over these republics. Azerbaijan has also resisted Iran's pressure to be allowed to take Azerbaijan's oil."

Weinberger pointed to Talbott's speech as a welcome policy shift, but argued for an even more confrontational approach to prevent Moscow, Teheran, and other governments from hampering U.S. goals in the region. "What about Russia and Iran's June 1996 statement that they should jointly cooperate with states in the Caspian Sea region to prevent the U.S. from gaining a sphere of influence there?" he asked. "We cannot continue to whimper about `conflict resolution.'"

Talbott's four-point program
"Thanks to the prompt and farsighted response of the Bush administration," Talbott said in his July 21 speech, "we were the first country to open embassies in every capital" of the region's republics since the break up of the USSR. The Pentagon used these embassies to immediately seek military-to-military contacts, he noted. "In the four-and-a- half years since the Clinton administration came into office, our message to the states of the region has been simple: as long as they move in the direction of political and economic freedom, of national and international reconciliation, we will be with them. That is what President Clinton told Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia last Friday. It is what Vice President [Albert] Gore told Akar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan earlier in the week. It is what President Clinton will tell President [of Azerbaijan Heydar] Aliyev next week. And it is the message that the First Lady [Hillary Clinton] will carry directly to the peoples and governments of Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan this fall."

Talbott then outlined the four-point program the Clinton administration will try to impose on the region's republics. It consists of "The promotion of democracy; the creation of free market economies; the sponsorship of peace and cooperation within and among the countries of the region; and their integration with the larger international community."

Talbott made it clear that rapid progress in implementing measures that could bring back capitalism is at the heart of U.S. policy. "Only if the citizenry and the growing private sectors in these states have a say in the policies of the government will reform have the necessary backing; and only if these countries develop the rule of law will they attract the foreign investment they so desperately need."

To further U.S. interests along these lines, Talbott said, Washington has been providing financial and other backing to nongovernmental organizations in the area, such as the Young Lawyer's Association in Georgia, the Association of Youth Leaders in Kazakstan, and an "association for the defense of women's rights in Azerbaijan." It is also providing training and assistance to leaders of nascent procapitalist political parties.

Talbott pointed to the examples of Armenia and Georgia as "pace-setters in fiscal stabilization, privatization, and progress toward real growth." He then complained that other republics have not made much headway toward reestablishing capitalist economic relations.

Since 1992 the U.S. government has disbursed $2.2 billion in "assistance" to the eight republics in the Caucasus and Central Asia, the State Department official said. "But we are now shifting our focus in the region from humanitarian to development assistance. That is the priority in the plan." That means Washington will now focus on trying to acquire state-controlled industries and invest elsewhere in the region.

Talbott announced that the Clinton Administration is asking Congress for an additional $900 million this year, a 34 percent increase over previous budget expenditures, to carry out its plans. He also said the administration will work "close with the major international financial institutions .. to allow us to leverage our scarce aid dollars." Washington is seeking membership in the World Trade Organization for Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakstan, Talbott stated, "to develop a Eurasian transportation corridor .. and create a region-wide market through the Central Asian Free Economic Zone."

Realizing these goals, however, will not be easy as working people in the region continue to resist demands for "sacrifice" prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other imperialist financial institutions as preconditions for loans. In Armenia, for example, a demonstration took place recently in reaction to IMF-ordered austerity measures.

Instability worries Washington
"For the last several years, it has been fashionable to proclaim, or at least to predict, a replay of the `Great Gamé in the Caucasus and Central Asia," Talbott said. "The implication, of course, is that the driving dynamic of the region, fueled and lubricated by oil, will be the competition of the great powers to the disadvantage of the people who live there...

"Let's leave Rudyard Kipling and George McDonald Fraser where they belong - on the shelves of historical fiction."

These comments were directly related to the official title of Talbott's speech: "A Farewell to Flashman: American policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia." Harry Flashman was the main character in a series of mystery novels, authored in the mid-1800s by British writer George McDonald Fraser. Flashman was a fictional spy used by the British crown and other colonial powers in their designs to dominate the region at the time. Kipling wrote similar stories using a character named Kim.

Talbott boasted that, unlike the 19th century, Washington is the one power that can resolve all the conflicts now. The State Department official was following on Clinton's footsteps, who said in his second inauguration speech in January, "America stands alone as the world's indispensable nation."

Just prior to this point in his speech, Talbott had turned to describing the military steps of Washington's strategy in the region.

"This September," he said, " the Central Asian Peacekeeping Battalion, made up of armed forces from Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, will host troops from the United States, Russia, Turkey, and other nations in a joint peacekeeping exercise."

The U.S. government official pointed to three areas that make Washington nervous in being able to realize its plans. The first is the war over Nagorno-Karabakh. This is an area in Azerbaijan where many Armenians live and are an oppressed nationality. Following the October 1917 Russian revolution, led by the Bolsheviks, workers and peasants in Armenia and Azerbaijan took power in 1920. As a result, they transformed social relations and succeeded in living and working together, overcoming divisions fostered by the former tsarist empire. The Bolshevik policy of unequivocal defense of the rights of all oppressed nations was at the center of this success.

After the death of Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin, however, a privileged bureaucratic caste, headed by Joseph Stalin, consolidated its power in the Communist Party and state apparatus and reversed those policies. The Stalinist counterrevolution, which led to the reemergence of national conflicts and divisions, is at the root of the rivalries within and between these republics since the breakup of the USSR.

During the recent conflicts between the regimes in power in Armenia and Azerbaijan, Washington had sided with the government of Armenia. In 1992 U.S. Congress passed the so- called Freedom Support Act, which put in place an economic embargo on Azerbaijan. Talbott called for the repeal of this law, declaring it "limited our ability to provide assistance .. [and] limited our leverage with Baku." A cease-fire has been in place between the two conflicting armies for four years. During the conflict, however, Azerbaijan lost 20 percent of its territory, and close to 1 million people - mainly peasants - have become refugees. Talbott said the U.S. government now opposes the Act, and has acted as an "honest broker" between the two countries.

Talbott also pointed to the five-year-long civil war in Tajikistan, "that remains fragile and dangerous," as well as the conflicts in Abkhazia. The instability in these and other republics worries Washington that possibilities of substantial investments by U.S. big-business in the region may be diminished.

Talbott warned Moscow not to interfere in Washington's plans in the region. "Today there are plenty of questions .. about how Moscow will handle its relations with the other members of the CIS," he said, referring to the Commonwealth of Independent States, the loose association of the former Soviet republics that replaced the USSR. "Whether that grouping of states survives will depend in large measure on whether it evolves in a way that vindicates its name - that is, whether it develops as a genuine commonwealth of genuinely independent states," Talbott stated [emphasis in the original]. "If it goes in another direction - if its largest member tries to make `commonwealth' into a euphemism for domination of its neighbors - then the CIS will deserve to join that other set of initials, USSR, on the ash heap of history."

Washington's watchword in "dialogue with Russia is integration - the right kind of integration," the U.S. official said. "We believe that our presence and influence in the region can itself be a force for the right kind of integration."

Oil, gas pipeline through Iran
Washington's policy shift comes on the heels of a $1.6 billion gas pipeline deal signed in May between the governments of Turkey, Iran, and Turkmenistan. The pipeline would run from the gas-rich Ashkhabad field in Turkmenistan through 750 miles of northern Iran to Turkey. It will move 28 billion cubic meters of gas a year.

To appease the Turkmenistan government, U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright said July 23 that the project did not violate the U.S. Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which imposes sanctions on any country investing more than $20 million a year in Iranian or Libyan oil or gas projects. Albright's justification was that Turkey, a NATO member, would be buying "Turkmenistan gas," not "Iranian gas." This move did not mute Tehran's opposition to the Caspian oil deals that Talbott outlined.

"Iran does not recognize bilateral Caspian accords," read the August 18 headline in Etteláat International, an Iranian daily. Iran's deputy foreign minister Mahmoud Vaezi warned August 7 "that any oil contract between the Caspian Sea littoral [coastal region] states and foreign companies without taking into consideration the interests of other countries .. would be problematic." Vaezi told the Tehran daily that his government had already sent a note to the United Nations stating that any oil contract between the Caspian Sea coastal states and foreign companies lacks a legal basis if it doesn't take into consideration the interests of other concerned countries in the region. Tehran has also notified all coastal states that any measures taken without agreement of all countries involved will be considered in violation of the 1921 and 1940 Soviet-Iranian accords.

Meanwhile, the August 14 issue of Republika, a Baku- based newspaper, quoted Azeri deputy foreign minister Khalaf Khalafov as saying that the five Caspian Sea littoral states - Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Kazakstan - will hold a meeting in Moscow by the end of August to discuss the legal status of the prospective oil contracts in the Caspian Sea.

Workers states main obstacle
The U.S. imperialists also face a formidable challenge within each of the former Soviet republics in the region. Noncapitalist social relations still exist to one degree on another in all of these states. "Off-shore oil wealth has not yet transformed the economy of this small post-Soviet country," said an article in the August 25 Christian Science Monitor, referring to Azerbaijan. "But this is also one of the least-privatized, least-reformed economies of the former Soviet Union. And many people, says a Western diplomat, hope oil wealth will permit them to preserve their Soviet ways."

Azerbaijani oil workers employed in joint-venture companies with foreign capital, which often also employ technicians and others from abroad, are increasingly restive. "Locals employed by the state find that they are being paid a fraction of what the international crews receive," said an article in the July 28 Daily Telegraph of London.

"`It costs $300,000 a year to bring in an expat oil worker,' said an executive of the AOIC. `Meanwhile, workers on the Azerbaijani rigs are sometimes not being paid at all. This is bound to lead to resentment, and we already see signs of the police harassing foreigners.'"  
 
 
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