Rumsfeld’s Trip: Securing Assets for the Empire by Mike Whitney

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Many readers are familiar with The Project for the New American Century, the conspiratorial document written by Bill Crystal and Robert Kagan that has served as the blueprint for many of the Bush Administrations depredations around the world. We can say without any fear of exaggeration, that it is the neo-con equivalent of Mien Kampf, a clearly stated design for American hegemony. Now that Iraq is looking to be more of a morass than the Administration had originally anticipated, many of us may had assumed that this lunatic plan had been abandoned, or at least put on the back-burner. This doesn’t appear to be the case. Donald Rumsfeld’s trip suggests that the Administration is still actively and earnestly pursuing global rule.

The first stop on his current trip was Azerbaijan, a key part of the Baku pipeline. Critics of the Bush Administration have long argued that access to the resource rich area surrounding the Caspian Sea, was the main reason for our military intervention in Afghanistan. So, it shouldn’t surprise us that the Secretary of Defense announced that the US would be beefing up its military presence in the country, presumably to protect their future interests. When Rumsfeld was confronted by reporters about the widely acknowledged corruption in the recent Azerbaijan elections, he refused to offer any comment.

It’s clearly a departure from normal protocol to criticize a potentially valuable client who seems more than willing to do Washington’s bidding What they should have asked him was whether there is any truth to the allegations that the US was directly involved with the fraudulent elections. But, then, that might not be something that a representative of the Bush Administration would feel qualified to answer. The important thing for Rumsfeld is that the leadership of the country has been preserved, and that, once again, the US has a dependable ally who is sympathetic to Western interests. (ie the export of oil) Rumsfeld announced that the US will be establishing forward staging bases in Azerbaijan, supposedly, to continue the prosecuting war on terrorism, but in reality, to provide a well armed security apparatus for the future pipeline. Rumsfeld also stopped in the Republic of Georgia to confer with the new provisional government that is filling in after the abdication of the Prime Minister.

Following a closed door meeting with the unelected representatives, an agreement was apparently struck that Georgia would ask neighboring Russia to remove their military bases, and that the US would develop more of their own bases within the country. How convenient for Rumsfeld to have the Shevardnadze government implode just before the pipeline begins construction? (Georgia represents the second part of the Baku pipeline) How fortunate that the new provisional government is so accommodating to the demands of the US, even though these demands will cause great anxiety in Moscow and, probably not benefit the Georgian people at all. Some people might think it was the hand of God? Or, perhaps, it was those 2500 US Army Special-ops who are training troops in Georgia, who encouraged the errant Mr Shevardnadze it was time to step down. No, it is not likely that these events unfolded by themselves, or without the covert involvement of the US.

The changes that are taking place in Azerbaijan, Georgia and the rest of region are the result of policy decisions being made at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. There is every indication that the US was involved in the phony elections in Azerbaijan and in the coup that removed Shevardnadze. This indicates that the Bush Administration is going full speed ahead with its plan to control the oil and natural gas resources on both sides of the Caspian.

This is not only consistent with the goals of The Project for the New American Century but, also, with a lesser known document produced by Jimmy Carter’s National security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski authored the 1997 study for the Council on Foreign Relations, “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives”, a policy paper that emphasizes the critical importance of America using its military prowess to control the resources in the Caspian Basin, and establishing bases throughout central Asia to secure growing markets. (Brzezinski’s writings read very much like the Bush Strategic Defense Policy, and it seems likely that the Bush team may have sharpened their positions on theories, like pre-emption and how to deal with the possibility of military competition, from this document) Brzezinski’s words, “America is now the only global superpower, and Eurasia is the globe’s central arena”, could be said to reflect not only the sentiments of the Bush Administration, but also, the unambiguous direction in their foreign policy.

They realize that about 75% of the world’s population live in Eurasia, and that it accounts for about 60% of the world’s GNP. They also know that the region contains about three-fourths of the world’s energy resources, and that control of those resources will decide which nations will direct power on the global scene. Just as the war in Iraq was intended to facilitate the sale of oil to the only markets in the world that are growing exponentially in their petroleum requirements (India and China), so too, our increased presence throughout central Asia and the Caspian Basin signal a resolve to control the supply and movement of resources throughout the region, long into this century.

From the early 1990s, the idea of economic and military dominance in Eurasia has been considered central to establishing global supremacy. Rumsfeld’s trip can only be understood in terms of these basic objectives.