How Georgia – Russia war connected to the Iraq’s oil and gas law

In this arti­cle on Al-Watan, Al-Bishiti explains the con­nec­tion between the Geor­gia — Rus­sia war con­nected to the approval of the Iraqi gas and oil law.

The writer argues that the approval of this law is now not only an Amer­i­can demand but also a Euro­pean essen­tial question.

Georgia’s bor­ders on the Black Sea, sur­rounded from the north, east and south, by four coun­tries Rus­sia, Azer­bai­jan and Arme­nia and Turkey.

From Azer­bai­jan, through Rus­sia to Europe are the “cor­ri­dors of power”, where the energy line passes via the Russ­ian ter­ri­tory, across Geor­gian ter­ri­tory to Turkey (then to Europe) or to the Black Sea.

It is in the EU inter­est that “cor­ri­dors of power” via the Geor­gian ter­ri­tory to stay safe and secure, and the need for the Russia’s oil and gas, is the strength of the “Russ­ian defense” that the EU will not take the Geor­gian side.

The U.S. knows this, to “lib­er­ate” the EU from the Russ­ian oil and gas, and will dom­i­nates the oil and gas export to the EU with Nabucco line (3300 kilo­me­ters), which will start in 2010 and become oper­a­tional year 2013.

Iraqi Prime Min­is­ter Nuri al-Maliki vis­ited Brus­sels, seek­ing an agree­ment to pro­vide Euro­pean Union with oil and gas through this pipeline, which will gain Turkey, at the first place more strate­gic impor­tance in the energy secu­rity to the Euro­pean Union.

Rus­sia, at the same time, estab­lished a com­peti­tor “gas line” from the Russ­ian Black Sea to Italy, via Ser­bia and Bul­garia, and prob­a­bly will be fin­ished before “Nabucco”.

The Euro­pean Union’s need of Iraq’s oil and gas lies in two things:

The EU esca­lat­ing level of fear from Rus­sia to use the gas to Europe, as a weapon of polit­i­cal — strate­gic pressure.

The increase of Euro­pean Union depen­dency on Iraq’s oil and gas, and to reduce its depen­dence on the Russ­ian gas, the EU should reform and rebuild­ing the Iraqi oil sec­tor, money, tech­nol­ogy and exper­tise. They should also accept the mil­i­tary pres­ence of NATO in Iraq, which is about to reach a con­ven­tion with the U.S. allows them to keep a per­ma­nent mil­i­tary pres­ence in this strate­gic coun­try, like its mil­i­tary pres­ence in Japan or South Korea or Germany.

The United States will end its occu­pa­tion of Iraq, after the approval of the oil and gas law. This is the only con­di­tion to sign the strate­gic energy deal between the Euro­pean Union and the United States through the Iraqi gov­ern­ment, which it should enforce its mil­i­tary and secu­rity con­trol on the oil sec­tor in South­ern Iraq, in the Basra region in particular.