Turkmenistan Casino

Turkmenistan is getting much attention for its ostensible new attitude toward Big Oil with the death of President Saparmurat Niyazov. Much of the attention focuses on the new Turkmen leadership's deals with competing geopolitical interests -- China, Russia, the U.S. But it remains to be seen whether the country's new leadership has the vision or skill to carve out genuine sovereignty after Niyazov's delusive and false policy of "neutrality."

Here is an interesting piece a week ago from Guy Chazan at The Wall Street Journal. And here is one this week on Eurasianet.org. Here is a key quote from an unidentified Pentagon official in the latter piece: "If there is a new Great Game being played in Central Asia, the most important part is Turkmenistan."

Steve's comment: The lofty "Great Game" similes make one suspicious. Is Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov truly playing a new Great Game, or is he simply in over his head with so many suitors at his door?

We'll have to wait a year or two for an answer. One thing is clear -- the U.S. has been out-classed in terms of reviving a trans-Caspian natural gas pipeline. That simply is not going to happen any time soon.

The idea of a Chinese pipeline is the most interesting, in my view. It meets the U.S. requirement of evading both Russian and Iranian turf, and provides the region some balance in terms of export.


One whopper in the Eurasianet.org piece is worth visiting: the western diplomat who asserts that, unlike its competitors, Washington is not playing a "zero-sum game." For all parties the game is zero-sum.