Presidential Candidates Clueless on Russia; Report: Putin to be NYT columnist

The presidential candidates as a whole don't look very sure-footed on former Soviet policy. That is except for John McCain, who says Russia should be shoved out of the G-8, and that the U.S. should proceed with the non-working missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Council on Foreign Relations collected the candidates' various positions, and The Washington Post ran them out on Friday.

How about returning to part of the Soviet-era approach -- averting McCain's petulant muscle-flexing, but accepting that there's little overlap in belief systems, that the U.S. and Russia are each out for their own self-interest around the world, and that it's each country for itself in terms of competition?

One challenge of 2008 -- winning the battle to control the new flow of energy into Europe. Russia has the edge in winning over the key country in this battle -- Turkmenistan and its huge natural gas supplies. But Turkmenistan President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is still leaving the door open for Europe and Washington's idea to direct his country's natural gas West.

Putin in the New York Times? The Media Bloodhound reports that NYT editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal, who just announced a deal to publish his sworn enemy Bill Kristol once a week, has struck a second masterstroke: a weekly column by Vladimir Putin. Satire at its best.

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For Kate Webb

A friend kindly forwarded a piece from today's New York Times Magazine -- an article from its annual remembrances of those who passed on during the year. The story was on Kate Webb, a war reporter whom both of us first met in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. This unforgettable New Zealander, with her long, brunette hair, her voice raspy from the years of cigarettes and whiskey, was one of the two or three best and most fearless reporters I encountered in eighteen years abroad.

It almost didn't matter how many consecutive nights you sat down with Kate for a beer. She had another hair-raising memory to recount, the type of story that -- if it alone had happened to anyone else, why he or she would have dined off of it for the rest of their lives. Not Kate. She was just passing the time with friends.

Like her first experience with journalists in Indonesia in the mid-1960s. Suharto had gone on his murderous rampage in Java, in which his forces were said to have killed about a million people. Kate, at the time about 22 years old, happened to be visiting the island, and hid out in a hut or something as the killing went on, all the time fearful that she would be next. When she got back to Jakarta and told correspondent acquaintances what she had witnessed, no one believed her. It was six months later before conclusive evidence came out, and Kate's legend began.

Or the time in 1971 when, now Saigon bureau chief for United Press International, she was captured by North Vietnamese soldiers. She emerged three weeks later, delirious and malarial, to the gaping jaws of her friends -- Kate had been reported dead; the Times was among those who published an obituary.

Or the time that an Afghan warlord pulled Kate away from the telex machine in the Kabul Hotel by her hair. Kate escaped. But the bald spot on her skull showed what she had to leave behind to manage it.

Kate was often to be found at that telex machine, filing her stories to Paris. Once, she had typed in the code to the Paris operator, and received a message back from her editors indicating a live connection, but other correspondents were at other telex machines in other capitals, waiting in line ahead of her to send their stories. She was told to stand by. Just then, a rocket landed just outside the hotel, shattering the plate-glass window and sending shards across the lobby behind her, details that Kate now urgently relayed to the Paris operator in an effort to get him to hurry up so she could get to safety. "C'est la guerre" -- Such is war -- came back the reply.

And so it was, Kate would say.

Kate died in May at the age of 64. She had retired in 2001, feeling she was too old to be in her default position at the front lines. She was a mentor and generous friend. Rest in peace, Kate.

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Big Oil's Salvation in the Video Arcade?

The accounting firm Deloitte & Touche has devised a fascinating way to predict how events will transpire in the Alberta oil industry. It's a video game called Producers Dilemma. Gordon Jaremko, a reporter at CamWest News Service, wrote a piece about it last week.

The game, which seems so far to correctly anticipate moves both by the industry and the government, was built by a Deloitte team along with a Canadian game theory firm called Priiva Consulting. On its web site, Priiva says that it uses game theory "to help clients assess and solve their strategic business decisions."

The story piqued my interest a couple of ways. I've thought for some time that there will be a paradoxical resolution of global warming and plateauing oil supply. I've thought that Big Oil will play a big, early role in solving them because these lumbering giants have much to lose by there being a runaway train.

Big Oil has lost its global primacy to state-owned oil and natural gas companies in Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Chuck Marvin at Thestreet.com wrote an excellent year-ender on this last week. So, unlike in previous decades, it's actually important to Big Oil's survival to develop alternatives to carbon-based fuels.

One has to think that these or other theorists have bigger challenges in mind. Have they already produced a video game that simulates Big Oil's current dilemma, and shows the way out? If they haven't started, here is an existing platform.

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Pakistan's Playboy and the Oil King

Who Will Succeed Bhutto? The clearest thing amid all the chaos in Pakistan is that the country's most likely kingmaker won't be Pervez Musharraf, and it certainly won't be the United States. It will be Benazir Bhutto's 51-year-old husband, Asif Zardari. The roguish Zardari isn't very well known in the West, but in South Asia he's a celebrity, a charming former playboy who was imprisoned by Musharraf for corruption during Bhutto's terms as prime minister. I've interviewed Zardari, and he's got a natural feel for politics, and has his own magnetism, something lacking in most of the other people Bhutto surrounded herself with. I strongly doubt that he himself could lead the party because of his tainted past. But, given the sympathy factor, and the disarray engulfing Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, he is likely to choose who does. Dark horse: remember the name Aitzaz Ahsan, who led the lawyer's uprising against Musharraf. He broke with Bhutto but could emerge from the pack, that is should Musharraf ever release him from prison.

Exxon in Russia: The American company may be undergoing the Shell treatment. Last year, Shell was forced by Gazprom to hand over control of the giant Sakhalin-II natural gas field – that is if it wanted to keep doing business in Russia. Now, Russia’s respected business newspaper Vedemosti says that the two giants of the world – Exxon and Gazprom – have held talks about Gazprom taking a stake in the American company’s Sakhalin-I project. This isn’t a shocking report – Vladimir Putin has made it clear that Russians, and not foreigners, will control the country’s energy resources. And it could simply be a trial balloon, as the Russians are prone to float. But it comes after Exxon’s tough-guy negotiating style in Russia and Kazakhstan, insisting that it will never buckle under to resource nationalism. And it’s clear that ultimately the company will have to retreat and compromise in both countries as its roster of possible new global reserves shrinks.

Kashagan: Papa Calls Together the Families

It appears that Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev is prepared to pronounce judgment on the long-running dispute with the foreign companies developing the supergiant Kashagan oilfield.

Gabriel Kahn, my former colleague at The Wall Street Journal, reports that Nazarbayev has summoned the companies for a meeting with him and Prime Minister Karim Massimov in the capital of Astana next month.

For Kazakhologists, that can mean only one thing -- he will announce to the companies how the settlement will look. Thus, the six-month-old dispute over this 13-billion-barrel field -- the largest discovery in three decades -- appears near a conclusion.

As Kahn quotes Eni chairman Paolo Scaroni, "For me it is difficult to imagine that President Nazarbayev and Prime Minister [Karim] Massimov meet the most important oil companies without a resolution."

Scaroni is right. This is Nazarbayev's style. He's been known, for instance, to scratch out a number on a piece of paper, and hand it to his foreign interlocutor. That's regarded as written on a tablet.

The meeting is scheduled Jan. 11th.

The dispute started because of the Eni-led consortium's over-budget spending and five-year tardiness in field development. As a settlement, Kazakhstan wants to double its current 8.3% holding in the field, plus a cash settlement, and to receive its oil profits on a bigger scale and faster than written into the current contract.

Nazarbayev's intervention is probably welcome news. He's no Hugo Chavez -- look for a decision that all parties can live with. Even malcontent Exxon may grudgingly accept.

Dumbest story on Kashagan: The leaks have been few from the inner chambers in which the Kashagan talks have taken place. Yet in my view the news coverage has been fairly impressive. Even if it hadn't been, I'm not a press-basher, and as a matter of habit almost never go after other writers.

However, a piece by Motley Fool I think begs scorn. This article, posted yesterday, attributes the stand-off to yet another example of "government heavy-handedness," and chalks it up as more proof that "those who follow energy carefully should be concerned about an expanding outbreak of government strong-arming in a number of important producing nations."

In other words, Motley Fool has precious little knowledge of this dispute, and rather than studying up on it so as to accurately inform its investor readers, has conflated Kazakhstan's position with those of other petro-states in the world. As if to underline this point, Motley Fool boasts that the analyst -- David Lee Smith (I am conveniently providing his email address) -- "really has never set foot in Kazakhstan."

For the record, the dispute has nothing to do with Russian- or Venezuela-style petro-nationalism, and a lot to do with incompetence on the part of the oil companies, and an inflexible contract written during the days of $15 oil.

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What Benazir Bhutto’s Death Doesn’t Mean

Was Benazir Bhutto killed because of American negligence? Was Pervez Musharraf to blame for failing to provide sufficient security? Should the U.S. send more troops to Pakistan?

These questions are being asked around the world, particularly by U.S. presidential candidates. The answer to all is no.

Bhutto sadly was killed because she decided to campaign entirely in the open, in large crowds, popping out of the sunroof of her SUV, in one of the world's best-armed militant-filled countries. Given her chosen style of politicking for the Jan. 8 election, jammers and policemen standing or driving beside her car, as one report suggested she had requested, wouldn’t have stopped the simple pistol and body explosive the killer apparently used.

The U.S. and Musharraf are responsible, but for something entirely different.

For Washington, it goes back to the George H.W. Bush administration and the decision effectively to halt the U.S. relationship with both Afghanistan and Pakistan following the 1989 Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. At the time, both countries were crawling with both lethal weapons and a multi-national force of militant Islamic fighters who were now out of work, and looking for some. Fast forward to the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, and the various militant Islamic bombings and shootings between and after, including the Bhutto assassination, and you have a snapshot of the result. Neither Bill Clinton nor Bush’s son, George W., fully took cognizance of that enormous blunder.

That leads us to Musharraf, who at this point is the only one, along with his Army, who can seriously address the crisis in Pakistan. He has the men, the materiel, the cash and the intelligence services to suppress the militancy. If he didn’t before, he knows now that there's no other choice.

Earth to Exxon: Your World is Not Enough

Exxon Mobil has received a fresh message from Russia: We are in charge. Get used to it.

No doubt the oil giant -- which is in battle on two fronts in the former Soviet Union, not to mention in Venezuela -- will ignore the warning and crash-land blithely into the dinosaur pit.

I mean that only slightly tongue in cheek. Around the world, Big Oil is having to cut deals with petroleum-rich states that want to control their own resources. I've recently come around a bit to Exxon's view that resource nationalism will moderate -- petro-states like Russia will need high technology to arrest their declining production and develop difficult new fields -- but only a bit.

The direction of global oil is clear, and it's toward the demise of the Big Oil companies as we know them. In general, the petro-states that control more than 80% of global oil reserves can get what they need from technology-rich oil services companies, and will largely do without the Exxons, Chevrons and BPs of the world.

Yet Exxon seems to think that the old rules hold, those of prior decades in which Big Oil called the shots.

Forbes reports on the latest news on the Russian front. It's a salvo from a Gazprom deputy chairman named Alexander Ananenkov. In a news conference yesterday, he called Exxon's control of the giant Sakhalin-I natural gas field an "infringement of Russia's national interests." He added that Exxon's wish to sell its Sakhalin-I gas to China had made Russians "poor relations who see their gas siphoned off."

The fact is that, according to Exxon's contract, it can sell the Sakhalin production wherever it wants, and China is willing to pay a higher price than Russia.

But that ignores political reality. Russia wants the Sakhalin gas for the domestic market. Why? So it can keep selling its own gas for enormous profits to Europe. And, in case it must curtail its exposure to Europe because of growing alarm there over Russian market dominance, Gazprom itself wants to be able to sell to China.

Exxon would be wise to find a middle ground now rather than wait -- as Shell, BP and Total did to their chagrin over the last two years -- for Russia to build into a lather.

Exxon is also the lead rebel in a several-month-long dispute with Kazakhstan over the supergiant Kashagan oilfield. The Kazakhs are in a fit over a minimum five-year delay in first production at the Caspian Sea field, plus a huge budget over-run. The Kazakhs want more money, and they want it faster than they are contractually guaranteed.

The word is that the other foreign partners developing Kashagan -- Total, Shell and Italy's Eni -- are amenable to Kazakhstan's terms. But Exxon is holding out for an extension in the length of the forty-year contract.

The reason for Exxon's stubbornness is mainly its instinctual bloody-mindedness. But it's also highly concerned about what a concession on Kashagan will mean for its other former Soviet holdings -- 25% of Tengiz, a supergiant sister field to Kashagan; and of course Sakhalin-I. I personally think that the other companies sympathize with Exxon and are hiding behind its willing to play bully. But that's besides the point. Exxon is the lightning rod.

And Exxon doesn't want to look like a pushover as it stands firm, its back right at the edge of the dinosaur pit.

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Benazir Bhutto's Legacy

I first met Benazir Bhutto at a political rally north of Karachi in November 1988. Three months earlier, Pakistan ruler Zia ul-Haq had died in a plane crash, setting up Pakistan's first contested elections in more than a decade. Zia had hanged her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and jailed her, which gave Benazir Bhutto the political potency of a martyr, and she was running hard on that image for election to Parliament.

It would be an immense understatement to say that Bhutto, then 36, was immensely popular at home in southern Sindh province, and with followers of her Pakistan People's Party across the country. These people treated her like a rock star, and she and her husband, Asif Zardari, behaved like they were. Bhutto, educated at Harvard and Oxford, promised to bring democracy and its fruits home, and a lot of people -- including much of the West -- believed her. I know that I did. I went on to meet her a few times in three years as the Pakistan-based Newsweek correspondent.

Nineteen years later, Bhutto had served two terms as prime minister. She was removed both times by the nation's strong president for alleged corruption and incompetence. To be fair, her political rival, Nawaz Sharif, was removed twice as prime minister in intervals with her during the 1990s on similar charges. And when Pervez Musharraf came to power in a coup in 1999, both were sent into exile.

As a candidate for prime minister again the last two months, Bhutto made the same promises of democracy. The vows had worn thin -- people knew that she had failed twice as prime minister to transcend her feudal roots. At heart and in behavior, she was imperious, and her strongest sense was one of self-entitlement.

But Bhutto's legacy, I think, is the hope she brought the country back in 1988. Young, beautiful, and confident, she promised to fearlessly take on those who would challenge democracy. And she continued to do so until the end.

Hummer Humor and Russia in Serbia

Leanan over at The Oil Drum, who never sleeps, has some interesting posts. One is on a Russian Hummer owner with a sense of humor. A second provides insight into Russia's support for Serbia's position opposing Kosovo independence.

Hummer Humor: Reuters reports that a Russian owner of a $49,500 Hummer is inviting anti-consumerists to vent their anger on his vehicle, specifically by pelting it with rotten eggs and tomatoes. This unidentified Good Samaritan is said to live in the Russian city of St. Petersburg. The back story is that a local activist group calling itself "Peter Antiglobalist" has been in a naturally difficult search for a Hummer owner willing to undergo food abuse. The good-natured fellow who responded plans to sell the food-decorated vehicle, and donate the proceeds to an orphanage, according to the report. I have to say that this is a difficult story to believe. However, as post-Christmas Day entertainment, I shall list it in the category of, "If it isn't true, it ought to be."

Russia in Serbia: For some eight years, Russia has supported Serbia's position that Kosovo is an integral part of it, and opposed independence for the majority ethnic-Albanian region. Moscow says its position is rooted in the principle of territorial integrity: If Kosovo can unilaterally pull away absent Belgrade's agreement, Russia argues, then what about the separatist Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, for instance? Mightn't they see Kosovo as a green light to declare independence too? I've argued that Russia is throwing up an empty rhetorical threat. Abkhazia and South Ossetia perfectly serve Russia's purposes as they are, as an instrument for needling neighboring Georgia, which Russia loves to hate.

Now the other shoe drops. UPI reports today that Russia wants to take control of Serbia's state oil company, called NIS. Russia is offering $1.5 billion in cash and other incentives, plus access to its planned South Stream natural gas pipeline. There's nothing wrong about mixing politics and economics -- that's how the world works. But it does make Russia's position clearer.

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Putin: Koni, Koni! Here Koni! Put on this GPS Collar!

Vladimir Putin is challenging the West in as many spheres as he can. And one beneficiary will be his adventurous dog, Koni.

This black labrador apparently has a habit of loping away a bit too far for the Russian president's comfort. So Putin has asked his deputy prime minister, Sergei Ivanov, to make sure he gets a special collar fitted with a satellite tracker, Ivanov told a reporter today.

Russia is putting up more satellites to compete with America's Global Positioning System and Europe's Galileo. It's called the Global Navigation System, or GLONASS, and it traces back to the 1980s. It went moribund in the post-Soviet collapse, but the country is firing up three satellites today using a Proton-K rocket -- bringing the total to 18 -- and by 2009 plans to have 24 in place.

``When can I buy the necessary equipment for my dog, Koni, so that she won't run away too far?'' Putin asked Ivanov. Ivanov replied that such collars will be available for sale by July, Bloomberg reports, quoting Russia's First Channel.

Ivanov said the commercialization will not be biased. Cat collars will be available, too.

What it Takes in the Former Soviet Union: Assassination, Theft, Corruption

I've seen multiple references in recent weeks to Richard Ben Cramer's classic account of the 1988 presidential campaign, What It Takes. Inveterate footnote-and-index readers such as myself miss having neither, yet it is a wonderful read, all 1,051 pages of it, narrating in colorful detail what campaign shenanigans were required to win that year. Cramer's descriptions of George H.W. Bush are particularly unforgettable.

Cramer comes to mind because of the latest news out of the former Soviet Union: Another apparent assassination plot, this time between presidential campaigns in Georgia; another stolen election by Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan; and a report that the good times attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin may in fact not be as advertised.

Georgia: In a story published yesterday by The Sunday Times in the U.K., David Leppard, Anna Mikhailova and Mark Franchetti report on a possible assassination plot against Boris Berezovsky's former business partner, Badri Patarkatsishvili. The news peg is a 14-minute audio tape that's surfaced in which a Georgian Interior Ministry official apparently attempts to hire a Chechen killer to off Patarkatsishvili. The killer, according to the paper, is Uvais Akhmadov, "a member of a notorious gang of Chechen brothers who specialised in kidnapping and murder," as the writers put it. There's a snap presidential campaign under way at the moment, and Patarkatsishvili is challenging former president Mikheil Saakashvili. Only, Patarkatsishvili is doing so from London, where he says he fears for his life if he goes home. The thing is, we need not sympathize with Patarkatsishvili as a sort of Goldilocks -- he is a tough businessman with a long career of dealing with some of the former Soviet Union's most unsavory sorts. The important point here is what the report might imply about Saakashvili, Georgia's Columbia University-trained former leader. What has his campaign got up to in order to win election Jan. 5th?

Uzbekistan: My former Baku roommate David Stern at The New York Times reports that Karimov won yesterday's election with a reported 88.1% of the vote. Some people are calling it fraudulent since Karimov shouldn't be running -- he was constitutionally forbidden to seek a new term -- and he allowed no real opponents. In addition, there are the usual forebodings that Uzbekistan is headed for instability either during Karimov's continued rule or after he dies (the only way these fellows leave). I personally have sympathy for the stolen election crowd, but have my doubts on the instability part. Equally undemocratic Turkmenistan, for instance, just went through a transition after a presidential death without a hiccup. There's an argument that Uzbekistan isn't Turkmenistan, meaning that it already has produced a home-grown rebellion based in the Fergana Valley. I personally adhere to the muddle-along theory, meaning that even the apparently least likely states tend to muddle along.

Russia: My former Washington Post colleague Fred Hiatt weighs in today with a tart salvo at Time magazine's selection of Putin as its Person of the Year. Against Putin's unwillingness to face serious electoral competition, Hiatt writes: "Why would a leader of such steely confidence, heroic achievement and massive popularity be so afraid of political competition? Perhaps he will explain at Time's awards banquet." Hahaha, Fred. But Hiatt's central argument is serious, based on paraphrases from a must-read report in the new Foreign Affairs by my former colleagues at Stanford University's Institute for International Studies, Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss. This report challenges the prevailing wisdom that, under Putin, crime has fallen, economic activity has improved and corruption lessened. McFaul and Stoner-Weiss detail at length how in fact the opposite is true in all three cases and that, specifically, Russia's economic growth is near the bottom of the 15 former Soviet states. "Whatever the apparent gains of Russia under Putin, they gains would have been greater if democracy had survived," they write.

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Presidential Humor From Central Asia

Thanks to David Hoffman for this entertaining link. For identification purposes: From left to right, Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov, Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev, Turkmenistan's Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and Tajikistan's Imamali Rakhmanov.

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A Possible Kashagan Settlement; Exxon Tries to Keep the Old Days Alive

The signs are that the Italian-led partners developing the suspended supergiant Kashagan oilfield are near a settlement with Kazakhstan.

The four-month-old dispute at Kashagan -- the largest discovery in the world in four decades -- has become emblematic of petro-nationalism that has shifted the center of gravity in the energy world.

So far, Kazakhstan has been different from belligerents such as Venezuela and Russia in that it hasn't sought to take back a controlling stake of its oilfields from big private companies. But, given $90-a-barrel oil, the state is highly irritated at the terms of the 1997 Kashagan, and is seeking a better deal. There is at least a five-year delay in first oil from the 13-billion-barrel field.

An excellent report by the U.K. firm PLATFORM provides the first credible numbers I've seen from the contract itself -- it seems to have gotten ahold of a copy. According to these figures, Kazakhstan effectively carries much of the financial risk -- it will get almost no money until the companies recover all the costs of developing the field -- while the companies are virtually guaranteed a profit.

News agencies are reporting that there's been agreement on the payment of a $4 billion fine by the companies as compensation for the delay. And all parties are agreed that Kazakhstan will become an equal partner with the largest shareholders, including Exxon Mobil, Shell, Eni and Total, although according to Kazakhstan officials Exxon has been a holdout on the undisclosed price the country must pay for an increase in its current 8% share.

Exxon -- playing its usual role of no compromise -- is convenient for the other partners because any seeming intransigence can be blamed on the American oil giant. But in the end they're all going to have to bend. What's their leverage?

The biggest stumbling block, as we've discussed previously, appears to be the upside. Meaning, how will Kazakhstan share in the profits should global oil prices remain so high?

The Kashagan deal was signed under an assumption of turning a profit on about $18-a-barrel oil. Meanwhile, power in the industry has shifted, with national oil companies like Kazakhstan's now in the driver's seat as oil has skyrocketed to $90 a barrel and more.

Kazakhstan wants a piece of that -- contractually. In other words, it's probably demanding a contract revision that gives them more profit when the price of oil rises -- an adjustment in the so-called upside clause.

The companies will try to keep the final agreement secret so as not to encourage others to be so bold. Exxon in particular is a stickler on this -- it's a 25% partner in the supergiant Tengiz field, a sister to Kashagan, and it won't want to encourage Kazakhstan to now shift its contract revision efforts there (expect Kazakhstan to do just that).

But the terms are bound to leak out. Petro-nationalism is a spreading disease.

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Note on Yesterday's Post on the Pipeline War

I received a couple of warranted complaints about yesterday's description of a delay within the Bush administration in naming a top envoy to direct the U.S. side of the West's pipeline war with Russia. As background, I've complimented the choice of gray beard Thomas Pickering as Washington's chief envoy for the Caspian. Steve Mann, another talented senior diplomat, would be his deputy. But I've not understood why these men aren't already in the field making the case for a western-directed, trans-Caspian pipeline for Turkmenistan gas. Yesterday I reported that an 11th-hour struggle over personnel was partly to blame. Specifically I reported that Dan Fried, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European affairs, was trying to get one of his deputies into the envoy's slot.

Fried rightly notes that I didn't offer him a chance to respond, and I regret that. Today Fried said the following in a telephone chat: "I think it's a great idea to have a senior person doing it, and he will be most effective if there is a team representing all the bureaus, economic, mine. (Under Secretary of State for Economics and Energy) Ruben Jeffrey should also be involved. We should get that team together and get them to work." On why there is a holdup, he said, "I'd like to do this as soon as someone identified is in place. The sooner the better is best."

Fried couldn't say so, but I'm still told that Pickering is headed into the top slot. I'm also told that there's a cat fight over who will be his deputy, including a turf war between the State Department and the National Security Council.

While the bureaucrats tussle over the details, they risk Russia gaining greater advantage.

Merry Christmas, Alan Johnston

In a great year for me, by far the best news of all came July 4th when my former Tashkent roommate, BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, was released unharmed from captivity in Gaza. Alan, who is 45, had been hostage for almost four months. He credits Hamas, otherwise branded a terrorist organization, for his release.

I saw Alan a couple of months ago over a meal in London, and he looked and sounded great. I was reminded of this when his voice came on NPR this morning in an interview about his new book, Kidnapped: And other Dispatches. It appears not to be available as yet in the U.S., but I did find it on Amazon.co.uk. It's sure to be a wonderful read.

Merry Christmas, Alan.

Behr-dee-mukh-uh-MEH'-duv in the White House

In the 1990s or earlier, some knuckle-head who couldn't get his (or her) arms around Central Asia nicknamed it the 'Stans as a catchall for all five of the previously little-known nations. At times the monniker even crossed the Caspian and embraced Azerbaijan, which while also a Muslim Turkic nation technically is part of the Caucasus. The stab at a cutism, however, I think helped ordinary outsiders digest these new nations as places distinct from, say, Russia. And the rest is history -- Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev it seems only has to call to say he's in town to get an Oval Office visit. The same goes for Azerbaijan's Ilham Aliyev.

But what can you do with Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov? There's simply no dignified way of abbreviating the ten-syllable name of Turkmenistan's new president. I even inquired of my wife, who as regular readers of this blog know is a Kazakh; she looked at me as though into the eyes of a child.

Which brings me to President Bush. Bush and his successor are simply going to have to bear down and learn to pronounce this man's name. Why? Because Turkmenistan, the possessor of the world's fourth-largest reserves of natural gas, is the improbable key to winning the current European pipeline war with Russia. Russia wants Turkmenistan's gas to nail down its dominance of the European natural gas market, while the U.S. and Europe want it to diversify Europe's natural gas supply away from Russia. Without Turkmenistan, neither can win.

So far, Russia is far in the lead, and a large part of the reason is courtship -- Russia's Vladimir Putin has met with Berdymukhamedov multiple times over the last year, even flying down to Turkmenistan. Yesterday, Putin seemed to win the fruits of his effort by signing a final agreement with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to carry their gas north through a new pipeline. In that part of the world, final is a fungible word, and in my opinion the game still goes on.

Meanwhile Bush has relegated Berdymukhamedov to a mere handshake at the United Nations. This is a blunder. Berdymukhamedov needs to find himself in the White House, over at Camp David, in America's embrace, getting a shoulder massage, a drink, a cigar.

Again, the West has something to learn from Putin.

Putin's Hidden Wealth

Last August, I sat down for dinner in Moscow with Stanislav Belkovsky, an estranged Kremlin insider with extraordinary political antennae. This compelling, 36-year-old Russian, a computer programmer by training, runs a think tank called the National Strategy Institute along with a news website. Amid a long discussion of Russian politics and history, Belkovsky provided his take on the main thrust of Kremlin policy today -- allowing the folks who have lined their pockets for the last seven years to cash out their winnings.

Among those folks? Vladimir Putin. Belkovsky claimed that, as part of the spoils of being president, Putin was bestowed with lucrative shares in two Russian energy companies -- 37% of Surgutneftegas and 3%-4% of Gazprom. He said this wasn't provable at the moment, but that the signal of veracity would be if that 37% went on the market before March, when Putin steps down as president. Belkovsky was sure that, given the non-transparent aspect of most Russian companies, the shares would be snapped up by another big Russian company such as Gazprom or Rosneft. If Putin does cash out, Belkovsky said, these shares would be worth some $40 billion. A nice bit of change, but not surprising for those familiar with the publicly known holdings of the presidents of the former Soviet Union's other petro-states, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. At that level in government in that part of the world, one does not retain respect among peers solely with political power -- one must also have enormous personal wealth to project the mystique that's necessary to grip the political reins in this treacherous environment.

I raise this now because Belkovsky has recently given a couple of interviews repeating his assertions, including one published in today's London Guardian. Robert Amsterdam, who is imprisoned oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky's lawyer, has concluded on his blog that Belkovsky's remarks are a "leak" reflecting a struggle among the Kremlin's wealth-holding factions. Amsterdam thinks that one of these factions must be behind this supposed leak.

There does seem to be a struggle going on, but that isn't very surprising. The same has gone on with some regularity in both Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. These fellows have a lot of spoils to fight over.

Belkovsky, a bearded bear of a man, once worked for exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Then he went to work for Putin. In other words, there is no ideology here. With Belkovsky, it's all business.

And I think there's a simple, non-conspiratorial explanation for the appearance of this material now. It's called the news cycle. Putin is on his way out as president, and there's uncertainty on the outside as to how the levers of power -- and the spoils -- will be shared. So naturally there is interest among journalists, editors and pundits about anything that would shed light.

Belkovsky's theory has simply intersected with that news cycle. This man strikes me as no one's errand boy.

Christmas Cheer in Kyrgyzstan

They tried with Vladimir Lenin. Then they took a stab at Boris Yeltsin. Now the wise white Muslim beards in Kyrgyzstan are turning to a can't miss tourist grabber -- Santa Claus.

Kyrgyzstan, which has totally missed out on the region's oil rush since it doesn't have any, is now trying to cash in on what it's got in plenty -- mountains.

Here's the AP dispatch out of Bishkek:

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — This former Soviet republic has mountains honoring Communist and Russian leaders. Just in time for Christmas, authorities say they plan to name a snowy peak "Mount Santa Claus."

Three climbers set off Wednesday to scale the designated peak and bury a capsule containing the flag of Kyrgyzstan at the summit on Christmas Eve.

Why is a predominantly Muslim and former Soviet land honoring the jolly old elf?

"We want to develop tourism, and Santa Claus is an ideal brand to help us do this," said Nurhon Tadzhibayeva, an official with Kyrgyz tourist authorities.

Plans are afoot to hold an international Santa Claus congress in Kyrgyzstan in the summer, Tadzhibayeva said. The country also intends to hold annual games in which Santas from all over the world will test their chimney-climbing, sled-racing and tree-decorating skills.

Other Kyrgyzstan peaks bear the names of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Photo: KB35
Rights: Creative Commons

The Pipeline War: As the CondiBoys Bicker, Putin Laps The West Again

Vladimir Putin has advanced again in the principal current theater of battle between the West and Russia -- the European pipeline war. His antagonists meanwhile are bickering over who will general their troops.

As wars go, this one is easy to figure out. It's purely business driven -- over who will dominate Europe's energy market -- and the spoils are political influence in Europe, where the votes are decisive on numerous issues vital to the West, in particular the U.S.

Russia, which currently controls about a third of Europe's oil and natural gas market, is seeking to enhance its dominance further by building large, new natural gas pipelines into northern and southern Europe.

On the other side, the European Union and the U.S. are trying to lessen Russian influence by building a competing set of natural gas pipelines into Europe.

The improbable key for both sides is that little can happen unless a single state -- Turkmenistan -- goes along. It possesses the world's fourth-largest reserves of natural gas, and it's these supplies that would make either side's pipeline strategy work.

So both the West and Russia have been assiduously courting this desert Central Asian nation, and its new president, Gurbangly Berdymukhamedov.

Except that Putin has been much more assiduous, and today that bore fruit as the leaders of Turkmenistan and also Kazakhstan signed a final agreement to build the first leg of Russia's new pipeline system. It would gather up the natural gas supplies of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, ship them north to Russia to be combined with Gazprom's volumes, then exported on to Europe at a much higher price (the profit to go to Russia alone).

I still think this is not a done deal. I've seen such seemingly concrete agreements silently disappear before. The real test is whether the pipeline lengths and bulldozers arrive on the spot, and welders begin working. As a smart friend posed the situation this morning, "Will Putin/Medvedev/Gazpromistan cough up the funds for it? Stay tuned." He was referring of course to Putin's probable successor, Dmitri Medvedev, and the character of today's Russia: The Gazprom State. The Russians aren't renown for willingness themselves to finance such projects.

As if to highlight this point, Berdymukhamedov himself didn't attend the signing ceremony -- which is notable since Putin and Kazakhstan's ultra-cautious Nursultan Nazarbayev did. He seems to be keeping the door slightly ajar for the Western route.

Still, the signs are not propitious for proponents of the Western route. While Putin has personally sat down with Berdymukhamedov numerous times, even flying down to Ashkabad to see him, President Bush gave him a mere photo op at the United Nations a couple of months ago.

Meanwhile, Bush's foreign policy team is in a catfight over who is going to lead the charge. Last month I reported that diplomatic warhorse Thomas Pickering was about to be named the new Caspian energy envoy. It's an inspired choice -- one of America's top two or three statesmen, Pickering brings undisputed gravitas wherever he goes. He exudes seriousness. His deputy is to be Steven Mann, a long-time ambassador and authority on the Caspian Sea.

But I'm told that Dan Fried, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European affairs, isn't happy. He's intent on installing a senior deputy, Matt Bryza, in one of the two jobs. Bryza is deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Fried and Bryza served together under Condoleeza Rice on the National Security Council before she became secretary of state.

Which brings me to CondiBoys. I realize I am out of it, having spent too much time in Central Asia, but until this week I had never heard this term. It apparently refers to the prevalence in key foreign policy positions of Rice's former mates at the NSC. Such proximity and loyalty to Rice, and not necessarily merit, is said to be key to promotion; loyalty to Bush is said to be helpful as well.

I happen to admire Dan Fried. I was told back in 2005 that he was singularly responsible for America's humane response to the massacre of hundreds of people in the Uzbekistan city of Andijan, apparently on the order of President Islam Karimov. Knowing that Karimov would force out the U.S. military base at the slightest hint of provocation, Fried pushed through a decision to fly out dozens of survivors who had fled to neighboring Kyrgyzstan, and eventually relocate many in the U.S. The U.S. did lose the base.

I also think that Bryza is a highly qualified Eurasian hand, probably the longest-serving Caspian expert in government. Plus he's a nice guy.

But Fried's campaign is absurd. If the CondiBoy description is true, neither Pickering nor Mann are Rice proteges. But you don't bench your first string quarterback if he's willing to play (Asian and European readers: You catch the drift). It seems to me that Fried and Bryza ought to get out of Pickering's and Mann's way so they can go to work.

They have a slog ahead. My friend Russell Zanca, an Uzbek export over at Northeastern Illinois University, just sent a comment on yesterday's posting about Putin containing the following notable remark:

"It's totally natural for the Cen Asians to go w/ Russia--all connections, work ethics, everything is well in place--um, not to mention geography. Meanwhile the U.S. organizes conferences and exhibitions in Ashgabat. As a Tashkent hat seller once told me, America's a good country, but Russia's much closer. "

Photo: pingnews.com
Rights: Creative Commons

Time Is Right -- Putin is the Person of the Year

Time has chosen Vladimir Putin as its Person of the Year for 2007. The magazine notes as it usually does that this does not connote endorsement. The selection rather recognizes a person who Time's editors believe had the greatest impact in one way or another in the world.

For reasons different from those Time lays out, I agree with the choice. The biggest is that Putin has forced the world to take Russia seriously. Just a few years ago, it would have been regarded as absurdist to suggest that Russia would have its current voice in global politics and business.

It's irrelevant that he's done so on the back of high oil prices, and that Russia's influence no doubt will wane when those prices inevitably do. One place where Time is wrong is in saying that Russia possesses an inherent central role in world affairs -- on the basis of what? Its nuclear weapons? It's Putin's personality that has put Russia at center stage.

Oddly enough, and perhaps more importantly, Putin has also brought a much-needed balance to global diplomacy. He has rightly pointed out that the unipolar world that's followed the Soviet collapse has put global diplomacy off-kilter, especially given the rigid Bush administration view of the world.

Some of Putin's actual policies -- such as energy domination in Europe -- are decidedly contrary to Western interests. But because of his very belicosity, Putin has made the ordinarily dismissive Bush actually engage, and that can only be positive.

Time's selection highlights the world now faced by the other countries on which this blog mainly focuses -- the eight states of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Putin's discip