Timothy Birdnow

This guy's not wrong.

Most Americans know very little about central Asia and the Caucasus and that is a shame because it is of growing importance.

The U.S. has long had ties to two nations in the region - Armenia and Georgia. We have long sought to build oil and gas pipelines to get central Asian oil and gas to Europe while bypassing both Russia and Iran. The Russian invasion of Georgia back in 2008 was intended to prevent the cozy relationship between Georgia and the U.S./NATO and to stop Georgia from building pipelines. The first thing the Russians did was bomb the Mozdok-Tbilisi natural gas pipeline at the outset of the war.

Azerbaijan is a pro-western republic, even though it is primarily Shia Muslim. The U.S. has had limited diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan and that since the 1992 Freedom Support Act restricts aid to Azerbaijan. That outdated law needs some serious reform but we are still stuck in this Clinton-era mindset.

At any rate Israel is a close ally of Azerbaijan and supported them in their recent war with Armenia (you'd think they'd be allies since both suffered attempts at genocide against them but the Armenians and Israelis appear to genuinely dislike each-other.)

The Chicoms know all this and will pivot away from Iran if it suits them - and right now it does. This oily silk road between the fields in Asia and Europe is a critical energy corridor and the Chinese are going to need it. While there is an alliance between Russia and China there has never been any love lost between the two and China no more wants to be dependent on Russia than do the Europeans. So the Chinese need this trade route - not just for oil but for other things the Euroweenies want.

We should get our foot in the door now in the region. It is a much neglected but important area that is of critical importance to the flow of oil and gas, and it illustrates how to reform the Islamic world, particularly how Iran should and could be run.

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