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Global Research bericht: 'WORLD ECONOMY: US outflanked in Eurasian energy politics http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/672/672p18.htm
William Engdahl

Curiously and quietly the United States is being outflanked in its now-obvious strategy of controlling major oil and energy sources of the Persian Gulf, Central Asia’s Caspian Basin, Africa and beyond.

The US’s global energy control strategy, it’s now clear to most, was the actual reason for the highly costly regime change in Iraq, euphemistically dubbed “democracy” by Washington.

The quest for energy control has informed Washington’s support for high-risk “colour revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan in recent months. It lies behind US activity in the west-African Gulf of Guinea states, as well as in Sudan. It lies behind US policy vis-a-vis Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and Evo Morales’a Bolivia.

In recent months, however, this strategy of global energy dominance, a strategic US priority, has shown signs of producing just the opposite, a kind of “coalition of the unwilling” — states that increasingly see no other prospect but to cooperate to oppose what they see as a US push to control their future energy security.

The White House denied visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao the honour of a full state dinner when he visited in April, serving instead a short lunch. Hu was publicly humiliated by a well-known Falun Gong heckler at the White House press conference and by other obvious humiliations. In other words, the White House welcomed Hu with a diplomatic slap in the face.

At the same time, US Vice-President Dick Cheney slapped Russian President Vladimir Putin with the most open attack yet on Moscow’s internal human rights policy as well as its energy policy. In a speech in the Baltic state of Lithuania in early May, Cheney accused Russia of energy “intimidation and blackmail”.

Washington has repeatedly accused China of “not playing by the rules”, in terms of its oil politics, declaring that China is guilty of “seeking to control energy at the source”, as though that has not been US energy policy for the past century or so.

Eurasian energy bloc

The significance of taking aim simultaneously at both Russia and China, the two Eurasian giants (with China being the largest investor in US Treasury securities, and Russia being the world’s second most developed military nuclear power), reflects the realisation in Washington that all may not be as seamless in the quest for global domination as originally promised by various strategists in and around the Bush administration.

This month, member-nations of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), led by China and Russia, will reportedly consider inviting observer Iran to full membership. Even if full membership is postponed as has been mooted, the fact remains that Russia and China both want to seal closer cooperation with Iran.' Lees verder:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ENG20060603&articleId=2571