"Evil" Iran and Oil

Including Iran in the "Axis of Evil" seemed especially maladroit, since its democratic element, which needed encouragement from the US, has been pushed aside by the rampant nationalism provoked by the Bush slap. Was this just plain ignorance of the Iranian reality, or is there a more complicated reason? One may be Caspian oil, whose wealth is estimated to be close to that of the North Sea. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Viktor Kalyuzhny said "The process of legal determination (of the sea's status) has got seriously behind what is happening de facto," he told reporters, referring to the fact that oil companies and some nations were already exploring disputed zones. "The question of the Caspian's status should be solved as soon as possible" . The last series of serious incidents was in the middle of last year when an Iranian gunboat drove off an Azeri exploration vessel from a disputed zone. Iran has long insisted that the Caspian should be split equally five ways. The other states, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, seem to have accepted a division along median lines, which would leave Iran with less than 20 per cent. Median lines are a system of dividing the sea by drawing lines from each country's coast and then calculating how much territory they should have according to where the lines intersect. Perhaps the US is telling Iran that it must not try to grab Caspian oilfields. Who knows?

Ronald Hilton - 2/25/02