In fact only one supplier could now make Nabucco commercially viable - Iran. Iranian natural resources could play just as important a strategic role for the EU as they did for Britain in the wake of the great discovery a century ago. Their size and location remain the key: Iran's deposits of natural gas are reckoned to be second only to Russia's, and could be fed into western Europe through an extension of the existing Tabriz-Ankara pipeline.
But massive pressure from Washington makes this unlikely. Iran cannot export gas without massive foreign investment, but only last week Shell and Repsol bowed to this pressure and announced that they would not be pursuing plans to develop Iran's vast South Pars gas field.
The irony is, of course, obvious, for Iran is the one country that could counter the influence of another of Washington's great rivals. Scarcely could there be a better reminder that in foreign affairs, it is always dangerous to unnecessarily take too confrontational an approach.
Read full article
No comments:
Post a Comment