Dick to the Rescue?

Do not fear worry, everyone, Dick is coming to the rescue. For those of you who were worried that supplies of gas and oil would be disrupted after the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia, there is no need to worry as Old Dick Cheney is going to sort it out.

In what could be his last important foreign trip, the US vice-president will arrive in the Caucasus on a tour of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine. He will, according to the UK Daily Telegraph “try to allay fears that Russia’s campaign in Georgia has fatally damaged a cornerstone of the West’s energy policy.”

Cheney will be trying to sweet talk the leaders in Baku that they have continued Western support, as the region is too geo-strategically important for the US and Europe, as it provides the only energy pathway from Central Asia to Europe that does not traverse Russia or Iran.

“If Azerbaijan tilts to Russia there goes 15 years of US energy diplomacy,” a Western diplomat in Baku told the Telegraph.

Cheney will seek to secure Azeri natural gas a high-profile, Western-backed pipeline, called Nabucco, that once completed will flow to the heart of Europe.  But some analysts are now saying that the Georgian war could scare off investors, making it hard for the Nabucco consortium to raise the $11.5 billion needed to build it.

Some even argue that without EU or American subsidies the pipeline won’t get built and then there might not be enough gas to put in it.

In fact the whole Western strategy of reliance on gas and oil from the Caucuses is looking increasingly fragile. A bit like Dick Cheney himself..