Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
that the Greater Middle East, and by extension Eurasia, will be critically affected by Iran's
own political evolution, for better or for worse.
The best indication that Iran has yet to fulfill such a destiny lies in what has not quite
happened yet in Central Asia. Let me explain. Iran's geography, as noted, gives it frontage
on Central Asia to the same extent that it has on Mesopotamia and the Middle East. But the
disintegration of the Soviet Union has brought limited gains to Iran, when one takes into
account the whole history of Greater Iran in the region. The very suffix “istan,” used for
Central Asian countries and which means “place,” is Persian. The conduits for Islamiza-
tion and civilization in Central Asia were the Persian language and culture. The language
of the intelligentsia and other elites in Central Asia up through the beginning of the twenti-
eth century was one form of Persian or another. Yet as Roy and others recount, after 1991,
Shiite Azerbaijan to the northwest adopted the Latin alphabet and turned to Turkey for tu-
telage. As for the republics to the northeast of Iran, Sunni Uzbekistan oriented itself more
toward a nationalistic than an Islamic base, for fear of its own homegrown fundamental-
ists: this makes it wary of Iran. Tajikistan, Sunni but Persian speaking, seeks a protector
in Iran, but Iran is constrained for fear of making an enemy of the many Turkic-speaking
tral Asians were rarely devout Muslims to start with, and seven decades of communism
only strengthened their secularist tendencies. Having to relearn Islam, they are both put off
and intimidated by clerical Iran.
Of course, there have been positive developments from the viewpoint of Tehran. Iran,
as its nuclear program attests, is among the most technologically advanced countries in the
Middle East (in keeping with its culture and politics), and as such has built hydroelectric
projects and roads and railroads in these Central Asian countries that will one day link them
all to Iran—either directly or through Afghanistan. Moreover, a natural gas pipeline now
connects southeastern Turkmenistan with northeastern Iran, bringing Turkmen gas to Iran's
Caspian region, and thus freeing up Tehran's own gas production in southern Iran for ex-
port via the Persian Gulf. (This goes along with a rail link built in the 1990s connecting the
two countries.) Turkmenistan has the world's fourth largest natural gas reserves, and has
committed its entire gas exports to Iran, China, and Russia. Hence, the possibility arises
of a Eurasian energy axis united by the crucial geography of three continental powers all
pipeline connecting the two countries, with Kazakh oil being pumped to Iran's north, even
as an equivalent amount of oil is shipped from Iran's south out through the Persian Gulf.
Kazakhstan and Iran will also be linked by rail, providing Kazakhstan with direct access to
the Gulf. A rail line may also connect mountainous Tajikistan to Iran, via Afghanistan. Iran
constitutes the shortest route for all these natural-resource-rich countries to reach interna-
tional markets.
