> No time at the moment to go into anything lengthy, but does this
> analysis also hold some water for whole Georgia-oil thing?
The pipeline doesn't run through any of the unstable regions (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Pankisi Gorge or Adjara). As for the rest, I thought Anatol Lieven summed the issue up best when he was quoted in a recent FT article by Stefan Wagstyl:
<quote>
Anatol Lieven, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think-tank, says: "Pipelines go through worse regions than Georgia. In general, the only real threat to a pipeline is war."
For the moment civil war is not impossible - but it is not likely. Both the US and Russia have in recent days acted to calm tempers in Georgia. Both have good reason to try to preserve Georgia's fragile stability.
<unquote>
Michael