Pipelines and energy wars

Read Pepe Escobar's article on energy wars in Central Asia. He makes many points, but one in particular is that if Washington could just stop isolating Iran with the ridiculous nuclear crisis, Europe's energy problems could be much improved. Indeed, Iran's oil and gas resources could be sent to Europe, and also, a pipeline could have been built through Iran to bring Central Asia's energy resources to the West. Instead, the West built the BTC pipeline which runs through Turkey and makes much less sense financially:

" From a purely economic point of view, the BTC made no sense. A "BTK" pipeline, running from Baku through Tehran to Iran's Kharg Island, could have been built for, relatively speaking, next to nothing - and it would have had the added advantage of bypassing both mafia-corroded Georgia and wobbly Kurdish-populated Eastern Anatolia. That would have been the really cheap way to bring Caspian oil and gas to Europe."

Using Iran to a greater extent would also have reduced Europe's dependence on Russia for energy... this is one of the costs associated with Washington's policies of militarism. Now we have mainstream commentators saying that we need a strong NATO to make sure the West gets reliable energy supplies, as if this was the only option. There are at least two options that don't require any NATO or military solution: 1) the West should reduce its energy consumption, and 2) Iran's resources should be used.