In the Caucasus, the United States and Russia are vying for control of the region. The great oil game is in full swing. Whoever controls the Caucasus and its roads, also controls the transport of oil that comes from the Caspian Sea.

Al Jazeera:

Tbilisi, Erevan and Baku - the three capitals of the Caucasus. The oil from Baku in Azerbaijan is a strategic priority for all the major companies.

From the fortunes of the Nobel family to the Russian revolution, to World War II, oil from the Caucasus and the Caspian has played a central role. Lenin fixated on conquering the Azeri capital Baku for its oil, as did Stalin and Hitler.

On his birthday in 1941, Adolf Hitler received a chocolate and cream birthday cake, representing a map. He chose the slice with Baku on it.

On June 22nd 1941, the armies of the Third Reich invaded Russia. The crucial battle of Stalingrad was the key to the road to the Caucasus and Baku’s oil, and would decide the outcome of the war.

Stalin told his troops: "Fighting for one’s oil is fighting for one’s freedom."

After World War II, President Nikita Krushchev would build the Soviet empire and its Red Army with revenues from the USSR’s new-found oil reserves.

Decades later, oil would bring that empire to its knees, when Saudi Arabia and the US would conspire to open up the oil taps, flood the markets, and bring the price of oil down to $13 per barrel. Russian oligarchs would take up the oil mantle, only to be put in their place by their president, Vladimir Putin, who knows that oil is power.

The US and Putin‘s Russia would prop up despots, and exploit regional conflicts to maintain a grip on the oil fields of the Caucusus and the Caspian.

But they couldn't have forseen the rise of a new, strong and hungry China, with a seeming limitless appetite for oil and energy. Today, the U.S., Russia and China contest the control of the former USSR’s fossil fuel reserves, as well as the supply routes. The world watch on as they fought for control, a power war, between three ferocious beasts – The American eagle, the Russian bear, and the Chinese dragon.

Up next, the final installment in the series, Part Four, A Time for Lies.

Talk about politically incorrect! Comedian Bill Maher was the guest on Hardball Wednesday evening to discuss the election outcome. After Matthews wondered about Rove's incorrect predictions, Maher began to compare Karl Rove and the GOP to Hitler,

"It was a little Hitler's bunker, wasn't it? I wanted to rush in with a cyanide capsule there. I thought he was going to say, 'I don't want to live in a world without national socialism.'"

Maher continued the Nazi humor when Matthews asked how Mitt Romney took the campaign loss, "Yes, Mein Fuhrer, you have 12 divisions on the eastern front. I mean, until they actually heard the artillery–' I guess I should stop with the Hitler analogies."

Matthews replies "I think Hitler jokes never work myself. It never works. You know that."

Matthews has to take some of the blame for the Hitler jokes, as he began the segment comparing Karl Rove to "Baghdad Bob," a former propaganda henchman for Saddam Hussein.

I've got a feeling that there's a new Hitler Youtube video about to start making its rounds. Oh noes, I was right.

Transcript follows:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: So, Bill, Karl Rove, I think, has offered some material. Is he the Baghdad Bob of the 2012 election, the last guy to admit something's new and something bad is happening?

BILL MAHER: It was a little Hitler's bunker, wasn't it? I wanted to rush in with a cyanide capsule there. I thought he was going to say, "I don't want to live in a world without national socialism." "Okay, Mrs. Goebbels." But, you know, I think it gets to a bigger point there, Chris, which is that Republicans have to start getting their information from a better source than Fox News. I'm not kidding about this. I think this really screws them up. You know, all year long we have had this segment on our program called "dispatches from the bubble." We actually had a bubble made and put a Republican in it. And you know, with the Rasmussen poll, they actually closed the last hole in the bubble. Now they have their own polling. They believed it right up until the end. They were shocked by this election. They have to somehow fix the way they get information, because they only talk to each other and they don't know what's going on in the real world. And they were rudely awakened last night.

MATTHEWS: What do you think it was like to be in that bubble with Mitt Romney in that time– I call it the knockout in the sixth round. All of a sudden, mid-evening, east coast time last night, it just started to go in that direction, the Democratic direction, just so powerfully. What do you think they were telling him when he's running around, saying "This isn't supposed to happen, you guys were told me I was winning this thing?"

MAHER: I mean, I think they were still saying, "Yes, Mein Fuhrer, you have 12 divisions on the eastern front. I mean, until they actually heard the artillery–" I guess I should stop with the Hitler analogies.

MATTHEWS: I think Hitler never works myself. It never works. You know that.