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Central Asia Gas Deal Underscores the Real Reasons for the Afghan War
Thursday, June 6, 2002
By Peter Symonds
World Socialist Web Site

Short

Location -- Source
A little publicised agreement signed in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad last week has highlighted once again the real motives behind the US military intervention into Afghanistan -- access to and domination of Central Asian oil and gas.

The deal between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan establishes the basis for construction of a $1.9 billion pipeline from the Turkmen natural gas fields at Daulatabad through to the south-western Pakistani port of Gawadar. A parallel oil pipeline as well as road and rail connections are also being considered, along with processing facilities at Gawadar to enable the shipment of liquified gas.

All three leaders -- Interim Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Turkmen President Saparmurad Niyazov -- anticipate substantial benefits from the project. War ravaged Afghanistan is hoping to garner at least $100 million a year in government revenue from transit fees and to create up to 10,000 jobs in the construction and maintenance of the pipeline and associated industries. The World Bank and Asian Development Bank have already indicated backing for the project.

The lion's share of the profits, however, will not go to the three countries but to the transnational energy giants that have been scrambling for ways to exploit the huge oil and gas reserves in Central Asia -- the world's second largest after the Middle East. Turkmenistan alone has more than 250 trillion cubic feet of natural gas -- about half in the huge Dauletabad-Donmez field.

Far more is at stake, however, than exports of natural gas from Turkmenistan -- an impoverished desert state of about five million people. Pipelines are the key element in exploiting the oil and gas reserves throughout Central Asia, which is landlocked and dependent at present on Soviet-era infrastructure. The route of any new pipelines is not only an economic issue but also, given the crucial role of oil and gas in modern society, a key strategic question.
(More: WSWS.org News Source)
2002 © World Socialist Web Site.

I really can't see what this article is driving at -- unless they're finally discovering (again) that life just ain't fair.

International conflicts will almost always end with new trade agreements -- and if a structurally poor nation must trade its vast wealth in natural resources to survive, then so be it. At any rate, such a survival would likely be short-lived. On the other hand, the land of a shrewd host nation would eventually be taken up by the imposing, non-national, yet successful, corporation, which would invest time and resources in rebuilding the government into a viable system it can work with on a global scale.

Well -- logically speaking, that is...
Dan