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[QUOTE]Originally posted by sudaniya: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by Grumman: The Iraq war was misguided. Afghanistan is another story. I don't believe the U.S.'s policy for that country is occupation; nothing there to want politically and materially {except to say Pakistan is a nuisance). All Mullah Omar had to do was give up Ben; they didn't; they suffered, and are suffering today because of political decisions. [/QB][/QUOTE]Wrong! Afghanistan is, in many regards, strategic. It not only borders the “Silk Road Corridor” linking the Caucasus to China’s Western border, it is also at the hub of five nuclear powers: China, Russia, India, Pakistan and Kazakhstan. Afghanistan is at the strategic crossroads of the Eurasian oil pipeline and transport routes. It also constitutes a land-bridge for the southbound oil pipeline from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan to the Arabian Sea across Pakistan, which had initially been negotiated by Unocal with the Taliban government. The former Soviet republics of Central Asia-Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and especially “the new Kuwait”, Kazakhstan-have vast oil and gas reserves. But Russia has refused to allow the US to extract it through Russian pipelines and Iran is considered a dangerous route. That left Afghanistan. The US oil company Chevron-where Mr. Bush’s National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, was a director throughout the 1990s-is deeply involved in Kazakhstan. In 1995, another US company, Unocal (formerly Union Oil Company of California), signed a contract to export $8 billion worth of natural gas through a $3 billion pipeline which would go from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. The oil and natural gas reserves of “the Eurasian Corridor” are substantial, at least of the same size of those in the Persian Gulf. "The region of the South Caucasus and Central Asia could produce oil and gas in sufficient quantities to reduce the dependence of the United States on energy from the volatile Persian Gulf region." “Political and military conditions” in the region (meaning Russia’s presence and influence) have been viewed by both the Clinton and Bush administrations as: …presenting obstacles to bringing this energy to the global market….Both regions are the object of outside states competing for influence there. Not only Russia, but also China, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are competitively engaged, often in non-constructive ways….If we [the US] and our allies cannot manage the second and third sets of realities, we will forego the benefits of the first set of realities. Bringing the oil and gas to market will be sporadic, if not impossible, and far more costly. At the same time, the resulting political instabilities may turn both regions into a cauldron of civil wars and political violence, inevitably drawing in the surrounding states. We already have this pattern in the Persian Gulf region, requiring US military involvement, and we could hardly stand by politically, even if we did so militarily, if conflicts entangle Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and some of the Arab states in the Trans-caucasus or Central Asia." In other words, the successful implementation of the SRS requires the concurrent “militarization” of the Eurasian corridor as a means to securing control over extensive oil and gas reserves, as well as “protecting” the pipeline routes on behalf of the Anglo-American oil companies. “[A] successful international oil regime is a combination of economic, political and military arrangements to support oil production and transportation to markets.” In the words of a (former) CIA “policy analyst”: "Whoever has control over certain kinds of pipelines and certain kinds of investments in the region does have a certain amount of geopolitical clout. Such clout is something of a commodity itself, even if the physical control of the oil is not. For much of the Third World, this is a newer way of thinking about resources; it’s no longer the old story of Hitler’s Germany trying to get to the Caucasus and use the oil for its own purposes in World War II." It's far more complex than you're told, Grumman. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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