[R-G] Parliament is ignoring 'New Great Energy Game' in Afghanistan, says MP

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.thehilltimes.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=2008/april/14/energy_bridge/&c=2

The Hill Times, April 14th, 2008
Parliament is ignoring 'New Great Energy Game' in Afghanistan, says MP
Economist identifies Afghanistan as a strategic 'energy bridge' for  
the transport of natural gas from Central Asia to South Asia.
By Simon Doyle
The Parliamentary debate surrounding Canada's mission in Afghanistan  
has ignored the role of the "New Great Energy Game" and Afghanistan's  
strategic importance in the region as an "energy bridge" for the  
transport of natural gas, says an MP.

Last week in the House, in a debate on a Liberal opposition motion on  
the creation of a Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in  
Afghanistan, NDP MP Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre, Ont.) said that the  
geopolitics of energy supplies has been left out of the House debate  
on Afghanistan, and referred to a recent report by international  
energy economist John Foster, titled "Afghanistan and the New Great  
Energy Game."

Mr. Dewar said the new House committee on the Afghanistan mission,  
which MPs voted to create last week with no opposing votes, should  
look into Afghanistan as an "energy bridge," and what influence energy  
supplies may have had on why Canada is in Afghanistan.

"If we are to have an honest debate in this country about why we are  
in Afghanistan, the whole issue of Afghanistan, which John Foster  
calls an 'energy bridge,' [it] needs to be laid out," Mr. Dewar said.  
"Is this something that the government is committing us to, the combat  
mission in the south, because of commitments on energy security?"

In an interview with The Hill Times, Mr. Dewar said that the energy  
question was dealt with in early debates on Afghanistan after Sept.  
11, 2001, but the role of energy in Afghanistan has become lost over  
the years. "We haven't had a fulsome debate beyond getting more  
troops," he said.

Mr. Foster's report, based on a presentation he delivered to the Group  
of 78, a Canadian peace organization, in Ottawa on Jan. 29, identifies  
Afghanistan as a strategic "energy bridge" for the transport of  
natural gas from Central Asia to South Asia.

He writes that there is a geopolitical "rivalry," or a "New Great  
Game" for energy resources in the region, which began after the  
breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, and involves controlling the  
flows of energy resources north to Russia, west to Europe, east to  
China, and south through Afghanistan. Turkmenistan, for instance, has  
the world's fourth largest natural gas reserves, and Kazakhstan has  
largest oil reserves in Central Asia.

Mr. Foster's report says that the U.S. supported a consortium led by  
American company Unocal to move natural gas through Afghanistan, and  
negotiated with the Taliban to do so between 1997 to August 2001. "For  
more than a decade, the United States has been working towards a  
pipeline to move natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to  
Pakistan and India," it says.

The project, called the TAPI pipeline, takes its name from the  
countries involved, namely Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and  
India, and is proposed to pass through the Helmand and Kandahar  
provinces of Afghanistan, now two of the most unstable areas of the  
country.

"The [President George H. W.] Bush administration saw the Taliban  
regime as a source of stability for the proposed pipeline. It demanded  
that the Taliban form a government of national unity," Mr. Foster  
writes.

U.S. negotiations with the Taliban failed in August 2001, just before  
the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York, and, "Just after that, the  
U.S. ousted the Taliban, with the assistance of the Northern tribes.  
Pipeline planning continued under President [Hamid] Karzai," the  
report says.

Mr. Foster writes that Washington has been "pushing hard" for plans to  
build pipelines under the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan  
to Azerbaijan. The American influence is opposed by Russia because it  
could mean a failure for Russian designs on a "strategic triangle"  
between Russia, India and China.

David Emerson (Vancouver Kingsway, B.C.), International Trade minister  
and chair of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's (Calgary Southwest,  
Alta.) Cabinet Committee on Afghanistan, told The Hill Times last week  
that he hasn't been studying the role of energy in Afghanistan.

"I haven't been focusing on that particular issue. I've been focusing  
much more on the Canadian mission and the transition to 2011. Perhaps  
at some point that issue will come up on the radar screen, but so far  
it really has not," he said.

Mr. Emerson said that Afghanistan has the capacity for substantial and  
legitimate wealth and employment creation, and moving toward a  
"credible, democratic, rights-oriented governance system." However he  
acknowledged that will be a struggle with so much of the country's  
economy driven by drugs and corruption.

When asked whether he would like to see economic development in  
Afghanistan that would include the construction of the pipeline, Mr.  
Emerson said: "I don't want to comment specifically on the pipeline  
but I certainly would very much want, and I'm sure that the Government  
of Canada would very much want, to see the development of a  
legitimate, legal economy that can sustain a credible, viable state."

The pipeline has significant potential as Afghanistan's largest  
development project, Mr. Foster writes, and revenue from it could help  
pay for education and infrastructure. It could also help meet the  
energy needs of India and Pakistan, spurring economic cooperation  
between the rival countries. "So it's potentially good for peace," the  
report says.

Official talks about the proposed TAPI pipeline continue. Both The  
Hindu and the Indo-Asian News Service reported on April 4 that Indian  
vice-president Hamid Ansari was to travel to Turkmenistan and  
Kazakhstan this month in part to discuss the pipeline project.  
"Technical discussions are underway," he said.

"[In] Canada nobody talks about the pipeline. Politicians have  
remained silent," Mr. Foster writes in his report. "So has the press.  
Even a major report on Afghanistan, presented in Febraury 2007 by the  
Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, failed to  
mention the pipeline. In fact, there was no mention of energy, oil or  
gas either."

The Conservative government, like the Liberal government before it,  
which that launched Canada's mission in Afghanistan, has been  
emphasizing security, democratic and human rights, and peace in  
Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan tops the government's foreign policy agenda, that is  
clear. Canada's whole mission is part of a UN sanctioned, NATO-led  
coalition that is helping Afghans rebuild security, governance and  
prosperity," Laurie Hawn (Edmonton Centre, Alta.) the Parliamentary  
secretary to the National Defence minister, said during last week's  
debates. "This is a complex, multi-faceted mission. It is certainly  
the most dangerous operation Canada has undertaken in a generation,  
and arguably the most difficult. However, Canada has risen to the  
challenge and we are playing a leadership role."

Liberal MP Bob Rae (Toronto Centre, Ont.), his party's foreign affairs  
critic, dismissed any suggestion that Afghanistan's importance as an  
"energy bridge" was a motivating factor for the war or Canada's  
presence there.

"I think that the interest in Afghanistan, from a Canadian  
perspective, has everything to do with the instability in Afghanistan,  
and the fact that it was that instability in Afghanistan that gave  
rise to an attack on the United States in 9/11," Mr. Rae said, adding  
that the reason Canada remains is to build stability and human rights  
in the country. However he said that if opportunities arise for  
economic development in oil and gas, that would not be a negative  
initiative for the country.

"One of the things we know is that if we don't create stability and  
the rule of law, economic development will be very, very difficult.  
That may include a pipeline, but there's lots of possibilities. I  
mean, Afghanistan is a country that's very rich in minerals, but  
there's no opportunity to explore, to do any mining, because of the  
tremendous instability, the poverty, and there's no infrastructure,"  
Mr. Rae said.

Mr. Hawn said in the House last week that it would be misleading to  
suggest that there has not been a fulsome debate in the House. "We are  
the only government that has debated the mission in Afghanistan in  
this House—twice," he said.

Mr. Dewar said he couldn't be sure why the issue is not receiving much  
debate, but he added: "I think perhaps people are saying that the  
whole slogan 'No blood for oil' is ridiculous, and [asking] whether  
you can associate the two. I don't believe it's all about natural gas,  
but I believe that's part of it."

Mr. Dewar said that he believes MPs and many in the news media are not  
aware of the high-stakes battle for energy resources in the region.  
"It's lot of MPs, and society in general, and I'll say even the fourth  
estate here," he said, adding that the issue has been raised at NATO,  
in the Asian media, and to a smaller degree, in the European press.  
"Perhaps it's one of those things that's not a quick, obvious  
connection to make."

sdoyle at hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

Links:

John Foster's "Afghanistan and the New Great Energy Game":

www.web.net/~group78/English/Peace/Foster_Afghanistan_Jan08.pdf -

John Foster, Submission to the Independent Panel on Canada's Future  
Role in Afghanistan, Kingston ON,
30 Nov 2007. http://www.independent-panel-independant.ca/pdf/Submission-161.pdf