[R-G] Pipeline opens new front in Afghan war

[Anthony Fenton]

  - See: A Pipeline Through A Troubled Land: Afghanistan, Canada, and  
the New Great Energy Game:
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/documents/National_Office_Pubs/2008/A_Pipeline_Through_a_Troubled_Land.pdf

Pipeline opens new front in Afghan war
Canadian role in Kandahar may heat up as allies agree on U.S.-backed  
energy route through land-mine zones and Taliban hot spots

SHAWN MCCARTHY

 From Thursday's Globe and Mail

June 19, 2008 at 2:30 AM EDT

OTTAWA — Afghanistan and three of its neighbouring countries have  
agreed to build a $7.6-billion (U.S.) pipeline that would deliver  
natural gas from Turkmenistan to energy-starved Pakistan and India – a  
project running right through the volatile Kandahar province – raising  
questions about what role Canadian Forces may play in defending the  
project.

To prepare for proposed construction in 2010, the Afghan government  
has reportedly given assurances it will clear the route of land mines,  
and make the path free of Taliban influence.

In a report to be released Thursday, energy economist John Foster says  
the pipeline is part of a wider struggle by the United States to  
counter the influence of Russia and Iran over energy trade in the  
region.

The so-called Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline has  
strong support from Washington because the U.S. government is eager to  
block a competing pipeline that would bring gas to Pakistan and India  
from Iran.

The TAPI pipeline would also diminish Russia's dominance of Central  
Asian energy exports.

Mr. Foster said the Canadian government has long ignored the broader  
geopolitical aspects of the Afghanistan deployment, even as NATO  
forces, including Canadian troops, could be called upon to defend the  
critical energy infrastructure.

“Government efforts to convince Canadians to stay in Afghanistan have  
been enormous,” he says in a report prepared for the Canadian Centre  
for Policy Alternatives, a left-of-centre think tank in Ottawa.

“But the impact of the proposed multibillion-dollar pipeline in areas  
of Afghanistan under Canadian purview has never been seriously debated.”

In an interview, Mr. Foster – a former economist with Petro-Canada,  
the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank – said he  
believes the TAPI project could provide major benefits for Afghanistan  
and the region generally. If the project proceeds – and serious  
obstacles remain – Afghanistan's national government could reap $160- 
million (U.S.) a year in transit fees, an amount equivalent to half  
the government's current revenue.

But he said the security issues remain daunting and the Canadian  
military could – wittingly or not – become embroiled in a “new great  
game” over energy security that is playing out in the region.

Acting Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson – who chairs the cabinet  
committee on Afghanistan – would not comment on the pipeline  
yesterday. When asked about the project earlier this spring, he said  
only that Canada wants to see Afghanistan develop a “legitimate and  
legal economy that can sustain a credible, viable state.”

Backed by the opposition Liberals, the Conservative government has  
committed to keeping the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan until 2011,  
although there is growing skepticism that the engagement will end at  
that point.

New Democratic Party MP Paul Dewar said the government needs to be  
more forthcoming about the four-nation project and whether Canadian  
forces would end up guarding the pipeline.

Though experts remain skeptical that the project will get off the  
ground, the four countries appear determined to prove them wrong.

With the backing of Manila-based Asian Development Bank, ministers  
from the four countries met in late April and agreed to start  
construction of the pipeline by 2010, and begin supplying gas by 2015,  
although critical financial issues must still be worked out.

At a donor's conference attended by a Canadian delegation last  
November, countries committed to “assist Afghanistan to become an  
energy bridge in the region” and to accelerate work on the TAPI  
pipeline “to develop a technically and commercially viable project.”

There was no public discussion of who would provide the security for  
the project.

The pipeline proposal goes back to the 1990s, when the Taliban  
government held talks with California-based Unocal Corp. – and its  
U.S. government backer – while considering a competing bid by  
Argentina's Bridas Corp. Those U.S.-Taliban talks broke down in  
August, 2001. India, which desperately needs natural gas imports to  
fuel its growth, later joined the revived project.

Last week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said the  
U.S. government has a “fundamental strategic interest” in Afghanistan  
that goes well beyond ensuring it is not used as a launching pad for  
terrorism, which was the original justification for the UN-sanctioned  
NATO mission of which Canada is a part.

That objective remains paramount, Mr. Boucher said, but he added that  
there is a “historic opportunity … of having an open Afghanistan that  
can act as a conduit for energy, ideas, people, trade, goods from  
Central Asia and other places down to the Arabian Sea.”

Stephen Blank, a professor at the U.S. Army War College, in Carlisle  
Barracks, Pa., said the U.S. government is particularly eager to  
provide an alternative to the proposed $7.5-billion (U.S.) Iran- 
Pakistan-India pipeline, which those three countries have agreed to  
pursue.

“From the U.S. viewpoint, the idea of blocking Iran is of paramount  
significance,” he said.

As well, the United States is pushing the TAPI pipeline as one of  
several natural gas export options from Central Asia that would bypass  
Russia, which until now has maintained a stranglehold on gas exports  
from the region.

But Dr. Blank – who has written extensively on energy-related  
geopolitics in the region – said he doesn't believe the TAPI pipeline  
will be built any time soon due to security concerns.

Still, the project is seen as a key part of Afghanistan's strategic  
development plan, which Canada and its NATO partners have endorsed as  
critical to establishing its political stability.