The threat to U.S. political and economic domination of the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea areas today centers on pipelines that U.S. oil companies and rival coalitions of the area’s weaker powers are proposing to build to transport oil and gas to lucrative markets in Europe and Asia.

Afghanistan is a vital transit route for U.S. multi-billion-dollar oil and gas exports, going from the energy-rich Caspian Sea on Afghanistan’s northern border to the Arabian Sea. Five U.S. oil giants — Unocal, Chevron, Pennzoil, Amoco and Exxon — have invested heavily in the region, said to have the greatest energy potential outside the Middle East. Bush-Cheney, with strong oil company ties, invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to secure a flow of oil and profits. This policy — not the hunt for Al Qaeda — is also the driving force behind Obama’s continued military occupation.

Last year’s stand-off in Georgia highlighted the potential of Russia-U.S. military confrontation.
Behind the clash was the U.S.-backed BTC pipeline, which by-passes Russia and Iran to transport Caspian oil from Baku in Azerbaijan through Tbilisi in Georgia to Ceyhan, the Turkish port on the Mediterranean.

In May, Iran signed a deal to export 150 million cubic meters of gas per day to Pakistan via a proposed Iran-Pakistan pipeline, which Russia and China are planning to fund. (India, initially involved in this project, recently backed out at U.S. insistence, sweetened by a deal giving India U.S. nuclear power technology, although India’s decision may not be final.) It would be routed through the Pakistani province of Baluchistan which shares a common border with Iran. China is potentially interested in extending the pipeline to its northwestern provinces bordering Pakistan.

All this intensified the conflict between Iran and the U.S. and revealed the dangers the U.S. faces from its so-called allies, Pakistan and India, and from its major competitors, Russia and China. The latter’s economic growth depends on a steady supply of oil and gas so it’s also making deals with Iran, whose oil reserves rank as the world’s fourth largest while its gas reserves are second to Russia — much of it undeveloped.

The Iran-Pakistan deal revived a proposed rival U.S. pipeline, TAPI (see editorial, CHALLENGE, 10/14), which would transport gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India. TAPI is funded by the Asian Development Bank whose major investors included U.S. financial institutions and oil companies.

TAPI would go from Turkmenistan through Western Afghanistan, head south across Helmand province — the stronghold of the Taliban and local drug lords — through the neighboring Pakistani province of Baluchistan to the Arabian Sea for shipment to Europe and Asia.

The Afghan government is expected to receive 8% of TAPI’s revenue. Given the corruption in Afghanistan, very little of that would benefit the desperately poor Afghan population. There will be more civilian deaths, refugees and devastation in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the U.S. fights to protect the proposed pipeline routes.

In Baluchistan, where nationalist groups are already fighting for greater autonomy from Pakistan’s central government, the presence of a Pakistani pipeline could precipitate a break-away. Anger is rising at that government throughout Pakistan’s four provinces and federally-administered tribal areas.

Pakistani Senate Deputy Chairman Jan Muhammad Jamali told the Upper House recently, “Time is running out…. There is no other option left but to grant provincial autonomy to all the provinces, including Baluchistan.”

U.S. government circles have also considered a Yugoslavia-style break-up to be advantageous to U.S. domination in the area. Baluchistan — where the CIA has been secretly training and funding the rebels — would become a U.S. client state, creating a buffer between Iran and India. It would help thwart China which is building a refinery in the Baluchistan seaport of Gwadar to be connected to the proposed pipeline taking Iranian oil north to western China.

With challenges and confrontations from enemies and allies, U.S. imperialists will do what they’ve always done to hang onto their economic and geopolitical power: use more military force.