“The Good War,” as the media calls Obama’s mounting slaughter in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has the same base, imperialist motive as the war in Iraq: U.S. dominance of world oil and natural gas supplies to counter Chinese, Russian, and regional competitors. In 1979, Jimmy Carter declared that the U.S. would regard any other power’s encroachment on Exxon Mobil’s turf as an act of war and backed up his threat with his new Rapid Deployment Force. The Carter Doctrine formalized the United States’ top strategic priority: securing and controlling Mideast and Central Asian energy and export routes.

Last month, with the agreement by Iran and Pakistan to complete a 1,200-mile IP (Iran-Pakistan) gas pipeline from the South Pars gas fields in Iran to Karachi, this strategy suffered a grave setback. According to Middle East Energy Strategy, a newsletter from Harvard’s Olin Institute, “What may seem like a standard energy project could have profound implications for the geopolitics of energy in the 21st century and for the future of south Asia, as well as for America’s ability to check Iran’s hegemony in the Persian Gulf” (5/29/09). In retaliation, Obama is sending in his new Afghanistan theatre commander, Harvard-trained General Stanley McChrystal, best known for his command of death and torture squads in Iraq and Afghanistan. These ground-based “special operations” will supplement airborne Drone terror strikes in Pakistan. And coming soon: 21,000 more GIs in Afghanistan.

Iran, China, Russia Score Economic, Military Gains

 U.S. rivals come out big winners in the pipeline deal. Iran gets steady income to offset losses stemming from U.S.-led sanctions, and also cements political ties with nuclear-armed Pakistan, already a shaky U.S. ally. As for China, “Iranian gas will flow to the Baluchistan province port of Gwadar, in the Arabian Sea [which China itself built, and where it is now building a refinery]. And Gwadar is supposed to be connected to a proposed pipeline going north” to China (Asia Times, 5/29/09). Even before it launches a blue- water navy, China will gain the ability to import energy along routes beyond the reach of the U.S. Seventh Fleet. “With IP [the pipeline] in place and with multi-billion-dollar, overlapping Tehran-Beijing gas deals, China can finally afford to import less energy via the Strait of Malacca, which Beijing considers exceedingly dangerous, and subject to Washington’s sphere of influence” (Asia Times). For Russia, meanwhile, “IP is a gift-from-above tool in rerouting gas from Iran to South Asia away from competing with Russian gas. The big prize, in this case, is the Western European market, dependent almost 30% on Gazprom [the gigantic Russian gas company] and the source of 80% of Gazprom’s export profits” (Asia Times).

Pentagon Unleashes Ivy League Assassin in Chief

By mid-summer, Obama’s deadly Afghan surge will be poised to strike, backed by a new U.S. Marine mega-base in Helmand province, a stone’s throw from the Iran-Afghan border and Pakistani Baluchistan, where the pipeline will run. It’s the ideal strategic base for an extended, tri-border (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan) “counter-insurgency splash,” as coined by General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command (Asia Times, 6/4/09). Key to this effort will be Gen. McChrystal’s secret Special Operations killers, “targeted assassination teams working out of Afghan bases in Kandahar and Nangarhar, and allied with wily, local militias” (Asia Times). These militias, cynically manipulated by U.S. war makers, are separatist, nationalist Baluchi tribes. They claim a homeland that spans parts of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, including the critical Gwadar port.

The imminent Iran-Pakistan pipeline sharply contrasts with its hapless rival, the U.S.-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) project. Begun under Clinton and Unocal (now Chevron) in 1995, TAPI’s U.S. backers first courted and then fell out with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban. In 1999, when the Taliban favored an Argentine rival builder, Bridas, Clinton pulled the plug on the deal and essentially ended—temporarily—the U.S.-Taliban alliance. Taliban-run Afghanistan soon became a haven for al Qaeda and a training ground for its 9/11 terrorist attackers. Washington has repeatedly insisted that its sole objective in invading Afghanistan in 2001 was to defeat Taliban and al Qaeda forces. But of late, pipeline building has reemerged as a chief aim. Bridas, which U.S. rulers now grudgingly support as a hedge against Chinese, Russian, and Iranian interests, has re-opened TAPI talks with Kabul. But while these negotiations remain in the talking stage, Iranian gas is set to flow to Gwadar and Karachi by 2014.

U.S. rivals make significant geostrategic gains with the stroke of a pen and guarantee them with vast numbers of nearby troops. U.S. rulers, on the other hand, can’t enforce deals without transporting their war machine across oceans and continents. Relative U.S. weakness is creating a field day atmosphere among Moscow’s and Beijing’s military planners. “Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated in April that Russia and China would strengthen their military cooperation through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and engage in several joint military maneuvers. He implied that these plans were aimed at limiting the U.S.’s presence in Central Asia” (Asia Times, 6/13/09). At the same time, Russia is marshalling former Soviet vassals into a fighting alliance called the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). “The new force would comprise large military units from five countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The creation of a powerful military contingent in Central Asia reflects Moscow’s drive to make the CSTO a pro-Russian military bloc, rivaling NATO forces in Europe” (Asia Times).

Phony “peace candidate” Obama is fully on board with the war program that U.S. capitalists require. Today it is death squads and more troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tomorrow it could be a frontal confrontation with China or Russia — a step that will require a full military mobilization of the U.S., including a disciplined capitalist class and a rebuilt infrastructure (popular media topics) and a restoration of the draft (an as yet unmentionable one).

Obama is no friend of the working class. Despite his Cairo speech to “reach out” to the Muslim world, these are the same people who suffer daily atrocities in U.S. war zones. At home, millions of jobs have vanished under the new president. Poverty and police terror run rampant. Yet despite the decay of material conditions for the working class, Obama enjoys sky-high approval ratings: proof of his value to U.S. rulers. Exposing Obama’s true class allegiance — and his role — in these worsening times is a major priority for our Party.