Re: oil

Indeed, if you wanted to make the case for oil, you could make it on the
grounds that to create "stability" in the region you need to remove the
Taliban from power. Of course, this would be good for establishing an oil
link through Afghanistan, but, it seems to me that one of the real
problems is the fear that the Taliban will destablize Pakistan, and thus
gain access to nuclear weapons. Not to mention constituting a direct
threat to the central Asian republics. This is a fear, by the way that the
Iranians also share, since they are arch enemies of the Taliban. Few of us
remember the massacres of Hazaras that were committed by Taliban forces in
the mid-1990s, but are well remembered by the Iranians.

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* Talmadge Wright                               (773) 508-3451 *
* Dept. of Sociology/Anthropology           FAX:(773) 508-7099 *
* Loyola University Chicago                                    *
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On Thu, 25 Oct 2001, Richard N Hutchinson wrote:

> I just took a look at "Taliban" by Rashid yesterday, as well as the piece
> on Caspian basin energy in the Sept/Oct Foreign Affairs.
>
> Neither provides any strong evidence that the U.S. is intervening in
> Afghanistan for oil.  Yes, Unocal would like to build a pipeline (for
> gas, not oil), but Rashid describes their lack of ability to influence
> U.S. policy.  The main pipeline routes from the Caspian do not go through
> Afghanistan -- the U.S. has been trying to establish a route through
> Azerbaijan and Georgia and mainly Turkey, the BTC line
> (Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan).  The CPC line, from the Tengiz oil field in
> Kazakhstan to the Black Sea, is in service, a joint venture of Russia,
> Kazakhstan, Oman and several oil companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil,
> and LukArco.  Not the remotest connection to Afghanistan.
>
> When the U.S. starts joining Russia in subduing Chechnyan rebels, or
> pacifying Nagorno-Karabakh (an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan) we'll know
> we have a war for oil going on, as those spots abut planned pipelines
> running west from the Caspian.
>
> RH
>
>