No Security, No Trans-Afghan Pipelines
M. Ashraf Haidari
Lemar - Aftaab | afghanmagazine.com
07/01/2004
"The players in the game of pipeline politics
must remind themselves that peace can bring a pipeline, but
a pipeline cannot bring peace." -- Robert E. Ebel, Director
of Energy Program at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS).
SUMMARY
Since the ousting of the Taliban in Afghanistan,
international interest has reemerged to revive the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan
gas pipeline project. Although the Unocal Corporation initiated
the project in the mid 1990s, the project was shelved due to
the Al-Qaida's terrorist attacks on the US Embassies in Africa
and increasing instability in Afghanistan, where the Taliban
harbored the Al-Qaida. This article studies what policy lessons
can be learned from the failures of the mid 1990s in order to
avoid past mistakes regarding the trans-Afghan pipeline. In
addition, the article argues that the future security and realization
of a trans-Afghan pipeline depends on the long-term American
commitment to the reconstruction of Afghanistan as well as regional
cooperation, security and sustainable development.
INTRODUCTION
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Turkmen President
Saparmurad Niyazov, and Pakistani President Pervez Musharaf
met in Islamabad, Pakistan on May 29-30, 2002 to announce the
formation of a coalition for implementing the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan
(TAP) natural gas pipeline project. The TAP project consists
of a gas pipeline of about 1,700 kilometers that can transport
up to 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually from the
Dauletabad fields in the southeast Turkmenistan to consumers
in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The project costs $2.0 billion
- $2.5 billion, while the design and construction of the project
takes about 4 years, after all necessary decisions are taken
by the cooperating countries. (1) A steering committee of the
ministers of oil and gas from the three countries (Steering
Committee) was established for necessary follow-up and supervision
of the project. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) responded positively
to the Steering Committee's request to play the role of a development
partner and to grant regional technical assistance for feasibility
of the project.
The Afghan government strongly supports the TAP
project as it would create over 10,000 jobs and bring in hundreds
of millions of dollars from the additional projects agreed to
in the tripartite Memorandum of Understanding signed in May
2002. The Afghan government expects to earn $100-$300 million
annually in transit rents on the pipeline alone. (2) As Afghanistan
would still be dependent on international assistance for its
recurrent budget funding in the next 5-10 years, the transit
rents would provide the country with a sustainable financing
source.
More broadly, the TAP project will benefit the
entire region in mainly three ways: 1) provide cheaper and cleaner
energy to consumers, 2) generate income that can be used for
social development, and 3) bring about regional security through
joint project ownership. (3) However, aside from technical problems,
the realization of the project faces significant political and
security challenges, considering the volatility of the relationships
between India and Pakistan and political uncertainty and widespread
insecurity in Afghanistan, particularly in areas through which
a major part of the pipeline would pass.
REVISITING HISTORY FOR LESSONS TO BE LEARNED
American oil giant Unocal Corporation and Bridas
Corporation of Argentina were rivals to take the lead in the
TAP project in the 1990s, but the project was shelved due to
escalating armed conflicts in Afghanistan and the global isolation
of the former Taliban regime. However, the end of the Taliban
rule in the post-9/11 has brought about continuing hope among
regional and international energy stakeholders to revive the
TAP project.
Despite optimism, common economic interests and
political will of the involved countries to construct the pipeline,
major political risks remain and new challenges are emerging
that menace the project. Unless long-term strategic policies
are formulated to resolve these problems, the construction of
the pipeline will hardly succeed. Nonetheless, recent history
in the context of Afghan politics offers useful lessons to learn
from and avoid repeating the past mistakes.
To identify current obstacles and potential risks
involved in building the trans-Afghan gas pipeline, it is useful
to draw on Ahmed Rashid's in-depth analysis of the initial corporate
venture in 1990s to construct the pipeline across Afghanistan.
Ahmed Rashid in Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism
in Central Asia documents in detail the initial failure of the
trans-Afghan pipeline being due to America's lacking a comprehensive
policy towards the region -- particularly Afghanistan as the
core of regional instability. This should help remind decision
makers of what went wrong then that could go wrong again if
the US and other major stakeholders in the security of energy
supply do not make the right policies to preserve their long-term
economic and political interests.
US ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN
During the last decade of the Cold War, the United
States was deeply engaged in the Afghan politics in order to
contain the former Soviet Union. The West and its Muslim allies
recruited, financed and armed various Afghan mujahidin guerilla
factions to fight the Soviet troops (1979-1989) in Afghanistan
and the pro-Soviet Afghan governments (1978-1992).
However, after the Soviet Union withdrew in 1989
and its interference ended in 1992, Washington abandoned its
moral responsibility to restore peace in and help rebuild Afghanistan.
Regional powers such as Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia took
advantage of the political vacuum the US retreat created and
begun advancing their regional interests through proxy conflicts
fought by the former 9 mujahidin factions.
As Rashid rightly puts it, "For ordinary
Afghans the US withdrawal from the scene constituted a major
betrayal, while Washington's refusal to harness international
pressure to help broker a settlement between the warlords was
considered a double betrayal."(4) The war dragged on for
almost 14 years, which consequently left 2 million Afghans killed,
5 million refugees scattered around the world, and thousands
of others permanently disabled and displaced.
The end of the Cold War ushered in a unipolar
international system where the US suddenly became the world's
sole superpower, resulting in American politicians' negligence
of some of their most important long-term national interests
in the world's resourceful regions such as Central Asia and
the Caspian region. They primarily focused on ad-hoc issues
and problems that posed immediate danger to the US assets overseas.
Hence, Washington's policy towards South Asia and Central Asia
lacked strategic framework and dealt with issues as they occurred.
US DISENGAGEMENT AND POLICY TOWARD THE TALIBAN
During the 1990s, the Taliban's rise to power
in Afghanistan did not draw much attention from the US government.
In fact, most American policy makers thought of the Taliban's
movement as an indigenous durable solution to the Afghanistan's
protracted civil strife. Rashid lists several phases of American
policy towards the Taliban, driven by domestic interests or
attempted "quick-fix solutions rather than a strategic
policy."(5)
Between 1994 and 1996 Washington supported the
Taliban politically through its allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia,
essentially because the Taliban were viewed as anti-Iranian,
anti-Shia and pro-Western. The US simply ignored the movement's
own religious fundamentalist agenda, its suppression of women's
rights, and the threat they posed to regional stability. Between
1995 and 1997 the US involvement was driven by the Unocal project,
although the US had no strategic plans towards accessing Central
Asian energy and assumed that pipelines could be built without
resolutions to regional civil wars. (6)
Anxious to beat its Argentine competitor -- Bridas
-- Unocal officially entered the pipeline game on October 21,
1995, when Turkmen President Niyazov signed an agreement with
Unocal and its partner, the Saudi-owned Delta Oil Company, to
build a gas pipeline through Afghanistan. Henry Kissinger, the
former US Secretary of State and then a consultant for Unocal,
present in the signing ceremony said that the deal looked like
"the triumph of hope over experience." (7) Unocal
proposed a gas pipeline from Daulatbad with gas reserves of
25 trillion cubic feet (tcf) to Multan in central Pakistan.
Unocal set up the CentGas consortium holding the majority share
followed by minority shares held by Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan,
Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Pakistan. (8)
Since Pakistan played a major role in organizing
the Taliban movement and its sweeping military gains during
1994-96 in Afghanistan, the Pakistani government fully backed
Unocal and urged the company to start construction quickly in
order to legitimize the Taliban regime. Pakistan also needed
new sources of gas supply as its demand for natural gas was
expected to rise substantially in the next few years, with an
increase of roughly 50% by 2006 as Pakistan plans to make gas
the "fuel of choice" for future electric power generation
projects. Pakistan has 25.1 tcf of proven gas reserves, and
currently produces around 0.8 tcf of natural gas, all of which
is consumed domestically. (9)
Therefore, Pakistan's government represented in
Washington by former US congressmen lobbied the US to support
a Taliban victory. The US initially accepted Pakistan's advice
assuming that a Taliban victory in Afghanistan would serve its
geopolitical interests, mainly for three reasons: 1) that it
would make Unocal's enterprise much easier, 2) that a Sunni
Taliban government heavily backed by its ally and Iran's regional
rival, Sunni Saudi Arabia, would effectively contain Shia Iran,
and 3) that the pipeline would bypass Iran as an alternative
easier transit route.
As the US and its regional allies were supporting
the Taliban based on these assumptions, drug trafficking, poppy
cultivation, smuggling of illegal goods, international terrorist
operations and other criminal activities were on the rise under
the Taliban-controlled areas. Despite warnings from top US government
officials about the above problems, the Clinton Administration
refused to engage in peacebuilding to ease regional tensions
and negotiate with Iran and Russia on pipeline projects. Hence,
it was in the interest of Iran and Russia to keep the region
unstable by arming the anti-Taliban alliance, so that the US
pipeline plans could never succeed.
Iran and Russia supported the United Front, also
known as the Northern Alliance, to maintain a defensive frontline
against Taliban's campaign. Being threatened by Taliban's export
of religious extremism and advance towards northern Afghanistan,
secular authoritarian leaders of the Central Asian states joined
Iran and Russia to support the United Front. Tajikistan provided
its airbase in Kulab for the United Front to receive military
and logistical supplies from Iran and Russia. The base was effectively
used to carry out logistical operations to support the United
Front forces to resist the Taliban's repeated offensives north
of Kabul into the Panjsher Valley stronghold and other offensives
in the northeast of Afghanistan.
However, in August 1998 the US dramatically turned
against the Taliban after they refused to hand over Osama Bin
Laden allegedly behind the twin bombings of the US Embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania. President Clinton's retaliatory bombing
of Bin Laden's Al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan camps
soon forced Unocal to pull out its staff from Pakistan and Kandahar.
Finally, in December 1998, the company formally withdrew from
the CentGas consortium, which it had struggled so hard to set
up. Since the US became preoccupied with capturing Bin Laden,
it was clear that no US company could build an Afghan pipeline
in light of issues such as the Taliban's gender policy, Bin
Laden, and the continuing fighting. (10)
In the concluding chapter of his best-selling
book, Rashid highlights some of the lessons that should have
been learned from the Unocal project. However, he notes, "The
US, by picking up single issues and creating entire policies
around them, whether it be oil pipelines, the treatment of women
or terrorism, is demonstrating that it has learnt little."
(11)
Rashid elaborates that several lessons from the
Unocal project should unforgettably be kept in mind about future
pipeline projects:
No major pipeline from Central Asia can be built unless there
is far greater US and international commitment to conflict resolution
in the region -- in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Nagorna-Karabakh,
Chechnya, Georgia and with the Kurds. The region is a powder
keg of unresolved conflicts. Nor can secure pipelines be built
without some degree of strategic consensus in the region. Iran
and Russia cannot be isolated from the region's development
forever. They will resist and sabotage projects as long as they
are not a part of them. Nor can pipelines be built when ethnic
conflicts are tearing states apart. Ethnicity is the clarion
call of the modern era. Trying to resolve ethnic problems and
keep states together needs persistent and consistent diplomacy
rather than virtual bribes to keep various warlords quiet. (12)
THE TAP PRJECT FACING A 3-DIMENSIONAL PROBLEM
Rashid's above analysis indicates a three-dimensional
political risk involved in bringing the oil and gas resources
of Central Asia and the Caspian to the market: 1) the transportation
problems, 2) the great power involvement and 3) the potential
instability of the regimes in place. (13) These three dimensions
interlock. The transportation difficulties invite interference
from great powers for both economic and political reasons. Hence,
the solutions affect the neighboring countries. The potential
instability of the regimes in place makes them vulnerable to
hostile neighbors or regional rivals. Thus, the internal politics
of the new states affect the great powers. (14)
The above theory fully holds true of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan
gas pipeline project. Turkmenistan is a landlocked country without
transit routes other than Russia, which Turkmenistan wants to
avoid. Transportation problems for Turkmenistan limit the country
to two transit options -- Iran and Afghanistan -- to get its
gas to international markets. Any investor of oil and gas industry
would rationally choose Iran because of its better security,
less corrupt government institutions and a well-connected network
of pipelines.
However, rational options cannot always be pursued
because of the strategic importance of natural resources, which
inevitably involves great powers. With global demand increasing
for oil and gas, international competition over controlling
the sources and means of distribution of natural resources becomes
requisite to economic survival and political influence. The
US economy squarely depends on the available and cheap oil and
gas, which naturally causes American direct or indirect involvement
in the energy business and politics wherever it happens.
In a 1998 speech to the "Collateral Damage
Conference" of the Cato Institute, Vice President Dick
Cheney said, "The good lord didn't see fit to put oil and
gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly
to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places
where, all things considered, one would not normally choose
to go. But, we go where the business is." (15) While Dick
Cheney was CEO of Halliburton at the time, he is now President
George Bush's main architect of energy politics.
Vice President Cheney's speech was delivered during
a time period when American giant companies such as Unocal Corporation
were actually attempting to operate in places where "business"
took them. Yet, forced to comply with the tense foreign policy
of the US towards Iran, the CentGas Consortium led by Unocal
avoided Iran's more economical and safer transit route in favor
of risky Afghanistan and Pakistan. Still, the pipeline project
through Afghanistan failed mainly because the US lacked a comprehensive
strategic policy towards the entire region.
US REENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN
Unfortunately, not the Unocal lessons but the
tragic incidents of 9/11 -- costing three thousand American
lives -- moved the US to overthrow the Taliban and launch a
cave-by-cave search to arrest Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Had
the US not neglected Afghanistan in the first place and later
on, the country would not have turned into an operational terrorist
base for Bin Laden and Al-Qaida to mount major attacks against
the United States. And, of course, the Unocal project would
have been one among many profitable foreign investors in Afghanistan.
Although no major American energy corporation
is involved in the ongoing efforts to revive the TAP project,
Washington's strategic and economic interest in the security
of primary energy supply is unquestionable. A glance at the
illustrations indicates dramatic rise in global demand for all
primary energy sources, particularly natural gas, which is the
cleanest and fastest-growing fossil fuel, having become the
fuel of choice for power generation. (16)
Nonetheless, Afghans have welcomed America's reengagement
in Afghanistan to help rebuild the country. Experts and observers
of the US Afghanistan policy often warn that the US cannot afford
to fail Afghanistan again. In fact, it would be more appropriate
to say that the US cannot afford to neglect the whole region
again. America's geopolitical interests in the region are too
great not to pursue a region-wide policy.
Since October 7, 2001, the Bush Administration
has achieved major successes in Afghanistan. The Taliban were
toppled and their forces disbanded. The US has been able to
muster international assistance to reconstruct Afghanistan.
Security Council Resolution 1386 -- approved unanimously on
December 20, 2001 -- provided for the creation of International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and its deployment to Kabul
and the surrounding areas to help the Afghan Interim Authority
create a secure environment in Kabul.
Nineteen countries contributed troops and logistical
supplies to ISAF in order to provide security in Kabul. The
number of ISAF forces has increased from 4,500 to more than
6, 500 peacekeepers currently maintained by the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO). At the same time, international
donors gathered in Berlin, Germany, on May 31-April 1, 2004
to pledge additional funding in reconstruction assistance to
Afghanistan. A total of $8.2 billion was pledged to support
Afghanistan's continuing efforts to rebuild.
The Bonn Agreement reached among a group of Afghan
leaders in December 2001 created an interim government, which
was expanded into a transitional government by the Emergency
Loya Jirga of June 2002. The people of Afghanistan achieved
another significant milestone on the path toward creating a
democratic nation when President Karzai signed the new Afghan
constitution into law on January 4, 2004.
SECURITY IN AFGHANISTAN
In spite of the above accomplishments, widespread
insecurity continues in Afghanistan, which indefinitely delays
the process of state building in the country. In addition to
the daily incidents and civilian casualties, assassination of
the newly appointed government officials more clearly accounts
for the continuing insecurity in Afghanistan.
On March 21, 2004, Afghanistan's second aviation
minister was killed in Herat. On February 14, 2002, the first
Afghan minister of civil aviation and tourism was stabbed to
death at the Kabul airport. Less than two months later, on April
8, four people were killed and 20 others were injured in a bomb
attack on a government convoy headed from Kabul to Jalalabad.
The convoy was carrying interim Afghan defense minister who
survived the attack. (17) On July 6, the Afghan vice-president
and his driver were killed outside the gates of a government
ministry in Kabul. On September 05, 2002 a "uniformed"
attacker shot President Karzai in Kandahar where he was attending
the wedding of his brother. The president escaped unhurt but
the governor of Kandahar was slightly injured. (18)
These terrorist activities are indicative of the
anarchic vacuum in which opposing ethnic warlords operate freely
outside Kabul boldly challenging the authority of the transitional
government limiting its control to Kabul. Warlords' armed militias
frequently engage in infighting over the control of certain
provincial districts of commercial and economic importance.
Moreover, Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director
of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime notes in his
organization's annual opium survey of Afghanistan that in 2003
Afghanistan again produced three-quarters of the world's illicit
opium. The survey shows that in 2003 the income of Afghan opium
farmers and traffickers was about $2.3 billion, a sum equivalent
to half the legitimate GDP of the country.
The survey also reports that out of this drug
chest, some provincial administrators and military commanders
take a considerable share: the more they get used to this, the
less likely it becomes that they will respect the law, be loyal
to Kabul and support the legal economy. Terrorists take a cut
as well: the longer this happens, the greater the threat to
security within the country and on its borders.
Maria Costa warned that "there is a palpable
risk that Afghanistan will again turn into a failed state, this
time in the hands of drug cartels and narco-terrorists, a risk
referred to more than once by President Karzai, whom I salute
for his courage and dedication." (19)
Increase in terrorist activity, continued factional
infighting throughout Afghanistan, and sharp rise in the cultivation
and production of opium indicate that US has moved slowly to
consolidate its post-9/11 achievements towards state building
in Afghanistan. The Bush Administration refused until recently
to support the expansion ISAF beyond Kabul to provide security
and pave the way for institutional building and long-term development
of Afghanistan.
In addition, the process of disarmament, demobilization
and reintegration falters in Afghanistan. Kabul itself has not
yet been disarmed let alone the ever more powerful regional
narco-warlords with larger private armies than the nascent Afghan
National Army of only 8,000 troops. Although the Bush Administration
has repeatedly assured the world of its long-term commitment
to the reconstruction of Afghanistan, the massive military spending
required for Iraq has drastically reduced resources needed for
rebuilding Afghanistan.
REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE US POLICY
Developments in Iran and Pakistan over the past
two years also indicate that the US is not doing what it must
do to preserve its energy interests in the region. President
Bush's doctrine of "axis of evil" has alienated Iran's
reformists and radicalizes Tehran further, leading to potential
regional destabilization in the long run.
Furthermore, Washington's "regime change"
in Iraq negatively affected Pakistan's polls in 2002 escalating
anti-American sentiment. The Muttahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA),
an alliance of six Islamic parties, won 31 seats, including
19 of 35 seats in the North West Frontier Province and three
in Baluchistan, both bordering Afghanistan. (20) Formed after
the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, MMA is opposed
to Pakistan's participation in the war on terror and wants the
US to be prevented from sending its covert special forces into
Pakistan. It also sympathizes with Afghanistan's former Taliban
rulers and criticizes the military government for arresting
the Taliban and Al-Qaida leaders and handing them over to American
authorities.
CONCLUSION
The political realities in the region and widespread
insecurity in Afghanistan show that Unocal lessons have been
almost forgotten, although they are more valid now than any
time before. The Asian Development Bank can be optimistic to
execute its feasibility study for the TAP project, and the Afghan
government may pipedream about millions of dollars in annual
transit rents from the project. Nonetheless, the US is still
treating Afghanistan and the entire region through ad hoc policies.
President Bush's reluctance to support the expansion of ISAF
in Afghanistan and taking a leadership role in it clearly indicates
that the US may abandon Afghanistan again. This is reminiscent
of Washington's lack of a region-wide strategic policy that
led to Unocal's failure to build the gas pipeline through Afghanistan
in the second half of 1990s.
Washington's actions and focus on Iraq reinforce
the argument that the US is not fully committed to the reconstruction
and long-term development of Afghanistan. Neither does the Bush
Administration seem to soften its stance on Iran or tolerate
a Pakistani government led by Islamic militants who openly support
Al-Qaida and denounce American presence in Afghanistan.
Therefore, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan
gas pipeline project will indefinitely remain a pipedream without
a peaceful and stable Afghanistan. However, the US has a choice
to make the gas pipeline a reality by rethinking its approach
to the region. The Bush Administration can build on the Unocal
lessons to consolidate its peacebuilding achievements in Afghanistan
on a sustainable basis, while making an effort to find strategic
consensus with Iran and Russia to maintain regional security
for the common economic and political benefits of all stakeholders.
Failure to do so will greatly affect the US-led war on terror
and jeopardize American energy interest in the region.
However, expectation about the role the US can
play in maintaining stability in the region ought to be realistic.
There is so much that one country can do regardless of its unrivaled
military and economic might. The primary beneficiary of stability
in Afghanistan and any major pipelines that may pass through
the country would be the regional states neighboring Afghanistan.
The TAP project would boost regional economic development and
enhance security through joint partnership.
Regional players namely Pakistan and Iran should
not underestimate the importance of Afghanistan's reconstruction
to their own political and economic stability. The events of
1990s displayed that instability in Afghanistan had far-reaching
spill over effects in the region and beyond. The influx of thousands
of Afghan refugees into Iran and Pakistan has further destabilized
the two countries' already weak economies over the past two
decades.
Transnational problems such as drug trafficking
and terrorism across the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan
have fed extremism and fueled political violence in both countries.
In spite of Pakistan's support of the Taliban both militarily
inside Afghanistan and diplomatically by being the first nation
to recognize their oppressive regime, the Taliban overtime developed
their own agenda joining Al-Qaida and Islamic militants in Pakistan
to denounce General Pervez Musharaf's government as puppet of
the West.
It is in the long-term interest of Iran and Pakistan
as well as the entire region to strengthen Afghanistan's nascent
government by investing in the country's state building process
rather than dividing Afghan ethnic groups in pursuit of short-term
goals.
The choice for the US and regional players is
clear. Constructive engagement in Afghanistan and the whole
region benefits everyone. Shortsighted engagement will lead
to the collapse of the fragile transitional government of Afghanistan
with the vacuum immediately filled by the Afghan ethnic warlords
siding with differing regional rivals. Factional infighting
would inevitably break out, subsequently enabling the Taliban
and Al-Qaida to regroup and resume launching anti-American terrorist
attacks worldwide. Consequently, only "peace can bring
a pipeline, a pipeline cannot bring peace."
Giant energy multinational corporations have experienced
the truth behind the above statement. They should support peacebuilding
efforts by making it an essential part of their corporate strategy
to lobby the US government and other major powers to resolve
longstanding political and humanitarian crises in the potentially
energy rich regions on which the global economy continues depending
for at least the next century. Failure on the part of each of
these diverse and yet interdependent actors to promote peace
and security through sustainable development of Afghanistan
will undoubtedly lead to the sabotage of any gas or oil pipeline
to be built through the country.
M. Ashraf Haidari is Peace Scholar at the
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and serves the
Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington DC as Government &
Medial Relations Officer.
