The Construction of the TAPI Pipeline vs the IPI.

There is still little on the role of the TAPI pipeline as one of the USSA and NATO's major war objectives in Afghanistan. How can contemporary history be understood if there is such an embargo on truth in what's at actually at stake in this conflict ?

After that the real nub is: whether the construction of TAPI pipeline really would make the Central Asian region safer. It's unlikely, not least as the Afghanistan War in simply unwinnable being fought for myriad causes and with the hope that the pipeline will allow stabilisation.

Even so, that the continuation of the war or "staying the course" is about getting the construction of the TAPI pipeline seen through is undoubted. Yet it is never discussed that way in the media, despite it being a routine fact of geopolitics in think tank publications and specialist journals.

Cor Sullivan commented that the backing for the TAPI pipeline is not a conspiracy theory simply because it has been looked at by some as part of a conspiracy. Canadian bloggers seem to have a handle on understanding TAPI pipeline and Afghanistan that we in Britain do not.

Sullivan wrote on April 5 2010,

......the pipeline is still just a gleam in the eye of fossil fuel executives and American geopolitical strategists, who are interested because a functioning TAPI pipeline would make it unnecessary for India and Pakistan to consider buying natural gas from Iran instead.

The TAPI project is the focus of much irresponsible conspiracy-mongering, which tends to revolve around the implausible idea that TAPI is the sole reason for America’s interest in Afghanistan.

In wilder versions, TAPI is considered to be so important to the United States that the American government allowed, orchestrated or even carried out the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center solely to provide an excuse to invade Afghanistan and build the damn pipeline.

Ridiculous as this is, I have no trouble believing that the possibility of bringing TAPI to fruition makes America more interested in stabilising and dominating Afghanistan than might otherwise be the case.

Gas pipelines are strategically important, and an Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline could make a big difference to the Iranian economy while also creating a basis for cooperation between the three countries involved.

If Pakistan and India become dependent on Iran for their energy needs, they’re unlikely to support sanctions or military strikes against Iran in the future.

America’s desire to keep Iran poor, weak and isolated, at least until a more US-friendly and Israel-friendly regime comes to power, provides plenty of motivation for hating IPI and putting significant resources into TAPI as an alternative.

Now IAGS, The Journal of Energy Security is particularly good on disccussing the role of the TAPI pipeline.

An interesting perspective was provided by Gul Luft on June 16 2009 ( Iran-Pakistan Pipeline: Iran's New Economic Lifeline ) advancing the case that the contruction of the IPI would be more dangerous than the the TAPI given the ethnic and religious conflicts on the borderlands there.

What the US can do is minimize the pipeline’s damage to its strategic objectives by ensuring that it ends in Pakistan and does not extend further into India, as both Iran and Pakistan wish. And this is precisely what the Obama administration should preempt today.

The first thing for the administration to remember in this respect is that there is more than one way to supply gas to India and there are even more ways to alleviate India's energy poverty beyond natural gas.

A rival gas-pipeline project -- the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) – which would carry gas from Daulatabad in Turkmenistan via Herat and Kandahar in Afghanistan to Multan in central Pakistan is one such alternative.

The project, which is already supported by the Asian Development Bank, can supply as much gas, at a lower construction cost and can be extended to Fazilka on the Pakistan-India border and hence provide gas to India for only $500 million.

At a later stage TAPI could be expanded even
further to connect other fields in Central
Asia to Gwadar, turning the new port into one of the world's most important energy hubs.

Because TAPI is not as vulnerable to the financial or political opposition that the Iran-Pakistan pipeline could experience due to Iran’s status of pariah state, it is more likely to enjoy financial backing from international financial institutions.

There are many reasons why the Obama administration is focused on defeating the Taliban in what is now known as the AFPAK (Afghanistan-Pakistan) theater, now one of them would be to prevent Pakistan from developing economic dependence on Iran.

Another way to ensure India’s gas supply is
liquefied natural gas (LNG). Construction of LNG terminals along the coasts of the Indian subcontinent would allow India a diversity of supply rather than dependence on a single source.

Other projects to increase energy cooperation with India are also an imperative for US foreign policy.

It is in the interest of the US to help India
increase its share of nuclear power and renewable electricity but to achieve the aforementioned strategic objective it is also in the interest of the US that India’s electricity sector remains tied to coal rather than to gas.

Pressuring India to curtail its use of coal for power generation may help reduce carbon emissions but it could force India to shift to cleaner burning natural gas and hence drive it right into the welcoming arms of Iran.

This is one of those situations in which
environmental and security considerations do not coincide.

It is about time that the British press started discussing the role of energy geopolitics seriously and not censoring it by omission