Pakistan: A Tale of Two Pipelines and the Energy Crisis

The British public is seldom informed about the realities of politics in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is absurd given the fact there is a sizeable Pakistani diaspora in certain cities in the United Kingdom and we ought to know what is at stake as regards the conflicts and tensions there. Yet Simon Tisdall is a dismal so-called journalist who writes in The Guardian today

With one eye on Nato's 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan, Nawaz's conservative Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) says the new government will seek to rebuild harmonious relations with the US, damaged by drone attacks, cross-border incidents and spying rows.

It seems unlikely Pakistan's volatile politics is going to be helped by Nawaz attempting to build 'harmonious' relations with the US when it's increasingly despised by a large number of Pakistani's for the drone attacks which frequently miss their intended targets and blow up Pakistani civilians-unless he's going to demand and end to them.

As in the past, the pragmatic Nawaz will not want to jeopardise $2bn in annual US aid. But he has vowed to review Pakistan's support for America's "war on terror" and says he will seek peace with the Pakistani Taliban, allies of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

What is the chance Nawaz is going to oppose the US policy of Drone attacks when RPakistan is being bribed in $2bn in aid to essentially remain onside and accept the TAPI pipeline as opposed to President Zardari's desire to accept the rival IP pipeline.

NATO's withdrawal in 2014 is mostly in the field of troop reduction. The new Orwellian phrase is 'troop drawdown'. That means reduction. Not withdrawal from Afghanistan because the IP pipeline has already started on the Iranian side while the Taliban are preventing the security necessary for the TAPI one

Much instability is being caused in Pakistan because the USA remains so fixated on getting the TAPI pipeline constructed, the date now being pushed back to 2017. Pakistan is being told by the USA to wait a full three years for a TAPI pipeline amidst power black outs and Drone attacks.

The IP pipeline would deliver gas to Pakistan four times cheaper than the TAPI pipeline and many Pakistani factions are for it. Yet US State Department officials such as Richard Olsen keep threatening Pakistan should it take the Iranian gas imports for violating the sanctions policy.

Simon Tisdall never gives us the full context to these conflicts and struggles over pipeline routes yet its a matter of urgent political debate amongst Pakistani politicians, academics and the media in Karachi and Lahore.If a Westerner wants to know what's really happening read the Pakistani papers.

To fill in the omissions in the British media Pakistan Today carried an interesting piece in March 2013 that backs up what I have said about the reality of the New Great Game and the way Pakistan is being dictated to by the US due to it's aggressive stance against Iran.

ISLAMABAD - US Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson on Tuesday said that although America wants to help Pakistan to overcome its energy crisis, however, the US that pursuing of Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project by Pakistan is breach of trust between Pakistan and the United States. Pakistan and Iran have recently signed an agreement in Islamabad to complete the project while President Asif Ali Zardari also paid a visit to the neighboring country last week to discuss the pipeline and to extend relationships with the Iranian leadership. 

Olson said “we have a clear policy over Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline,” while addressing a gathering during his visit to Tarbela Dam on Tuesday.

 He said that the US is in favor of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, adding that US would also help Pakistan reduce its energy crisis if understandings with Iran are called off.

 American’s State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell commenting on the project on said that “it is in Pakistan’s best interest to avoid any sanction inducing activity.

Pakistan is facing a severe energy crisis which has damaged its industrial setup specially the textile sector. “We will help Pakistan to complete Gomal Zam and Sadpara dams,” Olson concluded.

Meanwhile on Monday, Highlighting Pakistan’s growing energy needs and defending its right to explore low-cost solutions on immediate basis, President Asif Ali Zardari told the world that the gas pipeline agreement with Iran is not against any other country.

While inaugurating three different energy projects from the Governor’s House on Monday, Zardari said the energy projects, as well as the gas pipeline with Iran, should be seen as measures to overcome the power shortfall prevailing in the country. -

A Tale of Two Pipelines Part II

Global media now consists of mutual partisanships where objective journalism is becoming increasingly more scarce. Simon Tisdall, the Guardian's "World Correspondent", seldom seems to break out of repeating what is Western government "Public Diplomacy" as opposed to working out what the contending sides interests are in global conflicts.

Today he opines,

"The US is urging alternative energy solutions on Islamabad, including a notional and, given the security issues involved, rather fanciful plan for a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India via Afghanistan and Pakistan",

The name for it is the TAPI Pipeline and it has been consistently the option the US is trying to force Pakistan to accept over the rival IP Pipeline. Tisdall completely omits the centrality of this project in the determination of NATO to "stay the course" in Afghanistan.

The TAPI Pipeline was termed "The New Silk Route" by Hilary Clinton. It is a prime war objective in Afghanistan that is routinely omitted from Western media discussion , including The Guardian. As it seems to undermine the "Public Diplomacy" that the war is about "humanitarian intervention".

The problem with Western geostrategy in Afghanistan is that building this alternative to the IP Pipeline is obviously hampered by Taliban guerrilla activity in areas such as Helmland through which TAPI would have to pass ( it has to skirt around the Afghan mountain ranges).

The reason Zadari is resisting US pressure is due to the fact that gas from the IP pipeline is four times cheaper than via the TAPI Pipeline and he has to react to the reality that Pakistan has recently suffered from numerous energy blackouts several times a day.

This reality is the pressing one that Pakistan has to deal with, so it is not a reaction based on simple "Anti-Americanism". The hostility to the USA come from its energy interests taking second place to the US strategy of encircling and hemming in Iranian regional ambitions.

The idea that US and British troops will be "withdrawn" in 2014, which Tisdall repeats as if mere fact, is not factual. Public Diplomacy noe emphasises troop "drawdown", which means troops will remain in substantial numbers after 2014.

The British public has been routinely told half truths about the Afghanistan War. The major war objective was and always has been strongly about the benefits of the TAPI Pipeline. This was discussed in detail by Lutz Klevemann in his The New Great Game.

While the Taliban where prepared to host Al Qaida, the war in Afghanistan, which has now fanned across the porous borders with northern Pakistan, the war was about removing Bin Laden and his terrorists. But the recent move by the US to do a deal with the Taliban proves two things.

Firstly, the war was only partly about removing Al Qaida. Before that in the 1990s it was also US geostrategy to to a deal with the Taliban in order to facilitate the building of the pipeline. The attacks of 9/11 meant the Taliban were no longer regional allies ( they were also conveniently anti-Iranian )

Secondly, the Afghanistan War was only concerned with "humanitarian intervention" as part of a doctrine of "liberal interventionism" ( believed in by armchair advocates with no grasp of geopolitics ) as a secondary aim. It was a rationalisation for the "infrastructure projects" ( i.e the TAPI Pipeline ).

Anatol Lieven has commented in the Pakistani Times ( where information on what these wars are really about ) that NATO will not withdraw by 2014. So the war will continue apace, not least with this deal between Iran and Pakistan over the IP Pipeline.

Why there will be no Withdrawal of US and British troops from Afghanistan

Language is instructive. While politicians once, in the face of heavy British troop losses in Afghanistan, claimed there would be a "withdrawal" by 2014, the jargon term now being frequently used is a "drawdown" of troops. In fact, as Anatol Lieven has asserted, there will be no withdrawal from Afghanistan, the eastern front in the New Great Game to control Central Asia.

Lieven states,

“The US is not withdrawing from Afghanistan and 2014 is not really a cutoff date,” was the emphatic announcement with which Lieven began the 45-minute-long talk. “The US continues to feel threatened by Taliban because of which it will continue to retain bases and military advisors for the Afghan government. However, they have learnt to accept what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan as they were responsible for choosing the country’s administration.”

Without beating around the bush, Lieven summed up the main reason preventing the US from making a clean exit from Afghanistan – “America does not have an exit strategy.

They haven’t formulated any plan about how they will handle the next year’s presidential elections in Afghanistan either.” Lieven explained that at times, people express the fear of a civil war breaking out in Afghanistan if the Americans left. “What do you think is happening right now,” he asked. “Afghanistan has been in a state of civil war since long before the Soviets withdrew from it.”

So the War in Afghanistan will drag on for much longer. Lieven, however, tends not to emphasise the energy geopolitics behind the Fourth Afghan War-the benefits of getting the TAPI Pipeline constructed as a means of diverting Pakistan away from relying on the alternative IP Pipeline that is a popular option with a land subject to constant energy blackouts.

A Tale of Two Pipelines and Pakistan's Geopolitical Significance

A report for The Australian ( Pakistan risks wrath of US in pipeline push ) contains much illuminating information on the geopolitical stakes in the New Great Game over pipeline routes and the contest for the oil and gas of Eurasia.

The reason NATO has "stayed the course" in neighbouring Afghanistan, and why western special forces and advisers will remain after what is now called in public diplomacy troop "drawdown" as opposed to withdrawal, is that it needs to ensure the potential viability of the TAPI pipeline.

Pakistan is facing several energy blackouts per day and is heavily dependent upon gas. As demand grows on the Indian subcontinent, the supply has to come either from Iran via the IP pipeline or Turkmenistan via TAPI.

Consequently, President Asif Ali Zardari has decided to finalise an agreement with Iran that has annoyed the US which has consistently put pressure on Pakistan to only accept future gas supplies via Afghanistan.

The report states,

'Nobody has the power to halt this project,” President Zardari said this week, adding Pakistan had a sovereign right to tackle its energy crisis however it saw fit.

It was a terse - and no doubt electorally popular - response to the latest round of warnings from the US State Department that the pipeline violated US sanctions against Iran (designed to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons development) and could bring punishing consequences for Pakistan.

Four days after Monday’s ceremony Zardari is tipped to dissolve parliament and appoint a caretaker government in preparation for national polls, thereby absolving his administration of responsibility for ensuring pipeline work continues.

Yet Pakistan’s energy crisis is real and the Iran gas project has widespread public and political support, notwithstanding Washington’s threats of economic sanctions.

The US seems oddly bemused by Pakistan’s pursuit of the pipeline, despite the political and economic crisis the country faces as a result of its critical energy shortfall.

Residents suffer an average six hours of power cuts a day, often more during Pakistan’s bitter winters and searing summers. The shortages routinely drive thousands of protestors onto the streets.
US ambassador to Islamabad Richard Olson did his best this week to put a positive spin on the intense pressure Washington is putting on Pakistan to pull out of the so-called Peace Pipeline, so named because it was originally to extend into India.

New Delhi quit the project in 2009, a sacrifice sweetened by the US civilian nuclear materials supply deal with India that violated a previously strictly-observed ban on the sale of nuclear materials to nations outside the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. (India continues to buy oil from Iran).

A similar nuclear deal with Pakistan is not an option for the US, which is still seeking access to Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan over the sale of nuclear technology and materials during the 1990s to Libya and, it is strongly suspected, Iran, which is believed to be close to developing its own nuclear arsenal.

At a press conference this week Ambassador Olsen pointed to the millions of US dollars being spent to rehabilitate hydroelectric power projects in Pakistan, which he said would add an extra 900 megawatts of power by the end of this year and plug 20 per cent of existing energy shortfalls.

But the US projects cannot compete with the Peace Pipeline which is expected to deliver 21.5 million cubic metres of natural gas to Pakistan every day by mid-2015.

Pakistan relies heavily on natural gas not just for energy but also motor vehicles, and the Iran project would go a lot further towards meeting its massive energy shortfall and turning around its moribund economy.

The US has also been working hard to lure Pakistani into an alternative Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, bypassing Iran. But even the most optimistic observers put its completion date at around 2018.

And TAPI will be every bit as vulnerable to security issues as the Peace Pipeline which will run through Balochistan, a province plagued with rising sectarian and separatist violence.

Many in Pakistan believe recent, large-scale attacks on Shiite Muslims, particularly in Balochistan’s Quetta City, are sponsored by Wahabist Sunni Muslim elements in Saudia Arabia that hope to derail the pipeline and prevent Shiite Iran from profiting from the deal.

But Iran has already completed its side of the pipeline and, if work goes as planned, Pakistan’s section is scheduled for completion in just 15 months.

Despite Pakistan’s defiant tone, not everyone believes the pipeline will go ahead.

British think tank Chatham House’s senior energy research fellow Paul Stephens, who has tracked the proposed project’s shifting fortunes over almost two decades, rates its likely completion as “extremely low”.

“The Pakistanis are under huge pressure not to go ahead with this. I find it inconceivable in the current circumstances the pipeline would go ahead,” he told The Weekend Australian, citing supply problems in sanction-hit Iran as an extra obstacle.

Many regional analysts disagree and say the US will cannot risk upsetting Pakistan, which provides the US and Nato’s main military supply route into Afghanistan and, more crucially, a key exit path for equipment ahead of the December 2014 withdrawal.

“It would be inconceivable (the US will impose sanctions on Pakistan) and that’s the calculation Mr Zardari has made,” says Imran Ahmad Khan, a British Pakistani strategist and director of the Transnational Crisis Group.

“It would be monumentally stupid of the US to take any action that would further inflame anti-US feeling.”

Beyond Pakistan’s immediate need for energy, the obvious geostrategic benefits from the Iran deal, which will cement regional alliances with China, Russia and Iran at a time when the US is preparing to exit the region, is an undeniable motivator.

Pakistan wants its Gwadar Port to become a regional hydrocarbon transit hub and the proposed gas pipeline and oil refinery will help realise that ambition.

The deal offers an energy and trade corridor that would connect China to the Arabian Sea and Strait of Hormuz, a gateway for a third of the world’s traded oil, and significantly reduce the distance oil and gas imports must travel from Africa and the Middle East to China.

Announcing China’s lease agreement for the Gwadar port last month President Zardari said the port “gives new impetus to Pakistan-China relations”.

“I have a strong feeling it will be very, very difficult to take Pakistan out of this deal,” says Islamabad-based energy expert Abdul Hameed Nayyar.

“Pakistan sees sanctions as something that come and go but if it doesn’t pursue this deal it stands to lose a lot more.”

Droning On on the Af-Pak Frontier

A vitally important and thoroughly documented new report on the impact of Obama's drone campaign has just been released by researchers at NYU School of Law and Stanford University Law School. Entitled "Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians From US Drone Practices in Pakistan", the report details the terrorizing effects of Obama's drone assaults as well as the numerous, highly misleading public statements from administration officials about that campaign. The study's purpose was to conduct an "independent investigations into whether, and to what extent, drone strikes in Pakistan conformed to international law and caused harm and/or injury to civilians".

Reports Glenn Greenwald today,

The fact is that the Drone Attacks are simply not going to destroy the Taliban. If anything, the evidence is that, even in Afghanistan, the attempt to use aerial force to defeat enemies simply ends up hitting the civilian population and creating more recruits.

The Afghanistan War is not winnable and is being fought so ferociously in order to facilitate US geopolitical interests in Central Asia: a very important part of this is the construction of the TAPI pipeline which will, as the middle two letters of the acronym make clear, will go through Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Drone Casualties are a price Washington thinks is worth it. Business as usual. And the business of war across "Af-Pak" is clearly the TAPI Pipeline, something both evident from what leading figures in Washington have said ( though never Obama himself ) and from numerous strategic studies.