What Are the Real Reasons For the War in Afghanistan?

By Diane Secor

reprinted from The People

The Bush administration has told the American public to prepare for a long war on terrorism, ostensibly in response to the Sept. I I attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. There seems to be a general consensus among the administration, most members of Congress and most of the U.S. media that the U.S. role in this war is a clear-cut case of self-defense and that violence is necessary to prevent more terrorist strikes on U.S. soil. For all intents and purposes, however, the "war on terrorisnV' is a war on Afghanistan, and there is substantial evidence indicating that an Afghan war was planned several months ago and that, in reality, this is another war over oil.

Last March, long before Sept. 11, Jane's International Security News reported on an agreement that had all the earmarks of a multinational coalition aimed at undermining the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. "India is believed to have joined Russia, the U, S.A. and Iran in a concerted front against Afghanistan's Taliban regime," Jane's reported. "India is believed to have supplied the Northern Alliance leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, with high-altitude warfare equipment. Indian defense advisors, including air force helicopter technicians, are reportedly providing tactical advice in operations against the Taliban .... Military sources indicated that Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are being used as bases to launch anti-Taliban operations by India and Russia." In short, something resembling the multinational coalition so much in the news since Sept. It has been in place for at least six months. Furthermore, this pre-September coalition also had a basic strategy in place to throw out the Taliban. This certainly calls into question the U.S. media!s clear overall implication that it was only after Sept. I I that a multinational force banded together and concluded that the Taliban had to be replaced.

The following statement from Jane's March 15 report is even more revealing: "Several recent meetings between the newly instituted Indo-U. S, and Indo-Russian joint working groups on terrorism led to this effort to tactically and logistically counter the Taliban. Intelligence sources in Delhi said that while India, Russia and Iran were leading the anti-Taliban campaign on the ground, Washington was giving the Northern Alliance information and logistic support."

Why does the United States want to overthrow the Taliban and put another Afghan regime in power? Why is Bush taking the risk of a larger regional war and possibly igniting future terrorist attacks against Americans? Zalmay Khalilzad may hold the key to unraveling this mystery. According to a May 23 White House press release, Khalilzad was selected for the post of f9special assistant to the president and senior director for Gulf, Southwest Asia and Other Regional Issues, National Security Council." Khalilzad does have the political connections to get the job. Eli J. Lake, United Press International, on Jan. 18 reported that Khalilzad "who served under President Reagan's State Department and President Bush's Pentagon and influenced the last American adventure in [the] region when the CIA helped ship surface-to-air missiles to the rnujaheddin, the holy warriors who fought against the Soviets. Khalilzad now finds himself in a position to influence the next administration's policy for cleaning up the mess created by the mujaheddin's struggle in the 1980s, as the man in charge of staffing the Pentagon for the BushCheney transition team."

Interestingly, according to the Center for Strategic International Studies' Washington Quarterly, Winter 2000, Khalilzads Afghan policy seemed to fit right in with the scenario outlined in the Jane's report. He "argue[d] in no uncertain terms for supporting the Pashtun majority in Afghanistan to roll back the Taliban government and working'discreetly' with Iran and Russia to destabilize the government in Kabul."

However, as recently as 1999, Khalilzad favored some degree of "engagement," as opposed to "destabilization" of the Taliban regime. In a white paper for the House International Relations Committee, he said that "U.S. policy toward Afghanistan should follow two parallel and complementary tracks, one of which extends a hand to the.Taliban and the other of which prepares for a much tougher policy should the Taliban reject U.S. overtures." What accounts for Khalilzad's change of heart? UPI also reported that he is "an analyst for the Rand Corp. and before that the chief consultant for Unocal, the oil company that sought to build a pipeline through Afghanistan."

The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued a September document on Afghanistan which noted the stormy relationship between the Taliban and Unocal affecting two pipelines that Unocal had planned to construct through Afghanistan:

A $2 billion Central Asian Gas Pipeline would have transported natural gas from 'Turkmenistan to Pakistan, then be linked with Pakistan's natural gas grid at Sui." In June 1998, the consortium consisted of these firms: "Unocal and Saudi Arabia!s Delta Oil held a combined 85 percent stake in Centgas, while Turkmenrusgas owned 5 percent. Other participants in the proposed project besides Delta Oil include the Crescent Group of Pakistan, Gazprom of Russia, Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co. of South Korea, Inpex and Itochu of Japan."

"Besides the gas pipeline," the EIA added, "Unocal also had considered building a 1,000mile, I -million barrel-per-day ... capacity oil pipeline that would link Chardzou, Turkmenistan to Pakistan's Arabian Sea Coast via Afghanistan.

Since the Chardzou refinery is already linked to Russia!s Western Siberian oil fields, this line could provide a possible alternative export route for regional oil production from the Caspian Sea. The $2.5 billion pipeline is known as the Central Asian Oil Pipeline Project. For a variety of reasons, including high political risk and security concerns, however, financing for this project remains highly uncertain.'

In January 1998, Unocal and the Taliban. hammered out the gas pipeline agreement. But by the end of 1998, both of the pipeline deals collapsed and the Unocal consortium gave up on working with the Taliban regime. It then became increasingly clear that the Taliban were an obstacle to gas and oil flowing through Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, Khalilzad took a more "hard line" position on the Taliban.

If this story of another war over oil and natural gas deposits begins to sound like a "broken record," it is because the history of capitalism is filled with these cases. In the pursuit of new markets and raw materials, the risks of war and terrorist acts are the rule, not the exception. Nationalistic fervor and an understandable tendency to panic when the trauma of terrorism hits so close to home often obscure these basic realities. But workers who are aware of the real causes of this war will not be hoodwinked.

- from The People, November, 2001

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