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Follow
the Oil Trail - Mess in Afghanistan Partly Our Government's
Fault
By William O. Beeman, Pacific News Service, August 24, 1998
The twists and turns of U.S. involvement in Central Asia are
worthy of spy fiction, but it is clear that our continued support
for forces opposed to Iran has led to some uncomfortable alliances.
And these must be recognized, according to PNS commentator William
O. Beeman, in any analysis of the bombings of U.S. embassies
and the reprisal raids that followed. Beeman, anthropologist
specializing in the Middle East at Brown University, is currently
conducting research in Islamic Central Asia.
We must face the fact that if President Clinton is right about
who bombed our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, the action came
in part as the result of the muddled actions of our own government.
The story is worthy of a Tom Clancy novel.
It is no secret, especially in the region, that the United
States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been supporting the
fundamentalist Taliban in their war for control of Afghanistan
for some time. The U.S. has never openly acknowledged this
connection, but it has been confirmed by both intelligence
sources and charitable institutions in Pakistan.
Given U.S. rhetoric regarding the Middle East, the Taliban
would seem to be strange partners. They are a brutal fundamentalist
group that has conducted a cultural scorched-earth policy
for Afghanistan. They have committed atrocities against their
enemies and their own citizens -- according to extensive documentation.
So why would the United States support them?
Middle Easterners understand. As the ancient saying goes,
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." In Afghanistan
the dominant ethnic groups are the Pushtuns, who spill over
the border into Pakistan, and the Tajiks, whose language is
a form of Persian. The Pushtun Taliban have virtually eliminated
their Tajik opposition, which had been heavily supported by
Iran. And so, according to this line of reasoning, the United
States -- as an enemy of Iran -- must be a friend of the Taliban.
But this does not fully explain why the United States would
support such a group -- or for that matter why Pakistan, itself
a fundamentalist Islamic state, would risk the wrath of Tehran's
religious government. The answer to this part of the question
has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity -- but only with
the economics of oil.
To the north of Afghanistan is one of the world's wealthiest
oil fields, on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian Sea in republics
formed since the breakup of the Soviet Union (see
PNS article by Thomas Goltz on Caspian Oil Sweepstakes).
Here, U.S. oil companies are involved in a boom larger than
any in the last 40 years in this region. Untold wealth is
at stake -- but it depends on getting the oil out of the landlocked
region through a warm water port.
The simplest and cheapest route is through Iran. This route
is favored by all oil companies, because it involves building
a short pipeline and then transshipping the oil through the
existing Iranian network.
The U.S. government has such antipathy to Iran that it is
willing to do anything to prevent this. An alternate route
would go through Afghanistan and Pakistan -- but this would
require securing the agreement of the powers- that-be in Afghanistan.
From the U.S. standpoint, the way to deny Iran everything
is for the anti-Iranian Taliban to win in Afghanistan and
agree to the pipeline through their territory. The Pakistanis
would also benefit from this arrangement -- which is why they
are willing to defy the Iranians.
Enter Osama bin Laden, a sworn enemy of the United States
living in Afghanistan. His forces could see that the Taliban
would eventually end up in the American camp. Thus his bombing
of U.S. Embassies in East Africa (there are none in Afghanistan)
was accompanied by a message calling for Americans to get
out of "Islamic countries." By this he meant specifically
Afghanistan.
The U.S. response was to bomb bin Laden's outposts while carefully
noting that his forces were "not supported by any state."
This statement is an attempt to rescue the Taliban relationship,
while sending Taliban leaders the message that they must ditch
bin Laden. American missiles also took out a factory in the
Sudan, but that was only a smokescreen.
Now matters are really in a mess. Iran has actually issued
a statement supporting the U.S. actions. The Taliban are angry,
and American citizens across the globe are now the targets
of the most fanatical of Islamic militants. The U.S. may even
lose control of the pipeline.
Every time the United States attempts one of these slick back-door
deals, U.S. citizens get burned. Our foreign policy community
never seems to learn that religion and ideology are as strong
a force in this region as money or guns.
We underestimate these factors every time, and this gets us
in trouble every time.
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Pacific
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