Gareth Porter discusses an important subject in Afghanistan: the tension between the US policies of supporting the Karzai government to make it look legitimate and honest vs. the US support for warlords and commanders regionally to maintain "stability":
There is no evidence that the administration is moving toward a more aggressive posture toward the warlords in general. Instead, the problem is viewed as one in which U.S. interests in supporting the central government must be balanced with its interests in cooperation with provincial and sub-provincial power holders, IPS has learned.
Pepe Escobar argues that the reasons why the US is in AfPak are geopolitical and geoeconomic: breaking the Asian Energy grid seems to be the main one:
Think-tankers in their comfy leather chairs do entertain the dream of the Pakistani state unraveling for good - victim of a clash within the military of Punjabis against Pashtuns. So what's in it for the US in terms of balkanization of AfPak? Quite some juicy prospects - chief of all neutralizing the also relentless Chinese drive for direct land access, from Xinjiang and across Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea (via the port of Gwadar, in Balochistan province).
Washington's rationale for occupying Afghanistan - never spelled out behind the cover story of "fighting Islamic extremism" - is pure Pentagon full spectrum dominance: to better spy on both China and Russia with forward outposts of the empire of bases; to engage in Pipelineistan, via the Trans-Afghan (TAPI) pipeline, if it ever gets built; and to have a controlling hand in the Afghan narco-trade via assorted warlords. Cheap heroin is literally flooding Russia, Iran and Eastern Europe. Not by accident, Moscow regards opium/heroin as the key issue to be tackled in Afghanistan, not Islamic fundamentalism.
It all harks back to a 1997 Brookings Institution publication by Geoffrey Kemp and Robert Harkavy, Strategic Geography and the Changing Middle East, in which they identify an "energy strategic ellipse" with a key node in the Caspian and another in the Persian Gulf, concentrating over 70% of global oil reserves and over 40% of natural gas reserves. The study stressed that the resources in these zones of "low demographic pressure" would be "threatened" by the pressure of billions living in the poor regions of South Asia. Thus the control of the Muslim Central Asian "stans" as well as Afghanistan would be essential as a wall against both China and India.
So all along the watchtower, the princes of war keep their view. That spells balkanization all along. It's full spectrum dominance against the Asian energy security grid. The Pentagon well knows that AfPak is the key land bridge between Iran to the west and China and India to the east; and that Iran has all the energy that both China and India need. The last thing full spectrum dominance wants is to have the AfPak theater subjected to more influence from Russia, China and Iran.
While the McChrystal show amuses the galleries, what's really at stake for Washington is how to orchestrate a progressive encirclement of Russia, China and Iran. And the name of the game is not really AfPak - even with all the breaking up and balkanization it may entail. It's all about the New Great Game for the control of Eurasia.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
Israeli ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem
Al-Jazeera reports on Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in East-Jerusalem:
Iraq oil contracts
Global oil companies are returning to Iraq.
And contracts are being signed.
In June many of the oil majors walked away from signing energy deals with Iraq. But now they are agreeing to the June terms and signing the contracts. The following contracts have been agreed:
-ENI: a contract to boost production in the Zubair field near Basra, which it estimates has 6 billion barrels of reserves. ENI and its partners, Occidental Petroleum and Korea Gas, plan to increase output at Zubair from the current level of 190,000 barrels per day to 1.125 million within seven years. The companies will recover all costs and receive $2 in profit for each barrel above today's production level. In June they had insisted on $4.80 per incremental barrel. But after BP agreed to $2 per incremental barrel for tripling production at Rumaila-signing a deal on Nov. 3 in Baghdad-the benchmark price had been set.
-ExxonMobil-Royal Dutch Shell: West Qurna oil field.
-BP-CNPC: Rumailla
Shell, Exxon, and ConocoPhillips also are in talks that could help boost Iraq's oil production to more than 6 million barrels per day-behind only Saudi Arabia in OPEC.
Iraq is planning a second bidding round on Dec. 11-12. Forty-five international oil companies will compete for development right for 10 oil projects.
And contracts are being signed.
In June many of the oil majors walked away from signing energy deals with Iraq. But now they are agreeing to the June terms and signing the contracts. The following contracts have been agreed:
-ENI: a contract to boost production in the Zubair field near Basra, which it estimates has 6 billion barrels of reserves. ENI and its partners, Occidental Petroleum and Korea Gas, plan to increase output at Zubair from the current level of 190,000 barrels per day to 1.125 million within seven years. The companies will recover all costs and receive $2 in profit for each barrel above today's production level. In June they had insisted on $4.80 per incremental barrel. But after BP agreed to $2 per incremental barrel for tripling production at Rumaila-signing a deal on Nov. 3 in Baghdad-the benchmark price had been set.
-ExxonMobil-Royal Dutch Shell: West Qurna oil field.
-BP-CNPC: Rumailla
Shell, Exxon, and ConocoPhillips also are in talks that could help boost Iraq's oil production to more than 6 million barrels per day-behind only Saudi Arabia in OPEC.
Iraq is planning a second bidding round on Dec. 11-12. Forty-five international oil companies will compete for development right for 10 oil projects.
UN endorses Goldstone report
The Goldstone report was endorsed in the UN General Assembly.
The vote was 114 in favor and 18 against, with 44 abstentions.
The 18 countries that voted against the resolution included the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Israel.
Ambassador Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, singled out Ireland, one of the few Western nations to vote for the resolution, for "supporting" it.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
US, Pakistan, Afghanistan
A good article at ATOnline claiming that when Clinton went to Pakistan she reached the following agreements:
Abdullah Abdullah was pressured by the US to drop out of the election race (which Pakistan likes) and in exchange Pakistan would mediate between the US and the Taliban to make sure the US can eventually withdraw with honor. So this means that the Afghanistan solution will be dealt with with Pakistan, not so much the other regional countries.
Abdullah Abdullah was pressured by the US to drop out of the election race (which Pakistan likes) and in exchange Pakistan would mediate between the US and the Taliban to make sure the US can eventually withdraw with honor. So this means that the Afghanistan solution will be dealt with with Pakistan, not so much the other regional countries.
Karzai, warlords, elections
A very good article here on the challenges ahead in the short term for Afghanistan and Karzai: it says that because Karzai used the support of so many warlords, druglords and other shady figures in order for them to mobilize voters in his favor for the elections, now, Karzai has to pay them all back with government positions (at the central and provincial levels). The problem is that Karzai is also feeling the pressure from the West to clean up his government to look better in the eyes of the international community and legitimize US efforts in Afghanistan.
The following weeks, when Karzai will make his appointments, are therefore crucial.
Excerpts:
Many U.S. officials, Western diplomats and other experts fear that Karzai will have to award positions in the central and provincial governments to unsavory figures, including regional militia leaders and power brokers who oversaw the massive ballot box-stuffing on his behalf, in return for backing his re-election.
The following weeks, when Karzai will make his appointments, are therefore crucial.
Excerpts:
Many U.S. officials, Western diplomats and other experts fear that Karzai will have to award positions in the central and provincial governments to unsavory figures, including regional militia leaders and power brokers who oversaw the massive ballot box-stuffing on his behalf, in return for backing his re-election.
Karzai "is too beholden to these types and he doesn't see it yet in his interest to remove them and start a clean government and be a genuine partner with the international community," said Rachel Reid, who monitors Afghanistan for U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.
"The next few days, weeks and months are almost more important than the election itself as we see who Karzai appoints to his new government," she said. "This will send the signal of whether we see a new kind of governing, a more credible form of governing, or whether Afghanistan will continue to spiral into further corruption and insecurity."
"It's not enough to blame Karzai," Reid continued. "The U.S. and other major players in Afghanistan are complicit in this impunity culture. They have relationships with many of the most notorious former warlords, current criminals and militia leaders. They have high-level meetings with them, they use their armed gangs to guard their bases, they invite them to the White House. They, too, must clean up their act, or they don't have a leg to stand on when they come to tell Karzai to change his allegiances."
Other figures of concern who provided critical support for Karzai's re-election include former Helmand province governor Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, who was found with nine tons of drugs in 2005; Assadullah Khalid, a former governor of Kandahar province; and parliamentarian Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a former anti-Soviet guerrilla leader and hard-line Islamist linked to Osama bin Laden who's accused of war crimes and land theft.
Karzai also received considerable help from his brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, the main power in Kandahar, who's allegedly involved in drug trafficking and other abuses, but also reportedly receives payments from the CIA. He denies the allegations.
The U.S. defense official said there are concerns that Karzai may find himself in deep political trouble because he may be unable to keep all of the power-sharing promises he made to unsavory figures in return for votes.
"He can't deliver all the jobs he promised," the U.S. defense official said.
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