THE appointment of an Afghan-born American as special envoy to Afghanistan by President Bush on December 31, nine days after the US-backed interim government of Hamid Karzai took office, only confirms what cynics had been loudly whispering about America’s long-term war aims.

He is Zalmay Khalilzad, a former aide to the American oil giant Unocal which had for years been pursuing an ambitious pipeline project in the region to transport oil and gas from Central Asia to world market.

Born in Mazar-i-Sharif in 1951, Khalilzad comes from an elite family. His father was an aide to king Zahir Shah who ruled the country till 1973. He was a student at the University of Chicago when the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. According to details (available at the website of the Fourth International), Khalilzad had served as a key link between the US government and the Mujahideen during the anti-Soviet war.

He became a special adviser to the State Department during the Reagan administration. He was undersecretary of defence in Bush Senior’s administration when Gulf war erupted. Later, he went to the Rand Corporation. As an adviser to Unocal, he took part in talks with the Taliban officials in 1997 on the pipeline issue and also prepared risk analysis report of the whole project. Bush desired to take him into his cabinet but feared serious objections from Congress. Nevertheless, Khalilzad enjoys almost a cabinet member status in Bush administration.

Unocal was the lead company in the Centgas consortium, consisting of seven companies, which was to lay pipelines to bring to market natural gas from Turkmenistan’s Daulatabad field, one of the world’s largest, passing by near the cities of Herat and Kandahar, crossing into Pakistan near Quetta and linking with existing pipelines at Multan. Another companion pipeline was to bring oil to container terminal at Gwadar port for onward sale to Asian markets. The whole project was to cost $2 billion initially and an extension to India, which was also under consideration before it was abandoned, was to cost another $600 million. Khalilzad will now have a fresh look at the project on which millions of dollars had already been spent. Most probably, the project will be revived.

Unocal, one may recall, had reached a firm understanding with the Taliban regime over the pipeline project, as was desired by the Benazir government, and both the company and the US government were, in fact, ready to overlook their religious extremism, mediaeval style of governance and abuse of human rights. Even a delegation of the Taliban regime, led by a minister, was taken to and entertained at Houston by the company executives. (The delegation also visited a zoo during its stay.) The project was, however, shelved in 1998 after a serious stand-off between Washington and Kabul over Osama bin Laden, who was wanted by the former and protected by the latter.

Khalilzad, when he was in Unocal, had publicly lobbied for a sympathetic US policy towards the Taliban regime and, in an op-ed article published in ‘The Washington Post’ four years ago, had defended it saying: “The Taliban do not practise the anti-US style of fundamentalism as practised by Iran... It is time for the United States to re-engage (the Afghan regime)... We should... be willing to offer recognition and humanitarian assistance...” However, not unexpectedly, he backtracked on his statement soon after embassy bombings in Africa in August, 1998. He recently said he had never supported the Taliban.

There is no denying the fact that it was to punish Osama bin Laden, who the US was convinced was behind the September 11 tragedy, and to dismantle Taliban regime and destroy the alleged terrorist camps that the US had attacked Afghanistan but the victory, so easily won, has now presented all those strategic, political and economic opportunities that Washington had long sought and which are now within its grasp.

Simon Tisdall of ‘The Guardian’ observes: “The United states is engaged in a strategic power grab in Central Asia of epic proportions. In previous eras, this sort of expansionism would have been called colonialism or imperialism. (Now) it would be portrayed as a dutiful mission to civilize the less fortunate of the world or as a legitimate expression, perhaps, of America’s manifest destiny. These days it is simply called war against terrorism.”

On December 15, the ‘New York Times’ headlined a report in its business section “As the war shifts alliances, oil deals follow.” The report said, “The State Department is exploring the potential for post-Taliban energy projects in the region.” Colin Powell, it said, during a visit to Kazakhstan in early December was “particularly impressed” by the money that American oil companies were investing there. He estimated that $200 billion could flow into Kazakhstan in the next five to ten years.

On November 28, the first ever pipeline by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) — a joint venture of Chevron Texaco, ExxonMobil, LUKoil (Russia), Oman and Kazakhstan — was opened at Russian port city of Novorossisk in an un unusually joyful mood to celebrate “an active cooperation” between the US and Russia — an offshoot of the US-led war on terrorism. The CPC pipeline will carry around 28.2 million tons of crude annually from Kazakhstan’s Tengiz field, one of the world’s ten largest oil fields.

So far, Central Asia has been an exclusive sphere of influence of Russia. In the wake of 9/11, Russian President Putin agreed, against the advice of some of his senior generals, to let the US have military bases in the neighbourhood of Afghanistan — a decision it may regret later but could not refuse at this juncture to enable Bush win the Afghan war. This decision also provides the US an effective access to the natural resources of the region. Now, the US has a permanent base at Khanabad, Uzbekistan, housing 1,500 US troops and another base at Manas in Kyrgystan, near the border with China, is soon to become “transportation hub” of the region and will accommodate 3,000 soldiers apart from warplanes.

“Having pushed, cajoled and bribed its way into the Central Asian backyard”, noted ‘The Guardian,’ on January 16, “the US clearly has no intention of leaving any time soon”. Though the immediate task of American presence is to contain fundamentalism in the region, their bigger task is to pursue long-term US interests into a region which had so far been beyond its reach.

The Caspian Basin or region’s oil and gas reserves, believed to be the second largest in the world after the Persian Gulf, have yet to be properly estimated, tapped and exploited. The black gold lying underground, it is estimated, may be of a quantity somewhere between 25 billion barrels of oil to 200 billion barrels. A Heritage Foundation study in 1996 equalled it to Kuwait’s reserves (mainly in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan).

Often, Central Asia and Caspian region are confused to be the same thing. Central Asia, it may be appropriate here to explain, comprises Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkeministan, Afghanistan and also Pakistan and even some parts of India (which form part of South Asia) and even China (Uighur region). Caspian Basin includes the Caspian Sea and surrounding countries such as Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Georgia. Still, it is common to refer to the region as Caspian region (when talking about natural resources). Earlier, it was also called Eurasia.

Caspian Basin has oil and gas resources worth $5 trillion (according to ‘US News & World Report’, 1994 report). Central Asia has enormous quantities of oil resources including 6.6 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 10 billion barrels of undeveloped oil resources (according to ‘Oil & Gas Journal’, 2001 report). Turkmenistan contains the world’s eighth largest natural gas reserves. In a testimony before a congressional committee on February 12, 1998, John Maresca, international head of Unocal, had said: “The Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves, much of them located in the Caspian Sea basin itself. Proven natural gas reserves within Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region’s total oil reserves may reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil — enough to service Europe’s oil needs for eleven years. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels. In 1995 the region was producing only 870,000 barrels per day.”

Once the American and western oil companies go into the region whole hog, they can increase the production to about 4.5 million barrels a day by 2010. But the problem is how to take this precious commodity out of this region to the world market. Since most of Central Asia is landlocked, the export outlets available so far have been the Russian ports. To reduce Russian control over the region’s oil, the US would like the oil to be transported through Afghanistan and Pakistan, now both being part of its newly created sphere of influence. Another option is to build alternative pipelines to Turkey. But there is no denying that Afghanistan occupies an ideally strategic position between the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia.

The American oil companies have been holding talks with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan for access to the Caspian Basin for years but have made no progress because of political instability in Afghanistan and the region. However, with the conquest of Afghanistan, things have changed. America and its allies need this region’s oil for two reasons: (1) to reduce dependence on Middle East oil; and (2) to meet ever-growing consumption in the near future. Middle East cannot be relied upon much in the days to come by the US. At present, the US has only 3 per cent of the world’s oil reserves. Hence, imports account for 60 per cent of America’s daily oil consumption. In 2001, America imported 9.1 million barrels per day and in 2002 will import 26 million barrels per day.

Even if the September 11 event had not taken place, nor had the US attacked Afghanistan, the need to reach out to Central Asia to acquire new sources of oil and gas cannot be denied. The September 11 only provided the much-sought righteousness to achieve the objective. As stated by a noted American scholar Michael T. Clare in his recent book ‘Resource Wars’: A New Landscape of Global Conflict’, there is a significant decline in motives for going to wars for territorial or ideological reasons and that all future wars will be fought for control of natural resources.

Sir Halford John Mackinder (1861-1947), the famous British political geographer and one of fathers of geo-politics, had described Central Asia and the Caspian region (he used the term north-central Eurasia) as “heartland” of the world because of its geographic isolation and vast natural resources. His theory was that this region would eventually become the heart of the world’s controlling political power or, in other words, the power that would ultimately control this region would also control the world. America, having conquered Afghanistan, is about to become that power. The only obstacle in translating this ambition into a reality is history. History tells us that Afghanistan has been a graveyard of invaders.