Just Because the West Has Lost the Pipeline Wars Doesn’t Mean the Real War Is Ending

For the West, ‘Game Over’ in Central Asia ANDREA BONZANNI | 08 JAN 2010 WORLD POLITICS REVIEW Last month, the West officially lost the new “Great Game.” The 20-year competition for natural resources and influence in Central Asia between the United States (supported by the European Union), Russia and China has, for now, come to an end, with the outcome in favor of the latter two. Western defeat was already becoming clear with the slow progress of the Nabucco pipeline and the strategic reorientation of some Central Asian republics toward Russia and China. Two recent events, however, confirmed it. On Dec. 14, Chinese President Hu Jintao and the heads of state of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan personally opened the valve of a new gas pipeline transporting Turkmen natural gas from the state-of-the-art processing facility of Samandepe to the city of Khorgoz, in China’s western province of Xinjiang. The pipeline, developed by the Chinese state-owned energy giant, CNPC, has a capacity of 40 billion cubic meters and traverses almost 1,250 miles through four countries. Earlier in the month, on Dec. 3, the venture had received the blessings of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who declared that Moscow was comfortable with the idea of Turkmen gas flowing eastwards to China. Putin’s words further underscored ongoing Sino-Russian energy cooperation, which has made significant advances and is shaping the new political economy of energy in Central Asia and elsewhere. In an accord signed on Oct. 13, the two countries set the basis for a long-term partnership based on joint explorations in Russia and third countries, as well as cheap loans from Chinese banks to the Russian energy sector, even if complex pricing issues remain unresolved. Not long afterward, Russia achieved a major success on its own. On Dec. 22, in a meeting in Ashgabat also attended by high-level executives from Gazprom and Turkmengaz, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ended a gas dispute between their two countries. The dispute dated back to April, when Turkmen authorities blamed Gazprom for the explosion of a pipeline transporting Turkmen gas to Russia — a move, they claimed, designed to avoid buying expensive Turkmen gas in a period of low demand. In addition to the resumption of exports, now scheduled for the start of 2010, Medvedev’s visit led to the signing of important documents on strategic cooperation in energy and engineering, which deepen and expand a 25-year agreement signed by the two countries in 2003. Amendments to existing contracts were made, and Gazprom agreed to purchase Turkmen gas at a price roughly equal to that of the European market, removing any incentive for the Caspian republic to look to the European Union and the international energy industry for natural gas sales. With Turkmenistan already exporting over 70 billion cubic meters of gas a year and possibly not even possessing enough reserves to meet current obligations, it is unlikely that the country will seek new deals. Likewise, Kazakhstan, the other major natural resource producer in the region, is satisfied with its contracts with Russia and China. Its president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, recently declared that he will only approve foreign investment from countries and companies willing to cooperate on his authoritarian industrialization plan. The developments will hardly endanger Western energy security. Even European gas supplies will not suffer any major long-term disruptions, as demand will be easily met by two projected Russian pipelines, Nord Stream and South Stream, as well as by a Nabucco project fed by Middle Eastern gas supplies. However, the situation will have lasting consequences for the region, as pipelines do not only transport oil and gas. They also create long-term interdependencies between nations, and heavily condition modes of governance as well as strategic positioning in the countries involved. Expect, then, Russia and China to maintain near-absolute leverage in Central Asia in what amounts to a managed condominium. The West has only itself to blame for this outcome. Despite sharing regional interests with Russia and China — ranging from disarmament to the eradication of terrorism and the drug trade — the United States and the European Union have rarely proven themselves willing to come to terms with Moscow and Beijing on Central Asian affairs. In the field of energy, Western policy objectives have fluctuated indecisively between attempting to fully depoliticize the industry — through legal instruments such as the Energy Charter — and providing American and European corporations with dirigiste-style support, based on the misplaced assumption that their technological superiority would offer more attractive conditions to Central Asian leaders. On the other hand, Russia and China have elaborated innovative responses through a network of bilateral deals and the institutional structure of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The West has also misunderstood the resilience of Russian leverage and soft power in the region and dramatically overestimated the appeal of its “normative power.” By insisting on issues — such as democracy and human rights — that not only had no influence, but scared the local power elites, they increased the attractiveness of Beijing and its strict adherence to the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs. Central Asia is now very low on President Barack Obama’s agenda. In the first year of his administration, the United States has done little more than confirm its nominal support for Nabucco. However, it would be unwise to abandon a resource-rich region at the crossroads between Europe, Asia and the Middle East, close to such hotspots as Afghanistan, Iran and the Caucasus. The opportunities to tie Central Asia to the West through energy trade have for now waned, but regional developments should no longer be overlooked or disregarded by American policymakers. Andrea Bonzanni is a post-graduate student at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He has worked as a consultant for the United Nations and the World Bank and is currently an energy policy analyst for the Italian Center for Turkish Studies. The views expressed here are his alone. He can be reached at andrea.bonzanni (at) graduateinstitute (dot) ch. Photo: Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Beijing, May 2008 (photo by the Website of the President of the Russian Federation).

Let’s Break from the Party of War and Wall Street

By Stanley Aronowitz
From the January 8, 2010 issue | Posted in National | Email this article

People cannot live without hope. The long night of the eight Bush years was tolerated only because many of us believed it would come to an end. That Obama seized on that belief better than his Democratic opponents is a testament to the high expectations people had that regime change in Washington just might bring about a better life. While Hillary Clinton, his main primary opponent, evoked the traditional symbols of military preparedness combined with liberal domestic policies, Obama steadfastly preached the gospel of peace and hope and carefully avoided making lavish promises. Clinton won the backing of most organized labor, women’s organizations and major Democratic politicians. But Obama, the only fresh face in the gallery of candidates, outmaneuvered the traditional party dons. With little support at the top, Obama went for the grassroots, correctly gauging the country to be fed up with the old ties and old ideas.

Obama had the advantage of being African-American, even though many black politicians had hopped on the Clinton bandwagon early in the campaign. But Obama’s not-so-secret weapon was his appeal among youth who, responding to his bold message of hope and change, came out of the woodwork by the thousands to volunteer in his campaign, trudging door to door in the cities and tipping the balance in states like Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio. They also delivered much of the West to the insurgent. What befuddled the pros and the pundits was Obama’s ability to mobilize youth who chronically stay away from the polls, largely because they see little point in voting. He seemed to have the power to make them believe in the system. Although the overall vote count was not remarkable compared to past presidential elections, the proportion of voting youth and blacks helped give Obama a relatively easy victory over John McCain, the lapsed maverick.

For many who voted for Obama, 2009 has been a year of deep disillusionment. The degree to which the Obama administration revealed its basic war and big business orientation was first shown by his major cabinet and staff appointees. Robert Gates, Bush’s defense secretary, was retained; Hillary Clinton, perhaps the Senate’s leading hawk, became secretary of state; the crucial position of treasury secretary went to a Federal Reserve bureaucrat and Wall Street ally, Tim Geithner; and Lawrence Summers, Bill Clinton’s last Treasury head, became Obama’s chief economic advisor.

What was obscured by Obama’s rousing campaign and nimble rhetoric has become brutally apparent in the aftermath. The Democratic Party has, since the end of World War II, been the favored party of finance capital. That mantle once belonged to the Republicans — the fabled party of the rich and wealthy. But the GOP has sunk into a right-wing party of opposition and no longer pretends to be a party of government. Its cast, begun as far back as the Goldwater takeover in 1964, is anti-internationalist, narrowly ideological and administratively incompetent. Meanwhile, the Democrats live a glaring contradiction: on the one hand, they rely on labor and the new social movements of feminism, ecology and black freedom both for votes and for a large portion of their political cadres. On the other, they need hundreds of millions of dollars to oil the party apparatus and run 535 national election campaigns. Aside from the unions, most of this money comes from corporate sponsors and wealthy individuals.

This contradictory existence accounts for several important political realities: Despite a large “progressive” congressional delegation, especially in the House of Representatives, the Democrats’ weight of governance falls on its debts to, and alliances with, leading financial corporations. For example, that the Democrats are forced to sponsor some version of healthcare “reform” cannot disguise the fact that the big insurance companies have called the tune on the legislation. Nor are the Democrats’ ostensible commitments to dealing with global warming as powerful as the influence of the energy giants who have systematically thwarted any attempt to address what may be the defining public issue of this century. And the Obama administration has handled the most profound economic crisis since the Great Depression by continuing the Bush policy of bailing out the banks and insurance companies and virtually ignoring rising joblessness, burgeoning foreclosures and deepening black and Latino poverty. In short, Obama is the perfect manifestation of the contradiction that rips across the Democratic Party bow.

BLUEPRINT FOR AGGRESSION: President Barack Obama speaks with Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal in the Oval Office in May 2009. PHOTO: PETE SOUZA, FLICKR.COM/THEWHITEHOUSE

According to historical myth, Roosevelt saved U.S. capitalism during the Great Depression by instituting vast regulation of capital. In this tale, the so-called “second” New Deal of social reform was a reflection of the administration’s move to the left. What this version of history fails to note is that these reforms were preceded by a mass workers movement armed with the tools of direct action that, within a few short years, transformed the U.S. workplace. Roosevelt was both appalled and politically astute: from an open-throated voice of capital manifested chiefly in the National Industrial Recovery Act aimed at reviving capitalism by throttling wages, he forged an image of the Democrats as the party of the working people, the poor and the oppressed. That image was, to some degree, backed by concrete steps such as creating Social Security, but it did not take long before the Democrats, spurred by the imperatives of anti-communism and the Cold War, reverted to conservative policies. Except for the progressive legislation of the 1960s — the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, Medicare and Medicaid — there have been no major social reforms since the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

As Obama has made plain, the Democrats have retained their character as the War Party. Apart from World War II, which was clearly a bipartisan effort, military interventions in Korea, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam and Kosovo; the opening rounds of the Iraq war in the late 1990s; and the escalation of war in Afghanistan have been the products of the Democrats. Only the two Bush presidents proved equally committed to aggressive foreign military actions.

Meanwhile, as the economy continued to sink, the Obama administration, directed by Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, Summers and Geithner, transferred trillions in taxpayer funds to the leading institutions of the financial system. Another bundle went to General Motors and Chrysler, now free to chop jobs at will in order to save their corporations from liquidation. Even as official joblessness climbed to more than 10 percent — and nearly 16 percent among blacks — Obama’s emphasis was on “stabilizing” the financial system.

Early on in his presidency, Obama told the country his first major priority was to enact a universal healthcare program. Congress and healthcare movements accepted the challenge and prepared themselves for the long battle ahead. But Obama disappointed again. Instead of sending to Congress a single-payer proposal that would have eliminated the power of the insurance companies, he allowed conservatives and insurance company lobbyists to write much of the bills that passed both houses of Congress. The final version will not include even a watered-down public option, nor will it likely sanction the right of women to have coverage for abortions. Under the legislation, most Americans will be forced to buy private insurance and pay big pharma’s exorbitant prescription drug prices.

Obama is an ordinary, though talented, center-right president. While surrendering to the right, he has maintained a sizeable constituency among liberals and even some on the left. That a vigorous antiwar movement has not emerged to fight the war escalations and his betrayals, that there are no major protests against the phony healthcare bill about to become law and, equally important, that we have seen no significant demonstrations for jobs and income testifies to the torpor that has overcome large sections of the U.S. people, including a portion of the left. Among the reasons for this apparent passivity is that we still labor under the illusion that the Democrats are, at least in part, the party of the people and have failed to recognize their vital role in perpetuating capitalist rule.

Are we so preoccupied with the myriad personal crises that afflict all subordinate social classes? Are we exhausted in the wake of the battering of the media, the flood of never-ending catastrophes, the defeats suffered by the popular forces? Are the progressive forces ready to occupy the political space of the opposition rather than the “left wing” of the possible that moves ceaselessly to the right? Events belie forecasts so, as America’s wont, the explosion is likely to come as an unexpected hurricane.

Perhaps the starting point would be the left’s clean break from the Democrats.

India’s Shattered Hope of War

Confused in achieving its secret designs to become a super power of Asia, now India has started intimidating declared nuclear powers like Pakistan and China through threat of open war. In this regard, Indian Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor vocally revealed on December 29, 2009 that Indian Army “is now revising its five-year-old doctrine” and is preparing for a “possible two-front war with China and Pakistan.”

India has received a matching response from Islamabad. Responding to New Delhi’s open threat, on January 1, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani warned that the situation would get out of control in case of any dangerous adventurism of New Delhi. A day after, Pakistan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) Chairman Gen. Tariq Majid stated, “The Indian Army Chief’s statement exhibits a lack of strategic acumen. He further said that such a path could “fix India on a self-destructive mechanism.” In this connection, taking cognizance of Indian new war-mongering style, on January 6, Gen. Kayani also chaired the meeting of corps commanders, and showed satisfaction over the operational preparedness of the Pakistan Army.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s military and the political leadership has decided to be in active contact and to chalk out an effective strategy to counter hostile approach of India.
While taking notice of India’s tactics to disturb the regional balance of power in South Asia, the cabinet’s defence committee underscored that Pakistan would never allow its security to be jeopardised at any cost. It was decided in the meeting that until and unless South Waziristan operation and rehabilitation of war torn areas in Swat is not completed, no new military front would be opened and no foreign pressure would be tolerated in that respect.

As regards New Delhi’s belligerent approach, it is the result of Indian shattered hope to intimidate other regional countries especially Pakistan whom the former considers a continuous obstacle in the way of its ambitious policy. In fact, both the neighbouring adversaries are nuclear powers, Indians cannot ignore the principles of deterrence, popularly known as balance of terror.

In 1945, America dropped atomic bombs on Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as Tokyo had no such devices to retaliate. After the World War 11, nuclear weapons were never used. These were only employed as a strategic threat. During the heightened days of the Cold War, many crises arose in Suez Canal, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam when the US and the former Soviet Union were willing to use atomic weapons, but they stopped due to the fear of nuclear war which could culminate in the elimination of both the super powers. It was due to the concept of ‘mutually assured destruction’ that the two rivals preferred to resolve their differences through diplomacy.

Political strategists agree that deterrence is a psychological concept that aims to affect an opponent’s perceptions. In nuclear deterrence weapons are less usable as their threat is enough in deterring an enemy that intends to use its armed might.

A renowned scholar, Hotzendorf remarks that nuclear force best serves the interests of a state when it deters an attack.

It is mentionable that a few days after the November 26 tragedy of Mumbai, New Delhi, while embarking upon a hot pursuit policy towards Islamabad, under the pretext of that carnage, endeavoured to isolate Pakistan diplomatically in the comity of nations. For this purpose, India sent a number of diplomatic missions to various western capitals to convince them that Pakistan is officially behind Mumbai terror events, emphasising them to pressurize Islamabad in handing over the militants, responsible for the catastrophe.

By exploiting its self-contradictory evidence, full of loopholes, Indian rulers had also rejected Pakistan’s offer for joint investigation, and left no stone unturned in threatening Pakistan with an allout war including ‘surgical strikes.’ It was owing to our nuclear weapons that despite creating war-hysteria inside its country, New Delhi did not dare to attack Pakistan as any aggressive attempt could result in the national suicide of India.

Moreover, Pakistan’s successful military operations have surprised the international community as our armed forces dismantled the command and control system of the Taliban militants within a few months. They did in eight months what the US-led NATO forces could not do in Afghanistan in eight years. In this context, while praising Pakistan’s security forces, western high officials insisted upon New Delhi to observe restraint. It is due to these developments that the US and European countries have donated million of dollars for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

Regarding Indian blame game against Pakistan, the US and UK have already refused official involvement of Islamabad in the Mumbai carnage. Besides, in the recent past, a team of Indian intelligence officials left the US disappointed after a week-long stay as they were not allowed interrogating a Pakistan-born American national David Coleman Headley, arrested by the FBI on charges of plotting a major terror attack in India, lodged in a Chicago jail. Failed in their efforts to implicate Islamabad, Indian officials termed “bureaucratic” and “procedural” hurdles as the main obstacle in their way.

On the other side, with the realistic approach, America officials and media have started focusing on Hindu fundamentalism in face of leakage of the Justice Liberation Commisssion, admitting the official involvement of the leadership of the BJP in connection with the destruction of the Babri Masjid—and over other developments like human violations in the Indian-held Kashmir including violence against the Muslim and Christian communities.

Presently the positive image of Pakistan has irked the eyes of New Delhi. Despite their diplomatic defeat, Indian leaders have still been blackmailing Islamabad through threats of war.

Depressed in their anti-Pakistan aims, Indian lobbies are also making strenuous efforts in maligning Islamabad in the western countries. It could be judged from a recent attempt. The Australian government has played down a travel advisory issued by Indian warning in relation to risk of violence against Indian students in Melbourne—after an Indian graduate, Nitin Garg, was stabbed to death in the city, and New Delhi pointed finger at Pakistanis indirectly. But acting Australian Foreign Minister Simon Crean urged Indian leaders to avoid fuelling hysteria and said that Melbourne was safe for visitors.

Nevertheless, Indian rulers should keep it in mind that no war is limited. When started, course of war is expanded by the circumstances just like the water of flood. For example, in the beginning, World War 1 was a local conflict between the two tiny states of Balkan, but within a few days, it involved the major countries.

In the present circumstances, India is badly mistaken if it overestimates its own power and underestimates Pakistan’s power. As our country lacks conventional forces and weapons vis-à-vis India, so it will have to use atomic devices during a prolonged conflict.

Nonetheless, ‘nuclearized’ India may apply its coercive diplomacy and threat of war against the non-nuclear states of South Asia in exerting psychological pressure, but it will prove India’s shattered hope in case of Pakistan whose deterrence is credible.

While taking lesson from the recent history, the best way for New Delhi is that instead of raising war hysteria, present issue of Mumbai terror attack could be resolved through joint investigation which Islamabad has repeatedly offered. And India must better pay attention to her home-grown Hindu terrorists by abandoning irrational allegations.

In wake of its shattered hope of war, India should better return to negotiating table to resolve all issues with Pakistan including the core dispute of Kashmir. Otherwise, war-mongering pose is likely to prove self-destructive for the Indian union, where separatist movements have already reached their climax in most of its states.

Taliban reject UN chief’s claim about civilian casualties

PESHAWAR: The Afghan Taliban Thursday rejected the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s claim about civilian casualties in Afghanistan, saying the UN would lose its credibility by making biased judgment on the issue of civilian deaths.

This was stated in a statement released by Taliban’s Islamic Emirate and circulated by the Afghan Islamic Press from Kandahar. The statement said the UN secretary general in his recent assertions had said that almost 20 per cent of civilian casualties in Afghanistan were caused by American and her allies firing and 80 percent by the armed opposition.

The statement said: “The assertions have been made amidst reports of protests in Afghanistan against civilian casualties perpetrated by the Americans. “Ironically, the head of an august world body like UNO, claiming to be neutral, brazenly tramples down on UNO principles of neutrality through his remarks to appease the White House rulers.

“We ask Ban Ki-moon, who martyred school students, adolescents in Narang district of Kunar province, nearly one week ago? “Memory of gruesome events of civilian casualties (at the hand of the invaders) in Farah, Shin Dand, Kunduz, Dehrawood where hundreds of miserable Afghans were killed, are still fresh among our people.

“Ban Ki-moon should have a look at the Pentagon to see that two departments under the name of Psychological Warfare and Lies Fabrication Department are now part and parcel of the official organizational set-up of the ministry.

“The Psychological Warfare Department teaches troops to kill civilians to create shock and awe in their hearts so they submit to the troops without demur. The Department of Lies Fabrication instructs the

soldiers to spread lies against the enemy in media and among the people so that they distance themselves from the enemy and nurture hatred against them.

“It is a matter of pondering whether Mr Ban Ki moon is acting intentionally or unintentionally in favour of the above-mentioned departments. This is because he, sometimes, gives expression to words that does not suit his position and neutral status.

“We want to remind Mr secretary general that according to a recent analysis of war analysts in Pentagon, America has lost initiatives against Taliban because the Taliban leadership has instructed their followers in Afghanistan to deal gently with the common people. “That is why, we were not able to tip them against Taliban,” the report adds.

“However, henceforth, America should put the blame of civilian casualties on Taliban in order to make people distance themselves from Taliban and that they may nurture hatred in their hearts against them.”

“So Ban Ki-moon should have a look at his surrounding before making such remarks – to see what is surreptitiously going on (in his backyard). Similarly, Ban Ki-moon and his employers should know that the Afghan people and the Mujahideen have vast work experience of three decades war. They know all games and ploys of colonialism. None can deceive them through politically-motivated and demagogue statements. You should also know that partial judgment and blind support of one side and condemnation of the other only irreparably harms your credibility which will surely result in playing havoc with your standing in the world, particularly, in Afghanistan.”