Afghanistan’s Newest Benefactor – China

No, they’re not going to help NATO fight the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Instead the Chinese will be helping themselves to one of the largest copper deposits in the world. It’s the Aynak copper mine in Logar province and the Chinese beat out rivals from Canada, the US and Russia to get it.

China Metallurgical Group has committed $4-billion to the project which will also see a direct rail line constructed linking Afghanistan and China. I wonder if the Chinese project will be using electricity generated by the Kajaki dam NATO has been struggling to defend against the Taliban? Maybe NATO will even wind up providing security for China’s investment.

It’s believed that part of the investment is a desire, on China’s part, to “push back” against India and the Indian/US efforts to contain China. Now it’s seen in some quarters that it’s China working to encircle India. This is the take of M K Bhadrakumar, a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, published in Asia Times Online:

“…the mother of all Chinese encirclement of India still remains largely unnoticed in Delhi – the Beijing-Tehran axis. There is wide recognition that if the United States hasn’t been able to push through another tougher United Nations Security Council resolution against Iran over its nuclear program, that has been largely because of China’s reluctance to concur.

But what happened last Sunday still came as a bolt from the blue. China Petroleum Corporation, better known as the Sinopec Group, signed a contract with the Iranian Oil Ministry for the development of the Yadavaran oil and gas fields in southwestern Iran.

The current estimation is that the project cost will be $2 billion. Under the contract, China will make the entire investment necessary to develop the fields. The first phase is to produce 85,000 barrels of oil per day and the second phase will add another 100,000 barrels. According to Iranian estimates, Yadavaran has in place oil reserves of 18.3 billion barrels and gas reserves amounting to 12.5 trillion cubic feet.

China outmaneuvered both the US and India on Iran. When the American National Intelligence Estimates collapsed Bush’s claims of Iran’s imminent nuclear threat to the world, China was ready to move – and quickly. India, meanwhile, found itself shut out, having succumbed to US pressure to sanctions against Iran.

Indian diplomacy has a lot of catching up to do. In the short term, Delhi will have to pay a price for overlooking the geopolitical reality that Iran is the only really viable regional power in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Delhi’s best hope is that true to their innate pragmatism, Iranians will let bygones be bygones.

 

Afghanistan Backs Iran – What Else Did You Expect?

The National Disgrace is in a tizzy about Afghanistan refusing to support a Canadian resolution before the UN General Assembly censuring Iran for its human rights record.

The Afghani ambassador voted for an Iranian bid to have the resolution thrown out and against the Canadian motion when it finally came up for a vote. Here’s the paper’s take on Afghanistan’s perfidy:

One interpretation of Afghanistan’s view is that the government of President Hamid Karzai cares more about its relations with Iran than with Canada, despite Canada’s massive commitment to Afghan reconstruction and the cost in Canadian lives.

I wonder if it could have anything to do with the fact that Iran borders Afghanistan? Maybe the Afghanis have figured out that Canada is there today but very well may not be in a year or two. Maybe the Afghans know when it’s not best to be pointing fingers at someone else.

 

Crying "Wolf"

The credibility of the Bush White House has all but tanked. After its Iraq scam, details of which are continuing to emerge almost five years later, the Bush administration isn’t getting the benefit of the doubt on its intelligence claims about Iran.

The problem is that, having lied so outrageously to so many in the run up to the conquest of Iraq, the Bushies are now relying on circumstantial evidence to support assumptions that allow it to allege that senior Iranian officials are providing weapons to groups in Iraq to use against American soldiers. It’s like saying, “here’s a grenade, it was made in Iran, so we want you to assume that it was sent to Iraq by the president Ahmadinejad in order that it could be tossed at American soldiers.”

If they have nothing else going for them, Bush/Cheney have a completely shameless audacity. On Iraq they produced intelligence – twisted, stretched, manipulated, sometimes even fabricated, but intelligence – while for Iran they’re not even claiming they’ve got intelligence, they just want people to rely on thin assumptions instead. Even their top general won’t back them up on this one.

The worrisome part is that this chicanery suggests that Bush is intent on attacking Iran no matter what. He has to come up with some justification but he can’t so he’s willing to manufacture some. This is what we get as the “Leader of the Free World?”

 

Baiting the Trap – Cheney Style

The White House is spoiling for a fight, this time with Iran. They’re making all the noises that preceded the illegal conquest of Iraq. Iran, we’re told, is a threat to the world. It was, after all, pronounced a full member of the Axis of Evil by George W. Bush hisself – case closed.

Now there’s the business about Iran arming Iraqi Shiite militias. A real threat if there ever was one. But wait, they’re the bunch that go after the Sunni insurgents, the other bunch, the group that actually does target American soldiers, the guys who get their support from Saudi Arabia. Why isn’t Bush bombing the living hell out of Riyadh? I guess that’s because the House of Saud and the House of Bush are bosom buddies, eh?

To stir things up, Mr. Bush has now ordered a third, carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf. Three fleet carriers is pretty much unprecedented and observers have noted that on every occassion US carriers have deployed to the Gulf, save one, there’s been combat. So, judging by past experience and the deployment of three carrier battle groups, the odds are better than even that the Bush/Cheney regime has already made its mind up to attack.

Hillary Mann, the former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf affairs warns of what’s coming, “They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something (the United States) would be forced to retaliate for.”

Paul Krugman, writing in today’s New York Times, says the White House has already got its intelligence cooker turned up high. He points out that Abram Shulsky, the guy who headed Rumsfeld’s intelligence warper on Iraq, is now back in business heading the Pentagon’s Iran directorate. Let’s see – the guy put in charge of gaming the Iraq intelligence, instead of being fired in disgrace, is now assembling the Iran intelligence. What does that sound like?

Krugman also sees a reason for keying so much attention to Iranian ordinance found in Iraq and tying it to the deaths of US soldiers. Bush isn’t about to get Congressional authorization to launch a war against Iran, simply ain’t going to happen. But, if he can “earmark” the attacks as just part of the already authorized Iraq war then he can claim he doesn’t need the approval of Congress.

Is attacking Iran stupid? No more stupid than invading Iraq.