Oil & Gas Pipelines: Geopolitics in the Making
The announcement of the construction of the 1600 Km
Iranian-Pakistani gas pipeline didn’t fail to create a true sensation in the
world of politics, let alone in the corridors of the White House. In my
previous Blog articles, I talked endlessly about the shifting geopolitical
dynamics in the Middle East and specifically in the Baluchistan Region that
includes Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, yet the theoretical rant on the rise
of the rest mainly driven by Chinese geopolitical ambitions is now
crystallizing with every tube that is being laid down between Iran and
Pakistan.
An unfaithful ally (Pakistan) collaborating with a declared enemy
(Iran), all under the financing of the 2nd world superpower (China) will
not bring much thrust to the crippled foreign policy and strategic planning
that the US is conducting overseas, and is sure to reverse the balance of power
in the region. The Chinese backing of the pipeline is a clear act of defiance
towards Washington, because it does not only redefines the rules of the game and establishes a new standard for approval of sensitive projects in the
region, but also jeopardizes the effort of the US to tear down the Iranian
economy, and bring to a halt the suspected military nuclear program the mullahs
in Teheran are undertaking.
Oil and gas have long been decisive assets in determining
the outcome of geopolitical games and conflicts, and their grand power in
forging alliances and cementing collaboration is what threatens the very
strategic scheme the US has been trying to implement in AF-PAK region. Iran
has not only managed to distance Afghanistan from the US through its economic
and political support of Kabul, but is now more than ever closer to breaking the
US Pakistani alliance via its economic support of the Pakistani economy through the establishment of the pipeline that will provision Pakistan with an
additional 4000 Megawatts of electricity. A reliant Pakistan on Iranian gas provisioning
does not only ensure that Pakistan will orbit closer in the circle of Teheran,
but will also kill any potential complicity of Pakistan in a future military
action against Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, though under severe sanctions and economic embargo, is playing geopolitics way better than what analysts in the
White House would have predicted, and this reinforces the fallacy of economic
sanctions on Oil economies, a fallacy that proved inefficient in Iraq and is
now blatantly failing with Iran. In a region where economic models are
byzantine and ailing, Iranian oil is a commodity that can ensure economic
growth for its neighbors through the fueling of major projects, and the
provisioning of electric coverage especially in times where social unrest is
prone to benign disturbances and popular dissatisfactions with the lack of
government-produced public goods. The US has challenged the sovereignty of
Pakistan more than once, a challenge that couldn’t be silenced through small
financial grants especially that Islamabads' cooperation with Washington on
counter terrorism has long been unrewarded. With such opportunity, Iranian
policy makers couldn’t miss on the chance to terminate US Pakistani relations
and boost Teheran influence over its neighbor in a never-ending game of dominos.
After the US in intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, both countries ended up
getting closer to the Islamic Republic, not by choice but by necessity given
the lack of long-term vision on the part of US leadership. Now after the series
of drone strikes in Pakistani soil, the storming of Ben Laden’s compound in
Abottabad and the recurrent attacks of US media and US political sphere on the
Pakistani intelligence (corruption and collaboration with hostile forces),
Pakistan cannot refuse the extended hand of Iran, an extended hand that will at
least prove to be an economic catalyst for growth and development in the mostly
rural and tribal country.
If Iran is exploiting the US foreign policy breaches in
Baluchistan, someone in the Far East is not missing on supporting the Iranian
leadership in its anti imperialistic efforts to counter Uncle Sam. Beijing,
keeping a low profile through the 90s and the 1st decade of the 21st
century, is now moving on to upholding its imposed role of event shaper in Asia
pacific, the Middle East and the Sub-Continent area, yet still without indulging
in a direct confrontational policy with the US. China has been leading a new type
of proxy warfare, a warfare not conducted with weapons and fighter jets, but
with economic packages and financial loans. Well in line with Marxist “Economic
Determinism”, Chinese officials are now realizing the true power of money in shaping
global events and molding alliances, a lesson that has long been proven effective
by the IMF and the World Bank loan programs. Financing the Gas pipeline between
Pakistan and Iran with a 500 million $ package is not an economic signal
Beijing is making, but a resonant geopolitical statement to the US that
American blessing for major projects is now obsolete, and that Chinese
interests in the region are as critical as those of the US.
What we are witnessing is the formation of a complex network
of economic-based loyalties that China is establishing throughout South Central Asia region,
with Iran as a primary broker. The IP Pipeline, if ever achieved, will initiate
a spree of pipeline branching that will ultimately connect China to Iranian Gas
and Oil fields, making it impossible for the US to ever consider military
action against Teheran given the fact that such action will directly jeopardize
Chinese interests in the country. An economic Oil hungry giant satisfied, and a
US presence deterred is a dream becoming reality for both Iran and China who
aspire to become key regional players in the area. Iranian oil and gas capabilities
have long been undermined, and the model developing now is strikingly similar
to the case of Russian geopolitical development in the last decade. The Russian
gas empire has only recovered from its Soviet collapse trauma after developing
an extensive network of pipelines in Easter and Western Europe with the help of
business oligarchs, and what we are witnessing today in Iran is a similar
scenario, with the only difference that the Russian oligarchs are now
substituted with Chinese wealthy sovereign funds that are financing Iranian
projects.
The years to come will witness an extensive pipeline
networking throughout the South East and central Asia region, a networking that will seal forever
the US leave from the region, and will anchor the establishment of a new
balance of powers where China and Iran are the key decision makers, one signing
events with Oil and Gas, the other with piles of dollars and financial loans.
The rise of the rest is finally overcoming the initial period of economic
growth and reaching out to the geopolitical aspirations for influence and
control. A new world order is shaping up, and the US seems oblivious to these
new geopolitical equivalents to tectonic shifts.
Mohamed Amine Belarbi
