{"id":1338,"date":"2006-03-04T13:17:48","date_gmt":"2006-03-04T17:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=1338"},"modified":"2006-03-04T13:17:48","modified_gmt":"2006-03-04T17:17:48","slug":"business-as-usual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=1338","title":{"rendered":"Business As Usual?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“It is a unique deal for India,” said Nicholas Burns, a state department official<\/a>. “Despite our friendship for Pakistan, there have been proliferation problems of a quite serious nature over the last several years that would make this kind of deal impossible.” <\/p>\n

Condoleezza Rice said the same. “Everyone knows that there have been concerns in terms of proliferation with Pakistan. Pakistan itself is aware of it. We are working with Pakistan to improve on proliferation.” [ N deal with Pakistan not possible now, says Rice<\/a> ]<\/p>\n

So why would the Bush administration do the one thing that<\/a>, “If history is anything to go by, could mean a new era of proliferation as Pakistan strives to keep up with the perceived Indian menace, auguring nuclear adventurism abroad ( a la A. Q. Khan) and renewed tensions with Washington.”<\/p>\n

“The Pakistani people, still reeling from an earthquake that took 80,000 lives and destroyed thousands of schools, hospitals and homes, will bear the cost of the general’s renewed adventurism or an intensified arms race with India. That, at least, is one constant with the pre-September 11 world.”<\/p>\n

Veteran Indian journalist and commentator Praful Bidwai shares<\/a> the view that this “historic deal” is part of the overarching full-spectrum dominance agenda pursued at breakneck speed by the Bush administration despite its resultant failures and prescient critics<\/a>. <\/p>\n

“All that India will gain if the nuclear deal goes through and is ratified by the US Congress ? a far-from-certain prospect ? is legitimisation of its nuclear weapons and second or third-rate status as a US ally. <\/p>\n

Indians must pause and ask if the cost involved ? complete betrayal of the Gandhi-Nehru legacy of peace, and abandonment of the promise to return to the global nuclear disarmament agenda and fight for a multipolar world order ? is worth the price.” <\/p>\n

Indians have asked just that and continue to do so. The problem in India, as in new “best friend” the United States, is that popular opinion is ignored by a ruling elite that profits handsomely from these decisions. The downside is always reserved for the poor, not borne by those who can afford to commandeer the most expensive hotel in all of India for himself and another for his dogs, as Bush did during his grand visit to India<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The well of hubris Bush draws from seems bottomless.<\/p>\n

In his visit to Pakistan today, Bush declared<\/a> that the U.S. has no problem with the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. “Pakistan has got the energy needs to meet the growing economy. He (Musharraf) explained the natural gas situation in the country. We understand you need to get natural gas, that is fine,” he said. He also said that “US Secretary of Energy Sam Barmier would visit Pakistan separately to discuss Pakistan’s needs in this regard. It is expected that Barmier would look for assisting Pakistan in exploring natural gas resources within Pakistan.” In other words, Pakistan must hire U.S. approved multinationals to explore alternatives to a pipeline the U.S. doesn’t oppose. Also known as<\/a> “the ?peace pipeline? and ?mother of all confidence-building Measures? between India and Pakistan,” the Iran-Pakistan-India project is viewed by conflict<\/a> and energy experts<\/a> to be the most sensible step for both India and Pakistan. <\/p>\n

It is no secret that India’s former Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar was replaced<\/a> with the “business-friendly” Murli Deora due U.S. displeasure with what it called Aiyar’s anti-American pursuit of the deal. Deora claims to remain committed to the project even after meeting on February 17-18 with his Pakistani counterpart Amanullah Khan Jadoon. But in order to appease vociferous U.S. and Indian critics, including the government appointed chairman of the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp., Subir Raha<\/a>, political commentator Pran Chopra believes Deora ” may go slower on it<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

“There is a May deadline for India to join the project.<\/a>” One main concern is whether the pipeline should bypass Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, “the source of Pakistan’s main gas reserves<\/a>,” where insurgents who claim to be fighting against the oppressive Musharraf regime are demanding a share of the resources. The Baluch Liberation Army, a mere shadow presence just a few years ago, have set-up “a satellite news channel called Baluch Voice. The station, which will be based in Dubai, aims to report the news about the current situation in Baluchistan and claims that it will do so without any censorship.” These are the insurgents<\/a> Pakistan has accused India of backing<\/a> and the province where China is helping Pakistan build a submarine base.<\/p>\n

Iran has been dealt a blow by Russia recently, as well<\/a>. <\/p>\n

BEIRUT: The agreement between Turkey’s state-run pipeline consortium BOTAS and the parastatal Russian energy company Gazprom to extend the Bluestream natural gas pipeline (that runs under the Black Sea) was announced February. The move signals Russia’s victory in its competition with Iran, and to a lesser extent ex-Soviet bloc producers, to dominate Turkey’s gas distribution networks – the crucial link to European markets.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Emmanuel Karagiannis, senior consultant at Middle East Consultants in London, said that since gas delivery from the competing pipeline projects has been delayed, Gaszprom is the only feasible source of gas via Bluestream.<\/p>\n

“Another plan was for Turkey to import the gas from Azerbaijan through a gas pipeline parallel to BTC. This would have been ideal for America which has been encouraging multiple pipelines in the Caspian Basin, but construction is stalled. When this happens Turkey will be in a position to diversify its energy suppliers,” he told The Daily Star<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But the extension of the pipeline has other implications. It represents the end of Turkey’s commitment to multiple pipelines running through the Caspian basin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What would merit an upgrade of the current situation<\/a> to cut-throat<\/a> from business as usual? A nuclear event<\/a>? <\/p>\n

“Although Russia?s Caspian Basin energy position is strong, it remains to be seen whether the Kremlin can achieve the level of control over export routes that it desires. Energy competition in the region, already fierce, stands to become cut-throat in the coming years.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“It is a unique deal for India,” said Nicholas Burns, a state department official. “Despite our friendship for Pakistan, there have been proliferation problems of a quite serious nature over the last several years that would make this kind of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-lA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}