Bastion of Free Speech

(This article was written prior to the Afghan Agreement in Bonn)

"The Great Game" was a phrase immortalized by Rudyard Kipling in his classic, Kim, where he uses it no fewer than thirty-six times. This phrase was first coined by Captain Arthur Conolly when he wrote to a fellow officer, like him also in service of the British Empire in Central Asia, that: "You have a great game, a noble one, before you." The noble purpose was to prevent an invasion of India by Russia, a plan consecrated at Tilsit in 1807 after a meeting on a giant raft moored on the River Niemen between Emperor Napoleon and Czar Alexander. Under this scheme the French and the Russians were to bring Britain to its knees and divide the world between themselves. At that time over 2000 miles separated the British and Russian Empires in Asia. Shortly after he wrote this in 1842 Conolly and his senior colleague, Col. Stoddart, were beheaded on the orders of Nasrullah, the Emir of Bokhara. In those days you did not decapitate British officers and expect to get away with it. British efforts only intensified, which only elicited more of the same from the Russians and vice versa. By the end of that century they were rubbing shoulders in Central Asia! And just as the Afghan, Mahbub Ali, told Kim, "The Great Game is so big that one sees but little at a time." It is the same even now.

But we can try to add up all the littles bit by bit and even then the big picture might elude us. That is what makes Afghanistan interesting. There is no predicting what will happen next. Eleven years ago when the Soviet armies withdrew from Afghanistan one would have thought that the Great Game had finally ended with Russia no longer in the game for a warm water port. But apparently not so? We once again have a resurgent Russia led by a vigorous leader. Most Indians, particularly those who scurry about South Block, may not know that Russia is once again resurgent! It has the fastest growing economy in the world, posting a more than healthy 9% and an annual trade surplus of over $50 billion. Its military might is once again formidable and the sudden and swift deployment of a crack airborne battalion in Kabul should tell us that the Russians are not about to bow out of their backyard so that the West may continue to fatten itself on cheap oil. The British are back in the region they quit in 1947, even though this time just as America's attack dog. Being that and having the BBC is what makes that country be counted these days and, hand it to them, they do that well.

If Russian dreams of a warm water port have faded, America now dreams of a warm water port for its oil companies to pump out Central Asian oil and gas to energy hungry economies, India being topmost among them. The only Indians with empire building proclivities, the Ambanis of Reliance Industries, are also eyeing this oil for their great refinery at Jamnagar and for all their downstream plans. Kazakh, Uzbek and Turkmen oil sloshing down the Pamirs and Hindu Kush in Unocal pipelines across Pakistan into arid Kutch is the stuff dreams are made off. Empires are what follow dreams. A hostile and inimical Pakistan is obviously not something a few deft purchases can't sort out?

In their book, Bin Laden, The Forbidden Truth, two well regarded French intelligence analysts, Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, have said that the Bush bin Bush Administration had been holding meetings in Berlin with the Taliban on the construction of pipelines from Turkmen, Uzbek and Kazakh oilfields across Afghanistan and Pakistan when the event of September 11 happened. If there is one thing the Bush administration understands, it is the oil business. Bush bin Bush, like Bush the elder, has been an unsuccessful oil wildcatter. Richard Cheney, his Vice-President, was the head of Halliburton and oil business giant. National Security Adviser, Condeleeza Rice, worked for Chevron till she joined the Bush campaign. The Treasury and Commerce Secretaries were executives in another oil business giant, Tom Brown. The political geography of Central Asia puts its oil reserves under Russian control, as the pipelines to Europe have to traverse its vast hinterland first. The American President wants to change all that. And apparently so badly that during the talks with the Taliban, the American envoy at once stage actually threatened: "accept our offer of a carpet of gold or we will bury you in a carpet of bombs." Holy smoke!

Now consider the situation in Saudi Arabia. According to Rudi Dornbusch, Ford Professor of Economics at MIT and a former chief economic advisor to both the World Bank and IMF, the two major nightmare scenarios the world faces are, the possible fall of the Saudi Royal family and a Japanese financial meltdown. In his October 23 article in The New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize winner, Seymour Hersh, who is reputed to have excellent contacts within the US intelligence community, has very clearly alluded to the threats the Saudis have been facing from radicals in that country fed up with their corrupt and profligate ways. Hersh very clearly suggests that several Saudi royals were funding Osama bin Laden so as to buy peace with the radicals. Hersh also very explicitly suggests the involvement of American companies like Halliburton in corrupt activities, which in turn provided the Saudi faction favoring appeasement of the radicals with easily disbursable slush funds. On the other hand, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, who would rather have cleaned up their Augean stables, opposed this. Hersh reports that the Bush Administration was provided with transcripts of relevant NSA intercepts that recorded conversations on this matter among the Saudi royals. There is more than what meets the eye to the sudden sacking of Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal, just three days before September 11.

Now consider this scenario. Dornbusch cites a study by George Perry of the Brookings Institution which reveals that if Saudi oil production or supply is disrupted to cause a drop in availability of a mere million barrels per day, the price of oil would rise to $32 per barrel. If world availability were to be cut by 10%, the price would zoom to $161 per barrel. This would send world economy into a tailspin which will it take years to recover. There are many who believe that a Japanese meltdown is only a matter of time. Nevertheless any sudden escalation of oil prices to such levels will almost certainly precipitate a meltdown of the oil import dependent Japanese economy. There cannot be a better description of a double whammy! Very clearly easy access to Central Asian oil will provide western policy makers some options should the worst ever occur.

Now lets go to Konduz in northern Afghanistan. Here a battalion of Pakistani regulars is holed out along with an assortment of Taliban fighters. They are encircled by several thousand troops of the Northern Alliance who owe allegiance to the Tajik leader General Muhammad Fahim Khan. An immediate surrender will expose to the rest of the world Pakistan's involvement with the Taliban. The Americans have tried to do their best to prevent this from happening and have suggested surrender to General Rashid Dictum's Uzbek militia. Dostum was once a pro-communist general who then sold out just in time to prevent Najibullah's escape to India in 1995. This enabled him to switch over to the so-called mujahideen. He escaped to Mazar-e-Sharif in 1996 when the Taliban took over.

In 1998 his lieutenant, General Malik Pahalwan, drove Dostum out of Mazar-e-Sharif. Pahalwan in turn did a deal with the Taliban only to turn against them just four days later to slaughter over 4000 Taliban fighters who were welcomed into the town. Dostum came back to head the Uzbek militia's after a long period in exile in Turkey where a new deal was cut to turn him into an American ally. Intelligence sources speculate that $50 million did the trick. So what happens now is very interesting. There is a prison riot in Mazar-e-Sharif's ancient fort, which diverts the attention of the assembled world media. It may be just a coincidence that a CIA officer armed with a satellite phone was killed in the riots and Britain's SAS commandos called in the air strikes. Meanwhile Pakistani and other unmarked aircraft are airlifting Pakistanis out of Konduz. Konduz will surrender after the Pakistanis are lifted out and their deadly trail is covered up.

There are other players as well. In addition to the proven Central Asian oil reserves; there are huge Chinese oil finds in neighboring Sinkiang that need to be factored in. The Chinese too would love an Indian Ocean exit for their oil. Iran is another player as it would like to see the predominantly Shia Hazara tribesmen clustered in Central Afghanistan liberated from the clutches of the dominant Pashtu tribesmen who are all Sunni's. This will also give Iran a handle on the oil routes; much like Russia has on the Central Asian oil now. The Iran backed Hizb-e-Wahadat Hazara militia led by Dr. Ismail Khalili and the Tajik militias of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud were the only ones to resist the Taliban and this is something the West is very uncomfortable about. Already there have been suggestions in western media that the Tajik militia's are heavily into opium smuggling and are sitting on a hoard of about 2000 tons right now. There are other signs as well. As soon as the Taliban fled Kabul, the US and allies wanted Kabul to be taken charge of by an UN Force comprised of only troops drawn from Muslim countries. But the Northern Alliance was having none of it and took Kabul.

Now the little of the Great Game that we see is around Kandahar. Like Gen. Sir Fredrick Roberts VC did before in 1880, Kandahar will be invested. It was after this victory that Roberts was made Lord Roberts of Kandahar. Kandahar seems to attract lords of the realm. Even our Lord Jaswant Singh earned his spurs at Kandahar by walking hand in hand with the Taliban Foreign Minister, Muttawakil!

The West is very keen to install the eighty-seven year old ex-King Zahir Shah once again as King. The current round of talks in Bonn is meant to lead to that. The King has been without a job since 1979 and is clearly a bit too old for the job. If we have to for some reason lapse into a medieval system of government by bluebloods, we too can put up a credible candidate. I am proud to advance the case of my friend Mohammed Aslam Khan, the former UP Forest and Sports Minister who is also a direct descendent of Dost Mohammed, the founder of the Muhammadzai/Barakzai line! I bet Jaswant Singh with his knowledge and reverence for the more robust genealogical trees wouldn't have known this?

Copyright(c) Mohan Guruswamy, 2001. All rights reserved.