Iran-India-Pakistan Pipeline: Prospects

Daily Times, December 19, 2005
EDITORIAL: Pipeline contradictions proliferate

There seems to be an aggressive edge to the way India and Pakistan have announced their intention to go ahead with the construction of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline in 2007 and finish it by 2010 despite a ban on the level of investments in Iran enforced by the US Congress. For one, India’s fears about Pakistan’s “trustworthiness” and the pipeline’s safety in Khuzdar in Balochistan not long ago seem to have evaporated. Also, New Delhi, which appeared to give in to Washington’s pressure at the IAEA (where it did not vote in favour of Iran), seems no longer putty in the hands of the US whose Congress has not so far sanctioned a proposed Indo-US nuclear deal. Are the decks clear for the pipeline at last? Let’s look at the contradictions.

The US wants India and Pakistan to normalise relations. But not too long ago, India had adopted the policy of sitting back and wishing Pakistan would fall apart. It did not feel the need to normalise with a neighbour that appeared not to have long to live. Then it saw its energy supply drying up. It first thought it could meet the need with Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). So it invested in an LNG fleet. Soon however, it was obliged to take stock of the cost and listen to those who preferred the Iranian gas pipeline across Pakistan. This met with the approval of many think tanks in the US who thought the project would not only defuse tensions in South Asia but also drag a clerically-dominated Iran out of its isolationism. Indeed, well-known experts on strategy were ready to advise Washington to take another look at its policy of sanctions against Iran.

Then Iran began acting up under President Ahmadinejad, who seems to be spoiling for a showdown with the US and doesn’t care if the European Union joins up with Washington for some kind of punitive action against Iran. The signs are that he no longer enjoys the plain sailing he got for a while after receiving a kiss of approval from the Spiritual Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, and could now be upping the ante in Tehran to sort out some clerics who don’t like him and are blocking his ministerial appointments in the Majles. Does Mr Ahmadinejad want the pipeline? It seems not, considering his recent politicking. He is too keen on anti-American and anti-West charisma at home to think too deeply on the pipeline project.

As for Pakistan, a polarised society is throwing up all sorts of contradictory views. Here the contradictions emanate from the isolation which the Musharraf government suffers vis-à-vis the entire gamut of the political parties in the opposition and populations located in the provinces that have learnt to hate Islamabad. Indeed, many Pakistani “intellectuals” think that America will soon attack Iran with the help of Pakistan to destroy its second victim in the region, after which, of course, it is certain to also invade Pakistan. In this scenario, the Pakistan Army is supposed to give a helping hand to American troops as they land in Pakistan to head for the Iranian border. The other big contradiction is that Pakistan has not yet established control over the province of Balochistan and especially the Mengal-dominated Khuzdar territory through which the Iranian pipeline will pass. The last time President Musharraf showed the flag in the province by visiting the Marri-dominated Kohlu region, the visit was followed by a rocket attack on the FC helicopter carrying its IG.

The pipeline project is estimated to cost $7 billion. As things stand, unless there is a political change in the region during 2006 when the Americans start thinking of leaving Iraq, the US Congress may make things difficult for the three parties engaged in it. For some time in the past the US had looked like relaxing its position on the anti-Iran sanctions which were first imposed quite understandably in 1984 — because of the way the Iranian Revolution had treated the staff of the American embassy in Tehran against all international diplomatic conventions — and strengthened in 1995. But under President Khatami much of the venom secreted by Iran over Israel was toned down and support to Hizbollah in Lebanon was cut too. Unfortunately, however, President Ahmadinejad has reversed that trend and resumed the old aggressive posture.

Now comes another contradiction, proving that someone in Iran is thinking laterally too. Iran has pocketed most of the insult offered daily by Pakistan and its madrassas through Shia-baiting in areas where the Shia population is concentrated. During the earthquake earlier this year, Iran came forward and contributed generously (more than Turkey) to the international fund for relief and reconstruction in the quake-hit area. So if there was competition with other suppliers of gas to South Asia, that has been rationalised. Pakistan’s old “mistake” of going for the Turkmen gas “in cahoots with the Americans” has been forgotten. Now Iran may not mind Pakistan and India also trying out the Turkmen option as long as the Iranian project goes ahead. Therefore, unless the US Congress continues to act out of pique, there is an opportunity to save the region from more conflict through economic networking.

An American scholar, George Perkovich, who opposes Washington’s nuclear deal with India, has summed up the “realistic” approach that America may be abandoning: “Democrats and Republicans alike, especially in Congress, have consistently misdiagnosed Iran’s political dynamics. Nationalism has largely supplanted revolutionary religious fervour in Iran, and American pressure only feeds it. Iranians from across the political spectrum are convinced that the United States aims to keep their nation down. Washington can’t have it both ways. We can’t argue that Iran does not need nuclear energy because it has the world’s second largest reserves of natural gas and then block Iran’s investments in its gas industry. To wean Iran from its nuclear programme, including its pursuit of uranium enrichment facilities that could be used to produce weapons, Washington must convince Iranians that the United States supports their peaceful economic development.”