by Mohammad Amir Ahmad Khan

09-05-08 India and Iran have made America slightly nervous. Initially it seems that America tried to use this opportunity to again preach to the world about how dangerous a nuclear Iran would be.
Even though nuclear power is a part of the problem, the main reasons of America's interest in scuppering the pipeline deal are geo-strategic and oddly enough to do with natural resources, oil and gas and not security.

America's interventions in the region go back many decades. Most notably, when Iran's government was overthrown by a CIA engineered coup in 1953 because Iran wanted to nationalise the oil reserves. In the eighties, during the Iraq-Iran conflict, when the debate on Iran's nuclear ambitions was not so widespread, the Americans provided Iraq with weapons and famously, according to Sir Basil Zaharoff's declaration, Britain sold arms to both sides.
America tried to use Iraq and anti-Shia sentiments amongst the Ba'athists to get control of Iranian oil and gas reserves through Saddam. The wars in Afghanistan and the current war in Iraq were partly motivated by vote bank politics and perhaps the desire to spread democracy and freedom but incidentally also involved 25 % of the world's oil reserves. The common denominator in all these conflicts is, oil.

One key area is always forgotten or at least not mentioned. The Caspian Sea has been witness to power struggles since the days of the Great Game. In the sixteenth century, the English merchants Bannister and Duckett declared that the area was "a strange thing to behold, for there issueth out of the ground a marvellous quantity of oil… [and] another kind of oil which is very white and very precious, and it is called petroleum."
During the nineteenth century most of the European powers as well as Russia were intent on securing the oilfields. In 1920 the Bolsheviks secured Azerbaijani waters and a record amount of oil. Later, it was a priority on Hitler's list to control Baku, the capital of the world's black gold.

Surrounded by Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, the Caspian Sea is the holy grail of oil production. Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are countries where it is not viable for America to start a pipeline. The former, because of a historic power struggle and the latter, because geographically the pipeline will not be viable as it would have to come out through Afghanistan and then to a port in Pakistan.
Evidently, from America's foreign policy over the last fifty years, Afghanistan and Pakistan have been made very convenient buffer states. This leaves two options. One is to build a pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan (Turkey) and the second cheaper and safer option is to build a pipeline to the Persian Gulf.

Unfortunately for the Americans, even though the Kuwaitis are cooperating and Iraqis will cooperate, the Iranians are unrelenting in their refusal to bow down to the interests (and money) of American oil. The first option is not feasible unless Iran is controlled because it has borders in common with Azerbaijan and Turkey, and also because the pipeline will cost $ 1-$ 2 bn more than a line through Iran (Washington Report June 2001).
Iran has delayed American plans to monopolise the regions oil supplies for the last fifty years. It is short-sighted to deduce that America's persistent declaration of Iran as a terrorist state is because it perceives it to be a threat to the US's national security.

The consortium that wants control of the Caspian includes Exxon, BP, Chevron, Amoco and a host of other MNCs. Disturbingly, the current administration in America happens to have an ex-VP of Chevron Oil, Condoleezza Rice, former chairman of Halliburton, Dick Cheney and a former aide to Unocal, Zalmay Khalizad amongst others.
The aim of the new "Great Game" is to secure oil supplies for a country, which guzzles a quarter of all oil consumption in the world. The oil supply from the Middle East is not stable because of the lovechild of America and oil, terrorism.

The last two decades have seen the inception of various Indo-Iran projects. The Chah Bahar port project to improve the inflow of Indian Goods in Iran, the Tata-Iran joint steel production unit in the Persian gulf SEZ and a 25 year gas supply contract worth $ 18 bn are just some of the joint ventures of Iran and India.
The pipeline project through Iran, Pakistan and India can also serve as a pivotal factor in increasing our independence in global geo-political terms and can undermine the leverage that America has over the region at the moment. Rice tried to persuade India not to do the deal because of financial considerations when she visited Delhi in 2005.

America's posturing on Iran's nuclear programs is merely a trick to isolate it. By increasing multi-lateral agreements in South Asia and supporting mutual development we can ensure that our region is more secure and America has less leverage over our economic and foreign policies.
To this end, American diplomats in India have desperately tried to create an anti-Iranian lobby amongst some pliable Shias in India so that they can encourage pro-US domestic lobbies to support American action against Iran.