Twirp : Terrorist Wahabi Islamic Republic Pakistan 3

[Naresh]

<b>Iran gets Afghan transit trade</b>

<b>On Thursday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Indian Foreign Minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee opened a new road that will help link Afghanistan with the port of Chabahar in Iran and “challenge Pakistani dominance of trade routes into the landlocked country”. The 220km road in the southwest Afghan province of Nimroz is the culmination of the $1.1 billion Indian reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. Pakistan, if it remains wedded to its old strategy, is fated to be a loser.</b> <!--emo&tupid--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pakee.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pakee.gif' /><!--endemo-->

<b>The road, entirely funded by India with $15 million, runs from Delaram in Nimroz to Zaranj on the Iranian border, which connects to the Iranian port of Chabahar. The route is clearly intended as an alternative route if one looks at the concessions already offered at Chabahar. Afghan exporters will use the port with a 90 percent discount on port fees, a 50 percent discount on warehousing charges, and Afghan vehicles will be allowed full transit rights on the Iranian road system. <i>In consequence, Pakistan has already reduced some of its duties at Karachi port in anticipation.</i></b>

The tripartite deal was struck in 2003 and forms a part of Iran’s effort to become transit terrain for the states of Central Asia. And Chabahar has been built to separate European and Russian trade which is carried out at the Bandar Abbas port. Chabahar will also handle Indian goods heading for Afghanistan and Central Asia on the basis of concessions similar to the ones given to Afghanistan. This is a part of the change that came after 9/11, the failure of Pakistan’s policy of “strategic depth” in Afghanistan, and the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Pakistan was dominant in Afghanistan in the 1990s on the basis of the Taliban regime it nurtured, climaxed by the hijacking of an Indian airliner to Kandahar in 1999; but today Afghanistan’s neighbours plus India, adversely affected by the Taliban regime, call the shots there.

There is absolutely no reason for Islamabad or Rawalpindi to look at this development as a zero-sum game between India and Pakistan. Also, any strategic reversion to thinking about “depth” in Afghanistan should be abandoned even though some of us yearn for it when recommending the exit of NATO-ISAF forces from Afghanistan. Foreign forces must of course leave but the power vacuum left behind cannot be filled by Pakistan and its proxies exclusively but by the benign spirit of SAARC, of which Afghanistan is a member, while all the others concerned are members of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO), of which Pakistan is the pivot.

Pakistan has delayed deciding about allowing a trade route between India and Central Asia. Indeed, it has in general delayed comprehending its own geopolitical importance as a potential trading hub despite a lot of verbiage employed to that end by President Musharraf. It still thinks the better option would be to act as an obstacle; but this kind of thinking allows time and opportunity for other trade routes to spring up. Pakistan still remains the nearest transit land to the sea for Central Asia. But most of these Central Asian states and Russia fear Pakistan as a haven of Uzbek-Uighur-Chechen terrorists who could return to create havoc there.
Two flanking regional states are of pivotal importance to Pakistan : India and Iran. With both there are prospects of unlimited economic cooperation; and the institutional frameworks for such cooperation already exist. One expects the economic importance of Iran to grow after an Iranian gas pipeline is finalised between Tehran and Pakistan. With India, the prospects are good despite the current low point because Pakistan’s mainstream PMLN and the PPP are committed to normalising relations with New Delhi.

<b>But everything depends on whether Pakistan’s powerful military accepts and adjusts to this changed position or clings to its approach.*</b>

Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->