The Road That India Built

By Cernig

It's one of those things that goes unnoticed but transforms the strategic priorities of an entire region - India has just completed the construction of a major road link between Iran and Afghanistan.

The 220-km (135-mile) road in the southwest Afghan province of Nimroz is the centerpiece of New Delhi's $1.1 billion reconstruction effort, which has drawn sniping from Pakistan, worried about its rival's growing influence in Afghanistan.

"We are in the process of handing over the road to the Afghan government," said Ambassador Jayant Prasad in an interview, adding this was a project in which India had invested blood and treasure.

Ten workers have died in attacks, including seven this year, during the construction of the road from Delaram to Zaranj on the Iranian border which connects to the port of Chahbahar.

The road opens up an alternate access route into landlocked Afghanistan, which at the moment relies mostly on Pakistan with goods coming through from ports there and then overland via the Khyber pass.

More than $1.2 billion worth of goods were imported into Afghanistan through Pakistan last year.

New Delhi, denied access through Pakistan, itself hopes to be able to deliver goods to Afghanistan through the Iranian port, and this has triggered fears in Pakistan it is being encircled.

Just a road, but at a stroke it overwhelms Pakistan's stranglehold on regional trade with Afghanistan and the centuries-old strategic importance of the Khyber bottleneck. It's almost impossible to overstate how far-reaching a change that is for the region's geopolitical balance.

It confirms not just India's commitment to involvement with Afghan affairs - which infuriates Pakistan - but also shows India willing to engage with Iran in long-term trading ventures. (At a time when India has just received a waver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group that only restricts them selling on US technology to nations that nations that do not already have enrichment and reprocessing technologies, that might give Congress pause at it debates whether to ratify that deal.)

It potentially deprives Pakistan of millions of dollars in trade tariffs while boosting Iran's importance on the world stage as a trading partner - and gives an easy connection for the first time between the Persian Gulf and Kabul, which is certain to influence Arab thinking about Iran. Iran is already Iraq's major trading partner and other Gulf nations will now be looking at Iran as a useful port of entry to Afghanistan's market too. That will decrease American ability to get Arab nation's to go along with any saber-rattling against Iran even further than it has already dropped. And all so that India could stick a $1.1 billion knife in the trading and infuence policies of it's old rival - which gives some indication of how close the Cold War between those nations is to melting.

Just a road, but it changes so much.

With Pakistan's electorate and military getting more and more vocally opposed to the US-led "war on terror" - even going so far as to threaten retaliation for airstrikes that mistakenly killed civilians and temporarily shutting the Khyber pass to fuel supplies destined for US forces in Afghanistan - it's worth noting too that if the Bush administration had tried diplomacy instead of "Axis of Evil" tough talk in the wake of 9/11 then US troops might now have a viable alternate resupply link now too.

Comments

[Clive A.]

Today also brings another offering from the category of Indian Country geopolitical road initiatives.

Kashmiris Seek Trade Route to Pakistan
Hindus Blocked Off Road to New Delhi

SRINAGAR, India -- After Hindu protesters blocked the only road connecting predominantly Muslim Kashmir with the rest of India last month, Altaf Bukhari, like many business owners in this disputed Himalayan region, became convinced of the need for an alternative trade outlet.

The most logical solution to the impasse is reopening a historic road that was closed to trade when the Indian subcontinent was partitioned in 1947. Part of the ancient Silk Road connecting Europe with Asia, it winds from Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, to the bustling market town of Rawalpindi, in Pakistan, 100 miles away.

[Steve Hynd]

Heh, when infrastructure improvement is warfare by other means. Seems the pipeline wars are broadening to take in road and rail links too. And China is helping Pakistan update and enlarge its main port too.

Talk about 4GW.

Regards, C

[blt]

ISI to Taleban: "Blow it up. Shut it down."

Taleban: "Okie doke."