Full text of a reply to a letter to the editor by Neil Elliott by Michael Klare in the Dec. 24th issue of The Nation.
"I certainly agree with Neil Elliott on the significance of the U.S. alliance with Mohammhed Siad Barre of Somalia in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. On Afghanistan, however, I choose, to differ. The U.S. is very eager to tap into the oil and gas reserves of the Caspian Sea basin but, the top strategic priority for the U.S. has always been to build a pipeline from Kazakhistan & Turkmenistan across the Caspian to Baku in Azerbaijan and then on to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediteranean. The pipeline would make it easy to ship Caspian energy to Europe and the U.S. The proposed pipeline through Afghanistan to Pakistan might be of economic benefit to Unocal but, it has little strategic benefit to the U.S. So,I remain persuaded that the strategic epicenter of this war is Saudi Arabia , not Afghanistan."
Different pipeline, than the many who assert on right and left, that all this is to create the conditions necessary for the extraction of NRG for the benefit of ONE company. It would be like asserting that Arbenz was overthrown solely because the Dulles brothers owned lots of stock in United Fruit. Which they did, but, policy planners in the USG and those that implement on the ground those policies (remembering that imperialism is not a policy choice but, it has to be formulated with care so as to not just be the hammer for one company or sector.
For those wanting more of Klare, see his newest, "Resourse Wars, " and his first, "War Without End: American Planning for the next Vietnams, " Random House/Vintage circa 1972. A chapter was published last yr. in Foreign Affairs, the organ of the CFR. His brother Karl, co-edited a valuable anthology on Western Marxism for Basic Books in tghe early 70's, "The Unknown Dimension." Michael Pugliese