Pakistan 'punished' in Pipelineistan

[Jefferson23]

Before the end of 2011, Pakistan will start working on its stretch of the IP (Iran-Pakistan) gas pipeline - according to Asim Hussain, Pakistan's federal minister for petroleum and natural resources. The 1,092 kilometers of pipeline on the Iranian side are already in place.

IP, also known as "the peace pipeline", was originally IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India). Although it badly needs gas for its economic expansion, faced with immense pressure by the George W Bush - and then Barack Obama - administrations, India still has not committed to the project, even after a nearly miraculous agreement for its construction was initialed in 2008.

More than 740 million cubic feet of gas per year will start flowing to Pakistan from Iran's giant South Pars field in the Persian Gulf by 2014. This is an immense development in the Pipelineistan "wars" in Eurasia. IP is a major node in the much-vaunted Asian Energy Security Grid - the progressive energy integration of Southwest, South, Central and East Asia that is the ultimate mantra for Eurasian players as diverse as Iran, China, India and the Central Asian "stans".

Pakistan is an energy-poor, desperate customer of the grid. Becoming an energy transit country is Pakistan's once-in-a-lifetime chance to transition from a near-failed state into an "energy corridor" to Asia and, why not, global markets.

And as pipelines function as an umbilical cord, the heart of the matter is that IP, and maybe IPI in the future, will do more than any form of US "aid" (or outright interference) to stabilize the Pakistan half of Obama's AfPak theater of operations, and even possibly relieve it of its India obsession.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MG13Df03.html