Iran versus Pakistan over Afghanistan?

Looking back at what I've typed, this is a little twisted- this is a new theory, something I started working on just tonight. Don't shoot if it's not perfect. I'll sumarize it in the broad strokes here at the top.
I think there is a chance that America is going to let Iran have a pass right now during the War on Terror so that Iran can go on to conquer Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan and at the same time be played against China in a risky bit of economic and geo-strategic chess. That's why we're rattling the saber at Syria when it's Iran that is building nukes.


I have been thinking about what the map will look like in a couple of decades, and I decided I needed to study history a little to decide what to expect in Afghanistan.
History has shown me something very interesting: Afghanistan can't be independent while landlocked.

Until this century, which is without doubt the darkest period of Afghan history, Afghanistan has always had access to the sea. Generally this was through a ruling power- The Persians mostly.
When Afghanistan rebelled against Persian attempts to convert them to Shia Islam, their borders extended from Mashad in the west to Kashmir and Delhi in the east, and from the Amu Darya (Oxus) River in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south.
Soon however Afghanistan found itself under British rule, with access to the sea via Pakistan/India.

There were always ports to support trade for Afghanistan and this always made Afghanistan important to Britain as a base in central asia against the Russians.

Afghanistan became independent and lost its sea access in 1919. It's economic problems began to mount between 1953 and 1963 when Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan tried to improve ties with the USSR at the expense of relations with Pakistan, which controls Afghanistan's access to the sea. This made Afghanistan useless to the West and left Afghanistan with no ports. The Soviets never did them any good, and that was all she wrote. Afghanistan went through 3 leaders in a single one-year period between 78-79, and next thing you know the Soviets were invading to try and calm things down.
After the Berlin Wall fell Afghanistan went on the back burner for the entire world. There was no need for influence over the Russians in central asia, there was no economy in Afghanistan; long story short Afghanistan remained independent because nobody wanted to preside over an anarchy-stricken pile of rocks on the doorstep of a crumbling Soviet Union.

Flash forward to 2001. America is drawn into a war with terrorists and ends up in control of Afghanistan. America has no interest in directly controlling Afghanistan, they just want a natural gas pipeline there to open they way for Turkmen export to Pakistani ports. Afghanistan itself is also capable of over 8.2 million cubic meters of natural gas production annually once its industry is brought back up to levels attained under Soviet influence.
Afghanistan is going to have money, but they depend on Pakistani ports to make that money. What's more, that natural gas is going primarily to India, who Pakistan might not always want to trade with.
The stage is set for Pakistan to have economic disputes with Afghanistan and Turkmeinistan in the distant future.

So where does America figure into all of this? America wants the gas, we want influence around the former Soviet Union and around Iran, and we want a strong India on China's doorstep. We've got every reason to be thinking about how to get one stable entity in control of everything from the Caspian Sea to Karachi.

How in the heck could America possibly get a solid grip on that area on terms acceptable to their pro-India, anti-China agenda? The best bet is Iran, and happily enough, that's a nation with a historical claim to Afghanistan.

Over time, the pipeline will bring prosperity to Turkmeinistan and Afghanistan. These nations will become profitable for trade- they'll have fuel to give and that will give them money to buy Indian goods. They'll also need to defend all this great stuff against Russia and China, and that means strategic partnership with America and arms deals as well.
China can not be expected to like the idea of a prosperous India and American allies not far from their East border. China will want to play Pakistan and India against eachother to damage the Indian economy, turn Afghan and Turkmen muslims against India, and ultimately result in the gas flow stopping and America leaving.
America will not want Pakistan making problems. If America can get Iran and Pakistan into it they'll kill 3 birds with one stone. 1. They'll take Iran out of the Chinese camp. 2. They'll take Pakistan out of the Chinese camp. 3. They'll permanently secure their natural-gas racket and military alliances in central asia.

The tricky part of this scenario is actually getting Iran to attack. Iran must be tempted to take Turkmeinistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan so that these as well as Iran can all in turn be re-taken by America.
The two best flashpoints I can think of are disputes over rights in the Caspian Sea to start a war with Turkmeinistan or the Sunni versus Shia thing to bring direct tensions between Iran and Pakistan.

Anyway, it's getting late. I know this isn't nearly as good as other strategic scenarios I've presented, but its new. Talk to me about it a little and let me think about it a little and see if something brilliant doesn't evolve.

"You have voted The Vagabond for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month."


Very nice!!! So how ling have you worked at the Pentagon?


I think maybe the US may figure a way to use Isreal to spark a conflict?

OK, I thought about it for a while, and I was a little offbase to start with. There is no using Iran or Pakistan as pawns. Iran is too heavily against us and Pakistan is dedicated to playing the middle.

India is our angle. India is strategically hemmed in by Pakistan and China. They can't compete with China in the long term with their present size and resources and they can't expand without duking it out with Pakistan while holding off China. If they want to be players they're gonna have to choose a side- and it's with the West. Everyone get your pencils out, class is in session.

The key components, as stated earlier, are as follows; Caspian Sea natural gas and Afghan mineral deposits are the prize. this is a colonial frontier that was basically missed because historical events interrupted before Britain could exploit them, and then the era of Old Colonialism ended.
The key players are Pakistan, Iran, and Russia. These nations surround and control access the resources in question. All have ties to China which may or may not have future ambitions for that region and certainly does not benefit from India reaping the benefits of that region in the meantime.

The likely aggressors are America, Britain, and most directly, India. Australian influence is less likely but could be prompted if China gains greater strategic power in the Pacific, especially via Indonesia.
The goal of the aggressors is to subdue the Iranian threat to those resources and secure passage for those resources through Pakistan, leaving no possibility of that being cut off in the event of conflict.

It plays out like this:
America provokes Iran into a war and occupies Iran. America continues to develop Caspian Sea gas resources from Iran, Turkmeinistan, and Azerbaijan, shipping them through Afghanistan to Pakistan and out to India.
America supports terrorism in Kashmir and secretly blames Pakistani Intelligence in reports to India and encourages them to undertake a war on Pakistan. American intelligence and arms deals provide India with the means to preemptively destroy all pakistani nuclear weapons.
India conquers Pakistan in a quick bloody war made possible by American intelligence help to facilitate first strikes and Pakistan's dependence on its now destroyed deterrent.
America and Britain laughably target China with the same arguements they ignored when going into Iraq, but the threat of war with America keeps China from unilaterally attacking India. China imposes heavy sanctions on all nations involved- this is the escalation of a very intense cold war between America and China.

Outcome: America controls half of the Caspian Sea and for the moment can exploit the fuel there while the Russians can not. America controls the export routes both for this as well as all persian gulf fuel via their control of Iran and Pakistan.
India has gained client states in the form of American occupied Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran.
There are high probabilities of reactionary wars as follows.
1 Russian-sponsored Khazakstan versus Turkmeinistan.
2 Russian invasion of Georgia and Azerbaijan.
3 Chinese/Russian sponsored rebellions in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan.
4 Unopposed Chinese invasion of Northern Pakistan with the goal of controlling one side of "Hindu Kush", a pass which would grant China access to Afghanistan and increase China's strategic potency as a threat to the that region.
5 Russian attempts to regain control of Uzbekistan, Kygyzstan, and Tajikistan.

[edit on 14-1-2005 by The Vagabond]

Its a good story. Not very realistic, but a good story none the less.

Originally posted by Sep
Its a good story. Not very realistic, but a good story none the less.

If I may press you, what about it do you feel is unlikely to happen. It seems to me that the economic and strategic interests are there and therefore the temptation to take action is as well.

It may seem alarmist, but historically there is a precedent for the development of new economies to lead to complex politics and wars. Look at the colonization of the New World.

1. Pakistan's current leader is friendly with our current U.S. administration, even though his people may not like it. India won't invade china.

2. The World would never approve sanctions on china, even if china invaded parts of Khasmir, because the world loves China, Russia, France, Germany, Syria, Iran and the Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

3. Nobody's intelligence is skilled enough to pull off a successful location of all nuclear sites to initiate a pre-emptive strike. Maybe if we had the cloaking device from Battlestar Galactica.....

Originally posted by RedPhoenixDelta
1. Pakistan's current leader is friendly with our current U.S. administration, even though his people may not like it. India won't invade china.

2. The World would never approve sanctions on china, even if china invaded parts of Khasmir, because the world loves China, Russia, France, Germany, Syria, Iran and the Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

3. Nobody's intelligence is skilled enough to pull off a successful location of all nuclear sites to initiate a pre-emptive strike. Maybe if we had the cloaking device from Battlestar Galactica.....

I've obviously been heavily misunderstood here. I edited my post for some clarification.

1. I never said India will invade China. I expect India to invade Pakistan eventually.

2. It's not about Pakistan being friendly to America, it's about Pakistan being friendly to China and hostile to India. America needs sea access for Afghanistan and this can't be contingent on pleasantries between India and Pakistan because India is our proxy for opposing China.

3. China won't be the one getting sanctions. China will impose sanctions on America and India for this, and much of the UN may follow suit.

4. The Pakistani nuclear program isn't that large, they aren't equipped to deal with our satellites, we have a pretext for operating UAVs over part of their country because we are helping hunt terrorists in Waziristan, and last but not least they think we're friends. It is highly likely that we could enable India to take out much of their deterrent to the extent that THAAD could limit their retaliation to acceptable losses, especially if a cruise missile nuclear strike by India could be stealthily was undertaken first to destroy Pakistani nuclear capabilities.

1. I never said India will invade China. I expect India to invade Pakistan eventually.

Yeah, I meant India won't invade Pakistan.

Thanks for updating, all all confused me with the sanction part.

China won't impose sanctions because without their exports added to their population problems, they would crumble.

Originally posted by RedPhoenixDelta

1. I never said India will invade China. I expect India to invade Pakistan eventually.

Yeah, I meant India won't invade Pakistan.

Thanks for updating, all all confused me with the sanction part.

China won't impose sanctions because without their exports added to their population problems, they would crumble.

The catch here is that China is darned if they do, freaked if they don't. If America successfully props up a major South Asian economy between the Caspian Sea region and India that is going to cause Indian exports to start edging out Chinese ones in the US economy, not to mention heralding the move of US industry out of China. China will need to crush India and put America in their place if they see any danger of this strategy panning out.

This means that China will want to pack a Pakistani-Indian war almost as bad as America does. Besides, such a war would tie America's attention up and give China carte blanche to squash Taiwan.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
If I may press you, what about it do you feel is unlikely to happen. It seems to me that the economic and strategic interests are there and therefore the temptation to take action is as well.

It may seem alarmist, but historically there is a precedent for the development of new economies to lead to complex politics and wars. Look at the colonization of the New World.

First, "America provokes Iran into a war and occupies Iran." Thats going to be very hard. I dont want to complicate the thread but invading and staying and exploiting Irans natural reasources are going to be very difficult and costly. The world is not going to accept an invasion of Iran lightly. Russia, China, Europe all have intrests in Iran that they dont want destroyed.

Second, "America continues to develop Caspian Sea gas resources from Iran, Turkmeinistan, and Azerbaijan, shipping them through Afghanistan to Pakistan and out to India. "

Russia is not going to take this lightly. I dont think any gas has been taken out of the caspian because of territorial arguments and Russia isnt going to back down easily.

Third, "America supports terrorism in Kashmir and secretly blames Pakistani Intelligence in reports to India and encourages them to undertake a war on Pakistan. American intelligence and arms deals provide India with the means to preemptively destroy all pakistani nuclear weapons."

It is not going to be easy locating all of the nukes in Pakistan. And they can not be taken out quickly enough. If it was that easy, America itself would have taken out the nukes.

Fourth, "India conquers Pakistan in a quick bloody war made possible by American intelligence help to facilitate first strikes and Pakistan's dependence on its now destroyed deterrent. "

Again, not that easy. Pakistan cannot be controlled after being conqured. Too many tribesmen, guns, terrorist around. Controlling Pakistan would be close to impossible.

Fifth, "America and Britain laughably target China with the same arguements they ignored when going into Iraq, but the threat of war with America keeps China from unilaterally attacking India. China imposes heavy sanctions on all nations involved- this is the escalation of a very intense cold war between America and China."

The US cannot fight a war with China. Both sides are too strong, so a war will be imposible. And if China puts sanctions on the US, both sides will go down. This will be stupid from both sides point of view, and I simply cannot see it happening. And remember the US has invaded Iran and is trying to control it. Do you think the US has enough money to finance a war with Iran and China and support India? I dont and the Chinese will know this so a threat of war will obviously be an empty one and will not stop them from going to war.


This is my opinion, sorry if it is an ignorant opinion, I dont have much knowledge when it comes to economies, militaries, etc...

Originally posted by Sep
First, "America provokes Iran into a war and occupies Iran." Thats going to be very hard. I dont want to complicate the thread but invading and staying and exploiting Irans natural reasources are going to be very difficult and costly. The world is not going to accept an invasion of Iran lightly. Russia, China, Europe all have intrests in Iran that they dont want destroyed.

The world wasn't going to tollerate Iraq either. Russia is the only power in much danger of fighting us over Iran, and Russia isn't ready for us just yet. They can throw one hell of a fit- maybe they'll take military action against Turkey for supporting Chechens or sell WMD to Cuba. I really doubt they'll go to the mat with us though, and if they do they'll lose unless it goes nuclear. Besides, this is just the sort of fuel Putin needs to militarize and start trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union.
They'll hope to delay us and complicate matters so that we strangle to death on economic problems as the Chinese and Indian economies grow. A lot of people think America won't be able to keep this up after 2020 or 2025, so there isn't too much incentive to fight and go down with us.

Second, "America continues to develop Caspian Sea gas resources from Iran, Turkmeinistan, and Azerbaijan, shipping them through Afghanistan to Pakistan and out to India. "

Russia is not going to take this lightly. I dont think any gas has been taken out of the caspian because of territorial arguments and Russia isnt going to back down easily.

Why do you think we invaded Afghanistan if it wasn't to get Unocal's pipeline built, and why do you think we're trying to get Georgia and Azerbaijan into NATO? We mean to cut Russia's economic balls off over there, and if they don't pull something out of their hat we'll do it. Russia needs to whack Georgia and Azerbaijan pronto, improve it's intelligence capabilities in Afghanistan to that they can support rebellion and hinder the pipeline, last but not least they need to get back their former republics in central Asia. This is why I suggested a Russian-sponsored scrap between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan might be engineered, although I admit i'm not too familiar with the politics of former soviet states ending in "stan".

Third, "America supports terrorism in Kashmir and secretly blames Pakistani Intelligence in reports to India and encourages them to undertake a war on Pakistan. American intelligence and arms deals provide India with the means to preemptively destroy all pakistani nuclear weapons."

It is not going to be easy locating all of the nukes in Pakistan. And they can not be taken out quickly enough. If it was that easy, America itself would have taken out the nukes.

I doubt it. They got those things on Clinton's watch and were involved in a standoff with India. First strikes can definately whittle down Pakistan's deterrent, especially with cruise missiles which can be fired from virtually any platform anywhere and be kept nice and low and hard to detect. The warning could very well be only minutes before large quanities of the Pakistani deterrent went up in a flash of light.

Fourth, "India conquers Pakistan in a quick bloody war made possible by American intelligence help to facilitate first strikes and Pakistan's dependence on its now destroyed deterrent. "

Again, not that easy. Pakistan cannot be controlled after being conqured. Too many tribesmen, guns, terrorist around. Controlling Pakistan would be close to impossible.

This, I will admit, was a "best case scenario". You have to remember that th typical occupation isn't like America's in Iraq. If you aren't interested in protecting the people or controlling their day to day lives you can get away with quite a bit. You roll in, crush the military, secure only the things you need and secure them well... evacuate cities if need be.
The greatest danger in this war would be that Pakistan sees it coming, or that China beats us to the punch by helping Pakistan go to war with India, although this is unlikely as long as India plays nice with China. If Pakistan initiated hostilities or was at least ready to fight and had decent intelligence, technical, and logistical support from an ally they could make this a longer and less decisive war.

Fifth, "America and Britain laughably target China with the same arguements they ignored when going into Iraq, but the threat of war with America keeps China from unilaterally attacking India. China imposes heavy sanctions on all nations involved- this is the escalation of a very intense cold war between America and China."

The US cannot fight a war with China. Both sides are too strong, so a war will be imposible. And if China puts sanctions on the US, both sides will go down. This will be stupid from both sides point of view, and I simply cannot see it happening. And remember the US has invaded Iran and is trying to control it. Do you think the US has enough money to finance a war with Iran and China and support India? I dont and the Chinese will know this so a threat of war will obviously be an empty one and will not stop them from going to war.

Well, America isn't going to do all of this just because it sounds fun. This isn't one of my computer games. When I toss out a scenario like this it is generally contingent on motivation for the aggressor being taken forgranted. If it helps to suspend disbelief we could propose that maybe America's motivation would be the belief that Asian hegemony was the only way to remain economically competitive in this century. Better to go down fighting that see your empire crumble, right?
America can contain China on favorable terrain. We can't invade them, but we can keep them on their side of the Himalayas if we are starting the war with most of our troops already deployed in Southern Asia under the guise of occupation missions. That's all it would take to be sure they don't butt into the affiars of our Indian puppets (that's a hypothetical, they aren't our puppets right now). With the Iranian military crushed we would be able to simply keep "no go zones" free of Iranian insurgents with a small force, as long as we didn't get over ambitious about what we wanted to secure, so that shouldn't be too much of a drain.

This is my opinion, sorry if it is an ignorant opinion, I dont have much knowledge when it comes to economies, militaries, etc...

You haven't come across as ignorant at all. I'm the first to admit that for all my understanding of general principles I am not as well informed on the numbers as I should be.
The disclaimer on a thread like this one- especially this one- is that I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm saying that hypothetically if something bad were going to happen in relation to this or that current event, these are the probable scenarios. This one in particular reaches much further with its assumptions than most which I have indulged in. This one pretty much assumes an all out return to the politics of the 19th century.

You know NATO is in charge of Afghanistan. The western world already has control of the country. Not in the most secure way but it is under their authority. They have all the time they need to figure out what they need to do and how to accomplish it peacefully. Please stop forgetting that this is a new century. We don't just start popping up wars all over the place between nuclear powers. Wars cost more than peace, it isnt economically sound.

As far as Pakistan thinking the U.S. is their ally, I am inclined to think it is the other way around. You must be ignorant to believe any Muslim nation, even Pakistan would trust the U.S. and just pretend they are never plotting anything against them.

As far as your war scenarios go, you make it seem like the countries that need to be occupied in question will just not see it coming and fall quickly. India launchign a First strike on their nuke facilites? You serious? Pakistan would have their nukes in the air in minutes when they realize this blasphemy against humanity by India.

Why don't the general population stop thinking about wars for non-renewable resources and concentrate our thinking power on alternative solutions so that we wouldn't even have to think about scenarios like these?

Originally posted by DYepes
You know NATO is in charge of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan isn't everything. Afghanistan has no independent access to the sea which undermines America's control over the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan.

Wars cost more than peace, it isnt economically sound.

But sometimes you have to spend money to make money. No energy= no economy. If we find ourselves needing to switch off of the fossil fuel economy we are going to need even more energy while we are making the switch, so we need abundant cheep fuel.

You must be ignorant to believe any Muslim nation, even Pakistan would trust the U.S. and just pretend they are never plotting anything against them.

Call me ignorant again and we're gonna trade momma jokes.
I read more than any 3 sane people should- ignorant isn't the term that comes to mind.
Don't take an oversimplified view of my statements. Strategically thinking Pakistan must know that they are a natural ally for the controllers of Afghanistan, and they know we have interests in their nation. They have every reason to suspect that we will mind our manners with them. They would probably not expect us to react so badly to their relationship with China that we would take such an elaborate plot against them.

As far as your war scenarios go, you make it seem like the countries that need to be occupied in question will just not see it coming and fall quickly. India launchign a First strike on their nuke facilites? You serious? Pakistan would have their nukes in the air in minutes when they realize this blasphemy against humanity by India.

Let me see if I can explain this any better than I already have- a close-range cruise missile strike gives almost no warning period for Pakistan to get its missiles up and fired. Even if Pakistan did get shots off they would not have their full arsenal, which means that we start talking in terms of how much THAAD can stop and acceptable losses.

Why don't the general population stop thinking about wars for non-renewable resources and concentrate our thinking power on alternative solutions so that we wouldn't even have to think about scenarios like these?

Probably because the transition off of fossil fuels requires a great deal of fossil fuels to manufacture all of the new equipment and infrastructure. If Peak Oil is real and the oil economy is getting ready to start collapsing, war for oil and gas resources is almost unavoidable.
Not only that but you have to remember that national interests in certain countries are being compromised by individual interests. A war that isn't necessarily good for everyone could be undertaken because it was good for a few. This would open up many new and interesting scenarios with varying degrees of remote possibility. Just imagine where this discussion would lead if we hypothesized that the NWO needs a world war which culminates in the depopulation of 3rd world nations and the radical re-organization of 1st world societies?

I agree with most of it.

But here's one part that stands out to me.

Coercing India into a war with Pakistan is going to be a monumental task.
Pakistani terrorists attacked the Indian Parliament and we still didn't go to war with them. The Pakis occupied Kargil and we drove them out without ever crossing the International Boundary.

Pak sponsored terrorism in Kashmir is taken as a fact by India but India has not attacked them for almost two decades now.

In fact India has never attacked another country ever. Not in the 50 years since independence, neither before British Rule when India was really powerful. India is just too peace-loving to be coerced into a war.

I mean, give us a calculator and we'll do your taxes for 80 dollars an hour, but going to War??

That's going to be the tough part. It would take a tragedy of humongous proportions to force India into a war with Pak.

The reverse scenario would be easier though. Coerce Pakistan to attack India and then Help India wipe them out.