Slouching towards balkanization

Happy Days are here again. It’s as if the George W Bush years in Afghanistan had never left, with Washington still wallowing in an intelligence-free environment. A surge is coming to town – just like the one General David Petraeus engineered in Iraq. A Bush proconsul (Zalmay Khalilzad) wants to run the show – again. A hardliner (General Stanley McChrystal) is getting ready to terrorize any Pashtun in sight. A new mega-base is sprouting in the “desert of death” in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. And as in Bush time, no one’s talking pipeline, or the (invisible) greatest regional prize: Pakistani Balochistan.

Bush’s “global war on terror” (GWOT) may have been rebranded, under new management, “overseas contingency operation” (OCO). But history in Afghanistan continues to repeat

itself as farce – or as an opium bad trip.
What is now Balochistan and Sind in Pakistan was conquered centuries ago by the Balochi Rind tribe. They never submitted to the British. During the Ronald Reagan 1980s, Balochis tried – in secret – to strike a deal with the US for an independent Balochistan in return for the US controlling regional Pipelineistan. Washington procrastinated. Balochis took it very badly. Some decided to go underground or go for armed struggle. Islamabad still doesn’t get it. Washington may.

If the Pashtunwali – the ancestral Pashtun code – is still king (don’t threaten them, don’t attack them, don’t mislead them, don’t dishonor them, or revenge is inevitable), Balochis can be even more fearsome. Balochis as a whole have never been conquered. These are warriors of ancestral fame. If you think Pashtuns are tough, better not pick a fight with a Balochi. Even Pashtuns are terrified of them.

The geopolitical secret is not to antagonize but to court them, and offer them total autonomy. In an evolving strategy of balkanization of Pakistan – increasingly popular in quite a few Washington foreign policy circles – Balochistan has very attractive assets: natural wealth, scarce population, and a port, Gwadar, which is key for Washington’s New Great Game in Eurasia Pipelineistan plans.

And it’s not only oil and gas. Reko Diq (literally “sandy peak”) is a small town in the deserted Chaghi district, 70 kilometers northwest of already remote Nok Kundi, near the Iran and Afghanistan borders. Reko Diq is the home of the world’s largest gold and copper reserves, reportedly worth more than US$65 billion. According to the Pakistani daily Dawn, these reserves are believed to be even bigger than similar ones in Iran and Chile.

Asia Times