http://atimes.com/c-asia/DE29Ag02.html

WASHINGTON - Washington's approval of more than US$1.4 billion for the economic recovery of barren and battle-scarred Afghanistan provides the Bush administration with possible insurance for deepening its petro-political sphere of influence along Russia's borders in the form of a revived Trans-Afghan pipeline.

No one disputes that America is critically in need of alternative sources of oil from outside the politically volatile Middle East. This is particularly true since Iraq's Saddam Hussein recently, albeit temporarily, halted his country's oil exports to the US. With Iran and Libyan leaders also supporting the idea of renewing the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the White House has no intention of standing idly by as frustrated Americans fight long lines and higher prices at the pump.

Since the early 1990s, three countries around the Caspian Sea - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan - have yielded a vast reserve of oil and gas. Because all three are landlocked, however, control over their billions of dollars worth of oil and gas depends on the security and economic influence of the pipelines. For keen Washington energy analysts, the recent deployment of US special operations forces to the state of Georgia can only help enforce a Washington pipeline policy aimed at neutralizing Russian influence in oil-rich Central Asia.