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The New Route Plus Iranian Jet Fuel Supply To Afghanistan
Kyrgyzstan handed the U.S. the eviction note for its airbase in Manas. U.S. activities there will have to close down within 180 days.
The base was important as a relay for troops going to and coming from Afghanistan. Big jets could land there and smaller jets took the troops to their forward bases. Another important function of the base was the refueling of jets flying over Afghanistan by tanker airplanes out of Manas. There is no obvious other base that could fulfill that function.
But there is also good new – mostly for Russia – with a new land supply line activated today from the Baltic Sea to Afghanistan that could replace, at least in part, the endangered supply line through Pakistan. The first train with 100 containers of non-military supplies for U.S. troops in Afghanistan left Riga, Latvia, today. It will travel through Russia and Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan.
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If the route is working as planed there will be some 20 to 30 trains per week. At an average 14 metric tons per 20 foot container that will be up to 6,000 tons in supply in some 430 containers per day. A new agreement with Tajikistan will allow for some 30 containers per day to go from Uzbekistan through Tajikistan and over a U.S. built bridge into Afghanistan.
There is no railway system in Afghanistan and the rail route from Latvia ends at Hayratan right behind the friendship bridge that connects Termez in Uzbekistan with Afghanistan. There the 400 containers per day will have to be put onto trucks to be driven over the Hindukush down to Balad Bagram Airbase near Kabul and further south to Kandahar for further distribution.
This is the original supply line the Soviets used when they got stuck in Afghanistan. The Russians build a tunnel at 3,400 m height under the Salang pass to cross the Hindukush and connect north Afghanistan with Kabul and the south:
The tunnel represents the major north-south connection in Afghanistan, cutting travel from 72 hours to 10 hours and saving about 300 km. It reaches an altitude of about 3,400 m and is 2.6 km long. The width and height of the tunnel tube are 7 m. About 1000 vehicles pass through the tunnel daily.
When the new route is establish another 400 vehicles in each direction will have to pass through the tunnel per day, nearly doubling the traffic. When the Soviet supply ran through there, the Salang route was under constant attack by the Mujaheddin.
I expect the same to happen when the majority of goods will pass through the new supply route.
Costs to resupply in Afghanistan are already immense. To keep a brigade in Afghanistan costs twice as much than to keep one in Iraq. On wonders how much of this luxury is sustainable. To bring in supply by air costs $14,000 per ton. For the new railway supply line the costs per ton are expected to be $300 to $500.
We will see if that price is correct. The countries the trains pass through see the wares as pure commercial goods. Thereby the usual custom procedures and tariffs will apply. The trains will stop here and there for various reasons and are not guarded. Pilfering by the local bandits and mafias will occur and the loss rate will likely be high.
The 'western' forces in Afghanistan also need some 3,000 tons of fuel and 250 tons of drinking water per day. With additional U.S. troops arriving those numbers will increase. Most of the diesel fuel comes from Pakistan but curiously some 10,000 tons of jet fuel per month is now said to come from Iran!
Pakistan is exporting about 50 per cent more diesel a month to Afghanistan to 100,000 tons from June to September versus the usual monthly volumes to help in reconstruction works.
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But Pakistan has suspended jet fuel exports to Afghanistan since June 25.
“The suspension is indefinite. Afghanistan is drawing jet fuel supplies from Iran,” [the Karachi-based source, who asked not to be named] added.
Pakistan used to send 10,000 tons of jet fuel to Afghanistan every month.
As the supply situation in Pakistan becomes more dire another source for diesel supply will be a major issue. Iran has a good chance to get into some profitable business by offering to supply it. That offer is too good to get refused.
With a veto over vital supply for U.S. forces in Afghanistan Iran, like Russia, would than have a nice ability to politically squeeze the U.S. whenever it needs to.
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earlier coverage of Afghanistan logistics at MoA:
The Pink Route To Afghanistan, Feb 3, 2009
The Costly New Supply Route To Afghanistan, Jan 26, 2009
New Supply Routes To Afghanistan, Nov 19, 2008
Fuel for War in Afghanistan Aug 20, 2008
The Road War in Afghanistan Aug 16, 2008
Fuel Tanker Attacks in Afghanistan Mar 24, 2008
@Parviz The problem for you is that a genuine rapprochement between Iran and the U.S. would represent a victory for Capitalism and a defeat for Socialism and political Non-Alignment, as you firmly believe the U.S. Empire is not in decline but actually growing in strength and that, as a result, Iran will be enslaved and unable to represent “The Oppressed” any longer. In doing so, you ignore America’s global unpopularity, its unprecedented economic weakness, the fraudulence of “Shock and Awe”, the lightening growth of alternative economic and political axes that didn’t exist barely a decade ago and, finally, the widespread acknowledgment of U.S. foreign policy as entirely self-defeating.
Since that statement contradicts just about everything I have ever written about the amerikan empire I would be interested to know exactly what you are basing those statements on.
Why is that you always resort to ad hominem attacks on posters you disagree with rather than dealing with their arguments? Could it be your points are weak influenced as they are by personal involvement? Rather ironic really since you keep accusing me of only seeing what I want to see, when it is you that is dreaming of a world that doesn’t exist.
I didn’t call you a capitalist tool I did ask if that was where your sympathies lay since you were an advocate of the neo-liberal capitalist model which amerika brings to client states, and that class of person is the only type that usually benefits from such arrangements. Equally you could be misguided, I don’t know and don’t particularly care Parviz. I do know that if Iran tries to deal with amerika before Iran is stronger and amerika is much weaker, a lot more Iranians will suffer than otherwise would.
I have no idea whether Iran has nuclear weaponry is trying to build it or not, but I do know that the acquisition of nuclear arms is the only thing likely to save them in the short run. It annoys me and deeply saddens me to say that but the reality of the world we live in is only those nations which have nuclear weapons are accorded the rights of a sovereign nation. However perhaps that will change. Pakistan doesn’t have a delivery system which can get its warheads close to any people that matter in the eyes of the west’s leaders so Pakistan is not inviolate, perhaps not even nuclear weapons can prevent the inevitable showdown between Iran and the amerikan empire. Although Israel could be hit by Iran, maybe amerika will just hire Raytheon to spend a few billion dollars on a boondoggle meant to stop the Iranian rockets like they did last time.
Whatever happens until amerika gets much weaker, as it will, I have no doubt about that, and I don’t know where you get the idea I imagine it won’t, the notion of Iran being able to deal with amerika on some sort of reciprocal basis and be treated fairly and honestly is just plain silly.
Nations don’t have feelings, they have interests. You and I can be as pissed about that as we want to be but that is the fact of the matter Parviz and any attempt by Iran to give aid to amerika won’t be received with gratitude, it will be played in an effort to destabilise the government that tried to be friendly.
As I have said so many times before, the only regime that amerika won’t spit in the face of is a client, puppet regime, it shits on those in order to save spittle for ‘real opponents’.
Amerika’s whole economic strategy going forward has been based upon Iran being a plaything. It has been that way since the 1940’s and will not change until major changes occur within amerika and in amerika’s relations with the rest of the world. Every move amerika has made in the ME in the last 20 years has been as part of a long term plan to get Iran back. From supporting Saddam in the Iran/Iraq war, maybe even planting the seed in Saddam’s head, that was a first attempt when the amerikans foolishly thought they could get back in easy using someone else’s cannon fodder. Then offering Iraq Kuwait then denying the offer, as an excuse to go to war with Iraq was the next phase. The long term way that amerika approched the Iraq invasion gives an idea of the scope of this strategy, but as you alluded to Parviz, amerika is weakening so maybe the timelines are out of kilter, but even so amerika is nowhere near weak enough yet for a regional power such as Iran to be able to face down, with or without nuclear weapons.
The nuclear weapons may prevent an invasion, which is what the next step in the plan is meant to be. Of course amerika pretends that nuclear weapons would cause an invasion, but since amerika is not in a condition to invade at the moment, manufacturing as many termo-nuclear devices as possible in a short time frame, seems to be the smart thing for Iran to do.
If amerika manages to rebound from it’s seeming death cycle, Iran will be slowly strangled with sanctions until amerika believes it weak enough, imagines the time is right politically ie some new distraction will make their masses forget the Iraq mess, and has created a suitable provocation. Probably by cranking up a minority to commit an atrocity then remonstrating with Iran for punishing the terrorists.
I hope it never comes to that but unfortunately, that determination is largely outside the power of Iran to effect. Any attempts at rapprochement will either be turned against Iran or be ignored. Remember the way that Iraq’s information minister, the bloke who rushed about trying to prove a negative, that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, was regarded by western media? They played him as a joke and his message never got out.
You don’t write much about the amerikan special forces terror attacks into Iran Parviz? Are they too remote from Tehran?
Iran is between a rock and a hard place it is no fun living under the mullahs, but any alternative would have been crushed by amerika years ago, only Iranians can know whether they prefer life under the current mob to life back as an amerikan puppet but the fact that you have a choice and can state your preference should tell you something Parviz. There are many people living in other parts of the ME, parts which are ruled by amerikan puppets where spruiking for a change of government wouldn’t be wise. What did happen to poor Riverbend?
Back to the point. Arguing for a return to amerikan slavery or sticking with the current mob are the only real alternatives on offer at the moment. Anything else is illusory as amerika is nowhere near weak enough yet to accept an independent Iran, and arguing that a third way is possible is either foolish or duplicitous.
Be angry at me if you must Parviz but that won’t change the sad reality that living in a world dominated by one ‘superpower’ is.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 21 2009 20:17 utc | 33
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