Yale University Press NEW HAVEN & 9 780300"089028 - Sito Mistero

164 TALIBANwith the Taliban. Bridas was a small family company whose executives,brought up in the European tradition, were interested in the politics,culture, history and the personal relations of where and with whom theywere dealing. Bridas executives were knowledgeable about all the convolutionsof the Game and they took the trouble to explore the ethnic,tribal and family linkages of the leaders they were meeting.Unocal was a huge corporation which hired executives to run its globaloil business. Those sent out to the region were, with a few exceptions,interested in the job rather than the political environment they wereliving in. While Bridas engineers would spend hours sipping tea withAfghan tribesmen in the desert as they explored routes, Unocal would flyin and out and take for granted what they were told by the notoriouslyfickle Afghan warlords. Afghans had long ago mastered the art of tellingan interlocuter what he wanted to hear and then saying exactly the oppositeto their next guest. Unocal was also at a disadvantage because itspolicy towards the Taliban did not deviate from the US line and consequentlyUnocal lectured the Taliban on what they should be doing.Bridas had no such compunctions and was ready to sign a deal with theTaliban, even though they were not recognized as the legitimate governmentby any state.Unocal tended to depend more on the US Embassy in Islamabad, andPakistani and Turkmen intelligence for information on what was happeningor about to happen, rather than gathering their own information. Asmy stories were published on the Bridas-Unocal rivalry and the twistsand turns of the new Great Game, both companies at first thought I wasa spy, secretly working for the other company. Unocal persisted in thisbelief even after Bridas had realized that I was just a very curious journalistwho had covered Afghanistan far too long to be satisfied with bland statements.It took me seven months of travelling, over one hundred interviewsand total immersion in the literature of the oil business — of which1 knew nothing - to eventually write the cover story for the Far EasternEconomic Review which appeared in April 1997.In July 1997 Strobe Talbott gave a speech that was to become thebenchmark for US policy in the region. 'It has been fashionable to proclaim,or at least to predict, a replay of the "Great Game" in the Caucasusand Central Asia. The implication, of course, is that the driving dynamicof the region, fuelled and lubricated by oil, will be the competition of thegreat powers. Our goal is to avoid, and actively to discourage, that atavisticoutcome. Let's leave Rudyard Kipling and George McDonald Fraserwhere they belong - on the shelves of history. The Great Game whichstarred Kipling's Kim and Fraser's Flashman was very much of the zerosumvariety.'But Talbott also knew the Game was on and issued a grim warning toROMANCING THE TALIBAN 1 ~ 165its players, even as he declared that Washington's top priority was conflictresolution. 'If internal and cross-border conflicts simmer and flare, theregion could become a breeding ground of terrorism, a hotbed of religiousand political extremism and a battleground for outright war.' 16On the ground, Niyazov's decision to sign with Unocal infuriatedBulgheroni. In February 1996 he moved to the courts, filing a case againstUnocal and Delta in Fort Bend County, near Houston Texas. Bridasdemanded US$15 billion in damages alleging 'tortuous interference withprospective business relations' and that 'Unocal, Delta and [Unocal Vice-President Marty] Miller and possibly others engaged in a civil conspiracyagaint Bridas.' In its court deposition, Bridas said it had 'disclosed toMiller its strategic planning for the pipeline construction and operation.Bridas invited Unocal to consider joining a joint venture arrangement'. 17In short, Bridas charged Unocal with stealing its idea.Later, Bulgheroni explained how he felt. 'Unocal came to this regionbecause we invited them. There was no reason why we and Unocal couldnot get together. We wanted them in and took them with us to Turkmenistan,'he told me. 'In the beginning the US considered this pipeline aridiculous idea and they were not interested in either Afghanistan orTurkmenistan,' he added. Bridas also began arbitration against Turkmenistanwith the International Chamber of Commerce for breach of contractin three separate cases regarding Turkmenistan's blockade of its Yashlarand Keimir fields.Unocal maintained that its proposal was different because it involvedDaulatabad rather than Yashlar gas field. In a letter, later submitted tocourt, John Imle, President of Unocal, had written to Bulgheroni sayingthat Turkmenistan had told him that the government had no agreementswith Bridas, so Unocal was free to do what it liked. 18 'We maintainedthat the CentGas project was separate and unique from Bridas. We wereproposing to purchase gas from existing natural gas reserves and to transportthe gas through an export gas pipeline. Bridas was proposing to transportgas from their Yashlar field ... the CentGas project does not preventBridas from developing a pipeline to transport and market its own gas,'said Imle. 19The Clinton administration now weighed in on behalf of Unocal. InMarch 1996 the US Ambassador to Pakistan Tom Simmons had a majorrow with Bhutto when he asked her to switch Pakistan's support fromBridas to Unocal. 'Bhutto supported Bridas and Simmons accused Bhuttoof extortion when she defended Bridas. She was furious with Simmons,'said a senior aide to Bhutto present in the meeting. 'Bhutto demanded awritten apology from Simmons, which she got,' added a cabinet minister. 20During two trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan in April and August1996, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Robin Raphel