Afghanistan: US thinks the unthinkable: asking Iran for help with supply routes


by Catherine Philp
Global Research, February 26, 2009
The Times


It has been a grim couple of weeks for the snack lovers of Camp Phoenix. First Doritos, then Snickers, now Coca-Cola: all have disappeared from the usually packed shelves of the camp store. They were among the more expendable supplies lost when the Pakistani Taleban set fire to containers bound for US bases in Afghanistan close to the Khyber Pass.

The denuded shelves underline a far more serious problem for the US: how to fuel the military effort in Afghanistan in the face of diminishing regional leverage and growing opposition from neighbours.

Weeks of attacks by the Taleban on convoys from Karachi to the Khyber Pass and the decision by Kyrgyzstan to close the only US airbase in the region have left the US scrambling to find new routes at the very moment it is planning an influx of 17,000 troops.

The search has taken the US right into the backyard of Russia, in Central Asia. Yesterday Uzbekistan confirmed that it would allow non-military cargo bound for Afghanistan to be transported through its territory. President Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan also said that his country would be willing to give passage to humanitarian cargo. In return he is likely to expect the volume to be lowered on the dubious human rights record of his country.

What Washington has yet to prise out of Central Asia, however, is a permanent base such as the one it stands to lose at Manas after Russia offered $2 billion (£1.5 billion) in aid to Kyrgyzstan.

“Russia views Central Asia as its unique sphere of influence,â€