The U.S. Calculates Afghanistan’s Worth

Afghanistan, once thought to be among the poorest nations on the planet, turns out to be extremely wealthy.

The New York Times published a timely Pentagon memo on June 14, which claims Afghanistan’s mountains are replete with iron, copper, cobalt, gold and many other rare metals. This opium country could transform into the “Saudi Arabia of lithium” and its wealth could amount to “a trillion dollars.”

Within a just few hours, this information had circled the globe. Quite an effective public relations operation! The only problem is that there is nothing new here. The Soviets mapped out Afghanistan’s riches in the 1980s, and their studies were published in Western geological journals in 2007. Six months ago, President Hamid Karzai evoked the “trillion” dollar figure.

So the question remains: why this announcement? There are two hypotheses that come to mind. First, the more NATO gets mired down and the Taliban gain ground, Americans, like Europeans, will question their presence in the Hindu Kush. We have to rediscover the reason for this “chosen war,” as Barack Obama labeled it, whose initial objective, if one recalls, was to punish Al-Qaeda and drive their protectors from Kabul. This action needs to be taken without the risk of blurring the message, as was the case with oil and Iraq.

Second, the chase for riches has already begun, and the Chinese are far ahead of the pack. They have lined up four billion dollars for a copper mine, the largest investment ever seen in Kabul, but they have not spent a penny to ensure the country’s security, a task for which the Americans pay dearly.

Therefore, the Pentagon has raised the stakes to counter this Chinese influence. And so we plunge back into the “Great Game,” as in the 19th century, when Great Britain and Russia fought for domination of Afghanistan. The players have changed, but the prize they covet remains the same. That is a pity for prospects of an Afghan Peace. This poor yet rich country, with its known merchandise value, seems condemned to stand at the crossroads of big power conflicts.