September 21, 2024: This month construction of the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) natural gas pipeline finally began. There have been several false starts for TAPI. For example, in 2018 ten Afghan tribesmen surrendered to the government and said they had just returned from Iran after several weeks of training on how to carry out an attack on the ceremony celebrating the start of construction of TAPI pipeline in Afghanistan. After years of negotiations over transit fees and natural gas prices Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan agreed and construction of TAPI will move natural gas from Turkmenistan natural gas fields to the Afghan border. Pipeline construction originally began in 2015. Back then it was believed that, if construction is not interfered with, the pipeline would be operational in Afghanistan by the end of 2019. Troublesome tribal militias and some Islamic terrorist groups disrupted construction efforts to the point where work was abandoned. Five years later work resumed. In Afghanistan you can’t depend on extended periods of peace. That’s why Afghanistan has so little infrastructure. For example, there are no railroads, which are difficult to build and operate here. Many local tribal militias, organized for self-defense, could quickly transform into armed train robbery gangs. This is Afghanistan, where anything can happen, especially if it involves unexpected violence and attacks on industrial efforts, like building railroads or pipelines.

After passing through Afghanistan, TAPI goes into Pakistan and to the Indian border. Initially the Afghan Taliban agreed to leave TAPI alone. That was because the pipeline was a popular project with most Afghans as it would bring cheap natural gas to many Afghans. Some Taliban factions near the Iranian border who work for the Iranian IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) were told to attack pipeline construction efforts.

Officially Iran does not oppose TAPI, even though Iran also wants to build a gas pipeline into Pakistan and to India. Inside Iran the attitude is that TAPI is not good for Iran and that something should be done. Inside Afghanistan the Taliban promised not to harm the 800 kilometer long Afghan portion of the pipeline. This assurance turned out to be the opening round of negotiations about how much the Taliban will be paid to ensure the pipeline is unharmed. About a quarter of the pipeline runs through or near areas dominated by Taliban activity.

In August 2021 the elected IRA (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) collapsed and was replaced by the Pakistan backed IEA (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan). The new IEA declared a great victory but found that few people, not even most Afghans, saw this as a win. Foreign aid ceased. Nearly $10 billion of IRA cash held in foreign banks, to reduce corruption, was frozen and no one would recognize the IEA as the successor to the IRA. Countries in the region expect the IEA to collapse in a few years, which will leave the country a narco-state without any central government. Drug production in Afghanistan depends on the Pakistan military for support. The drugs are winning as they usually do wherever they get established. There are not too many narco-states because they all follow the same script. Eventually locals get fed up with the local violence and the growing number of addicts. That leads to more violence and the drug gangs are crushed, although usually not completely eliminated. Eventually can take a long time and such is the case with Afghanistan. Compare that to how it worked in Colombia from 2000 on, and Burma after World War II and Iran in the 1950s. The only thing that nearly everyone in Afghanistan can agree on is that opium and heroin are bad. Nearly ten percent of the population is addicted to drugs, mostly opiates and another ten percent make a better living or get rich from the drug trade. Most Afghans consider drug gangs the biggest threat and these are largely run and staffed, like the Taliban, by Pushtun tribesmen from four southern provinces. The Pakistan-backed Afghan Taliban want to create a heroin-producing Islamic terrorist and gangster sanctuary in Afghanistan. If you want to know how that works, look at Chechnya in the late 1990s and Somalia or Yemen in the early 21st century. No one has come up with any cheap, fast or easy solution for that. Meanwhile, Afghanistan's core problem is that there is no Afghanistan, merely a collection of tribes more concerned with tribal issues than anything else.

Naturally the TAPI efforts in Afghanistan ran afoul of local politics and terrorism. There is no central authority for all the troublesome tribal militias and Islamic terrorist groups in Afghanistan. With no one in charge, anything can happen and that is the obstacle the TAPI construction effort is up against. So far, all those armed opponents to TAPI are winning.

The IEA government is unable to control the armed groups disrupting work on TAPI. The IEA is also having a hard time ruling Afghanistan. The overthrow of the IR A meant an end to the billions in foreign aid that the presence of the IRA justified. Since the IEA took over, the situation in Afghanistan has gotten much worse. The once more stalled TAPI project is one of many victims of the upsurge in violence and anarchy throughout the country.