The Economist: Pakistan and Iran: Gas, but not the useful sort

IT WAS smiles and handshakes all round on Pakistan’s border with Iran, as the presidents of the two countries posed on March 11th to mark the start of the construction of the Pakistani part of a pipeline that is supposed to bring Iranian natural gas to a country starved of energy. Blackouts cripple industry and bring daily misery to Pakistani households. The new pipeline is supposed to be completed by the end of 2014.

Yet ending misery appears not to be among the chief political motives. Rather, Iran hopes that the project will lessen the country’s international isolation. Pakistan’s relations with its neighbour have usually been chilly. But under President Asif Ali Zardari, they have warmed. That is indicative of Pakistan’s tilt away from the United States, which lobbied the government in Islamabad against the deal and which has been pushing the idea of an alternative pipeline running from Turkmenistan, through war-ravaged Afghanistan, and then into Pakistan and India. Instead, Pakistan has also begun talks with Iran about an oil refinery at its Gulf port of Gwadar. Pakistan recently decided to hand control of the new deep-sea port there to the Chinese, another development that concerns the United States, not to mention India. MORE