Quote Originally Posted by Ray View Post
I, for one, am not convinced that the US intervened in Afghanistan to 'teach OBL and AQ a lesson'. I am sure the Americans know better than many, that you can kill an individual, but you cannot kill a thought/idea. Neither, it is true that the US went into Iraq to bring 'Freedom and Democracy' nor was it for oil alone. It was a strategic compulsion to squeeze Russia from the South as the US did by squeezing from the West and then later have those Colour and Floral Revolutions. Likewise, I feel that the US entered the 'cockpit' of the world to exert its influence and reinforce its influence on the southern belly of Russia, peek into China and control indirectly the Uyghurs to extend the US influence and to look East towards Pakistan and India.
Cockpit of the world? Hardly. I can't see how a US presence in Afghanistan would squeeze China or Russia in any way, or serve as a strategic asset in any way.

Quote Originally Posted by Ray View Post
Caspian oil shall flow to Gwadar and thence onto the two nations that are hungry for oil - India and China.
Why would anyone pump oil from the Caspian south to Gwadar and then back north to China... especially when there are already pipelines direct from the Caspian to China via Kazakhstan? It makes no sense at all. And while of course the Chinese are trying to diversify their sources and routes of supply as much as possible (and the Caspian oil producers are trying to develop export routes that don't pass through Russia), these pipelines do nothing to secure the Chinese against an "push comes to shove" effort to cut off Chinese oil supplies. If the US ever decided to try and blockade Chinese oil - essentially in the event of open war - the pipelines would be the easiest of targets, and cutting them off would be far easier than enforcing a naval blockade.

Lots of shaky conclusions based on sketchy evidence and reasoning here.