BY ED FELIEN
It’s the biggest deal he’s ever done.
If he gets this done, he’s the richest, most powerful man in the whole world.
It’s worth a trillion dollars.
And it wipes out the billion dollars he owes the Russian oligarchs and Gazprom for bailing him out of his casino bankruptcies.
All he has to do is help the Russians build their pipeline through Afghanistan. U.S. troops will protect it from where it comes in at Turkmenistan and where it goes out in Pakistan and on to customers in India.
That should be pretty easy. We’ve already got U.S. troops guarding the opium from Kandahar to Pakistan to be cooked into heroin. And then with our allies, the northern opium warlords, we guard the heroin from Pakistan to the Turkmenistan border. U.S. troops can guard the pipeline in Afghanistan.
The wild card in all of this is the Taliban rebels. You can’t always predict what some of the younger ones might want to do.
That’s why Mike Flynn was the first hire. The three-star general ran the operation in Afghanistan. He listened in on all the Taliban communications. He knows how to deal with them, and whether or when it’s possible to make a deal with them. If they won’t deal, then Syria could be the dress rehearsal for the joint operation of the U.S. and Russia’s extermination of Islamic revolutionaries on the Pakistan/Afghan border.
Getting the oil to customers in Pakistan and India, buying off every government official on the way, makes the oil expensive. And making the oil expensive can make very big profits.
That’s why Rex Tillerson (Mr. Exxon Oil and decorated by Putin as a member of the Order of Friendship) was the natural choice for secretary of state. Trump couldn’t resist playing Celebrity Apprentice with all his rivals. Humiliating them, parading them through restaurants, making them squirm and beg. It was the cat playing with mice, until the big cat, Putin, picked Tillerson. Tillerson has been working with Russians for 20 years, drilling in the Arctic and laying pipelines.
Russia needs The Afghan pipeline. Oil revenues were 50% of the national budget from 2011 to 2014. When the price of oil dropped, the Russian economy tanked. The pipeline is due to be complete in 2018. But the Iranians are building a pipeline to the same customers in Pakistan and India, and it will be complete in 2017. That’s why Trump wants to tear up the Nuclear Treaty with Iran. It allows Iran to export more oil. If he tears up the treaty then he can bomb their nuclear facilities and accidentally hit an oil refinery or two.
Putin is going to let Trump negotiate the deal with Pakistan—because he’s so good at it. Trump was at his schmooziest when he took the call from the President of Pakistan: “Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif you have a very good reputation. You are a terrific guy. You are doing amazing work which is visible in every way. I am looking forward to see you soon. As I am talking to you Prime Minister, I feel I am talking to a person I have known for long. Your country is amazing with tremendous opportunities. Pakistanis are one of the most intelligent people. I am ready and willing to play any role that you want me to play to address and find solutions to the outstanding problems. It will be an honor and I will personally do it. Feel free to call me any time even before 20th January that is before I assume my office.”[quote from the official Pakistan transcript]
And Trump believes he’s going to be able to hustle both sides. He doesn’t want to believe that Putin is playing him like a puppet.
