The Prize Won in Afghanistan?

The BBC reported this lil tidbit yesterday:

Afghanistan hopes to strike a deal later this month to build a $2bn pipeline through the country to take gas from energy-rich Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India...Mr Razim said Unocal was the 'lead company' among those that would build the pipeline, which would bring 30bn cubic meters of Turkmen gas to market annually.

...and Dawn reported a similar story last week, concluding that "Unocal, the US energy firm that led a consortium to construct Turkmenistan-Pakistan pipeline in 1997 but later pulled out of the project, quoting continued fighting in the war-torn Afghanistan, is likely to come forward once again along with a couple of other US firms once peace returned to Afghanistan."

It's nice to know that the fruits of war are starting to pay off, quite literally. For more background on Unocal, go here. Also check out the Pipeline Politics of Central Asia.