Yeah, they probably won't end up piping oil through Afghanistan. That will end up going through one of the other 'Stans to the north. Natural gas for India's electrical generation might well go though Afghanistan and Pakistan though. That would be a good thing from everyone's perspective: fostering economic ties and interdependencies between India and Pakistan.
Development of Central Asian oil resources, and economically viable infrastructure to get the oil and gas to market, would also be good from everyone's perspective (except maybe the autocratic, fundamentalist fostering, wealth hoarding Arab oil states, but screw them).
In fact I think the lefties pushing the "it's all about oil" B.S. need to be challenged on this score at every opportunity. Oil IS important. It's important to maintaining a world economy which provides food, water and shelter and (ideally) resources for education and betterment to the earth's six billion souls.
On any resonable moral theory all humans are corporately responsible for the wellfare of all our fellow humans, and those with the largest and most influencial economies (i.e., The U.S. and Europe) are most responsible for maintaining the effectiveness and prosperity of the world economy. An American President should (in part as a MORAL imperative) be thinking about the future stability of the world's oil supply. A significant interruption would lead to a recession or depression that would KILL tens or hundreds of millions worldwide, and disproportionately affect the poor and oppressed the lefties pretend to be so concerned about. (Even mild recessions, that may only cause those in the prosperous West to take on a second mortgage, or cancel vacation plans, lead to significantly increased DEATH rates in more economically marginal regions.)
It just drives me nuts when these lefties posture about defending the poor, and then turn around and work stalwartly AGAINST their interests on so many fronts. For example the lefties and anti-globablists (read "anti-capitalists") fighting free trade are the ones insisting that trade be tied to universal "environmental" and "labor" standards which the developing world cannot meet. The third world countries clearly (and correctly) see such measures as devices of PROTECTIONISM by the developed world, but that doesn't stop the lefties (almost all priveledged elistists) from pretending to be "on their side". The nihilistic and/or utopian ideals of the left would bring death, degradation and oppression on a truly massive scale if put into practice, and those already most impoverished and degraded would suffer first and worst. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
I thank God we have an adminstration that IS concerned about the welfare of our country, our civilization AND the wider world, and which understands the material factors on which these things depend. Adults know there are things in life which must be provided for. Children think it all happens as if by magic.