When President Barack Obama announced the new "AfPak" (Afghanistan-Pakistan) policy last month, there were hopes that the largesse bestowed on Pakistan which saw unaccounted billions in military aid showered on the Pakistan army would bring stability to the country. Of,course, the latest dole that triples aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion does come with a caveat.”Pakistan must provide access to Pakistani nationals connected to proliferation nuclear networks,and prevent cross border attacks into neighbouring countries”. The original draft had specifically mentioned “access to nuclear smuggler,AQ Khan,and to preventing terrorist attacks against India”. But due to Pakistani protests the final draft was watered down.
It now remains to be seen how Pakistan utilizes the aid flowing to keep it afloat. Time only will tell. As Robert Gates, the US Defence Secrtary put it,”They(Pakistan) are not sure who’s going to win in Afghanistan.They’re not sure what’s going to happen along that border area.So to a certain extent they play both sides”. If it comes to that neither are the Americans sure what the out come of the “war against terror” in Afghanistan and Pakistan going to be
What precisely is the strategy for AfPak?
While it appears the both President Barack Obama and Robert Gates are of the view that their strategic goals will be achieved by the elimination of al Qaeda holed up in the Afghan-Pakistan border,and all they have to do is to simply work out an agreement with the Taliban, Gen David Petraeus,the US Central Command chief, feels otherwise.
Petraeus.who had achieved a semblance of success in Iraq,has been insisting that his policy can be replicated in Afghanistan. Basically ,the policy in Iraq was to work out some sort of a détente between the Sunis and the Shias.This was achieved by a surge of troops more to reassure the Iraqis that the Americans were not going to abandon them to their fate by withdrawing peremptorily, and that the Americans would continue to play a role in Iraqi affairs.It was also a tacit admission that the US could not defeat all the insurgents and militias. (By itself additional 30,000 troops on top of the force of 1,20,000 already in Iraq,was hardly expected to change the basic military situation in Iraq).The US policy of stripping Sunnis of all power in 2003, which had the Shias dominate Iraq,had left the Sunnis in desperate straits. This had resulted in a Sunni insurgency, with the al Qaeda stepping in . Petraeus policy of re-deploying some troops with an active political programme, and a reassurance that the Sunnis would be protected both against the Shias and the foreign jihadists(the Sunnis already feared that the foreigners would not only take over the community but also radicalize them), managed to win over the Sunnis.
In Iraq,therefore, by creating a coalition government, and possibly blocking any Iranian influence in Iraq, the US made it possible to withdraw with honour and some semblance of dignity by avoiding a chaotic civil war.
Obama and Gates ,however, feel that the situation in Afghanistan,is vastly different from that in Iraq. In Iraq the Shias, Sunnis and Kurds all had genuine political power. In Afghanistan the power is restricted to the Taliban and the Americans. In Afghanistan there are a multiplicity of groups, which will never combine to form any sort of a coalition. . Afgan President Hamid Karzai, does not have the political base that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al- Malik enjoys. Karzai is someone who has been foisted by the Americans on the Afghan political scene. But above all, Iraq did not have a neighbour like Pakistan .While Iran was a factor in the Iraqi civil war, the Taliban are as much a phenomenon in Pakistan as in Afghanistan. The Pakistanis are neither willing or able to deny sanctuary or lines of supply to the Taliban.
Petraeus feels that Obama and Gates have already made it clear to the Afghans that once al Qaeda is eliminated from the scene,they will withdraw from Afghanistan.They have made it clear that Washington has placed severe limits on its willingness to invest in Afghanistan.and are overly eager to make a deal with the Taliban.
Petraeus is quite clear that the US strategic goal-eliminating the al Qaeda-cannot be achieved by an agreement with the Taliban. He is of the view that they are not as divided as Obama feels and it would be foolish to think that the Taliban can be played against each other.They just cannot be trusted to keep their word, even if they give it. Petraeus feels that the Taliban have the advantage of superior intelligence capability, better knowledge of the country and the willingness to take casualties.
Once ensconced in Afghanistan, the Americans will find it extremely difficult to turf them out.
Pakistan’s attempts to work out some sort of a peace formula with the Taliban by permitting the implementation of Sharia law in the Swat Valley, resulted in the Taliban’s forcible occupation of Buner and its neighbourhood area. The fear of Taliban further spreading its tentacles throughout Pakistan, became a stark reality. It should have served a warning to the Americans of the futility of negotiating with the Taliban.But what seems to have alarmed the Americans is the direct threat posed to the Pakistan nuclear facilities by an unopposed Taliban. This plus the scheduled meeting with Obama in Washington, seems to have goaded the Pakistanis to take punitive action against the Taliban in the Swat Valley.
What has further alarmed the Americans are the reports of Pakistan adding to its arsenal of 80 to 100 nuclear weapons. These are alleged to be new generation of weapons of mass destruction. What is more worrying is that the Army has full and unquestionable control of the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan with the civilian government kept completely out of the loop. With Islamist-sympathetic officers inducted by Gen Zia-ul-Haq, when he placed the nuclear set-up out of bounds to the civilians, the situation has all the makings of an international disaster just waiting to blow up. It would be naïve to assume that the Americans are unaware that there is a deep-rooted hatred for the Americans not only amongst the Islamists, but also amongst a segment of the officers of Pakistan Army.
Obama sees Afghanistan not worth fighting for,and is quite clear that the Americans should exit from Afghanistan sooner than later. If a “moderate” Taliban(an oxymoron, if ever there was one) takes over Afghanistan and the al Qaeda are eliminated ( Patreaus feels the al Qaeda located as they are in Pakistan can only be dealt with by surgical strikes- Pakistan being too hard a nut to crack), then as far as Obama and Gates are concerned their strategic aims for Afghanistan are achieved. When it comes to the crunch, the civilian view will prevail. As George Friedman put it (“The Strategic Debate Over Afghanistan” -Stratfor), war is an extension of politics by other means, as Clausewitz said, and generals tend to not get their way.
So India should brace itself itself for an era of uncertainty in its neighbourhood. Punjab,.which is supposedly the bulwark against further incursions by fundamentalists, will,according to many, simply fold over and succumb to the Taliban ,once they push harder. This is because,Punjab, according to Sushant Sareen,writing in The Tribune, has become more orthodox and fundamentalist,over the last few decades.(Remember,most terrorists that attacked Mumbai came from the Punjab). Barring the MQM,in Sind,all political parties, in Pakistan are of the view that for Muslims,the Sharia is not too bad and its only the way that the Taliban seems to impose it that is reprehensible.
Dehra Dun Lt Gen (Retd) RK Jasbir Singh
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