Talking to the enemy

Who runs Pakistan?

The US hopes that the proposed direct talks with the Taliban in Qatar will enable it an honourable exit from Afghanistan. Both sides are negotiating preconditions.

The Taliban wants that some inmates from the Guantanamo prison, including Mullah Fazal, the butcher of Shias at Mazar-e-Sharif, be released for the talks.

The US wants the Taliban to give up violence and lay down arms. The US has kept Afghanistan out of these discussions leaving Karzai peeved but it has been impossible to keep Pakistan out. The Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network are both beholden to Pakistani authorities not just for weapons, shelter and finances but also that the families of the Taliban have taken shelter in Pakistan.

Reconciliation: By proposing direct talks with the Taliban, the US still
expects to be trusted by the Afghan leadership and others in the region

The Taliban presumably feel that they owe Pakistan both a debt of gratitude and that their families are hostages to the situation. Pakistan had made it quite clear to the US that negotiations without their approval were impossible when in February 2010 they arrested Mullah Omar's deputy and co founder of the Taliban, Mullah Biradar, who was negotiating with Kabul.

The assassinations of Wali Karzai and Burhanuddin Rabbani are suspected to have been a revenge for their attempts to open lines with the Taliban. The US however has few trumps in its hand. The grand coalition in Afghanistan is no longer so grand despite the surge in 2010, the billions spent and the casualties. Its chances of success in the fight against Taliban are minimal. The Taliban have extended their control to newer regions beyond the southern and eastern Pushtoon belts.

The US position has other weaknesses. Having announced prematurely that the US would withdraw in 2011, efforts at backtracking have only meant that the locals and their Pakistani masters believe that it is a matter of time before the US and NATO will leave.

Subsequent American announcements that there would only be a minor draw down of troops by 2014, has left the Taliban unimpressed. Islamabad would however be concerned that a US withdrawal would also mean a lack of interest in the region as in the 1990s and reduce the money/aid inflows. Besides, attempts at subduing the Taliban militarily having failed, the hope now to convert them into respectable parliamentary democrats has little prospects of success.

An excessive and unrealistic US reliance on Pakistan to deliver has been a major disadvantage. Pakistani attitude at the sheltering of Osama bin Laden last May and official reaction to his killing displayed a total disregard of any alliance obligations. Another major weakness in US attempts has been the desire to keep Iran (which has a 900 km border with Afghanistan) out of any attempts that the US makes in solving the problem.

Most Afghans do not see the Taliban as deliverers of some nationalist freedom but as religious zealots influenced by Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan, says Abbas Daiyar, an Afghan commentator. The other truth that the liberators of 2001 are today seen as an occupation force. US whimsicality has been a problem.

First, they installed their chosen man to head the government in Kabul and protected him, then announced a date of withdrawal without consulting the local leadership, then Karzai, fell from favour and finally, the US began negotiations with those who are not only Karzai's sworn enemies but who have a global agenda that includes the US. It does not do much for US credibility that negotiations with insurgents have been begun by it, as an outside power, while keeping the legitimate government out of the discussions. The US still expects to be trusted by the Afghan leadership and others in the region.

So long as the likes of Hafiz Saeed and extreme right wing religious groups like Difa-e-Pakistan, continue to be belligerent, there are natural misgivings about Pakistan's intentions. On the other hand, in recent months after the India-Afghanistan strategic agreement, Indian involvement including training Afghan police and army, apart from this economic and infrastructure assistance will increase.

India can, however, reciprocate gestures of good will and good intentions that Pakistan may want to make to India. Introspection will reveal to Pakistan that it would be far easier to deal with a democratic secular economically strong India than a turbulent Talibanised Afghanistan with a global agenda.

Source : Mid Day , Mumbai , 2nd February 2012, Vikram Sood is a former chief of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)

Policy Sans Frontiers

If India leaves Afghanistan at this juncture, it would accept the Chinese game of restricting our role to our national borders

When Jawahar Lal Nehru India’s first Prime Minister tried to explain to Parliament the significance of Aksai Chin, he referred to it as an area where not a blade of grass grew. He was stressing that Aksai Chin was barren, desolate and inhospitable. By implication, therefore, that India had lost only some useless piece of real estate to the Chinese. Mahavir Tyagi, Nehru’s friend and critic, shot back and pointing to his bald head asked “Nothing grows here ..... should it be cut off or given away to someone else?”

This is similar to a suggestion recently that we should leave Afghanistan to Pakistan and come home because we have no interests there anymore. This sounds very much like the proposal from the former US commander in Afghanistan Gen McChrystal who, exasperated by his own lack of success, advocated that India should adopt a lower profile in Afghanistan. There have been many suggestions from US circles that India should satisfy Pakistan by withdrawing from its interests in Afghanistan. They do not recognise regional interests or strategic needs of a nation trying to establish its role in the region.

The argument that we back off Afghanistan is one step ahead of the one offered by Sherry Rehman led report of the Jinnah Institute released in September. The report, that of the elite of Pakistan, accepts India’s role in Afghanistan in a limited way for economic development but suspects that India is far too deeply involved which was against Pakistan’s interests.

There is more than one reason for India to remain engaged in Afghanistan and let us not forget that India would like its extended neighbourhood to be friendly and aware of India’s interests. It is not understood how a Pakistan rampant in Afghanistan will serve Indian interests, even if it is for a short while. A country that has played duplicitously for so long with the US, its main benefactor, is hardly likely to give us great comfort. It will use its strategic depth, something it has striven so hard for so long, to launch attacks on India and still have the deniability that these attacks do not originate from Pakistani soil. It has taken the world two decades and a few hard knocks to accept that Pakistan has been the epicentre of terrorism and this sort of retreat by India will take away this dubious title.

One of the arguments for withdrawal is that no Afghan has ever been involved in nor has the Afghan soil been used for anti-Indian activities. There are today 14 Afghan terrorists in custody in Jodhpur and 7 in Srinagar for terrorist activity in India. We all know the extent of involvement of the Taliban and the ISI in the IC-814 episode in Kandahar in December 1999. Afghan and Pakistani border regions have been notoriously porous and Pakistan has used this for its strategic interests ever since the first Afghan jihad.

Besides, the powerful Haqqani Network, close to the ISI and operating both in Pakistan and Afghanistan is avowedly anti-India. It was this group that carried out the suicide attacks on the Indian Embassy in Kabul. Pakistan’s active role in the insurgency in Afghanistan is far too well known and they have also used the Afghan Shura of Quetta and even inducted elements of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba for both battle inoculation and as a policy hedge against the Taliban. Training camps like Khost in Afghanistan raided by Clinton’s cruise missiles showed up Pakistani terrorists from Harkat ul Mujahedeen.

The first premise should be that Afghanistan is for Afghans and not Pakistanis, nor is Afghanistan a desolate piece of territory of little or no significance to India and therefore for Pakistan to have. Located as it is, Afghanistan is rich with an estimated US $ 3 trillion worth of vital mineral resources. The Chinese have already moved in with a US $ 3 billion investment in the Anyak copper mines along with a power station and a rail link. We are not far behind with a US $ 6 billion contract for a SAIL-led consortium to develop the rich Hajigak iron ore mines in the Bamyan province, construct a steel plant and a railway network. This is besides the US $ 2 billion that India has committed to Afghanistan.

India and Afghanistan signed the wide ranging Strategic Partnership Agreement last month. This was Afghanistan’s first such agreement signifying the country’s closeness to India and mutual trust between the two nations. In this context, some might even argue that we should be sending troops to Afghanistan to protect Indian investments, and if need be Indian strategic interests. India is poised for a breakthrough and any recommendation calling for withdrawal at this stage makes very little sense.

Afghanistan is not just about India and Pakistan in a supposedly post-US phase. China, because of its growing interest in the region and has strategic interests in trying to reach the Gulf through Afghanistan and Iran. It eyes Afghanistan’s rich mineral resources as vital for its continued economic development especially of the Xinjiang and Tibet regions. It would seek an alternative route to the Gulf and not remain completely dependent on Pakistan seeing how it has used its location to blackmail the US.

Simultaneously, China continues to strengthen its presence in the vital Gilgit-Baltistan area which would ultimately give it better access to Afghanistan. Besides, Iran has abiding interests in Afghanistan as it sees and worries about the growing hold of the radical Sunni Islamist Taliban in that country.

We need to think beyond today and tomorrow but the hereinafter. We need to think of our geo-strategic requirements and geopolitical situation twenty or thirty years from now. A retreat from Afghanistan now would mean accepting the Chinese game of restricting our role to our national frontiers. Nations that think only short term are doomed to oblivion. Nations that think of only their own national boundaries without a forward policy are doomed to remaining small nations. The 21st Century belongs to Asia and we are an important part of that new Asia. Let us not choose a destiny that casts us aside.

Thinking differently is always desirable but thinking dangerously can be fatal.

Source : Hindustan Times, December 5 2011

Balochistan - The Forgotten Province

Balochistan, the forgotten province
By: Vikram Sood
Date: 2011-10-27

Abductions of Baloch nationals and their disappearances are now routine. In a matter of three days in October, nine mutilated bodies of Baloch missing persons were found from different parts of Balochistan like Khuzdar and Gwadar. This list is endless. The rest of the world is, however, far too involved with what is happening in the Arab world or Afghanistan- Pakistan.

The Baloch have had a long list of economic, political and social discrimination against Islamabad. There are a few courageous writers, and the diaspora that feeds the websites and Twitter. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its report, 'We Can Torture, Kill, or Keep You for Years: Enforced Disappearances by Pakistan Security Forces in Balochistan,' says hundreds of people have disappeared since 2005 in Balochistan. The HRW has documented 45 cases of enforced disappearances and torture by Pakistani security forces in 2009 and 2010.

No one really gets to hear of what is happening in the padded cell. The largely forgotten and ignored Baloch however keep reminding the world that they are in the midst of their fifth war of independence against their Punjabi oppressor. Here in India too the Baloch issue is hardly noticed mostly because the western press has not commented on it for months.

This is despite the fact that we are routinely accused of interference in Balochistan and we even admitted to discussing this allegation. (Anyone remember the inglorious communiqu © at Sharm el Sheikh two years ago?) Balochistan has suffered not only from neglect by its own governments but also by the rest of the world.

The nationalists among them insist that Balochistan had declared its independence on August 11, 1947 and want a reversal of that. Their problem is that they are divided, the political structures are weak and that traditional leadership of the Mengals, Marris, Bizenjos and Bugtis has weakened, dispersed or been eliminated. Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, the leader of the Bugti tribe was killed in August 2006.

Akbar Bugti's grandson escaped to Switzerland while Khair Bux's other sons Hyrbair, Mehran and Ghezen live overseas. Balaach Marri, the son of Nawab Khair Bux Marri who himself has campaigned for Baloch independence, was killed in Afghanistan in November 2007.

The Baloch believe that both Akbar Bugti and Balaach Marri were killed under orders from General Musharraf. Added to this have been the killings of Shias, carried out in recent times by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

These Sunni extremists, are possibly in league with the Taliban's Quetta Shura, adding to the confusion about what is happening in the province. Baloch nationalism is, as before, sought to be suppressed through the use of religious forces.

Balochistan always had a strategic relevance for the West. After Germany surrendered in May 1945, a reappraisal of the long term policy of interests of the British empire argued that Britain must retain its military connection with the subcontinent and that, if necessary, Balochistan should be detached from India.

As it turned out, all of Pakistan came under Anglo-American influence after independence. When the massive Baloch insurrection of 1974 broke out Zulfiqar Bhutto had to resort to the use of the Air Force. Peace was restored after General Zia assumed power in 1977. Since then, till today, the struggle has been intermittent but has never died down.

Balochistan has enormous reserves of gas, gold and copper, as well as untapped sources of oil and uranium. Its strategic importance is also as a prospective energy transit route. It adjoins the Arabian Sea and the Straits of Hormuz, through which 40 per cent of the world's oil resources pass annually. The exploitation of these natural resources in combination with repressive and discriminatory state-run policies have led to armed uprisings in the province.

Logistic supplies to US and NATO forces in Afghanistan which land in Karachi are also routed through Balochistan. This explains why the US/NATO prefer to ignore events in Balochistan. This could, however, change once the US dependency on routes through Pakistan changes to the Northern routes.

Source: The Midday Mumbai, October 27, 2011

Afghanistan - What Went Wrong and What Comes Next

The increasingly prevalent view, although not officially articulated inside the Washington DC Beltway, is that the Afghan war seems militarily unwinnable and politically uncertain. The choice now is not about winning and leaving but to select from some very poor options after the US has been involved in its longest overseas military engagement. By 2014, it will have run into its thirteenth year.

Admiral Mike Mullen recently warned that 2011 would be bloodier than 2010 and at the current rate of loss another 1,500 young men and women will die by 2014. The US treasury will have spent another $ 600 billion by then. Other parameters do not look healthy either. The primary aim of the US in the Afghan theatre is to make America safe from terrorist attacks emanating from Afghanistan. European and American public opinion is swinging away from this war and the Europeans are anxious to leave. There is little possibility that by 2014 either the Afghan National Army or the Afghan National Police will be ready to take over the responsibility of ensuring Afghanistan's security and law and order across the country. The United States is looking at a strategic stalemate.

Following recent upheavals in the Middle East, US policy makers are anxiously watching the entire region, from the Maghreb to the Saudi Peninsula and even Iran and Pakistan. The replacement of regimes in the Middle East may not all result in US-friendly governments given the undertones of both the anti-American sentiment and Islamic fervour in these regions. In the early days of the 21st century, where power equations are changing and there is intense discussion of the implications of the rise of China and its interests in the Middle East, this must be a matter of additional concern in Washington.

The region is energyrich and also home to some of the most radical Islamist movements that arise from the Afghanistan-Pakistan (AfPak) region as well from the Middle East. US interests in Afghanistan have come under increasing stress in recent weeks over the Raymond Davis affair. America’s most important ally in the region, Pakistan, is witnessing another round of increasingly vocal anti-American sentiment amidst growing sectarianism, violence and instability. US patience with Pakistan is running low and the cancellation of the US-Afghanistan-Pakistan trilateral is a direct result of this impasse on the Davis issue.

Today, the entire region from the Oxus to the Indus has become extremely unstable with an unending wave of Pushtun-led violence in Northern Pakistan and in the Punjab province. This does little to help the execution of a complicated and a difficult war against an elusive enemy in an environment sullied by acute mistrust between the US and Pakistan.

The war against terrorism was well begun in Afghanistan in 2001, but it quickly ran aground because of changed priorities. Consequently, it became a wrong war in the wrong place impeded by an unreliable ally. With inadequate boots on the ground no amount of aerial attacks was going to provide the ability to clear and hold territory so essential in a counter insurgency campaign. Inexplicably, US policies have been more of the same; a paucity of ideas that believes in funneling more funds to Pakistan either as a reward for services believed rendered or in the hope that they will rendered. In the process, Pakistan has acquired a veto power over US policies in AfPak. Since the US considered Pakistan to be part of the solution rather than the problem, Pakistan became an indispensible ally even as it pursued a course directly contradictory to US and NATO – even global - goals in the region. If there has to be any attribution to reasons of failure, this American inability or unwillingness to understand Pakistan’s strategic ambitions and attitudes would be the most crucial factor responsible for the present US position in AfPak.

The predicament is that the US cannot permanently maintain the present force level, the casualty rate or the cost of the war. It also does not thus have the luxury of time to put together a viable local alternative. Departure from an unsettled region will only lead to further instability and a conceivable civil war reopening old animosities between the largely Pushtun south and east against the other minorities – the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. A prolonged conflict in the region seems the more likely course. Intervention by outside interests in Afghanistan will inevitably follow.

It is sometimes forgotten that in the ultimate analysis, the Taliban are Pushtun who live on both sides of the Durand Line which was a demarcation made due to British imperial interests of the time. These interests divided the Pushtun between Afghanistan and the North West Frontier Province under British control. In recent years there has been an upsurge in anti-Pushtun violence in the Balochistan province of Pakistan, in Karachi, the country’s largest city and in FATA, which has seen repeated US attacks. It may not be long before there is an upsurge of a demand for Greater Pushtunistan once the foreigner and therefore common enemy has departed and the Pushtuns internalise their several problems swept under the carpet by preceding regimes. Pushtun assertiveness will almost certainly lead to retaliation from Afghanistan’s other ethnic groups. Religious obscurantism combined with ultra-nationalism can be a very explosive mix. Of course, given Afghanistan’s complex tribal structure it is not easy to predict the future. Most certainly, however, any change in the configuration of the Pushtun belt will have its repercussions on Pakistan. Faced with limited options, it might be considered a satisfactory, if not a good solution, for Washington DC to be able to come to an agreement with the ‘good’ Taliban assuming that: they exist, they are less fundamentalist and they are therefore more benign than other parts of the Taliban. The war in Afghanistan was not just against the Taliban and the Al Qaeda but against the medieval obscurantism that they represent. Today, one discerns dialogue in the west that seems to suggest that the Taliban are not such bad fellows after all; they have a regional (i.e. Afghan nationalist) approach and are merely fighting against foreign occupation. The implication is that once this cause disappears then the Taliban angst will disappear and Afghanistan can be left to them. This is a dangerous rationalisation and does not take into account Pakistani ambitions, the Taliban/Al Qaeda combine or the criminal narcotics-warlord nexus. Accepting this deal is accepting the mindset and the short route to rapid Islamisation of the region and beyond.

A solution can be possible only if four aspects are seriously considered. Pakistan must be reined in and made to understand that it is less indispensible to US interests than it makes out. The US must accept that it can no longer determine the fate of other countries on its own and has to reach out to other neighbouring countries like Iran and others who have important stakes in the stability and independence of Afghanistan (i.e. Russia and India). Additionally, the US has to use more of the stick and less of the carrot when dealing with Pakistan. The narcotics criminal warlord nexus must be severed. This cannot be done without adequate agricultural relief work and pacification of Kandahar, where the challenge is greatest. To deal with Afghanistan effectively, there has to be closer US and NATO engagement with Russia and separately with Iran, however unpalatable it might appear today. We must evaluate if there can be any agreement amongst all nations about non-interference in Afghanistan and whether will Pakistan continue to remain a considerable part of the problem. Whatever happens in the next few years, it must be accepted that the nature of the region will change, perhaps forever. A stable Pakistan may have been able to exercise reasonable influence on a much weaker Afghanistan. However, Pakistan is itself in a mess of various kinds, where one hears increasingly intolerant and violent religiosity with ethno-political fissures. It is doubtful whether Pakistan would be able to either control or bring stability to the region. Pakistan’s quest for strategic depth is more likely to end up as a strategic quagmire. What we are looking at is a very unstable and turbulent region.

Given that more troops cannot be committed, funds may be in short supply and that the discourse in the US and the West has changed, what are US options? How does one define ‘Mission Accomplished’ when all of the options are poor or even impossible?

Perhaps Vice President Joe Biden’s plan is effective: withdrawal of ground forces substantially and then hunting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan using special forces, Predator missile attacks and other surgical tactics. Ambassador Robert Blackwill’s Plan B for Afghanistan is really an extension of this. He suggests a withdrawal of American forces substantially from the Pushtun south and east and a concentration of US forces in the north and northwest as bases for striking against targets.

Blackwill’s plan leaves some sizeable forces in the region protecting American interests though it also means an admission that the war as presently configured is unwinnable. Within this plan is dialogue with the Taliban, reduction of US dependency on Pakistan and an informal coming into being of a Pushtun homeland. Both Biden and Blackwill realise that the essential problem is in Pakistan. Any amount of readjustment or reevaluation of US policies and priorities in Afghanistan will not succeed unless there is a similar reevaluation of its policies and priorities in Pakistan.

Source : Washington DC based journal – Fair Observer , March 29, 2011. Fair Observer can be accessed at http://blog.fairobserver.com/.

Afghanistan's Uncertain Future

Slipping sliding



Nearly ten years in Afghanistan and not a solution is sight makes for sad commentary for the ability of the US to solve its security problems or to force a solution on other regions. The year of reckoning may have been postponed from 2011 to 2014 but this is only a matter of detail and three years are not even a comma in history. This merely postpones the inevitable. It is now more a matter of deciding the manner of exit; it is a question more of how, not about if or when, this will happen. It is feared, even if not admitted openly by the US, that they are in a situation that they cannot alter. In the early days of the 21st century where power equations are changing this must be a matter of concern in Washington DC. Strategic stalemate stares at the US which, for a superpower, is in effect strategic defeat.



The problem has its origins in the manner in which the entire Global War on Terror was handled from the very beginning. Since then, the ISAF/NATO led by the US has been fighting a wrong war in the wrong place with wrong allies. There was far too much reliance on airpower with inadequate ground forces to hold territory; there was too much reliance on Pakistan where essentially the problem originated. If the force required, according to this writer was 250,000 US/NATO troops four years ago, a far larger number would be required today when the Taliban has extended its footprint over not only the Pushtun areas in the south and east but also the north. The issue now is that neither will more troops help nor are they available with America’s European allies eager to quit. The moment that more forces could have helped has gone.



The hunt was for Al Qaeda leaders who moved freely between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some of them had preferred to stay in the cities so that they could have access to modern telecommunications and the rest of the world in furtherance of its global radical Islamist agenda. Inadequate forces in Afghanistan, with the borders not sealed and no attempt beyond verbal assurances from Pakistan was the manner in which the war was fought in the early months. Just when it was felt that the US/NATO might have a chance to succeed, attention was diverted to a futile war in Iraq. No serious attempt was made to plug the Pakistan end of the escape route for the Al Qaeda or later the Taliban.



Changing US priorities and strategies



There are some who believe that the present US predicament is not really the issue because this situation is the desired result of a grand conspiracy to create instability even through Islamic fundamentalists and to control the region. The Brzezinski interview with Nouvelle Observateur was quite remarkable both for naiveté and nonchalance. He said, “What is more important for world history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? Some Islamic hotheads or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?” Brzezinski added “It’s said that the West has a global policy regarding regarding Islam. That’s hogwash: there is no global Islam.... It is the first world religion with 1.5 billion adherents. But what is common between fundamentalist Saudi Arabia moderate Morocco, militaristic Pakistan..,?” It was not that the US wanted to create chaos to control the situation; merely that they were willing to use any instrument to defeat the Soviet Union.

No one in the US ever realised that unlike the Vietnamese who never swore revenge against the Americans, the Pushtun and other Islamic radicals were going to be different and would use this as an excuse to carry the battle to the US. It is not that the US had this as a grand plan to control the world, but that they used the mujahedeen to unite the very Moroccans, Saudis and other Arabs with the Afghans and Pakistanis that Brzezinski said were as different as Christians in the Christian world. The US didn’t learn from Vietnam, the Soviets didn’t learn from the Americans either and then the Americans didn’t learn from the Soviets in Afghanistan. Today we have a jihad that has its epicentre in a Pakistan which is itself on a slippery slope with its spill over in Afghanistan.



Meanwhile, discourse in America has changed. Questions are being asked about why are US soldiers dying at the rate of 500 a year and why the US exchequer spending about US dollars 200 billion a year on an unwinnable war. By 2014 the next and ‘final’ date, America would have lost another 1500 young men and women. Admiral Mullen recently warned that 2011 would be bloodier than 2010. The primary aim of the US is to make America safe from terrorist attacks emanating from Afghanistan. There is a realisation that the US is unlikely to win; the government in Kabul is seen to be weak and ineffective; neither the Afghan Army nor the Afghan police are likely to be able to take control of the situation in the next three years. European and American public opinion s swinging away from this war; and anyone who has read Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars would realise that either President Obama is unsure what to do next or his heart is just not in it.



The next best thing to do is to somehow extricate with least damage by declaring “Mission Accomplished.” Essentially US policies have been more of the same; a certain kind of bankruptcy of ideas that only shows in funneling more funds to Pakistan either as a reward for services believed rendered or in the hope that they will rendered. In the process, Pakistan has acquired a veto power on the US for its policies in AfPak.



Perhaps Joe Biden’s plan of withdrawal of ground forces substantially and then hunting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan using special forces, Predator missile attacks and other surgical tactics may have been an option. Ambassador Robert Blackwill’s Plan B for Afghanistan is actually an extension of this. He calls for a withdrawal of American forces substantially from the Pushtun south and east and concentrating in US forces in the north and north west as bases for striking against targets. This is perhaps a better option for America than a sudden withdrawal like the one in Vietnam even which would mean that the US lost. Blackwill’s plan leaves some sizeable forces in the region protecting American interests though it also means an admission that the war as presently configured is unwinnable. Inbuilt in the Blackwill plan is a dialogue with the Taliban and reduction of US dependency on Pakistan and an informal coming into being of a Pushtun homeland. Both Biden and Blackwill realise that the essential problem is in Pakistan.



The Taliban, without any political or economic agenda beyond getting rid of the invader was a battered force in the early days of the US invasion and reconciled to accepting the new order, was allowed to stage a comeback through incompetence, insensitive unimaginative and heavily militaristic tactics of the invading American force that was quickly distracted to other theatres.

What is more likely is a stalemate where a tired Western alliance is bereft of most of its European allies and the battle becomes an exclusive one between the US and Taliban with an increasingly helpless and corrupt regime in Kabul. This regime which is increasingly being run by the same warlords and politicians who ruled Kabul from 1992 to 1996 will be pitted against those represented by the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network both of whom are backed by Pakistan.



Pakistan’s ambitions in Afghanistan



Given the Pakistan Army’s control over the Taliban, presence of its surrogates in Afghanistan along with reports of exploitable vital minerals in that country and the slowing down of the Kandahar and North Waziristan operations could suggest that there is a deal on the anvil. The West withdraws its fighting force substantially, outsources security of its projects to private military contractors while exploiting the minerals. Pakistan will have attained strategic depth and security through the Taliban and the Haqqani networks.



Obsessed with India, Pakistan has refused to take action against those groups that do not threaten its own existence - like the Afghan Shura in Quetta , the Haqqani Networks known for their anti-Indian animus and India-specific groups like the Lashkar e Tayyaba and Harkat ul Jihad al Islami, Jaish e Mohammed, or the sectarian militia like the Sipah Sahaba. It has taken limited action against Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan. However, the present mood in Pakistan is indicated by the assassination of the Punjab Governor, and, more significantly, the praise and open support that the assassin received. It is, therefore, going to be difficult for Pakistan to roll back the radical Islamic fervour that has gripped the country.



Pakistan has another dilemma. They want the Americans to leave so that they can take over control of Afghanistan. Ye t the fear is that if the Americans do leave substantially, then they will lose interest as in the past and the funds will dry up. So the entire game will continue to carefully choreographed where the US remains largely ineffective and dependent but keeps feeding Pakistan coffers.



Despite all the protestations, demarches, angry pronouncements, and plenty of carrots, the US has not been able to prevent Pakistan from playing its various proxies in Afghanistan, it has more or less bought the Pakistani argument that it is unable to take action in the west because of the India factor, and the Pak necessity to have ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan, and that because of all these factors it is also unable to take adequate action against its own terrorists.



Indian concerns



India has considerable concerns in the evolving situation Afghanistan and the region as a whole. It might be considered a satisfaction in Washington DC to be able to come to an agreement with the good Taliban assuming that they are less fundamentalist and therefore more benign than the other. The war in Afghanistan, it must never be forgotten, is not just against the Taliban and the Al Qaeda but against the medieval obscurantism that they represent. One also discerns dialogue in the west that seems to suggest that the Taliban are not such bad fellows after all, they have a regional i.e. Afghan nationalist approach and are merely fighting against foreign occupation. This argument implies that once this cause disappears then the Taliban angst will disappear and Afghanistan can be left to them. This is dangerous rationalisation and does not take into account Pakistani ambitions as well as the Taliban/Al Qaeda combine along with the criminal narcotics-warlord nexus. Accepting this deal is accepting the mindset and the short route to rapid Islamisation of the region and beyond.

India’s concern is that the US anxious, to find a solution to its predicament in Afghanistan, will look the other way to Pakistan’s acts of terrorism, will be ready to accept Pakistani charges of Indian interference in Afghanistan and intransigence on Kashmir and the continuing threat from India. Pakistan has fine tuned its strategy for the last three decades and has continued with that in the current US campaign. So long as it co-operates against the Al Qaeda and against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the US will accept what Pakistan does elsewhere.



Narcotics as a driving force and Russian worries



Western discourse has mostly been about geo-strategic aspects but tends to underplay the narcotics-criminal-warlord connections. It is often not forgotten that the value of the illicit narcotics industry equalled as much as one-third of Afghanistan’s regular economy. It is an important way of funding for the insurgency, competes with regular development, and undermines governance. Of the roughly $3 billion dollars generated by the Afghan narcotics trade, UNODC estimates that anywhere between $90 and $160 million per year is channelled to the insurgency. Afghanistan produces over 90 percent of the world’s opium, which is refined into heroin in Afghanistan and other countries. The UNODC estimates that 1.6 million Afghans were involved in opium poppy cultivation during the 2008–09 growing period, representing 6.4% of the total population.



Russia has been one of the most affected countries and an estimated 90 percent of heroin consumed in Russia originates in Afghanistan and comes via Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. According to Russia's Federal Drug Control Service, Afghan heroin kills around 100,000 globally, including 30,000 Russians, each year. This is far more than the annual losses of combatants in Afghanistan.



From Afghanistan, opium and, increasingly, refined heroin is trafficked to Western Europe and Russia via Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia The drug trade across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is not only weakening state control but also cementing linkages among drug traffickers throughout the larger region, Taliban, insurgents, and criminal groups. In turn, this nexus of drugs, crime, and insurgents threatens NATO supply routes and offers resistance to ongoing military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas.



The Russian dilemma is that they want to end the narcotics smuggling, they do not want Islamic radicalism to reach even their southern neighbours but at the same time they do not really want the Americans or NATO achieving this. Yet they are in no position to intervene in the conflict.



Other powers



It is possible that the US may be left with a situation where it finds itself backing the Kabul regime while Pakistan backs the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network in an Afghan civil war. China with ambitions to reach the Persian Gulf, is the rising power seeking space and resource bases for itself, with Pakistan as its staunch ally. India needs to strengthen its relations with Iran and Russia who would be similarly affected by the rise of Taliban, for access to Central Asia and West Asia.

While Pakistan, in search of strategic depth, and security against an India proclaims to fear both on its Western and Eastern borders, has assumed for itself a pre-eminent position as virtually the sole arbiter of Afghanistan’s fate, there are other countries in the region that have stakes in Afghanistan. Iran, for instance, surrounded as it feels with Sunni regimes/monarchies along with US CENTCOM forces located in the neighbourhood and with a 936 kilometre border with Afghanistan, is immensely apprehensive of a Wahhabi-Sunni regime in Afghanistan, and has reasons to feel claustrophobic and surrounded. A frequent complaint from Americans is that the Iranians are unreliable as they have harboured Al Qaeda and Taliban, besides the nuclear issue that bedevils US-Iran ties. This is far less duplicitous than what the Pakistani regime has been doing with the US. American reluctance to deal with Iran and the latter’s unpredictable behaviour has been one of the many drawbacks in evolving a unified approach against the Taliban/Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.



A US-Russia understanding on Afghanistan has just begun to evolve and would reduce US dependence on Pakistan for logistic support to that extent. The Central Asian Republics on Afghanistan’s northern boundaries fear the spread of Talibanised doctrines once Afghanistan falls to the Taliban. China seeks a place for itself in the Gulf via Afghanistan possibly as an alternative access routes in case Pakistan becomes more unstable. Further, China like Iran India and Russia would be extremely wary about the rise of Taliban and the possibility of this ideology filtering in to Xinjiang. Even so, a trilateral between India, Iran and China on this seems remote so also a trilateral between Russia, India and China.



After 2014



An American withdrawal in some form or the other is now a given. India has to prepare for the aftermath. This could be of various kinds.



It is sometimes forgotten that in the ultimate analysis the Taliban are Pushtun who live on both sides of the Durand Line and there has been an upsurge in anti-Pushtun violence in Balochistan, Karachi and FATA. It may not be long before there is an upsurge of a demand for Greater Pushtunistan once the foreigner and, therefore the common enemy, has departed and the Pushtuns internalise their several problems swept under the carpet by successive regimes. Pushtun assertiveness will almost certainly lead to retaliation from Afghanistan’s other ethnic groups. Religious obscurantism combined with ultra-nationalism can be a very explosive mix. Of course given Afghanistan’s complex tribal structure it is not easy to predict how the future will shape out. Besides any change in the configuration of the Pushtun belt will have its repercussions on Pakistan. Any Indian policy for the future must take this possibility into consideration.



There are a few other scenarios that one can visualise for Afghanistan. As the situation continues to deteriorate and the US keeps having its strategic re-evaluations, the future looks gloomy. It varies from an ultimate disaster for the region and indeed the world if the insurgency continues to grow rapidly to re-establish near total Taliban control with Al Qaeda back in reckoning in the country. While the Taliban would then control a region, possibly with effective Pakistan oversight and Al Qaeda would become better equipped to spread its global network. The Al Qaeda creed would then spread outward into Central Asia and beyond and strengthen in Yemen and the Horn of Africa. It is far too close to India for any comfort.



Nevertheless, the future looks uncertain and violent unless there is an all-nation guarantee for Afghan neutrality and non-interference by other powers. It is a fair assumption that Karzai’s Afghanistan is unravelling fast and no one really has any idea how to prevent this. Meanwhile, the Saudi-Wahhabi and the Pakistan-Military nexus, the latter’s nexus with the Afghan drug lords, worth billions of dollars, seem to assume that they would be picking up the pieces in a divided country with Pakistan at last attaining its ‘strategic depth’ vis a vis India. This is not how it may happen eventually.



The cure, if any, lies in Pakistan where all Afghan specific and India specific insurgent/terrorist groups take shelter, receive support and now coalesce for Pakistan’s foreign policy objectives. So far India been comfortable with its infrastructure assistance to the Afghans while others battled for bigger stakes. This situation is going to change with Pakistan remaining hostile because enmity with India that is seen and portrayed as a hostile predator has been the cornerstone of its existence.

There are no easy answers no quick solutions. A solution can be possible only if four aspects are seriously considered. Pakistan must be reined in and made to understand that it is less indispensible to US interests than it makes out. The US must accept that it can no longer determine the fate of other countries on its own and has to reach out to other neighbouring countries like Iran and others who have important stakes in the stability and independence of Afghanistan i.e. Russia and India. Additionally, the US has to use more of the stick and less of the carrot when dealing with Pakistan. The narcotics criminal warlord nexus must be severed. This cannot be done without adequate agricultural relief work preceding this; which in turn cannot be done adequately without pacifying the various areas, especially Kandahar where the challenge is the greatest. There has to be closer US and NATO engagement with Russia and separately Iran for dealing with Afghanistan effectively. We must evaluate if there can be any agreement amongst all nations about non-interference in Afghanistan or will Pakistan continue to remain a considerable part of the problem.



Whatever happens in the next few years, it must be accepted that the nature of the region will change, perhaps forever. A stable Pakistan may have been able to exercise reasonable influence on a much weaker Afghanistan. That influence would certainly not have been to India’s advantage. However, Pakistan is itself in a mess of various kinds, where the voice of the polity, society and the military is that of an increasingly intolerant and violent religiosity along with ethno-political fissures. It is doubtful that even if the US were to leave victorious or leave substantially whether Pakistan would be able to either control or bring stability to the region. Pakistan’s quest for strategic depth is more likely to end up as a strategic quagmire. What we are looking at is a very unstable and turbulent region from the Oxus to the Indus.



Faced with this ominous situation of approaching chaos, the urge in India would be that we must do something in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We must resist this temptation and distinguish between wanting to do something, the need to do something and ability to do something. As a nation we must realise that there is a vast difference between wanting to change our neighbourhood, the ability to do so and the difference between the two. Our social indicators remain abysmal, and mere GDP growth rates are misleading. The best we can do is to decide to strengthen our defence, security and intelligence; and to get internally cohesive and strong without being distracted by party ambitions. We do not seem to display any sense of urgency in any of these vital matters and seem quite happy with global approbation. We should not therefore get tempted to go in as flag waving liberators acting as someone else’s surrogates, to clear their mess or surrender our core security interests in Jammu and Kashmir or elsewhere. To do so would be monumental folly.



It may be best to wait it out, keep a low profile instead of perpetually seeking a place at the High Table.



Source : ETERNAL INDIA JOURNAL,NEW DELHI FEBRUARY 2011 ISSUE ( Former head of the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency )

Afghan unravelling ?

After nine years in Afghanistan — its longest war — the United States seems to be caught in a quagmire with the Taliban, backed by US ally Pakistan, on the ascendant. Thousands of Afghans have died along with nearly 2,000 ISAF troops, and $300 billion spent on a war that has chronically been under-resourced and self-delusionary. Today, the campaign looks increasingly an exclusive American enterprise, with Canada and the Netherlands deciding to walk out; the German President had to resign over differences and the French also reluctant to continue with this never-ending war. The US commander had to quit amid stories of dissonance among major US policymakers. The British envoy, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, is on long leave, and Britain’s CDS is to demit office prematurely. The Canadians have just revealed they had unearthed a conspiracy to destroy the Canadian Parliament by a group of 18 home-grown Muslim terrorists angry with the country’s Afghan war involvement.

Afghanistan remains lawless with several governments acting on their own, an ineffective police force and an inept national army that won’t be ready to take on full functions for several years. Many of America’s quixotic adventures were on the advice of Pakistan’s rulers, who led them to believe they could capitalise on the differences between the “good” and “bad” Taliban. Attempts at regime change, by demonising President Hamid Karzai without taking the elementary precaution of identifying a successor, were an incredibly naïve pursuit that created irreconcilable differences between master and ally. Once intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, who opposed negotiations with the insurgents, was eased out, Mr Karzai could buy local insurance and pursue the policy of chatting up Siraj Haqqani under close Pakistani supervision.

Late in the day, perhaps, US and other Western think tanks and media have begun to acknowledge the source and gravity of the problem. The latest and most comprehensive was the Rand Corporation paper by Christine Fair and Seth Jones, which highlights the terrorist threat not only to the region and the world but to Pakistan itself. While suggesting that Pakistan abandon its policy of using terror as a foreign policy weapon, the authors also asked the US to revisit its own policy of too many carrots and too few sticks. The LSE report authored by Matt Waldman on the Pakistan government’s official policy of supporting, through the ISI, Afghan insurgents (Taliban and the Haqqani network) only embellishes what has been stated here in India for years, known in the West but rarely openly acknowledged. Further, the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba’s growing profile in Afghanistan means Pakistan seeks to use this trusted jihadi organisation as insurance in case the Taliban turn rogue. It is an unfortunate measure of Pakistani leaders’ all-consuming hostility towards India that they would rather cohabit with a retrograde organisation like the Taliban instead of seeking a compromise with India.

The sudden publication of what is really old news about the trillion-dollar mineral reserves in Afghanistan is a new factor. Will the global war on terror, once described as unwinnable by President Barack Obama, now become a winnable war for resources? These are all heavy-investment and long-gestation projects that only the rich and powerful can manage. But there is no magic wand for instant riches and stability for Afghanistan’s poor. The fear is that Afghanistan, as the land bridge between Central Asia and the rest of Asia, will go further downhill amid increased violence among its various ethnic groups. A significant number of these forces would be provided by jihadi foot soldiers from Pakistan.

These reports, about the Pakistan Army’s control over the Taliban, the presence of its surrogates in Afghanistan along with reports of exploitable vital minerals in that country and the slowing down of the Kandahar and North Waziristan operations, could suggest there is a deal on the anvil. The West withdraws its fighting forces substantially, outsources security of its projects to private military contractors while exploiting minerals. Pakistan will have attained strategic depth and security through the Taliban and Haqqani networks.

It is sometimes forgotten that in the ultimate analysis, the Taliban are Pashtun who live on both sides of the Durand Line, and there has been an upsurge in anti-Pashtun violence in Balochistan, Karachi and Fata. It might not be long before there is an upsurge of the demand for a Greater Pushtunistan once the foreigner (and common enemy) has departed, and Pashtuns internalise their problems swept under the carpet by successive regimes. Pashtun assertiveness will almost certainly lead to retaliation from Afghanistan’s other ethnic groups. Religious obscurantism combined with ultra-nationalism can be a very explosive mix.

The future looks uncertain and violent unless there is an all-nations guarantee for Afghan neutrality and non-interference by other powers. It is a fair assumption that Mr Karzai’s Afghanistan is unravelling fast and no one really has any idea how to prevent this. The Saudi-Wahhabi and the Pakistan-military nexus, the latter’s nexus with Afghan drug lords, worth billions of dollars, appears to be picking up the pieces in a divided country.

The cure, if any, lies in Pakistan — where all Afghan-specific and India-specific insurgent/terrorist groups take shelter, receive support and now coalesce for Pakistan’s foreign policy objectives. So far India been comfortable with its infrastructure assistance to Afghans, while others battled for bigger stakes. This situation will change, with Pakistan remaining hostile despite the recent veneer of bonhomie.

China, with ambitions to reach the Persian Gulf, is the rising power seeking space and resource bases for itself, with Pakistan as its staunch ally. India needs to strengthen its relations with Iran and Russia, who would be similarly affected by the rise of Taliban, for access to Central Asia and West Asia. Despite the odds against us, India’s profile in Afghanistan must not be lowered. If Kashmir is an all-time issue for Pakistan, so should Gilgit and Baltistan — a geo-strategic jugular for both Pakistan and China — be for India. It would be sound policy to modernise our defence forces in all aspects, especially maritime. The region will eventually normalise only when the Pakistan Army, whose policies have hurt the Pakistani people immeasurably, normalises like other armies.

Source : Asian Age , 29th June 2010 ,Former head of R&AW

Is America Hostage To ISI In Afghanistan

Terror in Kabul

At about 8.30 a.m. on the morning of July 5, 2008, a Toyota Camry laden with explosives rammed into two cars outside the fortified gates of the Indian Embassy and exploded just as Embassy staff was entering the building. 58 persons, including the Military Attache and a diplomat of the Indian Embassy, and many of the visa seekers who had lined up outside the Embassy gates, died. Three days later, a bomb was found on a bus that was taking Indian construction workers to their worksite on the Ziranj-Dilaram road being constructed with Indian assistance. Quiet obviously these two terrorist acts were specifically aimed at India.

By the end of August that year it was quite evident that the all powerful Pakistani intelligence agency, the Directorate of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) had a role to play in these attacks. There was enough evidence of Pakistani involvement in the Kabul bombing. The Afghan secret service, the Riyasat-e-Amniyat-e-Milli, had warned India on June 23 of an imminent attack. Its report said terrorists linked to al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani from his base in North Waziristan under Pakistani shelter, had planned a suicide assault on the mission. The Indian Intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing also had similar information three days and later corroborated by US intelligence reports.

Towards the end of July, The New York Times had reported that the CIA had provided wireless intercepts of communications between Pakistan’s ISI and the Kabul bombers. More than that, the US intelligence began to suspect that foreknowledge about this attack went as high as Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.

More than a year later, a large bomb exploded outside the Indian embassy in Kabul on October 8, 2009, killing 17 people and wounding 76. The Taliban claimed responsibility for this terrorist act. Obviously the Taliban, whose cause had been championed by Pakistan since their creation by the ISI and, even after being toppled as Afghanistan's rulers in 2001, were acting on behalf of their masters.

Fears about India

Most of Pakistan’s anxiety to dominate over Afghanistan is India-related in trying to seek what it called strategic depth against the much larger India, ensure a friendly Afghan government in Kabul that accepted the Durand Line dividing not only the Pushtun living on both sides of the border but also the two nations. It has always been important for Pakistan that Afghans accept the Durand Line to prevent any irredentist claims by Afghanistan or demands for ethnic independence by Pushtun nationalists. Pakistan had a virtually unimpeded role in Afghanistan once the US-led Afghan jihad started against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979 and especially in the 1990s when it championed the Taliban. Till September 2001 it assumed that its position in Afghanistan was unchallengeable. But today Pakistan is concerned that the aid policy of India which contributes US $ 1.3 billion to the Afghan infrastructure would make India more popular than before. This would make it more difficult for its surrogates, the Taliban, to assume control when eventually the US/NATO leave Afghanistan.

What happened in Kabul in 2008 and 2009 was part of a three pronged policy of the Pakistan government mainly implemented by the ISI. It was to terrorise and intimidate the Indian workers and Embassy in Afghanistan through these sponsored attacks by the Taliban and the Haqqani networks. The second plank has been to constantly level charges of Indian interference in Pakistan through its consulates in Afghanistan so that the Indian presence in Afghanistan could be reduced through US/Western pressure. Third, give sanctuary to the Taliban in Balochistan and other parts of Pakistan, including as it seems even in Karachi as Quetta had become vulnerable to possible drone attacks.

The ISI develops its claws

The ISI’s role in the Afghan jihad and beyond, leading to the growth of the Taliban in the 1990s has been covered by Steve Coll in his famous book Ghost Wars – The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 11, 2001. This monumental work recounts how the Taliban first rose and, with the help of the ISI, attained power in Afghanistan and the emergence of Osama Bin Laden. It is more than the history of the CIA. It is a history of collaboration between the two intelligence agencies where the ISI supplied weapons, funds, logistics and refuge to the mujahedeen operating in Afghanistan from Pakistan. The money came primarily from Saudi Arabia, the weapons and logistics from the US and other allies and the volunteers came from all over the Islamic world. Close association with the mujahedeen leaders like the ISI favourite Gulbuddin Hekmetyar of Hizb-e-Islami was the favourite of the Pakistani intelligence establishment and was groomed by them to succeed in Kabul after the Soviets left. There were other fall back options like the second favourite, Jalaluddin Haqqani of the Hizb-e-Islami (Yunus Khalis faction) and who today heads Haqqani networks with his son Sirajuddin leading the charge and operating from North Waziristan in Pakistan.

The aftermath of the departure of the Soviets did not lead to the results that Pakistan expected. They could not reach Kabul with their favourite, Hekmetyar beaten back first by President Najibullah’s regime that lasted longer than expected and then by the lightening takeover of Kabul by the Tajik leader and former ally, Ahmed Shah Masood in 1992. Pakistan’s dream was fast becoming a nightmare as it was unable to control the warring groups and chaos reigned.
It was then the Taliban – obscurantist and xenophobic - was born, manned almost entirely by the mujahedeen and young Afghans from the madrassas of NWFP and Balochistan in the autumn of 1994. The Taliban from the religious schools of Akhora Khattak in Peshawar, NWFP and the Binori chain of madrassas headquartered in Karachi were seen by the ISI as an alternative of the failed experiment with Hekmetyar.

Ahmed Rashid’s book Descent Into Chaos in an authoritative and detailed account of Pakistan’s support to the Taliban with refuge, funds and arms more or less on the same pattern as had been given to the Afghan mujahedeen is the previous decade. The CIA had lost control of the Afghan jehad by allowing the ISI to determine which mujahedeen faction would receive how much money and how many weapons. American money for hunting Al Qaeda was diverted by the ISI to finance Taliban activities in Afghanistan. Therein lie the failures of the West to control Pakistan, by allowing it to nurture forces like the Taliban and subsequently even the Al Qaeda.
By 1996 the Taliban of Mullah Omar were in control in Kabul, just a few months after Osama bin Laden returned to Afghanistan following a four-year absence in the Sudan. Before going to the Sudan, Osama was in Pakistan, a useful hangover from the mujahedeen days. However, as the Pakistani author, Amir Mir points out in his book The Talibanisation of Pakistan-from 9/11 to 26/11,(2009) ‘The proximity between the ISI and the Taliban and the intimacy between the Taliban and Al Qaeda necessarily raises the question of the nature of relations between the ISI and Al Qaeda. It is generally believed that the link between the ISI and Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden goes back to almost 25 years ago.’ It is believed that Osama’s initial meeting with Mullah Omar was set up by the ISI and eventually brought him to Kandahar. When Al Qaeda was formed along the Afghan-Pakistan border its first camps in Afghanistan were set up in Haqqani’s territory whom both the ISI and CIA had seen as an important fighter in the Afghan jihad. It was Haqqani who was encouraged to raise funds for Al Qaeda from Saudi Arabia and rich Arabs.

In an intricate web of arrangements the Taliban continued to remain dependent even after September 11, 2001 on an infrastructure of religious parties like the Jamaat ul Ulema Islami (Fazlur Rehman) and other sectarian groups like the ultra-Sunni Sipaha Sahaba that were important clients of the ISI. The fact that Pakistan had close links with the Taliban before the September 11 attacks is well documented. The report of the US National Commission on the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks stated that “Pakistan, not Iraq, was a patron of terrorism and had closer ties with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda leading up to the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban’s ability to provide the Al Qaeda chief a haven in the face of international pressure and the United Nations sanctions was significantly facilitated by Pakistani support. Pakistan broke off with the Taliban only after 9/11 even though it knew the Afghan militia was hiding Osama bin Laden.”

The Pakistani agenda widens

In the 1990s, Pakistan however had another triple agenda of encouraging Al Qaeda to expand its activities for a global jehad while focusing its own attention on the Indian subcontinent and strengthening the Taliban in Afghanistan. The ISI co-operated and aided Al Qaeda in establishing training camps inside Afghanistan which would help in spreading the Al Qaeda message and also indoctrinate foreign fighters in these camps who could in turn reinforce the faith in the Pakistani Punjabi but Kashmir specific Lashkar-e-Tayyaba fighters.
Lt General Hamid Gul at that time the head of the ISI was, and still is, a fervent Islamic fundamentalist and anti-West – a feeling that was shared by some of his successors like Lt Gen Javed Nasir and Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed who was the DG on September 11, 2001. After decades of close association with the Taliban, Al Qaeda and India-specific terrorist outfits like the Lashkar e Tayyaba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harkat-u- Mujahedeen, Harkat-ul-Jihad-i- Islami, it was impossible for the ISI to remain unaffected by the feelings and sentiments of its fundamentalist surrogates.

It may have been politically inexpedient to admit this publicly but US intelligence agencies had done their homework about Pakistani activities. The Defence Intelligence Assessment of 1999 made the stark assessment that bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network had been able to expand under the safe sanctuary extended by the Taliban in keeping with Pakistani instructions. Osama’s Zawaha camp on the Afghan Pakistan border which was targeted by US cruise missiles in 1998 had been built with ISI funds by Pakistani contractors and protected by the local tribal leader Jalaluddin Haqqani. The “real host of that facility was the Pakistani ISI,” the report said.
By 2000, there were half a dozen ISI officers deputed to the Taliban headquarters in Kandahar. By the middle of 2001, Pakistan was providing to Afghanistan more than a hundred high frequency phone lines and major cities were accessible through the Pakistani network. Around that time about thirty trucks were crossing the Pakistan border carrying armaments for the Taliban in violation of UN sanctions. Senior Pakistani military and intelligence officers were involved in planning Taliban offensives.

The ISI was less than co-operative with the CIA on issues relating to the Al Qaeda or Osama. When in May 2001, Director CIA visited Pakistan and asked his Pakistani counterpart Lt General Mahmood Ahmed to share intelligence on Osama, the Pakistani refused. A few months before 9/11, the ISI had intelligence that two prominent nuclear scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood Chaudhri Abdul Majeed had met Osama and Ayman al-Zawahiri Mahmood Ahmed did not feel it necessary to share this information with the US. On a visit to Washington in the week beginning September 4, 2001 Mahmood stalled all American requests to co-operate on Taliban and Al Qaeda. One day after the Twin Towers fell, Richard Armitage the Deputy Secretary of State had delivered the famous threat to Mahmood and the Pak Ambassador when he said “Help us and breathe in the 21st century along with the international community or be prepared to live in the Stone Age.” Gen Mahmood Ahmed was sent to the Taliban to suggest to them to surrender, but he did no such thing. Instead he is said to have advised them about how to resist the Americans and promised them full support. Gen. Musharraf who had got an equally stern message “Are you with us or against us” from Washington and before October 7, 2001, Mahmood Ahmed was relieved of ISI command.

CIA’s and Gen Musharraf’s limited options

Despite the stern warnings, the CIA had very little choice. When the September 11 2001 catastrophe struck the US, accompanying the rage in Washington was the knowledge that the US had no intelligence inputs on whatsoever on the AL Qaeda and Taliban activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The uncomfortable truth was that the US intelligence agencies had little or no human source intelligence, its other intelligence collection capabilities had shrunk during the Clinton Presidency and there was very little military to military contact between the two countries. The truth was that it needed Pakistan and the ISI and the Pakistanis, who had been active in Afghanistan for a decade , knew this as well. That is how the relationship was sought to be re-established but has till date remained an uncomfortable one with a huge trust deficit. The suicide attack on the CIA camp in Afghanistan (Camp Chapman Khost, December 30, 2009) where seven CIA operatives were killed showed that even eight years after the launch of the war on terror in Afghanistan, showed that the American intelligence footprint was still faint and perhaps even amateurish.

Although Gen. Musharraf accepted the US diktat almost immediately after it was delivered to him, its implementation would prove to be difficult. It was easy to clean the higher echelons of the ISI where senior officers worked on tenures that lasted a few years. The difficulty was at the middle and lower levels where ISI operatives handling the jihad or the Taliban had been working for ten years or even longer. They were closely associates not only with the Pukhtun leadership but had begun to identify themselves with the cause as well. A kind of a Stockholm Syndrome had set in even among those who were not religiously inclined. The Pakistan Army, years after General Zia ul-Haq was killed in 1988, still maintains the same jihadi slogan that was given to it by Zia – Jihad Fi Sabillah which translated means ‘Jihad in the name of Allah.’

By the time a change of heart was demanded from Musharraf and his military government, the ISI had been able to build enough identification of interest between the young of Pakistan and the Taliban so that when the American pressure came on the Pakistan government there was a desire among the young to defend the Taliban and their ideology rather that the outsider. The other dilemma was that the terrorist infrastructure that targeted the Indians and Kashmir like the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Jaish–e- Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen in their various reincarnations had to be protected at all costs. The break with these groups in Afghanistan was going to be troublesome and slow. The US had to apply considerable and constant pressure for the Pakistanis to yield on the Al Qaeda front in the next few years. By 2003 most of the Al Qaeda including many big names, had been handed over/arrested/killed (about 600). There are even reports from Asian News International quoting Karachi based Pakistani political sources that Osama, Zarqawi and Mullah Omar have been given shelter in Karachi by the Pakistan government. But the Taliban and the India-specific outfits were not to be touched. Imtiaz Gul in his book The Al Qaeda Connection –Taliban and Terror in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas and Amir Mir in his book Talibanisation of Pakistan- from 9//1 to 26/11 give detailed and chilling accounts of the Pakistan ISI-Taliban –Al Qaeda nexus. They describe how the Pakistan government played an elaborate game of charade with the US following the US ultimatum and continued to play this almost till the other day.

This frustration with Pakistani tactics has led the US to follow the Iraqi example of drawing in private military company for armed support and intelligence activities. According to Jeremy Scahill of the Nation, (November 23, 2009), his investigations had found that “At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan”.

It is possible that the three US Special Forces officers killed in NWFP in November 2009 were from one such private military company. It is also possible that the raid conducted by the Pakistani intelligence and US forces that led to the arrest of Abdul Ghani Baradar (Karachi mid February 2010) may have had an component from a private military company.

Pakistan obfuscates and prevaricates

Pakistan was a reluctant participant in President Bush’s global war on terror. Circumstances had forced general Musharraf to accept this course of action much against the wishes of many of military commanders. Thus, while they began to co-operate in the operations against Al Qaeda the same co-operation was not available against the Taliban. Operations against India-specific terrorist outfits were not even on the table nor did the West push this agenda.

A complex and a dangerous agreement was worked out between the Taliban and the Pak Army. The Taliban were allowed to push their agenda in Afghanistan and could even remain active in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in the NWFP so long as the Pakistan Army was acknowledged as supreme. But the FATA Taliban, angered by the assault on their territories by US Predator drones and by Pak Army co-operation with the US broke ranks and attacked to occupy the Swat Valley. This was out of bounds and so was the Taliban foray into Buner barely 100 km from the capital, Islamabad. The Pak Army had to counterattack but the intention never was to destroy the Taliban; it was only to discipline the force, reassert its own supremacy and keep it intact for the future. Action was to be taken against the Taliban or will be taken against any force that threatens the Pak Army’s own security and not because this is part of NATO/US agenda. David Rhode the NY Times journalist who spent more than 7 months in Taliban captivity wrote in 2009 that in North Waziristan in FATA the Pak Army had allowed the Taliban to run their own “state”.

There were other instances of Pakistan duplicity. During a fierce battle in Afghanistan in 2007 the Americans learn from their own and Afghan intelligence inputs that Pak military flew repeated helicopter missions to resupply the Taliban forces. In the first five years till 2006 while 600 Al Qaeda were picked up not a single Taliban was arrested. There were two ISI training camps near Quetta in Balochistan for the Taliban and there is documentation to show that 2,000 rocket propelled grenades and 400,000 rounds of ammunition were supplied for one Taliban campaign. By 2008 caustic comments were being made by a frustrated and angry US administration. For instance, Bruce Riedel at one stage in 2008 angrily referred to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s attempts to fleece US for billions of dollars while it allowed Al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan. “We had a partner who was double dealing us,” he said.
There have been endless visits from Washington of very senior administration and Pentagon officials to apply pressure on the Pakistan government to live up to its word. This constant stream has included virtually all of President Obama’s inner group of senior advisers and military practitioners for the last year in particular – the Defence Secretary Robert Gates, NSA Dennis Blair, DNI James Jones, CIA Chief Panneta, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen and Commander CENTCOM David Patraeus as well as Richard Holbrooke. In an interview in March 2009, Holbrooke when asked if the ISI was assisting Al Qaeda and Taliban-linked extremists was extremely skeptical because he felt that not only was there hardly any co-operation between the two intelligence services We cannot succeed if the two intelligence agencies (the CIA and ISI), they seemed to be inimical to each other, there was no trust and the Americans were concerned that that the other side was colluding with the Taliban.
There have been some signs of a better co-operation following the recent arrest of the Afghan Taliban leader and Mullah Omar’s deputy, Abdul Ghani Baradar, as a result of joint intelligence operations between the CIA and ISI. However, the Pakistani authorities are reluctant to hand Baradar over for further interrogations for fear that he would reveal far too much. A recent announcement that the US/NATO forces will now target the Haqqani networks in North Waziristan either means that the Pak Army is fully on board with this and has realized the danger it faces from these factions is real and imminent or that the US has decided to go it alone, despite Pakistani prevarication. Time will tell whether this is a game changer or simply a period of greater uncertainty.

One of the main reasons why the Soviets had to vacate Afghanistan in the manner they did was because they did not take the battle to the source of the trouble, which was in Pakistan. It was so then, and it is so today. If the world needs to prevent another attack like that on September 11 or the Madrid train bombings, the London train-bus terror or Mumbai 26/11 then the US led forces in Afghanistan-Pakistan have to succeed. What could prevent this from happening is continued Pakistani assistance to these groups.

With the implementation of the surge of U. S. forces in action in the Helmand province in the battle of Marja, others in the region are waiting to see how this plays out. There has also been talk of concerted action against the Haqqani forces in North Waziristan following the arrest of the Taliban deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. At the same time the general belief in the region is that the US/NATO forces will begin to leave by mid-2011. Should this become a general assessment the policy of the Taliban, presumably at the advice of the Pakistanis could be to lie low. One can be fairly sure that where the US with its powerful war machine could not succeed in Afghanistan a smaller force is hardly likely to succeed. The US frustration is partly the result of inadequacy of force levels, Pakistani duplicity and the traditional Afghan resistance to foreigner. After thirty years of involvement, it is natural that if the US/NATO were to leave the region without stabilising Afghanistan not merely as a pro-western nation but as an Afghan nation, then the instability will spread rapidly.

The fallout on Pakistan will be the quickest and is inevitable. The one thing the Pushtun on both sides of the Durand Line will ask is that they did not fight together against foreign forces for three decades to become minorities in both countries. That is a question both Pakistan and Afghanistan will have to answer.


Source : Appeared in Italian journal "Limes " , 30th March ,2010 Former Head of R&AW

Afghanistan - What India should expect and what it should do

Afghanistan has been at the cross roads of great empires and thus a scene for frequent/brutal conflict but never under the control of any outside power for long. In the last 30 years Afghanistan has seen the effects of a Communist takeover promising liberation from feudalism and assuring equality, a religious bigoted group establishing itself spearheaded by US led Islamic zeal, followed by the US attempts to give the hapless country liberty and equality. Today we once again see the return of the Taliban and the US eager to negotiate with the same ideology and the same people they wanted to overthrow in 2001. There are many who say that this is actually a display of ethnic nationalism under the guise of a religious movement.
Situation in Afghanistan is a very complex one with a number of actors - internal and external, conflicting interests and capabilities. It is not likely to change in the next few years.
• This includes the various ethnic nationalities of Afghanistan.
• The warlords and their vested interests in the production and smuggling of narcotics, and arms. • Corruption alone is a US $ 2 billion industry. A weak government in Kabul without any viable succession option visible.
• Its inability to exercise any control outside Kabul is well known. Has weak army and law enforcement machineries; their growth is hindered by factors of corruption and local ethnic interests. Attempts to establish an ANA and ANP have been slow and arduous.
• Most importantly, there is more than one group operating inside Afghanistan and many from Pakistani soil.

There are any number of external players and their own interests. The US and its allies want to make US free of any terrorism emanating from Afghanistan which is a threat to them and their allies. To do this they rely on Pakistan whose interests are different from the American interests and whose co-operation is less than forthcoming. Having made Pakistan totally indispensible to their cause they US has allowed Pakistan to play the spoiler. Pakistan, obsessed with India, has assumed that the control of Kabul slipping into the hands of the Taliban and that the Taliban being under their control would leave them in an advantageous position vis-a-vis India. The Pak establishment has endeavoured, successfully so far, to keep India out of any international arrangement aimed at solving the Afghan tangle.
That being so, a solution to the problem is equally difficult.

There are several kinds of insurgencies afloat in Afghanistan since 2002.
The Quetta Shura in south and east Afghanistan . Sirajuddin Haqqani in Pakhtia, Pakhtika, Jalalabad . Salafis of Hayatullah in Kunnar and Nooristan. Hizb- e-Islami of Hikmetyar but have now mostly been fighting under the banner of Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban, their own sub groups according to region and clan, and their various associates from the LeT , JeM, SSP, LJ. And then, there is the Al Qaeda.
For the present Pakistan may exult. It presumes that the inevitable and hopefully substantial departure of the US/NATO would leave it with the much sought after strategic depth.

It is difficult to predict if and when the US will change its decades old policy of pardoning Pakistan all its transgressions. What we need to take into account is that one of these days the US will carry out its much vaunted but ridiculously inadequate much delayed surge, declare mission accomplished and thin out. Its long-term policies are dictated by election year compulsions. Once the coalition forces begin to pull out a few things will inevitably happen as other interests try to fill the empty spaces. It is a retreat by another name. It is different from the Vietnam quagmire because the Vietnamese did not come after the Americans for vengeance. The Afghans will. Istanbul and London are the markers for the retreat. Although US may put whatever spin it may want to.

Pakistan will naturally assume that its moment has come again and it could now acquire its much dreamt strategic depth, throw the Indians out and be the overlord in Afghanistan.

• The Iranians are unlikely to remain idle spectators as a Sunni Wahabbi neighbour is going to be unsettling factor for them.
• Saudi Arabia on the other hand would want a Wahhabi regime in Afghanistan that would check the Iranians and hopefully also keep the anti-Saudi extremists in Afghanistan.
• The Chinese have already begun to move in with their commercial and resource interests into Afghanistan as they would see an opportunity to move closer to the Persian Gulf, given their steady relations with the Iranians. The Chinese would see themselves moving into empty spaces up to the Persian Gulf vacated by a retreating American empire without having fired a bullet and lost a man. They also need to keep the Islamist extremists away from sensitive areas like Xinjiang so their presence in Afghanistan and image might be an insurance against the marauding extremists.
• The Central Asian Republics and Russia have their concerns about the dangers of Talibanised ideology spreading into their countries. Russia is realigning; so is Japan..
• Finally, the absence of a strong centralised authority will only create more confusion in a country that has been run on drug money and foreign doles.
• Pakistan’s exultation may be temporary. Unable to control its own territory it is unlikely to be able to run Afghanistan in the way it may want to. It does not have the resources to do so and the US, hopefully, may not sub lease Afghanistan to Pakistan this time. The other very real danger is that the Pushtuns on both sides of the Durand Line, joined together in a common fight for decades, may well ask if they fought all these years only to end up being minorities in both countries. The departure of the Coalition Forces will only add to the instability of the region and India needs to prepare itself for this eventuality.

It is an accepted fact of history that the Taliban were the creation of Pakistan. But what is not known today is the degree of control Pakistan exercises on the Taliban.

Either way it is feared that there will be a destabilising effect on PK. One would doubt if the Pushtun/Taliban will rest after assuming power in AF. A victorious Taliban in Kabul is less likely to accept the Durand Line. Please do not pooh pooh this, ridicule it, ignore it as an IN dream; do please look at it as a PK nightmare.
Rahimullah Yusufzai in a recent article in the News (Feb 2, 2010) made this very astute observation when he said that the “Return of the Afghan Taliban to power whether by force or some peace process, would definitely raise the spirits of the Pakistani Taliban and likeminded jihadis and thus lead to fallout on the situation in Pakistan.” He added that “There is bound to be fallout on Pakistan when the world's most powerful armies are involved in the longest war in the US and NATO history in neighbouring Afghanistan. And the fallout is to be expected because the US and NATO consider Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas as theatres of the same war and have thus deliberately named their strategy to deal with the challenge as Af-Pak.”

If the Taliban succeed in Afghanistan then one can expect a repeat of what happened in India after the retreat of the Soviets from Afghanistan. There will be far too many unemployable jihadis in Pakistan and besides the jihadis would want to continue their jihad having defeated another superpower.

The status of the ANA and ANP

The dilemma is that losing is not an option for the US; stalemate is strategic defeat for a superpower; troop augmentation to the extent required is unacceptable, and even a surge of 40000 is difficult. The much talked of Afghan army is still a ghost army. Ann Jones in her report in the Nation (Sep 21, 2009) had described the Afghan Army as a figment of Washington’s imagination. It does not exist in the numbers claimed, it is poorly trained, many of the recruits/trainees are repeats who come back with new names for the money, the food and the equipment they can take away and sell. It is a frightening thought to have a man trained with rubber guns for three weeks, then given the real gun and sent off to fight battles for his country.

This became apparent when the Helmand campaign began last July and the ANA could muster only 600 men, far short of the 90000 that are supposed to be enlisted. The hope that Afghanistan will suddenly have an efficient 134000 strong army in two years is very much a false hope. What should worry Washington is that there have been reports of demoralisation and self-doubts among some sections of the US forces. The state of the Afghan police is even worse with 60% suspected to be on drugs. Ill equipped and ill trained, they are easy pickings for the Taliban. No wonder Pakistan will continue to hedge its bets with the Taliban, targeting only those that they see threatening them. They are aware also that NATO countries may not be able last out in Afghanistan much beyond 2010.

There are many Afghans who do not see the Taliban as necessarily bigoted or evil; they see the possibility of a more rational Taliban regime once the US has left.

Striking deals with the Taliban

It is presumed that some kind of a deal will be attempted in the months ahead. Mullah Omar will accept to negotiate only after the US /NATO leave. If the US objective is to get rid of foreign militants then the Taliban may be more willing to talk. But the trust deficit is huge.

The Afghan/Pushtun/Taliban fear is that the surge and augmentation of ANA/ANP would eventually mean more targets, more damage more explosions - more deaths and destruction. This would be a part of the surge.

All indications are that the US/NATO will commence withdrawal/disengagement around mid-2011. It is necessary for us to think of the post-US situation. The West had made it their business 8 years ago to get rid of Al Qaeda and Taliban from Afghanistan to make America and its friends safe. Today, they rationalize and prepare for a dignified exit by saying that AQ is not really in AF while the Taliban are a reality, so the world must deal with this reality.

There is talk of good/moderate Taliban and the hardcore/bad Taliban. These are essentially rationalisations to set the new discourse. Moderate Taliban or those who will be weaned away from the main Taliban may not have the authority to deliver what they promise. It is doubtful, if Taliban would strike a deal with the US under pressure from the Pakistanis on terms that are more favourable to the Taliban than to Mullah Omar. Attempts to divide the Taliban have essentially failed. In India we should stop post-event rationalisations on behalf of the Americans.

Pakistan’s options
One sees a new mood in Islamabad post Istanbul and London. A new mood of assertiveness, self confidence and aggression is visible in Kayani’s statements and Qureshi’s choreographed obduracy prior to the talks and collective theatrics afterwards. Pakistan will up its demands with Washington in the months ahead. For India it will do likewise. The cue this time will be water. Pakistan will buy additional insurance for itself in Afghanistan while keeping its options in India open and up the ante in Kashmir. This will be to provoke an Indian reaction and get out of having to take sterner action against the Taliban in Balochistan and Afghanistan.

• One can expect the following in the next few months from Pakistan:
• Intefada type protests in Kashmir
• Provocations to keep Indian Army engaged yet seek their withdrawal
• Terrorism in the rest of India.
• One can expect continued terrorist attacks in Afghanistan against Indians and Indian assets to frighten away India from Afghanistan since persuasion through the US has not succeeded.
• Water will be the issue that will be used to unite the people against India as the temperature in Kashmir is raised.
• Consolidate in Afghanistan by making itself a party to any negotiations that the Americans may have with the Taliban, so that Pakistan remains in control
• Insulate and preserve India-specific terrorist organisations for use from time to time.
• Talk to India patronisingly as a favour to the US

What should India do

• Indian primary interest is to prevent Pakistan from using Afghanistan as a base for terrorist activity in India.
• The other interest is to seek access to Central Asia through Afghanistan and Iran, since Pakistan will not oblige.
• It would be self defeating to withdraw from Afghanistan at this juncture after the attack in Kabul because this is what the Pakistanis want India to do. India must therefore continue with its present policy of providing infrastructure and financial assistance to the Karzai government something which has earned India tremendous goodwill in that country.
• It is hoped that by staying on and continuing this assistance under greater safety guarantees from the Afghan government could help strengthen Karzai’s hands.
• India needs to develop contacts/strengthen them as the case maybe with all sections in Afghanistan, with different power centres and ethnic groups, including the Pushtun and the Taliban too.
• Russia, China, the Central Asian Republics and Iran are all extremely wary of the spread of Wahhabi Islam and its destabilising consequences for their region and their own countries. These are the other interested regional powers with whom India must seek common ground to address common problems.

Source : Hard News , 6th March 2010 Vikram Sood , Former Head of R&AW from 2001-2003

Instability awaits Kabul

I DON'T do quagmires”, Donald Rumsfeld had once declared rather grandly. He didn’t believe in exit strategies either. Yet, eight years later with casualties rising to a little more than one death a day in Afghanistan and expenses crossing US $ 450 billion, in December 2009 President Obama, referred to July 2011 as the date by which the US would begin to pull out of Afghanistan . This state has been the result of a policy that presumed that military supremacy was an unqualified good born of American superiority. Great though the power of the American military machine might have been, it was not great enough to solve problems such as global terrorism of the al Qaeda variety. America needed help of friends, demonised its own supporters like President Karzai, it chose other friends wrongly and declined others’ advice. Consequently, it ended fighting the wrong war at the wrong place with wrong tactics.

The declared US objective has been to take out Al Qaeda from Afghanistan so that they do not become a threat to the US and its allies. Yet the Al Qaeda is not in Afghanistan; it is mostly in Pakistan with sanctuaries in Yemen and Afghanistan. It is the Taliban that is mostly in Afghanistan with sanctuaries in Pakistan, so the result is that the US has been fighting an obscurantist section of an ethnic component of Afghanistan whose objective has been to throw the foreigner out and seems to be succeeding. The Taliban now represent, by and large, the Pushtun sentiment in Afghanistan and they are spreading into Kunduz in the north as well. It is possible now that the US will re- evaluate its policy towards Pakistan following the killing of seven CIA operatives inside the CIA camp in Khost; an attack that originated with the Pakistan Taliban. This act highlighted not only the dangers of counter terror operations but also that the level of commitment in the opposition to the US was very high. The US now wants to achieve something in eighteen months what has not been possible in eight years.

The second review of the US policy by Obama has probably been the result of the failure of the US and British offensive in Helmand last summer accompanied by reports that the Taliban had begun to make inroads outside the south and east which they already control, while the security situation in Herat had deteriorated.

The coalition failure in Helmand has been interpreted by most Afghans as victory for the Taliban and also drew more recruits to the Taliban. It is impossible to distinguish them from ordinary villagers and it would be a mistake to conclude that they are resented by the Pushtun population. Coalition forces have remained far too inadequate and ill motivated to allow for an effective clear and hold policy.

The Al Qaeda’s objectives and tactics are different from the Taliban’s.

While the Taliban has become an insurgency seeking liberation of its lands from foreign occupation, Al- Qaeda seeks the end of the West’s influence in the Muslim world and the end of the West’s local supporters and allies. Al- Qaeda does not seek to control territory. But the organisation needs sanctuaries to survive.

Since al- Qaeda seeks Western targets, its operatives need access to training facilities, cities, international connections and the media.

For this reason, Pakistan is currently the main base, with limited sanctuaries elsewhere.

Withdrawal

It is difficult to predict if and when the US will change its decades old policy of pardoning Pakistan all its transgressions. What we need to take into account is that one of these days the US will carry out its much vaunted but ridiculously inadequate much delayed surge, declare mission accomplished and thin out. Its longterm policies are dictated by election year compulsions. Once the coalition forces begin to pull out a few things will inevitably happen as other interests try to fill the empty spaces.

Pakistan will naturally assume that its moment has come again and it could now acquire its much dreamt of strategic depth, throw the Indians out and be the overlord in Afghanistan. The Iranians are unlikely to remain idle spectators as a Sunni Wahabbi neighbour is going to be an unsettling factor for them.

The Chinese have already begun to move in with their commercial and resource interests into Afghanistan as they would see an opportunity to move closer to the Persian Gulf, given their steady relations with the Iranians.

They also need to keep the Islamist extremists away from sensitive areas like Xinjiang. The Central Asian Republics and Russia have their concerns about the dangers of Talibanised ideology spreading into their countries. Finally, the absence of a strong centralised authority will only create more confusion in a country that has been run on drug money and foreign doles.

India
Pakistan’s exultation may be temporary.
Unable to control its own territory it is unlikely to be able to run Afghanistan in the way it may want to. It does not have the resources to do so and the US will not sub lease Afghanistan to Pakistan this time.

The other very real danger is that the Pushtuns on both sides of the Durand Line, joined together in a common fight for decades, may well ask if they fought all these years only to end up being minorities in both countries. The departure of the Coalition Forces will only add to the instability of the region and India needs to prepare itself for this eventuality.

There have been subtle suggestions made in recent months that are designed to create illusions of grandeur in us. These suggest that as a power rising towards its destiny as a major power, we should be playing a more active role in our neighbourhood, especially in Afghanistan.

Some have suggested that we could send in a brigade as a token. This is dangerous talk. The cost of maintaining a brigade is enormous and could be as high as Rs one crore a day. Add to this the logistics, air support, artillery cover, not to mention the other vital aspect, intelligence cover. Surely this intelligence would not come from the Taliban. Others suggest that we should have no problem in equipping, stationing and supplying several divisions of troops in Afghanistan. In a series of articles in this newspaper in January 2009, Manoj Joshi had cited reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General to show how inadequately equipped our forces were. The situation could not have altered dramatically since then.

It is true that there is goodwill for India in Afghanistan for our contribution to its infrastructure. This will dissipate rapidly once we are seen as an occupation force. It will not be difficult to create this impression particularly as we have no means of influencing opinion in Afghanistan, there being no media presence of our own there. Instead, we should follow the Chinese model, of gaining influence in Afghanistan without firing a single shot or losing a soldier. We need not make our policies Pakistanspecific all the time.

Role

We should look for a role in the region beyond the current troubles but we need not prove this by sending in our troops hoping to succeed where others have failed. We may develop a two- front war strategy but we are hardly capable of fighting a three front war.
We should be prepared to train Afghans in India, in whatever discipline and numbers they want this. We should offer additional infrastructure building, taking care to match this with the Afghan capacity to absorb.

We need to ask Afghans what they want and not decide ourselves what we want to give. We need to co- ordinate with Iran, Russia and Central Asia in our endeavours. Post US, there has to be a regional agreement ensuring peace and neutrality in Afghanistan.

Source : Mail Today , 7th jan 2010