Obama’s Afghan Strategy and Two Presidents of Af-Pak

IT IS NOT NECESSARY THAT WE MAY AGREE WITH ANY OR ALL OF THE ASSERTIONS MADE IN THIS ARTICLE.


AGHA AMIN

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Obama’s Afghan Strategy & Two Presidents of Af-Pak



By Usman Khalid



There were no surprises in the new strategy announced by President Obama over the now hyphenated countries Afghanistan and Pakistan referred to by Americans as Af-Pak. It is true that the cause of insurrection in both countries is the same i.e. Al-Qaeda. But there are differences, which if ignored, can lead to Viet Nam type disaster for America while the people of Af-Pak would bear much of the cost in human lives and misery. To understand that difference one has to start with a realisation that there is near unanimity in public perception in the Muslim World that America is their No 1 enemy, Al-Qaeda is No 2. What is their reasoning?



The Mujahideen defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in a decade long war in which the USA provided half the money (the other half being provided by Saudi Arabia) which averaged about 600 million Dollars a year. That is a paltry sum that almost every country can afford. Pakistan organised the forces and provided logistic support. The bulk of the fighters – Mujahideen – were Afghans but there were a significant number of Pakistanis and Arabs. Almost every Muslim country and community provided volunteers in varying numbers. It was, what the Americans call, Global Jihad.



After the Soviet Union was defeated, the Mujahideen looked for a reason why they could not liberate Palestine and Kashmir like they liberated Afghanistan? After all, Israel and India are not more powerful than the Soviet Union! They arrived at the following conclusions:



1. The unconditional and total support the USA gives to Israel is the reason why Israel was able to defy the world and defeat the Arabs.

2. The USA prevented the organised state power of Muslim countries to be used to liberate Palestine and Kashmir by imposing US protégés as rulers/leaders in every country.

3. Pakistan – a potentially powerful country with large and well-trained armed forces, near self-sufficiency in defence industry, which is a nuclear power – is unable to perform its proper role because its leaders are so eager to please America that they even co-operates with the enemy – India.



The response of the Arab peoples was to: 1) Organise non- state power like in Afghanistan; 2) strike at the USA. The result was 9/11. But Al-Qaeda had been a creation of the CIA. It was the name given by the CIA to its list of Arab Mujahideen in Afghanistan, who should have returned to their countries upon the exit of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. But this did not happen because of two reasons: 1) the ranks of the foreign Mujahideen had been infiltrated by ‘Takfiris’ from Egypt, who wanted to make Afghanistan a base for global Jihad; 2) most of the Arab governments were afraid of returning Mujahideen and closed their doors on them. The Americans CIA was not unfriendly to Osama bin Laden or Al-Qaeda. It saw a role for them as the Takfiris kill mostly Muslims. They slaughter Muslims accusing them of being ‘enemy collaborators’, they kill the Shia for just being Shia, and they declare those they fear as an infidels and kill them. Al-Qaeda had no difficulty getting public support against Muslim leaders who joined the US led ‘war on terror’; it was easy to demonise them as ‘enemy collaborators’.

The strong points that give Al-Qaeda credibility are: 1) being in the forefront of ‘resistance’ in Afghanistan; 2) their opposition to toady rulers in the Muslim World; 3) their ability to evolve new techniques and tactics to respond to challenges of asymmetry of power. But they have huge weakness, which include: 1) their sectarian outlook, 2) indiscriminate slaughter of Muslims in areas they control, 3) promoting a view of Islam that oppresses women, enforces regimentation and which gives law into the hands of those with guns, 4) weakening the state structures of Muslim countries already under great strain because of US pressure to ‘do more’ or to ‘do things differently’.



With the US having declared its intent to withdraw from Iraq, their weaknesses far outweigh their strong points. Al-Qaeda was beaten by the Sunnis in Iraq when they realised that its agenda was to engage in slaughter of the Shia. Al-Qaeda is being beaten in the Kurram Agency in FATA where they promoted slaughter of the Shia. The people in Bajaur and Mohmand Agencies have also taken up arms against the Al-Qaeda allies and beaten them. It would not be long before they are beaten in Waziristan also. The war against Al-Qaeda is already being won – not by the armed forces but by ‘peoples’ power.



President Obama has picked the right time and the right target i.e. to defeat Al-Qaeda now and in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda now sees Pakistan as its potential base and the worst excesses of Al-Qaeda are being perpetrated against the people of Pakistan. Since Pakistan is a country with a powerful and free press, the people have a weapon to win the war of perceptions. The people of Pakistan see themselves caught between Al-Qaeda and India. (I say India because India has operational control over US policy in Afghanistan). If the people fear and detest those engaged in wanton slaughter on their streets, they also detest their leaders eager to please India but begging for Dollars in exchange for allowing Americans to bomb their country. It appears that the USA has decided to get rid of President Hamid Karazai who kisses both cheeks of every Pakistani he encounters while allowing his intelligence to work with RAW (the Indian Intelligence) to destabilise Pakistan. It is not just Al-Qaeda but also RAW and the Afghan intelligence who are carrying out terrorists attacks in Pakistan. The attack on the Cricket Team of Sri Lanka was the work of RAW; the attack on Police Training Centre near Lahore was the work of Al-Qaeda. In both cases the ‘work’ had been carried out by their common sub-contractors who call themselves Pakistani Taliban.



The war against al-Qaeda would be lost by America because of being wrong not in broad thrust but in detail. The contact group idea is bad. It appears to have been founded on a fear that those not included would try to subvert and frustrate the US efforts. Since the L of C to Afghanistan is precarious not only in Pakistan but also through Iran, Russia and states of Central Asia, a widely based contact group appears to be a good idea. But why India? That is like showing a red rag to the bull. It is true that the present ruling parties (who represent a minority in Afghanistan) are hostile to Pakistan and friendly to India, but that is the problem. To perpetuate that is not the solution. All the neighbours of Afghanistan are Muslim countries. Even though erstwhile neighbours had been competing for influence in Afghanistan for over a century, that characterised an era when two of its neighbours – Russia and British India - were super powers. Now neither India nor Russia has a common border with Afghanistan. For the first time in its history, Afghanistan can have peace. It can transform itself from being a ‘buffer’ to being a ‘’bridge’ to Central Asia. That is the common interest of the countries of the region and the USA who would also like Central Asian states to be linked to the sea in the South.



The change of leadership in Afghanistan may not solve any problem. If the successor regime is also anti-Pakistan, the Americans might be able to declare victory somewhat earlier and leave, but Pakistan would be faced with hostile countries in its West (Afghanistan) as well as the East (India). President Zardari has welcomed the Obama speech because it promises him Dollars but the military is rightly nervous. They fear that the Americans are going to leave behind a situation even harder to deal with than in 1987. Even though the Government of Pakistan is not able to articulate or defend the interests of the country, the Americans are fully aware of what they are. Barbara Plett wrote in an article for the BBC News web site:



"The Pakistan army knows that it and the Taliban have Pashtun support on both sides of the Durand line. This gives it leverage, and means it can signal to the United States that it will not be abandoned in any Afghan deal.”



“Prior to his election, Mr Obama recognised that Pakistani peace with India was key to stability in Afghanistan. Since his inauguration, however, he has dropped any suggestion of an initiative on Kashmir in the face of Indian objections.”



“Now, he hopes a mixture of carrot and stick will force a rethink of Pakistan's security calculation.”



“But for Pakistan's security establishment, its concerns - the presence of India in Afghanistan, Kabul's refusal to recognise the border, the festering Kashmir dispute - are strategic threats far greater than those posed by Islamist militants.”



"The concept of pressuring Pakistan is flawed," Ahmed Rashid and Barnett Rubin have written in the Foreign Affairs magazine. "No state can be successfully pressured into acts it considers suicidal."



“Ultimately America's leverage is limited: in pushing too much, it may lose even the limited cooperation it has.”



The Americans want Pakistan to see Afghanistan and India as its friends at a time when both are aggressively engaged in clandestine operations inside Pakistan. If America does succeed in pressurising Pakistan to do what the populace sees as ‘treachery’ there would be a revolt in Pakistan. Is that what America wants? There are many in Pakistan who believe that to be the real US plan. But if the USA does really want peace in Afghanistan, as President Obama appears to say, it would keep India out of Afghanistan.



The Obama Administration has already decided to give aid to provinces rather than the central government of Afghanistan. That is a good idea; it would reduce corruption and give the USA better control over the actions of the local chieftains and warlords. It is well within the grasp of the USA to make good friends with the entire region – Af-Pak and Central Asia. It should avoid relying on military operation to destroy the resistance that it calls the Taliban. I have said before and I reiterate, when there is stand-off the one who is more generous emerges as victorious. The USA is in a position to be generous. It wants little; it has a lot to offer. It should focus on making friends not killing them. They should make use of the culture of ‘forgive and forget’ that a jirga represents. It is a mad to kill even more Afghans and declare victory over their graveyard. Time has come for a real jirga – a peace conference restricted to Afghanistan’s neighbours - to guarantee its borders and to ensure free movement of people and goods from and to Afghanistan. Afghans are even better as traders than as fighters; let their better self be given a chance.



The writer is Director of London Institute of South Asia



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