Daily Times editorial Nov 21, 2010

Afghan quagmire

On the eve of the ongoing Lisbon Nato summit, US president Barack Obama attempted in a New York Times op-ed and an interview to El Pais to set out the US/Nato strategy for Afghanistan. The central theme of these media interventions, reinforced by the latest reports from Lisbon, is that security will incrementally be handed over to the Afghan forces starting from the already announced withdrawal start date of July 2011, to be completed by 2014. However, Obama was at pains to emphasise that this did not mean the US would once again abandon Afghanistan or Pakistan, with whom an enduring engagement would continue. Obama argued that the US/Nato now had the strategy and resources to see the mission through.
With due respect to the beleaguered US president, the whole premise of his remarks is open to question. On resources, the west is tiring of the prolonged conflict in the midst of a serious recession. Strategy appears to be attended by deep divisions, the three most notable ones being: (1) between the civilian and military arms of the US administration; (2) between the US/Nato and Karzai; and (3) between the US/Nato/Afghanistan and the military establishment of Pakistan. The US civilian administration desperately wants an exit from Afghanistan at the earliest. The military on the other hand, is aggressively wedded to degrading the Taliban until they submit to talks. The US/Nato openly as well as privately make no bones about the corrupt, ineffectual Karzai regime. Karzai in turn wants the US/Nato to restrict their military operations, especially special forces night raids that he says alienate the Afghan people. The US/Nato/Afghanistan combine is deeply suspicious of Pakistan’s military establishment because of its foot dragging and duality on removing the safe havens for the Afghan Taliban on Pakistani soil, which permit the Afghan Taliban to mount increasingly aggressive forays into Afghanistan.
As part of the Petraeus ‘surge’ to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, tanks are about to be deployed in the flat desert terrain of southwestern Afghanistan, particularly Helmand province. This could be read as an admission that the Taliban are quite capable of matching the US ground troops, even when they are mobile. Whether these Abrams tanks will be able to overcome the crippling effect of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on US troops only time will tell. But clearly the guerrillas are giving the US military a run for its money.
Whatever the debates and considerations informing US strategy, it is the kind of wishful thinking expressed by US defence secretary Robert Gates that lies at the heart of the flawed US approach. Gates’ over-optimism on improving US-Pakistan relations and cooperation in the struggle against the Taliban entirely misses the point. The Pakistani military establishment sees little purchase in taking out their ‘strategic assets’ in the shape of the Afghan Taliban, especially when endgame is looming and a post-withdrawal Afghanistan could very well be the theatre for a new round of civil war for complete control of Kabul between the Taliban and their expanded opposition in Afghan society. This opposition includes some Pashtuns, but most certainly all the other ethnic groups that suffered at the hands of the Taliban in power, and most notably, Afghan women. Reports speak of the Pakistani military having moved the Haqqani network (including arguably their ‘guests’ Hakeemullah Mehsud and the TTP command) from North Waziristan to Kurram Agency to remove them from the path of the promised military operation in North Waziristan (for which the US has recently dangled a $ 2 billion ‘carrot’). So, while it is business as usual in GHQ, Gates and his ilk are indulging in pie-in-the-sky.
Pakistan’s ‘presence’ in the Lisbon summit has been likened to Banquo’s ghost. Without the Pakistani military establishment’s cooperation, the US/Nato strategy in Afghanistan promises to come a spectacular cropper. No amount of nudging, persuasion and carrots have dislodged the Pakistani military from the pursuit of its India-phobic search for strategic depth in Afghanistan. On present trends, and given the withdrawal of foreign troops between 2011 and 2014, this scenario is predicted to continue, indefinitely.