Muslim India

By Shafqat Mahmood *

The troop surge announced by President Obama in Afghanistan does not threaten Pakistan. It may push across some Afghan Taliban, but not many. The real concern is the excuse for failure that this will provide to American generals.

They will blame the Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan for not being able to finish the job. Some of this has started even before the surge has taken effect. Obama also referred to it and even suggested that attacks on the US are being planned in our border regions. This is beginning to look like a perfect set up for escalation into Pakistan.

History is repeating itself as a tragic farce. When the American generals started to lose in Vietnam, they blamed the movement of North Vietnam troops through Cambodia as the reason. It led first to a covert and then an open invasion of the country.

It accomplished nothing except cause a lot of suffering to innocent people. Eventually Americans withdrew from the region with barely a fig leaf of respectability. Within a year of what can only be called an ignominious retreat, Saigon fell.

There is a certain dynamic that the Americans did not understand in Vietnam and appear not to in Afghanistan. When the people are against you, no war can be won. There can be victories in isolated battles but wars of this nature last for a long time.

The Vietnam conflict lasted over 25 years. Afghanistan has been at war for 30. What is it that the Americans will accomplish in 18 months? And that too when a large part of the population is hostile.

The Afghan Taliban's ideology is a caricature of Islam and truly reprehensible. Their rule took the country to mediaeval times and caused huge suffering to minorities, women and to the cultural heritage of Afghanistan. But they are thriving today because of a deep alienation of the Pakhtuns with the American-imposed setup in Kabul.

It is true when the Hillary Clinton says that not all Taliban are ideologically motivated. But it is a partial explanation to say that the rest are in it for the money. If it was money, the United States of America has far more money than the Taliban are ever likely to have. It could virtually buy every man woman and child in Afghanistan. Yet, it is struggling to stay afloat in that country.

The real problem is that the Pakhtuns in Afghanistan are not happy. As I have written many times in the past, the Taliban by default have virtually emerged as the Pakhtun national army. They cannot be defeated if this equation remains unchanged.

If the Americans have any chance of winning this war, they have to win the Pakhtuns. Thirty thousand more troops and more firepower would not do it. At best, it would provide better security for some towns and cities in the south. Only a real sharing of power between Pakhtuns and other ethnic groups in Afghanistan will defeat the Taliban and their ideology.

One can only hope that the there is some recognition of this. Maybe the talking with good Taliban line is an acknowledgment that the Pakhtuns and their fighting arm have to be talked to. It is also noticeable that Obama has given the defeat of Al Qaeda as an objective, and not the Taliban's. If this means that there is going to be a serious intent to talk to the Pakhtuns/Taliban, then there is a glimmer of hope.

But, in the meantime, the pressure on Pakistan will keep increasing. There will be threats of drone attacks in Balochistan if the Afghan Taliban and the so-called Quetta Shura are not taken on by the Pakistani military. This might appear contradictory, because if there is intent to talk to the "good" Taliban why do the Americans want Pakistan to target them, assuming that they are here.

There are two ways of looking at this. One, that the Americans feel unless the Afghan Taliban are under pressure, they will not seriously negotiate. This is a plausible explanation and an essential element of the "talk-talk, fight-fight" strategy. It is for this reason that Pakistan is considered indispensable to the success of the Obama strategy in Afghanistan.

There is, of course, also the conspiratorial explanation. Americans really want an opportunity to ingress their troops into Pakistan and take control of its nuclear arsenal. It is noticeable that, for the first time, Obama has made frequent references to a nuclear Pakistan. If in the process the country is split apart, say the conspiracy theorists, so be it. The US would rather dismember Pakistan than let it remain a potential nuclear proliferater and a threat to the world, and in particular to Israel.

Whatever the real motives, and one would like to believe that they are nothing more sinister than getting a better bargaining position in Afghanistan, it presents a difficult challenge for the Pakistani government. It can continue denying that there is any Quetta Shura or Afghan Taliban in Pakistan and if they are not here who should its military fight.

Or if they are indeed here to take the fight to them. The problem with this hypothetical situation is that there are very few pro-Pakistan elements in Afghanistan. The non-Pakhtun ethnicities have been lost after we put all our eggs in, first the Pakhtun/Hekmatyar basket and later the Taliban. The only ones left with any degree of comfort with Pakistan are the Pakhtun Afghan Taliban. Taking them on means taking on our only potential allies in the future.

Secondly, the Afghan Taliban have de-linked themselves from their Pakistani pretenders. In the ongoing South Waziristan operation, it is obvious that commanders like Maulvi Nazir and Gul Bahadur, who have close links with the Haqqani Afghan Taliban faction, stayed neutral. Taking on the Afghan Taliban would mean creating an alliance between them and their local namesakes. This would mean adding enormously to the difficulties in fighting the insurgency in FATA and the Frontier province.

Lastly, the Americans clearly don't want to be in Afghanistan for long. Obama does not want to have the Afghanistan war around his neck as the next presidential election comes around. Already by this escalation he is having problems with his core constituency of liberal democrats.

If the Americans are not here for the long haul, what kind of a message does it send to Pakistan: that they should turn every possible Afghan group against them and have no leverage left in Afghanistan after the Americans leave?

This would suggest that the new American strategy in Afghanistan has it and Pakistan at cross-purposes. This could have negative consequences for both, but a far greater potential of damage to Pakistan. The only win-win situation is for them to collaborate.

Pakistan can help the Americans enormously by using their influence and knowledge of the Afghan Taliban to sponsor a serious dialogue between the two sides. This is the only viable exit strategy for the Americans. And this is the only way in which both countries can focus on their shared objective of eliminating Al Qaeda.

* Mr. Shafqat Mehmood is a well known columnist who writes on pertinent political issues in leading newspapers of Pakistan (www.thenews.com.pk). Hailing from Punjab, Mr. Shafqat Mehmood has also remained a member of the Upper House of Pakistani Parliament. This article was first published in the The News,pk and is republished here with the permission of the author.

Author's Email: shafqatmd@gmail.com

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