(In)security Doctrine

A reasonable suggestion! The only problem is that it flies in the face of the "(in)security doctrine" of the "guardians" of "the land of the pure". sigh!


In the longer term, it may be a much better idea for the security establishment to protect Pakistan by building enduring peace with democratic India in the east rather than to concede to the unpredictable, fundamentalist Taliban in the west and risk a fundamentalist encroachment inside Pakistan.

Umar
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Pakistan’s Afghanistan strategy
by Najam Sethi

Pakistan’s foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri has said that NATO cannot beat or subdue the Taliban in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has gone further and advised the Bush administration to consider withdrawing NATO troops from Afghanistan. His suggestion is based on the logic that the war in Afghanistan is not faring any better for the Americans than the war in Iraq.

Both statements are surprising. For one, how can President Pervez Musharraf continue to insist that Pakistan’s lead role in the war against terror and Talibanism will remain undiminished even as his government is asking the Americans to withdraw from Afghanistan in the face of the same threat? Second, while the American public backlash against the war in Iraq is manifest, it doesn’t apply to the war against terrorism in Afghanistan. Indeed, there is a consensus in Congress and the Bush Administration that a greater military presence in Afghanistan is needed to combat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda since that particular combination of forces will remain the dominant threat in the next decade for them.

The Pakistani security establishment’s mindset may be gauged from the enthusiasm shown by President Musharraf for the North Waziristan “deal”. At first it was flogged as an agreement with “repentant” Taliban and Al-Qaeda supporters, including foreigners who had settled in the area. But in essence it amounted to buying peace for the Pakistan army in exchange for permitting the tribesmen to enforce their own writ on Waziristan. However, when the Americans asked whether the ground rules of the agreement applied to bin Laden and his colleagues too, the military spokesman’s response was ambiguous. This provoked outrage in Washington and compelled the Pakistanis to backtrack. Meanwhile, Islamabad tried to persuade the British contingent in southern Afghanistan to strike a similar deal with the Taliban in which territory could be ceded in exchange for an end to fighting. At the same time, President Musharraf floated the idea of a grand jirga of pro and anti-Karzai tribal heads (who are mainly Pashtun Taliban) to give some respite to the beleaguered regime in Kabul. This was another way of flogging the same thought: a deal with the Taliban in which territory and autonomy/power was to be exchanged for peace and cessation of hostilities.

America’s negative response to this proposed strategy has been swift and decisive. Only days before a similar deal was to be signed with “locals” and the Pakistani military in Bajaur, American intelligence insisted that a madrassah of would-be suicide bombers in the area should be “taken out”. In the event, 82 Taliban were killed and a counter-attack left 42 Pakistan Army soldiers dead. This has wrecked the “deal-strategy”, for the time being at least.

At the heart of this strategy and the reasoning behind the apparently remarkable statements from Messrs Aziz and Kasuri lies one enduring Pakistani security concern: Afghanistan must not be allowed to fall into the hands of anti-Pakistan elements, especially India; indeed, any regime in Kabul must be overtly and manifestly pro-Pakistan so that Pakistan’s western flank is not threatened like its eastern one with India. There is one other pressing consideration: since the Durand Line is still unacceptable to Afghanistan as the legitimate border with Pakistan, Islamabad remains concerned about irredentist claims by Kabul on Pakistani territory east of the Durand line which is occupied by Pashtuns who share an ethnic nationalist sentiment with their compatriots in Afghanistan. In recent times, Pakistan’s security concerns have been heightened by reports of an “Indian hand” which is allegedly stoking the separatist insurgency in Balochistan from “bases” (consulates) in Afghanistan, provoking President Musharraf to unveil an iron fist.

So, it is clear why Pakistan seeks an understanding with the Pashtun Taliban in which Pakistani national security interests are safeguarded in exchange for conceding territory and power in Afghanistan. This strategy was followed from 1996 to 2001 and abandoned only when the Taliban refused to de-link themselves from Al-Qaeda after 9/11. Islamabad’s renewed hope is that with the Al-Qaeda threat now visibly diminished in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US and Hamid Karzai should be encouraged to do a power-sharing deal with the Taliban in the same way that Pakistan is urging the Taliban to abandon Al-Qaeda and do a peace deal with Islamabad.

The prospects of this strategy are not bright. First, Pakistan’s religious parties support the Taliban and hate President Musharraf. They want to overthrow him, partly by street agitation and partly by egging on Talibanised Pakistani Pashtuns to resist the military. Two, the Americans are more likely to beef up forces in Afghanistan than to reduce them in the future. Three, the forthcoming elections in Pakistan may throw up unexpected political equations which might derail this strategy. In the longer term, it may be a much better idea for the security establishment to protect Pakistan by building enduring peace with democratic India in the east rather than to concede to the unpredictable, fundamentalist Taliban in the west and risk a fundamentalist encroachment inside Pakistan.