Way Forward

Eking the way of the Afghan imbroglio

The US is on track so far with the troop drawdown schedule set in President Barack Obama?s West Point speech in December 2009 ? and reaffirmed in the declaration of the NATO summit held at Lisbon in November 2010 ? despite recent setbacks like reactions to US troopsurinating on Afghan corpses and burning the Quran, and the killing of 17 innocent Afghan civilians (including 9 children and eight women) in Pajwayee district of Kandahar by US Staff Sergeant Robert Bales on March 11.
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander Marine Gen John Allen told the House Armed Services Committee in March that coalition forces were making progress in handing over security to the Afghans, with the expectation that US combat troops would be out of Afghanistan by December 2014. America has already withdrawn about 30,000 troops from Afghanistan, and the next withdrawal is due in 2013. The commanding officer in Afghanistan would like to keep at least 68,000 combat troops engaged in 2013, until a new assessment is made.
The original schedule thrashed out by President Obama?s national security team began with a troop surge from 32,000 to more than 100,000 ? in line with a new Afghan Counter Insurgency (COIN) strategy that he ordered after he took office. The thrust of the strategy was to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to end its capacity to threaten America and its allies in future. The goal was to weaken the Taliban and goad them to talks ? for reconciliation and a possible coalition with pro-American forces to rule an Afghanistan free from Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups ? and simultaneously strengthening the capacity of the Afghan security forces to stand on their own two feet without foreign support.
While this review was taking place, powerful voices like that of Vice President Joe Biden proposed another strategy, that was named ?counterterrorism plus?. This approach called for a much smaller deployment of forces that would have focused on Al Qaeda, with continued drone attacks?on international militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan?s tribal areas. Proponents of the plan also argued for continuing the training of Afghan National Security Forces with a dedicated focus on sustainability as well as continued and long-term initiatives to develop civilian capacity in the Afghan government. Obviously, this implied a sustained ? albeit a different and perhaps smaller ? US presence in Afghanistan. ?The strategy envisaged that ISAF should be concentrated in the big cities, leaving the hinterland to the Afghan forces, who would fend for themselves whatever the cost, even if Taliban took over the areas and ruled them as long as there was no presence of Al Qaeda.
Other schemes were also proposed, the most radical of them by former US ambassador to India Robert Blackwell, a neoconservative mainstay and a lobbyist for India, in August 2010. He proposed a de facto partition of Afghanistan into two domains: an independent Pashtun-dominated south, and a northern and western section where Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras make up the majority.? In the context of de facto partition, it was stated that the sky over Pashtun Afghanistan would be covered with manned and unmanned coalition aircraft?? targeting not only terrorists but, as necessary, the new Taliban government in all its dimensions. Taliban civil officials?? like governors, sub-governors, judges, tax collectors and other officials?? would wake up every morning not knowing if they would survive in their offices in the day or at home at night. The US would then focus on defending the northern and western regions?? containing roughly 60 percent of the population. These areas, including Kabul, according to him, were not Pashtun dominated, and locals were largely sympathetic to US efforts. The US would then offer the Afghan Taliban an agreement in which neither side would seek to enlarge its territory if the Taliban stopped supporting terrorism ? a proposal that they would almost certainly reject.
Blackwell?s scheme still finds resonance in the neoconservative quarters in the form of Berlin Mandate of January 2012. Non-Pakhtun Northern Alliance leaders from Afghanistan ? including Ahmad Zia Massoud, chairman of the National Front, General Abdul Rashid Dostam, leader of the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan, Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, leader of the People?s Unity Party of Afghanistan, and Amrullah Saleh, former director of the National Security Directorate ? met with US Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-California), Representative Loretta Sanchez (D-California), Representative Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Representative Steve King (R-Iowa) in January. The delegates adopted a declaration calling for changes in the Afghan Constitution envisaging a decentralized Afghanistan with parliamentary form of government.? While many would agree with some sort of a federal form of dispensation instead of the present unitary structure, the intriguing thing about the meeting was that afterwards, Representative Dana Rohrabacher and other senators called for supporting the Northern Alliance to the detriment of the territorial integrity of Afghanistan and supporting the separatist movement of Balochistan to the detriment of Pakistan.
Obama is in the election year and his administration will not like the Americans to think the Afghan strategy is failing.? They would like to say that the troop surge has achieved its objectives. The primary target of Operation Enduring Freedom has been achieved with the assassination of? Osama bin Laden on 2 May 2011, the Taliban momentum has been reversed in the south of Afghanistan and they have been forced to start negotiations with the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar, the Afghan National Army is being strengthened to fight the war on terror on its own. Some sort of reconciliation is on the cards, and non-combatant forces will stay engaged in the north of the country even after the completion of the withdrawal in December 2014. The Americans are waiting to sign a strategic pact with President Karzai for that purpose soon. There are minor glitches, but practically by then the ISAF would adopt some form of the Joe Biden counterterrorism plus formula. There are some differences between this formula and the scheme proposed by Blackwell. The former stresses remaining engaged in big cities like Kandahar, Jalalabad, Kabul, Herat, Kunduz and Mazar, while the latter would mean residual forces will be moved to Mazar, Kunduz, Herat and Kabul.? The apprehension is that the US forces might not resort to the latter strategy in the face of continued Taliban intransigence.
Both the scenarios are especially disastrous for Pakistan. Russia, China, India and the bordering Central Asian states do not want the US to leave Afghanistan until the mission is fully accomplished. But there is domestic pressure in the US. Some quarters in America would like to cut all the commitments and bring the soldiers home, and ?let the corrupt Hamid Karzai and his cronies fend for themselves. If they cannot survive, then it is time to let the Afghans decide in their own way who they want to govern them.? But then, there are other voices that say running away from Afghanistan would only result in a bigger conflagration that would engulf the whole region and the world at large, prompting the US at some point to massively invade Afghanistan again.
The ideal situation could be that the Taliban agree to some sort of compromise and become part of a coalition government in the war ravaged country, supported by the US and other NATO allies to build up the fractured state infrastructure. But wishes are not horses. The Taliban are not going to be defeated in the battlefield.? They are not going to be part of any reconciliation.? As long as there is war, they would stand behind Mullah Omar, but if he adopts the reconciliation path, he would be sidelined.? Afghans are united more in war than in peace or peaceful endeavours. The US, on the other hand, cannot run away whatever the cost, because that would be disastrous for America, NATO countries, and the world. A stalemate would mean more casualties on both sides, and Pakistan would continue to be the scapegoat. ?
In reality, it is very difficult for Pakistan to stay away from the affairs of Afghanistan. The only possible way of doing that is to force all Afghans residing in Pakistan ? including the Taliban and other groups ? to return, and close the border. That is not possible for the international community, the Afghan government, and a weak Pakistani state to implement. Pakistan has no control over its own tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, and Pakistani jihadis will not stay away from Afghanistan especially because Jihad has become a lucrative business with its own stakeholders that flourish on war economy. ?
We need a new paradigm and new initiatives. The so-called regional solution to Afghanistan ? that the US calls ?AfPak? ? has failed because it was shorn of any real regionalism. Historians will testify that politics of disintegration in our region have always brought misery to the people, and the outcomes have always been the opposite of what was intended. The partition of India resulted in the dismemberment of the community for which it was intended, with millions of lives lost in the process.? The same tragedy fell with the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971. We are still suffering from the blowback in the shape of the Kashmir syndrome, wars and permanent tensions with India, the resultant Pak-Afghan discord, and the emergence of terrorism.? On the other hand, the integration of India by Mughals and later the British put an end to many internal disputes and incessant battles among the feudal states and rajwaras. The British failed to occupy Afghanistan because of the fear of Czarist Russia, and decided to uphold the buffer status of Afghanistan under the sphere of British influence. Czarist Russia recognized the historical reality that the thrust of Afghans and Afghanistan had always been towards India, which has now been replaced by Pakistan.
?Afghanistan does not recognize the treaties of the last century with British India, including the Durand Line. Despite its costs, the stance has become a second nature for the Afghans, although practically they can do nothing to achieve their goals. Foreign powers, especially India, benefit from that. Pakistan would have liked the border with Afghanistan to be an internationally recognized boundary accepted by Afghanistan. But facts are facts.? Afghanistan cannot eliminate the ?line of hatred?, as President Karzai calls it, and Pakistan cannot offer its own Pashtuns to Afghanistan without their wish. Such a unity of Pashtuns would mean dismemberment of both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Both the countries face the same problems of terrorism, extremism and chaos. The Afghans depend massively on Pakistan in all spheres of their lives. They come to Pakistan for all their needs and some settle here illegally. The destiny of the two countries is intertwined. Then what is the solution?? Integration.
Let Pakistan also renounce the Durand Line and other agreements and revive the country of Ahmad Shah Abdali that included the present day Pakistan. (The name of the region was Khurasan. The British popularized the name Afghanistan that they took from Persian and Mughal texts. Amir Abdurrahman Khan officially adopted the name in 1880.) That could begin with some sort of a confederation leading to the unification of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Subsequently, similar unity arrangements could be made with India.
The problem of terrorism would then be taken head on, and the blame game will automatically give way to cooperation. The issues of Pakhtunistan, Kashmir, Balochistan, and the northern alliance of non-Pakhtuns would automatically be resolved in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious unified region.

The writer is an analyst and author of the book Bacha Khan, Congress and Nationalist Politics in NWFP.

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