President Obama’s Afghan Package aims to please all the major “home” constituency “principals” in the game. The 30,000 troop surge costing US$10 billion a year should satisfy the Pentagon. The 18-month deadline for the process of troop withdrawals should appease American and European liberals opposed to the war. It should nudge dithering NATO governments in Europe to pitch in with troops when public opinion is against any long term involvement in Afghanistan. It might help also dilute the anti-war backlash in America when Congressional elections are held next year. Finally, it would give President Obama another eighteen months to firm up or change course for more effective results before the next presidential election in 2012.
But some regional “principals” will remain disgruntled. President Hamid Karzai is tasked to deliver the agenda of building the state (army and police) and nation (reconstruction and reconciliation). However, he is not going to be able to deliver in eighteen months what he has not been able to deliver in eight years. Indeed, the very idea of a quick “exit strategy” is dangerous from his point of view. All guerilla warfare manuals revolve around the idea of time, space and will. Time is to be traded to create the will of the people to resist occupation forces and thus capture space and oust them. This is exactly what the Taliban-Al Qaeda network has done so effectively until now. Waiting out the Americans for another few years will be no problem. They will dig in, protect, preserve and strengthen themselves. Since no Afghan wants to be on the eventual “losing” side, the idea of a given timeframe for exit based on American domestic compulsions should spur the Taliban to resist even more fiercely.
Pakistan’s security establishment, too, is not likely to be pleased. President Asif Zardari and PM Yousaf Raza Gilani have said that Pakistan hasn’t seriously been involved in the strategic review. This is significant since Pakistan’s stand on the war against terror has shifted critically. Originally, during General Pervez Musharraf’s time, Pakistan’s stated position was that of a “supporter” or “facilitator” of the US war effort in Afghanistan. However, now, under General Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan views itself as one of the “principals” in the great game because the Afghan backlash has engulfed Pakistan and sucked its army into military operations in its own areas. Therefore it is not good enough for President Obama to inform the Pakistani security establishment of US goals and seek its backing with offers of economic and military assistance. What is needed is a definite Pakistani input and component of the strategy that protects and enhances Pakistan’s security environment and secures American anti-terror interests in the long term while enabling it to “get out” asap.
Several Pakistani security interests are at stake. Islamabad would like any future political dispensation in Kabul to be “favourably” disposed or “friendly” towards it. The reason is obvious: the Pakhtuns of Afghanistan constitute a majority there and the Pakhtuns of Pakistan occupy a significant chunk of Pakistan’s state and society, therefore Islamabad would like the Pakhtuns of Pakistan to look toward it, and the Pakhtuns of Afghanistan to look to Kabul, for sustenance. Indeed, the last thing Pakistan would want is a government in Kabul that covets Pakistan territory in the NWFP and tribal areas. The fact that the US-backed Karzai government has not been interested in diffusing Pakistani fears of irredentism by recognizing the Durand Line in the last eight years as the international border between the two countries is one good reason for distrusting it. The other is President Karzai’s inability or unwillingness to build a domestic Pakhtun consensus based on national reconciliation policies that reflect the ethnic balance in Afghanistan and also build trust and confidence with Pakistan based on its “fear” of Indian hegemony in the region. Indeed, the fact that India occupies significant space in the Kabul-Washington alliance aimed at building the Afghan state and nation is cause for Pakistani concern. It is no secret that India is being encouraged to carve out a stake in reconstruction activity – roads, schools and hospitals – even as its security establishment is increasingly involved in the training and schooling of the nascent Afghan police and army. Kabul and Delhi’s alleged involvement in the Baloch issue, which figured in the joint statement at Sharm al Shaikh recently, remains a destablising factor. Certainly, the joint Obama-Manmohan recent statement from Washington emphasizing a joint strategy to uproot “terrorist safe havens” in the neighbourhood (read Pakistan) without even alluding to the resolution of outstanding disputes that have provoked intel-proxy wars in the region and created de-stabilising non-state actors, has peeved security experts in Pakistan. In fact, the US threat to extend Drone attacks on the Al-Qaeda-Taliban networks in Balochistan or unleash boots-on-ground operations without the approval of the Pakistani military, could trigger serious strains in the US-Pakistan relationship. Worse, it could destabilize the Zardari government by provoking a severe anti-American popular backlash.
President Obama’s Af-Pak strategy is full of misgivings. It is a case of too-little, too late. Worse, it doesn’t give Pakistan due weight. Without critical adjustments on the ground quickly, it is not likely to succeed in its ambitious objectives.