Pakistan: Now or Never?
Perspectives on Pakistan
Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2010: the year of living incrementally?
One of the labels being attached to President Barack Obama is that he is a committed incrementalist - an insult or a compliment depending on which side of the political fence you sit, or indeed whether you believe it to be true.
A couple of articles on U.S.-led strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan fill out what that could mean going into the new year.
Rory Stewart writes in The New York Review of Books that a measured, long-term strategy for Afghanistan could be more effective than either extremes of a drive for victory at all costs and precipitate withdrawal. Here’s an excerpt:
“Obama’s central – and revolutionary – claim is that our responsibility, our means, and our interests are finite in Afghanistan. As he says, “we can’t simply afford to ignore the price of these wars.” Instead of pursuing an Afghan policy for existential reasons—doing “whatever it takes” and “whatever it costs”—we should accept that there is a limit on what we can do. And we don’t have a moral obligation to do what we cannot do.
“The US must husband its resources to meet other strategic challenges. Obama’s description of these is still narrowly focused on failed states and terrorism: it does not include the threats posed by states such as China or Russia, still less Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, or Kashmir, and it does not attempt to compare the conflict in Afghanistan to the risks posed by climate change or threats to the supply of food in poor nations. But he names Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia as posing challenges. The US responsibility to the Afghan people is only one responsibility among many and “the nation that I’m most interested in building is our own.”
The Boston Review carries a series of articles from experts debating the strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Among them, Andrew Bacevich makes a similar point about the need for the United States to juggle competing challenges and demands on its resources, among them climate change and the economy:
Failed airline attack raises fresh questions about battle against al Qaeda
In the absence of a coherent narrative about the failed Christmas Day attack on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, the debate about how best to tackle al Qaeda and its Islamist allies has once again been thrown wide open.
Does it support those who want more military pressure to deprive al Qaeda of its sanctuary on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, or suggest a more diffuse threat from sympathisers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa? Should the United States open new fronts in emerging al Qaeda bases such as Yemen and Somalia, or focus instead on the fact that the attempted airline attack did not succeed, suggesting al Qaeda’s ability to conduct mass-casualty assaults on U.S. territory has already been severely degraded in the years since 9/11?
The evidence so far about the attempt by 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to set off an explosive device on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit can pretty much be stacked up in favour of whatever argument you want to make.
Abdulmutallab was from a wealthy family in Nigeria, where al Qaeda and its Islamist allies have been trying to make inroads, by and large unsuccessfully so far. Residents in his family home town said they believed he was radicalised during his studies abroad, which included education at a British boarding school in Togo, followed by a course in engineering at the prestigious University College London. He would not be the first educated young man to be inspired by Islamist radicalism in London — among those who came before him was Omar Sheikh, convicted for the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.
Does this mean Britain has been too soft about allowing radicalism to flourish in its universities, as the conservative Daily Telegraph argues? Or has Britain’s own support for U.S. policies, including wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a security crackdown at home, so alienated its Muslim community that a tiny minority will turn to terrorism? (If you ask ordinary Muslims in London what should be done, they are just as likely to give you a lecture about the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, civilian casualties in Afghanistan, and Washington’s failure to insist on an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.)
Abdulmutallab’s name had been placed on a British watch-list, suggesting security is already very tight in a country which is on alert for any repeat of the London bombings in 2005. How much tighter can it get, without a further erosion of civil liberties?
The trail from London then leads to Yemen, Osama bin Laden’s ancestral home, and a country which U.S. officials say is emerging as an attractive alternative base for al Qaeda, after it was largely pushed out of Afghanistan and has since come under growing military pressure in Pakistan. In U.S. questioning, Abdulmutallab said al Qaeda operatives in Yemen supplied him with an explosive device and trained him on how to detonate it, according to a U.S. official.
General Kyani talked about ten minutes requirement to attack Indian city. He is a fool to believe that the nuclear response would be decided by the politicians in an orderly fashion. People whose hands are on the trigger are not likely to wait for the orders from the top, but instead would start firing nuclear armed rockets as soon as they learn about any hostility from India. The ten minutes would be more than enough to completely devastate the entire sub-continent. Let us pray for sanity and peace in 2010.
Pakistan and Afghanistan: holiday satire
Since we are going into a holiday season and not everybody is working, here is some lighter reading to be going on with:
Nadeem Paracha at the Dawn blog has come up with a Pakistan New Media Dictionary.
Here is his definition of a conspiracy theory: “A theory that is not a theory at all but a hard fact on Pakistani TV channels. Anyone disagreeing with the hard and loud factoids (conspiratorially called conspiracy theorists), is a Mossad/CIA/RAW/NASA/KFC agent and a possible swine flu carrier who would be lined up against the walls of Delhi’s Red Fort and shot dead during the Ghazwa-ul-Hind in 2012 AD.”
Chapati Mystery’s end of year message has a screenshot of a Google search for Pakistan + is. See his results here.
Ghosts of Alexander provides 29 tips for bad writing on Afghanistan. Point number one: “Offer simple explanations for everything, no matter how complex. Nobody wants to hear that there is no sound answer or that ‘it’s extremely complicated’.”
And from the comments on the post: ”As soon as I finish my PPT presentation on the Graveyard of Empires (TM), I’ll send it over to you. I think it will solve all the problems in Central Asia.”
Finally, talking of power-point presentations, there is this (pdf). I’m not entirely clear whether or not this presentation, which has been doing the rounds for the past few weeks since it was first published, belongs in the spoof category. I will leave you to make your own minds up but here is one view from LCol JJ Malevich, who asks if Dilbert is leading the campaign in Afghanistan.
Ahhh. I love Paracha’s commentary. Sad how the jester is often the most sane individual in the King’s court. Seems that way with Paracha and Pakistan.
Pakistan: Through the eye of a needle
For the first time in many months, the future of Pakistan is being determined not in the fight against Islamist militants, but within its institutions — its judiciary, its political parties, its government and its military. Last week’s decision by the Supreme Court to strike down a 2007 amnesty given to politicians and bureaucrats has provided Pakistan with a rare opportunity to remodel itself as a civilian democracy based on the rule of law. But the way forward is so fraught with difficulties that assessments of its chances of success are at best sober, at worst ominous.
The court decision to strike down the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) affects some 8,000 politicians and bureaucrats on a list of those who had been covered by the amnesty, including the defence and interior ministers. President Asif Ali Zardari had also been covered by the amnesty, but remains protected by presidential immunity. Such was the upheaval created by the ruling that foreign exchange markets were briefly shaken last week by unfounded rumours of a military coup. The real impact is likely to be more slow-burning.
THE POWER OF THE MILITARY
The disarray in government ranks will weaken its ability to take on the country’s powerful military, which continues to call the shots in Pakistan’s security and foreign policy.
“Building faith in the judicial system is vital and calls for accountability of all other state institutions as well to strengthen the perception that the decision on the NRO was in good faith and to strengthen the rule of law,” said Ayesha Siddiqa in a column in Dawn newspaper. ”But if a question is asked about whether the decision signifies the strengthening of the democratic process and civilian institutions, the answer must be in the negative. Since the perception regarding the decision is that it strengthens the armed forces and their ability to manipulate political stakeholders, it is not possible to see a major shift in the balance of power.”
Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani has vowed to keep the army out of politics. But the military, which has ruled Pakistan for much of its existence, nonetheless exerts a powerful influence behind the scenes. Even when out of power it has tended to play the role of an over-protective parent which has never allowed fledgling civilian governments to learn from their mistakes and find their own feet, thereby paving the way for a more mature democracy. The result has been a cycle of military coups — the most recent of which was when former army chief Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999 — interspersed with brief periods of civilian rule.
Shortly after taking power, Zardari had not only tried to clip the wings of the military but also pushed for peace talks with India, carving out a radically different position from the army which has long seen India as a threat. He had even gone as far as to suggest Pakistan adopt a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons back in November 2008, breaking two taboos at a stroke – over the country’s stance towards India, and over an understanding that any discussion of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons should remain the exclusive preserve of the military.
You need credibility specially in politics. Mr Zartdari should not have entered into politics and stayed in the background as a temorary party leader grooming his son to take over at the appropriate time. But no, he could not resist the temptation to come in the front line. This was a mistake because he did not have a clean background and also carried a bag of worms, his companero spread across in several countries, holding more than one residence and equally considered corrupt. Look at his minister of interior, he failed to bring in security asking military to intervene and now calling for muslim clergy to give religous Fatwas agaist the so called Talabans.In my view he should have banned ithe issuance of all religous fatwas in the country and any other activity involed in causing excitements and hatered on the basis of the religon. People in the country have gone bonkers becaus of foreign interventions and weak leadership.Now, mr Zardari has to struggle, stand down ond take the leave of absence until the allegations agaist him are settled in his favour in a court of law. They could bring in the speaker of the Parliament in his place.
Pakistan’s political pandemonium
A Supreme Court ruling striking down an amnesty given to politicians and officials by former president Pervez Musharraf has created havoc in Pakistani politics. Among those affected on a list of 8,000 politicians and bureaucrats who were protected by the amnesty are the interior and defence ministers, who are now no longer allowed to leave the country until they clear their names in court.
“Pakistan’s interior minister today found himself in the unusual position of being asked to bar himself from leaving the country,” wrote Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
The defence minister abruptly cancelled plans to fly to China on an official visit after his name was included on the so-called Exit Control List, according to Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper.
Indeed such was the drama of a defence minister being refused permission to leave his own country that Twitter was briefly abuzz with talk of a coup, followed later by one comment which pretty much summed up the prevailing uncertainty: ”a bad sign when CNN is reporting ‘no coup’ in Pakistan”.
President Asif Ali Zardari had also been covered by the amnesty, or National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), pushed through by Musharraf in an American-backed plan to allow Zardari’s late wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, to return to Pakistan in what had been supposed to be a power-sharing agreement to provide both stability and democracy. While he is expected to come under pressure to step down, he remains protected by presidential immunity.
The Pakistan blog Deadpan Thoughts captured the immediate reaction to Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling, talking of people in Karachi closing down their shops, racing home, and swapping notes on the phone as ”vicious rumors circulated of a coup”.
“The legislative branch of our government has right now with this judgment directed the executive branch to prosecute itself,” it said. “After all is said and done and we have torn apart this government, gone to mid term elections and arrived at the same crossroads in say another year or two at most, we must ask ourselves is democracy the best system for Pakistan? If it is then why does it never work for us?”
I have nothing but awe and admiration for Pakistan’s military. They seem to produce wonders on little or nothing in terms of economic resources, maintaining order while at the same time showing as much respect as possible for a wide range of unstable civil regimes and playing a major role in international peace keeping that has saved American lives any number of times (especially in Mogadishu). I personally think that Pakistan’s future depends in large measure on how well it coordinates with Iran and Afghanistan in dealing with Pashtun and Baluchi ethnic minorities that provide an endless source of political instability for all three countries.
Comparing Pakistan’s Islamists to India’s Maoists
One of the more controversial arguments doing the rounds is the question of whether you can compare Pakistan’s Islamist militants to Maoist insurgents in India. Both claim to champion the cause of social justice and have been able to exploit local grievances against poor governance to win support, and both use violence against the state to try to achieve their aims.
The differences are obvious: the Islamist militants come from the religious right; the Maoists from the far-left. In Pakistan, the militants have become powerful enough to strike at the heart of the country’s major cities. In India, the Maoists remain largely confined to the country’s interiors, although their influence is spreading through large parts of its rural hinterland.
In Pakistan, the military initially nurtured Islamist militants to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan – with U.S. and Saudi support – and later to fight India in Kashmir. In India, the Maoist movement has grown organically from its origins as a local 1967 uprising by communists over a land dispute in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal, from where its followers derive their name as Naxalites.
In Pakistan, the question of whether support for Islamist militants is underpinned by local grievances over social injustice is highly contentious. Many in Pakistan dismiss the Pakistani Taliban as right-wing ideologues, fired up by an alien religious philosophy imported from the Middle East by al Qaeda, and joined by a motley crew of criminals and thugs bent on the pursuit of pursuit of power and money.
In India, even those who oppose the Maoists’ violent methods acknowledge that poverty and the alienation of its rural poor – especially among the indigenous tribal people - have contributed to their appeal. (I have rarely been so powerfully struck by the desolation of hunger than on a trip some years ago to Chhattisgarh, the heartland of the Maoist revolt. It is a state where deep in the forests you find children with the protruding bellies and vacant eyes of the seriously malnourished, whose fathers use bows-and-arrows to catch animals (see pix). It also has vast mineral resources which villagers hope might one day make them rich, and which Maoists argue will be exploited by international mining companies.)
But granted the obvious differences, some of the similarities offer a perspective which at the very least allows room for discussion about the challenges faced by national governments in dealing with insurgencies, both from the Islamist right and the far left.
In Pakistan, the Islamist militants are recognised by many as an existential threat to the state. In India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as “perhaps the gravest internal security threat our country faces”.
B.R.Ambedkar, in a speech in 1943 said:
“Some of you will take offence at what I have said about the demoralizing effect of the Hindu socio-religious ideal on Hindu Society. But what is the truth? Can the charge be denied? Is there any society in the world which has unapproachable,, unshadowables, and unseeables? is there any society which has got a population of Criminal Tribes? Is there a society in which there exist today primitive people, who live in jungles, who do not know even to clothe themselves? How many do they count in numbers? Is it a matter of hundreds, is it a matter of thousands? I wish they numbered a paltry few. The tragedy is that they have to be counted in millions, millions of Untouchables, millions of Criminal Tribes, millions of Primitive Tribes!! One wonders whether the Hindu civilization is civilization, or infamy.”
If you see the pictures in this article, Ambedkar’s words 66 years ago come to life. Maoists could be compared to Baluch in Pakistan but Taliban/al-qaeda are no indigenous expressions of tribal people. Peace.
Afghanistan and Pakistan: on the battle for Kandahar
In the vast swirl of debate about Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is worth taking the time to read this piece in the Small Wars Journal by Michael Yon about the looming battle for Kandahar and the central importance of the Arghandab River Valley (pdf document).
Just as “a tiger doesn’t need to completely understand the jungle to survive, navigate, and then dominate”, Yon argues, you don’t have to master the full geographical and historical complexity of the Afghan war to grasp the importance of the Arghandab River Valley in securing Kandahar — a battle he suggests will be crucial in 2010.
Rather than do this very thoughtful piece the injustice of trying to summarise it, I’d recommend reading it in full.
We have got used to hearing that the United States will find it very difficult to succeed in Afghanistan without help from Pakistan in acting against militants based there — an argument given another airing in the latest New York Times story about Pakistan resisting U.S. demands to move against the Haqqani network in North Waziristan. What Yon’s piece does is to give a different perspective on that argument by suggesting the possibility of U.S. military successes on the ground in Afghanistan – almost independently of what happens in Pakistan.
The point here is not to discuss U.S. military strategy and tactics (many others are far better qualified to do so, among them Hershel Smith at the Captain’s Journal who has nearly daily entries on this).
But let’s assume for the purposes of argument that Pakistan does not drop its resistance to tackling Afghan militants in its border regions. (Pakistan argues it cannot tackle everyone at once and has its hands full fighting the Pakistani Taliban; its critics say it is hedging its bets ahead of any eventual U.S. withdrawal, when it might want to use groups like the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban to counter Indian influence in Afghanistan.)
At that point, a major U.S. military success in Afghanistan could be the only way to break the stalemate. An in that light, Yon’s focus on the Arghandab River Valley becomes essential reading.
@Myra,
If the mind actively generates perception, this raises the question whether the result has anything to do with the world, or if so, how much. To the extent that knowledge depends on the structure of the mind and not on the world, knowledge would have no connection to the world and is not even true representation. just a solipsistic or intersubjective fantasy. ( A quotation from Immanuel Kant, the metaphysic German Phisopher) . The PDF on Kandhar is typically a corporate oulined paper, provides details of the Pashtoon tribes and in the writers opinion ” how the south was lost” to Talibans, or how the talibans gained due to the shortfalls of ISAF. Why did’nt he contact Mullah Omar, who could have given him more accurate details about their strategy?
Do five Americans detained in Pakistan really prove a trend?
The arrest of five young Americans in Pakistan who according to Pakistani officials wanted to go to fight U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan has, perhaps predictably, increased fears of radicalisation within parts of the United States own Muslim community.
It follows the arrest in Chicago of David Headley, who police say scouted out targets for last year’s attack on Mumbai, and discussed with Pakistan-based militant groups plans for attacks in Denmark and India; and also comes after last month’s Fort Hood shooting in which 13 people died.
U.S. newspapers have been quick to see a pattern. “New Cases Test Optimism on Extremism by U.S. Muslims,” declared the New York Times. Or according to the L.A. Times headline: “U.S. sees homegrown Muslim extremism as rising threat.”
But is there really a new trend? And how is this supposedly measured? By actual incidents? On what basis can you argue that the Fort Hood shooting was part of a trend within the American Muslim community?
Or by the numbers of arrests made? If that were true, you would have to work out whether the arrests were also the result of better policing and improved coordination between different countries’ intelligence agencies.
Or by public perception and media attention? Given that the Obama administration has made Afghanistan and Pakistan its foreign policy priority, you would expect anything connected with those countries to get more attention.
But consider this. In the early years after 9/11, American police broke up a network of militants based in Virginia, some of whom had received weapons training in militant camps in Pakistan. The Virginia jihad network, linked like Headley to the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group blamed for the Mumbai attack, was active long before this supposedly new trend in “homegrown Muslim extremism”.
@I am pretty sure no religion preaches violence, if any religion does so or motivate people to resort to violence, there should be global debate on the relevance of such religion?”
—Posted by manishindia
Manish: It is hard to get any fruitful discussion on such sensitive subjects such as religion. Perhaps Reuters media can try it in faith blog. I am also curious why a holy book is interpreted so differently by people, giving some people justification for becoming suicide bombers while others find the teachings in line with Sufi tradition. People with twisted ideology and those vulnerable to twisted interpretations of religion might be in minority, but we know that this minority has taken the rest of the community and rest of the world for a wild ride. Few in the community who have been brave enough to protest against religious fundamentalism have done so at the cost of their lives and facing gagging or fatwa. Religious extremism is common to all religions, but not all religious extremists have succeeded in asphyxiating the the moderate voice.
Can China help stabilise Pakistan?
When President Barack Obama suggested in Beijing last month that China and the United States could cooperate on bringing stability to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and indeed to “all of South Asia”, much of the attention was diverted to India, where the media saw it as inviting unwarranted Chinese interference in the region.
But what about asking a different question? Can China help stabilise the region?
As I wrote in this analysis, China — Islamabad’s most loyal partner — is an obvious country for the United States to turn to for help in working out how to deal with Pakistan.
It already has substantial economic stakes in the region, including in the Aynak copper mine in Afghanistan and Gwadar port in Pakistan. Its economy would be the first to gain from any peace settlement which opened up trade routes and improved its access to oil, gas and mineral resources in Central Asia and beyond. It also shares some of Washington’s concerns about Islamist militancy, particularly if this were to spread unrest in its Muslim Xinjiang region.
There is virtually no chance of Beijing sending military forces to Pakistan or Afghanistan. But Chinese support could come in the form of pressure on Pakistan, help for its economy, and at least tacit backing for U.S. actions and demands.
It already indicated a willingness to take a more nuanced approach to Pakistan when it supported a U.N. ban on the Jamaat ud-Dawa, the humanitarian wing of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, after last year’s attack on Mumbai. It is also looking for ways to help bolster Pakistan’s economy –a Pakistani finance ministry official said this week that Pakistan was in talks with China on a currency-swap deal with the aim of conserving its foreign exchange reserves.
But Chinese antipathy to interference in other countries’ affairs, a divergence of views on exactly what needs to happen in Pakistan, and China-India rivalry all limit how far Beijing can be roped into helping on Pakistan.
China is great, I am a Chinese men, I support.But we are happy and the world to make friends with other people.We can provide the products you like.
Pakistan and Afghanistan:how do al Qaeda and the Taliban respond?
In openDemocracy, Paul Rogers writes that one of the great mistakes of the media is that it tends to assume the only actors in the campaign against Islamist militants are governments, with al Qaeda and the Taliban merely passive players.
“Beyond the details of what the Taliban and its allies decide, it is important to note that most analysis of Barack Obama’s strategy published in the western media is severely constrained by its selective perspective. There is a pervasive assumption – even now, after eight years of war – that the insurgents are mere “recipients” of external policy changes: reactive but not themselves proactive,” he writes.
“This is nonsense – and dangerous nonsense. It would be far wiser to assume that these militias have people who are every bit as intelligent and professional in their thinking and planning as their western counterparts. They have had three months to think through the Obama leadership’s policy-development process; and much of this thinking will be about how the US changes affect their own plans – not how they will respond to the United States. Thus they may have very clear intentions for the next three to five years that are embedded in detailed military planning; and what is now happening on their side will involve adjustment of these plans in the light of the great rethink across the Atlantic.”
So how will al Qaeda, the Taliban and other Islamist groups respond?
As discussed before in openDemocracy, and highlighted on this blog more than a year ago, the Taliban has been pretty good at studying the lessons of history, including taking inspiration from the Vietnamese war commander General Vo Nguyen Giap, who successfully employed guerrilla tactics against the French before crushing them in the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
It is reasonable to assume they have also studied the spillover of the U.S. war in Vietnam into Cambodia where the United States, reluctant to send in its ground troops, resorted to special ops and bombing campaigns to choke off the Vietcong’s supply routes – rather as Pakistan now fears the Afghan campaign will spill into its territory as Washington tries to eradicate Afghan Taliban leaders and bases there. The ensuing chaos paved the way for the takeover of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge.
It would be a step too far to suggest that the Afghan Taliban and their allies are set on taking over Pakistan. As it is, there is still a fierce debate on how far they are primarily Afghan nationalists who would settle for a return to power in Afghanistan and how far they have bought into al Qaeda’s global Islamist agenda.
Basically you forget the influence of Pakistani army on Taliban and AL Quaeda. It is the Pakistani army which is on birthday wishing terms with the US army generals and Pentagon. Pakistani army is armed well by USA and has been taught all professional tactics by US army. And thats why there is so much hurt in USA. When the duplicity of Pakistan of being freinds with USA on the one hand and then being a consultants to the taliban at the same time is an outrage.
Taliban and AlQueda cannot survive without active participation of elements in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. All responses and strategies of Taliban/ AL quaeda are made in consultaions with experienced Pakistani supporters and rich Saudi Arabia wahabbi promoters.
Where is Mr. Holbrooke?