Chaos facing Pakistan

By S.P.SETH

The news is that Pakistan army has stopped its operations against the Taliban in South Waziristan on the Pakistan-Afghan border. There has been no detailed information about the success or otherwise of the Pakistani offensive.

It is reported, though, that the army has given the control of the region to the tribal chiefs. Again, there is no real information about how the tribal chiefs will deal with the new situation and what will be the role of the Pakistan army in the new developments?

It is on par with the previous arrangements the army made to strike a deal with the tribal chiefs and the Taliban to co-opt them, with the proviso that they will break off with the al-Qaeda.

But these attempts failed disastrously in the past and are unlikely to be any more successful than before. Such interludes of supposed co-existence between the army and the Taliban only gave them valuable time to disperse and regroup, starting the conflict all over again with greater intensity.

The Pakistan military created the Taliban in the first place by throwing its weight behind them in Afghanistan’s civil war in the nineties. When the Taliban captured power in Afghanistan, Pakistan seemed to have achieved its strategic objective of “defense in depth” in any potential war with India.

Things seemed to be going well until the al-Qaeda mayhem occurred in the United States on 9/11, 2001.

With the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan had to (under US pressure) confront the Taliban and its militant offshoots that had sprung up with official support and encouragement. These militant offshoots, like Lashkare-e-Toiba and others, were let loose in Indian Kashmir to overstretch and pin down Indian military in that region.

Afte 9/11, however, all Pakistan’s carefully crafted and structured maneuvers, centered on the Taliban in Afghanistan and its militant offshoots in Pakistan, started to become a liability. The monster(s), which Pakistan army had created, started to turn on the country’s establishment, surprisingly even defeating the army at times in large-scale operations.

The Pakistani Taliban and its offshoots enjoyed considerable sympathy and support of the wide sections of Pakistan’s population, because of the government’s perceived role as doing the US bidding.

However, in the midst of all this, the military has kept its lines of communications open with top echelon of the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan, who are sheltering in Pakistan across the border from Afghanistan.

The visiting US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was right when she said that it was difficult to believe that these Taliban and al-Qaeda leadership were hiding in Pakistan without anyone knowing their whereabouts.

It is these conflicting signals, among other things, that have militated against an effective Pakistani strategy to flush out militancy in the country.

These militant elements are considered strategic assets against India in Kashmir, once the Americans have withdrawn from Afghanistan—whenever that might be. A new friendly government in Afghanistan, supposedly under a new Taliban umbrella, will give Pakistan strategic depth against India.

However, in the meantime, Pakistan is increasingly becoming a basket case with no effective government, with its economy going down the hill at a faster rate.

At this rate, Pakistan might end up with no government worth the name to worry about the country’s strategic assets or losses, having done the hatchet job of ruining the country by creating a space for all kinds of militancy of one description or the other.

And this will be the worst kind of terrorist threat for the world at large.

The mess that is Afghanistan

By S.P.SETH

How is Afghanistan shaping? Not too well.

In the first place, the Karzai’s presidential election saga was a hoot, with him being declared elected with massive rigging of votes where they were cast, and simply stuffing the result with ghost voters. This created a tremendous outcry from his American backers.

He was thus forced into seeking a follow-up election, which he won anyway because he was the only contestant left. Now he is struggling with forming a cabinet because the Afghan parliament has so far refused to rubber-stamp his nominees.

Most of them are his cronies and not qualified for their jobs. Therefore, President Karzai’s legitimacy remains a serious question.

On the American side, President Obama finally made up his mind to send about 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan to implement his operational commander’s comprehensive strategy to tackle the Taliban insurgency.

Which includes securing major Afghan cities and towns to provide security for its people, as well as to build up the country’s infrastructure and ensure economic development. How this will be done is a matter of details, and that is where the confusion arises.

Afghanistan has been in constant turmoil since after the Soviet invasion in December 1979---indeed a few years earlier when the Afghan king was overthrown by his cousin Prince Daud.

The disastrous Soviet invasion of the country created the Mujahidin counter-offensive aided and abetted by the US, with the collusion of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf states.

With the Soviet retreat and withdrawal in 1989, the country was plunged into a civil war, leading to the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. This created the environment for the rise of al-Qaida, and 9/11 bombings in the US.

The subsequent US military operations in Afghanistan have now lasted now about 10 years, and still going strong.

The US-sponsored Karzai democracy experiment has been a failure because most Afghans know that he owes his position to American support, with its army occupying the country. Which makes him even more illegitimate, being the proxy of an occupying army.

This is what Lieutenant-General Ruslan Aushev of the Russian army, who served as a commander in the military operations in Afghanistan, has to say in terms of his country’s military operations in Afghanistan for nearly 10 years from 1979-1989.

As quoted in the Sunday Times Magazine, he draws a parallel between his country’s mistakes and those of the American-led forces: “We thought it would be over quickly…[but] The civil war only intensified…We took sides. It is the same mistake now being committed by the coalition. You are supporting one element of Afghan society against the other.”

Aushev adds, “To them, you’re outsiders just as we were. History and past experience show the Afghan people don’t like it when outsiders come in, whatever their purpose…”

At some point the US will have to consider, as the Soviets did, that their Afghan experiment is draining their national resources and losing them their international status as the world’s only superpower. And the sooner they do, they might still be able to retrieve their position.

How is Pakistan faring?

By S.P.SETH

How is Pakistan faring in terms of the terrorist situation? Not too good, considering the spate of recent terrorist attacks all over the country, including major cities like Lahore and Karachi.

The military offensive against the Taliban insurgents in the country’s tribal belt on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is said to be making progress. But there is no hard evidence that it is making any significant dent into the militant activities.

It might have dispersed them or pushed them across the border into Afghanistan. That creates its own problems for the American-led international force combating them in Afghanistan.

The US drone attacks on both sides of the border have done some damage to the Taliban in terms of killing some of their middle-rank commanders. But it is a double-edged sword because of the accompanying heavy civilian casualties. Which simply solidifies anti-American feelings both in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

At the same time, it compromises the Pakistan’s sovereign credentials, giving more ammunition to the Taliban to depict both Pakistan and Afghan governments as America’s puppets and somehow anti-Islam.

And because the terrorist violence continues unabated affecting ordinary citizens’ physical security and economic well-being, there is increasing erosion of government’s role as the guarding of law and order.

Which only strengthens the militant’s position as an alternative centre of power.

This is how the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in the first place in the midst of total chaos. And one can’t help drawing parallel with that, as the situation in both Pakistan and Afghanistan is refusing to show any real improvement.