American Af-Pak Policy needs to be reconfigured urgently, taking the views of the affected local populations of the two countries, understanding their raw mood and ascertaining representation and legitimacy of the dialogue process as a whole
Significantly, on April 13, 2009, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari signeda peace deal with the Taliban in the SWAT valley enabling the establishment ofSharia law there. Inhabitants of the valley are happy that the deal has beenbrokered as it signifies peace for which they are willing to be constrained byreligious laws if it means some semblance of certainty in their everyday lives.However, for the international community for whom the everyday violentoccurrences in the SWAT valley or the NWFP or in Afghanistan for that matter area virtual reality present only through the internet, Television and newspapers,the deal is the undoing of the democratic government in Pakistan.
The US has also expressed discomfort with the signing of the deal, viewing itprimarily as giving in to Taliban ascendancy in these areas. The ObamaAdministration views Afghanistan and the tribal areas in Pakistan as thefrontline in the "War on Terror" and would like to dictate to the Pakistangovernment on how to conduct the war. These conclusions are perhaps reached bythe international community in general and the US in particular due to theirmisunderstanding of the rich history of deal making prevalent in the Pashtundominated areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan throughout history based on theconcept of Pashtunwali (the social code of the Pashtun which has enabled this 40million people to survive for the last 1000 years). According to the rulesof Pashtunwali, enacting agreements with a rival party is a matter of skilledstatecraft and is seen as a precursor to dialogue and conflictresolution.
What is also rather interesting to observe is that the rationale for the USreconstruction efforts in Afghanistan appears to have taken a definite militaryor interest based shift under the Obama Presidency. Under the Bush Presidency,the framework for US presence in Afghanistan was geared not only in fighting theal Qaeda, but also towards building democratic institutions in Afghanistan.Under Obama’s Presidency, the thrust of the US war in Afghanistan is to ensurethat the Taliban does not get a foothold in Afghanistan or Pakistan: Taliban ascendancyin this region is seen by the new administration as enabling establishment ofbases for the al Qaeda and potential execution of 9/11 type attacks on the US.In speech after speech, President Obama has argued that "the U.S. mission inAfghanistan is about making sure that al Qaeda cannot attack the U.S. homelandand U.S. interests and our allies" or "project violence against"American citizens".
This kind of policy rationale has however come in for some good criticalquestioning. In a recent article in ForeignAffairs, John Mueller argues that the Obama Administration isoverselling the threat from the Taliban and the al Qaeda. It is now a given factthat the Taliban were reluctant to host the al Qaeda in the 1990s and feltbetrayed when the later carried out the 9/11 attacks which led to their eventualouster from Afghanistan. Mueller indicates that given the limited interest ofthe Taliban on issues outside Afghanistan or Pakistan, it is highly unlikelythat they will support the al Qaeda in future terror attacks on the West. Thisargument is valid as radical organizations like the Taliban are 'rationalactors' and carry out cost-benefit assessments of their future stakes andpolicies; any alliance with the al Qaeda is viewed by the Taliban as resultingin a future US military intervention with consequences known only too well bythe group to risk it.
Many security and terrorism analysts also argue that the 9/11 attacks wereplanned in Hamburg, Germany by loosely networked al Qaeda cells. Hence, Obama’sstress on al Qaeda’s effectiveness connected to geographic control reflects alack of nuanced understanding of terrorists as loosely organized groups oftransnational actors networked across time and space. And if acquirement of baseareas by al Qaeda is indeed as critical as Obama makes it out to be, then thereis a larger strategic question lurking in the present context. According to USintelligence, the al Qaeda has established bases in Pakistan’s NWFP since 2001after being ousted from Afghanistan. Then, why is it that the outfit has notplanned or launched 9/11 type attacks in the last 8 to 9 years?
Obama’s Af-Pak policy also does not take into account the sensitivities ofthe affected local population, both in the immediate situation they face and intheir prospects for the future. While Obama shows concern for the humanitarianaspects of the war in Afghanistan and visualizes the coming back of the Talibanas brutal and disastrous for the Afghan people, the US is unwilling to commitany troops for purposes other than securing itself from terror attacks from thispart of the world. It is towards this goal and not the welfare and security ofthe Afghan people that Obama has committed 17, 000 additional US troops alongwith 4, 000 more to train the Afghan police. This will increase the US trooppresence in Afghanistan to about 60, 000 along with 30, 000 troops from NATOgeared towards fulfilling the political objective of securing the West fromterror attacks.
The armed violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan is also having a strongnegative impact on South and West Asian regional stability, with internationalimplications. The question that begs answering in this context is: Are US troopincreases an answer to the problems in Afghanistan? Historically, Afghanistanhas been one of the most difficult terrains for foreign troops to maintain andhold territory. The Soviet Union had 120, 000 troops in Afghanistan and lost.Later day US studies of the Soviet failure in Afghanistan indicates that around500, 000 Soviet troops were needed to control the Afghan rebels amounting to avirtual military siege of the country and turning it into a military base.
General Dan McNeill, the former commander of the International SecurityAssistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan (February 4, 2007 to June 3, 2008) arguesthat it would take 400,000 US troops as against the current 60,000 troops toturn the violent tide in Afghanistan. However, such a massive US troopdeployment to fight a ragtag Taliban insurgency of 5000-6000 armed men in astrategically located Afghanistan will be viewed with skepticism by regionalactors like India, China and Russia. Afghanistan, historically, has always actedas a buffer to South, Central and West Asia. Russia already argues that 9/11gave the US a pretext to establish a base in Afghanistan to maintain directaccess to the resource rich Central Asia. There is also a strong counterview tothe US terrorism rationale which argues that the real reason for the US presencein Afghanistan is to keep a close watch on countries like China, Russia, Iranand India situated as they are at such close geographic proximity toAfghanistan.
Otherwise, the present US policy of balancing and counter-balancing by dealing with Pakistan, India and Iran in isolation while playing off one against the other at the same time can prove disastrous for those on the ground. Societies at the grass root level also need to be tapped into mainly for the purpose of understanding the raw mood and ascertain representation and legitimacy of the dialogue process as a whole.
Dr. Namrata Goswami is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Dialogue, La Trobe University, Melbourne and Associate Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. The views expressed here are that of the author and not that of the institutes.