Volume 6 | Issue 10 | Article ID 2928 | Oct 03, 2008 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus

The Coming Change of Course in Afghanistan

China Hand

The Coming Change of Course inRecall that it took years, $5-6 billion in CIA Afghanistan funding matched dollar for dollar by the Saudis, and a concerted national effort by the United China Hand States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan assisting a variety of domestic and foreign fighters to As the US public is dimly aware, things are not expel the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. It going very well in Afghanistan. also took officially-sanctioned safe havens in Pakistan that the Russians wouldn’t violate, The United Nation situation map forand supply of Stinger missiles to negate the Afghanistan issued September 3 (the most vital Soviet advantage in helicopter-based recent available) paints a grim picture: mobility and firepower.

None of these conditions currently obtain in Afghanistan.

The United States and NATO can’t be driven from Afghanistan militarily. Nor, however, can the Taliban be crushed in the foreseeable future.

The political will inside the United States to remain in Afghanistan is not lacking, especially since the Taliban insurgency is tangled up with the unresolved issue of Osama bin Laden, who has still escaped American retribution in the Taliban-controlled or Taliban-friendly areas of The large swaths shaded with the purple eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan. diagonal lines are places where things are getting worse. This includes the entire area Barack Obama, the likely victor in the surrounding Kandahar on the Pakistan border upcoming presidential elections, has made in the south, as well as areas on the Pakistan- support for the “Good War” in Afghanistan the Tajikstan border in the Northeast and other necessary counterweight to his condemnation areas on the Turkmenistan border to the of the “Bad War” in Iraq, and has vowed to Northwest. send two to three more brigades to Afghanistan in order to turn around the situation there. He Despite the deterioration of security in the is not going to put his administration on the Afghan countryside—illustrated by the recent wrong side of the “Are the Democrats too weak massacre of 24 bus passengers by the Taliban on national security” debate by trying to on a major highway in Helmand province—a disengage from Iraq and Afghanistan at the Taliban reconquest of Afghanistan is unlikely. same time.

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The US is going to be in Afghanistan for years redoubled effort in Afghanistan. to come. The key suppliers of money and manpower to The only thing that’s going to change in the NATO effort in Afghanistan—Great Britain, Afghanistan is the objectives. Canada, Germany, and Australia—are all under administrations that have made continued The Afghan adventure is expensive, onerous, engagement in Afghanistan a cornerstone of and unpopular, and most of the 40 or so their foreign policies but now demand a countries participating in the International fundamental change in course. Security Assistance Force and the host of NGOs trying to better the lives of the downtrodden With a broad international consensus on Afghani people would like to see a new Afghanistan, the United States will now seek to policy—one that separates the existential goal impose a firm hand on the emerging policy of crushing al Qaeda from the strictly local process—and prepare public opinion still mired issue of what political grouping gets to run the in the obsolete death-match-versus-the-Taliban- failed state of Afghanistan, and tries to slice and-al-Qaeda mindset pursued over the last six and dice and co-opt the insurgency instead of years at the cost of thousands of lives and tens pursuing the impossible goal of crushing the of billions of dollars for a brave new world in Taliban’s entrenched power in Afghanistan’s which the Taliban enter the government and mountains and countryside. Afghan democracy goes out the window.

The world has made its voice heard, and Time is of the essence—in order to halt the America has apparently listened. military decline inside Afghanistan and to co- opt a burgeoning non-U.S. peace initiative for All the indications are that the U.S. military the region that might pre-empt U.S. direction and foreign policy establishment has already of the effort in Afghanistan. Otherwise, control abandoned the ambitious neo-conservative of the terms of engagement in confronting objective of crushing the Taliban and remaking Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgency might slip Afghanistan as a functioning democracy. from America’s fingers.

America’s Afghanistan policy is falling into the In counterinsurgency, the U.S. military learned hands of the realists, whose highest priority is from Vietnam that the battle is not won or lost maintaining a tractable and viable client in only on the battlefield; victory in the op-ed Kabul, keeping Afghanistan securely inside the pages of the homeland is vital as advocates of a U.S. sphere of interest, holding on to a key prolonged fight in a distant land struggle to chess piece in Central Asia’s great game of sustain the flagging will and interest of the energy resources and pipeline infrastructure, weary populace and wary commander-in-chief. and offering the Pentagon another basing option to bedevil Russia and Iran. Nobody understands this better than David Petraeus, the canny and able general who Despite the absurdity of a multi-year, multi- skillfully orchestrated congressional testimony, billion dollar entanglement in Central Asia that opinion pieces by himself and conservative will do little more than advance unilateral US public intellectuals, and media coverage to security objectives, U.S. allies will be willing to recast the political terms of debate, and demonstrate their support for new U.S.adroitly channel the 2006 wave of US domestic leadership after the disastrous Bush years, and opposition to the Iraq war—and the Baker- will probably heed an American call for a Hamilton report intended to serve as its

2 6 | 10 | 0 APJ | JF enabling document—into the surge that, for in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and better or worse, will keep American military the leveraging of diplomatic and power at the heart of Iraq’s security equation economic initiatives with nearby for the foreseeable future. countries that are influential in the war. . . . General Petraeus will take the top spot in US Central Command, responsible for the entire Petraeus's Joint Strategic Middle East, on October 31, and is already Assessment Team … is reaching preparing his plan to rescue the faltering out to handpicked experts as well Western effort in Afghanistan. as State Department, Pentagon and other civilian and military He recently gave the Washington Post a tour of officials with experience in the the virtual armory in which he is forging his region. weapons in the battle for public opinion—the Powerpoint presentations, op-ed pieces, leaks, The team will comprise about 100 and favorable coverage by pundits and people, organized initially into six reporters that will encourage a new president subregional teams, tasked with hungry for a national security triumph to give investigating the root causes of him a free hand. insecurity in the region with the goal of finding solutions that From the October 16 Washington Post : integrate military action, diplomacy and development work. Gen. David H. Petraeus has launched a major reassessment of Petraeus’ vast authority, resources, and U.S. strategy for Afghanistan, latitude in setting the terms of the Afghanistan Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and the debate should be a source of concern. As a surrounding region, while warning noted authority on South Asia asserted, that the lack of development and "General Petraeus is not in charge of our the spiraling violence in diplomacy. He can't decide whether we try to Afghanistan will probably make it form an international contacts group on "the longest campaign of the long Pakistan," Barnett Rubin commented. war." Ironically, Dr. Rubin’s allegiance to the quaint The 100-day assessment will result concept of civilian control over foreign policy in a new campaign plan for the may have cost him a seat at General Petraeus’s Middle East and Central Asia, a round table of knights questing for the counter- region in which Petraeus will insurgency grail. oversee the operations of more than 200,000 American troops as Jim Lobe reports that Rubin’s collaborator on the new head of U.S. Central the think piece From Great Game to Grand Command, beginning Oct. 31. Bargain, one of the seminal documents of the Taliban engagement policy, Ahmed Rashid, was … experts and military officials invited to join the general’s brain trust. But Dr. involved said Petraeus is already Rubin apparently was not. focused on at least two major themes: government-led After eight years of catastrophic civilian foreign reconciliation of Taliban insurgents policy leadership, maybe the zeitgeist of that

3 6 | 10 | 0 APJ | JF war is too important not to be left to the General Sir David Richards, who generals. will take over from General Sir Richard Dannatt, is believed to But fear not. In classic milspeak, we are favour sending up to 5,000 more reassured that the military will keep an eye on British troops to Afghanistan on the military. There’s a plan: top of the 8,000 already in the country. The other 25,000 troops An overview of the review team's would be made up of US mission obtained by The Post says reinforcements and newly trained that including other government Afghan soldiers. agencies and other nations in the planning will "mitigate the risk of In the same issue, The Independent also over-militarization of efforts and obligingly excerpted a platitudinousspeech the development of short-term given by U.S. Secretary of Defense (and solutions to long-term problems." possible holdover in an Obama administration) Robert Gates—to the US Institute of Peace!-- Indeed, the trends both in the NATO countries apparently to reassure Europe that the and in the key South Asian countries of Pentagon had moved beyond the Bush Afghanistan and Pakistan all point to aadministration’s knee-jerk reliance on military consolidation of expert consensus in favor of an force and is prepared do things in Afghanistan Afghanistan change of course and a concurrent in a holistic hearts-and-minds way: media campaign to enlighten and guide the We must be prepared to change befuddled populace in support of the new old ways of doing business and policy, all under military direction. create new institutions – both nationally and internationally – to Already, the British flank has been deal with the long-term challenges secured—apparently, the UK is always needed we face abroad. And our own to provide the figleaf of multilateralism for national security toolbox must be these sorts of things--with the appointment of a well-equipped with more than just new numero uno for the British Army eager to hammers. support another push in Afghanistan. The context for all this reasonableness is, of In a sign of how things are changing, this course, the fact that Hamid Karzai, even with development was reported as an exclusive by the support of 53,000 foreign troops (23,000 Kim Sengupta in Britain’s left-of-centerUS troops under US command, 30,000 US, newspaper, The Independent. Those with British, and other troops in ISAF—the NATO- memories of the run-up to the Iraq war will led International Security Assistance Force), remember that these sorts of exclusives used to has failed to gain traction in the Taliban areas be the preserve of neo-con outlets like Conrad and in fact is referred to as “The Mayor of Black’s Telegraph. Kabul” in a mocking reference to the shrinking size of his realm. A general who believes a "surge" of 30,000 more troops is needed in Via Dawn: Afghanistan to fight the Taliban will be appointed as the new head LONDON, Oct 5: The UK’s of the British Army today, The commander in Helmand has Independent has learnt. dampened Britain’s hopes of a

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“decisive military victory” in unwinnable war in Afghanistan”. Afghanistan saying that the aim of the mission was to ensure the The French did their piece by leaking a cable Afghan army was able to manage from France’s top diplomat in Kabul, reporting the country on its own. that the British ambassador, Sherard Cowper- Coles, believed that a) Afghanistan was going Brig Mark Carleton-Smith told the all to hell b) the Karzai regime was doomed and Sunday Times that this could c) the presence of foreign forces only made involve discussing security with things worse. From the IHT: the Taliban. . . . “The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, Brig Carleton-Smith is the so is corruption, and the Commander of 16 Air Assault government has lost all trust…The Brigade which has just completed presence of the coalition, in its second tour of Afghanistan. particular its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its He paid tribute to his forces and solution," Cowper-Coles was told the newspaper they had quoted as saying. "Foreign forces “taken the sting out of the Taliban are the lifeline of a regime that for 2008”. But he stated: “We’re would rapidly collapse without not going to win this war.” . . . them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence He said: “If the Taliban were from the crisis." prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political And more from the Danes, in areport from settlement, then that’s precisely AFP: the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this.” Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said in an interview “That shouldn’t make people published Wednesday he uncomfortable.” supported the idea of the Afghan government holding talks with the Well, it doesn’t make the Financial Times Taliban, albeit with some uncomfortable: conditions. . . .

LONDON, Oct 11: Britain’s The rights women have regained Financial Times newspaper has since the Taliban were driven from advised the US and Nato to review power in 2001 should also not be their present policies in negotiable, he said. Afghanistan and come to some kind of a peaceful settlement with "We should civilise the Taliban so the Taliban. Afghanistan is not 'Talibanised' again, otherwise we'll have to “It may be shocking that the leave the country," said the Danish military might of the West cannot foreign minister. defeat the Taliban, but it is true,” said the daily in an editorial: “The Japan’s Asahi Shimbun joined the chorus in an

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October 18, 2008 editorial on “MSDF Refueling ordered its followers to allow the Bill,” pointing out that “The best strategy now vaccinators safe access to their is to explore reconciliation through talks with areas. They had copies of a letter moderate members of the Taliban for a peace from the group's leadership asking agreement to isolate the terrorist organization for them to be unharmed, [WHO al-Qaida.” representative Peter] Graaff said.

Even the new commander of the British Army, In a further sign that the international General Richards, while calling for his 30,000 community sees Taliban political and military troop surge into Afghanistan, had to concede strength as signs of a significant domestic the need for negotiations: insurgency that can and must be negotiated with, and no longer through the lens of the General Richards also believes that American Global War on Terror (GWOT) as a a negotiated settlement may be target for utter annihilation, the UN’s envoy to necessary to end the conflict, but Afghanistan, Kai Eide also gave a cringing that any talks must take place with shout-out on the UN website to the Taliban to the Afghan government and Nato help the UN deliver humanitarian aid in in a position of strength. significant swaths of the country in which the Karzai writ apparently runs not:

Contra General Richards, negotiations have not “I will take this opportunity to only already begun, but have already yielded appeal to the Taliban and to appeal concrete outcomes. to its leaders to ensure access for food distribution and to expand the International Peace Day, September 21, was humanitarian agenda that we marked in Afghanistan by a truce between should share,” he said. “There are Taliban, international, and Afghan government disagreements on so many things – forces to permit the delivery of polio but let us demonstrate that we can vaccinations to Afghan children: share this humanitarian agenda.”

Medics with polio vaccinations Most worrisome for the United States, Afghan pushed into some of Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai—aware that America’s most volatile provinces on the peripatetic viceroy, Zalmay Khalilzad, has his United Nations' Peace Day Sunday eyes on Karzai’s job and perhaps resentful of with a Taliban pledge they should the overbearing US micromanagement of his not be harmed during the three- administration as a result -- apparently slipped day drive. the leash and did not wait for a change in US policy to conduct talks with the Taliban. The Taliban had also agreed to not carry out any attacks on Peace Day While American pundits fulminated about following a call from President terrorist havens in South Waziristan, Karzai Hamid Karzai that resulted in the sent his brother to participate in a meeting Afghan and international military with the Taliban under Saudi Arabia’s aegis in forces agreeing to refrain from September. offensive operations. . . . In an article entitled Source: Saudi hosts peace The Taliban said Saturday it had talks with Afghan, Taliban reps, CNN reported

6 6 | 10 | 0 APJ | JF on September 28: and a long-time ally of the Taliban and other conservative and largely anti-American forces LONDON, England (CNN) -- In a in the Middle East. As U.S. credibility and groundbreaking meeting, King clout waned in the aftermath of the invasion of Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recently Iraq, Saudi Arabia has been quietly but hosted talks between the Afghan determinedly playing its own hand in Lebanon, government and the Taliban Afghanistan, and Pakistan, often to the militant group, according to a detriment of U.S. clients elevated to power as source familiar with the talks. part of the U.S. democracy crusade.

King Abdullah of Saudia Arabia In US eyes, there’s only one thing that Karzai hosted meetings between the could do that’s worse than participating in a Afghan government and the competing regional diplomacy initiative Taliban, a source says. spearheaded by the Taliban-friendly Saudi Arabia. And he’s already done it. The historic four-day meeting took place during the last week of From the Pakistan media outlet Dawn: September in the Saudi city of Mecca, according to the source, KABUL: Afghan President Hamid who spoke on the condition of Karzai advised the Taliban leader anonymity due to the sensitivity of in Afghanistan, Mullah Omar to the negotiations. return to Afghanistan and guaranteed his safety. King Abdullah broke fast during the Eid al-Fitr holiday with the 17- In an exclusive interview to Geo member Afghan delegation -- an television channel, Karzai said, act intended to show his Through Pakistan television commitment to ending the conflict. channel Geo I propose Mullah . . . Omar to get back to Afghanistan as I will be wholly and solely The current round of talks is responsible for his security and I anticipated to be a first step in a shall be answerable to the whole of long process. According to the the world on his behalf. source close to the talks, it has taken two years of behind-the- scenes meetings to get to this point. . . .

During the talks, all parties agreed that the only solution to Afghanistan's conflict is through dialogue, not fighting.

Saudi Arabia—a U.S. ally and critical security and economic asset in the region for the last six decades—is also the homeland of most of the 9/11 hijackers, protector of the Sunni faithful,

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Mullah Omar

Karzai administration officials and Taliban rebels As Bloomberg reports, U.S. Secretary of negotiate Defense Robert Gates, was compelled to say that he drew the line at talks with Taliban Karzai also invited Mullah leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. ``I, in my Omar to join him in the wildest imagination, would not consider Mullah political process of Afghanistan Omar a reconcilable,'' he said. by being hopeful for the next presidential election as Karzai If that wasn’t enough, Karzai further hedged reckoned Omar’s return in the his bets by opening talks with the notorious best interest of the prosperity Gulbuddin Hekmatayr of death by shipping and safety of the country. container fame, according to The Independent: [emph. added] According to diplomatic sources the Karzai government opened Mullah Omar is, of course, the head of the channels to Hekmatyar through Taliban, brother-in-arms (and according to members of his family who visited unconfirmed sources, brother-in-law) of Osama Kabul. Three months ago the bin Laden, whose government was toppled by warlord's son-in-law, Dr Ghairat Operation Enduring Freedom. From Dawn’s Baheer, was released after tortured syntax, it appears that Karzai is spending six years in an Afghan inviting Mullah Omar to participate in the prison and is said to be playing a presidential elections scheduled for next year. part in ongoing negotiations. Although his forces are engaged in Mullah Omar’s return to Afghanistan political fighting inside Afghanistan, life would be an intolerably vivid illustration of Hekmatyar has remained the futility of the world’s six-year effort to independent from the Taliban and remake Afghanistan. is said to be at odds with its

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religious leader Mullah Omar. our public opinion" for such an Some of President Karzai's outcome. advisors believe that a truce, in which he will be rewarded by being given a government post, may encourage other militant leaders to consider negotiations.

U.S. dissatisfaction with Karzai can be divined from the flood of negative press concerning Karzai’s inept and faltering government and the allegation that another brother, who is nominally in charge of Kandahar province, the Taliban stronghold in the southeast, is Afghanistan’s biggest opium-trafficker.

It appears that the key job before General Cowper-Coles and Karzai Petraeus will be to co-opt the regional impetus toward a negotiated settlement, prevent Saudi However, finding a suitable replacement for Arabia from mid-wifing a power-sharingHamid Karzai, perhaps from the nascent arrangement favorable to the Taliban, assert Afghan army if the available warlords are too American control and direction over the unsavory, is not the only issue for General process to assure America’s continuedPetraeus. presence at the center of Afghan’s security equation, and spike the loose cannons that Even if NATO, the central Afghan authority, threaten his plan. and the Afghan Taliban get on the same page, there is still the question of how much Near the top of the list of leaders to be collateral damage to tolerate—or provoke—in sidelined may well be Hamid Karzai, who Pakistan. apparently does not enjoy the confidence or affection of any of the NATO nations who are U.S. drone attacks and border raids targeting being asked to prolong their involvement in Taliban sanctuaries in the Federally Afghanistan, and who have pressed for a Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are housecleaning in Kabul and accommodation threatening to turn localized unrest in the with the Taliban. mountainous fringes of Pakistan into an existential threat to the Pakistani state. Britain’s acerbic ambassador to Kabul, Sherard Cowper-Coles, is apparently ready to wash his Inside Pakistan, enthusiasm for U.S. aims and hands of Karzai, according to the leaked tactics in the Global War on Terror—especially French cable reported in the IHT: non-stop rummaging through Pakistan’s border territories in search of bin Laden and al Qaeda Within 5 to 10 years, the only assets-- is conspicuously lacking. Support for "realistic" way to unite Pakistani casualties on behalf of the [Afghanistan] is for it to be stabilization of the U.S.-backed regime in Kabul "governed by an acceptable is virtually non-existent, especially given the dictator," the cable said, adding extensive sympathy for the Pashtun and that "we should think of preparing conservative Islamic character of the Taliban

9 6 | 10 | 0 APJ | JF inside Pakistan. An in camera session of Pakistan’s parliament meant to rally the political parties behind the The Pakistani Taliban have exploited this pro-US/anti-terror initiatives of the civilian apathy with an urban bombing campaign government led by Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan targeting US interests such as the Marriott People’s Party turned into a humiliating Hotel in Islamabad and Pakistan government demonstration that the government lacked the security organs. credibility or authority to lead the nation.

Veteran South Asia and Taliban watcher Syed Radical Islamic parties openly questioned the Salee Shazad reported on the message that the premise of a Pakistani war on terror and Taliban sent the Pakistani elites with its latest demanded that the Taliban be allowed to outrage, a bomb hidden in a basket of sweets present their side of the story to Parliament. that destroyed the headquarters of Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorist Force in the capital of Islamabad: The powerful democratic party, the PML-N-- led by Nawaz Sharif, arguably the popular A letter recovered from the gift political figure in Pakistan, refused to make any basket read, "If Pakistan does not constructive contribution to the debate on the separate itself from the American government’s behalf--a telling indication that crusade on Muslims, these sort of the PPP government is profoundly isolated both attacks shall continue." from conservative and moderate Pakistani opinion on the issue. Despite brave chest-beating in the national press about the need to make the war on terror Undoubtedly, Sharif calculates that, as the Pakistan’s war, it appears that the Taliban has United States slides toward accommodation done a very good job of convincing Pakistani with the Afghan Taliban, any calls for all-out opinion that peace in the heartland and war on the Pakistan Taliban will become accommodation on the borderlands is practically and politically untenable. preferable to a titanic struggle against intermeshed Pashtun and Islamic conservative On October 17, Saeed Shah reported in The interests. Guardian:

"The majority of the people of Pakistan do not see it as our war. We are fighting for somebody else and we are suffering because of that," said Tariq Azim, a former minister in the previous government of Pervez Musharraf, whose party now sits in the opposition. "At the moment the only ones toeing the line are the People's party."

Members of parliament are particularly angered by recent Taliban fighters in South Waziristan, their signals from Washington that it is stronghold in Pakistan prepared to talk to the Afghan

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Taliban, while telling Pakistan that Pass and the terminus of the fabled Grand it must fight its Taliban menace. Trunk Road, the immense and ancient artery of "They [the US] are showing a lot travel and trade that crossed British India all more flexibility on their side of the the way from Calcutta to the border of border," said Khurram Dastagir, a Afghanistan. member of parliament for Sharif's party. "The US are trying to Torkham is on the only road to Kabul from externalise their failure in Pakistan (the only other high volume border Afghanistan by dumping it on us." crossing, at Chaman, far south in Baluchistan, feeds into the Taliban heartland of Kandahar) Asif Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto, co- and serves as the conduit for fully 70% of chairman of the PPP and president of Pakistan, NATO’s supplies, which travel by ship to has staked his political fortunes on splitting Karachi, are trucked up the Indus Valley, climb with the other democratic parties after the a long, winding, and perilous route through the parliamentary election and replacing Pervez frontier territories to Torkham, and then roll Musharraf as America’s client in Pakistan. down a heavily protected corridor to Kabul.

However, hamstrung by unpopular policies, Closing Torkham is critical matter. I don’t think confronted by a ruthless and militantMusharraf ever did it, because he understood insurgency, and dogged by a popular and wily that America’s massive financial subvention to rival, Zardari appears incapable of delivering Pakistan wasn’t meant to buy the mobilization the counter-terrorism results in the border of his indifferent army or his equivocal areas that America is looking for. intelligence services—it was to assure a reliable, protected conduit for NATO materiel And Zardari may have signed his political death through Pakistan to Afghanistan. warrant by temporarily closing the Torkham border When, after 9/11, Richard Armitage allegedly crossing in September into Afghanistan to threatened to bomb Pakistan back into the NATO fuel truck traffic, reportedly as a protest Stone Age if it didn’t cooperate in the GWOT to placate Pakistani military and popular and help destroy its clients in Kabul—he was opinion infuriated by the flagrant and repeated probably thinking about getting Pakistan to US ground and drone incursions in Pakistan. facilitate the massive flow of fuel and equipment through Torkham.

No doubt when Zardari closed the border crossing, calculators rattled to life in officers throughout the Pentagon as spooks and logistics officers ran the numbers to decide if the immense cost of airlifting NATO supplies to Afghanistan would be a better deal than pumping $1.2 billion per year in subsidies into the pockets of a feckless and unreliable client like Zardari.

Pakistan is finding itself hopelessly on the wrong side of the regional strategic equation, The Torkham border crossing is at the Khyber both in its border regions and across the

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Durand Line in Afghanistan.

Beyond its traditional intelligence and diplomatic ties to the Taliban, Pakistan’s enthusiasm for the US-led campaign against the Afghan Taliban is also tempered by the awareness that its archenemy India has rushed into Afghanistan under US and UK cover after the invasion to make hay at Pakistan’s expense.

India made the decision to participate in Afghanistan’s reconstruction and has opened four consulates in Mazar e Sharif, Jalalablad, Kandahar, and Herat with the idea of what is known euphemistically as enhancing its strategic depth, a decision that terrifies and Constructed by a 400-man team of the Indian infuriates Pakistan An alarmist report on a government’s Border Roads Organization —a Pakistan website melodramatically construed military department analogous to the US Army India’s presence in Afghanistan as “107Corps of Engineers tasked with construction of [consulates] in which 20 intelligence units are strategic infrastructure, the project was funded burning their midnight oil to destabiliseas a donation by the Indian government and Pakistan.” took five years to complete. Despite the protection of India’s ITBP Indo-Tibetan Border In an unhappy piece of symbolism, at almost Police, multiple attacks by the Taliban claimed the same time that Zardari was cutting off the lives of at least five Indian BRO staff and 62 Kabul’s lifeline at the Khyber Pass to the west, Afghan policemen. India’s signature infrastructure project in Afghanistan was completed: 218-km Delaram- The US$80 million project carries with it the Zaranj road connecting Afghanistan’s “Garland joint hope of three of Pakistan’s enemies--the Highway”, which loops through all of the Karzai government, India, and Iran—that the country’s major cities, to a customs crossing at road will wean landlocked Afghanistan away the Iranian border and from there down to the from its reliance on Pakistan’s Karachi-to- Iranian port of Chabahar. Khyber conduit, challenge http://www.registan.net/index.php/2007/08/20/ central-asias-seaport-gwadar-or-chabahar/ Pakistan’s massive Gwadar port project (built just down the coast from Chabahar with 200 million in Chinese aid) as the gateway to central Asia and the Middle East, and further weaken Pakistan’s position in Afghanistan.

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The fundamentals simply aren’t there for Pakistan to be a sincere or effective participant in US security goals either in west Pakistan or in Afghanistan, and the United States is no longer pretending that it is. More important, however, is the fragility of the Pakistan government, with the US adding to the internal pressures.

In a sign that Asif Zardari’s lack of enthusiasm and effectiveness have become a terminal problem, the key points of a pessimistic upcoming National Intelligence Estimate was leaked to the press—an assessment prepared to support General Petraeus’s review.

Perhaps General Petraeus wanted his NIE both bleak and leaked in preparation for the upcoming foreign policy/national security tussle for the incoming president’s attention.

In another sign of what is, for Republicans, Pakistan regards the entrenched Indian probably a sign of the approaching Apocalypse, presence in Afghanistan as a threat to its west the NIE findings were leaked to the liberal- tolerated by the United States, which has leaning McClatchy News Service’s Jonathan cultivated India, most markedly through a Landay and John Walcott, and not to the highly concessionary bilateral nuclear Washington Times or even the Washington agreement, as a large, prospering, and stable Post: counterweight to China’s economic and military clout in Asia. A U.S. official who participated in drafting the top secret National India has little natural constituency of its own Intelligence Estimate said it in 99% Muslim Afghanistan and would suffer a portrays the situation in Pakistan swift and brutal erasure of its influence if the as "very bad." Another official pro-Pakistan Taliban were to return to power; called the draft "very bleak," and but it appears that the United States is said it describes Pakistan as being prepared to support India’s interests now and "on the edge." presumably in whatever dispensation is negotiated with the Taliban. The first official summarized the estimate's conclusions about the When the United States passed on to the Indian state of Pakistan as: "no money, no government information http://meakabul.nic.in/ energy, no government." that Pakistan’s intelligence agency was implicated in the bombing of the Indian Translation: in the forthcoming debate about embassy in Kabul—and leaked the accusation Pakistan in the new presidential term, there to the press—Pakistan must have seen the will be no happy talk about our plucky partner handwriting on the wall. in the War on Terror. There will be grim hand

13 6 | 10 | 0 APJ | JF wringing about how to keep Pakistan from the United States believes necessary. dragging down US efforts to preserve Operation Enduring Freedom’s fruits of victory. And, when one considers that General Petraeus might find it desirable—as the British The choices before General Petraeus will ambassador already believes-- to have a boss presumably be to 1) ignore the facts on the with genuine military heft replace Hamid ground and persist in previously unsuccessful Karzai in Kabul in order to affirm the authority attempts to bribe, threaten, or cajole Pakistan’s and credibility of the Afghan government, the civilian regime to provide effective support in US may be faced with the ironic choice of the border regions; 2) wash his hands of eliminating two South Asian democracies in the Pakistan and let Islamabad cut loose from the name of a continued struggle to bring freedom Afghan effort and make its separate peace with to the region. the Pakistani Taliban; or 3) roll the dice with a new, more capable, and enthusiastic client If the objective of General Petraeus’ struggle insulated from the democratic entanglements turns out to be merely to gain the advantage in of the civilian government—i.e. a new round of a negotiated settlement with the Taliban forces military rule. we swore to destroy after 9/11, the irony will be deep—and, to many, bitter. Given the likelihood that a Taliban with safe havens inside Pakistan is unlikely to put the Afghan government and NATO in the “position China Hand is the author of the Asian affairs of strength” that Britain’s General Richards website China Matters which provides believes is a necessary pre-condition for talks, continuing updates on US-Afghan policies. He it is quite possible that the United States will wrote this article for Japan Focus. Posted on look at the turmoil and division in the Zardari October 21, 2008. administration, recoil at the possibility that new elections will elevate Nawaz Sharif—a See also Nir Rosen's October 30, 2008 report client of Saudi Arabia and strongly committed from Taliban-controlled areas of central to decoupling from the US war on terror and Afghanistan. negotiations with the Taliban—to power, and find itself encouraging a Pakistani general to How We Lost the War We Won A journey into step forward and to implement the policies that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan

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