A New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan

[Developereo]

That is a Pakistani allegation, not grounded in reality. What Pakistan wants is a pliant Afghanistan which can be used for "strategic depth" or whatever. When the Taliban were in power, the LeT used to run its camps on Afghan soil.

Once Pakistan accepts that Afghans have a right to full sovereignty, including friendly relations with any country, then progress can be made.

Pakistan would welcome an Afghanistan that was actually sovereign and respected the Durand line as an international border. Unfortunately, the Afghan leaders have demonstrated time and again that they fail on both counts and, willingly or otherwise, do India's bidding in harming Pakistan.

The exact same arguments that America is applying to Pakistan can be applied to Afghanistan vis-a-vis Pakistan. As long as they continue harboring anti-Pakistan elements, and until they make peace with the Durand line, Pakistan will do the needful to make sure Afghanistan doesn't cause trouble.

Pakistan has the basis for an excellent peaceful relationship with Afghanistan, including large crossover of ethnic tribes, but it will not materialize as long as Afghanistan lets itself be used by India against Pakistan.

 

[Rig Vedic]

Unfortunately, the Afghan leaders have demonstrated time and again that they fail on both counts and, willingly or otherwise, do India's bidding in harming Pakistan.

The first point is that it is quite untrue that Afghan leaders have been harming Pakistan on India's bidding. With so many global players involved, India hardly has that kind of influence there.

The larger question is what the underlying motives are in making such baseless allegations. It appears that Pakistan's ambition is to control the Afghans via actors like the Haqqanis and the Talibs.

 

[Major Sahab]

Go Home USA from Pakistan, Iraq & Afghanistan. Go home.

 

[muse]

There are still plenty Islamist terrorists in Pakistan - lets take the ISI at it's word that it missed OBL (wink wink) --

Go, get Zawahiri, take down the entire support network, the financiers, the logisticians, the trainers, the safe houses, the political connections - take it all down -- The ISI can still win this for Pakistan - it must win it for Pakistan. Or else suffer...

 

[muse]

Friends:

The piece below was published in the Hindu -- It's rather an interesting piece - it was not crafted as an Op/Ed piece but is taken from congressional testimony - I hope you find some use in this piece and that it will ad to our understanding of events -- I do invite our readers to note that slowly US opinion makers are coming around to the sense that it's much later than they had thought, for Pakistan and US - While Pakistani leaders could not be more clear, US leaders may now decide that Orwellian speak about Pakistan, Afghanistan and US ambitions in the region serve to obfuscate their own understanding

May 9, 2011 02:19 IST
Taking stock of Pakistan-U.S. relations
Michael Krepon


The U.S.-Pakistan relationship could not have survived this long without the presence of vital common interests. But we are now close to another divorce. It would be a serious error of judgment, in my view, to conclude that this relationship cannot be salvaged. Pakistanis have great resilience, and their military leaders are capable of good as well as bad decisions. This relationship won't be salvaged unless Pakistan gets its house in order and unless we are clear about what we can and cannot expect from Pakistan.

Pakistan is a weak country with strong powers to resist U.S. pressures. U.S. reliance on Pakistan for logistical support for our troops in Afghanistan is a great source of friction. We argue over compensation, the extent of the U.S. presence on Pakistani soil, and the ground rules under which U.S. personnel operate.

U.S. and Pakistani interests diverge on nuclear issues, India, and Afghanistan. Pakistan's sense of insecurity is growing, which translates into increased reliance on nuclear weapons and continued links to groups that carry out deadly attacks in Afghanistan and India.

Afghanistan

On Afghanistan, we both seek a negotiated settlement, but we are backing different horses. Our military forces in Afghanistan — God bless them — are performing in an exceptional manner. But we all know that their sacrifices will be in vain unless tactical gains can be handed over to competent Afghan authorities. If a lasting political settlement can be found in Afghanistan, it will require extraordinarily difficult internal and regional deal making. I doubt whether this heroic undertaking is worthy of an annual U.S. military commitment in excess of $100 billion dollars. Deal making will continue to be pursued at a fraction of this cost and sacrifice. The results may well be modest or ephemeral, no matter how much we spend there.

The future of Pakistan matters far more than the future of Afghanistan. Pakistan, unlike Afghanistan, is a hinge state in the Muslim world. U.S. military and diplomatic investments do not remotely correspond to the relative importance of Afghanistan and Pakistan to vital U.S. national security interests. Some U.S. policies are also increasing stress fractures in Pakistani society. It will require a four-cornered bank shot to leave Afghanistan as a reasonably functioning country. Pakistan may also become lost to its own pathologies regardless of U.S. efforts there. But it would be immensely tragic if the loss of U.S. blood and treasure in this theatre results in little better than the usual state of affairs in Afghanistan alongside far greater deterioration within Pakistan and in U.S.-Pakistan relations.

At best, we will continue to have a chequered track record with Pakistan. Pakistan's security apparatus will seek to increase its chances to influence Afghanistan's future no matter what we do. Pakistan won't give up its nuclear weapons, but we may be able to promote more nuclear risk-reduction measures in this region. U.S. ties with India will continue to improve, reflecting our substantial and growing common interests. Pakistan's national security establishment will feel more insecure as a result. We can't convince Pakistan's military leaders to befriend India, but we can promote more normal ties between Pakistan and India, especially in the areas of trade and regional development.

Extremist groups

The biggest challenge facing Pakistan's national security establishment is to recognise how continuing links to extremist groups mortgage Pakistan's future. Outfits like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) are the leading edge of Pakistan's national demise. If Pakistan's military leaders cannot re-think the fundamentals of its anti-India policy and its increasing reliance on nuclear weapons, they will never know true security. I do not expect a change in Pakistan's ties to the Afghan Taliban, but this would be a good time for Pakistan's military leaders to re-think any ties they may still have to the remnants of al-Qaeda within their country.

We might also reconsider our present course. In my view, our Afghan policies hurt, rather than help, Pakistan to find its balance. If authorities in Afghanistan are unable to safeguard our military's hard-won gains, we are obligated to ask how much more blood and treasure ought to be devoted to this cause. I acknowledge that there are risks in accelerating reductions in the U.S. level of effort in Afghanistan. In my view, greater risks and costs are incurred by remaining on our current glide path.

I therefore respectfully suggest that this committee consider accelerating efforts to secure a political settlement in Afghanistan alongside steeper reductions in our level of military effort there.

(Michael Krepon is the Co-founder of the Stimson Center, Washington D.C. This is a copy of his public remarks before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on May 5, 2011. His longer, written testimony can be read at Pakistan | Analysis | The Stimson Center | Pragmatic Steps for Global Security.)

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

There are still plenty Islamist terrorists in Pakistan - lets take the ISI at it's word that it missed OBL (wink wink) --

Go, get Zawahiri, take down the entire support network, the financiers, the logisticians, the trainers, the safe houses, the political connections - take it all down -- The ISI can still win this for Pakistan - it must win it for Pakistan. Or else suffer...

it's naiive to think that everything you hear in the media is ''everything''


as the late Tupac Shakur once said:



'''Thug life baby........don't believe everything you read...''

 

[muse]

Whose failure is it anyway?
By Editorial
Published: May 10, 2011



Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, on May 9, read out a prepared speech in answer to US President Barack Obama’s remark that Osama bin Laden had enjoyed some sort of ‘support system’ in Abbottabad for over five years. The prime minister rebutted the charge, made in and outside Pakistan, that his government had suffered an intelligence failure. He dismissed as ‘absurd’, American accusations that Osama was able to hide in the country due to ‘either an official support network or the incompetence of Pakistani authorities’.

The burden of the message was hidden in the following lines, more meant for domestic consumption: “I have full confidence in the high command of the Pakistan armed forces and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)”. He tried to palliate the impact of the charge against Pakistani intelligence by saying that what had actually happened was a ‘global intelligence failure’. The ISI, to whose chief his government had granted an extension in service, was not to blame. That took care of the ‘unofficial’ American charge that the ISI could have been, not merely ‘negligent’, but ‘complicit’ in providing safe haven to Osama bin Laden.

But the opposition in the National Assembly was not going to back him on what he said on the basis of any solidarity born out of anti-Americanism. PML-N’s Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan called for the resignation of President Asif Ali Zardari and the Gilani government. After that there was an exchange of familiar accusations, although the PPP’s latest alliance-making in parliament had ensured security to anyone being suspected of ‘complicity’ in the Osama affair.

The prime minister went a little overboard defending the army. He accused the US of going through the operation to take Osama without informing Pakistan — and thus infringing its sovereignty — implying that after the ‘global failure’ of intelligence, Pakistan’s failure should have been treated at par. The facts on the ground actually indicate that the US intelligence had succeeded and not failed — while Pakistan was trying to curtail the presence of US intelligence personnel on its soil. To pre-empt any criticism, Mr Gilani referred to the ISI’s sharing of intelligence with the CIA in 2009. He took offence at the implication that the agency was, as alleged in the western media, in cahoots with al Qaeda. He somewhat cryptically added: “The Abbottabad episode illustrates that Pakistan’s military quickly responded to the American forces’ covert incursion”.

Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who was more aggressive about the American operation, had complained that Pakistan’s civilian authorities had spoken with many tongues, thus rendering Pakistan’s riposte to the American accusations less robust. He must have in mind the article President Zardari contributed to an American paper immediately after the Abbottabad operation. President Zardari had tried to defend the army in it but less emphatically, allowing more space to the commonality of views with the US on the subject of terrorism, saying that 85 per cent of the people in Pakistan hated al Qaeda.

It may well happen that the truth may be obfuscated behind the government’s defence of the army and the opposition’s demand for the resignation of the government. Ever since the raid, there has been vociferous protest, led mainly by the religious parties and the jihadi militias which in the past were supported by the establishment, but which ordinary Pakistanis fear. Most of the TV channels are conveying these anti-American passions; and the military has said that it will stand with the people and is not prepared to barter the nation’s honour. This then creates a situation where the elected government comes under pressure.

The failure is ours. We don’t answer the questions that the world is asking us. How is it that global terrorism, one way or another, originates in Pakistan? How is it that Pakistan doesn’t feel that its sovereignty is being trampled underfoot by foreign terrorists on its soil? Why is the state not acting against areas where terrorists and militant outfits seem to have safe havens? (Some of these outfits have UN-mandated bans on them.) If the prime minister’s speech seeks to unite a nation that stands completely isolated in the rest of the world, what good is that unity, except that it ensures continuity in wrong policy and certain self-destruction?

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11th, 2011.

 

[muse]

Below is an alternate view - one which is increasingly popular, much to chagrin of the armed forces and their agencies



Cleaning up the mess
By Gibran Peshimam
Published: May 10, 2011

gibran.peshimam@tribune.com.pk

It was painful watching our prime minister fumble through a policy statement following the killing of the world’s most wanted man on Pakistani soil.

You see, whether the entire episode is a case of collusion or incompetence is secondary. It is secondary to the initial fact that these questions are for the military to answer. Yet a civilian government, which doesn’t, and has never had, any say in such matters, has conveniently been thrown in the line of fire.

And the prime minister knows that. You could see it on his face while he read a statement that was clearly not his or his speechwriter’s. You could see it on the face of Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir a few days before that.

Let us go back a few days before the speech. In a meeting of the troika at the Presidency, it was decided that the civilian leadership would take the lead in responding to the fiasco.

He may have not known at the time, but while the premier was trying his best to regurgitate generally untenable answers to questions, which clearly were not his to answer, on the floor of the National Assembly, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani was busy kicking-off the great escape for the truly accountable. He suggested that our embarrassment was fuelled largely by an “inadequate national response”— by the civilian leaders of the country, of course. He said he wanted democracy to play its role.

Really?

Aside from being bullied in almost all aspects of governance, the military has controlled, exclusively, security and foreign policies since this country’s inception. (On a side note, a report in the Guardian suggests that the US was granted permission by the last military ruler to conduct unilateral raids to get bin Laden.) In fact, just before they handed over the controls of an aircraft in nosedive, the corps commanders’ huddle came up with another typical unilateral foreign policy announcement — that the US would be told to reduce its military presence in the country.

The civilians have always been kept out. And now they want the ‘bloody civilians’ to face the nation as well as the international community?

Yes, there was an ‘inadequate national response’ — because the only adequate response from a collective civilian political standpoint to our military leaders should have been: “You have made this bed, now lie in it. We are not going to bail you out.”

No.

It is time that you are held accountable for the mess that you have got us into. For double games, and for imposing policy without a mandate for so many years.

Chaudhry Nisar made a good analogy, unwittingly surely, when he said that this was the biggest debacle in our history since the fall of Dhaka.

That was the lowest point, in particular, for our armed forces, and Bhutto had the opportunity to ensure that the military would finally take its rightful place in the command chain: Below an elected government.

But he bailed the military out. No one was held accountable. Reports were buried and the guilty either promoted or allowed to retire peacefully in serene countryside lodges.

And then they came for him.

Today, President Asif Ali Zardari is confronted with a similar situation. And judging by the response, the government is in no mood to stand up to an institution that has tried to dominate it at almost every turn over the last three years — from the restoration of the chief justice to the Kerry-Lugar bill.

While stooge politicians such as Shah Mahmood Qureshi are calling for the resignations of the prime minister and president, they, in turn, are covering up for the services and intelligence chiefs responsible — the ones who should resign, or, in fact, be sacked.

Make no mistake: The fiasco of the cover-up is greater than the crisis itself.

And it is painful.

 

[Developereo]

The first point is that it is quite untrue that Afghan leaders have been harming Pakistan on India's bidding. With so many global players involved, India hardly has that kind of influence there.

The larger question is what the underlying motives are in making such baseless allegations. It appears that Pakistan's ambition is to control the Afghans via actors like the Haqqanis and the Talibs.

Afghanistan's complicity with India in fomenting violence in Pakistan has a long history. AgnosticMuslim posted articles showing how the top BLA terrorist was hiding in Kabul; NATO and Afghan forces have abandoned posts near the Pakistan border, so TTP can find sanctuary across the border. Even going back as far as 1947, Afghanistan's government has always been anti-Pakistan.

It doesn't matter how much India denies it, or how stridently our own Pakistani liberal parrots downplay the threat, we know exactly where our external threats lie.

Afghanistan has a choice: it can stop being India's accomplice, or Pakistan will do the needful to ensure our national security.

 

[Vinod2070]

Afghanistan has a choice: it can stop being India's accomplice, or Pakistan will do the needful to ensure our national security.

This is what is really happening to Pakistan. You are not cleaning up the mess so someone else will (is already at it, drone attacks, Abbotabad et al.)

In fact, the supposed surgical strikes after 26/11 would have been exactly that as well. You stop them or we will do the needful to ensure th lives of our people is safe from cross border terrorists.

Interesting how little is the consideration given to Afghanistan sovereignty.

If Pakistan can be China's accomplice, why does Afghanistan not have a choice?

 

[RabzonKhan]

Pakistan to talk counterterrorism with US, Afghans

By Bradley Klappe
Sep 20th 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pakistan's foreign minister revealed Thursday that her country would soon hold confidential talks with the United States and Afghanistan to improve a three-way counterterrorism relationship beset by misunderstandings, including one over the Pakistan-based Haqqani network that Washington considers the greatest threat to Afghan stability. But she refused to say whether her government was ready to take any action against the militants.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Hina Rabbani Khar said senior officials from the three countries have been instructed to come up with a strategy for repairing cooperation that has suffered since U.S.-Pakistani relations collapsed a year and half ago. That chill in relations was brought on by a CIA contractor's killing of two Pakistanis, the unilateral U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden's compound inside Pakistan and the accidental killing of 24 Pakistani troops in November by NATO forces.

A key element of the talks will be to determine which militant groups can be persuaded to lay down their arms as part of an Afghan peace treaty — a crucial if so far lagging part of the U.S. strategy to stabilize the country as it withdraws forces over the next two years.

"This has to be a joint effort to determine who is a threat ... to determine how do we deal with those who are a threat, and how do we bring in those which are not," said Khar, who was in Washington on her first official visit since being appointed Pakistan's top diplomat last year. "We are willing to work with anyone against any forces which are a threat to peace and stability."

Khar also addressed other contentious points in the U.S.-Pakistani relationship, heaping scorn on the doctor who allegedly helped the U.S. track down bin Laden in Pakistan last year and defending her government's decision to declare a national holiday on Friday so people can demonstrate against an American-made Internet video that ridicules Islam.

Lawmakers have been demanding tough Pakistani action on the Haqqani network, which the Obama administration formally designated as a terrorist body on Wednesday. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told The Associated Press in August that he believed a Pakistani attack on the network would occur soon.

A subsidiary of the Taliban and based in the remote North Waziristan region of Pakistan, the Haqqani network is responsible for several attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan, including last September's rocket-propelled grenade assault on the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters. American officials estimate it has 2,000 to 4,000 fighters and that it maintains close relationships with al-Qaida.

Khar dismissed the notion that Pakistan had any special responsibility to deal with the Haqqanis, lumping them in with the 5 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

"We would be happy to send each one of them back and live in peace in Afghanistan," she said. But she refused to say whether her government would be willing in its three-way talks with the U.S. and Afghanistan to commit to taking on the Haqqanis militarily.

The White House declined to comment on the counterterrorism talks, but U.S. officials familiar with the developments saw cause for optimism in the upcoming negotiations, which were worked out by President Barack Obama's chief Afghanistan and Pakistan advisers, Marc Grossman and Doug Lute, as well as Pentagon envoy Peter Lavoy, in a meeting last week with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

The "working group" on the militant issue will include top U.S. officials from the White House, State Department and Pentagon along with their Pakistani and Afghan counterparts, one current and one former U.S. official said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks publicly.

The U.S. and Pakistan also have been holding direct talks on other counterterrorism issues, including CIA drone strikes targeting militants in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas. Pakistan wants the drone strikes stopped — or it wants to control the drones directly — something the U.S. refuses.

Those bilateral talks so far have produced no breakthroughs, U.S. and Pakistani officials say.

The tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, meanwhile, were highlighted Thursday by Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul at a U.N. Security Council meeting. Rassoul called on Pakistan to end the shelling of the border province of Kunar in eastern Afghanistan, which he said has killed dozens of civilians.

"Failure to end such attacks risks jeopardizing Afghanistan-Pakistan bilateral relations, with potential negative consequences for necessary bilateral cooperation for peace, security and economic development in our two countries and the wider region," he said.

Many Pakistani Taliban fighters have fled to Kunar and surrounding areas after Pakistan's army pushed them out of its tribal region, taking advantage of the U.S. military's withdrawal of most of its forces from these Afghan border provinces in recent years.

Jan Kubia, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for Afghanistan, told the council that the transition of handing off security for the entire country to Afghan forces by 2014 is "on time and on track."

Khar called the formation of the new working group a "turning point" that could produce progress on the other issues.

But she made it clear that Islamabad wasn't simply going to do Washington's bidding, sharply criticizing Panetta for his comments about supposed Pakistani military operations.

Khar said Panetta was speaking "beyond his scope."

"He is obviously welcome to talk about what military action will take place by American troops," Khar said, but not Pakistan's. And she pointed a finger back at the United States for the "hundreds" of militants crossing the border from Afghanistan and "slaughtering our soldiers," including 17 troops who were beheaded recently.

Khar also sought to explain the Pakistani decision to declare Friday a national holiday, saying the "day of loving the prophet" would motivate the peaceful majority to demonstrate their love for the Prophet Muhammad and not allow extremists to turn it into a show of anger against the United States.

On Thursday, more than 2,000 people tried to reach the guarded enclave housing the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad to protest the anti-Islam video. Riot police used tear gas and batons against stone-throwing demonstrators, some of whom carried flags from hardline Islamist and al-Qaida-linked groups.

"We are very confident this will lessen the violence," Khar said, but acknowledged: "There will always be elements that will try to take advantage of these things."

And she hit back at criticism from the Obama administration and Congress over the treatment of Shakil Afridi, the doctor who is said to have run a fake vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA that might verify bin Laden's presence at the compound in Abbottabad where U.S. commandos found and killed him. Afridi was later convicted and sentenced to 33 years for high treason.

"He did not know who he was working for or what he was trying to achieve, so this 'great man' who was helping the world by assisting us to capture Osama bin Laden is a myth," Khar said. "He was up for hire by anyone who was paying him," she said, accusing him of links to an Islamist militant group and significantly setting back Pakistani efforts against polio.

"For us, he's no hero, believe me," she said. "He is somebody whose activity has endangered our children."

___

AP National Security Writer Robert Burns and Associated Press writer Ron DePasquale at the United Nations contributed to this report.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Upper hand in tactics

Dawn
Khadim Hussain
Sep 28 2012

DESPITE several rounds of talks, jirgas, meetings and agreements between Nato, Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past several years, strategic patterns paint a scenario of hostilities among the regional and international players involved in the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It seems that the armed militant groups affiliated with Al Qaeda or those working independently mostly succeed in bringing about conflicts or widening chasms between states on various issues. The following events suggest that militant organisations have the upper hand when it comes to hard-core strategy-making.

Recently, the Afghan foreign minister complained at a UN Security Council meeting that some 4,000 people had been displaced from the eastern Afghan province of Kunar due to heavy artillery-pounding by Pakistani security agencies.

The Pakistani envoy to the US implicitly confirmed the complaint by saying that the Kunar province harboured TTP-affiliated organisations which continuously attacked the adjacent areas of Bajaur Agency and the settled district of Upper Dir inside Pakistan.

The envoy said the Pakistani side only chased the militants into Kunar. Pakistani authorities have already lodged several complaints with Nato and the Afghan authorities and wants them to help stop infiltration from Kunar and Nuristan.

The US Congress recently declared the Haqqani network a foreign terrorist organisation. This development implies that Nato and the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) might have the ‘right’ to carry out pre-emptive strikes against the network, going by previous legislations of the US Congress and some resolutions adopted by the UN.

The 14-point resolution adopted by the National Assembly of Pakistan several months back, however, clearly states that infiltration inside Pakistan on any pretext by state or non-state actors would be tantamount to violating the sovereignty of Pakistan, besides indicating that Pakistani soil would not be used against any state.

It is reported that the Afghan National Army (ANA) has been withdrawn from participating in frontline combat alongside Nato forces after several sporadic events where Afghan army personnel apparently directed their guns at Nato personnel.

After analysing the above events one can easily understand three integrated patterns that do not bode well for peace and security in the region and the world at large.

First, the militant organisations active in Pakistan and Afghanistan and other countries in the region have succeeded in blocking understanding between Pakistan and Afghanistan on the one hand and among Nato, the Afghan government and Pakistan on the other.

Militants active in Kunar and Nuristan have not only successfully held Pakistani security agencies at bay, they have also succeeded in bringing Pakistan and Afghanistan to the brink of a low-profile conflict. It is the same strategy the militants used when they attacked Mumbai back in 2008 after which India and Pakistan were close to a war-like situation.

Keeping in view this pattern, one is not surprised at the claim of Afghan analysts that the sporadic events of the alleged Afghan National Army personnel attacking Nato personnel showed the strategic infiltration of Taliban in the ranks of the ANA. This pattern led to suspicions between the ANA and Nato forces which would certainly interfere with plans for the 2014 withdrawal.

Second, the objective of the militants’ strategies is clear from the very tactics they employ. It is to keep both Afghanistan and Pakistan destabilised and to make it difficult for Nato and Isaf forces in Afghanistan to come to any settlement in which the militants do not have an overwhelming share of power.

Compared to the militants’ ways, the strategies adopted by states in the region have multifarious ambiguities and contradictions making it difficult for them and others in the international community to develop consensus on a plan of action. For instance, both the Afghan and Pakistani governments complain about each other regarding infiltration across their borders, but both appear helpless when it comes to resolving the issue on their own. This leads to a vicious circle of blame and counter-blame which benefits militant groups in the two countries.

Until the Afghan and Pakistani governments reach an understanding, the matter of infiltration might not be resolved. And an understanding can’t be reached until the infiltration is stopped on both sides. For this to happen, both governments and civil society in the two countries must rise above the misperceptions created by vested interests. Hard thinking and planning is needed by both sides.

Third, militant organisations in Pakistan and Afghanistan have proved themselves adept in exploiting the vulnerabilities of regional states and societies to their advantage. They have put states in the region on the back foot on several issues and have strengthened their discourse of violence, while the states themselves have not been able to develop a counter-narrative.

At the societal level, the militant organisations have succeeded in positing political, sectarian and religious diversity as a threat to societies — in effect making plurality the basis of divisions. Large segments of populations in regional states have started believing in the discourse of brute force. They have also started believing that realities should not be viewed from diverse angles. Moreover, the militant organisations have also succeeded in painting Muslims around the world as a homogenised, single entity which in turn has created hostilities among people adhering to different beliefs. This again is a vicious circle.

People living in different parts of the world are then led to believe that ‘violence’ is the core of the Islamic faith. Some around the globe react to the notion and hence there is a violent reaction to it and the vicious circle continues.

Convergence of interests among regional and international states, actively promoting the discourse of non-violence and rethinking strategic policies are keys to finding the solution to active militancy in the region.

The writer is a socio-political analyst.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Hope is not a winning strategy


The News
Mehreen Zahra-Malik
October 10, 2012


A Pakistani journalist visiting Kabul in the nineties half-jokingly asked the then-vice president of Afghanistan, Maulana Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi: “I’ve read in the British gazetteers that the only way to deal with an Afghan is either to buy him or to bully him. But what if he still doesn’t relent?”

The Maulana smiled: “Then he’s not an Afghan!”

The journalist insisted: “But still; how do you deal with him?”

Nabi Mohammadi thought for a minute and replied: “Well, if you can’t buy or bully an Afghan, then the only way to bring him around to your way is to convince him that it’s his idea.”

Years later, the Maulana’s words carry a lesson for the Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship: that what’s wrong with it is precisely that while Pakistan doesn’t have the resources to ‘buy’ Afghanistan, or the capacity to effectively ‘bully’ it, the poverty of the approach is such that Pakistan has also failed wholesale in convincing the Afghans it has anything close to their best interests at heart.

So, as western forces prepare to leave and the world scrambles to fashion a future Afghanistan beyond 2014, has Pakistan understood the need to change its approach?

The civilians say yes – and then trot out a list of ‘fundamentals’ that have changed to show Pakistan is truly working to abandon its traditional security-centric, Pashtun-dominated, geo-strategic approach and adopt a more politically inclusive, geo-economic one.

We don’t play the game as well as the army does but there is no dictation anymore, the civilians will tell you.

Here’s their narrative.

Unlike in the past, under this civilian government and the Hina Khar-led foreign office mandarins, Pakistan has overcome its traditional preoccupation with maintaining exclusively Pashtun ties. Today, the civilians will tell you, Pakistan talks to actors as diverse as Yunis Qanooni (Tajik speaker of the lower house of Afghanistan’s parliament); Ahmad Wali Massoud (ethnic Tajik, younger brother of Ahmad Shah Massoud and former member of the Northern Alliance); Ahmad Zia Massoud (leader of the major united political and anti-Taliban group, the National Front of Afghanistan); Ustad Mohaqiq (leader of the Hazara Shia Hezb-e Wahdat); Faizullah Zaki (an ethnic Uzbek who has been the right-hand man of the ethnic Uzbek general Abdul Rashid Dostum for years) and General Dostum himself.

A foreign office official explained: During Prime Minister Ashraf’s July 2012 maiden visit to Kabul, he met so many opposition leaders that after he left, all Kabul newspapers said the North is now in bed with Pakistan – the same accusation that has for years been trotted out about Pakistan and the Taliban! “That should tell you how much Pakistan is trying to reach out to the non-Pashtuns,” the official said.

Even on India, the civilians insist there is a ‘deep realisation’ that if Pakistan’s own relations with Afghanistan were on the right track; if it were tapping into all areas of opportunity; and if it had its own tribal areas and Balochistan under control, it wouldn’t have anything to fear from anyone. “We get this and we’re working to set things right,” an MFA insider insisted.

But here’s the rub: even if we assume the civilians ‘get it,’ does the army?

When the spectre of a post-war arrangement in Afghanistan first began to haunt the world stage, Pakistan started out by officially speaking of a ‘peaceful, friendly and stable’ Afghanistan. But ‘friendly’ was understood by the Afghan government to mean ‘in Pakistan’s control and interests,’ and so now, we talk simply of a ‘peaceful and stable’ Afghanistan as being our goal.

The question, however, remains: will the Pakistan army accept a ‘peaceful and stable’ Afghanistan that does not represent Pakistan’s interests as articulated by the army – that is, if it is controlled by a non-Pasthun-dominated set-up that leans heavily towards India?

As enunciated by the pragmatists within, the army’s approach is seemingly contradictory. On the one hand, Pakistan can’t afford a Taliban-led dispensation in Afghanistan because that would lead to chaos in the tribal areas as well as Pakistan proper – the linkage between an extreme dispensation in Afghanistan and unrest in Pakistan being quite clear by now.

But Pakistan also doesn’t want the US to pull out from Afghanistan precipitously and in the process hand over power to a non-Pashtun-led set-up that could enlarge the space for India, Iran or Russia.

The pragmatists refer to this as the “grey area” in the security establishment’s Afghan policy: we don’t want a Taliban-led government in Afghanistan but we also don’t want the doubly whammy of a US-sponsored one that is both non-Pasthun-dominated and pro-India-leaning.

Square the difference between the official civilian/foreign office line and the military pragmatists’ line and an interesting middle ground emerges: outreach to non-Pashtun players in Afghanistan (the civilian/FO approach) while seeking alternatives to the Taliban from among the Pashtuns (army pragmatists’ line) who can then negotiate a post-war settlement in Afghanistan to ensure relative stability and peace in AfPak.

Sounds too good to be true? It is. For as good as it sounds on paper, there is a third camp that may well have a decisive say in which approach Pakistan will settle for: the hardliners in the military establishment.

Enamoured of the Taliban, smitten by the idea of Pakistan as the defender of Islam at home and abroad, and stubbornly believing that a pre-9/11 mindset can still succeed in a post-9/11 world, the hardliners have their own theory. It goes something like this.

The Afghan Taliban cannot be wished away, nor should they. They are the true heroes of Islam and warriors who deserve to be respected. They have withstood the might of two superpowers over two decades of war interspersed by several years of proving they can hold most of Afghanistan and dominate other power centres.

So why bet on some fanciful – and untested – theories and fresh alliances when the Afghan Taliban still stand tall, the hardliners ask.

Crucially, the hardliners still believe the roughest edges of the Taliban can be smoothed down – just like they believed they could be back in the 1990s. This time, the hardliners argue, once the Afghan Taliban are out of war mode, they won’t repeat the mistakes of Bamiyan or deny schooling to girls or give Al-Qaeda shelter.

The irony that is lost on the hardliners? They believe the Afghan Taliban are capable of changing and ruling with a softer touch in order to ensure their survival – a belief in change on the part of the Afghan Taliban that is predicated on the very inability of the hardliners here to change their own worldview.

Add to this that the US and its allies have all but abandoned the hope of a pre-2014 peace deal with the Taliban and just want to get out as fast as they can – and you see an extra hop in the hardliners’ step. Their decade-old argument, that the Taliban could not be defeated militarily and the Americans must leave immediately, stands validated.

But the security establishment pragmatists, the ones who understand the implications of a Taliban-led dispensation in Afghanistan, are anything but sanguine.

Ask them what happens if the Taliban are ascendant in the post-2014 phase: Does Pakistan have a Plan B? “We are hopeful that scenario won’t arise,” a senior Pakistan army officer said.

But hope, unfortunately, is not a winning strategy – especially not when there are hardliners here who still think they have all the answers.

 

[RabzonKhan]

New Pakistan outreach could aid Afghan peace deal

By Sebastian Abbot and Heidi Vogt
Associated Press
October 27, 2012


ISLAMABAD — Pakistan has increased efforts to reach out to some of its biggest enemies in Afghanistan, a significant policy shift that could prove crucial to U.S.-backed efforts to strike a peace deal in the neighboring country.

The target of the diplomatic push has mainly been non-Pashtun political leaders who have been at odds with Pakistan for years because of the country’s historical support for the Afghan Taliban, a Pashtun movement.

Many of the leaders fought against the Taliban when the fundamentalist Islamic group seized control of Afghanistan in the 1990s with Pakistan’s help, and have accused Islamabad of maintaining support for the insurgents following the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 — allegations denied by the government.

Many experts agree that Pakistan continues to see the Taliban as an ally, albeit a shaky one, in countering the influence of archenemy India in Afghanistan. But they also say Islamabad no longer believes the insurgents can take over the country or wants them to, a common misperception in the West.

“A Taliban victory on the other side of the border would give a huge boost to domestic militants fighting the Pakistani state,” said Zahid Hussain, a journalist who has written extensively about Islamabad’s war against the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan is also worried that unrest in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of most foreign troops in 2014 could provide the Pakistani Taliban with greater space to establish sanctuaries across the border.

The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are allies but have focused on different enemies. The Afghan Taliban have battled local and foreign forces in Afghanistan, while the Pakistani Taliban have mainly waged war against Islamabad.

Pakistan’s concerns have led it to conclude that a peace agreement that includes all Afghan groups is in its best interests, and contact with its traditional foes among the non-Pashtuns is necessary to achieve that goal, said Moeed Yusuf, South Asia adviser for the United States Institute of Peace.

“I think the fundamental point here is that there is a serious realization among some people who matter in Pakistan that they can’t continue to put all their eggs in the Taliban basket because it is too shaky,” said Yusuf. “This is a major shift, and a shift that I think everybody should welcome.”

The outreach comes as Pakistan, Afghanistan and the U.S. have stepped up efforts to breathe new life into the Taliban peace process, which has been hamstrung by distrust among all the parties involved.

The U.S. and Pakistan recently set up working groups to identify which Taliban leaders would be open to reconciliation and to ensure those holed up on Pakistani territory would be able to travel to the site of talks. Pakistan and Afghanistan have been in discussions to revive a joint commission set up to discuss the peace process.

Pakistan is seen as key to a peace deal because of its ties with the Taliban, and there is hope that Islamabad’s increased engagement with non-Pashtuns in Afghanistan will facilitate the process.

“I think one of Pakistan’s realizations is that if you want to play a bigger role to reconcile all these groups, you need to reach out to every group,” said Rahimullah Yousufzai, a Pakistani journalist and expert on the Taliban. “They will be pushing the Taliban to share power with all these people, but it won’t be easy because the Taliban aren’t known to share power and the U.S. doesn’t want to give them a major share.”

Islamabad’s historical support for the Taliban and other Pashtuns in Afghanistan, who make up about 40 percent of the population of 30 million, is partly rooted in the sizable number of Pashtuns who live in Pakistan. The ethnic group has always been seen as the best bet for furthering Pakistan’s interests in the country.

Pakistan first advertised its overtures to non-Pashtuns in Afghanistan in February when Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar met with a range of ethnic Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara leaders during a visit to Kabul. Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf followed suit in July when he traveled to Afghanistan and invited the group to the opening of the new Pakistani Embassy in Kabul.

There have also been less publicized contacts by Pakistan’s ambassador to Kabul, Mohammad Sadiq, and the country’s army and intelligence service, according to Pakistani and Afghan officials.

Khar said the policy shift had been in the works for a while but was like a steering a large ship in a new direction.

“You’re not able to do it immediately,” said the foreign minister.

Pakistan’s powerful army is the true arbiter of the country’s Afghan policy, but experts expressed doubt that the Foreign Ministry would have pushed ahead without the support of the generals, who have historically had the closest relationship to the Taliban.

One key Afghan leader who has met with the Pakistanis, Abdullah Abdullah, said he appreciated the country’s recent attempt to reach out because it was done publicly. The influential politician, who was runner-up to Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the 2009 election, said Pakistani intelligence officials contacted him in previous years, but he refused to speak with them because he did not believe communication should be carried out in secret.

“I see a lot of good in reaching out, in engagement, in dialogue,” said Abdullah, who is half Pashtun but draws much of his support from the Tajik community.

The outreach has rattled the Taliban, who have warned Pakistani officials that they can’t trust the non-Pashtuns, Yousufzai said.

Pakistan will have to overcome significant distrust among the non-Pashtuns. The government has old ties to some of the leaders, who worked with Pakistan in the 1980s to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan, but Islamabad’s subsequent support for the Taliban created a huge amount of bad blood.

Despite that, the Pakistanis are hopeful.

“The Pakistani side’s view of Afghan negotiations is that you kill on one day and kiss on the next, so while this will be very tough, they think that it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that they may actually get somewhere,” said Yusuf, the South Asia analyst.

 

[batmannow]

it's naiive to think that everything you hear in the media is ''everything''


as the late Tupac Shakur once said:



'''Thug life baby........don't believe everything you read...''

wow tupac the saint & our officers know him! i am shocked!
yes bt when there is a fire , smoke always comes out of it?

well, what ever the educated fools are thinking in washington, situation is going into the hands of MULLA UMER!