Approaching the Endgame

[Solomon2]

Approaching the endgame

Moeed Yusuf

LAST week, the United States Institute of Peace and Jinnah Institute, Pakistan published a report titled Pakistan, the United States and the Endgame in Afghanistan: Perceptions of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Elite.

The report captures views of members of Pakistan’s foreign policy community on their country’s objectives and policy in Afghanistan and their impressions about US policy on Kabul. The document does not reflect official policy but it can be considered an objective rendering of a wide spectrum of informed Pakistani views on the conflict in Afghanistan.

This intellectual exercise, co-directed by myself and Pakistani parliamentarian Sherry Rehman, was driven by our perceived need to better crystallise the Pakistani position on Afghanistan. To our minds, this provides a starting point for a more informed policy debate on the Afghanistan endgame within Pakistan, and perhaps even more importantly, in other key capitals — principally Washington — that are desperate to better understand Pakistan’s intentions and ambitions in Afghanistan.

While the report was not meant to be prescriptive and does not dwell on the way forward in any great detail, in my view, two findings relevant to the US-Pakistan relationship could potentially transform how Islamabad and Washington approach each other in the endgame. First, the report highlights Pakistan’s principal objectives in Afghanistan. A realisation that these are much more convergent with the US position than is often believed to be the case could facilitate a more constructive bilateral engagement.The Pakistani foreign policy elite perceive their country to be seeking: (i) relative stability in Afghanistan. A civil war is Pakistan’s nightmare scenario which would lead to an immense blowback for Pakistan; (ii) an inclusive government in Kabul with adequate Pakhtun representation, and with the Afghan Taliban accommodated in the arrangement. However, there is no support for total Taliban control over Afghanistan akin to the late-1990s; and (iii) greater transparency on the Indian presence in Afghanistan. Pakistani opinion-makers see the Indian development presence as a fait accompli but remain concerned about any activities that have a strategic/security aspect.

These desired outcomes are not much different than what Washington will likely be willing to settle for. Stability and the absence of a civil war are obvious convergence points. There is also a realisation in Washington, increasing by the day, that reconciliation talks will have to accommodate the Taliban. Pakistan’s averseness to a return to the late 1990s will also be welcome in Washington. Finally, on India, if greater Indian transparency on New Delhi’s Afghanistan strategy is what will assuage Pakistani concerns, this is certainly achievable through persistent prodding by Washington.

An appreciation of these objectives in Washington’s policy circles could change the tenor of the discourse on engaging Pakistan in the endgame. The present understanding of the potential for alignment of Pakistani and US objectives is much less optimistic. In fact, while by no means a consensus position, there is a lingering sense among many in Washington that the Pakistani view on Afghanistan remains frozen in time and thus is fundamentally opposed to the US position.

Challenging these perceptions by highlighting what Pakistan is ultimately after (according to the report’s findings), and the convergent aspects that flow from it, may prompt more enthusiastic efforts aimed at exploring these overlaps. Absent such a realisation, and coupled with the mutual lack of trust in the Pakistan-US relationship, the two sides are more likely to continue misconstruing each other’s intentions and actions; misreading signals; assuming the worst; and hedging their bets.

Second, an acknowledgment in Washington that Pakistan is unlikely to ‘talk and fight’ at the same time, as the US policy prescribes, could lead the two sides to proactively look for more workable alternatives.

To date, Washington’s policy has been to ask Pakistan to go after the Afghan Taliban sanctuaries. Pakistan has resisted, arguing that it will launch an operation in North Waziristan at a time of its own choosing. My interpretation of the views reflected in the report suggests a more categorical opposition to the idea.

While there is a healthy debate on why Pakistan is refusing to make a concerted military push against the sanctuaries, Pakistani policy elite see an inherent contradiction between fighting the key Taliban factions present on its soil when the political reconciliation process is seeking to bring the very same actors to the negotiating table. From Pakistan’s perspective, attempting to degrade the Afghan Taliban present in Pakistan militarily implies that Islamabad will lose its leverage with them.

Pakistan fears that this may sideline it in the endgame negotiations.

The bottom line is that Pakistan is unlikely to go after the Afghan Taliban as the US hopes. Acceptance of this reality may reduce the calls from Washington to ‘do more’ which have played into the anti-American narrative in Pakistan and further reinforced the resolve not to cave in to US pressure.

A more constructive approach with a better chance of getting Pakistan to support the reconciliation process would entail backing off on demands for Pakistani military action against the sanctuaries and instead demanding that the Pakistani security establishment persuade the Taliban to come to the negotiating table. The military option would only be impressed upon if Pakistan fails to deliver, a scenario in which Islamabad, now having played its trump card unsuccessfully, will be in a much weaker position to resist this pressure. On the other hand, should Pakistan succeed in convincing the Taliban to talk, the endgame will be one step closer to a successful outcome.

Understanding and accepting these two fundamental issues — that Pakistani and US positions have significant overlaps that demand more attention and that asking Pakistan to ‘do more’ militarily against the sanctuaries will not work — may lead these two sides to approach each other with more realistic expectations and through more informed policies. Perhaps the most important takeaway of our report relevant to the discussion here is that unless Islamabad and Washington begin to complement each other’s policies in Afghanistan to a greater extent, the Afghan endgame is almost certainly headed for failure.

The writer is South Asia adviser at the US Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C. link

 

[Solomon2]

Filling the policy vacuum on Pakistan, America and the Afghanistan endgame
By Ejaz Haider
Published: August 29, 2011
Relations between Pakistan and the United States are hanging by a thin thread and it could snap at any moment. This was the view of Stephen Cohen as we sat having coffee, watching the midday traffic negotiate the multiple signals around Dupont Circle’s inner and outer rings. My response was that it would be good if that thread snapped: it would lead to US-Pakistan relations being based on a more realistic appreciation of each other’s interests and end the charade of strategic partnership. Cohen agreed with me.
Whether there can be a ‘soft landing’ to US-Pakistan relations will, of course, depend on the ground situation and how Pakistan, which claims to hold the key to peace in Afghanistan, plays its cards. That raises the question of Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy. More specifically, what is it?
Ten years after 9/11, there is no document that even outlines what Pakistan currently wants in Afghanistan and how it intends to achieve those goals. Note, I don’t count the infamous 16-pager which General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani handed over to US President Barack Obama, and which he shared with some of us during a briefing last year. That document didn’t have anything new even as it attempted to nuance some of Pakistan’s known positions.
A lot has changed on the ground since we were made privy to that document. A CIA contractor shot dead two Pakistanis; the US special forces conducted a unilateral raid deep inside Pakistani territory; the US has since indicated that it would mount more such operations if and when required; Pakistan has asked US trainers and other personnel to leave; and relations have nosedived despite both sides trying to put the best possible face on them.
Into this policy vacuum and bilateral tension we now have a report co-convened by the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) and Jinnah Institute (JI). The report, titled, Pakistan, the United States and the Endgame in Afghanistan: Perceptions of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Elite is the first serious attempt to understand Pakistan’s perspective on Afghanistan and how that impacts Islamabad’s relations with Washington.
The project, co-directed by Moeed Yusuf, who is also the principal author of the report and South Asia advisor at USIP (the other authors are Huma Yusuf and Salman Zaidi), and Sherry Rehman, the founding president of JI, is significant because it gets its input from multiple round tables involving Pakistani policy experts and presents a picture that can be said to be fairly representative of how Pakistan looks at the situation in the region as well as the areas of convergence and divergence between Islamabad and Washington.
The report makes it clear that Pakistan does not want a settlement in Afghanistan to have negative fallout for it. This essentially means that any government in Kabul should not be antagonistic to Pakistan and should not allow its territory to be used against Pakistani state interests. The report finds that these umbrella objects lead Pakistan to pursue three outcomes: Pakistan’s interests are best served by a relatively stable government in Kabul that is not hostile to Pakistan; Pakistan wants a negotiated political settlement with adequate Pashtun representation. This means that, given the current situation, a sustainable arrangement would necessarily require the main Taliban factions to be part of the new political arrangement; while India has a role to play in Afghanistan’s economic progress and prosperity, the present Indian engagement attempts to outflank Pakistan, which is unacceptable.
The report also makes it clear that the Pakistani policy elite perceives America’s Afghanistan strategy to be inconsistent and counterproductive to Pakistan’s interests. While there is recognition that US operations over the past year have degraded the Taliban’s capacity, no one is convinced that this will force the main Taliban factions to negotiate on America’s terms.
There is also a sense that Pakistan’s prospects for a successful endgame in Afghanistan might be compromised by the US retaining some long-term security presence in Afghanistan. This, as the report points out, would likely create unease among the Afghan Taliban and countries in the region, including Pakistan.
There is no support for a breakdown of the Pakistan-US relationship but Pakistanis want greater clarity in US and Pakistani policies and consider that to be crucial to avoid failure in Afghanistan. Interestingly, the report suggests that Pakistani policy faces a dilemma vis-à-vis the US. “On the one hand, US military operations in Afghanistan are believed to be causing an internal backlash in terms of militancy and deepening the state-society rift within Pakistan. On the other hand, Pakistani policy elite appreciate that a premature US troop withdrawal would lead to added instability in Afghanistan.”
The report says that the Pakistani policy elite believes that a genuine intra-Afghan dialogue will inevitably allow a significant share of power to the Pashtuns and thus produce a dispensation in Kabul that is sensitive to Pakistani interests. “Based on their perceptions about the current realities on the ground in Afghanistan, those tied to this narrative see any attempts to alienate Pashtuns in general, and the Taliban in particular, as short-sighted,” says the report.
Even so, the Taliban’s perceived utility for Pakistan does not translate into a desire for a return to Taliban rule in Afghanistan. “A bid to regain lost glory by Mullah Omar’s Taliban would end up creating conditions in Afghanistan which run counter to Pakistani objectives, most notably stability.”
However, hardly anyone the authors spoke with seemed clear about the Afghan Taliban’s willingness to participate in a political reconciliation process, or even to communicate directly with the United States beyond a point. We now know that such a process is underway, though it remains slow, and no one knows how successful it will be. But one thing is clear from reports about that process: the Afghan Taliban are wary of Pakistan and do not even want to open a representative office in Pakistan, choosing instead Doha.
This fact does not form part of the USIP-JI report because no one in Pakistan was privy to the three rounds of talks that have happened between the US and the Taliban reps. But it does raise a question about how far Pakistan can influence the process, if at all. It is also unclear if Pakistan’s official institutions would respond to such a development in any nuanced manner.
This is important because the growing mutual distrust between Pakistan and the US, following the May 2 US raid that killed Bin Laden, has raised doubts about the ability of the two countries to collaborate in attaining a peaceful Afghan settlement. While Pakistan still thinks that its support is important in nudging the main Afghan Taliban factions to the negotiating table, it has not pursued that claim in any meaningful way beyond signalling that any attempt by the Taliban to negotiate with Kabul or Washington sans Islamabad would be unacceptable to the latter.
This does not make sound policy in and of itself, especially if the Taliban go ahead with talks with the US and the dialogue begins to yield results in ways that may make Pakistan irrelevant to any final settlement.
The USIP-JI report is a significant contribution to the debate within Pakistan and has helped in connecting the many dots. It would be even better if this report could become the basis for a dialogue between the non-official policy elite and official Pakistan, i.e., the GHQ and the Foreign Office. For the USIP and JI, the next step should be to bring the Afghans and the Pakistanis together to discuss possible frameworks of a settlement.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 30th, 2011.