By Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid
6 Nov 2008
The "Great Game" is no fun anymore. Nineteenth-century British imperialists used that term to describe the British-Russian struggle for mastery in Afghanistan and Central Asia. More than a century later, the game continues. But now, the number of players has exploded, those living on the chessboard have become players, and the intensity of the violence and the threats that it produces affect the entire globe.
Afghanistan has been at war for three decades, and that war is spreading to Pakistan and beyond. A timeout needs to be called so that the players, including President-elect Barack Obama, can negotiate a new bargain for the region.
Securing Afghanistan and its region will require an international presence for many years. Building up Afghanistan's security forces is at most a stopgap measure, as the country cannot sustain forces of the size that it now needs. Only a regional and global agreement to place Afghanistan's stability above other objectives can make long-term stability possible by enabling Afghanistan to survive with security forces that it can afford. Such agreement, however, will require political and diplomatic initiatives both inside and outside of the country.
In Afghanistan, the United States and NATO must make clear that they are at war with Al-Qaeda and those who support its global objectives, but have no objection if either the Afghan or Pakistani government negotiates with insurgents who renounce ties to Osama bin Laden. In exchange for such guarantees, international forces could largely withdraw, leaving a force to secure a political agreement and to train Afghan security forces.
But a political settlement within Afghanistan cannot succeed without a regional grand bargain.
The first Great Game was resolved a century ago by making Afghanistan a buffer state in which outsiders did not interfere. Today, however, Afghanistan is the scene not only of the "war on terror," but also of longstanding Afghan-Pakistani disputes, the India-Pakistan conflict, domestic struggles in Pakistan, US-Iranian antagonism, Russian concerns about NATO, Sunni-Shiite rivalry, and struggles over regional energy infrastructure.
These conflicts will continue as long as the US treats stabilizing Afghanistan as subordinate to other goals, accompanied by all the risks entailed by terrorist resurgence and a regional security crisis. This is why Obama must adopt a bold diplomatic initiative that encompasses the entire region and help resolve longstanding disputes between Afghanistan's neighbors. Such an initiative must include a comprehensive regional aid and development package.
In addition, the US must rebalance its regional posture by reducing its dependence on Pakistan's military. Obama will need firmly to support Pakistan's fragile elected government as it tries to gain control over the army and intelligence apparatus and thus reverse decades of support for militants. Dialogue with Iran and Russia over common interests in Afghanistan - both helped the US in 2001 - would place more pressure on Pakistan. At the same time, the US and other powers with a stake in Afghanistan must seek to reduce Indian activities in Afghanistan that Pakistan sees as threatening, or, if those policies are not threatening, assure greater transparency for them.
This objective requires more than "pressuring" Pakistan. The Pakistani security establishment believes that it faces a US-Indian-Afghan alliance aimed at undermining Pakistani influence in Afghanistan and even dismembering the Pakistani state. Civilian leaders evaluate Pakistan's national interests differently, but they, too, cannot be indifferent to Pakistan's chronic sense of insecurity.
Pakistan does not have border agreements with either India, with whom it disputes the incorporation of Kashmir, or Afghanistan, which has never explicitly recognized the Durand Line, the frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan also claims that the Northern Alliance, part of the anti-Taliban resistance in Afghanistan, is working with India from within Afghanistan's security services. And the US-India nuclear deal effectively recognizes India's legitimacy as a nuclear power while continuing to treat Pakistan, with its record of proliferation, as a pariah.
Pressure will not work if Pakistan's leaders believe that their country's survival is at stake. Instead, the new US administration should help to create a broad multilateral framework for the region, one aimed at building a genuine consensus on the goal of achieving Afghan stability by addressing the legitimate sources of Pakistan's insecurity while strengthening opposition to disruptive Pakistani behavior.
A first step could be establishing a contact group for the region, authorized by the United Nations Security Council. This contact group could promote dialogue between India and Pakistan about their respective interests in Afghanistan and about finding a solution to the Kashmir dispute; seek a long-term political strategy from the Pakistani government for the future of the tribal agencies; move Afghanistan and Pakistan toward discussions on frontier issues, and promote a regional plan for economic development and integration. China, the largest investor in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, could help finance projects of common interest.
A successful initiative will require exploratory talks and an evolving road map. Today, such suggestions may seem audacious, naive, or impossible; but, without such audacity, there is little hope for Afghanistan, Pakistan, or the region as a whole.
Barnett R. Rubin is director of studies at the Asia Society and a senior fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation. Ahmed Rashid's most recent book is "Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia." THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate (c) (Project Syndicate).
