New US AfPak Policy

The US President Barack Obama has launched his plan for winning the war on terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan describing Al Qaida and its extremist allies as a “cancer that risks killing Pakistan from within” and noting that the future of Afghanistan is “inextricably linked” to that of Pakistan. The Obama Administration’s “AfPak” policy review is the result of consultations with US military commanders and diplomats, the Afghan and Pakistan Governments, US allies and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and with other donors and international organisations.

Unveiling a sweeping new Afghan war strategy, Obama vowed to wipe out terrorists from safe havens in Pakistan, and identified India, Russia and China as among the countries having a stake in the security of the region. He described the Al-Qaida as a “cancer” that could devour Pakistan. The contours of the anti-terrorism drive he announced shows a departure from the policy pursued by the previous administration under George W. Bush. The US will not hesitate in taking the help of the countries in the region, including India and Iran. Since the ouster of the Taliban from Kabul in late 2001, the latter have invariably been seen as an Afghan issue in which Pakistan was involved only to the extent that Islamabad’s assistance was thought necessary in dealing the Taliban and Al Qaida a body blow.

Financial Aid to Pakistan
The US will provide massive financial and other kinds of assistance to Pakistan, where most of the terrorist masterminds are believed to be hiding, but not without strings attached. There will be strict compliance audit. The amount of Rs 7,500 crore that Pakistan will receive annually for five years as part of the US AfPak policy will be allowed to be used only for development purposes like building roads, schools and hospitals.

This may enable Pakistan to use development as a weapon to help defeat the terrorist outfits. But Pakistan will have to ensure that the results are there for all to see. It cannot escape the responsibility of destroying the terrorists’ infrastructure, including their funding sources.

The US will have to force Pakistan to abandon its policy of entering into any kind of deals with terrorists and extremists. The ISI must be made to delink itself from the terrorist outfits it created or nurtured at different stages.

Over the next decade the US is expected to lavish around $30 to $35 billion in aid to Pakistan, which it regards as its frontline State. This includes about $15 billion as part of the AfPak policy.
Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to rooting out Al-Qaida and the violent extremists within its borders. And the US will insist that action be taken one way or another when it has intelligence about high-level terrorist targets. In other words, the money being promised in direct support to build schools, roads, and hospitals for the Pakistani people will not be coming free or cheap: the Pakistani establishment will have to do more to fight Al-Qaida, the Taliban, and their support networks on their side of the border or else allow the Americans to do the job for them.

Additional Troops for Afghanistan
The US President has directed 17,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan as well as 4,000 military trainers, who will arrive later this spring. These soldiers and Marines will fight the Taliban in the south and east. The emphasis now would be on training and increasing the size of the Afghan security forces. That is how the US will prepare Afghans to take responsibility for their security, and how Washington will ultimately be able to bring our troops home.

Every American unit in Afghanistan will be partnered with an Afghan unit and the US will seek additional trainers from our NATO allies to ensure that every Afghan unit has a coalition partner. We will accelerate our efforts to build an Afghan army of 1,34, 000 and a police force of 82,000 so that we can meet these goals by 2011.

A contact group for Afghanistan and Pakistan will also be set up to bring together America’s NATO allies, central Asian states, the Gulf nations and Iran, Russia, India and China.

It is believed that Al Qaida and other violent extremists have killed several thousand Pakistanis since September 11, 2001, assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, blown up buildings, derailed foreign investment, and threatened the stability of the State. Most of the blood on Al Qaida’s hands is the blood of Muslims, who Al Qaida has killed and maimed in far greater numbers than any other people.

The US would pursue constructive diplomacy with India and Pakistan to lessen tensions between two nuclear-armed neighbours that too often teeter on the edge of escalation and confrontation.

Tackling Militancy in Pakistan
It is said that the weakest leg of the policy must surely be Pakistan. Many elements in Islamabad still believe that defeating the Taliban is more about getting Americans out of Afghanistan than it is about tackling the militant cancer inside Pakistan. The Pakistani military has proven unwilling or simply incapable of taking on the Taliban groups inside its borders. The review speaks of increasing aid to Pakistan and encouraging Indo-Pakistan “constructive diplomacy”. Indians can take umbrage at one sop to Pakistan — the failure to mention 26/11. But there was a time this was a reason for India to worry.

Taliban-ISI Nexus
Over the years the dangerous Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is brazenly aiding the Taliban’s campaign in southern Afghanistan providing it, as US intelligence agencies have discovered, with weapons, finance, strategic planning and even recruits. This also partly explains why the US Government’s ‘Global War on Terror’ in Afghanistan is making little headway even as Washington prepares to dispatch a further 17,000 soldiers taking their troop total to 65,000.

Till last count, the US has lost 671 soldiers in this strife-torn country along with a further 449 belonging to the allied forces. But this is not all. The ISI is also continuing to patronise terrorist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammed, which have specifically been targeting India.

India’s Stake
Undoubtedly India must have all options available to it in order to deal with the situation. Diplomacy alone may not suffice to deliver the goods. The difficulty with diplomacy is that it invariably leads to situations in which the sensitivities of others must be taken into account. There should be no surprise if Washington tries to persuade India to return to the comprehensive dialogue process with Pakistan which was disrupted in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks.

The direct consequence of Taliban rule of Afghanistan for India was Kashmir’s highest levels of insurgency. There is no greater strategic threat to India than the struggle that today encompasses southern Afghanistan and, increasingly, swathes of northwestern Pakistan. Islamabad’s severe allergy to an Indian presence in Afghanistan and India’s normal incoherence about its foreign policy interests mean that New Delhi’s primary influence on Afghan events is via Washington. India is, thus, among the countries that has the greatest stake in the Afghan policy.

The past four years have seen a considerable easing of tension along the Line of Control (LoC) as India and Pakistan moved to narrow their differences over Kashmir. True, the peace process has come to a temporary halt but this is largely because of terrorist incidents like Mumbai. The US knows very well the subterranean links that continue to exist between terrorist groups and ISI.

Unless those links are severed, cross-border terrorism will continue and tension with India will not go away. Internal reform in Pakistan and Afghanistan, coupled with a wider regional approach involving India, Iran, Russia, China, and other players is what will ultimately allow the international community to win what is otherwise a losing military battle in Afghanistan.