Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Pakistan

  • NATO Supply Route Through Pakistan Remains Closed

    Despite rumors ahead of last month’s NATO summit in Chicago that an agreement between Pakistan and the United States to reopen the supply route into Afghanistan was imminent, both sides are still very far apart on a deal.

    On Monday, the American negotiating team withdrew from Pakistan. Officials insist that the talks have not collapsed but have come to the point where politics takes over. The team, made up of technical specialists, has been in Pakistan for 45 days.

    A Pentagon spokesman, Commander William H. Speaks, said that the technical consultations have largely been completed, and the United States remain ready to send officials back to Islamabad when the Pakistanis are ready to conclude an agreement. The State Department’s Victoria Nuland made similar comments, that the United States have decided to “take a break” but are prepared to send the team of negotiators back to Pakistan.

    A number of issues have stalled the reopening of NATO supply routes. Technical aspects, such as price, military aid and infrastructure improvements have been sticking points but it is the issue of an apology has stalled final agreement. (more…)

  • Turkmenistan Finally Puts the “T” in TAPI

    On Wednesday Turkmenistan finally signed agreements with India and Pakistan’s state energy companies to clear the way for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline.

    TAPI was conceptualized in the 1990s and has been beset with a multitude of problems since. Wednesday’s announcement removes a major obstacle for the TAPI project but many more remain.

    The pipeline would begin in Turkmenistan’s vast gasfields. Initial TAPI plans called for the source to be the Dauletabad field in southern Turkmenistan. More recent plans indicate that a portion of TAPI would come from the yet to be developed South Yolotan field near the Afghan border. (more…)

  • Nuclear Weapons Still Shape India-Pakistan Relations

    Fourteen years ago this May, India and Pakistan overtly conducted nuclear tests and declared themselves nuclear powers.

    India conducted its first test in 1974 and termed it a “peaceful nuclear explosion” while by the late 1980s, Pakistan had acquired the technological capacity to produce a bomb as well. Although many opposed and still oppose the tests due to various reasons and on many grounds, at least the two countries let the world and each other know that they had the bomb.

    Nuclear weapons played the role of deterrent and helped in the deescalation of tensions which could otherwise have resulted in war.

    For the first time in a war against Pakistan, in 1999 at Kargil, the Indian army did not cross the Line of Control. Even after the attack on the Indian parliament in 2002 and the Mumbai massacre that was carried out by militants based in Pakistan, war was averted. The regular exchange of fire along the Indo-Pakistani border has not resulted in an escalation of hostilities.

    As it is, India and Pakistan are nuclear powers and this cannot be reversed or changed despite anti-nuclear protests and a global push for denuclearization. Hence, it’s better to adapt to the situation.

    The two countries have taken many measures to prevent accidental use of their atomic weapons. Chief among them is that India and Pakistan since 1988 are regularly exchanging information about their weapons. They also inform the other side before carrying out military exercises near the border areas or testing their missiles.

    The real challenge is to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists. Whereas states behave in a rational and responsible way, this cannot be expected from nonstate actors.

    The weapons in both countries are kept in disassembled form and physically apart. They have each set up commanding hierarchies to take decisions about its assemblage and use. Any effort to steal or capture even a single part cannot go unnoticed by the security agencies nor the political leadership. To take possession of a nuclear weapon, a terrorist group would help from the inside, as Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, had.

    The presence of Taliban and other Islamic extremists in Pakistan complicates the challenge of securing the nation’s nuclear weapons. To check this, the credentials of defense staff and scientists responsible for providing security and maintenance of nuclear technologies must be properly scanned.

    The bomb has acted as deterrence but that does not mean it will always be that way. High escalation of bilateral tension may become a reason to trigger nuclear war. Hence, as responsible nuclear powers, India and Pakistan must continue to build confidence between them, if only to avert the accidental use of a nuclear weapon.

  • No Good Ways Out of Afghanistan

    Western forces looking to exit Afghanistan over the next two years are playing a game of roulette, looking for the luckiest and cheapest way out of the warzone. Central Asian countries are scrambling to be the most attractive bet. Difficult and still closed, the road through Pakistan remains the preferred route.

    Afghanistan’s neighbors stand to make huge profits as NATO countries move to withdraw their troops and equipment. Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan will remain under American control until the war is over but the base cannot handle all of the equipment which NATO forces must remove from the region. Land routes are numerous but difficult for a variety of reasons and Central Asia is poised to cash in on the scramble to depart.

    Additionally, Central Asian states are more submissive to Russia than America. Russia and the United States have recently begun to negotiate a “retrograde transit” agreement to use the Northern Distribution Network but the Kremlin may well seek to exploit the deal in order to achieve its aims elsewhere.

    There are numerous options for getting into and alternatively out of Afghanistan but none are perfect bets.

    The Pakistan route is the easiest and the cheapest but unreliable. In late November 2011, Pakistan closed the border to NATO traffic in protest after an American airstrike killed nearly thirty Pakistani soldiers by accident. The border is still closed and Pakistan obstinate about reopening it without an American apology.

    The Northern Distribution Network was developed by the Americans as an alternative to the Pakistan route but there are signs that its gatekeeper Uzbekistan will seek to raise transit fees. While Uzbekistan has by far the best road and railroad network among Afghanistan’s neighbors, its price gouging will prompt NATO powers to seek additional alternate routes.

    The trouble is that difficult and pernicious as Pakistan and Uzbekistan can be, alternative land routes through Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are even more troublesome. Bad roads and bad winters are only where the problems begin.

    There is discussion of selling some equipment to the Central Asian republics and thus removing the need to transport such equipment out of the region on NATO’s dime. In February, British armed forces minister Nick Harvey suggested trading military equipment for favorable transit fees. He alluded to the unspecified equipment as being potentially useful in Central Asia’s battle with narcotics and terrorism.

    The United States have been more circumspect about leaving military equipment in the hands of Central Asian autocrats. Robert Blake, the American assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs said that arms transfers to countries along the Northern Distribution Network would be subject to the same restrictions that apply to regular arms transfers. Thus far, the Americans have been unwilling to sell any weapons to Uzbekistan, which has a less than pristine human rights record.

    The bottom line is that Pakistan holds the lucky numbers. The average shipping cost of a container, as reported by Radio Free Europe, from Afghanistan to Karachi is $7,200. By northern routes shipping the same container would cost $17,500. When Pakistan decides to reopen the road to NATO convoys, it is likely to be at a higher price but still able to undercut the Central Asian route.

    Money, power and politics all play a part in this game of supply route roulette. Money is on Pakistan and it is doubtful that by 2014 NATO powers will be interested in taking the longer, more expensive road through authoritarian Central Asia and into Russia’s arms. Islamabad will eventually reopen the border and happily usher the West out of its backyard.

  • Singh, Zardari Discuss Kashmir, Terrorist Dispute

    “In 1947, India and Pakistan were born to conflict.” This is the first line on the flap and gist of Stanley Wolpert’s most recent book, India-Pakistan: Continued Conflict or Cooperation (2010). His assessment is correct because these two countries have a jeremiad of problems.

    They have failed to resolve even a single contentious issue between them since independence. It’s not that they haven’t tried to sort out their problems but their structured diplomacy has failed to achieve any breakthroughs.

    To improve the relationship, there needs to be a significant change in attitude. There appears to be the will on the part of both civilian governments to see this change through.

    Whereas diplomacy used to be conducted behind closed doors, there is an effort today to engage the peoples of both nations. This form of engagement is visible at the highest levels of policy making where the leaders of India and Pakistan have met on the sidelines of multilateral summits and cricket matches.

    Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to India this weekend was of such an informal nature but he did have lunch with India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh. Last month, Singh met with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani during the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea.

    During their luncheon, Singh offered technical assistance to retrieve the remains of the Pakistani soldiers who, on the morning of Zardari’s visit to India, perished in an avalanche on the Siachen Glacier, east of the Line of Control in Kashmir.

    India and Pakistan have held many talks about the demilitarization of Siachen but nothing has yet come of this dialogue.

    Singh also raised the issue of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed whom India considers to be the brain behind the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. He earlier declared a “water jihad” against India and has terrorized his own people for seeking rapprochement with their neighboring state.

    India and the United States have both asked for Hafiz Saeed’s extradition. Many in Pakistan consider this an affront to their sovereignty. The issue is not whether or not he should be handed over to another country however; the concern is the militant system which he runs.

    No progress was made on either of these issues on Sunday but at least the leaders talked. Such a continued dialogue is needed to contain minor incidents and keep the border calm.

  • American Lawmaker Ventures Into Balochistan Quagmire

    American lawmakers last month expressed their concern over the situation in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. California congressman Dana Rohrabacher specifically called upon the Islamabad government to recognize the Balochi’s right of self-determination and condemned Pakistan’s use of “brute force” in suppressing Baloch nationalism.

    This is not the official position of the United States and Rohrabacher’s statements were quickly criticized by the Pakistani government.

    The Balochi welcomed the attention. They have battled for autonomy since Pakistan was founded in 1947. Five wars were waged with the Pakistani army and separatist leaders never miss a chance to express their grievances against the federal government.

    The Baloch question is not unique. Many former colonial states struggle with separatist threats as they were often carved out of territories that did not at all reflect ethnic and religious boundaries. An imagined nationality was forced upon the people of these states and the responsibility of nation building fell on the shoulders of the “constructed” majority which took little interest in minorities.

    In the case of Pakistan, the secession of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, in 1971 was early proof that a multiethnic state, divided geographically no less, is fragile at best.

    With regard to Balochistan, the federal government must take serious steps it wants to address the root of the problem. The present administration has expanded provincial autonomy and boosted financing of Balochistan but these measures have failed to address the more fundamental grievances of the Balochis against their ruling elite.

    It would require a psychological massage to eradicate old and persisting anti-government sentiments from the hearts and minds of the Balochi people. In particular, the government should take seriously abuses of power and injustices that are committed in the region. The Balochi’s concerns are not always properly addressed.

    In another area, policy should be reversed. Flooding Balochistan with migrants from other parts of Pakistan will not make the problem go away. The people there should be able to maintain their uniqueness and enjoy a sense of cultural independence. Balochi nationalism will only grow stronger if there is a concentrated effort to repress it.

    The presence of armed forces in the streets of Balochistan also does little to quell separatist sentiments. It is the responsibility of the federal government to provide security but not to intimidate.

    Balochi separatist leaders must also be more accomodative if there is to be a peaceful resolution to the unrest. Instead of advocating independence and accepting nothing less, they could demand autonomy and a fairer distribution of revenue. Six decades of fighting has given them nothing but hardship.

    Whatever sympathy may exist for Balochi’s right of self-determination abroad, it is unlikely to be translated into pressure on the Pakistani government. The United States will not want to strain relations with Islamabad further over an issue in which they have very little at stake.

    The diplomatic row over Rohrabacher’s provocation notwithstanding, the Balochi issue can only be resolved if government and separatist leaders sit together. The people’s hues and cries need soothing balm, not bullets.

  • For Afghan Peace, India, Pakistan Must Cooperate

    Since Western powers invaded Afghanistan to weed out Al Qaeda, the level of violence in South Asia has remained high. It’s not just Afghanistan is facing the consequences of more than a decade of war but the entire subcontinent.

    Many of Al Qaeda’s top leaders are dead but the situation in Afghanistan has hardly improved. Rather the fundamentalist forces are extending their reach and continuing to battle NATO troops and undermine liberal elements in their society.

    Afghanistan has been a battlefield for major powers for centuries. Invaders always failed to establish themselves there permanently however.

    Most recently, the Soviet Union tried to convert Afghanistan into its corridor but failed due to the tangible support that was given by America and Pakistan to the anti-communist mujahideen. Now, the Americans have made the same mistake by engaging what may well be the most warmongering ethnic group in South Asia in an enduring, never ending conflict.

    Despite past superpower involvement, the two most relevant external powers in Afghanistan today are India and Pakistan.

    India had a significant presence in Afghanistan into the 1970s but the collapse of communist rule and the emergence of the Taliban enabled Pakistan to establish a greater influence there. The 2001 invasion was an opportunity for India to reassert itself. New Delhi allied with the Northern Alliance and Hamid Karzai to oust the Taliban and frustrate Pakistan’s quest for “strategic depth” in the country.

    The real struggle will begin after the NATO exit in 2014. The Afghan question will be one that is posed to the whole of the subcontinent. India has made economic and political investments in the country that it will surely try to safeguard while Pakistan is likely to try its best to protects its strategic interests.

    Pakistan considers the Indian presence in Afghanistan a direct threat to its security. The Pakistani army, despite its support for the War on Terror, always recognized that it inadvertently helped bring the Northern Alliance to power which it so detested because of their ties with India, Iran and Russia — all Pakistani rivals.

    The army has also been deeply perturbed by the sudden influx of Indians in Kabul. It believes that New Delhi is financing and training exiled Baloch leaders who live in Afghanistan. It would rather have the Taliban back in power than instability and possibly foreigners conspiring against it on its western frontier.

    Instead of vying for influence in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan may be best served by cooperating to reap the economic benefits. It would be better for the region to engage in order to stem an escalation of Indo-Pakistani rivalry in Afghanistan.

    There are few options to face the post-2014 challenges in Afghanistan. After the military pullout, the situation is probably not going to change. The Taliban will surely use violent means to attempt to come back to power. Warlords remain active and await the opportunity to establish themselves over the current power structure. Afghanistan could once again succumb to civil war.

    A regional security force, drawing personnel from all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation member states, could be stationed in Afghanistan to guard the fragile peace. These nations have previously worked together in peacekeeping missions in Africa under the banner of the United Nations. Their commander should be elected on a rotational basis.

    A second step toward stabilizing Afghanistan would be drawing representatives from all ethnic groups that live in the country into a power-sharing arrangement. It is the only way to neutralize the warring factions which are patiently awaiting the chance to occupy Kabul by force and rule the other groups.

    Thirdly and most crucially, India and Pakistan would have to work together to restore a modicum of normalcy in Afghanistan. They would have to give up their infighting in the interest of Afghanistan and stability in the region. Both recognize that the talibanization of Afghanistan has not been good for South Asia. It has disturbed the peace in their own countries; inspired terrorist activity in India and radicalized segments of Pakistani society which has caused an uptick in militant activity within Pakistan’s borders.

    There is no viable option for the nations of South Asia except to work together if they seek peace in Afghanistan. Unless the SAARC states recognize the gravity of the situation and their shared objective, they too will suffer the aftershocks once foreign troops pull out in 2014.

  • India Stands Only to Gain from Pakistan Trade Deal

    As India’s commerce minister proceeds to Islamabad to talk trade, it is important to remember that progress on the India-Pakistan free-trade agreement has all but stalled. At first glance it is easy to dismiss this as typical subcontinental petty wrangling. The reality is that it is part of a much larger Indian endgame aimed at accruing maximum advantages post the 2014 NATO drawdown in Afghanistan.

    When one talks of the interests of the “Pakistani business community,” these are three completely diverse streams — in this case working at counter purposes to each other.

    First are the traders and transporters who comprise 90 to 98 percent of what constitute the “business community” — nonproductive middlemen who actively support the deal as increased trade volumes means increased opportunities for them. Then come the nonmilitary industrialists who will be affected by their lack of competitive economies of scale but see this deal as a very important tool to weaken the army. Lastly there is the army industrial complex, the Fauji Foundation, which according to estimates controls about 95 percent of everything including industries and land and which stands to lose the most.

    India has been nudged repeatedly by the West to normalize its ties with Pakistan in order to ease the pressure on NATO in Afghanistan owing to various Pakistani geostrategic imperatives there. The devil lies in the details in exactly which sectors India will accept unilateral disadvantages which could be skewed to support either the military’s or the nonmilitary industrialist’s commercial interests. Of course should both choose to get along (highly unlikely given the current impasse) then it could strike the right balance between the two.

    Engaging the Pakistan military with an active commercial stake in India is seen as the first step in ridding it of its institutionalized paranoia and bellicosity. This is not to negate the fact that India actually sees real benefits in bilateral trade but it certainly helps India gain good “street cred” with the West.

    These considerations are however balanced by the more menacing undertones of this deal. Implied in it is the reality that Pakistan’s civilian government can deliberately “throw” the negotiations to damage the military’s commercial interests and in so doing advance India’s passive-aggressive democracy promotion agenda in Pakistan. Presumably some intelligence inputs would have gone in to tailor this carefully to ensure that the Pakistan civilian and military industrial complexes got equal advantages. Thus rather than being seen as a peace building exercise with India, from the Pakistani point of view, this might as well be an army defanging exercise. Given the current state of things this could actually be an internal conflict exacerbation mechanism — which India is not exactly averse to.

    The sudden resuscitation of court cases against President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani could thus be part of a determined thrust by the on-again-off-again judicial-military tie up. Recall that Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was reinstated because the army and intelligence chiefs refused to back Pervez Musharraf, unlike was the case during the general’s previous showdown with the Supreme Court. As a result some form of “beholdness” of the chief justice to General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the chief of Army Staff, cannot be ruled out.

    This also explains why after the initial rush to ratify the deal, its implementation has completely stalled, in action if not in rhetoric. To be noted also is that the initial momentum this deal gained in Pakistan coincided with when President Zardari allegedly initiated the “memogate” scandal.

    Gilani can also use this deal to build bridges with the military by allowing the negotiations to give military businesses their share of Indian unilateral concessions. The structure therefore is that should military-civilian compromise happen with this deal, it is good for Pakistan and India. Should it not happen, India loses nothing but gains in that it destabilizes Pakistan. Additionally a Pakistani rejection of this deal will play out as a Pakistani attempt to scuttle a peace overture.

    Depending on the shape of the 2014 Afghan pullout, Pakistan’s isolation will only increase and it is at that point that the real diplomatic and political potency of this deal as a tool to either ameliorate or exacerbate tensions within Pakistan will be tested.

    The logic seems to be that (just like India’s developmental, as opposed to military, assistance to Afghanistan) that whether this is a win-win situation or a zero-sum game situation — it is entirely up to Pakistan. Either Pakistan can choose to cooperate and make it a win-win or Pakistan can perceive it as a Trojan horse and score another self defeating goal.

    The West cannot be ignorant of the stakes and is sold as a sign of India’s seriousness toward normalization as well as a test of Pakistan’s sincerity. On balance it is an extremely sophisticated feint and one wonders if India’s myopic transactional diplomacy actually envisioned the horns of dilemma built into this.

    Ultimately, like past Indian diplomatic endgames that have been counted as “victories,” this must be seen as a result of sheer luck rather than any concerted grand strategy on India’s part.

  • Pentagon Study Says NATO Messed Up

    Three weeks ago, 24 Pakistani soldiers dug in trenches along the Afghan-Pakistani border were accidentally killed by NATO aircraft during one of the many counterinsurgency missions that American and Afghan troops have undertaken over the past year. Except on this particular nighttime raid, the precision and professionalism that have become hallmarks of the coalition’s military campaign in Afghanistan were lost, tragically ending the lives of over two dozen men.

    The Pakistani military and government, which have had a frosty relationship with the United States for most of the year, responded angrily. The Pakistani embassy in Washington went so far as to tell reporters that the NATO operation was a deliberate act aimed at loosening the morale of the Muslim nation — a viewpoint that, while conspiratorial, may be acceptable given Islamabad’s roller coasty partnership with the Americans.

    Sensing that another fallout in American-Pakistan relations would hurt the NATO war effort in Afghanistan, the Department of Defense called their Pakistani counterparts and told them that a transparent and factually based investigation would be implemented. That Pentagon study is now out and to the consternation of Western military officials, it looks like the Pakistanis may not have been wrong in all of their assertions.

    Although the final report has not been made public, the Defense Department released a press statement briefly touching upon its most important findings. In sum, the investigation concluded that NATO was perfectly within its right to return fire in self-defense but the coordinates that were given to Pakistani soldiers in the area turned out to be wrong.

    The investigating officer found that American forces, given what information they had available to them at the time, acted in self-defense and with appropriate force after being fired upon. Nevertheless, inadequate coordination by American and Pakistani military officers operating through the border coordination center — including our reliance on incorrect mapping information shared with the Pakistani liaison officer — resulted in a misunderstanding about the true location of Pakistani military units.

    The study is not a perfect inquiry. Out of protest, the Pakistani military refused to cooperate with the Pentagon’s investigation, which lead investigator Brigadier General Stephen Clark acknowledged was a significant setback in uncovering all of the facts.

    The findings are certain to draw condemnation from the Pakistanis who continue to feel insulted by what they view as Washington’s lack of appreciation for the thousands of military and civilian casualties that they have suffered in the fight against terrorism since 2001. General Athar Abbas, the chief Pakistani military spokesman, quickly indicated that his colleagues rejected the report’s conclusions.

    The completion of the inquiry leaves the Obama Administration with a difficult decision to make. Does the president “swallow American pride” and formally apologize for NATO’s part of the responsibility or will he continue to express regret over the incident without offering that apology?

    At least for the time being, the White House and the State Department have not budged from their original position. A State Department spokesman attempted to take responsibility for NATO’s infractions at a press briefing after the report’s release, all the while punting questions on apologizing.

    Now that US/NATO forces are indeed held liable for at least part of the border incident, the administration should in fact reverse its previous stance, privately and publicly making it clear that anyone on the American side who was part of the problem will be dealt with accordingly.

    President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been on the phone for weeks with Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and the Pakistani foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, trying to rebuild a tattered relationship. Kayani has reestablished contacts with NATO commander General John R. Allen, a good start to making sure that a deadly accident like the one that occurred on November 24 does not happen again. But neglecting to say “I’m sorry,” even as the Pentagon investigation details that NATO did in fact make mistakes, will give the Pakistanis a greater reason to doubt the United States as committed partners in the region.

    The reality is that as long as the United States are engaged with tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan, Washington needs Pakistan’s help — whether or not Pakistan has been truly forthcoming in battling militancy on its own soil. Absent cordial relations between the two countries, NATO commanders can expect Islamabad to continue closing down supply routes that go into Afghanistan — forcing the coalition to either spent millions more airlifting supplies or putting them increasingly into the pockets of Central Asia’s autocratic regimes.

    Pakistan may be a double faced partner right now but imagine how much worse NATO’s experience in Afghanistan would be without a measurable level of Pakistani complicity. Sometimes in war, a nation does not get to choose its allies. Pakistan is one such nation — a pain to deal with but necessary for a smooth NATO conclusion to the war across the border.

  • Is Pakistan Talking With the Pakistani Taliban?

    If the news reports from Pakistan are true, the Pakistani government is intimately involved in peace overtures with at least one faction of the Tehrik i-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban.

    The claim, only a rumor when it first came out, was reinforced when Faqir Mohammed, a senior TTP leader in the Bajaur tribal agency, spoke out to confirm that his fighters are talking with Islamabad in a bid to pacify his region. In fact, based on his statements, the discussions with the Pakistani government are going so well that a peace agreement may be signed between the two in short order.

    “Our talks with the government are going in the right direction,” he said.

    If we succeed in signing a peace agreement in Bajaur, then the Taliban in other places such as Swat, Mohmand, Orakzai, Darra Adamkhel, Kurram and South Waziristan tribal regions will also ink peace accords with the government in their respective areas. Bajaur will be a role model for other areas and if our talks prove fruitful, the same formula will be applied in all other areas where the Taliban are fighting against the government and its armed forces.

    Reports of a peace deal come at a tumultuous time in Pakistan’s history. The country’s strategic relationship with the United States is at its lowest point since former President General Pervez Musharraf agreed to align the Pakistani armed forces to Washington after the 9/11 attacks over a decade ago.

    The civilian government in Islamabad, historically weak in comparison to the Muslim nation’s military and intelligence services, is limping along as it faces criticisms from all sides, including but certainly not limited to the generals that control Pakistan’s foreign and security policy.

    Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president, has just returned home after being out for nearly two weeks with heart problems, prompting speculation that the military command was taking preparatory steps to either replace him with a politician more friendly to the army or take power themselves.

    With violence in Afghanistan continuing, Pakistani military officials have been bombarded with complaints and accusations from Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government, which has argued that Islamabad is unable or unwilling to aggressively pursue Afghan Taliban bases on its soil.

    Preliminary Pakistani-TTP negotiations will do nothing to dispel those accusations, particularly when Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network fighters continue to stream into eastern Afghanistan from their shelters in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

    The United States is already worried about the possibility of these talks succeeding and President Karzai will clearly not support any effort that weakens the pressure on militants next door.

    Pakistan, however, does not seem too concerned about what its neighbors and patrons think. Negotiations with militants who have made it their life’s duty to perform jihad against the Pakistani state have happened many times before so the notion that today’s peace feelers are unprecedented is not supported by the record.

    Pakistani militant outfits operating in the South Waziristan tribal region, at least before the 2009 Pakistani military offensive, were often dealt with through a series of quid pro quos — in exchange (PDF) for militants halting attacks on Pakistani institutions and soldiers, the government would allow the groups to operate with relative impunity in the areas of control. The implementation of Taliban justice and Islamic law was allowed, as long as these militant organizations directed their armed attacks across the border in Afghanistan.

    The arrangements with the TTP have not had a clear positive effect for the Pakistanis. On the one hand, those deals have allowed the government to cut short a fighting campaign that was proving to be too much to handle for Pakistani soldiers. Yet at the same time, the peace has given militants in the tribal regions an opportunity to reconstitute their fighters, rebuild their ranks and training camps, and expand their influence in districts that were previously free from the Taliban’s grasp.

    It is in this context that the Pakistan-TTP negotiations are occurring, if they are occurring at all. A Taliban spokrsman has denied that any such talks are taking place, as has Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Prime Minister Yousuf Reza Gilani. But if Pakistan’s diplomatic history with insurgent groups is any guide, a peaceful outreach is not out of the question. In the minds of Pakistan’s generals and politicians, it will seem better to give peace a chance by pushing the Taliban’s focus toward Afghanistan than pursue an exclusive military campaign against them which would surely result in TTP suicide bombings in Pakistani cities as retaliation.

    Compounded by a NATO airstrike that killed 24 of its soldiers, Pakistan now has an even greater incentive to ignore Washington’s complaints and forge its own way of getting the violence in Pakistan down — even if that way has not held up for more than a few months.

  • Why Pakistan Craves America’s Attention

    One of the jokes that went around during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent visit to Pakistan was that America acts like a mother in law who wants her daughter in law, Pakistan, to behave better.

    The analogy may be dismissed as trash in the seriousness of international diplomacy but there’s a measure of truth in the comparison. Pakistan has failed to live up to the promise of nationhood and the United States have reason to be frustrated.

    There is, however, plenty of blame to go around. One might well argue that Pakistan’s current failures are due to American interference during the Cold War when the West was eager to use the country to check Soviet ambitions in Central and South Asia and limit India’s influence across Eurasia.

    The ideology that accompanies a nation’s birth is likely to remain with it for many years. India in recent months has faced civil unrest and protests against corruption but no blood was shed. The country, after all, gained independence nonviolently. It’s a tradition that resonates in India up to his very day.

    Pakistan, for much of its existence, received the attention of world powers Russia and the United States. Although the Cold War is over, Pakistan’s elite and military establishment seem to believe that if they don’t win the attention of foreign powers anymore, they are failing to live up to their predecessors and Pakistan’s national character. If the world’s great powers don’t care about Pakistan anymore, there’s a good chance that India’s economic rise one day causes another part of Pakistan to secede as happened with East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, in 1971.

    The Americans seem likely to take their hands off Pakistan come 2014 when they retreat from Afghanistan but there’s a silent player to this puzzle. China has been an ally of Pakistan’s since the 1962 war with India. Both countries seek to contain India’s rise and prevent it from asserting itself outside of South Asia although from the Pakistani perspective, New Delhi is a more direct foe.

    If the 1962 skirmish is overlooked, China and India have lived comfortably in their own spaces for thousands of years. Beijing regards India as an economic competitor foremost and will not be tempted to boost Pakistan’s defenses to such an extent that it might be drawn into a conflict with New Delhi.

    That leaves Pakistan in need of support from Washington. It helped drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the 1980s and has been a partner in the War on Terror, positioning itself as a reliable and fairly secular Sunni partner in the struggle against radical Islam and Shia Iran.

    There’s one blind spot. If China and India continue to rise and the United States engage India to balance against Chinese expansionism in East Asia, Pakistan will have to play a double game of helping both China and the United States. In its war against militant Islamists, Pakistan has had ample experience serving two contradictory goals but in a cold war between superpowers, the stakes are much higher and Pakistan’s strategy of serving two masters could fall apart.

  • Listing Haqqani as Foreign Terrorist Organization

    Pakistan and the United States are strong intelligence allies against Al Qaeda’s core organization — evident in the capture of numerous terrorist operatives since Washington unleashed its War on Terror shortly after the 9/11 attacks. But the relationship is not without its sore spots. The United States have pressed, and continue to press, Islamabad on a whole range of issues, from cracking down on anti-Indian militant groups to reforming the nonexistent Pakistani tax system.

    The main point of contention between the two allies since at least 2008 has been the Pakistani government’s connections with the Haqqani network, the most deadly force in Afghanistan’s eastern mountains and the group that boasts the most operational experience — first as an anti-Soviet force funded by the United States and now as a resistance force against NATO troops.

    Regardless of which perspective one looks through, both countries have used the same arguments to put forth their positions on the Haqqani network. From Washington’s point of view, the Pakistani military and its intelligence directorate (the ISI) coddle the Haqqanis in the hopes of using the group as a proxy force in Afghanistan. The ISI-Haqqani connection weighs heavier on the minds of Obama Administration officials these days, as Afghanistan prepares for an era without Western intervention.

    The Pakistanis retort the accusation by simply denying that any relationship exists while giving Washington the cold shoulder for even suggesting that there may be a partnership.

    The Obama Administration demands that the Pakistani military take action against Haqqani bases in the tribal areas. The Pakistanis respond to that demand in their usual fashion, arguing that the military’s commitments in other parts of the country make it all but impossible to launch more operations against more militant groups.

    The back and forth can get quite heated, so much so that former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, stated unequivocally during a United States Senate hearing that the ISI not only remained an active supporter of the Haqqani network but played a key liaison role during the recent attack on the American embassy in Kabul. 

    After the tense rhetoric and after a few weeks pass by, American and Pakistani political and military leaders usually meet to discuss their grievances in a civilized fashion. The relationship is patched up to limp another day.

    But what happens if the United States decide to throw a wrench into the entire process by debating whether to add the Haqqani network to its list of foreign terrorist organizations? Indeed, this is the question that American and Pakistani officials must be asking themselves today for an increasing number of senators and administration officials are supporting the notion of putting the Pakistani and Afghan-hosted network into the same club as Al Qaeda.

    The suggestion is more than due, for the Haqqanis exhibit the same characteristics that the United States State and Treasury Departments consider integral to a successful terrorist organization.

    Like Al Qaeda, Haqqani fighters target civilians in populated areas, even as they pursue American and coalition soldiers at checkpoints, military bases and patrols. High value buildings and international forums, especially in the Afghan capital of Kabul, have lately been prime real estate for Sirajuddin Haqqani and his followers — all targets that receive an enormous amount of media attention when hit. The group also works with other militant outfits in Pakistan, blending its operatives into their ranks and coordinating resources with Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban for maximum effectiveness.

    There is one fundamental difference, however, between Al Qaeda and the Haqqanis. The former has been the focal point for the American counterterrorism community for the past decade. The latter has been an enigma to American policymakers during that same period. The organization espouses a dangerous fundamentalist ideology yet apparently not fundamentalist enough to receive the same amount of time, resources and attention as Al Qaeda. Only when the security situation in Afghanistan got messy enough did American firepower focus more on Haqqani activities.

    Placing the Haqqani Network on the list of foreign terrorist organization will most likely not result in anything consequential for the group. Chances are that Sirajuddin, Badruddin and the rest of the Haqqani brothers do not have much in the way of assets in American banks, nor are they likely to visit the United States, Australia, or Switzerland anytime soon.

    But what may change is Pakistan’s attitude toward their current proxies, who have now been branded by the United States government as international terrorists no better than Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Anwar al-Awlaki. The label will most likely fail to completely obstruct the flow of ISI-Haqqani cooperation but it would at least set the pretext for more aggressive American military action (i.e. more drone strikes) along the Afghan-Pakistani border should the Pakistani military prove unable or unwilling too distance themselves from the group.

  • Central Terrorist Leader Killed in Pakistan

    The United States and their allies have been on a tear lately against Al Qaeda. First, it was the heroic Navy SEAL’s operation in the heart of Pakistan that netted Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden after a thirteen year manhunt. A month later, the terrorist organization’s charismatic and disguised prone East African commander, Fazul Mohammed, was shot and killed by Somali soldiers at a government checkpoint in Mogadishu. And now, Al Qaeda’s deputy commander in Pakistan, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, has been found and killed by an American drone attack in North Waziristan.

    The last few months have not been kind to the world’s most feared terror group. The deaths of three key operational Al Qaeda individuals are a success that not only holds a tremendous symbolic value to everyone who has been victimized by the organization’s violence; they are also a tactical accomplishment that provides the United States counterterrorism community with a unique opportunity to pound Al Qaeda’s core leadership into the ground.

    Defense secretary Leon Panetta may have been overly optimistic to conclude earlier this year that the terrorist group is close to strategic defeat — Ayman al-Zawahiri, after all, is still issuing tapes to its affiliates. But the killing of Abdul Rahman last week does give the secretary’s remarks more credibility.

    Rahman, who joined Osama bin Laden’s ranks in 1990, was no ordinary terrorist. Born and raised in Libya and known by his friends as an Islamist with extremist credentials in his early years, Rahman utilized his beliefs into action by opposing the now defunct Libyan government of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi. Unlike most of his colleagues, Rahman fully grasped the ideological, religious and militant components of the jihadist environment, knowing when to flee when trouble was near and when to turn up the notches when the enemy was either distracted or weakened.

    After being chased from Libya by Gaddafi’s anti-Islamist crackdown, Rahman decided to do what most jihadists did in the late 1980s — he made his way to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation. His stamina on the battlefield, his intellect and his ability to impress his superiors soon put him on Bin Laden’s radar. Rahman was rapidly promoted in the Al Qaeda ranks over the next few years.

    Over the course of his jihadist career, Rahman was responsible for some of the most crucial operations against the West in Al Qaeda’s history. Before it made its splash on the world stage in 1998 — when the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed — Rahman attempted to draw Algerian Islamist fighters into Al Qaeda’s global orbit. While he failed miserably in the effort — the Algerian fanatics actually detained Rahman for being too moderate — the mission exported Al Qaeda’s brand name into the Maghreb at a time when Islamic militants were engaged in a bloody insurgency against the Algerian armed forces.

    Far from being deterred by his imprisonment at the hands of Algeria’s radicals, Rahman escaped and returned to Afghanistan, advising Al Qaeda on issues on all ends of the terrorism spectrum, from recruitment to finances to grand strategy.

    His work in the organization was especially valuable after the United States toppled the Taliban government and eliminated the group’s safehaven in Afghanistan. Trapped in the mountains of western Pakistan and besieged by American forces only a few miles from the border, Rahman and his Al Qaeda colleagues would use Pakistan’s tribal areas as their new staging ground, rebounding themselves and extending their outreach to local Pakistani militant groups. Relationships were forged between Arab jihadists and their Pashtun hosts, forming a level of protection that would prove vital as Pakistani soldiers and American drone aircraft worked in tandem to flush out their operatives.

    Perhaps more interesting than Rahman’s terrorist activities was his view of what he was trying to accomplish. As opposed to Osama bin Laden, who was obsessed with mimicking the 9/11 attacks, or a low level fighter who dreamed to strap on a suicide bomb, Rahman was working with Ayman al-Zawahiri to improve the organization’s tarnished image in the Arab world.

    As Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was cutting of the heads of foreigners in Iraq, driving suicide bombers into marketplaces and killing people on an indiscriminate basis, Rahman was begging Bin Laden’s Iraqi affiliate to stop killing purely for violence’s sake. Murdering fellow Muslims, he argued, was an act that would turn the Arab masses against Al Qaeda’s campaign against the West, depriving it of popular support and undercutting the very Ummah that the jihadists were supposedly trying to defend.

    Rahman was also instrumental in attempting to bring Al Qaeda’s many affiliates, whether in Iraq, Africa or the Arabian Peninsula, under the centralized control of Al Qaeda’s core in Pakistan. He was the point man for much of the correspondence and directives that were issued between Bin Laden and his various franchises, and a man that both sides trusted.

    If indeed Rahman was killed, a claim that Pakistan has yet to confirm officially, Al Qaeda has clearly lost a man who garnered the respect of his commanders and the admiration of his followers. If he, however, is still alive, it is quite obvious who should be at the top of the CIA’s kill or capture list.

  • Why the United States Need Pakistan

    One of the oddities of international politics is why despite being close to a failed state and haven a proven record for exporting terrorism, Pakistan has so far largely escaped disaster from outside. The answer lies in the support it receives from the United States.

    Questions of strategy tend to be analyzed within the context of recent history and the foreseeable future. In order to fully understand the Pakistan conundrum however, one needs to go back further. (more…)

  • The Devil We Know

    The balance of power in the Indian Ocean rim has been degrading for some time but China’s recent decision to sell submarines to Pakistan threatens to further upset South Asia’s fragile nuclear balance. The question we must ask ourselves is “who do we want counterbalancing India’s naval might in decades to come?”.

    Pakistan is weak and not getting any better. It is an artificial polity and much of its problems stem from that very fact. It lacks a cohesive core ethnicity, it lacks geographical coherence (the Indus valley having never been an easily defensible position without strategic depth) and its demographic-raw materials proportion is worsening due to population growth.

    What Pakistan has in abundance is geostrategic relevance. All those interested in counterbalancing India (China), Iran (Saudi Arabia) and Russia (the West) have a permanent and vested interest in propping up Pakistan.

    For this reason, Pakistan’s military apparatus always has been and always will be powerful. While the Pakistani army and air force have made the difference in their wars with India and in small deployments to the Middle East (against Israel and later in support of Saudi Arabia in Yemen), Pakistan’s navy has long been the weaker branch. India always managed to control the sea lanes when in conflict with its rival. (more…)