According to the Washington Post and numerous other news outlets, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has given up on talking to the Taliban, which he now asserts is merely a proxy army controlled by the Pakistani government. Under this assumption, Karzai has concluded that he needs to negotiate with the Pakistani leadership in Islamabad, which according to Karzai, “has pursued a double game toward Afghanistan … using terrorism as a means.”
There is nothing new in Karzai’s description of the problem. However, the recent assassination of former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who had been heading up a negotiation effort with the Taliban, catalyzed Karzai’s decision to break off talks with the Taliban and to confront Islamabad instead. Karzai may have concluded that he needed to drop (at least for now) attempts at direct reconciliation with the Taliban and to harden his line against Pakistan, if only to avoid a revolt by the former Northern Alliance, non-Pashtun portions of his government.
Confronting Islamabad will be a waste of effort for Karzai without some leverage. This explains his quick trip this week to Delhi to sign a “strategic partnership agreement” with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an agreement that includes Indian training for Afghanistan’s police. Singh promised that India would “stand by Afghanistan” after Western troops depart in 2014.
This is a logical step for Karzai, but doesn’t promise to deliver much leverage against Pakistan. India and Afghanistan would have to take much stronger measures to persuade Pakistan to adopt a different policy regarding Afghanistan and its support for the Afghan Taliban. India has its reasons to maintain connections with Afghanistan. But it doesn’t have a good reason under current circumstances to run any significant risks for Karzai’s benefit, which will limit the amount of leverage Karzai is looking for. And until that happens, Pakistan is likely to see even more reason to maintain its current Afghan policy.
Where else might Karzai look for leverage? There is always self-help. If, as Karzai asserts, Afghanistan is under attack from a Pakistani proxy war, a traditional nation-state response would be some form of military retaliation against Pakistan in an attempt to persuade its leaders to change their policy. When it comes to defending its territory against foreign invaders, Afghanistan’s reputation for eventual success is legendary. But retaliation against Pakistan would call for cross-border offensive action. What is Afghanistan’s offensive military capacity? The Afghan battleground is a hothouse of irregular and hybrid warfare techniques. Whether there is any prospect of the Afghan government fashioning these forms of warfare into effective transnational offensive tools is an interesting and unanswered question.
Does Karzai see any role for the United States in his search for leverage? He must have concluded that the current U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan is irrelevant to his need for leverage over Pakistan – indeed, the larger the U.S. force in Afghanistan, the more leverage Pakistan has over the U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen’s eleventh-hour tirade against Pakistan, uttered just days before his retirement, was the clearest sign that the Obama administration finally sees the need to change its approach toward Islamabad. But Karzai can’t hold out much hope that the United States will do much to solve his leverage problem, since the U.S. seems intent on washing its hand of the situation after 2014.
As a last resort, Karzai may look to Beijing. Mineral-hungry China may be interested in Afghanistan’s resources and a shipment route into China that doesn’t have to transit waters controlled by the U.S. and Indian navies. But tapping Afghanistan’s mineral wealth will require good behavior by Pakistan and a settlement to Afghanistan’s civil war. As Pakistan’s last and most powerful friend, China may have the leverage to create these conditions. That such a scenario is long-shot only shows what a difficult spot Karzai is in.
Comments
A minor point first. Mark pre-9/11 my understanding is that India did support some elements of the Northern Alliance, with military aid and a small number of advisers, mainly technical and artillery. I don't recall Iran being so committed, although Iran nearly went to war with the Taliban at one point after the offensive into the north.
Now back to looking forward, maybe just tomorrow as the sun rises over Afghanistan.
Our commitment to Afghanistan has obscured the fact that Pakistan is far more important to the West, even global security, than an obscure nation which is hostile to foreigners - yes, Afghanistan.
Ten years after 9/11 AQ and other enemies have found other places to hide in and plot. Many of them are far closer than South Asia. It is the message of AQ that is the danger, which so few have adopted actively.
For too long our policy and actions have failed to communicate to Pakistan's policy elite there is a limit to our patience, tolerance and money. Nor have we assisted the civil sector, let alone carefully considered how to help counter the message of the extremists (AQ being a small, key part).
Poor Karzai, he's not playing nice in the sandbox with Pakistan and a new military skirmish may take place in the near future. All is not lost as China and India are working on border initiative, hopefully more communication and military training. Karzai could benefit from this but he no longer has any backing and everyone knows that emperor of Kabul has no clothes on and he is completely exposed.
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RCJ:
If the Taliban are fighting merely to achieve inclusion and representation, then yes, reconciliation and power sharing are a possible and reasonable solution. If, on the other hand, the Taliban are in it to win it and are not going to be satisfied with anything short of a win, efforts at reconciliation are pretty pointless.
I don't personally think any coalition would endure for more than a very short time. Neither party is really interested in cooperation; they are after power, not stability. There's way too much to fight over, especially when it comes to doling out patronage. There's no trust between the parties and little basis for cooperation.
Possibly Mr Karzai has simply concluded, not unreasonably, that neither the Taliban not their Pakistani backers have any interest in a negotiated solution, except to the extent that it might be a step toward full control. If you conclude otherwise, you might tell us why.
Karzai's in a tight place. The US wants him to negotiate a deal so we can call it a win, bail out quick, and leave him to the sharks. His own backers in the Northern Alliance, knowing who stands to be eaten by those sharks (Karxzai will go into comfy exile, they'll go up against a wall), will rebel at any hint of a deal: they know very well that the Taliban aren't going to be sharing. Of course Karzai will dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge to avoid whatever slings and arrows are headed his way at any given moment. What else can he do?
Mr. Jones:
Apologies for the Pak Army/ISI don't cut it, especially if there is any hint of a suggestion that they are acting reasonably; and even more especially if any respect at all is given to their intellectual appreciation of the world and their place in it. They have driven their country to the brink of every type of ruin and show no signs of slowing down.
Maybe the word "enemy" is fuzzy in a geopolitical game sense but when the Pak Army/ISI kills American soldiers dead, it isn't so fuzzy anymore. And for senior American political and military leadership to have put up with that, indeed to have subsidized the killing of Americans in years past is a horror. How ADM Mullen could have visited soldiers, looked them in the eye and pretended he was fulfilling his duty as their commander and not betraying their trust and loyalty, I can't begin to imagine. If Madhu is right and the blind rats inside the beltway are finally starting to develop eyes, then hurray. But that will not expunge the shame of the past.
None of this is the fault of the poor dumb slob Pakistani. It is the fault of the corrupt feudal/military elite that runs the country and whose work is done by the Pak Army/ISI. This trouble came to door of Pakistan because the Pak Army/ISI brought it there and they keep it there. God help the Pakistani people.
Carl,
Don't forget, this is not our war. We conducted a raid on AQ and stayed. The war belongs to GIRoA. We had no duty to put them into power, but we did, we had no duty to stay and defend them for 10 years while they set about enriching themselves while working to exclude legal political competition, but we did. This is all optional for the US and the criteria applied to weigh those options to date really don't measure up to commonsense analysis.
Also it is well to remember that "friend," "allies," and "enemies" are fuzzy terms in the world of geopolitical competition, and are extremely situational.
FDR had big plans in 1944 for how the four victorious allies of the US, Great Britain, Russia and China would work together as "the four policemen" to provide a network of security for the rest of the planet. In a way he was right, only it broke quickly into two camps and that network of security came to be known as "The Cold War."
There are always at least two parties to any conflict. As I stated, Pakistan is acting in highly predictable and reasonable ways. I am not sure I can say the same for the US. We are still driven by the fear-laced rhetoric of "Islamist ideology", "Caliphates" and all manner of similarly inflated post-9/11 drivel. It's time to move on; physically, and mentally.
There is no "win" to be had in Afghanistan in the traditional sense and never was. Traditional thinking applied to untraditional conflict just doesn't work. Ten years of hard, honorable service on the ground by our troops to execute a series of flawed operational concepts designed to execute an even more deeply flawed strategic perspective prove that. "Intel driven operations" are fine, but intel driven strategy is like 5 year-olds playing soccer.
AQ is more distributed and as strong as ever (though Arab Spring and the acts of oppressed populaces standing up without our assistance is helping to turn the corner there); Afghanistan is far more dangerous and unstable today than anytime since the Taliban first rose to power. We've converted our COIN doctrine into a bizzare joke in an effort to make sense of these challenges. I don't know how much more success we can handle. None of this is Pakistan's fault, we brought it to their doorstep, not the other way around.
Bob
You can appreciate my frustration but I am not sure you appreciate the depth of the frustration felt by some of us. Pundita wrote this "and governments that knowingly pay another government to murder their own troops are nothing more than a collection of fiends -- fiends and ghouls."
I would note that you can be pretty sure somebody is an enemy if he kills your people. The Pak Army/ISI kills our people. Now if you are a senior commander of American troops, the kind with many stars on your shoulders, and you know the Pak Army/ISI are killing your men, and you do nothing much to stop it, don't allow your men to stop it and furthermore give money to the Pak Army/ISI, you are being disloyal to your men. They are being loyal to you, as attested to by their bodies, but you are not being loyal to them, as attested to by their bodies.
Senior American civilian and military commanders have directly aided, with money, and abetted, an enemy, the Pak Army/ISI by denying he was the enemy for years and years. They should have a lot to answer for, but they never will because they are in the culture of impunity that is the rarefied level of the US gov.
I don't care to empathize with and understand the motivations of the Pak Army/ISI. We didn't care much about empathizing with the motivations and outlook of the Imperial Japanese 70 years ago. We just dealt with them as enemies. Perhaps we might consider acting, at least a little, as our grandfathers did.
We did not put Pakistan in a no win position. The Pak Army/ISI's twisted view of their place in the world and their ovine pursuit of the intellectually bankrupt concept of "strategic depth" put Pakistan in this impossible position. To the extent we are responsible, it has been because we accepted their insanity for years, in fact paid them to pursue it. We didn't do the poor people of Pakistan any favors in that.
When you say it is time for us to pack up and go home, does that mean you have changed your mind about us not allowing India to get a toe hold in this mix? If so I can agree with you. I don't want to shield an enemy from a friend.
Carl,
I appreciate your frustration. No amount of money is going to "buy" Pakistan. They see their interests and threats in a certain way and will act to secure the same. We have asked them to act counter to those interests and have paid them huge sums to do so. For them to tell us "No" would have put them squarely in the "If you are not with us you are against us" box, and with us cozying up to India that would have been national suicide for Pakistan. So they did the only thing they reasonably could. They told us yes to our face, then acted covertly to continue to secure their interests as they define them. This duplicity is, I believe, the primary source of instability in Pakistan today. Both sides are pissed at them. We put them in a no-win situation.
To now let India in effect flank Pakistan by establishing a strong position in Afghanistan is very dangerous for the region. Our approach toward Pakistan was bad. Our approach to India is very bad. We were desperate when we sought Pakistan's help, I can only assume we are very desperate in accepting India's. Time for us to pack up and go home. Our interests don't really demand us to be there regardless of who has claimed that they do. We are more secure by committing our resources elsewhere in other ways.
Mr. Jones:
Speaking as a citizen, I am damn tired of being told that the money I am forced to give to the Pak Army/ISI, which they use to directly kill guys I may have seen in a chow hall somewhere, is really the best thing if only I could see and understand the big picture like the blind rats inside the beltway. This being said, in order for us to "not to allow this to happen." as you state in your comment, we would have to line up against India, and continue to do the bidding of the Pak Army/ISI, continue to ignore those bodies. Forget it, man. This has got to stop.
Like most governments faced with insurgency, Mr. Karzai ignores the primary sources of causation that radiate outward from his own government. How it rose to power, how it is organized to exclude non-northern alliance influence, how the Constitution centralizes all major patronage in him, and how he employs ISAF to secure and preserve this unsustainable model.
Blame Pakistan and the US for the insurgency? Of course he does. He's wrong, but this is what governments (Politicians) do.
Iran and Pakistan both have powerful ties to the populace of Afhganistan and powerful interests in maintaining influence over the same. This will never change. Karzai can embrace it or fight it. He choses to fight only because he relies on leveraging others to do that fighting for him.
If India gains a major toehold in this mix it can only lead to major warfare between Pakistan and India initially, and perhaps reasonably expanding to suck in other regional powers (Iran, China) and/or distant powers who perceive vital interests in the region (Russia, US, Great Britain...).
We should not allow this to happen. But then we should have never gotten sucked into the mess we are in either. Clearly we do not see the issues of this region clearly. This is not good, and far more dangerous than any threat posed by AQ or the Taliban.
Robert, if and when NATO pulls out of Afghanistan, the situation reverts to pre-9/11. Back then, the non-Pashtuns' ally wasn't India and it wasn't China-- it was the Islamic Republic of Iran.
For some reason, American analysts are fond of simply ignoring the very Persian nature of the non-Pashtun segments of Afghanistan.
True, Iran's ally the Northern Alliance was on the ropes just before 9/11, but that was in no small part the result of the Pakistan/Saudi axis. Post-9/11 and post-NATO pullout (if it ever materializes), do you really expect this axis to be as effective as before? I don't think so, given their results that enabled 9/11.
So Karzai is concerned with his neighbor and his eastern frontier, and is seeking leverage where it can be found. But keep in mind, his "back" at the western frontier is covered.