Afghan reality: India may talk to ISI, Taliban

[Vinod2070]

I think it is a bit alarmist article.

 

[ajtr]

IT was good for charlie wislon disliked india otherwise he would have made india too into present day pakistan.

 

[ajtr]

India seeks a new direction

By M K Bhadrakumar

The two-day visit by India's National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon to Kabul last week took place in the immediate context of the lethal terrorist strike on Indians in Kabul on February 26, but it underscored the need for a comprehensive rethink on Delhi's Afghanistan policy.

No doubt, India's policy is at a crossroads. Assumptions behind the establishment thinking in Delhi in the recent years are fast withering amid the evolving situation in Afghanistan and India's growing security concerns. On the one hand, Delhi was complacent about its influence in Kabul outstripping Islamabad's and too confident that it rather than Pakistan was the "natural ally" to the US in the fight against terrorism.

The big question is whether Delhi is pragmatic enough to accept that new thinking has become necessary. First and foremost, it does not help if India ignores the nascent processes of Afghan national reconciliation. Delhi on its own is incapable of calibrating the Afghan reconciliation process and the Indian and US approaches diverge. Enduring peace can only come out of an inclusive political settlement in Kabul.

Delhi lost much time quibbling over the "good" and "bad" Taliban while the international community and regional players moved on. There was initially some uneasiness that the Afghan government led by President Hamid Karzai was seeking reconciliation with the insurgent groups.

But more worrisome for Delhi is the fact Karzai has begun seeking help from Pakistan. The fault lies entirely with the Indians in having failed to support him in recent months. Delhi backed losing candidate Abdullah Abdullah in last year's presidential elections on the facile assumption that Washington wished to see him in power. That was a disastrous error of judgment.

Karzai is expected to unfold a road map on reconciliation within the next six weeks. He hopes to hold a loya jirgha (grand council) on April 29 with a view, as he put it, to "get guidance from the Afghan people on how to move forward towards reintegration and reconciliation [with the Taliban]". And in his estimation, if there is greater participation by insurgent elements in parliamentary elections scheduled to be held in August, then further coalition-building becomes possible.

Delhi can anticipate that in all this, Karzai hopes for cooperation from Pakistan and as a quid pro quo he can be expected to factor in Pakistan's interests. The day after Menon concluded his visit, Pakistani army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kiani met Karzai in Kabul to discuss "matters of mutual interest". Karzai followed it up with a two-day visit to Islamabad that started on Wednesday.

Pakistan's assertiveness is bothering Indian strategists but Delhi seems to have overlooked that many factors work in Islamabad's favor. The Afghan elites in Kabul have close social and family kinships with Peshawar. The Afghan economy is dependent on imports from Pakistan. Pakistan has influence over Taliban groups and unlike in the past it has also cultivated the non-Pashtun groups of the erstwhile Northern Alliance. It also shouldn't be forgotten that more than 80% of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) supplies for the war in Afghanistan pass through Pakistan.

And most of all, Delhi underestimated that Pakistan is the US's key non-NATO ally in the war and that implicit in this is Pakistan's expectation to be recognized by Washington as a regional power. In fact, the US has been harping on a fundamental theme: Pakistan has a choice to make, namely, whether it wants to have a comprehensive partnership with the US and NATO; and if so, that it must cooperate with Washington's strategies in the region.

The prevailing view in India is that the Pakistani military continues to play it both ways. But they may be in for disillusionment as there strong likelihood is that Pakistani army chief Kiani may have begun to explore the potential of the US offer.

Pakistan estimates that it is closer than at any time before to gaining "strategic depth" in Afghanistan - and this time, Washington may acquiesce. Indeed, the US is encouraging Pakistan-Afghanistan harmony in any way it can. However, Pakistan carefully assesses that the US's regional strategies have significant implications for its "all-weather friendship" with China, its adversarial ties with India, and its troubled relationship with Iran. The US strategies aim at countering China's rise, fostering a strategic partnership with India and navigating the standoff with Iran on Washington's terms.

Delhi will closely watch Karzai's consultations in Islamabad as a turning point. Karzai urgently needs Pakistani cooperation for his reconciliation agenda and Islamabad expects the Afghan leader to pay heed to its legitimate interests. These interests undoubtedly include a rollback of the Indian presence in Afghanistan.

During his meeting with Karzai in Kabul, Kiani reportedly offered that Pakistan could undertake the training of the Afghan army. Delhi, too, has repeatedly shown interest in assisting the build-up of the Afghan army. Conceivably, the US concurs with the Pakistani offer, whereas it discourages any such Indian role in Afghanistan. NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen stated in Jordan on Sunday that he would like to "encourage Muslim countries to engage in Afghanistan ... Muslim countries have valuable cultural and religious awareness and expertise to bear".

Soon after Kiani's meeting with Karzai, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates paid an unannounced visit to Kabul. At a joint press conference with Karzai he also complimented Pakistan's cooperation - "the security situation is no longer deteriorating and there are also a number of other positive developments ... Improvements in the relations with Pakistan have yielded tangible results and increased cooperation along the border ... there are grounds for optimism as our countries pursue what President Karzai has called an Afghan-led, and an Afghan-owned initiative to ensure peace and stability."

Thus, from the Indian perspective, a tough regional security scenario presents itself. There is no doubt that Karzai has a lot of goodwill towards India and, in fact, he was the recipient of the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize in 2005. But Delhi needs to come to terms with the reality that his preoccupation in the coming period will be to work closely with Pakistan and to ensure that the loya jirgha turns out to be a success and a cornerstone in the reconciliation process with the Taliban.

If Delhi failed to anticipate this shift in Karzai's order of priorities, it has only itself to blame. Thus, even in the face of impending realignments in the Afghan political and military situation that were obvious to most perceptive foreign observers, Delhi kept up the presence of a few thousands Indians in Afghanistan whose security becomes now almost entirely its responsibility to shoulder.

Delhi will be averse to taking such a responsibility that requires deployment of more Indian security forces to protect Indian establishments in Afghanistan. It may well be compelled to rethink the extent of its presence, notwithstanding the current official stance that no rollback is planned.

A better understanding of the Afghan security situation would have helped and at any rate a course correction is now needed with regard to Indian projects in Afghanistan during the transition period ahead.

One way out could be for Delhi to complete the projects in the pipeline and not undertake fresh ones. This is a sensitive issue since the Indian strategic community stands in favor of a forceful presence in Afghanistan and any rollback by the government may appear a weak-kneed response to Pakistani "blackmail".

But there is a big picture, too. The Indian strategic community overlooked that the US war had a hidden agenda. Simply put, NATO's enlargement into Central Asia, the US's containment strategy toward China (and Russia and Iran) and Pakistan's key role in US regional strategy - all these impact India's interests. Most important, there is a likelihood of regional hotspots such as North Caucasus, the Ferghana Valley, Xinjiang and Kashmir lighting up.

Delhi had put all its eggs in the American basket and now needs to activate its regional policies. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is scheduled to arrive in Delhi at the weekend. The Indian foreign minister is scheduled to visit China next month and possibly Iran by the end of March. The annual summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in June in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, becomes of added interest to Delhi.

However, the heart of the matter is that the Afghan policy is a microcosm of a larger malaise that the Indian foreign policy and security establishment needs to tackle. There is no evidence that Delhi has the political will to have a course correction in this aspect.

In retrospect, Delhi's hare-brained idea of a US-led "quadripartite alliance" against China, the "Tibet card", the dilution of a 2003 strategic understanding with Iran, neglect of the traditional friendship with Russia, the lukewarm attitude toward the SCO, exaggerated notions within the establishment regarding the US-India strategic partnership as an alternative to an independent foreign policy and diversified external relationships - all these appear now like dreadful pantomimes out of India's foreign policy chronicle of recent years that Delhi would rather not think about.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

 

[DaRk WaVe]

^^^^

That was a great one, Thanks for sharing

 

[notinlove]

worth a read..........

For real strategic depth
By Zafar Hilaly
There is no institution better than the army for PowerPoint presentations. The slides and captions say it all. There is hardly any need for the accompanying commentary. Very often all that the presenter does is to read the captions on the screen and because he reads far slower aloud than the audience does silently, sitting through a session can become tiresome. After a while, as the presenter drones on, doggedly reading aloud one caption after another, one wonders whether he believes that his audience comprises functional illiterates.

In contrast, Gen Kayani uses what is on the screen to highlight, punctuate and explain his commentary, which is why all who attended his lengthy briefing on Friday on the army's recent operations found it so riveting. What were fairly complex operations become comprehensible to the uninitiated; and what was heartening was that the fighting tactics employed seemed so novel and path-breaking, in stark contrast to my experience when I was attached to the army as a civilian probationer in East Pakistan.

We were told to "attack" the "enemy" platoon across a recently ploughed rice field. On asking why we should be so stupid as to charge an enemy across a flat field without the slightest bit of cover, and that too with the sun in our eyes, I was told to "belt up" and not try to be "too smart."

Presentations often reveal as much about the thought processes and intellect and the professional competence of the presenter as the choice of words do his communication skills. By the reckoning of most, the COAS scored straight "A's" on all four counts.

From the briefing we deduced that in contrast to how some other armies are faring across the border, in less difficult terrain and against resistance that was desultory, the army's performance has been excellent.

For example, in South Waziristan the enemy had a long time to prepare and forge a battle plan. They had a surfeit of weapons and were well stocked with ammunition. Their fortifications were strong, well dug in and with interconnecting tunnels. And yet, such was the tactical surprise the army achieved that they were routed. Apparently, the enemy had prepared to fight along roads and valleys, in other words, the traditional battlegrounds in mountainous areas, whereas the army moved at night and along sharp ridges. Such tactics completely unhinged the enemy. Like in Swat, where the army had conducted the largest heliborne operation in South Asia, jumping from airborne helicopters onto knife-edge ridges, the South Waziristan operation demonstrated that the enemy, wily and determined as he is, could be worsted on his home terrain, notwithstanding what history recounts.

The impact of the success of these operations on the morale of our troops can be gauged by the fact that the South Waziristan operation that was scheduled to take ten weeks was concluded in five. The soldiers are single-minded, convinced of their cause and supremely confident. The enemy now knows that the army has the measure of them. More importantly, so do other "neutral" tribesmen, who may have wanted to join them had they proved successful in their resistance in Swat and South Waziristan. In addition to these two major operations, the army has conducted as many as 200 of brigade strength and more, and over 500 minor operations, and all without an iota of help from outsiders. This was important, nay crucial, if we are to have the confidence to undertake such actions exclusively on our own.

One significant impact of the army's success is the greater support the army is now receiving from local tribesmen as it pursues insurgents who have fled from South Waziristan and are hiding in North Waziristan. Arms caches are being unearthed on the basis of fresh intelligence supplied by locals, and further searches are being conducted. Naturally, a "blowback" was to be expected as the enemy tries to recoup morale; hence, the recourse by the militants to suicide bombing of soft targets in cities.

The challenges that the army faces are many, such as the need to retain public support and for the people to own the solutions being proffered. Success could not be measured in the number of enemies killed, actually those numbers are immaterial. More important is how quickly, and how well, the government is able to rebuild in the areas seized from the enemy and how speedily life could return to normal. And in this regard more must be done and quickly, despite resource constraints. If we failed, the insurgents would return once the army had left.

Another challenge is to establish the writ of the government and bring critical spaces under control and to reduce the gap between public expectations and what was doable. Otherwise frustrations would grow. Hence, all segments of society -- the army, public opinion, the media -- have to be on board with an agreed strategy to demonstrate that they view the war as our war and not that of America. This happily now exists.

As for the American effort in Afghanistan, the Americans will have to show that they are winning before they could hope to have the support of the populace. This is not happening at the moment. And until it does, something that will take time, local support or the formation of, say, anti-insurgent lashkars, is out of the question.

Asked about his remark that Pakistan's policy was "India-centric" the COAS said that what determined Pakistan's strategy was Indian capability, not intentions. India's defence budget was vastly more than ours ($29 billion vs. $4 billion) and, while there is no question of matching Indian expenditure, Pakistan must acquire a capability to ward India off.

The COAS also clarified that the concept of "strategic depth" that Pakistan sought in connection with Afghanistan was never meant to suggest that Pakistan should "control" Afghanistan, but rather to have a peaceful and friendly Afghanistan as a neighbour.

While just about everything one heard was reassuring and, frankly, music to our ears, left unaddressed, if only because of time constraints, were a number of questions that the briefing raised. For example, why the urge to "mediate" between the Americans and the Taliban, considering what our experience has shown? And since when has anyone had a right to mediate or demand that they be allowed to do so? Besides, for mediation to succeed a high degree of trust must exist between the parties involved and the mediator, which is palpably not the case in Afghanistan. At best, one felt, Pakistan should offer its services as a facilitator, and, then, only if asked. This seems a prudent course, considering that Afghanistan's other neighbours may also want a similar "mediating" role.

Secondly, when have we ever had a "friendly" government in Afghanistan? Afghanistan actually opposed the admission of Pakistan to the UN in 1948. The only Afghan leader who demonstrated a willingness to recognise the Durand Line as the international border was Sardar Daud, who was killed on the eve of his visit to Pakistan in 1978, lest he "sell out" to Pakistan.

Actually, what we desire is not a government in Kabul that is "friendly," as much as one that will not align with India to threaten Pakistan's security. And that we can only ensure by keeping our guard up, giving no cause to Afghanistan to gang up against us. And if they persist in taking such other action, including the suspension of the transit trade facility which the Afghans anyway observe mostly in the breach, to make such moves grossly counterproductive.

Finally, it is difficult to comprehend the logic behind our offer to train the Afghan National Army. While it makes sense to oppose leaving the training of such a force to India, if we were to be assigned such a task today then the only conceivable enemy that the Afghan army would need to be trained to combat would be the Taliban. Training a hitherto unfriendly, Pakistan-averse Tajik-dominated force to fight a Taliban/Pakhtun opponent that is traditionally well disposed to Pakistan would require a level of dexterity that only erstwhile Byzantine courtiers possessed. It simply won't wash.

Nevertheless, an unmistakeable feeling that one took away from the briefing was that the army was in excellent hands and militarily the war was going well for Pakistan. The other was that because Gen Kayani is a man with oodles of common sense, common decency and common honesty he has made himself forever ineligible for public office.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/editorial_detail.asp?id=224853

 

[Vinod2070]

Secondly, when have we ever had a "friendly" government in Afghanistan? Afghanistan actually opposed the admission of Pakistan to the UN in 1948. The only Afghan leader who demonstrated a willingness to recognise the Durand Line as the international border was Sardar Daud, who was killed on the eve of his visit to Pakistan in 1978, lest he "sell out" to Pakistan.

I think he captures it well. Afghanistan is a natural enemy of Pakistan. None of the games that Pakistan can play will change that.

Pakistan has lost the battle for the mindshare of Afghans. It may score a few tactical point or two and that will only be a temporary reprieve. Once Afghanistan gets back on its foot, it will gang up with India on the common natural enemy.

 

[ajtr]

Karzai Meets With Top Officials in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan met with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani here on Thursday in a show of public friendship, even as the two sides tried to work through underlying tensions over how to deal with the Taliban militants who use the countries’ lawless border region as a sanctuary.

Both leaders stressed that stability for their countries hinged on mutual cooperation, and Mr. Karzai tried to assuage widespread public unease in Pakistan about the growing influence in Afghanistan of India, Pakistan’s regional rival. “Afghanistan does not want proxy war between India and Pakistan,” Mr. Karzai said at a joint news conference with the prime minister, adding that he appreciated Indian efforts in Afghan reconstruction.

Earlier Thursday, Mr. Karzai met with the powerful Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and on Wednesday, the day of his arrival, Mr. Karzai held talks with President Asif Ali Zardari.

Pakistani officials said that the two presidents had a warmer relationship than the frosty one that existed between Mr. Karzai and Pakistan’s former president, Pervez Musharraf. “Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have improved greatly,” said Farahnaz Ispahani, a media adviser to Mr. Zardari.

But some analysts noted that beyond the diplomatic niceties, important differences remained. Mr. Karzai’s main mission, they said, was to seek Pakistani help in promoting conciliatory gestures and peace efforts toward the Taliban.

In recent weeks, there has been a flurry of arrests of militant leaders in Pakistan, most importantly that of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the No. 2 Taliban figure, who was detained last month in Karachi. However, Pakistani officials have rejected Afghan demands to hand him over.

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and expert on the Taliban who met with Mr. Karzai on Thursday morning, said the arrests of Taliban leaders in Pakistan were a source of “a very serious underlying tension” between the countries.

Mr. Rashid told Dawn News, a private television news channel, “Karzai has asked for the extradition of Mullah Baradar and these Taliban who have been caught by the ISI in recent weeks.” He was referring to the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, the Pakistani spy agency.

Mr. Rashid said there was a suggestion from the Afghan side that the Pakistani arrests of Taliban leaders were not helping Kabul.

“The word ‘undermining’ Kabul’s own initiative was used, and I think these tensions would have been a key in the talks with Prime Minister Gilani,” as well as the Afghan and Pakistani intelligence chiefs, he said.

“Some of the more pragmatic Taliban have been arrested by the ISI,” Mr. Rashid said, “and this has caused consternation in Kabul because these were the same people who were holding secret talks with the Kabul administration, and the other suggestion is that a number of hard-liners will replace Mullah Baradar and those arrested.”

Mr. Rashid said that Afghans were eager for reconciliation with the Taliban. The Americans are not fully on board but the British are pushing Mr. Karzai for it, he said.

“India, of course, I think has got quite a fit that Pakistan is muscling in by making these arrests,” he said. “There is an enormous amount of complexity and tension between all the major players right now in Afghanistan.”

During his visit, Mr. Karzai also met with members of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Palwasha Khan, a member of the committee, said Mr. Karzai had told the lawmakers that “he wanted to evolve a strategy to deal with the militants.”

Pakistani legislators asked whether Mr. Karzai was talking with the Taliban, she said. “He replied that he was willing to talk to those Taliban who were driven by circumstances and not by ideology.”

 

[ajtr]

'Pak poking nose, India must change Afghanistan policy'

As talks of a re-think of India’s Afghanistan policy gain momentum, diplomatic circles are abuzz with various kinds of steps that New Delhi needs to take to remain relevant to Kabul.

Current reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts may have struck a chord among ordinary Afghans, but this soft power projection is not enough for the tougher times ahead. Some even argue that India’s over $1-billion investments in Afghanistan may go down the drain.

With the US and Nato forces getting ready to withdraw as early as next year, New Delhi has to look at a situation where president Hamid Karzai and his people are no longer in control and the Taliban would once again call the shots.

“Unless India prepares for the time when the American’s pull out, we will not be in a position to face the political crisis that it will trigger,” former foreign secretary Lalit Mansingh said.

He suggested that one way to do so was to revive the India-Russia-Iran axis which supported the Northern Alliance and played an important role in helping the US dislodge the Taliban in 2001.

Prime minister Vladimir Putin is arriving in New Delhi on Friday and Manmohan Singh is expected to discuss Afghanistan in detail. Mansingh believes that China can also join this regional forum as Beijing is as concerned about Afghanistan and the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Xinjiang.

Retired diplomat Rajiv Sikri believes that while the India-Russia-Iran grouping must be revived, China should not be made a part of it. He suspects that whatever is being planned would be shared with Pakistan by the Chinese. “We are buying arms worth millions of dollars from the Americans. India has to cause Washington some pain for its voice to be heard,” he added.

A senior Indian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, refuted Sikri’s argument. “Perhaps, the number of troops will come down. We don’t expect the US to leave Afghanistan high and dry,” he said.

But he admitted that Afghanistan is likely to become an old-style battleground for a proxy war between India and Pakistan. In fact, it began with India caught on the wrong foot with the bombing of the embassy in Kabul in July 2008. The second attempt was a car bomb crashing into the embassy boundary wall and the third strike on Indian interests was last month at a guest house and a hotel. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence had a hand in all three.

Pakistan is beginning to play a political role in Afghanistan, promising the US that it can be mediator and bring the Taliban to the talks table.

 

[ajtr]

Obama sets India adrift

The Canberra Times
My colleague, Paul Heinbecker, Canada's former ambassador to the United Nations, once commented wryly that the distance from hubris to delusion is short and the George W. Bush administration covered it in a sprint.
By the end of his second term, Bush was so deeply unpopular around the world that little was required of his successor to establish international popularity and be an early contender for the Nobel peace prize. Simply by staying out of sight and doing nothing, President Barack Obama would have stopped further international alienation of friendly and allied citizens, halted the decline in multilateral cooperation and reversed the growth of anti- American rage among Muslims.
Yet even in this bleak international landscape of the Bush administration, relations with Israel and India stood out for their exceptional warmth. Going by the first year of his administration, Obama may well complete the alienation agenda with both. The glitter of the first state banquet for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh notwithstanding, the relationship with India is adrift under an inattentive Obama.
This is a pity. The signing of the bilateral civil nuclear cooperation deal by Bush followed by shepherding the process of its endorsement by the international community reinvigorated the previously rudderless relationship and spawned massive pro-United States sentiment. Acting together, India and the US could bend the arc of international history towards mutually attractive destinations.
The US has a chance to exploit India's partnership potential in addressing key regional and global challenges by crafting policies that view India as a solution, not a problem. Basing its India policy through short-term interests derived from third-party relations like Pakistan and China will not just reverse the Bush gains. They will also jeopardise many significant US policy goals for the immediate future and waste a valuable long-term strategic asset. The more than two million Indo-Americans extremely successful, highly educated, among the richest cohorts by household income and fiercely proud of their dual identity provide an enduring ballast to the bilateral relationship.
First and, strategically speaking, most importantly, India is a model for all developing and Asian countries: democratic, secular, stable and now even prosperous. It is a striking refutation of the alleged incompatibility of democracy, stability and economic growth with Third World conditions, or even with Islam: India's 150million Muslims are comfortable with democratic institutions and practices.
Second, India's national security interests dovetail with major US security challenges: containing the spread of Islamist fundamentalism, defeating international terrorism, stabilising Pakistan by nurturing the fragile roots of secularism and democracy, securing Afghanistan, preventing the domination of Asia by China, and stopping nuclear proliferation to other nations and terrorists. For these goals India is potentially America's most important partner in Asia. Japan is a longer, closer and more reliable ally, but its strategic footprint stops in East Asia. With the exception of North Korea and Taiwan important long-term security concerns current US security preoccupations are in the region in which India is the natural hegemon. As the most powerful hegemon itself that dominates the Americas, it is puzzling the US fails to see the parallel with respect to the role but also the jealousies and resentments in the neighbourhood.
Third, on most global challenges, from the new G20 grouping to address the task of an orderly exit from the financial crisis to the stalled Doha round of trade talks and the setbacks and reverses in meeting the threat of global warming, India's cooperation is critical to making meaningful progress. After the Copenhagen collapse on climate change, some commentators made the point that the third party in the G3 after the US and China is not Europe, but India. Europe was missing in action in Copenhagen as a united and powerful actor. Its choice of inaugural president and "foreign minister" shows how much it is trapped in its own soft bigotry of low expectations.
Not so India. There the chief problem may be the expectations- capacity gap in the opposite direction, where future potential is giving an exaggerated sense of current political weight.
Instead of understanding and accommodating India's legitimate interests and world views and working with India's democratic compulsions, the US seems indifferent to and irritated by them.
On the Doha round, how many US policymakers know that 199,132 Indian farmers committed suicide in the 12 years, 1997-2008? One reason is the vicious debt trap caused by the removal of quantitative restrictions under the World Trade Organisation regime that has left India's small and marginal farmers, with no access to crop insurance, exposed to the volatility of international markets and prices. No democratic government can ignore such epic human tragedy. On climate change, should Indians accept a permanently lower standard of living than Americans? In the global media village, this would not be an election- winning platform for any political party.
The US was previously permissive of Chinese complicity in Pakistan's nuclearisation and of Pakistan nurturing terrorism as an instrument of state policy. The anti-Taliban alliance in Afghanistan was kept alive, among others, by India whose role it is among the largest donors to reconstruction in Afghanistan focusing on building roads, schools, hospitals and a new parliament is welcomed by many Afghans who are suspicious of Pakistan's involvement. Efforts to compartmentalise the terror threat to US and Western interests from that to India is false in principle and contradicted in practice by an intricate network of jihadists who work with one another against Christians, Hindus and Jews.
Any government of Pakistan has a vested and understandable interest in preserving a friendly Islamist faction based in Afghanistan as a counter to India's role. The faction's total liquidation would reduce US dependence on Pakistan.
Why should Pakistan cooperate?
Being able to convince the US to exert pressure on India to resolve the Kashmir dispute on Pakistan's terms would be an added bonus. Success on this would not end Pakistan's self- serving half-heartedness in cooperating with the US, would not end the threat of Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan, would not turn Pakistanis into champions of the US role in the world, but would turn majority sentiment in India against the US. Some equation.
Yet in his leaked report, General Stanley McChrystal parroted Pakistani warnings that growing Indian influence in Afghanistan would exacerbate regional tensions and encourage "counter-measures" by Pakistan. In a recent poll of Afghans commissioned by the BBC, the American Broadcasting Corporation and the German broadcasting company ARD, India was the most favourably viewed country with 71 per cent and the US third with 51 per cent; Pakistan received 2 per cent of the votes.
The US search for accommodation with China is understandable. The US-China relationship is likely to be the world's most consequential for the foreseeable future. Nor can one reasonably expect the US to lecture its chief creditor (to the tune of $US800billion) on human rights. But does it help the US in its relations with China to adopt a stance of neutrality on such issues as India's north-eastern provinces? Does it advance US global non-proliferation interests to remain quiet on China's supply of designs and material to Pakistan which then found their way to Libya, Iran and North Korea? To concede Asia as China's sphere of influence when under challenge as a military, economic and technological power?
Instead, an unapologetic robust Indo-US defence relationship, backed by parallel arrangements between India and Australia, Japan and Israel that is not directed against specific third countries, would appear to be in all their interests.
As Fareed Zakaria an American Muslim of Indian origin has noted, for the US in Southern Asia, the prize is India, the booby prize is Afghanistan. Indians recall nostalgically how they were romanced by Bush. Singh and Obama are equally cool and cerebral, if one is more erudite and the other more eloquent. Like Americans, many Indians would welcome signs of passion to re-energise the relationship.

 

[Pintu]

http://www.ptinews.com/news/561535_40-more-ITBP-commandos-for-Afghanistan

40 more ITBP commandos for Afghanistan

STAFF WRITER 18:26 HRS IST

New Delhi, Mar 12 (PTI) Following the audacious attack in Kabul on places frequented by Indians, the government today decided to send 40 additional ITBP commandos to secure its people and installations in the war-hit country.

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police commandos would leave for the neighbouring country on Saturday.

Sources said while some would be deployed in the Indian missions, a few others would be stationed in guest houses frequently used by Indians involved in development work, official sources said here.

A team of central security agencies would also leave for Afghanistan shortly to review the security situation.

Based on the report filed by the team, sources said the government would decide whether to scale up the deployment of Indian security personnel.

 

[ajtr]

Indian envoys in Afghanistan face kidnap threat

NEW DELHI: After unarmed Indian citizens, Indian diplomats in Afghanistan are now under threat from Pakistan-supported terrorists.

According to government sources, India has received "credible" intelligence inputs on a terrorist plot to abduct Indian diplomats.

Coming against the backdrop of a determined effort by ISI to terrorise India into withdrawing from Afghanistan, India has taken the threat seriously, rushing 40 ITBP personnel to ramp up security of its diplomatic corps in Afghanistan.

The diplomats, an eyesore for Pakistan since their effort to rebuild Afghanistan's infrastructure has enhanced India's appeal in the country Islamabad considers its backyard, have been asked to be vigilant.

While Indian officials have been under constant threat in Afghanistan, the recent spate of intelligence inputs comes in the wake of the February 25 attack on Indians in Kabul.

The fear is also because of the track record of Pakistan-backed terror groups. Several years ago, they had massacred members of Iran's mission in Afghanistan.

An Indian diplomat in Afghanistan would be a huge prize for the Taliban and their Pakistani handlers, sources said.

Apart from everything else, it would create the kind of diplomatic crisis between India and Pakistan that would serve as a pretext for Pakistan to take its attention off the Taliban and the US campaign.

India sees the threat as coming principally from Pakistan's terror groups like the Haqqani network and the Lashkar-e-Taiba which are being used against India.

The Haqqanis are Pakistan's favourite Taliban group. Pakistan's army, seeing a growing advantage for itself in Afghanistan, is now more determined than ever to get India out of that country. After two attempts to attack the Indian embassy in Kabul, the Taliban have been training their sights on Indian consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad.

Since the Indian embassy in Kabul is deemed to be reasonably secure, the additional personnel will be deployed in nearby areas with guesthouses and other residential quarters being used by Indian officials and their family members.

A senior official said, "A team of security/intelligence officials will soon go to Afghanistan to make detailed assessment of security arrangements at Indian establishments in Kabul, Kandahar and other cities. More forces will be sent, if needed, in due course."

At present, 163 ITBP personnel are deployed at the Indian embassy in Kabul and its consulates in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif.

 

[ajtr]

Taliban Reconciliation: Obama Administration Must Be Clear And Firm

As the U.S. deploys an additional 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan this year, there is also increased talk about pursuing reintegration of Taliban insurgents into the political mainstream. In its recently released "Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy," the U.S. State Department supports Afghan-led reintegration of local insurgents who renounce al-Qaeda, cease violence, and agree to participate in the constitutional process.[1]U.S. and NATO Forces Commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal has rightly stated that reintegration is needed so that "people know there is somewhere to go off the battlefield."

While reintegration of insurgents into the mainstream democratic process is indeed part of any wise counterinsurgency strategy, it is necessary to distinguish this process from one that would legitimize the Taliban's ruthless ideology. The enhanced focus on supporting Afghan-led reintegration of the Taliban has fueled speculation in the region and in some European capitals that the U.S. is seeking a political deal with senior Taliban leaders as part of an exit strategy from the region. Seeking to negotiate with the Taliban leadership (primarily based in Pakistan) before U.S. and NATO forces gain the upper hand on the battlefield in Afghanistan would be a tactical and strategic blunder with potential serious negative consequences for U.S. national security.

The Obama Administration must be clear and firm about its strategy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan--or risk squandering recent tentative battlefield gains in Afghanistan, as well as a positive shift in Pakistani public opinion against extremists operating in their own country. The U.S. must continue to assert a vision for the region that strengthens those who support democracy, human rights, and religious pluralism and weakens those who adhere to destructive, extremist ideologies. The U.S. strategy must provide the best chances for achieving U.S. objectives as enunciated by President Barack Obama in his December 2009 speech at the West Point Military Academy to "disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan."

The initial strategy introduced by the Obama Administration for Afghanistan and Pakistan in March 2009, which was fleshed out by General McChrystal in his August 2009 assessment, is sound and must be given time to succeed. The Administration called for the execution of an integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, an expansion of the Afghan National Security Forces, the reintegration of reconcilable insurgents into the political mainstream, bolstering Afghan-Pakistani cooperation, and enlisting greater international assistance in stabilizing both Afghanistan and Pakistan. In his assessment, General McChrystal recommended pursuing a classic counterinsurgency strategy, focusing on protecting the Afghan civilian population. If the Administration backs down from this strategy now and signals that it is weary of the fight in Afghanistan, it will embolden and strengthen the terrorists who planned and supported the September 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. and who seek to attack the U.S. again.

The U.S. Must Avoid Past Mistake of Misreading Taliban Intentions

Premature talks between the U.S. and Taliban leadership would provide the movement with legitimacy by discrediting peaceful political players and rewarding those who have relied on a violent, ruthless path to power. Past precedent demonstrates that insurgent groups are more likely to negotiate and compromise if they believe they have little chance of success on the battlefield. The Taliban have steadily regained influence in southern and eastern Afghanistan over the last four years, so U.S. and NATO forces must first weaken the Taliban on the battlefield before serious negotiations move forward.

The U.S. had misread the intentions of the Taliban and underestimated the strength of their bond with al-Qaeda when it sought to engage them before 9/11. U.S. diplomats, acting largely on inaccurate advice from Pakistani leaders, overestimated their own ability to influence decision-making within the Taliban Shura (leadership council). Michael Rubin, former political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, believes thatU.S.attempts to engage the Taliban from 1995 to 1999 represent "engagement for its own sake--without any consideration given to the behavior or sincerity of an unambiguously hostile interlocutor." Rubin, now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, details how U.S. State Department officials were repeatedly misled by Taliban officials harboring Osama bin Laden even after al-Qaeda attacked two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. As Rubin notes, "face-to-face meetings with Americans served only to reinforce the Taliban gang's pretensions as a government rather than as an umbrella group for terrorists."[2]

The fundamental question is whether the Taliban and al-Qaeda can now be split apart after supporting each other on the battlefield for the last eight years. The Taliban have benefited significantly from their relationship with al-Qaeda, receiving strategic direction and ideological inspiration, access to international financial networks, and recruits and training for suicide attacks inside Afghanistan.

Some indications point to a Taliban leadership that has become so fused with al-Qaeda and its virulently anti-West, pan-Islamic ideology that it would be nearly impossible for the leadership to break those ties without losing its raison d'être. As Barbara Elias, director of the Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Taliban Project at the National Security Archives at George Washington University, argued in November 2009 in Foreign Affairs, the Taliban cannot break their relationship with al-Qaeda "without also surrendering their existing identity as a vessel for an obdurate and uncompromising version of political Islam."

Local Reintegration, Not High-Level Political Talks

Instead of conferring legitimacy on senior Taliban leaders in Pakistan by seeking high-level political negotiations, the U.S. should focus on reconciling with Taliban commanders on the ground in Afghanistan by concentrating on providing jobs, development assistance, addressing local grievances, and reintegrating Taliban leaders into local governing structures. In the absence of any signs that the Taliban leadership is willing to break ranks with al-Qaeda or to participate in a normal political process in Afghanistan, it makes little sense to engage in high-level dialogue. Granting the senior Taliban leadership a share of the power in Kabul would almost certainly eventually lead to the Taliban re-taking national power and implementing policies similar to those they pursued throughout the 1990s-- policies that repressed average Afghans, especially women, and provided the staging ground for the 9/11 attacks.

Given that premature high-level talks can backfire and set back opportunities to foster local reconciliation, the U.S. must react cautiously to the United Nations' recent efforts to promote reconciliation with the Taliban leadership. The United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) is taking an active role in supporting Afghan-led local reconciliation, but is also exploring opportunities for engagement with senior Taliban leaders. Outgoing UNAMA Special Representative Kai Eide reportedly met with a group of Taliban leaders in Dubai shortly before the international conference on Afghanistan held in London in late January to explore the possibility of face-to-face talks between the Afghan government and Taliban leadership. Earlier in January, the United Nations Security Council had agreed to lift sanctions on five former officials in the Taliban government, including former Taliban Foreign Minister Ahmed Mutawakil.

Local reconciliation efforts have been underway for several years in Afghanistan but have been stymied by lack of coordinated and cohesive international support and financial resources to back them up. The Afghan Independent Department of Local Governance (IDLG) and international nongovernmental organizations like Oxfam have encouraged local reconciliation efforts. The Afghan National Solidarity Plan (NSP), created in 2003 to help Afghan communities implement development projects, also provides an opportunity for reconciliation at the local level through a network of more than 21,000 village development councils.[3]

Local reconciliation is a way to counter the insurgents' ability to capitalize on grievances held by the civilian population and on the lack of governance. It involves local government reaching out to the public and delivering development assistance in order to prevent pockets of Taliban influence from taking root. The process also involves the provincial governors developing lists of reconcilable insurgents, in coordination with UNAMA and NATO officials, and then working to integrate the selected insurgents into the system. Washington should focus its attention and resources on coordinating and buttressing these local reintegration/reconciliation efforts.

Closing in on Taliban Sanctuary?

The Afghan Taliban leadership based in Pakistan coordinates the insurgency across the border in Afghanistan--which makes it critical for the U.S. to convince Pakistan to disrupt the Taliban's sanctuary. As long as the Taliban leadership maintains a safe base of operations inside Pakistan, it will be hard for coalition forces to gain the upper hand against the insurgents in Afghanistan. After months of mounting frustration in Washington over Pakistan's unwillingness to crack down on Afghan Taliban leaders, Pakistan has recently engaged in cooperation that could help turn the tide in the war in Afghanistan.

Pakistani and U.S. authorities confirmed that they captured the number two Taliban leader, Mullah Baradar, in early February. Additional reports indicate that at least four other senior Taliban leaders also may have been captured in Pakistan, including Mullah Abdul Kabir, a deputy prime minister in the former Taliban regime and a member of the Taliban Shura; former Taliban finance minister Agha Jan Mohtasim; and two "shadow governors" of Afghan provinces.

Afghan Interior Minister Hanif Atmar declared on February 24 that he hoped these arrests signaled the beginning of a "large-scale" Pakistani operation against the Taliban. Afghan officials further claimed that the Pakistani government had agreed to turn Baradar over to the Afghan authorities. On February 26, however, Pakistan's Lahore High Court ruled that Baradar and four other unnamed Taliban leaders could not be extradited to face charges. If Pakistan were nevertheless to hand over Baradar to the Afghans, it would be a promising sign of new Pakistan-Afghanistan cooperation at a critical time in the Afghanistan war.

It is unclear why Pakistan is now cracking down on the Afghan Taliban. Most U.S. observers believe that Islamabad may be seeking to ensure that it will have a role in determining any potential settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan. Others say it is partly a response to mounting U.S. pressure. President Obama reportedly appealed directly to the Pakistanis to crack down on the Afghan Taliban through a letter hand-delivered by National Security Adviser General James Jones to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari last fall.

The letter coincided with revelations of the arrest of David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American who worked with the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba in Pakistan to scout sites for the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. Headley was arrested by U.S. authorities in early October, and a former major in the Pakistani army was named in the U.S. affidavit as serving as Headley's handler for the Mumbai attacks. Since then, the U.S. has repeatedly made the case to Pakistan that facilitating some terrorist groups while fighting others is counterproductive.

It is possible that this message is finally beginning to sink in. But given Pakistan's long track record of support for militant groups fighting in Afghanistan and India, it is too early to determine whether the most recent arrests signal a permanent reversal of past policies, or merely a tactical shift to demonstrate leverage in the region.

Avoiding Pakistani Leadership in Reconciliation Process

The U.S. must be clearheaded about Pakistani goals in the region and accept that Pakistani interests often run counter to U.S. efforts to protect the U.S. homeland from future 9/11-type terrorist acts. While the U.S. seeks to prevent Afghanistan from again serving as a safe haven for international terrorists, Pakistan's primary goal is to curb Indian influence in the country. Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani recently restated in media interviews that India remains the primary threat to Pakistan and the focus of the Pakistani military.[4]

Pakistan's fixation on India should give pause to U.S. policymakers when considering Pakistan's expressed interest in brokering peace talks with the Taliban. According to U.S. media reports, Pakistani officials have offered to prevail on deadly groups like the Jalaluddin Haqqani network to break their ties to al-Qaeda.[5] Pakistani military strategists view the Haqqani network as its most effective tool for blunting Indian influence in Afghanistan. (Credible U.S. media reports indicate that the Haqqani network, in cooperation with Pakistani intelligence, was responsible for the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008, killing more than 50 people, including two senior Indian officials.)

The Haqqani network has also been a major facilitator of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, and responsible for some of the fiercest attacks against U.S. and coalition forces. Haqqani forces were responsible for a truck bombing that killed two U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan's Khost province in March 2008, and for the storming of the Serena Hotel in Kabul during a high-level visit by Norwegian officials in January 2008.

Jalaluddin Haqqani is a powerful independent militant leader whose followers operate in the border areas between Khost in Afghanistan and North Waziristan in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). He has been allied with the Afghan Taliban for nearly 15 years, having served as tribal affairs minister in the Taliban regime in the late 1990s. Jalaluddin's son, Sirajuddin, is reportedly increasingly taking operational control of the militant network. The source of the Haqqanis' power lies primarily in their ability to forge relations with a variety of different terrorist groups (al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, and India-focused groups like the Jaish-e-Muhammed), while also maintaining links to Pakistani intelligence. U.S. officials have appealed to Pakistani leaders to crack down on the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, but have been rebuffed with declarations that the Pakistani military is over-stretched and incapable of taking on too many militant groups at once.

In a demonstration of the extent to which Pakistani goals in the region diverge from those of the U.S., a Pakistani official was recently quoted in The Financial Times stating that, "with Pakistan's help, and only with Pakistan's help, the return of the Taliban to the political high table will be a far more stabilizing development for Afghanistan than... a [U.S. surge]." [6] Given the Taliban's continued links with al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations targeting the U.S., a Taliban seat at "the political high table," while serving Pakistan's strategic interests, would likely only increase the chances for future terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland. The Financial Times article also notes that "Pakistan sees its ties to Taliban as a way to wring concessions from Washington, including over Kashmir and regarding its influence in Afghanistan."

The Obama Administration has recently begun to challenge the Pakistanis on their lack of consistency in countering terrorism in the region. The Kerry-Lugar bill passed by the Senate last September (the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009) authorizes $7.5 billion in civilian aid to Pakistan over the next five years and conditions military assistance on Pakistani measures to address terrorist threats. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates hinted that Pakistan could be doing more to fight terrorism when he noted in a recent op-ed in the Pakistani daily The News that seeking to distinguish between different terrorist groups is counterproductive. U.S. Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair recently elaborated on this point when he testified before Congress on February 2, 2010, that "Pakistan's conviction that militant groups are strategically useful to counter India are hampering the fight against terrorism and helping al-Qaeda sustain its safe haven." U.S. officials must continue to make such statements and be prepared to follow them up with action in order to demonstrate that Washington's patience with Islamabad is not unlimited.

Conclusion

If the U.S. seeks to prevent Afghanistan from turning back into a safe haven for terrorists that want to attack the U.S., it must convince Pakistani officials to crack down on Taliban leaders who find sanctuary in their country. Pakistani public opinion is beginning to turn against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. If the U.S. tries to find a quick exit from Afghanistan, however, these gains in Pakistan will be squandered and the Taliban's ideology will regain legitimacy throughout the region.

The U.S. should support Afghan reconciliation efforts on the ground in Afghanistan diplomatically and financially, and at the same time militarily squeeze the Taliban leadership based in Pakistan that is still closely linked to al-Qaeda. These actions should occur simultaneously so that the local Taliban fighters view the U.S., NATO, and Afghan authorities as being on the winning side, and simultaneously see a process through which they can switch sides without punishment. But U.S. over-anxiousness to negotiate with the senior Taliban leadership in Pakistan would likely undermine efforts to coax local fighters into the political mainstream, thus jeopardizing General McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan and prolonging instability throughout the region.

 

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A titanic power struggle in Kabul

By M K Bhadrakumar

The flurry of diplomatic activity in Kabul during the past week heralded the opening shots of a titanic power struggle, the outcome of which will largely determine the contours of an Afghan settlement.

In what is shaping up as a multi-layered power struggle, the principal protagonists are the United States and Britain, Pakistan, Iran and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The struggle is set to accelerate during the coming weeks and will lead all the way to the Afghan loya jirga (the traditional tribal council), which by present indications is expected to take place in Kabul on April 29. Undoubtedly, the stakes are high for all protagonists and the battle lines are being drawn.

The sudden dash by Pakistani army chief Pervez Kiani to Kabul last Friday to discuss "matters of mutual interest" with Karzai, the two-day unannounced mission on Monday by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (whose primary intent was to check out on the intensifying exchanges between Kabul and Tehran), Iranian President Mahmud Ahmedinejad's consultations in Kabul on Wednesday ostensibly to discuss the bright prospects for Afghan-Iranian economic cooperation, and Karzai's own two-day trip to Islamabad from Wednesday - all served to highlight the overlapping templates of the power struggle.

Karzai digs in ...
In a fashion, forming part of the mosaic was London's timely decision last week to place Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain's special representative for Afghanistan and formerly ambassador in Kabul, in the Afghan capital as its suave Man Friday in the crucial time until the loya jirga is safely home and dry. Ideally, this role could and should have been US special representative for AfPak Richard Holbrooke's by birthright, but then, his type of muscular diplomacy may prove counterproductive in the sensitive times ahead. Cowper-Coles, on the other hand, can be equally tough as Holbrooke, while smiling all the way.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband's major speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Wednesday, "The war in Afghanistan: How to end it", assertively underscored that London intended to be very much in the driving seat in steering Afghanistan politically to a new era.

Several templates are discernible in the power struggle. First and foremost, Karzai insists on his legitimate leadership as elected president under the Afghan constitution to lead national reconciliation which can bring the war to an end.

This translates as his prerogative to convene the loya jirga, and decide its composition. Karzai also holds a mandate from the January 28 international conference in London to draw up the "reintegration" plan for the Taliban, which he is expected to present and seek approval at the loya jirga. Karzai has said his confidante, Ghulam Farooq Wardak will handle the "reintegration" plan.

Karzai hand-picked Wardak for education minister in his new cabinet in December. Having previously held the post at the ministry, a large recipient of Western aid, Wardak was not one of the new faces that the US and Britain had sought.

The choice of Wardak as mentor for the "reintegration" plan is significant. He comes from an influential Pashtun family in Wardak province adjacent to Kabul and Parwan, which forms the gateway to Bamiyan. Wardak is a base of Deobandis and Hezb-i-Islami, and the Taliban have been strongly entrenched in the province.

Conceivably, Karzai would have considered while deciding on Wardak's appointment that he was educated in Peshawar and lived and worked there for a decade. Wardak should be acceptable to Pakistan. This is important as Karzai needs maximum cooperation from Pakistan in ensuring that the loya jirga endorses his road map for the reconciliation of the Taliban. There is always an inherent risk that the assembly turns out to be "uncontrollable" once in session and throws up nasty surprises.

Therefore, Karzai is making preparations with great circumspection, no matter how the Americans and British attempt to force the pace. Washington and London were originally not in favor of Karzai's plan to hold the loya jirga. Now they are stuck with it - and are determined to influence its proceedings.

Their preference will be that the loya jirga leads to a consensus favoring formation of an "interim government", which would force Karzai to step down from the presidency.

... as Miliband baits Pakistan
Karzai, on the other hand, hopes to conduct the parliamentary elections soon after the loya jirga, which would consolidate his power base for the following four years. He has already decreed that no more will there be any US or British proxies in the Afghan election commission.

The fact of the matter is that while both the US and Britain may have grudgingly accepted Karzai's re-election as president, they estimate that he has long since ceased to be anything other than an obstacle to the kind of Afghan settlement that fits their geopolitical agenda towards Central Asia.

Miliband's lecture at the MIT on Wednesday was, in fact, intended to send a loaded "message" to Karzai. "The international community will judge him [Karzai] by his actions, not his words ... The Afghans themselves must own, lead and drive such political engagement [with the Taliban]," Miliband pointed out.

Miliband's speech stopped short of calling for an interim government. He urged Karzai to consider bringing Taliban supporters into the political system and argued that "now is the time for the Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigor and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort".

The Western countries view Karzai's idea of holding a loya jirga as a move by the astute leader to extract legitimacy for continuing as president by heading off the need for an interim government that would require he step down. They anticipate that if Karzai has his way with the loya jirga, he will set the political calendar for the coming years, which would in turn devolve on his presidency till 2013 at a minimum and block any chance of "regime change".

Miliband in his speech literally appealed over the head of Karzai to the participants of the loya jirga when he underlined the framework of a "political outreach", which he saw in terms of a sustainable Afghan government with more inclusive ethnic Pashtun participation, primacy on regional governors and governing councils, a pronounced shift of the locus of constitutional power away from the president to the parliament and a political leadership in Kabul that will forcefully address the "pervasive problem of corruption" in the Afghan government.

Miliband made an undisguised pitch for rallying Islamabad's support by stressing that Pakistan "holds many of the keys ... [and] clearly has to be a partner in finding solutions to Afghanistan". Interestingly, he also called on countries with "vested interests" in Afghanistan - including India, Russia, Turkey and China - to recognize the basic fact that "the status quo in Afghanistan hurts all".

With Miliband's speech, the US and Britain have literally prompted the loya jirga to dictate the peace terms to Karzai.

Iran stands by Karzai ...
As the Afghan leader sizes up the challenge ahead. so too is Tehran, which is extremely concerned that if the US-British game plan succeeds, it will lead to an open-ended presence of American troops in the region bordering eastern Iran, which Washington can always put to use to pressure Iran.

Ahmedinejad's visit to Kabul on Wednesday was primarily intended to make a big statement of solidarity with Karzai, urging the latter to stand up to the challenge and conveying Tehran's willingness to stand shoulder-to-shoulder by his side .

In essence, Tehran abhors the idea of a Taliban-dominated Afghanistan and wants a settlement that duly reflects Afghanistan's plural society. Tehran shares Karzai's thinking that while the Taliban can participate in any inclusive settlement, that has to be on the basis of a willingness to lay down arms and accept the Afghan constitution, which provides for a democratic plural society safeguarding the interests of all religious and linguistic groups.

The US and Britain have been trying to tarnish Karzai by caricaturing him as an appeaser of the Taliban, but Tehran sees through the Western ploy.

Thus, Karzai can hope to tap into Iran's influence with various Afghan groups, which traditionally focused on the Persian-speaking Tajiks and Hazara Shi'ites but today also extends to segments of the Pashtun population. Significantly, Ahmedinejad was received on Wednesday at Kabul airport by the Northern Alliance leader Mohammed Fahim, who has become the first vice president in Karzai's new government despite strong opposition from the US and Britain.

On the other hand, the US and Britain can count on Afghanistan's former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah to raise the banner of revolt against Karzai in the loya jirga. They can also count on sundry disgruntled old war horses like Sibgatullah Mojaddidi and Burhanuddin Rabbani to criticize and isolate Karzai. Some circles have already floated the name of Mustafa Zahir Shah, a grandson of the late Afghan king, as the head of an interim political dispensation in Kabul to succeed Karzai.

But with help from Iran (and Turkey and Russia), Karzai can hope to have the bulk of the Northern Alliance extending support to him. Besides, Karzai has also reached out to Hizb-i-Islami leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who is interested in a political accommodation in the power structure in Kabul.

... but all eyes are on Islamabad ...
The "swing factor" nonetheless will be the extent of Pakistan's cooperation. Iran and Turkey, which remain supportive of Karzai's leadership, have been working with Pakistan to form a sort of regional condominium that offers a regional solution to the Afghan conflict. Ultimately, Pakistan's mind will be swayed by the extent of confidence it has in Karazi's ability to accommodate its legitimate interests in Afghanistan.

And right in the first circle of Pakistan's interests falls Islamabad's demand that Karzai should not stand in the way of a rollback of Indian influence in Afghanistan.

From the available reports, Karzai used his visit to Islamabad to assure Islamabad will have a critical role in any reconciliation with the Taliban. He acknowledged publicly that without Pakistan's cooperation, his reconciliation plan would not get anywhere.

Karzai also seems to have extended assurances as regards Pakistan's legitimate strategic interests. Of note, he had a separate meeting with Kiani.

In his press conference in Islamabad on Thursday, Karzai drew a subtle distinction between India and Pakistan in the Afghan perceptions. Karzai said, "India is a close friend of Afghanistan but Pakistan is a brother of Afghanistan. Pakistan is a twin brother. We are conjoined twins, there's no separation."

Karzai also stressed Afghanistan's neutrality. "Afghanistan does not want any proxy wars on its territory. It does not want a proxy war between India and Pakistan. It does not want a proxy war between Iran and the US on Afghanistan."

However, Pakistan will still closely watch how Karzai goes about fulfilling his assurances that its concerns on India would be addressed, while drawing satisfaction that his tone and tenor on Wednesday and Thursday were exceedingly positive.

The Pakistani leadership went out of the way to roll out the red carpet for Karzai. Almost the entire cabinet turned up at the airport to receive him. A cosmetic outcome of Karzai's visit is that the two sides have agreed to revive the two-year-old idea of holding joint jirgas. Thus, a mini-jirga ("Jirhagai') will be held in Kabul following the April 29 assembly, and another loya jirga in Islamabad later on with a view to narrow down the differences between the two countries and to delineate the role of Pashtun tribes straddling the border areas.

Quintessentially, Pakistan has put its demands vis-a-vis Karzai on the table: Islamabad seeks the "stabilization" of Afghanistan with a minimal Indian role and presence and expects traditional Pashtun influence in the power structure in Kabul will be restored.
The Pakistan army has also offered to help train the Afghan army, which will be a key instrument of power for the Afghan state. "I cannot afford to have Afghan soldiers on my western borders trained by the Indians with an Indian mindset," Kiani is reported to have remarked recently.

... as it bargains with the US
Speaking to the media in Islamabad, however, Karzai left the door open on Kiani's offer. He said, "We have discussed this offer from Pakistan where some equipment has also been offered. We accepted this [equipment]. As far as the training of Afghan soldiers, my minister of defense will study and we will come back on this." He pointedly recalled that the Soviets had also "trained" the Afghan army and "so, we are careful".

Without doubt, Islamabad will now turn towards Washington and assess what it has to offer. There is much satisfaction in Islamabad that recent US statements have virtually acknowledged Pakistan's drive for gaining "strategic depth" in Afghanistan.

Almost the entire Pakistani leadership is going to Washington for consultations in the coming weeks. Pakistani navy chief Admiral Noman Bashir reaches the US capital on March 17, followed by Kiani and Inter-Services Intelligence chief Shuja Pasha, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi at the end of the month, and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in the second week of April. Pakistan-US strategic dialogue is also scheduled to take place in Washington in the last week of March at the level of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Beyond the Indian presence in Afghanistan, beyond Karzai's political future, beyond imponderables over the loya jirga, and even beyond the fortunes of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, Islamabad will calculate that the time has come to assess if, how and to what extent the US is prepared to accommodate Pakistan's aspirations as a regional power.Specifically, Islamabad expects parity with India as regards the US strategic partnership.

Islamabad estimates that with the endgame in progress in Afghanistan, the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bandwagon is already preparing to roll onto the Central Asian steppes, and the great game for the containment of Russia, China and Iran is about to commence in earnest.

The first moves on the Central Asian chessboard have been made already. Washington won over to its side Uzbekistan, a key country in Central Asia, and has significantly eroded Russia's traditional ties with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The US Embassy in Bishkek last week confirmed the sensational news that Washington proposes to build up a counter-terrorism training center in Batken in southern Kyrgyzstan, close to China's border, which ironically enough will be in immediate proximity to a proposed Russian base.

That is to say, the US estimates that Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is in reality much ado about nothing. At any rate, Tashkent has succeeded in paralyzing the CSTO's proposed activities with regard to mobilizing a rapid reaction force that would have rivalled NATO as a guarantor of regional security.

According to the US ambassador in Bishkek, Tatiana C Gfoeller, "Brand new, modern military equipments ... are arriving in Kyrgyzstan daily and being distributed to Kyrgyzstan's armed forces." It seems the crack Scorpion Battalion of the Kyrgyz military has received "extensive training from US forces".

Close on the heels of Holbrooke's Central Asia tour last month, Central Command chief David Petraeus paid a two-day visit to Kyrgyzstan this week. Following the talks in Bishkek, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said that "all the main challenges and security threats to Central Asia" come from Afghanistan and "therefore, Kyrgyzstan is interested in providing security and stability in this country, and will continue its efforts to offer its endeavor for rebuilding Afghanistan - along with the international community".

Pakistan will carefully factor in all these trends, which unmistakably suggest that the Barack Obama administration has quietly expanded its AfPak brief to include Central Asia so as to bring it in harmony with NATO's future enlargement.

Islamabad will assess that progression of the AfPak policy will involve greater US (and NATO) dependence on cooperation from Pakistan, which is the strategic "beachhead" to the Central Asian hinterland.

All in all, therefore, Pakistan will take a final call on the developing Afghanistan situation only after the series of intense consultations in Washington. Karzai would have estimated that Pakistan is keeping its trump cards in readiness for playing at a penultimate stage in the titanic power struggle unfolding in the Hindu Kush. Afghanistan's future depends on the US-Pakistan strategic nexus.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

 

[ajtr]

Lisa Curtis' point in Taliban Reconciliation: Obama Administration Must Be Clear And Firm is clear, but so far US indications are that they do not intend to follow that advice. It might be a bit of this and a bit of that, but not quite! pakistan has offered the tired, effette American leadership of a sort of victory without too much more of costs - and the leadership, tired and bumbling it is, seems to find the prospect tantalising!

(pakistan OTOH, makes the usual mistake of punching above its weight - it might put up unacceptably high prices that might eventually be its undoing - but then this thread is about Afghanistan!) India's options seem limited. Having taken a clear stance against placing military on the ground (for whatever reasons- good or bad), the role will be similar to that Japan - aid giver, hard worker but always reviled and derided behind the back, and with zero influence! However we may feel, a bit of retreat is inevitable. We can keep up the dialog with the players and seek to influence through them. But right now, on that count pakistan's cards are stronger. Any request from them will be have to be conceded by practically all the players.

The objectives of US / UK / NATO and that of Iran / Afghanistan (as in current leadership) do not coincide. pakistan seeks to join the side that will pay more. China and Central Asian states seem to be hedging by playing both sides. Russian also hedging their bet with pakistan as indicative of Putin's speech in delhi as he advices new delhi to recognise pakistan's effort in curbing terror as seen in this article: Old allies, new friendship . India is definitely isolated. In the long run though, we can recover. Good work done and the links established will eventually pay off. But short term retreat appears inevitable. Medium term chaos too appears quite likely. India currently has a leadership that has no stomach for these kinds of things - this is the problem with placing non political academics (Manmohan Singh,PM) and failed local politicians (SM KRISHNA, the external affairs minister) in power. A successful politician would have fought many such fights in his/ her career, and will have his/her adrenalin pump at the situation. But I cannot see economists or local caste leaders doing that (hell, even Gurus like K. Subrahmanyam sing a new song!).

 

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Russia urged to refocus on Kabul

India is calling on Russia to reach out to Afghanistan's neighbours to start preparing a strategy for when Nato forces pull out to prevent extremist forces destabilising central Asia and southern Russia.

New Delhi's desire to intensify talks with Moscow over the future of Afghanistan comes as concerns rise among neighbours of the war-torn state about a possible reconciliation with the Taliban and ultimately its return to political power in Kabul.

Russia has preferred to keep a focus on the drugs-trafficking menace emanating from Afghanistan rather than consider a fuller international engagement over a country that inflicted humiliation on the Russian army in the 1980s. Afghanistan is highly sensitive for Russia, as it lost thousands of soldiers in its war with mujahideen fighters, a defeat that encapsulated its decline in the closing years of the cold war.

Speaking after a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, said last night: "We have agreed to intensify our consultations on Afghanistan and the challenges posed by terrorism and extremism in our region."

New Delhi is concerned that a Nato withdrawal could lead to Afghanistan falling under the control of extremists, undermining regional security and handing Pakistan, the Taliban's traditional sponsor, more influence. As such it is very keen to develop - with Afghanistan's neighbours - plans to shore up the long-term stability of the country.

Top Indian officials say India is "engaging deeply" with Russia over Afghanistan, and that shared concerns were discussed by the two leaders. The Nato alliance will be wary of deeper dialogue between Russia and India. The US and other western powers want India, which has a $1.3bn development programme in Afghanistan, to remain aligned with Nato policy. They fear any suggestion of steps towards reforming the former Northern Alliance, a military political coalition of Uzbekhs, Tajiks and Hazara, that fought the Taliban from the late 1990s with support from regional allies.

Earlier this week, an influential member of India's National Security Advisory Board told Russian diplomats that Moscow should "chart a hedging strategy" with India, Iran and central Asian states in response to "very disquieting" events in Afghanistan. Kanwal Sibal, a former foreign secretary and ambassador to Russia, said the US wanted to "cut its losses in Afghanistan as quickly as possible".

"India and Russia should be worried at the strategic depth that the Wahabbist [a militant form of Sunni ideology] will acquire in the region, threatening central Asia and India," he added.

Indian concerns about Afghanistan - where the US recently committed another 30,000 troops - have been mounting since the London conference on the war-torn country earlier this year.

On the eve of that conference General Stanley McChrystal, the Nato commander in Afghanistan, raised the prospect that the US troop surge would lead to a negotiated peace with the Taliban.

Advisers to Mr Singh have criticised the proposal to buy off Taliban fighters, saying the approach is rooted in Britain's 19th century failures in Afghanistan.

 

[Taimur Kashmiri]

with all due respect, i dont think india had much of a choice

whereas we have invested over $500 million in Afghanistan (along with many doctors and engineers sent for free as goodwill) india has invested billions in basic projects like road-works and other activities.

neither country would be "left out" --- but as Afghanistan is (in absence of better words) the backyard, we have a lot more at stake. It appears that the U.S. has consulted with Pakistan and the idea is to weed out moderate elements of taleban who are willing to put down their arms and work with the government. Taleban is also isolating and moving itself away from radical forces such as Al Qaeda and the Islamist movement in Uzbekistan -- which is inoperable within its own country due to near police-state conditions existing there.

The promising news is that FATA will stablize once Afghanistan stablizes. The trade opportunities are immense. We will provide access not just to Afghanistan - but also land-locked Central Asia republics -- to our ports and highways network. Are commerce and trade activities will be highly inter-linked.

the main priority is also to render useless the warlords who happen to get support from the Northern Alliance government, which is even to this day deeply unpopular among the 42% Pakhtun population.

 

[ajtr]

Strategic rethink needed

FOR years, the United States has miscalculated Pakistani strategic interests in Afghanistan, which continues to involve tactical and operational support for some sections of the Taliban.

It is now becoming clearer how Pakistani interests are driven not only by ‘strategic depth’ — military doctrine oriented towards India — but also by concerns of regional encirclement and hedging against expected western withdrawal.

In part due to western misconceptions of Pakistani interests, threat-perceptions and capacities, Pakistan has possessed far more bargaining power in its relationships with the US and Afghanistan than conventional estimates of relative power predict. In the near-term, Pakistan has significant leverage controlling routes for most Nato supply lines, commanding influence over various militant networks, and signalling greater resolve in its commitments. But this asymmetric leverage may soon erode.

Part of strategic assessment is projecting a range of trends, even if they currently seem unlikely. If Pakistani leaders continue to ignore emerging trends in the Central Asian and northern Afghan theatre and fail to update their beliefs and bargaining strategies, particularly with the US and Nato forces, they risk overplaying their hand. The irony is that the current Pakistani strategy that hedges on militant ties may eventually lead to the very isolation and encirclement it has sought to avoid.

Pakistan has not paid enough attention to the present and future economic shifts in Afghanistan that could potentially shake up the regional balance of power. Afghanistan has long depended on its southern neighbour for its primary source of trade, transport and communications. Its ties and border with China were narrow, its links to its Central Asian cousins (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) were obstructed by the Soviet Iron Curtain, and despite strong cultural ties to Iran, Afghanistan’s economic insignificance and series of hostile governments inhibited this relationship.

As a result of Afghanistan’s isolation, Pakistan has commanded tremendous political and economic influence over Afghanistan, and, by consequence, seemingly unfettered leverage over the US/Nato occupation since 2001. But emerging economic trends can precipitate shifts in power, alliances and geopolitical leverage.

The first real shift is China’s entrance onto the scene. China’s $3bn investment in Afghanistan’s Anyak copper mine will require the construction of a new railroad between Afghanistan and China’s Xinjiang province and an electricity station. Once online, investments in other critical resources like coal, iron, aluminium and marble will rise and induce even more trade linkages between the two countries. This is even without prospecting for other game-changing resources like oil and gas that have long been suspected to be in abundance in Afghanistan.

Second, northern Afghanistan’s links to Central Asia will continue to deepen. Thanks to an Indian-constructed bridge in 2007 linking Afghanistan and Tajikistan, trade through that route increased sevenfold within a year and Afghan land values along that route shot up dramatically. Not to be outdone, Russia too has offered to facilitate a rail transit corridor linking Europe to Afghanistan via Uzbekistan. Increasing Afghan involvement in Central Asia can spin off and spill over, positioning it to capitalise on its natural endowments and become the regional hub of water resources, energy distribution and hydroelectric power.

Third, Afghanistan is developing an alternative southern route to the Arabian Sea. While in the past, landlocked Afghanistan depended on Pakistan to transport its goods through the port of Karachi, Indian completion in 2008 of the 135-mile road from Nimroz province to Iran’s Chahbahar port provides an efficient transport corridor for goods between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.

With the Khyber Pass under constant attack, this insurgent-free route could provide an alternative for supplying western troops with non-lethal goods and aid to the Afghan government. This would cost Pakistan economically as well as geopolitically since currently 75 per cent of non-lethal supplies are transported through the port of Karachi. If the US is able to reopen its base in Uzbekistan as planned, Pakistan’s influence will erode even further.

Not all Afghan economic trends are bypassing Pakistan. Projects to build high-transmission power lines and natural gas pipelines connecting South to Central Asia are being funded. But the violent instability of southern Afghanistan and Pakistani tribal areas threatens these projects by driving up transaction costs and sowing distrust. If Pakistan cannot demonstrably control these regions and contain militants, other regional integration paths will attract states and investors, eventually locking in with repeated use, and locking out Pakistan.

Exclusion from the regional economic future is hardly the worst part. China’s rising long-term investments in Afghanistan and expanding influence will make it increasingly intolerant of Pakistani-supported Taliban elements, especially those that prove disruptive to its economic interests or foment and support Uighur militancy in Xinjiang, as the Taliban did in the 1990s. This could cost Pakistan an arms supplier, a great-power patron and its wedge strategy with the US.

The most disturbing consequence for Pakistan is that these economic trends are creating conditions for a de facto partitioned Afghan state. The more stable north and west — with international linkages, economic growth and acceptance of the Afghan central government and western troop presence — can emerge self-sufficient and defensible while pockets of insurgency engulf the south and east.

Pakistan’s support for certain Taliban elements that underwrite this territorial partition could result in a Pakhtun rump state that galvanises nationalist separatism in Pakistan’s tribal frontier. Rather than providing a zone for strategic depth, this ‘blowback’ scenario could redirect militant networks against the Pakistan state, thus compounding its security dilemmas, overstretched military and economic fragilities.

Shortsighted Pakistani strategy may eventually result in a Pakistan engulfed in militant fires while surrounded by unfriendly states after years of Pakistani complicity with militant externalities. In other words, regional economic and political trends shaped by Pakistani policy could lead to the very isolation and encirclement it most fears.

For these reasons, as Gen Kayani has recently intimated, Pakistan needs to begin recalibrating its position on Afghanistan, before it is too late. This requires a serious reappraisal of its militant ties, credible Pakistan buy-in that marries its own geo-strategic interests with Afghan and regional stability, and real accommodation of some US and Nato interests.

 

[ajtr]

U.S.-Pakistan ties stalk Afghan peace

M.K. Bhadrakumar
Pakistan insists that all dealings with the Taliban will need to be routed through its agencies. Yet, senior U.S. officials actually end up commending Pakistan's role.
The idea of engaging the Taliban, which welled up stealthily to the surface during the London conference on Afghanistan on January 29, has since become official American and British policy. It has imparted a competitive edge to the region's political environment. The resultant tensions complicate the prospects of the Afghan Loya Jirga, which by present indications is expected to take place in Kabul on April 29. Diplomatic activity has noticeably picked up. The recent visitors to Kabul include Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the Pakistani Army chief Pervez Kayani. Indeed, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's two-day trip to Islamabad served to highlight the gathering momentum.

Mr. Karzai insists on his legitimate leadership role as the elected President to navigate the national reconciliation. This translates as his prerogative to convene the Loya Jirga and decide on its participants. Mr. Karzai is drawing up a “reintegration” plan for the Taliban, which he will present at the Loya Jirga. The parliamentary elections that may follow the Loya Jirga, if they take place as planned in August, would consolidate Mr. Karzai's power base as he advances the road map to “reintegrate” the Taliban.

On the other hand, Washington and London, which originally disfavoured the idea of convening a Loya Jirga and preferred putting primacy on reconciling the Taliban, are now determined to influence its proceedings in the direction of favouring the formation of an “interim government.” The crux of the matter is that while they may have grudgingly accepted Mr. Karzai's re-election as President last year, he has long since ceased to be their preferred choice. The U.S. and British expectation is that the Loya Jirga will arrive at a consensus to bring the Taliban into the political system. As the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said recently, “Now is the time for the Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigour and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort.”

The British hope is that the upcoming Loya Jirga will endorse the need of a “political outreach” in terms of a “sustainable Afghan government” with “more inclusive” Pashtun participation, a decentralised form of government that gives primacy to regional governing councils, a shift of the locus of constitutional power away from the President to Parliament and a political leadership in Kabul that will forcefully address the “pervasive problem of corruption” in the Afghan government. In short, the U.S.-U.K. approach is to concede autonomy to Taliban-led local administration with Mr. Karzai notionally as the fountainhead of the new power structures, and thereby integrate the Taliban into the political mainstream, which will bring the war to an end. Curiously, Washington and London remain non-committal on putting any sort of timeline for the vacation of foreign occupation.

In the meanwhile, Pakistan has begun to “finesse” the Taliban with implicit U.S.-British acquiescence. The opaqueness of the exercise remains worrisome. Unsurprisingly, Tehran is extremely concerned that if the U.S.-British game plan succeeds, an open-ended American troop presence in the region may ensue. Mr. Ahmedinejad's visit to Kabul was intended to express solidarity with Mr. Karzai and to bring on to the Loya Jirga's political agenda the central question regarding the vacation of foreign occupation. Equally, Tehran would have misgivings about Taliban-dominated power structures. Tehran plugs for a settlement that takes into account Afghanistan's plural society. Tehran also shares Mr. Karzai's thinking that any inclusive settlement needs to be on the basis of the Taliban's commitment to lay down arms and abide by the Afghan Constitution.

Mr. Karzai could hope to tap into Iran's influence with various Afghan groups, which traditionally meant the Persian-speaking Tajiks and Hazara Shias but today also extends to segments of the Pashtun population. With help from Iran (and Turkey and Russia), Mr. Karzai could hope to have the bulk of the erstwhile Northern Alliance groups extend support to him. Besides, he has also reached out to Hizb-i-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who is interested in a political accommodation. On the contrary, the U.S. and Britain count on various elements to raise the banner of revolt against Mr. Karzai in the Loya Jirga, such as opposition leader Abdullah and disgruntled old war-horses of the Mujahideen era like Sibgatullah Mojaddidi and Burhanuddin Rabbani.

The “swing factor” nonetheless lies in the extent to which Pakistan cooperates with Mr. Karzai. Iran and Turkey, which remain supportive of Mr. Karzai's leadership, have been encouraging Pakistan to work with them as part of a sort of regional initiative. Pakistan pays lip service to regional cooperation but in the ultimate analysis, it will only be swayed by its hardcore interests. Pakistan has immensely gained out of the U.S.' pragmatism to overlook its dealings with the Taliban. Pakistan today openly flaunts its influence with the Taliban and brazenly insists that all dealings with the Taliban will need to be routed through its agencies. Yet, senior U.S. officials actually end up commending Pakistan's role.

In sum, Pakistan's demands vis-à-vis Mr. Karzai are: Islamabad expects that in the “stabilisation” of Afghanistan any Indian role and presence should be kept out or restricted to a minimal level; it expects to be fully involved in any reconciliation with the Taliban; and it envisages that the traditional Pashtun influence in the power structure in Kabul will be restored.

Mr. Karzai acknowledged in Islamabad that without Pakistan's cooperation, his reconciliation plan would not get anywhere. In his press conference, Mr. Karzai also extended broad assurances as regards Pakistan's so-called legitimate strategic interests. He said, “India is a close friend of Afghanistan but Pakistan is a brother of Afghanistan. Pakistan is a twin brother. We are conjoined twins, there's no separation.” He also stressed Afghanistan's neutrality by saying, “Afghanistan does not want any proxy wars on its territory. It does not want a proxy war between India and Pakistan. It does not want a proxy war between Iran and the U.S. on Afghanistan.”

The Pakistan army has offered to train the Afghan army. Indeed, the NATO remains keen on “Islamisation” of the Afghan war. Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently said that Muslim countries have “valuable cultural and religious awareness and expertise to bring to bear” on the war in Afghanistan. But the Pakistani motivations seem India-centric. Mr. Kiani is reported to have remarked recently, “I cannot afford to have Afghan soldiers on my western borders trained by the Indians with an Indian mindset.”

Of note, Mr. Karzai had a separate meeting with Mr. Kiani in Islamabad. However, Mr. Karzai left open Mr. Kiani's offer. He said, “We have discussed this offer from Pakistan where some equipment has also been offered. We accepted this [equipment]. As far as the training of Afghan soldiers, my minister of defence will study and we will come back on this.” He pointedly recalled that the Soviets had also trained the Afghan army and “so, we are careful.”

Without doubt, having heard out Mr. Karzai, Islamabad will now turn towards Washington to see what is on offer. Mr. Kiani has reason to be satisfied with the U.S. statements virtually acknowledging Pakistan's need for “strategic depth” in Afghanistan. Almost the entire Pakistani leadership is proceeding to Washington in the coming weeks — navy chief Noman Bashir is reaching Washington on March 17, followed by Mr. Kiani and ISI chief Shuja Pasha, foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in end-March and prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in the second week of April. The Pakistan-U.S. strategic dialogue is also scheduled to take place in Washington in the last week of March at the level of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Quite obviously, the time has come for Pakistan to assess if and to what extent the U.S. is prepared to accommodate its aspirations as a regional power. With the endgame in progress in Afghanistan, the U.S. (and NATO) bandwagon is indeed preparing to roll onto the Central Asian steppes. As early moves on the Central Asian chessboard, Washington has been courting Uzbekistan, a key country in the region, and working hard to erode Russia's ties with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Last week American diplomats confirmed the sensational news that the U.S. army will be setting up a counter-terrorism training centre in Batken in southern Kyrgyzstan, close to China's border, where Moscow had previously contemplated setting up a base under Collective Security Treaty Organisation. The U.S's AfPak special representative, Richard Holbrooke undertook a tour of Central Asia last month, the first of its kind “as part of an accelerating intensification of our diplomatic outreach efforts,” during which he made dire futuristic predictions regarding an Al-Qaeda threat.

These ominous regional trends suggest that the AfPak agenda is slouching toward Central Asia. Any credible enlargement by the NATO into Central Asia remains predicated on a stable Afghanistan for which optimal Pakistani cooperation becomes vital. All in all, therefore, Pakistan can take a final call on national reconciliation in Afghanistan only after assessing the outcome of the forthcoming U.S.-Pakistan consultations in Washington. For good or bad, the U.S.-Pakistani strategic nexus may have begun impinging on regional security.

 

[ajtr]

ISI looks to use Hekmatyar to hit Indian interests in Afghanistan

NEW DELHI: With its favourite anti-India terror group in Afghanistan - the Haqqani network, which was responsible for the attacks on Indian embassy in Kabul - coming under heightened international scrutiny, Pakistan's ISI is planning to use one of its old proxies, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, to target Indian interests in the war-torn country.

The move is part of ISI's design to keep attacking Indian establishments in Afghanistan and also skirt around the handicap of not being able to use the Haqqani network under pressure from the US and others.

Indian officials stationed in Kabul have warned of recent meetings between Hizb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) and officials of ISI's joint intelligence (north) team and LeT to plan attacks on Indian establishments in and around Kabul.

Highly places sources said the first such meeting, in which some LeT members were also present and in which plans to target Indians in Afghanistan were specifically discussed, took place on September 29 last year in the mountainous region of Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan. Kunar also happens to be the birthplace of LeT.

"LeT facilitated the meeting which was attended by a least one senior ISI official apart from others. This particular meeting, in fact, serves as real evidence of the coming together of hitherto India specific LeT and groups operating in Afghanistan," said a government source, adding that Kunar continued to be an LeT stronghold even after its headquarters later shifted to Muridke.

The most recent of these meetings is said to have taken place days after the suicide attacks on two guesthouses in Kabul on February 26 which left several Indians dead. The first meeting on September 29, sources said, was also attended by men owing allegiance to the Haqqani network.

Intelligence reports from Kabul say that ISI is reviving its old and extremely close links with Hekmatyar who, in what clearly doesn't bode well for India, is being courted by both the US and the Hamid Karzai government as they go about the process of reconciliation.

After the first meeting with HIG in September 2009, according to intelligence inputs, ISI officials organised several such meetings at regular intervals. LeT members were also present in these meetings.

The joint intelligence (north) wing of ISI is responsible for Afghanistan and Kashmir. Sources said that in some of these meetings since September, officials of joint intelligence (miscellaneous) wing were also present. The infamous Karachi Project - meant to target India - is the brainchild of this wing.

"As per available information, the HIG faction under Hekmatyar has assured ISI of a major strike against Indian interests in Afghanistan. For Hekmatyar, who is desperately seeking an important role in post-war Afghanistan, this is an opportunity to prove his utility to his former bosses in the ISI," said a government source.

The official said that it may be difficult for ISI to get the Haqqani network to target India incessantly because of the intense pressure it has been subjected to by the US to act against the Haqqanis. "The US has taken Pakistan by the scruff of its neck and is forcing it to act against the Haqqani network as it continues to maintain links with al-Qaida. This is even as the US flirts with the idea of getting on board Hekmatyar to further the reconciliation process," the source said.

Hekmatyar, of course, is very bad news for India not just because of his military prowess but because any role for him, as much as for Mullah Omar's Taliban, in the Afghan government can help Pakistan acquire the "strategic depth" it so desperately seeks over India.

"Hekmatyar is just as ill-disposed towards India now as he was many years ago. We have to wait and see if he as powerful and influential today but any role for him in the Afghan establishment will not be good news for India," said strategic affairs expert B Raman.

 

[ajtr]

India has no plan to scale down operations in Afghanistan: Rao

WASHINGTON: Noting that recent attacks on Indians in Afghanistan were aimed at forcing India out of that country, foreign secretary Nirupama Rao on Tuesday ruled out scaling down New Delhi's operations in the war-torn nation.

"We are not scaling down our operations in Afghanistan, we are taking all necessary security measures to safeguard Indian lives there," she said in response to a question at the Widrow Wilson Centre.

Terming it a "barbaric attack against Indians engaged in humanitarian and development work in Afghanistan" she said, February 26 attack was by those who do not wish any other future for Afghanistan except one that suits their sinister ambitions.

"International community should understand that such attempts, if unchecked, would only embolden the same forces that held sway in Afghanistan in the 1990s and caused the tragedy of 9/11," she said.

Arguing that there could not be a distinction between a good Taliban and a bad Taliban, she said that would be disastrous for Afghanistan.