India and geostrategy

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http://www.scribd.com/doc/4812906/INDIA-AND-GEOPOLITICS-

Mackinder summarised his theory in Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919) thus:
Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; (Eurasia)
Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; (Eurasia and Africa)
Who rules the World Island commands the World.

Eighteenth-century Britain, as an island, enjoyed the freedom of the seas; eighteenth-century Prussia was ringed by foes on all sides. One of the US's current great advantages is that, in contrast to Prussia then or Russia today, it has no great powers on its borders.
Here's how the Heartland Theory would apply to Iraq: Get a globe and put your finger on Iraq. Notice how your finger is resting right in the middle, the "heartland," of the Middle East, halfway between Egypt and Pakistan. In 1904, British geographer Mackinder placed his finger on Eastern Europe and declared that to be the "pivot area" or "heartland" of Europe. He declared: "Who commands Eastern Europe commands the heartland; who rules the heartland commands the world island; and who rules the world-island commands the world." (By world-island, he meant the Euro-Asian-African landmass.)
Did anyone buy the Heartland Theory? Yes. Napoleon understood it even before Mackinder was born. That is why he attacked czarist Russia. Moreover, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin and three generations of the world's foremost military strategists embraced it as gospel and acted upon it. Even now, the United States is steering NATO's drive into Mackinder's Heartland with the addition to its ranks of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The essential element in the Heartland Theory is simply "being there." There have been two great shifts in the international balance of power over the past 500 years. The first was the rise of Western Europe, which by the late 17th century had become the richest, most dynamic and expansionist part of the globe. The second was the rise of the United States of America, which between the Civil War and World War I became the single most important country in the world. Right now a trend of equal magnitude is taking places—the rise of Asia, led by China, which will fundamentally reshape the international landscape in the next few decades For America, whether it is preserving jobs or security, recognizing and adapting to this new world order is key.
Today in the beginning of the 21st century; the question might be rephrased: "What is the purpose of international affairs?" and the answer: "To keep the Americans in, the Americans out, and the Americans down." The United States, as the world's only superpower, provides the only game in town. How a nation plays this new game depends on what it needs most and wants most.
"I confess that countries are pieces on a chessboard," said Lord Curzon, viceroy of India in 1898, "upon which is being played out a great game for the domination of the world." Zbigniew Brzezinski, adviser to several presidents and a guru admired by the Bush team, has written virtually those same words. In his book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, he writes that the key to dominating the world is central Asia, with its strategic position between competing powers and immense oil and gas wealth. "To put it in terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires," he writes, one of "the grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy" is "to keep the barbarians from coming together".

Geography

The first person to mention "the Middle East" in print seems to have been General Sir Thomas Gordon, a British intelligence officer and director of the Imperial Bank of Persia. In an article published in 1900, Gordon, who was concerned with protecting British-ruled India from Russian threats, located it in Persia, or present-day Iran, and Afghanistan. Two years later, an US naval historian, Captain Alfred Mahan, also referred to the Middle East in an article entitled The Persian Gulf and International Relations. Despite Gordon's earlier article, Mahan is usually credited with coining the term, and as an enthusiastic advocate of sea power, he centered his Middle East on the Gulf and its coasts.
The term was brought into popular usage by a series of 20 articles that appeared in the Times in 1902 and 1903 under the heading The Middle Eastern Question. Written by Valentine Chirol, head of paper's foreign department, the articles expanded Mahan's concept of the Middle East to include all land and sea approaches to India - Persia, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, the east coast of Arabia, Afghanistan, and Tibet. Wherever the Middle East may actually be, the common thread in all these early debates was how to control it in order to safeguard India, the jewel in Britain's imperial crown. This set a pattern that continues even today: there is nothing within the Middle East, as generally conceived, that binds it together. Yes, it has oil, Islam and the Arabic language, but there are major sources of oil and important centers of Islam outside it too. It is not a region in its own right but a concept devised to suit the policies of outsiders, and it changes shape according to their strategic interests.
The word "middle" was used initially to distinguish the region from the "far" east - India and beyond - and the "near" east - the lands of the eastern Mediterranean sometimes also known as the Levant. By the end of the first world war, however, the distinction between "near" and "middle" was becoming blurred, at least in the minds of British policy-makers. The war had brought the collapse of the Ottoman empire and the rise of Arab nationalism. Britain had gained control over Palestine, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and its strategic interests were changing. Protecting the route to India was still a vital concern, but there was also a growing awareness of the importance of oil.
The analysis of Asian security dynamics is a growth field of late. Many observers characterize schools of thought on the region's future in terms of a debate between the "optimists" and the "pessimists" (as with the dialogue on nuclear proliferation). Optimists point to economic growth and interdependence, and the spread of democracy as reasons to believe that 21st century Asia will be more peaceful than was 20th century Asia. Pessimists, however, envisage rampant anarchy and conflict, sometimes characterized as a move "back to the future." It is likely, however, that if the future holds in store calm and prosperity the traditional tools of military force projection will be of minimal utility. On the other hand, if we do see the emergence of rife instability, these tools may well play a major role in bringing about such a circumstance, and perhaps even in making it worse.
It would seem that the "post-post colonialist" era for Asia entails a more autonomous system than during the cold war, with security dynamics being driven more by indigenous actors and a somewhat reduced US role. In many ways the existence of contested nation-states, political-military conflict, and economic interdependence and cooperation make the region of Asia a serviceable, and perhaps even the best, microcosm of the world as a whole. The South Asian region today is particularly vulnerable to conflict. It has a higher absolute poverty rate than sub-Saharan Africa, abundant transnational ethnic groups, sectarian disputes, terrorist groups, nuclearized powers, massive migration and refugee problems, narcotics trafficking, disputed borders, resource disputes, and rampant political corruption .

India during Colonial times

Currently there is the longest cold war which precedes the cold war of the 20th century after the rise of communism. Russian expansion to the east to the pacific by the 1700 triggered the Europeans to expand worldwide. By the 1800 Europeans (British) had the southern end of the Asian landmass under their control. Russians had expanded towards the central Asia and consolidated by 1900. By the 1900 the British and the Russians were locked in the central Asia for control and influence. By 2000 the Russian empire had receded back to its position in 1800. The Asian landmass has been in the eyes of the Europeans even before America was born. After the dependence of oil for the growth of the modern economy after 1900s the MiddleEast and central Asia have taken a new role in geo-politics. Central Asia has become the center stage of the 21st century and is right in India's backyard. Hence Kashmir takes a prominent place in the Indian geopolitical strategy.
Two people invoked Lord Curzon ideas to define India's new standing in the world. The first was Henry Kissinger, a former American Secretary of State who was talking about India's role in the region stretching from Aden to Singapore. The second was none other than the former External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh. Lord George Nathaniel Curzon, Viceroy of India (1898- 1905) and British Foreign Secretary (1919-24), might only be mentioned in our text books as the man who partitioned Bengal. But within the foreign policy elite, he is recalled as the man who outlined the grandest of the strategic visions for India. Why should the imperialist vision of Lord Curzon - outlined nearly a century ago for British India - be of any significance to New Delhi's foreign policy? Some diplomatists suggest that the political context might have changed, but geography has not. If geography is destiny, India has a pivotal role in the Indian Ocean and its littoral, irrespective of who rules New Delhi.
In his book `The Place of India in the Empire', published in 1909, Lord Curzon talks of India's geopolitical significance. ``On the West, India must exercise a predominant influence over the destinies of Persia and Afghanistan; on the north, it can veto any rival in Tibet; on the north-east and last it can exert great pressure upon China, and it is one of the guardians of the autonomous existence of Siam,'' he wrote.
However, much one might dream about India's strategic future, this is not the kind of role India can play now. Nor is the world going to parcel out the Indian Ocean littoral to India. New Delhi can, however, significantly contribute towards the advancement of the region through political cooperation with other great powers. That precisely is what Mr. Kissinger was talking about when he referred to the ``parallel interests'' of India and the United States from Aden to Singapore. These shared interests include energy security, safeguarding the sea lanes, political stability, economic modernization and religious moderation.

Lord Curzon's emphasis on the value of fixing boundaries, conceived in the context of expanding empires, remains very relevant for India. Settled boundaries can make India's frontiers into zones of economic cooperation rather than bones of political contention. The assessment that ``frontiers, which have so frequently and recently been the cause of war, are capable of being converted into the instruments and evidences of peace'' is even more true in a globalizing world. By leaving territorial and boundary disputes with its key neighbors - Pakistan and China - unresolved for so long, India has tied itself down. Lord Curzon seems to have been aware of the tendency to avoid boundary settlements. ``In Asia,'' he wrote, ``there has always been a strong instinctive aversion to the acceptance of fixed boundaries arising partly from the nomadic habits of the people, partly from the dislike of precise arrangements that is typical of the oriental mind, but more still from the idea that in the vicissitudes of fortune more is to be expected from an unsettled than from a settled frontier.'' Can India take Lord Curzon's advice on frontiers and seek a final resolution of the Kashmir problem with Pakistan and the boundary dispute with China?

 

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1953, a lesson in Krisis management​

17 Aug 2008, 0001 hrs IST, M J Akbar

On August 8, while the same politicians spluttered in Delhi and spleened in Srinagar, Farooq and Omar Abdullah chose to ignore the 55th anniversary of a seminal event in the history of Jammu and Kashmir. On the evening of August 8, 1953, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, using the powers of the Sadar-i-Riyasat Dr Karan Singh, dismissed the government of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, authentic hero of the freedom of India and patriarch of a dynasty that has lasted three generations.

The trigger was an intelligence report, sent by the IB officer in charge of Kashmir, B N Mullik, that Abdullah had left for Gulmarg that morning to make secret contact with a representative from Pakistan. The authenticity of this claim remains in doubt, even if time has made its veracity irrelevant. But for Nehru it was part of a pattern that he could not ignore. Abdullah's unhappiness with Delhi, and Delhi's disenchantment with Abdullah had become a public fact. Abdullah was certain that India was not secular enough; Delhi was equally sure that Abdullah was not Indian enough.

The suspicion had become septic during an agitation in Jammu that summer, spearheaded by the Jana Sangh (predecessor of the BJP). The Jana Sangh was formed in 1951 by Shyama Prasad Mookerjea, a Bengali stalwart of the freedom movement and member of the first Nehru Cabinet after 1947. One of the four points on the Jana Sangh's first manifesto, released on October 21, 1951, was full integration of J&K into India. At its second annual session, in December 1952, Mookerjea announced a popular agitation for the abolition of Article 370, which gave the state specific rights.

By this time Abdullah had begun to openly flirt with ambivalence. While he had little sympathy for Pakistan, he began to crouch and leap towards the idea of independence, an option promoted by America without the camouflage of subtlety. In his biography of Nehru, S Gopal, referring to Volume 5 of The Papers of Adlai Stevenson (edited by W Johnson) notes that "some Indian leaders believed that it was Mrs Loy Henderson, wife of the United States Ambassador, and some CIA agents who encouraged Abdullah to think in these terms".

In the summer of 1950, Abdullah was confident enough to drop broad hints to Sir Owen Dixon, the United Nations representative and publicly rebuke Delhi for giving advice outside defence, external affairs and communications. When Nehru protested, Abdullah sent a letter, dated July 10, 1950, that was a rap on the knuckles rather than a gentle hint: "I have several times stated that we acceded to India because we saw there two bright stars of hope and aspiration, namely Gandhiji and yourself, and despite our having so many affinities with Pakistan we did not join it, because we thought our programme will not fit with their policy. If, however, we are driven to the conclusion that we cannot build our state on our own lines, suited to our genius, what answer can I give to my people and how am I to face them?"

Nehru's debilitating patience was tested further when Abdullah, in a speech at Ranbirsinghpura on April 10, 1952, dismissed full integration into India as "unrealistic, childish and savouring of lunacy". He personalized Kashmir's accession, saying that if anything happened to Nehru, Kashmiris would have to "provide for all eventualities". Although Abdullah tried to make amends in Delhi and at the Madras Congress session by dismissing the idea of independence as foolish, the nuances of doublespeak (a practice that still flourishes among Kashmiri politicians, and which we have been witness to in the last few weeks with increasing intemperance) increased apprehension. Nehru wrote to Maulana Azad on March 1, 1953, "My fear is that Sheikh Sahib, in his present frame of mind, is likely to do something or take some step, which might make things worse..."

America seemed comfortable with what would be worse for India. Between May 1 and 3, Abdullah met Adlai Stevenson (Democratic candidate against Eisenhower and later to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations), their dialogue ending with a seven-hour conversation at which no one else was present. Rumours of American support for independent Kashmir became rampant, and have still not quite died. (Conferences are still frequently held in Washington offering "solutions" that are akin to independence; one such coincided with the present crisis.) On July 13, 1953, Abdullah went a stage further, saying in public, "Kashmir should have the sympathy of both India and Pakistan...It is not necessary for our State to become an appendage of either India or Pakistan."

In that fateful summer of 1953, Jammu became the epicentre of a full-blown agitation in collaboration with the Akali Dal, led by Master Tara Singh. Nehru had added some fuel to this fire by conceding a psychologically provocative demand in what has come to be known as the Delhi Agreement, signed in 1952, by which J&K was granted its own flag. The agitation had a powerful slogan: Ek Desh mein do Vidhaan, Ek Desh mein do Nishaan, Ek Desh mein do Pradhaan, nahin challengey nahin challengey. On May 8, 1953, Mookerjea tried to cross the Madhopur bridge on the Jammu border in order to lead the agitation in Jammu. Abdullah ordered his arrest. On June 23, 1953, he died while still under detention in Abdullah's jail.

The decision to remove Sheikh Abdullah from office had been made at least a week before August 8, on July 31, at a closed-door meeting between Nehru, Mullik and D W Mehra, deputy director of IB, amidst reports that Abdullah was preparing to dismiss what was considered the "pro-India" section of his Cabinet, including his deputy Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad. Mullik describes Nehru as "being nearly overwhelmed by emotion...we realized that he was on the point of uprooting a plant which he had nursed with great care".

There were few contemporaries for whom Nehru had greater affection or admiration. If Sardar Patel brought the rest of the princely states (barring Hyderabad) into the Union of India, then it was the political-personal friendship of Nehru and Abdullah that brought Kashmir to India. Kashmir was not simply the geographical frontier of secular India, it was also its ideological frontier —in Abdullah's words, the "stabilizing force for India".

Nehru began the process of assimilation with geography. There were two pre-Partition routes linking Srinagar to its south, one via Murree, Rawalpindi and Lahore, and the second through Sialkot. Neither would be available to India after Partition. There was a miserable third option, a dirt track via Gurdaspur vulnerable to weather.

Gurdaspur was a Muslim-majority district and the whole of it could have easily gone to Pakistan. Before Sir Cyril Radcliffe arrived in India to map partition, Nehru lobbied hard with Mountbatten to keep this dirt tract within India. When the Radcliffe Award was announced on August 16, Gurdaspur had been split along the line of the Ravi, and Nehru had achieved his purpose. Pakistan has consistently claimed that this was done because of the "personal" influence that Nehru had on the Mountbattens. The road link proved vital when war broke out over Kashmir within six weeks of Partition. It is ironic that the first country to blockade supplies to Srinagar was Pakistan, in early October 1947, as a prelude to hostilities. The official excuse was communal disturbances.

Keeping Kashmir in India proved more difficult than its accession: against the war-energy of Pakistan, international pressure and domestic turmoil. Nehru had made one mistake, when taking, under Mountbatten's advice, the Kashmir issue to the United Nations. He was not going to make another. Friendship with Abdullah became irrelevant. There could be no compromise with the security of India. Sixty people died in the disturbances that followed Abdullah's dismissal, but a potential threat to Indian unity had been averted.

Five and a half decades later, a successor government of the Congress seems impotent as allies like Mehbooba Mufti brazenly threaten to open links with Pakistan, friends proclaim nationalism in Delhi and duplicity in the valley, and pro-Pakistan leaders like Geelani are "liberated" by crowds with utter contempt for authority.

 

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"China to contain India if it meddles in Pakistan", Reveal Chinese Strategists​

. By D. S. Rajan

An unusual disclosure of Beijing's current strategy towards India and Pakistan has come to notice in China recently, which deserves a careful examination. It has been claimed that this strategy of the "Centre" (Zhongyang, in Chinese, meaning Party Centre/Central government), has two main themes, which are given below verbatim:

" There will be important strategic actions in Pakistan; China hopes that India will not fish in troubled waters. Otherwise, China considers that at the time of necessity, it should certainly carry out containment activities".

" There is a pressing need for China and India, most importantly for India and Pakistan, to obviate any interference and speed up the pace of reconciliation. The restart of India-Pakistan reconciliation process, under suspension for one year, is of great significance. China, realizing the need, is appropriately responding to it. China exhorts India not to continue with its stand of "sitting in the fence" and "enjoying the benefits from both directions" in the war against terrorism. Only by following a just road of geo-political harmony, India-Pakistan reconciliation can expand".

The revelation, made in an article captioned " Uncovering of wisdom in the Centre's strategy towards India and Pakistan" (by "Zhan Lue", presumably a high level cadre, attached to the International Institute for Strategic Studies-China- CIISS, with headquarters in Beijing, str.chinaiiss.org, Chinese language, 21 July 2008), has listed further implications of the strategy, which are mentioned below:

Russia- China Tacit Understanding against India

The Chinese strategist has argued that at a time when China and Russia are opposing the US shoulder to shoulder, Russia is dissatisfied over the corresponding India's policy of 'sitting in the fence ' and 'gaining advantage from the both'. "We have seen that China has had the opportunity to rap India on the border issue, after the meeting between the visiting Russian Prime Minister and 'elder brother' Hu Jintao and in this way, India must have become aware of the communication level and tacit understanding between Beijing and Moscow".

The expert went on to say that Russia is also dissatisfied with India's 'most negative' position with regard to expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). India, to a great degree, was helped by Russia for gaining entry into the SCO, but Moscow is worried that as time passes, India can further rub on it; the result may be that Russia may not be able to meet the aspirations of Iran and Pakistan for joining the SCO and this in turn, to a certain extent, may lead to a visible or not so visible weakening of Moscow's power to influence the SCO.

The article has further commented that India, which has assigned itself the position of No.1 power in South Asia, realizes that it cannot equal the status of Russia and China in the SCO and that its position will remain equal to that of Pakistan. This is the reason for its un-enthusiasm for SCO expansion. Pointing out that Russia has its own calculations, the expert has stated that with India in the SCO, a country beset with territorial and traditional contradictions with China, Russia feels that it may be able to at least partially contain China, thereby enabling it to play the role of a 'peacemaker' and sit firmly on the SCO as 'eldest'.

India vs China, Russia and the SCO?

"ZhanLue" has added that in the China-Russia-US confrontation, India is adopting a policy of 'taking advantage of all sides' and hoping to become a 'movable scale' in the Sino-US strategic relation. If there is continuous expansion of anti-US interests of China and Russia, India's such a policy can offend Russia. India's alliance with the US is temporary; as against its ambition in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, India will absolutely not allow the 'wolf to enter the house'. 'Not only that, its immediate interests on getting mutual benefit out of US ties, are exhausted. China has really seen through India's calculations and it is for India to make its choice. India should not be insatiable and offending China, Russia and the SCO will not be in its interests'.

In the view of Chinese expert, Pakistan's strategic action will certainly be unified with what the SCO does, taking an overall view. Pakistan's action will be linked to Russia's basic interests in Iran and Central Asia. This also explains Russia's tacit understanding to China's 'rapping' India.

The Chinese strategist has, in addition, stated that while assessing China's containment of India, it should be noted that Pakistan's 'big action' would not be directed at India, but at Afghanistan; the same has a meaning for India-Pakistan reconciliation. Between a hard line and a soft line, it is for India to decide which one to chose. India must have understood Russian attitude. Indians are also clever.

Comments

It is not understood how a think tank like the CIISS could get inside information on the strategy of the Chinese Communist Party/Government High Command on an important subject like ties with India and Pakistan. This organization had been jingoistic in the past while referring to India and there is no open information on who are its top leaders. Started only in 2002, the CIISS appears to be different from the China Institute of International Strategic Relations, with affiliation to the PLA, functioning for longer years, under the chairmanship of General Xiong Guangkai. Any way, it has to be admitted that the views of any think tank do not necessarily reflect those of the government; but they have the blessings of the authorities. However, considering the apparent clout, which the CIISS enjoys in China (reference earlier articles by this writer), its views merit a high degree of attention, particularly in India. Most striking for New Delhi should be the article's open declaration that Beijing will go in support of Islamabad in the hypothetical case of an India-Pakistan conflict as well as signals that Russia has reached a tacit understanding with China on any action by the latter against India. Notably, no other Chinese media or official comments, leave alone the leadership, have so far expressed such opinions, which go against Beijing's oft-repeated preference for a 'balanced' South Asia policy. Does the article give a signal towards a revision of such policy? Or, is it a deliberate leak to mislead India? These can be valid questions.

 

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BOOK REVIEW: Afghan war's hidden blunders —by Khaled Ahmed​

How We Missed the Story:
Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Hijacking of Afghanistan
By Roy Gutman
Vanguard Books Lahore 2008
Pp322
Available at bookstores in Pakistan

The book brings clarity to the Indo-Pak war number four (or five?) relocated to Afghanistan with India firmly entrenched with the Northern Alliance and the Karzai government, and Pakistan with its proxies embedded in Al Qaeda

[Journalist Gutman has certainly produced the most comprehensive and revealing account to-date of the post-Soviet invasion Afghan war. He has moved from the written sources available to all to interviews that he was able to conduct with such key personalities as were involved in the internecine jihad of the triumphant mujahideen after the defeat of the Soviet Union. Everyone who went into the savage cauldron of Afghanistan today finds himself defeated, including the two states that most preened themselves over the victory: the United States and Pakistan.

The story begins in 1988 with Pakistan in the driving seat, putting together a government in exile — Interim Islamic Afghan Government of the mujahideen — in Rawalpindi near the Pakistan Army headquarters. The 519-member shura that was to choose the government was nominated by the seven jihad militias located in Peshawar and was plied with $26 million from Saudi Arabia. Mujaddadi was chosen president but he travelled to Iran and promised the Shia leaders one hundred seats in the shura. Back in the councils of the Sunni seven, the view was different: one hundred was cut down to sixty after which the Shias boycotted.

Bravery comes only with myopia and that was what was practised by the mujahideen. The government represented only 30 percent of the population of Afghanistan. Saudi money ensured that Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, the Wahhabi warlord the Arabs liked, was nominated prime minister, and Pakistan was able to get its favoured warlord Hekmatyar nominated defence minister with Saudi help although the rest of the militia leaders despised him for his tactics. The 1989 plan to attack the Najibullah regime in Jalalabad and establish the jihadi government there was set afoot with ISI chief Hamid Gul promising Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto that the Afghan government would fall in one week (p.28).

The Jalalabad offensive was a fiasco. The great mujahideen suffered their first defeat after defeating the Soviets, one third of the 12,000 killed being theirs. Soon afterwards, the Massoud-Hekmatyar vendetta made its imprint, the latter's commanders killing 30 of Massoud's in an ambush. Mujaddidi denounced Hekmatyar as a criminal and Hekmatyar left the government as defence minister. Jamiat commander Massoud caught four of Hekmatyar's guilty commanders and executed them. Defeats and killings were to have no moral impact on anything in Afghanistan after that. Those who backed the savages sustained all the damage and warded off punishment in Pakistan by the simple device of taking over power.

The second lethal defeat for Pakistan was the Jalalabad-like offensive of Mazar-e-Sharif in 1997, organised by the ISI once again, based on the defection of a Rashid Dostam second-in-command, Malik Pehlawan, in favour of the Taliban. This was the offensive from the west of Afghanistan; another offensive from the south was mounted after buying the defection of a Massoud commander (p.102). Seeing Pakistan involved, Iran weighed in on the other side, training the troops of Jamiat's other commander Ismail Khan and airlifting munitions and Hezbe Wahdat Shia warriors to them. Uzbekistan sought to make its own chess-move against Pakistan, conscripting Uzbeks to help despatch supplies to Dostam. Uzbek-dominated Tajikistan came down on the side of Massoud.

Another ally of Dostam, General Abdul Majid Rozi changed loyalty in Badghis province and arrested Ismail Khan whom he handed over to Mullah Razzaq who proceeded to Mazar-e-Sharif to take charge of the city abandoned by Malik. Jamiat chief Rabbani fled to Tajikistan and Dostam sent his family away and made himself scarce too. The promise to Malik was that he would be made governor of Mazar, but soon Mullah Razzaq began to enforce the Sharia, beating up unveiled women and destroying shops selling 'prohibited things'. He entered Malik's room and tore down a painting of Omar Khayyam with a goblet of wine because that was 'against Islam' (p.104). All TV sets were smashed in the city and Malik was told to go to Kabul as a deputy foreign minister while his transport and other assets were simply taken over.

At this point Pakistan recognised the government of the Taliban, but Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif didn't know who had okayed the recognition because he hadn't. Foreign Minister Gauhar Ayub followed orders that came from a source other than the prime minister but that was more or less routine in Pakistan by then (p.105). Then the defeat started. Mullah Razzaq went to the Hazara quarters in the city and asked them to disarm. They refused, and already scared by the 'enforcement' of Taliban sharia, began hunting for the Taliban under Malik's command. They killed 350 of them including Mullah Razzaq. They ended up bagging 3,000 as prisoners. What followed was a massive war crime. The prisoners taken in war were all executed.

The book says Pakistan was the dominant power behind the scenes, the ISI putting Malik in touch with Mullah Ghaus the foreign minister, telling the latter the Taliban could capture Mazar without a fight. But uncannily it also sent in Pakistani Kashmiri militants as military assistance. Hamid Gul told the author, 'ISI brokered a deal but it was the wrong one' (p.108). Col Imam, the ISI officer called Ruler of Herat, later denied that the Mazar defeat was a big fiasco and funnily also claimed that the Taliban who invaded Mazar were unarmed and were mostly traders! He also put the blame on Iran for asking the Hazara Shias to resist and start the massacre (p.109).

Col Imam was really the American-trained Amir Sultan Tarar, the commando officer who trained the mujahideen in camps run by Pakistan and the US. He was sent into Kandahar in 1994 to keep the Taliban going in the right direction but he soon moved to the more 'strategic' location of Herat, which was to put Pakistan and Iran face to face when the Taliban finally got hold of Mazar in 1998 with a massacre to shame all massacres, including the killing of the Iranian diplomats in the Mazar consulate at the hands of the Sipah Sahaba boys sent in from Pakistan. The book says they arrested the officers but, after taking their cash, handed them over to the Taliban for the killing (p.137).

This book is an epitaph for the doctrine of 'strategic depth', but the policy of playing proxies in Afghanistan was never abandoned after 9/11; so the war against India goes on while Washington thinks it is against NATO-ISAF. The book brings clarity to the Indo-Pak war number four (or five?) relocated to Afghanistan with India firmly entrenched with the Northern Alliance and the Karzai government, and Pakistan with its proxies embedded in Al Qaeda. The real epitaph will come later and it will be for a much bigger demise than just the fading of the doctrine of strategic depth. *

 

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UK/US is helping create the Pakiban state. The US financial crisis and being duped by Pakistan in their war on terror has led to this. At the root of teh Kunduz airlift am sure there will be UK advice. I think Karzai and the Durrani type Pashtuns are history. What we are seeing is the slow and orderly transition to the Islamist Pastuns and the end of sarkari Pashtuns. Expect the Northern Alliance to get hit hard by the new Pakistani taliban and the Durrani type Pashtuns totally marginalized. The Great Game is still going on.

A fatal flaw in Afghan peace process by M K Bhadrakumar: Asia Times Online​

With the reported intra-Afghan talks under the mediation of Saudi Arabia in Mecca on September 24-27, attention inevitably shifts to the hidden aspects of the "war on terror" in Afghanistan - the geopolitics of the war. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has committed to pulling out Canadian troops from Afghanistan in 2011, let the cat out of the bag last week when he said that some Western leaders wrongly believed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops could stay there forever.

"One of the things I disagree with some other Western leaders is that our [NATO] plan can be somehow to stay in Afghanistan militarily indefinitely," Harper said during a televised election campaign debate in Ottawa. What lends particular importance to Harper's statement is that he has shifted from his earlier position that Canada wouldn't leave Afghanistan until that country was able to cope for itself.

He stressed the importance of a timeline for the NATO presence in Afghanistan, "If we are to truly pacify that country and see its evolution ... we won't achieve such a target unless we actually set a deadline and work to meet it ... If we never leave, will the job ever get done?" Harper revealed he had made this point to both US presidential candidates, Democratic Senator Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain.

The Saudi role in mediating the intra-Afghan talks will bring to the fore the geopolitics of the Afghan war. This is already evident from the contradictory reports regarding the talks in Mecca.

There is acute embarrassment in Kabul that any premature leak may only help undercut further the credibility of the political edifice housing President Hamid Karzai. Kabul took the easy route by refusing to acknowledge that any talks took place during the Iftar in Mecca.

CNN broke the story in a London datelined report on Monday quoting authoritative sources that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia hosted high-level talks in Mecca between the Afghan government and Taliban who "are severing their ties with al-Qaeda".

The quibbling by the Kabul spokesman is typically Afghan. Can a get-together in the nature of the Iftar, the meal that breaks the fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, be construed as "peace talks"? The answer is "yes" and "no". On one plane, the gathering was a "guest celebration", as explained by the colorful former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan and a Guantanamo Bay detainee, Abdul Salam Zaeef, who sat in the important religious meal in Mecca.

But on the other hand, the hard facts are the following. Saudi Arabia is a leader of the Sunni Muslim world. It was one of the handful of countries to have recognized the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It was the Saudi king who hosted the religious meal, which was attended by Taliban representatives, Afghan government officials and a representative of the powerful mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Former Afghan Supreme Court chief justice, Fazel Hadi Shinwari, was among the government representatives at the Iftar. The Afghan army chief of general staff, General Bismillah Khan, also "happened" to be in Saudi Arabia at this time.

Furthermore, as CNN put it, quoting sources, the meal in Mecca took two years of "intense behind-the-scenes negotiations" to come to fruition and "US-and-Europe-friendly Saudi Arabia's involvement has been propelled by a mounting death toll among coalition troops amid a worsening violence that has also claimed many civilian casualties".

Besides, media reports have spotted that behind the Saudi move lingers the recognizable shadows of the controversial former Saudi spy chief and nephew of the king, Prince Turki al-Faisal, who is an old "Afghan hand", having headed Saudi Arabia's al-Mukhabarat al A'amah (General Intelligence Directorate) during the 25-year period from 1977 until shortly before the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. Some even say Turki secretly negotiated with Taliban leader Mullah Omar in 1998 in a vain attempt to have Osama bin Laden extradited to Saudi Arabia.

Above all, there has been a spate of statements in recent days underscoring the futility of the war in Afghanistan. Karzai himself has invited Mullah Omar to step forward as a presidential hopeful in elections slated for next year.

Britain's military commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier General Mark Carleton-Smith told the Sunday Times newspaper of London that the war against the Taliban cannot be won. He specifically advised the British public not to expect a "decisive military victory", but to prepare for a possible deal with the Taliban. "We're not going to win this war. It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army," the British commander said.

The British army top brass is not known to speak out of turn. His stark assessment followed the leaking of a memo detailing a gloomy statement attributed to the British ambassador in Kabul, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, that the current war strategy was "doomed to fail". To say the least, the timing of these statements is highly significant. According to the influential Saudi newspaper Asharq Alawsat, British intelligence is ably assisting the Saudi efforts at mediation.

Longtime observers of the Afghan civil war will recollect the tortuous diplomatic and political peregrinations culminating in the Geneva Accords in April 1988 that led to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Informal negotiations began as early as 1982. That is to say, claims and counter-claims, constant streams of denials, statements attributed to faceless or anonymous sources, even stony silence if not outright falsification - all this promises to be the fare in the Afghan bazaar in the coming weeks.

However, what is beyond doubt is that inter-Afghan peace talks have finally begun. There is a readiness to admit that the legacy of the Bonn conference in December 2001 must be exorcised from Afghanistan's body politic and stowed away in history books. The recognition seems to have dawned that peace is indivisible and victors must learn to share it with the vanquished. :?:

Several factors have contributed to this realization. One, the seven-year war is in a stalemate and time favors the Taliban. Two, the US is increasingly focused on the bailout of its economy, which leaves little scope both in terms of time and resources for Washington to indulge in the extravaganza of undertaking on its own open-ended wars in faraway badlands. Three, the US is having a hard time persuading its allies to provide troops for the war effort and even faithful allies like Britain seem fatigued and appear uneasy about the US's war strategy. Four, whatever little popular support the puppet regime in Kabul headed by Karzai enjoyed so far is fast declining, which makes the current setup unsustainable. Five, the Taliban have gained habitation and name on the Afghan landscape and no amount of allegations regarding Pakistan's dubious role can hide the reality that the Taliban's support base is rapidly widening. Six, the regional climate - growing instability in Pakistan, tensions in US-Russia relations, NATO's role, Iran's new assertiveness, including possible future support of the Afghan resistance - is steadily worsening and the need arises for the US to recalibrate the prevailing geopolitical alignments and shore up its political and strategic assets created during the 2001-2008 period from being eroded.

Against such a complex backdrop, Washington could - and perhaps should - have logically turned to the United Nations or the international community to initiate an inter-Afghan peace process. Instead, it has almost instinctively turned to its old ally in the Hindu Kush - Saudi Arabia.

The US and Saudi Arabia went a long way in nurturing al-Qaeda and the Taliban in their infancy in the late 1980s and almost up to the second half of the 1990s. Al-Qaeda turned hostile in the early 1990s, but the US's dalliance with the Taliban continued up to the beginning of the first term of George W Bush as US president in 2000. {I guess Leila Helms cant be too far behind!}

It is possible to say that Washington has no real choice at the present juncture but to turn to the Saudis for a helping hand. The Saudis precisely know the Taliban's anatomy, how its muscles and nerves interplay, where it is at its tender-most, where it tickles. The Saudis undoubtedly know how to engage the Taliban. Now, they can almost do what Pakistan, which had similar skills, was capable of doing until it began losing its grip and its self-confidence and became increasingly worn out. Islamabad tended to linger in the shade and watch as the Taliban began taking its performance seriously and didn't seem to need mentors.

Washington is also unsure to what degree Islamabad can be trusted with the central role in any such sensitive mission to finesse or harness the Taliban. All said, while President Asif Ali Zardari is a predictable figure who can be trusted to dance to just about any American tune, far too many imponderables remain in the post-Pervez Musharraf power structure in Islamabad for the US to be confident that it holds all the controlling strings.

Arguably, the Saudis, too, would have their own sub-plots in the Hindu Kush, given the al-Qaeda factor and al-Qaeda's unfinished business in the Middle East, but, on balance, Washington has to pitch to a mediator whom the Taliban leadership and mujahideen leaders like Hekmatyar and sundry other commanders will listen. A final clincher is that the Saudis have no dearth of resources to bankroll an intra-Afghan peace process and money is power in today's impoverished Afghanistan.

Beyond all these considerations, from the US perspective, a big gain out of the Saudi involvement would also be that Iran's efforts to build bridges with the Afghan resistance would be checkmated.

Afghanistan has always been in the cockpit of great power rivalry. The backdrop of US-Russia tensions is of great significance. On October 10, NATO defense ministers are scheduled to gather in Budapest, Hungary, and they are expected to take stock of the souring NATO-Russia ties. The US is advancing the idea of a NATO "defense plan" against Russia.

Any such plan invoking the centrality of Article 5 of the NATO charter regarding collective security for the newly inducted countries of Central Europe and the Balkans will need to be based on threat perceptions to the alliance emanating from post-Soviet Russia. In other words, the US is trying to propel NATO into an adversarial stance with regard to Russia on lines similar to the Cold War era.

But there is a catch. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia is not peddling any pernicious ideology of "expansionism" threatening Western security. On the contrary, Russia is allowing NATO to transport its supplies for Afghanistan via its airspace and territory. Despite tensions in the Caucasus, Moscow has not called off such cooperation, especially involving NATO countries like Germany and France, which are skeptical about the US strategy of pitting the trans-Atlantic alliance against Russia. The US dislikes the prospect of Moscow using its equations with Germany or France within an overall NATO framework as a trump card in its relations with Washington.

Paradoxically, Washington will be relieved if Russia-NATO cooperation over Afghanistan altogether ceases. There is simply no other way that NATO can cast Russia as an adversary. But Russia is not obliging. Russian officials have recently alleged that Washington has prevailed on Karzai to freeze all cooperation with the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) on the vital front of combating drug trafficking. But Russia has failed to react and instead has began fortifying its own mechanism within the framework of CSTO (and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization) to counter drug-trafficking.

The main challenge for NATO is that its dependence on Moscow for logistical support in the Afghan war cannot be terminated as long as there is uncertainty about the supply routes via Pakistan. Here the Saudis can be of help. Their involvement in the Afghan peace process will discourage the Taliban from seriously disrupting the supply routes through Pakistan.

From the US perspective, the immediate political advantage of the Saudi involvement will be two-fold: its impact on Pakistani public opinion and, secondly, in countering expanding Iranian influence within Afghanistan. The Saudi role will hopefully temper the stridency of "anti-Americanism" in Pakistan. The US can learn to live with the Pakistani people's "anti-Americanism" provided it remains at an acceptable level and in the realm of political rhetoric. This is where the Saudis can be of help, given their considerable influence on the Islamic parties in Pakistan, especially the Jammat-i-Islami, which makes political capital out of anti-American rhetoric, and a range of Pakistani leaders, both civilian and military.

Interestingly, CNN has quoted Saudi sources to the effect that "perceived Iranian expansionism is one of Saudi Arabia's biggest concerns" in Afghanistan, which is what motivates them to mediate a peace process involving the Taliban.

It is worth recalling that one of the attractions underlying the US-Saudi sponsorship of the Taliban in the early and mid-1990s was the movement's manifestly anti-Shi'ite stance and its infinite potential to be pitted against Iran on the geopolitical chessboard.

The Taliban had killed nine Iranian diplomats in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif in August 1998. The Iranian Foreign Ministry said at that time that "the consequences of the Taliban action is on the shoulders of the Taliban and their supporters". Then-Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani viewed the incident as part of "a very deep conspiracy to occupy Iran at its eastern borders".

Given the ebb and flow of the US-Saudi-Pakistani role in promoting the Taliban in the 1990s, Tehran and Moscow are bound to sit up and take note of the current trends. On the face of it, neither Tehran nor Moscow can take exception to the Saudi role in Afghanistan as that would run against the grain of their recent years of sustained efforts to foster relations with Saudi Arabia at the bilateral level. Tehran, in particular, will be keen to maintain the current semblance of cordiality in its complicated, multi-layered ties with Riyadh and will be averse to playing into the hands of the US to turn Afghanistan into yet another turf of Sunni-Shi'ite (Iran-Saudi) antipathy like Lebanon or Iraq.

But Iran and Russia will be deeply concerned about the US strategic designs. What will perturb the two countries most will be the US's continued plan to keep the Afghan peace process within a tiny, exclusive, charmed circle of friends and allies, which betrays Washington's resolve not to let Afghanistan go out of its tight grip any time in the foreseeable future. Clearly, they would take note that the US strategy, as it is unfolding, is only to make the war in Afghanistan "cost-effective" and not to cut and run.

A Pentagon official was recently quoted as suggesting that "[NATO] countries that have had a reluctance to contribute forces, in particular combat forces, may be able to take part in this mission through a financial contribution". As the official put it, there are "those who fight and those who write checks". The NATO meet in Budapest on Thursday will be discussing these issues of the alliance's mission in Afghanistan.

Apart from the cost-effective methods that ensure the war doesn't tax the US financially, the new head of the US Central Command, General David Petraeus, can also be expected to make the war more "efficient". He followed a somewhat similar strategy in Iraq with what he labeled a policy of "awakening" Sunni tribes. The strategy's Afghan variant, which Petraeus will now spearhead in his new capacity as the head of the Central Command, can be expected to involve hiring Pashtun mercenaries to fight the war so that Western casualties are reduced and NATO's continuance in Afghanistan doesn't get imperiled due to adverse public opinion in the West.

The strategy requires making inroads into the Taliban camp and playing havoc with its unity. In the US military jargon in Iraq, this was called "non-kinetic activities", which helped reverse the spiral of violence for the US troops. It may bring "new hope" to NATO's war in Afghanistan.

Evidently, Washington expects that a clever operator like Prince Turki acting with the blessing of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques will do a neat job in regard to splitting the Taliban and separating them from al-Qaeda. (Turki also served as the Saudi ambassador in Washington.) Turki's brief will contain an almost near-optimal mix of the godly and the worldly, which is useful for finessing a movement like the Taliban that crisscrosses religion and politics.

The Saudi involvement is a desperate gamble by the Bush administration in its dying months. In immediate terms, if Turki makes headway, Taliban violence against Western troops may diminish, which would give an impression that Afghanistan is finally coming right for the US.

But it will not remain so for long. Afghanistan is far more fragmented ethnically than Iraq. The Saudis with all their sovereign wealth funds out of petrodollars cannot bridge the hopelessly ruptured Afghan divides. At the very least, much time is needed to heal the deep wounds. Saudi involvement will almost certainly be resented by several Afghan groups, which viscerally oppose the Taliban, such as the Hazara Shi'ite groups. As it is, things were poised to come to a boil in 2009, which is an election year in Afghanistan.

Petraeus beat his war drum and claimed victory in Iraq, but that is not the final word. Political events are seldom what they seem. The heart of the matter is that Iran's cooperation made Petraeus' "victory" in Iraq possible. A peace process predicated on the exclusion of Iran and Russia - leave alone any "Islamization" of Afghanistan on Wahhabi lines - will not succeed.

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.

and

Look who came to dinner ... by Syed Saleem Shahzad: Asia Times Online​

KARACHI - Although the Taliban and al-Qaeda have consistently rejected overtures to make peace with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces until they leave Afghanistan, the latest initiative led by Saudi Arabia, and approved by Washington and London, is on track.

Reports emerged this week that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recently hosted high-level talks in Mecca between representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban. If a middle road is found, next year's elections in Afghanistan could be held under the supervision of peacekeeping forces from Islamic countries, rather than those of NATO.

The first move in the peace process was made by Saudi Arabia last year when a Saudi consul based in Islamabad secretly visited the North Waziristan tribal area and met the al-Qaeda leadership. His mission was to convince them of the necessity of a peace process in Afghanistan and provide them with assurances of an amnesty. (See Military brains plot Pakistan's downfall Asia Times Online, September 26, 2007.) Al-Qaeda refused the consul access to its senior leaders, and anyway rejected the initiative.

Undeterred, Riyadh pitched the idea to the Taliban rank and file that if the forces of Islamic countries were involved in peacekeeping operations for the elections, it would create a climate of reconciliation in which both the Taliban and NATO would not lose face. The Taliban also did not accept this idea, but the proposal did generate low-profile debate and in this sense a peace process had begun.

Like the Taliban, the Western coalition was divided over peace formulas but decided to at least initiate a political process to resolve the seven-year conflict in Afghanistan. The British Embassy in Kabul sent some people to Helmand province to initiate talks with the Taliban, but the procedure backfired as the Taliban dismissed their commanders involved in the negotiations. And the Afghan government, under instructions from the US Embassy in Kabul, expelled European Union officials from Afghanistan for their involvement in the dialogue process.

Pakistan, meanwhile, despite American pressure, kept open channels of communication with the Taliban. All the while, the conflict in Afghanistan escalated, reaching new heights this year.

Kabul is virtually under siege and the Taliban have established pockets in Wardak (30 kilometers from Kabul) and Sarobi (50 km from Kabul) as well as in neighboring Kapisa and Parwan provinces. More ominously, the Taliban-led insurgency has spread to Pakistani territory where vast areas have been brought under its control, especially in the tribal areas that border Afghanistan. From a military standpoint, this is particularly worrying for NATO as most of its supplies pass through this area.

Against this backdrop of a seemingly unwinnable war, as Britain's senior commander in Afghanistan has commented, the stalled pace process was revived.

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan was used as a cover for revived backchannel diplomacy in the Saudi holy city of Mecca. Afghan officials, former Taliban leaders and leaders of mujid Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan shared an Iftar fast-breaking meal with King Abdullah. Separate meetings were held with other top Saudi officials, including Saudi intelligence chief Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz.

One person who was present at the king's table was former Taliban foreign minister Wakeel Ahmed Muttawakil. He spoke to Asia Times Online by telephone from Kabul.

Asia Times Online: Did you meet King Abdullah?

Wakeel Ahmed Muttawakil: I traveled to Saudi Arabia to perform umra [pilgrimage] in the holy month of Ramadan ... and it is true [I met King Abdullah]. You know, the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan [as the Taliban's regime was known from 1996 to 2001] had good relations with Saudi Arabia and therefore I know everybody over there.

ATol: Your meeting with Saudi intelligence chief Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz is believed to be the real beginning of a dialogue process between the Taliban and Saudi Arabia over a truce between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

WAM: As I said, I met with many people during my stay in Saudi Arabia, but it had nothing to do with politics. Our reason to travel was to perform pilgrimage and prayers in Ramadan. Since I am known to the Saudi government, they invited me for Iftar.

ATol: Then was it a coincidence that immediately after your visit, Afghan President Hamid Karzai stepped up efforts to engage the Taliban and mentioned a Saudi role in that regard?

WAM: I said earlier that Saudi Arabia had very good relations with the Taliban in the past, therefore the Afghan government expects the Saudi government to play a role. Not only with the Taliban, Saudi Arabia had very good relations with Sheikh Osama bin Laden and other jihadi movements. So its role would be very effective.

ATol: Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan has also been approached by the Saudis. Do you have any knowledge in this regard?

WAM: I don't know anything in this regard, but I can guess that since the Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami are both part of the present insurgency, but still keep separate commands, Hekmatyar would have been approached separately. Like the Taliban, Hekmatyar also keeps very good relations with Saudi Arabia and with his connections with the Ikwanul Muslemeen [Muslim Brotherhood] he is even closer to the Saudis.

An earlier Taliban statement said:

The mainstream media is reporting about a "peace process" between the Taliban and the Kabul puppet administration which is being sponsored by Saudi Arabia and supported by Britain, and that there are "unprecedented talks" involving a senior ex-Taliban member who is traveling between Kabul and the alleged bases of the Taliban senior leadership in Pakistan. The Afghanistan Islamic Emirate leadership council considers such as baseless rumors and as failed attempts of the enemy to create mistrust and concerns among Afghans and other nations and mujahideen.

No official member of the Taliban is currently or has in the past negotiated with the US or the puppet Afghan government. A few former officials of the Taliban who are under house arrest [Mullah Zaeef, former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan] or have surrendered [Wakeel Ahmed Muttawakil] do not represent the Islamic Emirate.

The Taliban's denial and Muttawakil's reticence apart, it cannot be denied that something is afoot. This is no better illustrated than by Washington-backed Karzai at the weekend asking "terrorist" Mullah Omar to join the political process and saying that he would convince the international community about him.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at [email protected]

The Great Game begins anew! What we are seeing is the Wahabization of Afghanistani Pashtuns. A new fortress of Isalm is being created by a number of events that were ennumerated above.

**courtesy Ramana

 

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Pakistan is crucial to world​

By IRFAN ASGHAR submitted 23 hours 57 minutes ago

Some pseudo-intellectuals are bumming around the world trashing Pakistan and the heavily skewed media is awash with reports making a dark portrayal of the future of this land of the pure. Rumours are doing rounds that Pakistan will be dismantled or erased from the world map, it will be balkanised or fragmented into multiple pieces and that it will be divested of its nuclear capability by the US-led West in collaboration with certain anti-Pakistan powers by and by. All this has made for a general feeling of doom and gloom in Pakistan.

If we have a going-over of the case, what stands out a mile is that all these reports and rumours are highly asinine and nothing short of being hogwash. Pakistan has born to survive and it is destined to be an invaluable part of the world map for keeps. On having mature reflection, two factors come to the fore as prime guarantors of the survival of Pakistan on the world map: To start with, Pakistan has got a valiant and highly-octane military which is quick off the mark and has got peerless chutzpah to insulate the country against external aggression. General Kayani has rose to the occasion and provided the much needed leadership and sense of direction to his people at one of the most difficult times in the nation's history by sending a shot across America's bows. Pakistan's army will make mincemeat of anyone who tried to undo the sovereignty of this country. Moreover, Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons and it is no stranger to unpleasant situations. It has already fought three conventional wars with another nuclear nation next door.

The other most important factor is the geopolitical importance of Pakistan which acts as a bulwark against malicious and venomous designs. Being in the box-seat geopolitically, Pakistan holds all the aces and catches the sight of influential foreign powers. Several foreign powers are always keen on the sustenance of Pakistan and will definitely go an extra mile to support it in its bid for survival against the heinous motives of some other powers. This can be discussed on the following counts;

Firstly Pakistan is located at the junction of great powers. The near future is going to be pregnant not only with the traditional rivalries of US and Russia but also an endless struggle between them for supremacy in regional and global politics. In such situation, the world will not only see the conflict of interests between US and Russia but also efforts by them to make as many friends as possible to solidify their position. And Pakistan will be the pivot of attraction for both powers.

Secondly, Pakistan is located in close proximity to the oil rich ME countries and it can influence the shipment of oil. The icing on the cake is that it lies adjacent to the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. It is going to be a major player in the Central Asia geo-political game. A major geographic issue will be decisive here: both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan lack any sea access. Consequently Pakistani harbours on the Indian Ocean could function as outlets for the new Central Asian energy routes - a major stake which piques the interests of not only China and Russia but also of western powers. The US has entered Afghanistan to occupy the energy resources of Central Asia and Pakistan is well-positioned geographically to emerge as a commercial hub for land-locked Central Asia and beyond. Pakistan's seaports are equidistant from Europe and the Far East.

The most vivid proof of Pakistan's geo-political importance can be gauged from the fact that it is US and NATO's trustworthy ally in the fight against terrorism. Pakistan's co-operation is critical to all US plans. The incontrovertible truth is that war against Al-Qaeda can be won only if Pakistan cooperates with NATO-ISAF forces. This is because Pakistan provides logistical support to the US in the form of fuel and ammunitions. If Pakistan ditches America at this stage in the War On Terror and closes the border to all NATO supply to Afghanistan, its enterprise in Afghanistan will be doomed to failure and it will meet a fate worse than death.

Pakistan is a country whose future determines the success or failure of the whole of the region. In the mid-nineties, Yale historian Paul Kennedy called Pakistan one of the most pivotal states of the world. America thinks of India as a strategic partner for maintaining balance of power against China but Pakistan is a key to the stability of the whole world. It is central to making short work of new threats to the world. Time and again, the West has turned its back on Pakistan. This blunder should not be made again or else it may occasion horrendous consequences.

 

[ajtr]

The old great game culminated in an understanding between the Tsarist Russia and Great Britain wherein the following agreement was reached (there were other parts of this agreement but focus is on the relevance for the subcontinent) :

1. The borders of Russian influence stops at the amu darya.
2. Afghanistan is a buffer state but within the British sphere of influence.

When the British left India they did not want the Suncontinent to fall under Soviet hegemony, hence Pakistan came into the picture. However the northern regions of India which came into the closest proximity with Pakistan was a cause of concern. To address this : a buffer region between USSR and Pakistan called Wakhan corridor was created and given to Afghanistan (not sure about the date).

However the British being the cynical that they are, wanted to wear suspender and a belt at the same time. Hence they engineered the invasion of J&K state and gerrymandered the creation of POK and ensured it stayed in the hands of their proxies: Pakistan.

The utility of this arrangement is now under question due to Pakistan's failing health. Also the new great game player: PRC wants risk free access to the oil rich regions of the middle east. As a rising great power it inherits the interests of the west in ensuring India stays cut off from Central Asia.

Hence as I see it, there are two major questions facing the old great game players(West and Russia):
1. Should PRC gain access to middle east through the land route? If yes, then POK will go to PRC.
2. USSR's borders have receded to the regions hundreds if not thousands of miles west of amu darya. They are nowhere close to the POK region and the threat of communism subverting the subcontinent has receded. So should India be given land access to the Central asian regions as well. If yes then POK should go to India.

If the answer is NO to both (1) and (2), then a new arrangement has o be worked out. This means new proxies have to be found to manage this geographically strategic region.

The answer to this to give a new lease of life to the time trusted Sunni alliance. The Taliban are the obvious choice. They will be a headache for all the major players – India and China. Not to mention Russia and Iran as well.

The other option – not necessarily exclusive to the option mentioned above is to break J&K as a separate state from India. POK can be part of this independent state and through these two proxies the offshore balancing strategy put in place by the west post WWII will be executed.

**above comments are courtesy of Paul.

 

[ajtr]

China, India to compete over various interests in Indian Ocean​

Editor's note: This is the eighth installment of an interview series that appeared in the vernacular Asahi Shimbun under the title "Brave, grave new world."

* * *

The Indian Ocean will likely become a major arena of maritime geopolitics between China and India. What course will be taken by those two emerging powers? What form of implicit alliances that include the United States will emerge in response?

* * *

Question: Many people are increasingly concluding that China will become a superpower this century and will deal with the rest of the world on its own terms. What do you think about the prospects of China becoming a superpower?

Answer: China will be a great continental power in the Eastern Hemisphere. It will combine two things. Firstly, it will reach deep into Central Asia, with all of its mineral and hydrocarbon wealth. And it will also have a long coastline on the Pacific in the temperate and tropical zones.

China will be a major Eurasian power, with a very usable coastline. So it's very geographically blessed in a way that the Soviet Union was not.

The United States in my view is a missionary power. It seeks to advance abroad the democratic system and the democratic way of life, so that makes its foreign policy aggressive at times.

China is motivated, I think, by a better standard of living for one-fifth of humanity. That means acquiring minerals, metals and energy. That leaves China to go abroad in search of friendship and advantageous relations with regimes that have minerals, metal and energy.

China is not a status quo power. It is aggressive but in a very different way than the United States. That, I think, is going to lead the two nations to a real serious competition with one another in the 21st century.

Q: What do you think of the prospect of India becoming a superpower?

A: India won't become a superpower. India will become a great regional power.

China is expanding south toward the Indian Ocean. Just look where China is giving so much of its military aid--Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka--and look where those countries are on the map. They're all along the Indian Ocean.

India is expanding east and west. It's expanding horizontally, not vertically. India seeks an expansion much like the India of the British viceroys in the late 19th century, where you had an Indian subcontinent that included Pakistan and Burma and Bangladesh, and also with spheres of influence in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. That was the India of the British viceroys, of Lord Curzon and others.

That's India's goal, I think, when India thinks of its strategic policy.

Q: So perhaps you see some conflict or confrontation between China and India over the Indian Ocean?

A: Here's how I would put it.

India and China are right next to each other. They both have populations over a billion. They both have very deep, rich cultural traditions. They are inevitable competitors, not necessarily confrontational adversaries but certainly inevitable competitors.

In one way you cannot compare India with China. China is so far ahead of India. China expands its road network more in one year than the total amount of roads in India.

In China, government is an aid to development. In India, it's a hindrance to development.

China is much more dynamic than India, I mean to say.

Q: But that is precisely the reason why Indians really feel hurt and wounded--because they are a declared nuclear power. Perhaps to the west, India can reach out to the east coast of Africa, which is becoming increasingly dynamic and regionally influential. And to the east, Myanmar will perhaps someday become democratic, and then India's influence could increase further.

Although India may become a "great" regional power, Indians seem to aspire to become a global power on a par with China.

A: First of all, a word about Africa. Keep in mind that one of the greatest ironies we're seeing is that Africa is finally really developing when you look at its growth. And what's causing that is not foreign aid; it's investment from China, India and the Persian Gulf. So it's the former Third World investing in what is still the Third World.

It's true, a freer Burma or Myanmar would increase India's influence because India is the proximate next door democratic power.

India clearly can become a great Indian Ocean power. But remember that the problem India has when you compare it with China is that the government doesn't function well in India.

You can see this when you fly into Mumbai and you have to get to your downtown hotel. You have to go through some of the worst slums because there is no airport road linking the airport with Mumbai. Why? Because they tried to build a road and all these people along the way can hire lawyers and disrupt the project. In China, that doesn't happen.

Q: China has not hidden its ambitions to establish listening posts in the Indian Ocean. A Chinese admiral recently said China had plans to develop and establish military bases in the Indian Ocean because it would make operations much smoother and more viable.

A: Here's the problem with Chinese bases in the Indian Ocean.

China has been in the past few years building up the historic imagination of Zheng He, the earlier Ming Dynasty explorer who sailed his treasure fleet basically along the same route as hydrocarbons travel now from China and Japan to, guess where, the Persian Gulf.

And one of the reasons they're building him up is to signal an intention that China regards the Indian Ocean as a sphere of activity, but also that it will be very benevolent and benign, it will be indirect.

So what is China doing? It's building modern port facilities. It's giving a lot of military, economic and political aid to those countries, particularly Sri Lanka. What people forgot is that China basically won the war for Sri Lanka against the Tamil Tigers.

In other words, China, if it has strong political and diplomatic relationships with these countries and has built top port facilities, it could probably assume access to these ports. It doesn't necessarily need military bases per se.

China has another problem with military bases in the Indian Ocean. It can't defend them. It can't even control the sea lines of communication. It has to free ride on the United States for that.

The Chinese have a lot of naval ambitions, but they're not there yet.

I think what we should be thinking about is the Indian Ocean as a place where Chinese military and merchant marine activity will go back and forth and where they will eventually have access agreements with some of these countries, but where they don't actually need, or should want, overt military bases in these countries.

Also, in terms of a Chinese aircraft carrier, China having one or two aircraft carriers doesn't concern me because an aircraft carrier is a sign of national prestige. It can be used for peaceful means, like (rescue work after) the Indian Ocean tsunami. There's nothing better than an aircraft carrier when you've had a humanitarian civilian emergency in the region.

What should be of more concern to people are the submarines that China is building. The submarines are real weapons of war--they have no peaceful humanitarian focus. At the rate that China's going with both nuclear power and diesel-electric submarines, China could in 15 years have more submarines than the United States.

Now that won't make it able to compete with the United States because it's not just a matter of quantity, it's quality. U.S. submarines will have far better quality than China's new submarines.

So when you say you want to acquire an aircraft carrier, that's not just saying you have the money to get an aircraft carrier. Can you actually conduct operations with an aircraft carrier in concert with destroyers and cruisers and bridges and submarines? That takes a long time.

But look at Japanese history. Look how quickly Japan developed a great navy between the 1920s and 1941. What that shows is that nations, if they're determined, can acquire a great navy in the space of a generation, especially if they have the money for it, which China evidently does.

Q: China's rationale and drive for this sea lane and expansion of its naval presence and security can certainly, as you said, be explained by their quest for energy and resources. But what is the rationale for India's desire to expand in Asia, particularly in the Indian Ocean? It seems they are now finally embracing Lord Curzon's dreams. But isn't it more of a reaction to China's moves?

A: You know, it's interesting that Lord Curzon is now a very popular figure in Indian intellectual circles. It's interesting because during the Nehru era, British dominance was very recently in the past, and India had to assert its independence on almost a daily basis for psychological reasons.

It was basically foreign policy as a liberation movement rather than a strategic way of thinking. Those days have passed because time has passed.

And because time has passed, India can now think in normal strategic terms about its geographical situation. Its geographical situation is contradictory. On the one hand, as a peninsula power, India has great opportunities in the Indian Ocean, and it's protected by the Himalayas and Karakoram mountain range in the north from China somewhat.

India's problems are with its land borders. Nepal and Bangladesh, we shouldn't forget, are in a way semi-failed states, with large numbers of potential refugees on the border waiting to flood into India.

India already has 10 million refugees from Bangladesh. It is these difficult land borders that are keeping India from emerging even faster as a great power, because India's so preoccupied with its problems right next door that it can't focus on its larger strategic situation.

I think India's drive to have a sort of Monroe Doctrine style of approach to the Indian Ocean is because it has finally become aware of its own independence in a way that it didn't in the Nehru period, when it was so preoccupied with asserting that independence that it couldn't think strategically.

There's also this very cultural assertiveness in India, a real sense that "we are unique."

There's a real dynamism in Indian culture--in the Indian films that are all over the world and Indian food. So this gives a lot of national pride, which expresses itself in the strategic naval sphere.

Q: How do the South China Sea and the East China Sea and Taiwan come into play in the future struggle for supremacy in the Indian Ocean?

A: Simply put, once China no longer has to worry about Taiwan, China has more national energies to focus on the Indian Ocean.

Once there's a regional perception that Taiwan has been effectively captured by China, that changes the regional dynamics. It could affect U.S.-Japan relations once it's clear that the United States can no longer defend Taiwan.

And, you know, right now you have all these Chinese missiles focused on Taiwan, you have China laying mines in the region, over-the-horizon radar, anti-ship missiles-- all these things designed to inhibit U.S. Naval access to the East China Sea and to the Taiwan Strait.

And as these things build up, and China asserts itself more in the first island chain and the Chinese navy gets more comfortable in the first island chain, the more energy it has left over to focus on the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Q: There has been much talk about the "Malacca dilemma" in Beijing regarding the Malacca Strait. The Hu Jintao leadership has to focus on the strategic conundrum concerning freedom of navigation in the Malacca passage.

In New Delhi, we have been hearing of the "Hormuz dilemma." There are concerns about the heavy dependence on oil and gas coming from the Gulf states. How do you see each country trying to overcome those problems?

A: Well, I think the Indians are worried about Chinese-Pakistani collusion in the strait, and the Indians are trying to overcome it by developing Karwar as the major base along India's Malabar coast in the west.

I think China's Malacca dilemma is being dealt with through a number of ways.

One way is to get pipelines through to Malaysia. Another thing is to build roads linked up with new port facilities along the Indian Ocean to transport energy over land.

The third way is, and this China could do with cooperation from Japan, to finance land bridges or a canal across Thailand or Malaysia so that the Malacca, Lombok and Sunda straits won't be the only way you can connect the Indian Ocean with the Western Pacific.

Q: We could see a further worsening of the situation in central Asia, particularly in Afghanistan and perhaps in Pakistan. Would such a situation push India to further strengthen its Indian Ocean strategy? Or could it debilitate India's internal politics?

A: Afghanistan is really at the center of this in a way because here's the irony: Let's say for the sake of argument that the U.S. military stabilizes Afghanistan. Who does that help the most? It helps China. It helps China the most because the Chinese are already prospecting for copper south of Kabul.

China has plans to build roads and energy routes across Central Asia going through Afghanistan, making Afghanistan a part of its Central Asian strip--a shadowy zone of influence. Now, the U.S. wants to leave Afghanistan, the Chinese want to stay and prospect for gems, minerals, oil, etc.

When you talk about the Indian Ocean, you have to think about Central Asia as well.

In other words, you can have a natural gas pipeline going from Turkmenistan and bringing natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan down to Karachi. All this means a stable Afghanistan. So Afghanistan is crucial for the future of this whole Indian Ocean network. And what I see as an irony is that the U.S. will spend money and blood in stabilizing Afghanistan and the people who will benefit will be China and India and other countries.

China should be helping Washington more in Afghanistan than it is because China's going to benefit a lot.

Q: What should America do, or what are they doing in this whole Indian Ocean story?

A: America is in a way the indispensible power because it has the greatest Navy in the region. And because it's a non-Eurasian power it has no territorial designs on any place, so it can be trusted by everyone.

You can have much more of a multipolar framework in the future, but it's still going to require a U.S. military presence to keep it stable.

I think that the United States will have a somewhat reduced base presence in Japan and South Korea and elsewhere. There will still be bases, but there'll be fewer troops. We'll probably build up our base presence in Guam, in Oceania, in Saipan, in Palau.

I think that the very fact of having U.S. troops in the region prevents an explosion in Korea.

Q: You have been talking about a concerted strategy among the U.S. and its allies. But the U.S. has already incorporated Japan, India and Australia, which have been engaged in mutual military exercises.

In 2002, India actually escorted two U.S. warships across the Strait of Malacca during peacetime. So a form of "cozy" alliance between the U.S. and India in naval exercises is already being developed.

A: I think the United States and India are natural allies, so natural it never has to be declared. In fact, declaring it would spoil it.

I would venture that the emergence of India as this very significant economic and political power is the best news for the United States in the last decade. Because India's a natural counterweight to China--it's a democracy, it has reasonable transparency.

Q: You know, some time ago in the last days of the LDP government, we were hearing about "Quad," a common strategy involving the U.S., Japan, Australia and India that would operate on the national security policy level. It never got off the ground. Do you think this kind of "Quad" strategy could come into being?

A: What may be the problem is that all these countries want to do it, but they have trouble selling it to their own public. You could have a future of implicit alliances rather than explicit alliances.

Look at Indonesia for instance. Indonesia desperately requires a U.S. military presence to balance against the presence of China in the South China Sea. But as an Islamic country, the last thing Indonesia can do is request it. It has to kind of whisper quietly to the United States without saying anything publicly.

I think the United States has to be comfortable with informal alliances in the future. I think once Washington insists on something, it becomes very hard for local politicians to agree because they come under pressure from their own publics to not back down to the American behemoth.

We're leaving a Cold War era of big, well-developed military bases and official alliance structures and we're entering an era of places, not bases.

The medieval era was characterized by lots of informal relationships. I think we're going toward that.

Q: Japan is increasingly concerned about the rise of China, particularly its naval strategy. What do you think Japan should really pursue? How do you see Japan's defense and national security policy in the big picture?

A: Japan has about four times as many warships as the United Kingdom, when you count them. And if it's not four times as much, it will be because the British navy is going downhill very fast. Even though it only gives 1 percent of its GDP to the military, Japan has a great navy.

You know, it has a military with a really fine-niche capability, special forces, submarines. It's one of the great submarine nations in the world. Japan may have a non-aggressive policy, but it has a great military already.

Japan is going to play a major role in the balance of power in the region. It's inevitably going to find itself an ally with India because both are democracies, both are close to China, but they're not part of China. They're going to be in classic balance-of-power times. They're going to preserve the peace, so to speak, along with Australia and other countries.

You know, re-militarization is an issue in Japan, and it's not a hardware issue, because in terms of hardware, Japan long ago remilitarized. So it's a psychological-political issue, which probably will be overcome. Japan will become a "normal" nation with a very substantial military that plays the balance of power well.

The Cold War era was very abnormal for Japan, so the 50 years that followed were very abnormal for Japan. Japan is moving toward normality, and I think that's what this whole argument is about. I mean, yes, the government may be inexperienced. Yes, the navy may be disorganized. It may have emotions but not a policy. But it's part of something that's very normal, a kind of waking up after 50 years and saying: "Time has passed. It's time to reorder this relationship."

Q: Yes, I think that many Japanese find it difficult to digest the concept of balance of power because to them it would rekindle memories of the past, when Japan formed a cynical and manipulative alliance with Nazi Germany and Italy to counterbalance Great Britain and the U.S.

A: I would disagree. I would say what the Nazis and Japanese tried was to overthrow the balance of power, rather than work with it, rather than have a balance of power. They sought domination, which is different from a balance of power.

Secretary (Hillary) Clinton recently said that the balance of power is a thing of the past. I think that's nonsense. I'm not sure if she was being disingenuous or she was being misguided, I'm not sure. I think we're entering the golden age of balance of power politics in Asia because you have Japan, South Korea, India, China, Australia, either enlarging their naval fleets or modernizing them or continuing to modernize them.

There's an arms competition going on in the world and it's happening in Asia. And that's the world the United States is going to wake up to once it begins its slow withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.

* * *

Robert Kaplan is an international journalist who writes for The Atlantic Monthly. He is known for articles that combine on-site reporting with academic knowledge and historical perspective. Between 1980 and the early 1990s, he wrote and warned about a coming crisis in the Balkans ahead of other journalists and experts. His book "Balkan Ghosts," published in 1993, was widely read by U.S. government officials, diplomats and others. His newest publication, scheduled for a fall release, is titled "Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power." He serves as an adviser to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.

 

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THE GREAT GAME
- Where is India on the new map of energy security?​

Chandrashekhar Dasgupta

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, October 2005
"Turkestan, Afghanistan, Transcaspia, Persia "¦they are the pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for the dominion of the world," wrote George Nathaniel Curzon in 1898, at the high noon of the British Empire.

Central Asia all but ceased to figure in international relations during the Soviet era. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, however, triggered off another struggle for influence over the newly independent states in Central Asia and the Caspian region. A century after Lord Curzon, the American energy secretary, Bill Richardson, highlighted the geo-strategic importance of the region, albeit in more prosaic terms. "This is about America's energy security, which depends on diversifying our sources of energy worldwide," he said in October 1998. "It's also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the West. We would like to see them reliant on Western commercial and political interests than going the other way. We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right." A new Great Game had been launched in Central Asia.

Though the theatre of contest remains broadly the same, the players as well as the stakes are very different today. In the 19th century, the principal players of the Great Game were Russia and Britain. Today, the leading players in the new Great Game are the United States of America, Russia and China, together with a supporting cast including the European Union, Turkey and Iran, among others. Central Asia was only the theatre of the 19th-century contest; the principal stake lay elsewhere. The stake was the control of the approaches to Britain's Indian empire, rather than the resources of the arid lands of Central Asia. The objective in the current contest is to control access to Central Asia's vast oil and gas resources. The geopolitics of the new Great Game no longer focuses on potential invasion routes, as it did in Curzon's time, but on the alignment of oil and gas pipelines.

Since the Caspian-Central Asian region is landlocked, its petroleum and natural gas production can reach major foreign markets only through pipelines leading directly to consumer countries or to international ports from which they can be shipped to consumer countries. During the Soviet era, all pipelines constructed in this region passed through Russia. Even today, the bulk of oil and natural gas produced in the region is exported through pipelines running northward through the Russian Federation. Thus, for instance, gas from Turkmenistan is currently delivered to Central Europe via Russia.

Two new pipeline routes have radically changed the geopolitical map of the Caspian-Central Asian region. An east-west oil pipeline now runs from Baku in Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey, bypassing Russian territory. A new west-east pipeline transports oil from Kazakhstan to China. Both these ambitious ventures have important strategic implications.

The strategic objective of the US-backed Baku-Ceyhan pipeline is to reduce Western dependence on Russia for energy imports. Russia, with its vast deposits of oil and gas, is an energy superpower. The EU is already heavily dependent on Russia for gas imports and this dependence is expected to increase further as a result of declining offshore production in the North Sea. The new pipeline will enable the EU to secure access to Caspian oil and gas without giving Russia the control or leverage that it might exercise as a transit state.

The construction of the pipeline was an immense political enterprise in a region divided by deep animosities. The shortest routes from Baku to Ceyhan lie through Iran or Armenia but neither was politically acceptable. The US would not even contemplate an option involving Iran, a "rogue state" in its eyes. The latter option was impracticable because Armenia's relations with Azerbaijan are characterized by deep hostility, while its ties with Turkey are still marred by historical animosities. Ruling out these shorter — and more economical — alignments, the only feasible option was the pipeline that now initially runs northward from Baku (Azerbaijan) to Tbilisi (Georgia) and thence southwards to Ceyhan (Turkey).

The alignment of the pipeline thus took into account existing regional political realities. At the same time, it is also creating new political realities. The Western alliance is building closer ties with both Georgia and Azerbaijan. Both countries have contributed troops to current peacekeeping operations in Iraq and Kosovo. Georgia has received sizeable military aid from the US, and is now an eager candidate for Nato membership. Washington is pressing for Georgia's early admission, but several of its west European allies are reluctant to get drawn into Georgia's dispute with Russia over the status of the territories of Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia. Azerbaijan, more wisely, has thus far refrained from seeking Nato membership, while indicating that the option remains open for the future.

China's search for energy security provides the strategic rationale for the Kazakhstan-Xinjiang pipeline. China's spectacular economic development can be maintained only if it is able to import increasing volumes of oil and gas. The quest for energy security has led China to invest heavily in oil and gas fields in Africa, Central Asia and Latin America. This enables Beijing not only to secure access to overseas "equity oil" but also to diversify its sources, thereby minimizing the risk of a disruption of supplies on account of political instability in an oil-producing country.

The Chinese have been prepared to pay high prices for oilfields in Central Asia. Heavy costs are also involved in transporting oil and gas over a distance of 3,000 kilometres from Kazakhstan to China's industrial heartland. Many analysts have drawn the conclusion that Chinese policy in this regard is shaped by strategic factors. They maintain that Beijing is prepared to pay a premium for oil and gas transported by overland routes because it apprehends that, in certain contingencies, the US may employ its naval supremacy to impose a maritime oil embargo against China. As in the case of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, energy security considerations (rather than purely economic calculations) appear to provide the rationale of the Kazakhstan-China pipeline.

How does India fit into this new geopolitical map? Indian officials are reportedly holding talks with their Turkish and Israeli counterparts to examine the feasibility of transporting Central Asian oil from Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon on the Mediterranean, linked by an overland pipeline to the Red Sea port of Eilat, from where supertankers could pick up shipments destined for India. This route would avoid the overcrowded Suez Canal or the long detour around the African continent.

The Ceyhan route might be an attractive short-term option. The preferred long-term goal, however, must be to obtain access to Central Asia's oil and gas reserves through less circuitous southward routes running through Iran or through Afghanistan and Pakistan. For example, crude oil from Azerbaijan could be carried through pipelines to Iranian ports for shipment to India. Gas from Turkmenistan could be delivered to India through Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Political factors obstruct early implementation of these projects. The Iran option would face strong opposition from the US, and would be practicable only if other powerful countries can be recruited as partners in the enterprise. The Pakistan-Afghanistan option must await restoration of peaceful conditions in southern Afghanistan and adjacent areas of Pakistan. Yet, we must not lose sight of these alternatives because of the important contribution they can make to our energy security — and to consolidating our ties with neighbours.

The author is a retired ambassador and is currently a Distinguished Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute

 

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From Great Game to Grand Bargain
Ending Chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan
​

Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid

From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008
Summary: The crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan is beyond the point where more troops will help. U.S. strategy must be to seek compromise with insurgents while addressing regional rivalries and insecurities

BARNETT R. RUBIN is Director of Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University and the author of The Fragmentation of Afghanistan and Blood on the Doorstep. AHMED RASHID is a Pakistani journalist and writer, a Fellow at the Paci?c Council on International Policy, and the author of Jihad, Taliban, and, most recently, Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

The Great Game is no fun anymore. The term "Great Game" was used by nineteenth-century British imperialists to describe the British-Russian struggle for position on the chessboard of Afghanistan and Central Asia -- a contest with a few players, mostly limited to intelligence forays and short wars fought on horseback with rifles, and with those living on the chessboard largely bystanders or victims. More than a century later, the game continues. But now, the number of players has exploded, those living on the chessboard have become involved, and the intensity of the violence and the threats it produces affect the entire globe. The Great Game can no longer be treated as a sporting event for distant spectators. It is time to agree on some new rules.

Seven years after the U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan commanders it supported pushed the leaderships of the Taliban and al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan, an insurgency that includes these and other groups is gaining ground on both the Afghan and the Pakistani sides of the border. Four years after Afghanistan's first-ever presidential election, the increasingly besieged government of Hamid Karzai is losing credibility at home and abroad. Al Qaeda has established a new safe haven in the tribal agencies of Pakistan, where it is defended by a new organization, the Taliban Movement of Pakistan. The government of Pakistan, beset by one political crisis after another and split between a traditionally autonomous military and assertive but fractious elected leaders, has been unable to retain control of its own territory and population. Its intelligence agency stands accused of supporting terrorism in Afghanistan, which in many ways has replaced Kashmir as the main arena of the still-unresolved struggle between Pakistan and India.

For years, critics of U.S. and NATO strategies have been warning that the region was headed in this direction. Many of the policies such critics have long proposed are now being widely embraced. The Bush administration and both presidential campaigns are proposing to send more troops to Afghanistan and to undertake other policies to sustain the military gains made there. These include accelerating training of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police; disbursing more money, more effectively for reconstruction and development and to support better governance; increasing pressure on and cooperation with Pakistan, and launching cross-border attacks without Pakistani agreement to eliminate cross-border safe havens for insurgents and to uproot al Qaeda; supporting democracy in Pakistan and bringing its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) under civilian political control; and implementing more effective policies to curb Afghanistan's drug industry, which produces opiates equal in export value to half of the rest of the Afghan economy.

Cross-border attacks into Pakistan may produce an "October surprise" or provide material for apologists hoping to salvage George W. Bush's legacy, but they will not provide security. Advancing reconstruction, development, good governance, and counternarcotics efforts and building effective police and justice systems in Afghanistan will require many years of relative peace and security. Neither neglecting these tasks, as the Bush administration did initially, nor rushing them on a timetable determined by political objectives, can succeed. Afghanistan requires far larger and more effective security forces, international or national, but support for U.S. and NATO deployments is plummeting in troop-contributing countries, in the wider region, and in Afghanistan itself. Afghanistan, the poorest country in the world but for a handful in Africa and with the weakest government in the world (except Somalia, which has no government), will never be able to sustain national security forces sufficient to confront current -- let alone escalating -- threats, yet permanent foreign subsidies for Afghanistan's security forces cannot be guaranteed and will have destabilizing consequences. Moreover, measures aimed at Afghanistan will not address the deteriorating situation in Pakistan or the escalation of international conflicts connected to the Afghan-Pakistani war. More aid to Pakistan -- military or civilian -- will not diminish the perception among Pakistan's national security elite that the country is surrounded by enemies determined to dismember it, especially as cross-border raids into areas long claimed by Afghanistan intensify that perception. Until that sense of siege is gone, it will be difficult to strengthen civilian institutions in Pakistan.

U.S. diplomacy has been paralyzed by the rhetoric of "the war on terror" -- a struggle against "evil," in which other actors are "with us or with the terrorists." Such rhetoric thwarts sound strategic thinking by assimilating opponents into a homogenous "terrorist" enemy. Only a political and diplomatic initiative that distinguishes political opponents of the United States -- including violent ones -- from global terrorists such as al Qaeda can reduce the threat faced by the Afghan and Pakistani states and secure the rest of the international community from the international terrorist groups based there. Such an initiative would have two elements. It would seek a political solution with as much of the Afghan and Pakistani insurgencies as possible, offering political inclusion, the integration of Pakistan's indirectly ruled Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into the mainstream political and administrative institutions of Pakistan, and an end to hostile action by international troops in return for cooperation against al Qaeda. And it would include a major diplomatic and development initiative addressing the vast array of regional and global issues that have become intertwined with the crisis -- and that serve to stimulate, intensify, and prolong conflict in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Afghanistan has been at war for three decades -- a period longer than the one that started with World War I and ended with the Normandy landings on D-day in World War II -- and now that war is spreading to Pakistan and beyond. This war and the attendant terrorism could well continue and spread, even to other continents -- as on 9/11 -- or lead to the collapse of a nuclear-armed state. The regional crisis is of that magnitude, and yet so far there is no international framework to address it other than the underresourced and poorly coordinated operations in Afghanistan and some attacks in the FATA. The next U.S. administration should launch an effort, initially based on a contact group authorized by the UN Security Council, to put an end to the increasingly destructive dynamics of the Great Game in the region. The game has become too deadly and has attracted too many players; it now resembles less a chess match than the Afghan game of buzkashi, with Afghanistan playing the role of the goat carcass fought over by innumerable teams. Washington must seize the opportunity now to replace this Great Game with a new grand bargain for the region.

THE SECURITY GAP

The Afghan and Pakistani security forces lack the numbers, skills, equipment, and motivation to confront the growing insurgencies in the two countries or to uproot al Qaeda from its new base in the FATA, along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Proposals for improving the security situation focus on sending additional international forces, building larger national security forces in Afghanistan, and training and equipping Pakistan's security forces, which are organized for conflict with India, for domestic counterinsurgency. But none of these proposals is sufficient to meet the current, let alone future, threats.

The Pakistani military does not control the insurgency, but it can affect its intensity. Putting pressure on Pakistan to curb the militants will likely remain ineffective, however, without a strategic realignment by the United States. The region is rife with conspiracy theories trying to find a rational explanation for the United States' apparently irrational strategic posture of supporting a "major non-NATO ally" that is doing more to undermine the U.S. position in Afghanistan than any other state. Many Afghans believe that Washington secretly supports the Taliban as a way to keep a war going to justify a troop presence that is actually aimed at securing the energy resources of Central Asia and countering China. Many in Pakistan believe that the United States has deceived Pakistan into conniving with Washington to bring about its own destruction: India and U.S.-supported Afghanistan will form a pincer around Pakistan to dismember the world's only Muslim nuclear power. And some Iranians speculate that in preparation for the coming of the Mahdi, God has blinded the Great Satan to its own interests so that it would eliminate both of Iran's Sunni-ruled regional rivals, Afghanistan and Iraq, thus unwittingly paving the way for the long-awaited Shiite restoration.

On September 19, 2001, when then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced to the nation his decision to support the U.S.-led intervention against the Taliban in Afghanistan, he stated that the overriding reason was to save Pakistan by preventing the United States from allying with India. In return, he wanted concessions to Pakistan on its security interests.

Subsequent events, however, have only exacerbated Pakistan's sense of insecurity. Musharraf asked for time to form a "moderate Taliban" government in Afghanistan but failed to produce one. When that failed, he asked that the United States prevent the Northern Alliance (part of the anti-Taliban resistance in Afghanistan), which had been supported by India, Iran, and Russia, from occupying Kabul; that appeal failed. Now, Pakistan claims that the Northern Alliance is working with India from inside Afghanistan's security services. Meanwhile, India has reestablished its consulates in Afghan cities, including some near the Pakistani border. India has genuine consular interests there (Hindu and Sikh populations, commercial travel, aid programs), but it may also in fact be using the consulates against Pakistan, as Islamabad claims. India has also, in cooperation with Iran, completed a highway linking Afghanistan's ring road (which connects its major cities) to Iranian ports on the Persian Gulf, potentially eliminating Afghanistan's dependence on Pakistan for access to the sea and marginalizing Pakistan's new Arabian Sea port of Gwadar, which was built with hundreds of millions of dollars of Chinese aid. And the new U.S.-Indian nuclear deal effectively recognizes New Delhi's legitimacy as a nuclear power while continuing to treat Islamabad, with its record of proliferation, as a pariah. In this context, pressuring or giving aid to Pakistan, without any effort to address the sources of its insecurity, cannot yield a sustainable positive outcome.

 

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A wise observer once said, "Pakistan is a completely superfluous and artificially created spot on the world map that has become a breeding ground for extremism, and trouble that would be best done away with."---spoke universal truth.....

End of Imaginary Durand Line​

The Durand Line

Afghanland.com - The British presented a signed document with the person of King Abdul Rahman Khan in 1893 referring to the borders between Afghanistan and British India. This document was in English and the person of Abdul Rahman Khan did not understand the English language, therefore leads the suspicious nature of forgery and or false documentation. The Dari or Pashto translation of this document or agreement has never been signed by Amir Abdul Rahman Khan, suggesting that he nullified this agreement. But the following researchers have provided arguments to the contrary that this document was signed and has expired. in either scenario, the Durand line does not exist today and the agreement was nullified the day it was written..


The argument between Afghanistan and Pakistan centers on the issue of Durand Line Agreement and its validity. But, the Government of Balochistan (GOB) in Exile challenges the "legality" of the Durand Line Agreement between Afghanistan and British India in 1893, not its "validity". We believe that the Durand Line Agreement is an illegal agreement, and therefore, it is null and void.

DURAND LINE AGREEMENT

In 1839, the Afghan and British governments agreed to demark a 2,450-kilometer (1,519 miles) long border dividing British India and Afghanistan. The signatory of the document, known as The Durand Line Agreement, were His Highness, Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, ruler of Afghanistan, and Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of the British Indian government.

Since British India ceased to exist in 1947 with the independence of India, Pakistan, and princely States, it was assumed that the Durand Line Agreement will be automatically upheld by the International Court of Justice as a binding agreement under uti possidetis juris, i.e, binding bilateral agreements with or between colonial powers are "passed down" to successor independent states.

AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN CONFLICT

The Durand Line has been a source of contention between Afghanistan and Pakistan. On September 30, 1947, at the UN General Assembly meeting, Afghanistan even caste a vote against the admission of Pakistan to the United Nations.

International Law states that boundary changes must be made among all concerned parties; and a unilateral declaration by one party has no effect. So, when in 1949, Afghanistan's "Loya Jirga" (Grand Council) declared the Durand Line Agreement invalid, it was considered a unilateral declaration, and therefore, could not be enforced. Furthermore, Durand Line, like virtually any international boundaries, has no expiration date, nor is there any mention of such in the Durand Line Agreement, which is contrary to the popular beliefs of certain Afghan scholars that the Agreement lapsed in 1993 which is after a hundred years of its signing.

To this date, the relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan are characterized by rivalry, suspicion and resentment. The primary cause of this hostility rests in the debate about the validity of the Durand Line Agreement. But, so far, it appears that Pakistan's position in this debate is legally correct, and the Government in Afghanistan has never challenged Pakistan in the International Court of Justice.

BALOCH-BRITISH RELATIONS

In 1839, when the British army advanced through Balochistan towards Afghanistan, they battled with the Baloch for the first time. During this conflict, 400 Baloch were killed along with Mehrab Khan (ruler of Balochistan), and the British took 2,000 Baloch prisoners of war. After recognizing Mehrab Khan's young son, Nasir Khan II, as his successor, the Baloch and British signed their first treaty in 1841 that dealt with "Military Offensive and Defensive" matters. The British vacated Balochistan after the treaty was signed, and until 1854, there were no major diplomatic interactions between the Baloch and the British.

On May 14th, 1854, a new Treaty was signed which annulled the 1841 Treaty. The new Treaty focused on "Alliance, Defensive and Offensive" matters. It also demanded the Baloch rulers to oppose all enemies of the British government; required British consent prior to any Baloch ruler could negotiate with any other state; and it permitted the British to station troops within selected parts of Balochistan.

When the Baloch ruler broke certain provisions of the 1854 Treaty, diplomatic relations between Balochistan and British were discontinued in 1874. But, after two years, in 1876 the Treaty of 1854 was rectified with minor modifications allowing the British government to mediate any Baloch tribal disputes, and lease Quetta valley to establish a military cantonment. Although the Baloch ruler's writ still ran over Balochistan, but now it was under the watchful eye of a British Indian government.

From 1890 to 1891, to contain the Pashtun tribes of the Suleman Mountains from conducting border raids, the British carried out a series of military expeditions that resulted in the occupation of Zhob valley. Soon afterwards, they constructed a cantonment at Fort Sandeman along with extensions of a line of outposts.

In 1893, serious differences arose between the ruler of Balochistan, Mir Khodadad Khan and the British. Soon after, on instigation of the British, Mir Mahmud Khan deposed his father and became the new ruler of Balochistan in November 1893. By July 1899, the Baloch administration had negotiated perpetual lease and transfer of management to British agency of the Nushki district and Niabat with all rights, jurisdiction and administrative power, in lieu of perpetual rent. This secured direct British control of the great highway connecting Quetta to Taftan. This arrangement prevailed till August 1947 when British India was dissolved.


SOVEREIGNTY OF BALOCHISTAN

On August 11, 1947, the British acceded control of Balochistan to the ruler of Balochistan, His Highness Mir Ahmad Yar Khan - the Khan of Kalat. The Khan immediately declared the independence of Balochistan, and Mohammad Ali Jinnah signed the proclamation of Balochistan's sovereignty under the Khan.

The New York Times reported on August 12, 1947: "Under the agreement, Pakistan recognizes Kalat as an independent sovereign state with a status different from that of the Indian States. An announcement from New Delhi said that Kalat, Moslem State in Baluchistan, has reached an agreement with Pakistan for free flow of communications and commerce, and would negotiate for decisions on defense, external affairs and communications." The next day, the NY Times even printed a map of the world showing Balochistan as a fully independent country.

According to the Indian Independence Act 1947, all treaties and agreements between the British Government and the rulers of States were terminated as of August 15, 1947. On that day, the Khan addressed a large gathering in Kalat and formally declared the full independence of Balochistan, and proclaimed the 15th day of August a day of celebration. The Khan formed the lower and upper house of Kalat Assembly, and during the first meeting of the Lower House in early September 1947, the Assembly confirmed the independence of Balochistan.

Jinnah tried to persuade the Khan to join Pakistan, but the Khan and both Houses of the Kalat Assembly refused. The Pakistani government took an aggressive stance against Balochistan, and in March 1948, the Pakistani armed forces started their operation against the Balochistan government. They invaded Balochistan on April 15th, 1948, and imprisoned all members of the Kalat Assembly.


LEGALITY OF THE DURAND LINE AGREEMENT

Throughout the period of British rule of India, the British never occupied Balochistan. There were treaties and lease agreements between the two sovereign states, but neither state invaded the other. Although the treaties signed between British India and Balochistan provided many concessions to the British, but none of the treaties permitted the British to demark the boundaries of Balochistan without the consent of the Baloch rulers.

The Durand Line Agreement of 1893 divides boundaries between three sovereign countries, namely Afghanistan, Balochistan and British India. According to International Law, all affected parties are required to agree to any changes in demarking their common borders. In reality, the Durand Line Agreement was a trilateral agreement and it legally required the participation and signatures of all three countries. But, the Agreement was drawn as a bilateral agreement between Afghanistan and British India only, and it intentionally excluded Balochistan. Hence, under the rules of demarking boundaries of the International Law, the Agreement was in error, and thus, it was null and void as soon as it was signed.

The British, under false pretenses, assured the Afghan rulers that Balochistan was part of British India, and therefore, they were not required to have the consent of anyone from Balochistan to agree on demarking borders. Meanwhile, the British kept the Baloch rulers in the dark about the Durand Line Agreement to avoid any complications. This policy helped the British to concentrate on fortifying their military positions in the region without causing any tensions between Afghanistan and Balochistan about demarking their boundary lines, otherwise this could have resulted in a war between Afghanistan and Balochistan.

To ascertain that Balochistan and Afghanistan were not discussing the legality of the Durand Line Agreement among themselves, the British continued to reaffirm the Durand Line Agreement by each of the successive Afghan rulers who followed His Highness, Amir Abdur Rahman Khan. King Habibullah (1901-19), King Amanullah (1919-29), King Nadir Shah (1929-1933), and King Zahir Shah (1933-1973) reaffirmed the Agreement during their reign.


A FACADE

The British ruled parts of Afghanistan without any legal authority, but through treacherous use of a piece of paper, the Durand Line Agreement, which did not have any legal standing in any court of law. As long as the British kept Afghanistan and Balochistan in the dark and apart from each other to discuss the Agreement, the British could continue to rule Afghan territory.

But, in 1947, the British Indian government was dissolved, and hence, there was no reason for the British to continue this façade. But, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and his legal team immediately found out after Pakistan's independence that the Durand Line Agreement was not a legally admissible/binding document. To continue the illegal occupation of territories belonging to Afghanistan, it was important for Pakistan to keep the flaw in the Agreement a secret. But, the dilemma was that Balochistan was an independent country, and one day the truth might be reveled to Afghanistan about the Agreement. This truth could result in Pakistan losing its Pashtun dominated areas to Afghanistan.

It was very important for Pakistan to either annex or invade Balochistan to continue with their illegal occupation of Afghan territories. When Jinnah failed to convince the Baloch government to annex with Pakistan on basis of the two sovereign states being predominantly Muslim countries, he ordered his armed forces to invade Balochistan and, under duress, forced the His Highness, the Khan of Kalat to sign legal documents to merge Balochistan with Pakistan. This simple act of aggression against a sovereign nation assured Pakistan that their secret about the Durand Line Agreement would remain intact.

Once Balochistan was secured, the Pakistanis deceptively used the law of uti possidetis juris to their advantage and continued occupation of territories belonging to Afghanistan.


CURRENT AFFAIRS

Pakistan is in illegal occupation of territories belonging to Afghanistan under false pretenses. To maintain its current territorial integrity, it is in Pakistan's interest to have a weak and destabilized government in Afghanistan so there is no one to challenge the authenticity of the Durand Line Agreement. Therefore, Pakistani intelligence agencies have provided shelter for members of Al-Qaeda and Taleban who are committing acts of terrorism within Afghanistan to destabilize the democratically elected government of President Hamid Karzai.

US armed forces in Afghanistan are eradicating remnants of terrorists from Taleban era. The Americans are also helping to rebuild Afghanistan and strengthen the democratic process of government to get a strong foothold in the country. But, Pakistan has waged a proxy war against the United States, and continues to terrorize the Afghan nation in hopes to frustrate the US to leave Afghanistan and weaken the Afghan government.

Meanwhile, the Baloch have launched their "War of Independence" in Iran and Pakistan. Three tribal Sardars (chieftains) have united their forces and are engaged in a guerilla war against the well-equipped Pakistani armed forces. The Baloch freedom movement is gaining momentum, and people from all walks of like are joining in droves.


SOLUTION

Afghanistan and Balochistan should form a legal team to challenge the illegal occupation of Afghan territories and Balochistan by Pakistan in the International Court of Justice. Once the Durand Line Agreement is declared illegal, it will result in the return of Pakistan-occupied territories back to Afghanistan. Also, Balochistan will be declared a country that was forcibly invaded through use of force by the Pakistanis; and with international assistance, Balochistan can regain its independence. It is the right time to act now because the US and Allied forces in Afghanistan are positioned to facilitate the enforcement of the Court's judgment.

After Pakistan vacates territories belonging to Afghanistan and Balochistan, a new boarder should be demarked amicably to determine Baloch dominated areas to become the new Balochistan, and Pashtun dominated areas to be merged into Afghanistan. And, with the help of the US and Allied forces, the Afghans and the Baloch forces can flush out members of Al-Qaeda and Talebans from their respective countries.

A wise observer once said, "Pakistan is a completely superfluous and artificially created spot on the world map that has become a breeding ground for extremism, and trouble that would be best done away with."



Mir Azaad Khan Baloch


In 1948 Pakistan began the arrest, imprisonment and execution of prominent NWFP Pashtun leaders who did not want to be ruled by Pakistan. Also Pakistan does not have any educational, social and economic plans for the NWFP. Children of Pashtun are thought urdu in schools and businesses are forced to deal with Karachi so that Pashuns of the NWFP never reach powerful status.

Its Time to Raise National Flag of Afghans in Peshawar and Queta

 

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1. India has reached a quid pro quo with the US for military access to Oman and Qatar with the IN using Omani ports as a replenishment point for its anti piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa and helping provide security to Qatar given the strategic nature of energy security via growing LNG supplies from Qatar.

2. The problems of acess to Central Asia given the disputed situation over Iran would seem to indicate a lower priority for establishing a military foothold in Central Asia i.e. Ayni

3. The preferred energy corridor for India from Central Asia now seems to be the pipeline through Turkey and transhipment via Israel and then tankers through Eiliat in the Red Sea and then via the Gulf of Aden. The longer term objective of port visitation rights for the Indian Navy in the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa would be to safeguard this energy corridor with the first steps being the current anti piracy patrols.

Pakistan Now or Never​

In what is being seen as one of the biggest projections of Indian naval power since India defeated Pakistan in the 1971 war, an Indian warship has sunk a pirate ship in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian navy is now looking at deploying more warships off Somalia.

In the Asia Times, former Indian diplomat M K Bhadrakumar writes of the possibility of a new Great Game unfolding for control of the sea route in the Indian Ocean.

Pakistan has historical reasons to be sensitive about this new development. It lost control of Bangladesh in 1971, in part because the Indian navy was able to prevent it from shipping supplies and men to what was then East Pakistan. And it has traditionally been sensitive whenever India has shown signs of flexing its muscles in the broader region — its anxiety about growing Indian influence in Afghanistan being a case in point.

But this time there seems to have been very little reaction in Pakistan, whose navy is also involved in anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden.

India is looking to play a leading role in bringing together countries from the Indian Ocean region to work together to fight piracy, according to this story in the Times of India, working through the so-called Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS). "The IONS includes countries as diverse as Oman, Mozambique, Yemen and Egypt to Australia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar," the newspaper says. "If some countries can provide warships and aircraft, others can chip in with ports and refuelling facilities in the fight against pirates," it quotes a senior official as saying.

That to me raises an intriguing question. Would Pakistan, which for so long has seen India as a regional bully, now be willing to accept Indian regional leadership in combating problems such as piracy, from which both countries suffer? And what would that mean for future relations between the two countries?

As underlined in this U.S. intelligence study released this week, the global context has changed drastically since the days when Pakistan sought to maintain military parity with India. The National Intelligence Council analysis "Global Trends 2025"³ sees China and India joining the United States atop a multipolar world and competing for influence. (see full pdf document here).

Pakistan gets short shrift, presented primarily as a problem rather than the global player it sought to become when it matched India's nuclear weapons programme with its own. "The future of Pakistan is a wildcard in considering the trajectory of neighbouring Afghanistan," it says. Then in a rather chilling line introduced without further explanation, it says "if Pakistan is unable to hold together until 2025, a broader coalescence of Pashtun tribes is likely to emerge and act together to erase the Durand Line (dividing Pakistan and Afghanistan), maximising Pashtun space at the expense of Punjabis in Pakistan and Tajiks and others in Afghanistan."

When intelligence experts in your supposed ally raise questions about whether your country can hold together, maybe falling under the regional leadership of your supposed enemy does not look so bad? But then again, and to return to the "Great Game" unfolding in the Indian Ocean, the intelligence report also examines the risk of a naval arms race unfolding between India and China as both seek to protect vital energy supplies.

Choosing your friends in a multipolar world is going to become increasingly tricky. For Pakistan, it may turn out to be a matter of survival. Which way is it going to turn? Pakistan's reaction to India's role in combatting piracy in the Indian Ocean may provide important clues.



The news article in question in above piece...

The great game of hunting pirates ​

By M K Bhadrakumar

"Sir, you have done India proud." That was how the anchorman of a television channel in Delhi addressed the Indian navy chief, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, on the victorious sea battle by warship INS Tabar with would-be hijackers as dusk was falling on Tuesday evening in the Gulf of Aden.

Those words would have made Sir Francis Drake, the 16th-century British navigator and slaver-politician of the Elizabethan era, truly envious. Sir Francis had bigger claims to fame in a life cut short by dysentery while attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1595.

Unsurprisingly, the patriotic Indian media dutifully expressed its gratitude and confidence once again in the armed forces. The



armed forces, too, gained an opportunity to look away from a raging controversy over alleged involvement of servicemen in terrorist activities by Hindu fundamentalists. The Indian navy has seen "action" after a long interlude of 37 years since the Bangladesh war.

A carefully worded navy statement suggested that pirates attacked the Tabar and the latter "retaliated in self-defense" and opened fire on the mother vessel. The pirates "made good" their "escape into darkness" while the Indian warship sunk a pirate boat. The incident received wide international attention. But it also raises some questions.

Sea piracy off the coast of Somalia is looming large on the radar of world opinion. The recent hijacking of the oil tanker Sirius Star - a supertanker big enough to hold a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily production (2 million barrels) - has dramatically highlighted the expanding dimensions of the problem. The barely functioning government of Somalia is unable to curb the pirates who sail from its ports and seize cargo ships that ply past.

The pirates on board the Sirius Star have issued a US$25 million ransom demand, and warned of "disastrous" consequences if the money is not paid.

A scourge that was believed to have taken shelter in comic books and movies has come back to haunt. But unlike bygone buccaneers, Somali pirates are well-armed and organized into two or three syndicates. They may halt maritime activity from the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Insurance premiums for ships plying between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula have skyrocketed as much as 10-fold and additional costs could total US$400 million annually.

On Thursday, Maersk, the world's largest shipping company, announced it would no longer put its tankers at risk to pirates off Somalia. Maersk said it would reroute its 50-strong oil tanker fleet via the Cape of Good Hope off the tip of southern Africa - a much longer and more expensive route.

The naval presence by foreign powers cannot solve the problem. There are about 14 warships from various countries including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) deployed off the Somali coast, whereas over 20,000 ships are estimated to pass through the Persian Gulf annually. Moreover, there are question marks about the legality of the operations by these warships. While NATO secured a request from the United Nations secretary general for undertaking interdiction work in international waters off Somalia, the same cannot be said for Russia or India. Russia claims the Somali government sought its assistance but there is no one really in charge in Mogadishu. It is noteworthy that the Indian navy statement has made it a point to underline that its warship "retaliated in self-defense".

The obvious thing to do is to act under a United Nations mandate, preferably involving the African Union and the littoral states, which may have capabilities or may be assisted to develop capabilities. But this hasn't happened, lending to strong suspicion that a Great Game is unfolding for control of the sea route in the Indian Ocean between the Strait of Malacca and the Persian Gulf. This sea route is undoubtedly one of the most sensitive waterways for commerce involving cargo such as oil, weapons and manufactured goods moving between Europe and Asia. Actually, the effective regional cooperation in curbing piracy and hijacking at the chokepoint of the Malacca Strait should provide a useful model.

There is some talk that the pirates may provide cover for international terrorist groups. Experts on "terrorism" have already shifted gear and begun speculating about al-Qaeda copying the modus operandi of the Somali pirates. Are we inching toward including sea piracy in the "war on terror"?

Which will be a pity since the anarchic conditions prevailing in Somalia are easy to understand. Somalia is a dysfunctional country like Afghanistan which has never been a shining beacon of stability or democracy. But things changed distinctly for the better when the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) took control in early 2006. The ICU succeeded in restoring law and order in that country torn by clan rivalries and violence.

But, then, the George W Bush administration viewed this as unacceptable. By the perverse September 11, 2001, logic, how could an Islamic government be allowed to be a trailblazer of good governance? The result was the invasion by Christian Ethiopia in 2007, with US backing. The invasion failed to produce decisive results and instead helped only to splinter the ICU, with the radical elements known as shabah (young men) gaining the upper hand.

The result is plain to see. Therefore, there is no question that the problem of piracy is also to be addressed ashore in Somalia. But, problems often enough, lend themselves to solution if only soldiers and geostrategists would step aside for a while. That is, at least, the expert opinion of Katie Stuhldreher. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor recently, she put forth a three-way approach to the Somalia problem. One, the international community should appreciate that the piracy in Somalia has its origin among disgruntled fishermen who had to compete with illegal poaching by foreign commercial vessels in its tuna-rich coastal waters.

This unequal fight created a local impoverished population. Resentment was also caused among the coastal population over the shameless dumping of wastes in Somali waters by foreign ships. The disgruntled local fishermen, who lost out, soon organized to attack foreign fishing vessels and demand compensation. Their campaign succeeded and prompted many young men to "hang up their fishing nets in favor of AK-47s".

Stuhldreher suggested, "Making the coastal areas lucrative for local fishermen again could encourage pirates to return to legitimate livelihoods." Therefore, she wrote, "A fishery protection force will eliminate the pirates' source of legitimacy." This could be done under the auspices of the UN or African Union or a "coalition of the willing".

Most important, "An international force sent to protect local industry will achieve the same goal as warships but in a more acceptable way. The principal reason piracy thrives along Somalia's coast is that there is no coastal authority to protect these waters. Armed foreign ships will still serve to fill that vacuum and deter attacks, but with the explicit mission of serving Somalia's people - the very people who have chalked up enough reasons to dislike foreign military interventions and are likely to view the presence of warships as intimidation."

But, will there be any takers for "nation-building" in Africa among the US, NATO and European member countries, Russia or India? Highly unlikely. Ideally, the international community should also commence a reconciliation process involving the residual elements of the ICU. In retrospect, like in Afghanistan in the case with the Taliban, a proper understanding of Islamism would help appreciate the worth of the ICU in stabilizing Somalia.

On the contrary, under the broad rubric of the fight against sea piracy, what we are witnessing is an entirely different template of maritime activity by the interventionist powers. The US has established a separate Africa Command in the Pentagon. NATO and the EU have stepped out of the European theater and entered the Indian Ocean area. Russia is seeking a reopening of its Soviet-era naval base in Aden. India has sought and obtained berthing facilities for its warships in Oman, which is an unprecedented move to establish a permanent naval presence in the Persian Gulf. The Indian Ocean is becoming a new theater in the Great Game. It seems a matter of time before China appears.

China of course is not a newcomer to the Indian Ocean. In 1405, during the reign of Emperor Yung-lo of the Ming Dynasty, a celebrated Chinese naval commander Ching-Ho visited Ceylon (presently known as Sri Lanka) bearing incense to offer at the renowned shrine of the Buddha in the hill town of Kandy. But he was waylaid by Sinhalese King Wijayo Bahu VI, and he escaped to his ships. To seek revenge, China dispatched Ching-Ho a few years later. He captured the Sinhalese king and his family and took them away as prisoners. But on seeing the prisoners, the Chinese emperor out of compassion ordered them to be sent back on the condition that the "wisest of the family should be chosen king". The new king, Sri Prakrama Bahu, was given a seal of investiture and made a vassal of the Chinese emperor. That was how Ceylon remained until 1448, paying an annual tribute to China.

Admiral Mehta has a worthy example in front of him, provided he can coax his reluctant country to flex its muscles in Africa for the first time in its ancient history. His best argument would be that unless he took an early lead, Ching-Ho might reappear in the Indian Ocean. But then there is an inherent risk insofar as the pirates who disappeared into the mist on Tuesday evening might also return looking for the INS Tabar.

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.

 

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Blood borders​

How a better Middle East would look
BY RALPH PETERS
International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.

The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa's borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.

While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region's comprehensive failure isn't Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.


Of course, no adjustment of borders, however draconian, could make every minority in the Middle East happy. In some instances, ethnic and religious groups live intermingled and have intermarried. Elsewhere, reunions based on blood or belief might not prove quite as joyous as their current proponents expect. The boundaries projected in the maps accompanying this article redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant "cheated" population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia, but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities. And one haunting wrong can never be redressed with a reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire.

Yet, for all the injustices the borders re-imagined here leave unaddressed, without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East.

Even those who abhor the topic of altering borders would be well-served to engage in an exercise that attempts to conceive a fairer, if still imperfect, amendment of national boundaries between the Bosporus and the Indus. Accepting that international statecraft has never developed effective tools — short of war — for readjusting faulty borders, a mental effort to grasp the Middle East's "organic" frontiers nonetheless helps us understand the extent of the difficulties we face and will continue to face. We are dealing with colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop generating hatred and violence until they are corrected.

As for those who refuse to "think the unthinkable," declaring that boundaries must not change and that's that, it pays to remember that boundaries have never stopped changing through the centuries. Borders have never been static, and many frontiers, from Congo through Kosovo to the Caucasus, are changing even now (as ambassadors and special representatives avert their eyes to study the shine on their wingtips).

Oh, and one other dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works.

Begin with the border issue most sensitive to American readers: For Israel to have any hope of living in reasonable peace with its neighbors, it will have to return to its pre-1967 borders — with essential local adjustments for legitimate security concerns. But the issue of the territories surrounding Jerusalem, a city stained with thousands of years of blood, may prove intractable beyond our lifetimes. Where all parties have turned their god into a real-estate tycoon, literal turf battles have a tenacity unrivaled by mere greed for oil wealth or ethnic squabbles. So let us set aside this single overstudied issue and turn to those that are studiously ignored.

The most glaring injustice in the notoriously unjust lands between the Balkan Mountains and the Himalayas is the absence of an independent Kurdish state. There are between 27 million and 36 million Kurds living in contiguous regions in the Middle East (the figures are imprecise because no state has ever allowed an honest census). Greater than the population of present-day Iraq, even the lower figure makes the Kurds the world's largest ethnic group without a state of its own. Worse, Kurds have been oppressed by every government controlling the hills and mountains where they've lived since Xenophon's day.

The U.S. and its coalition partners missed a glorious chance to begin to correct this injustice after Baghdad's fall. A Frankenstein's monster of a state sewn together from ill-fitting parts, Iraq should have been divided into three smaller states immediately. We failed from cowardice and lack of vision, bullying Iraq's Kurds into supporting the new Iraqi government — which they do wistfully as a quid pro quo for our good will. But were a free plebiscite to be held, make no mistake: Nearly 100 percent of Iraq's Kurds would vote for independence.

As would the long-suffering Kurds of Turkey, who have endured decades of violent military oppression and a decades-long demotion to "mountain Turks" in an effort to eradicate their identity. While the Kurdish plight at Ankara's hands has eased somewhat over the past decade, the repression recently intensified again and the eastern fifth of Turkey should be viewed as occupied territory. As for the Kurds of Syria and Iran, they, too, would rush to join an independent Kurdistan if they could. The refusal by the world's legitimate democracies to champion Kurdish independence is a human-rights sin of omission far worse than the clumsy, minor sins of commission that routinely excite our media. And by the way: A Free Kurdistan, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan.

A just alignment in the region would leave Iraq's three Sunni-majority provinces as a truncated state that might eventually choose to unify with a Syria that loses its littoral to a Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon: Phoenecia reborn. The Shia south of old Iraq would form the basis of an Arab Shia State rimming much of the Persian Gulf. Jordan would retain its current territory, with some southward expansion at Saudi expense. For its part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan.

A root cause of the broad stagnation in the Muslim world is the Saudi royal family's treatment of Mecca and Medina as their fiefdom. With Islam's holiest shrines under the police-state control of one of the world's most bigoted and oppressive regimes — a regime that commands vast, unearned oil wealth — the Saudis have been able to project their Wahhabi vision of a disciplinarian, intolerant faith far beyond their borders. The rise of the Saudis to wealth and, consequently, influence has been the worst thing to happen to the Muslim world as a whole since the time of the Prophet, and the worst thing to happen to Arabs since the Ottoman (if not the Mongol) conquest.

While non-Muslims could not effect a change in the control of Islam's holy cities, imagine how much healthier the Muslim world might become were Mecca and Medina ruled by a rotating council representative of the world's major Muslim schools and movements in an Islamic Sacred State — a sort of Muslim super-Vatican — where the future of a great faith might be debated rather than merely decreed. True justice — which we might not like — would also give Saudi Arabia's coastal oil fields to the Shia Arabs who populate that subregion, while a southeastern quadrant would go to Yemen. Confined to a rump Saudi Homelands Independent Territory around Riyadh, the House of Saud would be capable of far less mischief toward Islam and the world.

Iran, a state with madcap boundaries, would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan, but would gain the provinces around Herat in today's Afghanistan — a region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Persia. Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic Persian state again, with the most difficult question being whether or not it should keep the port of Bandar Abbas or surrender it to the Arab Shia State.

What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan's Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren (the point of this exercise is not to draw maps as we would like them but as local populations would prefer them). Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining "natural" Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.

The city-states of the United Arab Emirates would have a mixed fate — as they probably will in reality. Some might be incorporated in the Arab Shia State ringing much of the Persian Gulf (a state more likely to evolve as a counterbalance to, rather than an ally of, Persian Iran). Since all puritanical cultures are hypocritical, Dubai, of necessity, would be allowed to retain its playground status for rich debauchees. Kuwait would remain within its current borders, as would Oman.

In each case, this hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism — in some cases, both. Of course, if we could wave a magic wand and amend the borders under discussion, we would certainly prefer to do so selectively. Yet, studying the revised map, in contrast to the map illustrating today's boundaries, offers some sense of the great wrongs borders drawn by Frenchmen and Englishmen in the 20th century did to a region struggling to emerge from the humiliations and defeats of the 19th century.

Correcting borders to reflect the will of the people may be impossible. For now. But given time — and the inevitable attendant bloodshed — new and natural borders will emerge. Babylon has fallen more than once.

Meanwhile, our men and women in uniform will continue to fight for security from terrorism, for the prospect of democracy and for access to oil supplies in a region that is destined to fight itself. The current human divisions and forced unions between Ankara and Karachi, taken together with the region's self-inflicted woes, form as perfect a breeding ground for religious extremism, a culture of blame and the recruitment of terrorists as anyone could design. Where men and women look ruefully at their borders, they look enthusiastically for enemies.

From the world's oversupply of terrorists to its paucity of energy supplies, the current deformations of the Middle East promise a worsening, not an improving, situation. In a region where only the worst aspects of nationalism ever took hold and where the most debased aspects of religion threaten to dominate a disappointed faith, the U.S., its allies and, above all, our armed forces can look for crises without end. While Iraq may provide a counterexample of hope — if we do not quit its soil prematurely — the rest of this vast region offers worsening problems on almost every front.

If the borders of the greater Middle East cannot be amended to reflect the natural ties of blood and faith, we may take it as an article of faith that a portion of the bloodshed in the region will continue to be our own.

"¢ "¢ "¢

WHO WINS, WHO LOSES

Winners —

Afghanistan

Arab Shia State

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Free Baluchistan

Free Kurdistan

Iran

Islamic Sacred State

Jordan

Lebanon

Yemen

"¢

Losers —

Afghanistan

Iran

Iraq

Israel

Kuwait

Pakistan

Qatar

Saudi Arabia

Syria

Turkey

United Arab Emirates

West Bank

 

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Security Threats Facing India​

By Anand K Verma
Issue: Vol 23.2

Threats are a matter of perception. Their assessments take into account capacities, not so much intentions, of a potential adversary. For an accurate reading, the short term and long term objectives of all leading players in the world have to be judged.
Applying this criterion will reveal that India is living in an environment of threat from many corners of the earth.
Is there a threat from the United States? To answer the question one must first identify the basic interests of the US and then examine whether similar interests of India are supplementary or contradictory to those of the US. An objective study will lead to the conclusion whether the relationship between the two countries is essentially benevolent or malignant.
The broad national interests of the US can be summed as the following:
Geopolitical containment of Russia and China.
Non-proliferation.
Countering and eradicating Islamism or radical Islam.
Maintaining access to and dominating control of energy sources
In each of these areas the US is seeking to co-opt India as a junior partner. Since Indian interests do not necessarily dovetail into those of the US, a potential collision lurks in the background.
US possibly views China as the single most potent long term threat to its continued domination of the world. It is, therefore, presently engaged in building coalitions to hamstring it from all directions. The US wants to develop India as an ally in this effort. Although India has its own fundamental differences with China, these do not go to the extent that it should play any role in the US strategy. An implicit threat in the relationship thus emerges.
Non-proliferation has been an article of faith with all recent US administrations that have been deeply unhappy with the Indian nuclear weapons programme. They want this programme to be capped, rolled back and eliminated. There have been some studies, commissioned by Neocons in the US, which have even suggested that it could be bombed out. A war was launched against Iraq, under the guise of dismantling its non-existent WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction). Today, the dominant view in the Neocon circles in Washington DC favours aerial strikes against Iran to knock its nuclear facilities to eradicate a possible nuclear programme. How can one assume that the Indian programme, if it is resumed, will forever remain unthreatened?
The US war on Islamism, fought in the name of terrorism, has brought NATO, one suspects, as a permanent presence in Afghanistan. For the US it also serves the collateral purpose of offering a checkmate to China. This war seems to be leading to a gradual polarization of the world into Islamic and non-Islamic, and could indeed set in a clash of civilizations. The impact of such a development on South Asia will be devastating. Afghanistan is already deeply radicalized. If anti American sentiment can be treated as an index to measure propensity towards radicalism, Pakistan is also affected. A radical fringe can now be identified in India also. The US policies on issues relating to Islam have, thus, a potential for destabilization of communal harmony in South Asia.
A resurgent Russia has put paid to US energy related ambitions in the Central Asian Republics, but in the energy belt in West Asia, the latter remains dominant. The American enterprise in Iraq was propelled actually by a desire to strengthen this domination. There is an American effort now to block the growth of Iranian gas and oil markets. Indian oil energy needs to the extent of 70 percent are met from foreign sources. This requirement is expected to rise to 90 percent at not too distant a date. The US frowns at possibilities of expansion of India-Iran linkages in this sector. In today's world energy security is needed to reach human developmental goals and economic prosperity. But US eyes it as a strategic weapon. A conflictual environment is, thus, already created.
While all that stated above does not amount to a totality of adverse relations, it is necessary not to ignore these factors while determining policy in India. One should not forget the abiding security dictum: there are only permanent interests, no permanent friends. Further, the 'transformational diplomacy' of the Neocons aims at converting nation states into American clones.
In the field of external relations two other countries stand out, meriting continuous scrutiny and caution, China and Pakistan. Unlike the US, there have been violent ups and downs in India's relationship with them. One, therefore, must attempt to discover what the core problems are.
Looking at China first, its core concern is maintaining its integrity, territorial or otherwise, while it moves dynamically forward to build up its economic, political and military strengths. It seems to it that its strongest challenges will emanate from the US, seen to be encircling it from all directions with the help of its allies, and wanting to force a democratic wave within China, also targeting for loosening of its hold over Tibet and Xinjian. In the game of diplomatic chess that has emerged, China wants to ensure that no lending hand is given to the US by India. It seeks to achieve this objective by keeping India off balance. It has developed Pakistan as its Israel against India, extending nuclear and missile technology, all directed 100 percent against India. More than collaboration with the US, China fears India over the possible roles it can play around Tibet. As long as fires of Tibetan nationalism burn in Tibet, and a diaspora of over 100,000 Tibetans, mostly well educated and politically aware, with Dalai Lama providing a focus, shelter in India, China will view India with grave suspicions. There is no way by which India can succeed in removing such mistrust from the Chinese mind.
While the resulting state of unease may not lead to a war as in 1962, it certainly blocks progress on the border settlement and withdrawal of territorial claims such as over Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin. As of today, one may not be off the mark to state that China-India relationship will remain a hostage to China's crisis with Tibet.
The threat from Pakistan is altogether of a different kind. It is not an exaggeration to say that this threat commenced from the day Pakistan came into existence. It was inherent in the two nation theory, propounded anywhere in the world for the first time, to divide a multi-religious and multi-cultural nation, on a religious basis. An impossible task had been attempted, considering the size of India and its population, religion wise.
The attempt succeeded in carving out a religious majority area, already existing, as a new nation, but the rump India still remained a many layered multi-religious and multi-cultural society. The two nation theory encouraged Pakistan to lay a claim over J&K State. Beginning with tribal incursions of late 1947, Pakistan has fought several wars to wrest the state out of Indian control. A proxy war continues even today.
This continued quest has completely reoriented the psyche of Pakistani people and re-aligned all instruments of governance and policy-making in Pakistan against India. The text books in schools and colleges, the entire military doctrine and the entire focus of its nuclear weapon development program is centered against India. The ruling establishment in Pakistan has had to rely more and more on Islam and 'Islampasand' parties to keep the nation under its control. Islam is now so deeply embedded in the corridors of power that none in Pakistan can ignore the Islamic perspective. From the Pakistani view point there is no solution to the Kashmir question other than its amalgamation into Pakistan, a position which India can never accept, since any such scenario can ignite a chain reaction of separation in India. The problems between India and Pakistan will thus, remain insoluble, until Pakistan modifies its commitment to the two nation theory. The prospects for such a change are absolutely minimal, because demolition of the two nation theory means that Pakistan looses its raison-de-etre.
The Pakistani designs against India have created a vast range of threats. Almost all movements within the country, agitating against the centre for political reasons have received support by way of finances, training, arms, guidance and shelter from Pakistani intelligence, ISI. Within Pakistan itself Islamist groups have been created or supported by ISI for sabotage, subversion and terrorism in India. ISI with its surrogate Wahabi groups is now targeting Indian Muslims to get them involved in questionable activities. Whilst under US pressure Pakistan has somewhat relented on its support to Islamic radicals operating against the US, it has abstained from a similar downsizing of its activities against India.
What may one expect from the new configuration in Pakistan after the recent elections? There is no evidence yet that key changes are in the offing. The President retains all his powers as of old. He derives his strength from the military which, while it seems to have moved backstage, has not shed any substantive power. A new era will not dawn in Pakistan until the military is truly confined to the barracks. Till that happens, perceptions of threats from Pakistan must remain as before.
On India's borders exist other failed or failing states which create deep security concerns. Recent (10.04.08) elections to the Constituent Assembly (CA) in Nepal have pitch forked the Maoists in the leadership position for the first time for government formation. Their immediate objectives in the foreseeable future can be expected to be consolidation and management of CA deliberations to facilitate their smooth assimilation with polity and power in Nepal. Externally, their objectives will be to redefine Nepal's relations with neighbours and other powers. Inevitably it will mean loss of India's pre-eminent position in Nepal, with scrapping of mutual privileges. Covert support to Indian Maoists had not been on their agenda in the past and is not likely to be there in future while the process of consolidation is on. But transformation is never without some turbulence and hiccups. As they arise, they will need to be settled with foresight and patience.
Unease with Bangladesh is not likely to end as their response on two major Indian security concerns remain negative, i.e. illegal infiltration into India and promotion of cross border terrorism. Bangladesh's asymmetry with India and its extreme sense of inferiority vis-à-vis India contribute in a big way to these problems. The demographic aggression is a direct result of the pathetic poverty of Bangladesh. Infil-tration has significantly altered the population patterns in the border areas of India and constitutes a long-term risk. The Bangladesh situation calls for a holistic approach from India, combining a compassionate approach to help in its developmental objectives with firmness where security gets compromised.
In Sri Lanka, India is caught between the devil and the deep sea. The best solution for the crisis there would have been autonomy to Tamils in the North East provinces in a federal setup with a guaranteed and substantive devolution of power between the provinces and the centre. The moment seems to have been missed and Sri Lanka appears to be seeking a military option. India is left painted in a corner, unable to take any initiative on behalf of either side. After Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, public opinion in India is not very sympathetic towards the LTTE, but if misfortune continuously chases Sri Lankan Tamils, there will be calls to come out with a response.
The internal scene in India is also not free from anxiety on the threat front. Growth of Naxalism has been declared by the Prime Minister to be the top internal security problem of the country.
Roots of Naxalism, now known as Maoism, predate independence and now affect about 150 districts spread over 13 states. It has grown to this strength on account of cumulative wrongs, absence of social and eco reforms to ensure human dignity, justice and democratic rights to the rural and forest tribal populations of the country. The movement is seeking to establish a contiguous area from Karnataka to Nepal border to set up a compact revolutionary zone and is now well militarized. It will be a mistake to think that the movement can be countered by armed means alone. Ways have to be found to include the Maoists in the main stream and to fulfill the rising expectations of the rural and tribal people through better governance and a paradigm shift in administrative and development strategies, to ensure a better delivery.
Subversion is another form of threat the Indian State is facing from several quarters . In J&K it takes the shape of a proxy war led by militant outfits operating from the safety of sanctuaries in Pakistan, at the behest of the Pakistani establishment. Despite the so called peace process between India and Pakistan, the thrust in this assault remains as sharp and purposeful as before. It is expanding and making inroads into the rest of the country. It wants to transmute itself into what has been dubbed as New Terrorism, mindless destruction of lives and property, merely for spectacular results. New Terrorism will employ WMDs if it can lay its hands on them. Its foreign promoters are eyeing the Indian Muslim community as a fertile field for recruitment of agents. The Pakistani masters try to distort faith by sowing concepts that such terrorism is ultimately a service to the wider community. This in turn promotes sectarian tensions. It is not clear whether the dangers inherent in this Pakistani strategy have been fully comprehended or conceptualized in India. The recent Deoband fatwa, outlawing terrorism, while laudable, does not go deep into the question, whether doctrinal injunctions create a mindset disfavouring growth of liberalism which will offset terrorism. The Muslim community in India needs to be encouraged to examine why it remains out of step with contemporaneous concepts and ideas that can ensure such virtues as gender equality, freedom of expression and keeping religion and state out of each other's way.
The turbulence in the North Eastern states of India is another form of subversion, orchestrated by foreign agencies, notably Pakistani. No doubt the militants in these states, principally Tripura, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland have long standing local grievances but there is an ongoing effort in most cases by the Central Government to deal with these through dialogue and counter insurgency. Cross border connections, guidance, financing and arming often put a spanner into such efforts.
Maoism and foreign subversion pose strong challenges, but the idea that is India remains strong. Nobody can say, that India is not an admirably successful example of a multi ethnic, multi religious, multi lingual and pluralist entity in motion. However, interplay of politics and corruption and absence of good governance, a must for efficient security, remains a big blot on India's record and add to the existentialist threats, facing India from various directions.
Anand K. Verma, former Chief of R&AW and author of 'Reassessing Pakistan: Role of Two-Nation Theory'

 

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Pakistan: The Obvious Battlefield​

By Bharat Verma
Issue: Vol. 23.4


Homage Ceremony by Tri Services Chiefs at Amar Jawan Jyoti, India Gate.

The British nearly gave up war in Afghanistan recently and instead wanted dialogue with Al-Qaeda. Washington termed it defeatist and subsequently London rescinded the suggestion. The stalemate in the war on terrorism continued.
The breed of Inherently Helpless Indians tells me repeatedly that "even the West led by America could not smash the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq - how can a country like India win?"
Untrue. With the right strategy this war can be won decisively.
Frankly, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban combine cannot win the war. They don't have the means. The Jihad groups have no naval or air forces. No missile force either. They do have a slackly held guerrilla army that boasts of weapons with limited range and some quantities of explosives. Their satellite phones and other modest wireless systems are susceptible to interception, consequently a big constraint. These outfits do not boast of surveillance and intelligence gathering capabilities through satellites or UAVs.
By the Editor
"¢ Pakistan's Fault Line
"¢ The Danger
"¢ Pakistan: The Next Battlefield
"¢ Stable Pakistan not in India's interest
"¢ Threat from China
"¢ Carrot and Stick!

In practical terms they have no reach. Al-Qaeda, Taliban or similar groups can only cause damage or destruction to contact targets and its immediate periphery which is woefully inadequate to topple a regime-a prerequisite for victory. Kabul remains with Karzai, though at a cost, while Washington, Paris, and London continue to conduct international business unaffected.
Yet, Al-Qaeda and Taliban for years have managed to create a deadlock against the best equipped and trained forces of the first world in Afghanistan-Pakistan borders. Why?
On multiple counts the war waged by the Bush administration was borne out of unsound principles. First, fighting on two fronts simultaneously created division of resources between Iraq and Afghanistan. It resulted in shortage of the necessary numbers of boots on ground, so vital while fighting a guerrilla force in Afghan-Pakistan region.
Second, if the alliances that forge preponderance in the international affairs are broken, victory will elude. The Western alliance, which is the statement of the American might, was rebuffed in Iraq. Washington in its unilateral stubbornness opened the second front, throwing to winds the sane strategic advice of its partners. The invasion of Iraq, if ever necessary, should have taken place after consolidation of the Afghanistan-Pakistan front. The victory in Afghanistan-Pakistan area in any case would be sufficient to put other players in the region on notice!
Washington disregarded its Western alliance partners in invading Iraq, considered an unjust war by rest of the world. It in effect united the various jihad outfits in different parts of the world. Most of these groups that lacked potency till then, appeared formidable by coming together. Thus, in the last eight years, the sum of parts of the radical Islam lent an appearance of more than the total!
Third, extraordinary rise in the oil prices not only boosted the old adversary but also added new rivals soaked in the wealth of petro-dollars. Also billions of dollars wasted in the Iraq war is significantly responsible for the current economic misery.
Last, the biggest folly was to trust Islamabad. At the time of invasion of Iraq, I cautioned the former American Ambassador in a gathering at New Delhi that the "United States and its allies cannot win in Afghanistan since they have the lock (Afghanistan) but cannot unlock it as they do not have the key (Pakistan) under their control."
Even today many with the Cold War mindset in the international media wrongly advocate that Kashmir should be resolved- implying India should resolve it in favor of Pakistan.
I would say it is a misplaced approach with counter-productive ramifications. With Asia becoming more and more authoritarian, with communist China rapidly expanding its influence, with Islamic fundamentalists all over and rearing their heads in Malaysia, with Maoists in control of Kathmandu, and with military dictatorship emerging in Bangladesh, the only option is to expand the influence of the democracies.
Instead of trying to sap New Delhi's will by such proposals, the other democracies should stand by to support spread of democratic set up in POK. Handing over Kashmir on the platter to Pakistan will definitely result in another Talibanized and brutal adversary in the neighborhood. Such a step is neither in the interest of multi-cultural India or other democracies.
It is time for Washington to shift gears to win the war!
Few years back, a Democrat when told in a private conversation that "America cannot win on both the fronts," wanted to know the way out. I said: "Since the objective is to decisively defeat radical Islam and not Islamic nations or populations, the Iraq front should be wound up rapidly despite the likely disintegration. Quickly redeploy and concentrate these surplus forces in Afghanistan-Pakistan region. That is the laboratory of radical Islam and its destruction is central to winning this war." If the epicenter is busted, the various parts in temporary and weak unity are bound to lose teeth and fall apart. This will reduce terrorism to a localized law and order problem.
The next terrorist attack against the United States or the European Union will be planned and executed in all likelihood from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Similarly, if ever a nuclear attack through a dirty bomb becomes a reality in the West, it will be handiwork of Pakistan! The West needs to look at the radicalization inside the Pakistan Army and the ISI and work out methods to defang them. For a decisive victory, America will require the unqualified support of its alliance partners. India's support in addition will play a critical role too.
It is also time for New Delhi to rapidly shift gears. Pacifist philosophies may be good for the individual's soul but are suicidal for nation's security. New Delhi should learn to fight its own wars instead of expecting others to do its dirty work.
To win the war is more crucial for us than the West as the very survival of the Union of India depends on it. While the United States is geographically insulated and located in safe haven, India is not. Pakistan and Bangladesh export radical Islam to India in an effort to destabilize it. China funds movements like Gorkhaland and instigate its proxies. The borders are kept on the boil between China and its proxies while Bangladesh and Pakistan continue to implode India through terrorist acts with impunity. India remains under siege.
New Delhi needs to work out its long-term option with clarity, objectivity and decisiveness in view of the extremely hostile 14000 kilometers of borders. The other critical element is the substantial Islamic population in India that certain external forces want radicalized to create civil strife. Honestly speaking, given the internal and external security imperatives, non-governance is not an option for New Delhi.
It is often said that nations do not have permanent friends, only permanent interests. In reality, all nations are adversarial to each other. The degree may vary. If national interests demand synergy, they may combine resources for mutual benefit to an optimum period. The synergy to destabilize India by covert means is evident in the collusion between authoritarian regimes of China, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Radical Islam wants to establish a Caliphate while Beijing is determined to tie down New Delhi to ensure its unrivalled top dog status in Asia.
Since they are neighbours, India needs to engage them as constructively as possible, even as they remain inimical to India's interests in many ways. However, they can be dealt from a position of strength alone. This is only possible if we acquire requisite diplomatic, economic and military prowess.
Therefore, grand strategy dictates that since multiple adversaries on our borders are in collusion with each other and pose a combined threat, we should form an alliance with lesser adversary who believes in democracy and are not our neighbours. Today with radical Islam threatening all democracies, there is implicit synergy and commonality of purpose between the West and us that can help each other in variety of ways. Thus India can gain larger say in international affairs and develop sufficient economic and military clout to deal confidently with the near abroad.
But in creating alliances, New Delhi must watch its flanks. The recent campaign in the media to jettison Kashmir appears to be orchestrated by external powers to weaken the Union. These games will always be played as the existing hierarchy never wants too many crowding the high table!
In the past eight years, poor generalship in Washington, Brussels and New Delhi is responsible for resurgence of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. However, this war is decisively winnable if the battlefield is correctly identified. The obvious battlefield is Pakistan. It is time, democracies face this simple reality.

 

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DURAND LINE-AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN-BORDER DISPUTES-RESOLVING THE AFGHANISTAN PAKISTAN BORDER QUESTION​

History proves that leaders in history have repeatedly acted without clear understanding and embarked on paths without realistically appreciating where they would lead them. Aggression that fatal human tendency has repeatedly led the human race into wars and conflicts rationalized in the name of race, religion and ideology. The Afghan-Pakistan border question is merely another vindication of the above-mentioned premise. Dispute may be a stronger word since this is not the age of disputes but reconciliation.

Borders and boundaries have always been disputed and most of the major wars in history started with a border dispute or the violation of a border. Kandahar's mastery was the main reason why Mughal India and Saffavid Persia repeatedly fought wars. Balkh was the bone of contention between Mughal India and Uzbek Central Asia.Danzig the direct cause of the Second World War. Kashmir remains the cause of Indo Pak conflict. Violation of Ansbach enclave forced Prussia to declare war on Napoleon and consequently be overrun. Violation of Belgian neutrality by forces of Imperial Germany led to British declaration of war against Germany. In short border disputes have the potential to be fatal although this may not be the case in many scenarios.

Afghan-Pakistan relations remained tense for many years because of the Durand Line. The border issue brought the two neighbours close to war on at least three occasions between 1947 and 1976.Following the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in December 1979 the Durand Line became irrelevant. The once prized ally of the Afghan state was now ironically occupying Afghanistan . Afghans, a brave race, were forced to seek refuge in Pakistan by an unfortunate twist of historical fate. Pakistan became the base of the Afghan freedom fighters, as they were known! For some time it appeared that Afghanistan and Pakistan will finally be friends and allies once the USSR withdrew from Afghanistan.

What happened after the Soviet withdrawal however once again proved Plekhanov's saying that history does not move in straight lines. Instead of Afghan-Pakistan friendship another era of double-dealing and intrigues started. In this unfortunate period from 1989 till 2001 Pakistan lost much of the goodwill and respect that it had gained in the heart of the Afghans for its solidarity and support during the Soviet Afghan War. Unfortunately for most part of the Soviet Afghan War Pakistan was ruled by a military ruler who viewed the Afghan War as a golden opportunity to gain international legitimacy and economic aid that he badly wanted after having launched a military coup against Pakistan's first civilian prime minister elected by direct adult franchise. Resultantly the Afghans, although grateful to Pakistan for its solidarity ,did not forgive the pre 1989 Pakistani political leadership, for having divided Afghanistan, if not physically then at least ethnically, as well as tribally, merely to fulfil ,the short term and myopic agenda of a military regime.

Restoration of democracy in December 1988 and elevation of M/s Benazir Bhutto did not improve the scenario since Afghan policy was out of bound for the civilian prime minister and regarded as the sole preserve of the military-intelligence complex. Clemenceau's verdict that war is too serious affair to be conducted by general was met with yet another faux pas i.e. foreign policy or at least the Afghan policy being conducted by generals. The consequences were disastrous, Afghanistan plunged into a civil war which continued with unequal intervals from 1989 till 2001.Some armchair strategists who had never set a squadron in the field saw Afghanistan as Pakistan 's strategic depth came to grief once Afghanistan as it stood in conflict with itself proved to be Pakistan's strategic liability.

The return of USA to Afghanistan has once again re-activated the Durand Line question although in a low-key manner since Pakistan is a US ally or an auxiliary in the present so called war against terror. The Durand Line question needs to be resolved so that Pakistan and Afghanistan can work as partners in progress and development rather than neighbours in uneasy peace.

This article is an attempt to study the question in the light of history, and to suggest some possible solutions, which may act as a catalyst in resolving the Durand Line question.

Historical Background
The Afghan-Pakistan boundary question is not as simple as it is made to be by many analysts or politicians. Afghanistan emerged as a state only in 1747, while the Durand Line was agreement was signed only in 1893. 1 Afghanistan was ruled by a large number of Pashtun and non Pashtun dynasties during the period 1000-1747 . 2 During this period Afghanistan was partititioned as part of three non Afghan empires from at least 1504 till 1709-47. 3

The origins of the modern Pashtun majority state of Afghanistan can be traced to Mirwais Ghilzai who raised the banner of Pashtun independence against the Safavid Persians expelling them from Kandahar in 1709. 4 The Ghilzais were finally overpowered by a Turkish adventurer Nadir Shah but the Pashtun war of liberation had begun and Nadir Shah interlude was merely one short chapter in the history of Afghanistan. 5

Finally in 1747 in the panic following Nadir Shah's assassination one of his divisional commanders Ahmad Shah Abdali (a Saddozai Pashtun) was declared as the first king of Afghanistan. Afghanistan in its modern form was thus born out of the decline of the Mughals, Saffavids and Nadir Shah.

Ahmad Shah Abdali established a large Afghan Empire albeit for a short period. 6 His successors,unfortunately for Afghanistan , were less competent and some highly incompetent. [7]They lost most of what they had inherited by 1823. [8] The last chapter of this era of Afghan misfortunes was marked by an almost 25 year's civil war. [9]

The Afghans made many efforts to recover their Trans Khyber possessions but the Sikh army of Ranjit Singh trained by ex Napoleonic French Army officers was too strong a foe to deal with. *

In the First( 1845-46) and Second (1848-49) Sikh Wars the Sikhs 10 were defeated by the Bengal and Bombay Armies of the English East India Company and in 1849 the English East India Company became the neighbour of Afghanistan with Peshawar,Kohat and Bannu designated as districts of Bengal Presidency of the company. The English East India Company followed an aggressive policy towards its new western frontier and extended its influence either by direct occupation or political control. 1854 was the high point of this policy. 11 Kalat 12 being transformed from a subsidiary ally 13 to a vassal. 14 Meanwhile Afghanistan and the English East India Company became close allies after the First Afghan War of 1839-42 and Afghanistan's Emir renounced his territorial ambitions on Peshawar vide the Treaty of 1855. 15

The immediate reason for this agreement was threatening attitude of Qajar Persia as well as Dost Mohammad's plans to reoccupy Kandahar till then ruled by a virtually independent chief. 16
Afghan historian Reshtia who rarely minces his words observed thus "the agreement in effect, suggested the surrender by the Amir of all his claims to the lost provinces of Afghanistan, but hinted also at the loss of political independence of the country." 17A deeper glance at history however proves that the Afghan Emir was a supreme realist 18 and had perceptively studied military history. 19

In 1856 the Persians occupied Herat and the city was saved for the Afghans only by English East India Company's action of landing a force on the Persian Gulf Coast of Persia in 1857.As a result of this attack vide Treaty of Paris the Persian Shah " agreed to evacuate Afghanistan and to recognize its independence". 20

In 1857 the English East India Company's further secured Afghanistan as a reliable subsidiary ally against any attack from Russia or Iran from the North by another treaty. 21

In 1857 when the English East India Company's hold on India was badly shaken by a rebellion in the native army Dost Mohammad cooperated with the British. 22

The English East India Company's Indian territories were taken over by the British Government in 1858 and from then onwards the British Empire became Afghanistan's Eastern neighbour.
British policy towards Afghanistan generally remained constant till 1873-74.In 1873 the first major political development occurred when Afghan Emir Sher Ali formally requested British support and guarantees against rapid Russian expansion moves in Central Asia. 23 Although the Russians had already agreed to Oxus River as the boundary of Afghanistan and had agreed that they had no territorial ambitions over Afghan areas of Balkh ,Andkhui Maimana and Herat 24 the Afghans were apprehensive about Russian designs.
The British response was an aggressive new policy adopted in 1874 known as the " Forward Policy". 25 The first British action being occupation of Quetta in 1876. 26 The situation got further complicated once the Russians sent a mission led by a Russian general to Kabul. 27 The Second Afghan War which was a clear cut British victory began once Afghans refused entry of a British diplomatic mission in November 1878 and ended in 1880 with British in complete control of Afghanistan's foreign policy and a new Afghan Emir Abdul Rahman. 28

1892-93 disturbed by further Russian expansionist moves in Central Asia and incursions of independent Pashtun tribes into British territory the British Indian Government finally decided to mark Afghanistan's southern boundary under a commission headed by Sir Mortimer Durand. The Boundary Commission completed its work in 1893 and the Afghan Amir Abdul Rahman renounced his claim over New Chaman, Bajaur, Swat, Bunner, Dir, Chilas and Chitral. 29
The Durand Line was subsequently recognised * by successive Afghan Governments in 1905, 1919, 1921 and 1930. 30

At the time of creation of Pakistan in 1947 the British Indian Government held a referendum in NWFP with a choice for the people to join India or Pakistan.The major Pashtun party of the province Khudai Khidmatgaran demanded from the British Government that the referendum should have a third option for an independent Pashtun state known as Pashtunistan. 31 The British government did not agree to this demand and the Khudai Khidmatgars boycotted the referendum.55.5 % of the eligible voters of NWFP participated in the referendum and 55 % of the eligible voters elected to join Pakistan . 32Since the Tribal Agencies were directly under the British Viceroy separate Jirgas were held in the tribal agencies with the option of joining India or Pakistan . All Jirgas in the five tribal agencies of Malakand, Khyber, Kurram, North and South Waziristan.All voted for Pakistan .32

At this stage the last British Viceroy Lord Mountbatten made a very controversial statement about the Durand Line once he stated that that "Agreements with the tribes on the Northwest Frontier will have to be negotiated with the appropriate successor authority". 33 The Afghan stance being that the frontier tribes had separate agreements with the British and therefore functioned as independent nations. Thus the Afghan stand that Pashtun areas of Pakistan be given the option to have an independent state called Pashtunistan.It may be noted that this exercise began in 1944 when the Afghan government in a letter reminded the British Indian government that it was interested in the fate of the Pashtuns on the Indian side of the Durand Line. 34
The Afghan Government had reservations about the way Pashtun areas were included in Pakistan and opposed * Pakistan's entry into the UN.The Afghan viewpoint being that as long as the issue of an independent Pashtunistan remained unresolved Pakistan should not be allowed inclusion in the UN. 35 This action of Afghanistan has been exaggerated by various Pakistani historians without appreciating the fact that Afghanistan withdrew its objections within one month and was one of the first states to establish diplomatic relations with Pakistan in February 1948. 36 The modified Afghan stand being that it would discuss the " Pashtunistan Issue" with Pakistan through normal diplomatic channels. 37

The Khudai Khidmatgar Party also soon accepted Pakistan's creation and expressed loyalty to the new state at their provincial party meeting held on 3rd and 4th September 1947. 38The party further stated that their future political objective was no longer independence but only provincial autonomy.Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan the Khudai Khidmatgar leader stated in the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan that he accepted Pakistan's creation and merely desired provincial autonomy within the framework of the Pakistani state, but as much provincial autonomy as was allowed to all other provinces of Pakistan.
Afghan-Pakistan relations rapidly deteriorated once a Pakistani combat aircraft in the course of attacking a hostile tribal group bombed an Afghan village located about 2,000 yards from the Durand Line. 39 This intensified tension and led to Afghan Government convening a Loya Jirgah in Kabul on 26 July 1949 which voted national support for the Pashtunistan issue and officially declared the Durand Line agreement of 1893,Anglo Afghan Pact of 1905,Treaty of Rawalpindi of 1919 and the Anglo Afghan Treaty of 1921 as null and void. 40This was a watershed in Afghan history.No Afghan government since 1949 has abandoned this standpoint.Not even the Taliban who were very close allies of Pakistan .

Afghanistan also supported a meeting of a large number of Afridi Tribesmen in Tirah to establish a Pashtunistan Assembly.A larger meeting at Razmak elected the Faqir of Ipi as the Chairman of the Provisional Assembly of Independent Pashtunistan. 41

From 1949 till 1963 relations between the two states generally remained tense.Afghanistan sought US military and economic assistance to strengthen its defence and on being refused moved closer to USSR.Just like Pakistan sought US assistance in order to militarily resolve its Kashmir dispute with India during the period 1947-64.The high point of conflict being 1955 when Pakistani abolished its West wing provinces and created a single province of West Pakistan.This move was perceived by Afghanistan as a violation of Pashtun political rights and relations between the two countries became extremely tense,bringing the two at one stage close to declaration of war with Afghanistan mobilising for war. 42 Better sense finally prevailed and both sides agreed to international mediation.The situation became complicated once the Afghan Government again convened a Loya Jirga which demanded a plebiscite in Pashtun areas of Pakistan. 43

Relations between the two states reached another flashpoint during 1960-61 when insurgency broke out in the Pakistani frontier state of Dir.Afghan Government supported Dir insurgents and a Pakistani infantry division was inducted to deal with the crisis.

Tension continued to increase leading finally to closure of Pakistani mission in Kabul on 23 August 1961.By 23 September Pakistani interests were represented in Afghanistan by the Saudi Arabian Embassy. 44

The Afghan premier Sardar Daud Khan unilaterally announced closure of Afghan Pakistan border leading to great econonomic hardship for Afghanistan. 45 Pakistan responded by declaring that it would honour international law obligations by allowing Afghan Transit Trade to continue, thus placing the burden of responsibility for the crisis on Afghan shoulders. 46 Sardar Daud Khan told a West German journalist in course of an interview that " the border will remain closed till the Pashtunistan issue is settled" ! 47

The blockade resulted in great hardships for the Afghan common man since all of Afghanistan's imports and exports were historically routed through regions comprising post 1947 Pakistan.This led to Afghan King Zahir Shah asserting his previously unexercised authority and resignation of Sardar Daud Khan from the post of premier on 9th March 1963. 48

During the period 1963-73 relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan remained peaceful and Afghanistan remained totally neutral during the Indo Pak Wars of 1965 and 1971 thus allowing Pakistan to re-deploy the vast bulk of its forces stationed opposite Afghanistan against India.This was a great gesture of Afghan goodwill towards Pakistan rarely discussed by most Pakistani analysts.

Afghan-Pakistan relations once again became complicated from 1973 once Sardar Daud Khan staged a coup and removed King Zahir Shah.This was a time once the renamed Khudai Khidmatgar National Awami Party (NAP) and its coalition partners were engaged in a highly charged with Pakistani Federal Government led by Premier Z.A Bhutto.Mr Bhutto had dismissed NAP's coalition governments in NWFP and Baluchistan provinces on allegations of conspiring against the integrity of Pakistan.The issue was more political than secessionist as alleged by Mr Bhutto.Sardar Daud Khan openly supported the NAP and the Baloch insurgents who were involved in a military conflict between Pakistani armed forces during the period 1973-76.Mr Z.A Bhutto in turn retaliated by encouraging anti Daud Islamist insurgents led by Hekmatyar,Ahmad Shah Masud and Prof. Burhanuddin Rabbani. 49

In 1976 major changes occurred once Sardar Daud Khan after having assessed aggressive Soviet designs decide to opt for a major policy change and rapprochement with Pakistan.Sardar Daud Khan visited Pakistan and made a statement " Pakistani brothers, I can assure you that we came to your country with the utmost goodwill and sincerity"¦..We will be able to solve our political problems and one day we will live as very close and intimate brothers". 50 This statement signified a major volte face.The Afghan leftists were alarmed and the Khalq and Parcham factions of the leftist PDPA became one party in July 1977. Daud Khan was overthrown by the leftists on 27 April 1978.The new leftist regime in Kabul initially adopted a moderate approach towards Pashtunistan and classified it as a political issue. 51 Pakistan at this stage was ruled by a military regime which had overthrown Pakistan's first democratically elected prime minister Z.A Bhutto.This regime which was facing a crisis of legitimacy adopted a hostile policy towards the new leftist regime,ostensibly to support anti leftist Afghan guerrillas , the real motivation being to solicit US aid .The leftist regime naturally reacted strongly and the Afghan Foreign Minister Hafizullah Amin in turn made strong public statements expressing solidarity with Pashtunistan issue.Refugees started pouring in Pakistan from April 1978 and their influx multiplied following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.

There was no change in the viewpoints of Afghan or Pakistani governments about Durand Line from 1978 till to date.Pakistan seeing the Durand Line as a settled issue and Afghanistan not recognising it at all since the 1949 Loya Jirga Declaration earlier mentioned.

At one stage it was wishfully thought in Pakistan that following Soviet withdrawal and collapse of the leftist government in Afghanistan the victorious Afghan resistance who enjoyed close ties with Pakistani establishment, the Durand Line issue would be amicably settled. This did not happen and even after the fall of Kabul to the Mujahideen,no consensus emerged between Pakistan and Afghanistan about the Durand Line. The same situation continued during the Taliban regime.

After the US occupation of Afghanistan Durand Line again came in the limelight.The present Afghan regime's stand is that the Durand Line agreement was for one hundred years and expired in 1993,therefore Durand Line needs to be re-negotiated. 52

The US government formed a tripartite commission consisting of US , Afghan and Pakistani officials to coordinate the ongoing US operations on the Afghan-Pakistan border in 2002.The prime objective of setting up this commission was to coordinate joint US-Afghan-Pakistan military operations against various anti US elements operating on both sides of Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

In July 2003 there were some clashes between Afghan troops and Pakistani forces in Mohmand Agency because of misunderstanding about alignment of the border.

Analysis

A Complicated issue

The Afghan-Pakistan boundary question is not as simple as it is made to be by many analysts or politicians. Afghanistan in its present form emerged on world map as a state only in 1747,while the Durand Line was marked only in 1892.

The first problem is from where to start the discussion. From 972 when a large part of Afghanistan south of Hindukush including was ruled by a Punjabi Hindu Raja as earlier discussed or from 1700 when most of Afghanistan south of Hindu Kush subdivided as Kabul and Kandahar provinces was ruled by Mughals based at Delhi or from 1740 when Afghanistan was part of a Persian-Turk Empire led by Nadir Shah. Then there is the more in vogue method of assuming that history of Afghanistan starts from the time of elevation of Ahmad Shah Saddozai to leadership of the Afghans in 1747.This again is complicated since Punjab, Sindh, Kashmir and Baluchistan, all non Pashtun majority areas were also part of Ahmad Shah's Empire.If one assumes that Durand Line is disputable because it divided the Pashtun areas into two parts then this again is complicated since the Oxus boundary of Afghanistan divides Tajik,Uzbek and Turkmen populations.The ethnic angle also complicates the issue since the southern and northern parts of Durand Line do not divide the Pashtun population but Baloch,Chitrali and Kirgiz population who belong to different ethnic groups.

Then comes the issue whether Afghanistan is a multiethnic state or a Pashtun state.If Afghanistan claims the right to champion the cause of Pashtuns in Pakistan then Tajikistan ,Uzbekistan ,Turkmenistan and Iran can claim the same right for their respective compatriot ethnic and sectarian minorities living in Afghanistan.

A significant length of Durand Line in the north and south consists of non Pashtun racial groups like the Baloch and Chitralis.Relations between the Baloch and Pashtuns in Pakistani Balochistan have never been very cordial and the Baloch would not accept being a minority in another state.The Baloch regional parties have expressed a desire for greater autonomy within the framework of the Pakistani state while the more militant Baloch in minority want an independent Baloch state for all Baloch living in Pakistan,Afghanistan and Iran.The Chitralis on the other hand feel ethnically closer to the people of Northern Areas of Pakistan rather than the Pashtuns of NWFP , the province to which they administratively belong.

Pakistani Viewpoint

Pakistani official viewpoint is that Durand Line is a long settled issue recognised by all Afghan Governments from 1879 till 1947.That Pakistan is a successor state of British India and that Afghanistan must respect its earlier agreements concluded with British India.That the population of NWFP and Baluchistan decided by a referendum/Jirga/vote to join Pakistan in 1947.

Afghan Viewpoint

The Afghan viewpoint is that Durand Line was imposed on Afghanistan under coercion/duress and was a Diktat. The Afghan position is that Durand Line was a line demarcating zones of influence of British and Afghan governments. 53Further the Afghan stand is that Afghanistan has no territorial claims on Pakistan's Pashtun areas but feels that Pashtuns of Pakistan must be allowed to exercise the right of self determination and that the 1947 referendum/Jirga was a British colonial stage managed farce.The Afghan stand was formally declared in the 1949 Loya Jirga and has not been changed by any successive Afghan government till to date.The current Afghan Government because of its transitional nature has avoided making any controversial statement on the Durand Line.However after the parliamentary elections of April 2005 the Durand Line may again become a political issue.

Afghanistan 's ethnic minorities generally regard Durand Line as a non issue.Abdul Hafeez Mansur an important Tajik political leader has stated that Afghanistan should recognise the Durand Line and ask in return for sovereign guarantees from Pakistan regarding confirmed use of maritime facilities for Afghanistan .54

In a nutshell the general Afghan line is that Durand Line is a controversial issue and for the time being Afghanistan and Pakistan need to concentrate on " Confidence Building Measures" .That Afghans need to set their own house in order,with internal cohesion and economic stability being first priorities rather than the Durand Line.

Crux of the matter

The essence of the whole issue is that states are created or boundaries changed not simply by national determination , elections,referendums or plebiscites but by global grand geopolitical agendas of great powers.Thus the creation of Pakistan and India as two separate states was a direct result of British colonial policies of " Divide et Impera" deliberately adopted after the Great Sepoy Rebellion of 1857.Initially the British wanted India to be one state with Muslims and Hindus in constant communal strife,however later they modified this design once the Hindu dominated Indian National Congress opposed the British war effort in 1939.The British response was to accept the Muslim demand for a separate state.The British viewed India and Pakistan as subsidiary allies in the Cold War against USSR and did not want the fragmentation of the Indo Pak Sub continent into smaller ethnic states which would be to USSR's strategic advantage.In 1971 Bangladesh was created only because both USA and USSR agreed that the arrangement suited both camps.Vietnam,Korea and Germany was divided not by any plebiscite but because the great powers wanted it.Durand Line was created by British Imperial power and was designed for a specific strategic purpose.Historically great powers or superpowers or whatever one may call them have employed the ethnic card only when it suited their global strategic designs.Thus Wilsons 14 Points were designed to weaken the Central Powers with whom USA and Britain were fighting in the First World War.The Poles were given independence because the Allied Powers loved them but because they were viewed as a tool to weaken both Germany and Russia.The Kurds and Baloch have remained partitioned and subject people but their independence does not fit in the global great game, at least for the time being.The Kurds are the worst example in this game of contradictions.Despite having a distinct ethnicity and traditions they have remained divided simply because their independence does not fit in any neat global strategic solution linked with any great power.The Afghans were able to preserve their independence not because they were more martial than the Kurds but largely because their buffer status suited British imperial designs otherwise they have been condemned like the Kurds to the fate of being divided in between three states like they were from 1520 till 1709.

The great illusion of post WW II colonial people is that they think they are free while in reality their governments are controlled by political agents and residents now more politely known as ambassadors.Kashmir,Palestine,Durand Line , all were designed and devised to suit some great power strategic agenda. On the other hand ironically the regional interest groups in all post colonial states merely used disputes as Machiavellian arrangements to galvanise their masses in the name of various disputes and as a tool of strengthening their personal political power. The same game was played in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran , Iraq and India in the name of ideology or ethnic slogans. The net result being that borders were not changed but the ommon man used as cannon fodder! Afghanistan being the worst example of this Machiavellian exercise.

Provincial Autonomy
Provincial autonomy for Pashtuns of Afghanistan was the main demand of the Afghan Government all along the Durand Line controversy.This again is a complicated matter since Pakistan is organised along generally ethnic lines while Afghanistan is organised on mixed lines, the Afghan provinces being size of Pakistani districts. 55 The Pakistani standpoint in this regard being that greater provincial autonomy with Pakistan having unresolved disputes with its eastern and western neighbours is not in Pakistan's greater national interest.The trend in the last twenty years in Pakistan has been less on provincial autonomy with nationalist Pashtun and Baloch generally being reduced to legislative minorities and the stress being on inter ethnic cooperation particularly in the Pashtun heavy provinces of NWFP and Baluchistan.

No Border is perfect

History proves that no border is perfect whether it's the Rumanian-Hungarian border in Transylvania, German-Polish Border, Russo-Chinese Border, India-China Border, Russo-Japanese Border-Yemen-Saudi border,Iran-Iraq Border or even the Canadian-US border. The great lesson of history however is to move ahead of borders and deal with more important issues of the day like economic cooeration and trade. Today borders are irrelevant in Europe and the Franco-German or Polish-German rivalry is a forgotten epoch of history.Why cannot Pakistan and Afghanistan having a common religious,historical and cultural background move out of the vicious circle of conflict and rivalry into which they were placed by a Machiavellian impearalist plan conceived in the period 1849-1947.

Role of Afghanistan's neighbours

Afghanistan's neigbours need to understand and digest the fact that the entire region will be the net winner in case Afghanistan and Pakistan are good friends.The old theories of using Afghanistan as a pawn to open a second front against any third country need to be buried.This the age of globalisation and not of any " Forward Policies" employed by any state.Any state which has any motivation to incite sectarian or ethnic divisions in any of its neighbours is following a zero gain policy as far as the long term interest of the entire region is concerned.Afghanistan like Pakistan,Iran,India and its Central Asian neighbours is a multiethnic state where the issues and disputes need to be settled by the ballot rather than the bullet.Particularly Afghan history has proved that great issues of the day cannot be settled by fighting but by consultation and consensus.

Recommendations
· Both Afghanistan and Pakistan need to concentrate on confidence building measures and put sensitive political issues like Durand Line in cold storage for at least two decades.They need to learn from the post 1945 West European model of cooperation.

· Both the countries should initiate measures which can bring their people like totally abolishing the visa regime.Allowing people of both the states right of work in each others countries like the EU without imposing any restrictions .

· Allocate specific berths for Afghan trans shipments at Karachi,Port Qasim and Gwadar.

· Both countries should give unrestricted transhipment facilities to each others imports and exports with minimum red tape.Pakistan to Afghanistan for access to and from the sea and to/from India.Afghanistan for Pakistani trade with Iran and Central Asian Republics.

· Pakistan should integrate its tribal areas with rest of the country and adopt measures which discourage militants of any breed from using tribal areas of Pakistan as base for any sort of private war waged in the name of ideology or ethnicity.

Conclusion
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan have a very long common history and cultural similarities.Persian was the official language in India as well as regions comprising present Pakistan till 1837 once it was abolished by the English East India Company in order to divide the Muslims of India from Afghanistan,Iran and Central Asia.Both the countries inherited disputes created by the British.Disputes which were used by the political elites in both the countries to further concentrate their political power by mobilising their respective masses in the name of ideology and ethnicity.As a result Pakistan fought three costly wars with India , failed to gain Kashmir and lost one half of its territory in 1971.Afghanistan sought Soviet assistance to undo the Durand Line and was condemned to a twenty five year long civil war in which it was fragmented.Pakistan courted with Islamic fundamentalism and was came very close to being declared a terrorist state during the period 1989-2000.By supporting the Taliban Pakistan became militarised and till to date is a victim of sectarian conflict.Both the countries fought for things which were not really important, losing in the process many opportunities to gain economic strength and prosperity for their people.The Afghan Pak border issue was a colonial creation designed to divide people and ironically succeeded in dividing two Muslim states with a long common historical past.Durand Line can be undone not by redrawing borders but by abolishing the visa regime and pedantic bureaucratic restrictions on movement of goods and traffic across borders.After fifty five years of conflict and confrontation sanity is fast returning and the Afghan or Pakistani child of tomorrow will question the phenomenal irrationalness of his ancestors for neglecting the real issues and fighting over imaginary issues !


The author is a researcher interested in Afghan history and Low Intensity Warfare. He is presently associated with the Afghanistan Study Centre in editorial and research capacities and also working in a construction and logistics business concern in Kabul.

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* Editors Note:-- The Sikhs were the only state in India Pakistan Iran Afghanistan or the entire Middle East who defeated a division plus British force belonging to the English East India Company in any single battle at Chillianwallah on 13 January 1849.All other Bitish reverses in the region involved forces smaller than a division .



* Editors Note:--This interpretation is the crux of the issue since the Afghan viewpoint is that the signatures were obtained under coercion/duress and that the Durand Line Agreement was a " Diktat" just like the Germans viewed the Versailles Treaty of 1919.

* Editors Note:-- What is vastly ignored by analysts is the fact that the Afghan reaction was civilized and not against any norm or convention of international law.



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Endnotes and References

1 Sir Wolseley Haig,"Cambridge History of India",Volume Two " Turks and Afghans", Reprinted by S.Chand and Company,New Delhi ,1987,p.11. once the Arab Muslims launched their first raid on the areas, which comprise present day Afghanistan Afghanistan was inhabited by people of Buddhist and Hindu faiths. A Punjabi Hindu Rajput Dynasty ruled a large part of it south of Hindu Kush Mountains . The initial Afghan Muslim empire was established by the Ghaznavids originating from Ghazni.This was a Turkish and non Pashtun dynasty although many of its army's soldiers were Pashtuns.The dynasty occupied large parts of modern Persia,Central Asia,Pakistan and some outlying parts of present India.Its later rulers were reduced to ruling parts of modern Pakistani province of Punjab and NWFP once its rivals forced it to abandon its original Afghan territories.

2 Ibid,p.41 & 42. Following the Ghaznavids Afghanistan was ruled by other Turkish dynasties like the Ghauris who captured Northern India after defeating the Hindu Rajput rulers of Northern India.Qutbuddin Aibak a slave general of Sultan Mohammad Ghauri captured Delhi in December 1192-January 1193. Aibak established his base at Delhi and later captured Ghazni in 1208-9 after the murder of his master Mohmmad Ghauri at the hands of Hindu Rajput Ghakkar tribesmen of Northern Punjab.Thereafter much of Afghanistan was ruled by Turk dynasties with capital at Delhi or north of Hindu Kush .

3 Louis Dupree, "Afghanistan",Oxford University Press,1994, p.318 to 325. In 1504 when Kabul was captured by the Mughal Babur and till about 1737 Kabul and periodically Kandahar remained part of the Mughal Empire(till its final capture by Saffavid Persia in 1648) with its capital at Delhi and Agra.The present Afghan area north of Hindu Kush was parcelled between Uzbeks in Balkh and Badakkhshan and Safavid Persia occupying Herat.

4 Ibid. The Ghilzai revolt was a short term affair and petered out by 1727 but only after the Afghans had overrun great part of Persia and sacked the Safavid capital Isfahan.Thereafter another Persian revival occurred under the Turk Sunni General Nadir Shah who had begun his career as a horse thief. Nadir defeated the Ghilzai Afghans from 1728-29 and retook Kandahar aided by the Pashtun Abdalis(Saddozais) rivals of the Ghilzais in 1737.

5 Ibid. Nadir gained fame because of his attack on Mughal India and sack of Delhi in 1739 where the Abdali Afghans also fought under him as one small part of his Persian-Turk-Pashtun force

6 Ibid,p.339. Ahmad Shah Abdali, more famous with his title Durri Dauran (pearl of pearls) abbreviated as Durrani created a grand empire from Persia in the west till large parts of India (Punjab,Kashmir,Sindh and Bahawalpur) .Ahmad raided India many times during the period 1748 till 1769 when finally Punjabi Sikh guerrilla warriors checked his future excursions. During Ahmad Shah Durranis reign (1747-1773) Afghanistan was an empire including many non Pashtun territories. The decline began immediately after Ahmad Shah's death and by the time of his grandson's accession Afghanistan was reduced roughly to its present shape on the map.

[7] Dupree , op cit , p.345(chart). The Kalat confederacy of Baloch in the south became de facto independent while the Persian territories in Khorasan and Seistan were reoccupied by the new Qajar dynasty. The Afghan civil war of 1818-34 between the Barakzai brothers was a traumatic event in Afghan history.What the Afghans had gained, albeit for a short period from 1748 to 1818 thanks to the decline and fall of Saffavids, Mughals and later Nadir Shah's assassination was largely lost. These included Sindh whose rulers paid tribute to Afghans,Kalat Confederacy which at least technically paid homage to Afghanistan,Peshawar ,Multan and Kashmir.It may be noted that the Afghans had lost real control over Baluchistan (territories ruled by Khan of Kalat and the tribal Marri and Bugti Sardars) as early as 1793-94.

[8] Olaf Caroe, "The Pathans" ,Oxford University Press, Karachi,1969,p.292 to 298. Northern Punjab (then known as Lahore Province) Kashmir and Multan was occupied by the Punjabi Sikhs under Ranjit Singh during the period 1799-1823.Peshawar,Yusufzai,Kohat and Bannu were reoccupied by the Sikhs during the period 1818-23 and the Afghan border pushed to Jamrud Fort which was constructed by the Sikh general Hari Singh Nalwa.Multan lost to Ranjit by the Afghans in 1818,followed by Kashmir in 1819. Derajat comprising Dera Ismail Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan during 1819-22 and finally Peshawar in 1823 . This was a reversal of some one thousand years of history in that Peshawar was occupied by a non Muslim force apart from a brief occupation by Genghis Khan in early thirteenth century.

[9] Dupree , op cit,p.365 to 367. Plagued by civil war during the period 1800-1818 Ahmad Shah Durrani's Saddozai-Popalzai line was replaced by a rival Abdali clan Barakzais by 1819. This dynastic and clan infighting which continued till 1834 directly resulted in the expulsion of Afghans from the territories east of Khyber Pass. The line of Barakzai Sardars removed from Peshawar by Ranjit Singh in 1823 were direct ancestors of Sardar Daud Khan and ex King Zahir Shah.

10Percy Sykes, " A History of Afghanistan ",Volume Two First published 1940 ,Reprinted by Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Private Limted ,2002,New Delhi , p.64. It may be noted that the Sikhs had promised Afghans return of Peshawar provided the Afghans aided them against the English East India Company . When the English East India Company attacked Punjab in 1848 the Afghan ruler Dost Mohammad under popular demand occupied Peshawar and the area till Indus River and half heartedly sent a 5,000 strong cavalry contingent to aid the Sikhs.This cavalry contingent was severely mauled by the British-Indian at the Battle of Gujrat in February 1849 and within weeks the British-Indian army pursued the Afghans till the mouth of Khyber Pass. Note that the Afghan historian Sayed Qassem Reshtia claims that Dost Mohammad had instructed his son Akram Khan only to associate his cavalry contingent as observers !This assertion has to be taken with a pinch of salt ! See Sayed Qassem Reshtia, " Between Two Giants" , Afghan Jehad Works,Peshawar ,1990 , p.200.

11 Lee Warner,Sir William, "Life of Dalhousie" ,William Blackwood and Sons,Reprint Daud and Company ,Lahore 1976,p.184.It may be noted that Afghan historian Sayed Qassem Reshtia on page-206 of his op.cit book states that the British occupied Quettain 1854.This is factually incorrect.The British did occupy Quetta in 1839,evacuating it in 1842 , handing it back to its original owner Khan of Kalat,after Outrams Defensive-Offensive treaty with Kalat.Later the British leased Quetta again from the Khan of Kalat only in 1876.See Life of Sir Robert Sandeman,E .Thornton,Edinburgh,1895,p.149. Goldsmid ,Sir F.J and L.J Trotter , "The Bayard of India-James Outram-A Biography" ,Two Volumes,1880,p.58. In 1839 while marching towards Kabul via Shikarpur-Sibi-Quetta-Kandahar-Ghazni the British had captured Kalat city thereby extending British control on the Baloch inhabited areas of Balochistan.Although the British returned Quetta and Bolan Pass to Khan of Kalat once they withdrew from the area in 1842,following a defensive and offensive alliance treaty between Nasir Khan 11 Khan of Kalat and British Major Outram. It has been earlier highlighted noted that much of what presently comprises Pakistani Baluchistan had already firmly slipped out of Afghan hands by 1794. The situation further changed after the English East India Company's occupation of Sindh in 1843 ,since now they were having direct borders with Kalat State.Therefore the British consolidated their political control on Kalat Confederacy through a treaty concluded in 1854 with the Khan of Kalat.Lord Dalhousie the then Viceroy of English East India company wanted to secure Baluchistan firmly within the British sphere of influence .Therefore he deputed Major John Jacob British Agent in Upper Sindh to conclude this treaty which was concluded on 14 th May 1854.The treaty guaranteed the Khan an annual subsidy of 50,000/- Rs and in return he was bound wholly and exclusively to British interests and to host a British political agent at Kalat.

12 Lee Warner,Sir William, "Life of Dalhousie" ,William Blackwood and Sons,Reprint Daud and Company ,Lahore 1976,p.184.It may be noted that Afghan historian Sayed Qassem Reshtia on page-206 of his op.cit book states that the British occupied Quettain 1854.This is factually incorrect.The British did occupy Quetta in 1839,evacuating it in 1842 , handing it back to its original owner Khan of Kalat,after Outrams Defensive-Offensive treaty with Kalat.Later the British leased Quetta again from the Khan of Kalat only in 1876.See Life of Sir Robert Sandeman,E .Thornton,Edinburgh,1895,p.149.

13 Goldsmid ,Sir F.J and L.J Trotter , "The Bayard of India-James Outram-A Biography" ,Two Volumes,1880,p.58.

14 Lee Warner,Sir William, "Life of Dalhousie" ,William Blackwood

and Sons,Reprint Daud and Company ,Lahore 1976, p.184.It may be noted that Afghan historian Sayed Qassem Reshtia on page-206 of his op.cit book states that the British occupied Quettain 1854.This is factually incorrect.The British did occupy Quetta in 1839,evacuating it in 1842 , handing it back to its original owner Khan of Kalat,after Outrams Defensive-Offensive treaty with Kalat.Later the British leased Quetta again from the Khan of Kalat only in 1876.See Life of Sir Robert Sandeman,E .Thornton,Edinburgh,1895,p.149.

15 Durand , Marion Henry, " The First Afghan War and its Causes" , Reprint Shah Publications,Lahore 1978 ,p.438 and Reshtia,op cit,p.208. In the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1855 Amir Dost Mohammad agreed to the following:--(1)Friendship and continual peace between the two countries.

(2) Mutual respect for the existing Afghan and British boundaries.(3) Acceptance by the Amir of Britain's friends as his own friends and Britain's enemies as his own enemies. It may be noted that from 1849 onwards the Afghan Government did not make any fresh claims on Peshawar , following the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1855

16 Reshtia,op cit,p.208.

17 Ibid. Nevertheless the agreement proves that in 1855 the Afghan Government had no problem with Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Derajat and the Yusufzai territories not being part of the Afghan kingdom. In justice to Amir Dost Mohammad Khan's conduct in 1855 it may be said that Dost above all was a supreme realist. He had dispassionately studied the real military events of the First Afghan War studied only synthetically till to date and erroneously perceived as an Afghan victory.Dost must have noted that the English East India Company's reverse at Kabul only involved a weak and poorly supplied infantry brigade comprising an infantry battalion hired by the English Company from the British crown and some Indian infantry battalions of the English East India Company's very private native Indian sepoy army. The fact that English East India Company's garrisons at Kandahar and Jalalabad successfully defended against Afghan assaults and the fact that British General Pollock despite all odds marched to Kabul from Kandahar on way back to India on his own intitiative. All this must have convinced Dost Mohammad a brilliant statesman and general that it did not suit Afghanistan's national interests to practice any adventure with the British.

18 The British Viceroy wanted Pollock to withdraw from Kandahar via Quetta but Pollock on his own initiative decided to march back to India on the way recapturing Kabul.This encouraged the British Jalalabad garrison to march back to Kabul which was captured and its Grand Bazar burnt as a revenge for destruction of Kabul Brigade.See "History of British Army",J.W Fortescue,London,Macmillan and Company ,1930. Most historians and analysts have generally studied the First Afghan War only synthetically and have ignored the role of Ranjit Singh in the British reverse at Kabul.Ranjit Singh was the real architect of the destruction of the British brigade at Kabul.By forcing the British to march by an extremely long route from the south Ranjit Singh lengthened the British line of supply to Kabul into more than 1,500 miles.This in turn led to British exhaustion and lack of supplies which played a major part in the Kabul Brigades destruction .

19 See also the observations of Sykes op cit , p.67.When asked by his governor at Kandahar to kill Britishers since Britishers were facing a rebellion in India , Dost dismissed the idea stating that " It is useless, I know these English well.It may be true that all those in India have been killed,but they will come in thousands from beyond the sea and reconquer the country".

20 Sykes,op cit,p.68.It may be noted that Herat continued to be ruled by a prince who acknowledged the Shah of Persia as his king and was only later captured by Dost Mohmmad Khan in 1863.(Sykes,op cit,p.67). This was a significant milestone in Afghanistan's history since Persia abandoned its hostile posture against Afghanistan , thanks to fear of English East India Company's military might.

21 Gregorian,Vertan , " The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan", Stanford Univeristy Press, California,1969,p.104. Concluded in January 1857 this treaty granted Dost Mohammad subsidy of 10,000 Pounds Sterling per mensem during any hostilities and supply of a large number of muskets and ammunition.

22 Ibid. Dost Mohammad Khan handed over Indian deserters/rebels back to the British at a retainer of 30 Rupees for unarmed and 50 Rupees for armed Indian soldiers

23 Dupree , op cit , p.406.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid. Essence of the policy being an aggressive posture towards Afghanistan with a view to resist Russian designs in Central Asia .

26 Ibid . Quetta belonged to the Khan of Kalat who was a British subsidiary , de facto since 1839 and de jure since 1854 as earlier discussed.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid,p.409. The reigning Afghan king Sher Ali sought Russian help but the Russians did not have the nerve to oppose the British and declined Sher Ali's request who died a heartbroken man and was succeeded by his son Yaqub Khan.Yaqub Khan unnerved by the three pronged British invasion from Khyber,Kurram and Quetta signed the peace treaty of Gandamak on 26 May 1879.Salient clauses of Gandamak were cession of Sibi,Pishin,Thal Chotiali ,Kurram,Khyber and Michni to British India.Britain in return was to provide the Afghan Amir an annual subsidy of 60,000 Pounds per annum and a lose guarantee of assistance in case of foreign aggression . It may be noted that hostilities continued after the Gandamak treaty, the British occupied Kabul in late 1879 and held it successfully against Afghan national resistance under the able general ship of General Roberts later famous as Lord Roberts of Kandahar finally withdrawing from Afghanistan after having helped a new Afghan king Abdul Rahman against Sardar Ayub Khan in 1881. The First Afghan War most historians forget was waged by a private company suffering a near deficit budget ,while in the Second Afghan War had all the resources the British had all the resources of a rising British Empire behind their war effort.



29 Ibid,p.426.

30 Caroe,op cit,pages.464 & 465.

31 Dupree,op cit , p.488 & 489.

32 Ibid.

32 Ibid,p.489.

33 Paragraph 17 of the Partition Agreement,made public on June 3 1947,by Mountbatten.Quoted by Louis Dupree, Afghanistan,Oxford Reprint,p.488.

34 Ibid, p.488. The then British Indian government led by Viceroy Lord Wavell had at that time snubbed the Afghans stating that Durand Line was an international boundary.

35 Ibid,p.491.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Dupree,op cit,p.491.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid , p.492 and Abdul Samad Ghaus. The Fall of Afghanistan: An Insider's Account (London: Pergamon-Brassey's International Defense Publishers, 1988), p. 71.

41 Dupree, op cit,p.492. It may be noted that relations between both states had by and large remained uneasy right from 14 August 1947 and Pakistan allegedly in response to anti Pakistan propaganda by Afghan Government had commissioned Radio Free Afghanistan from Quetta in 1949.See Dupree, p.491.

42 Ibid.p.491.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid,p.543 & 544.

45 Ibid,p.544.

46 Ibid.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Hamid Hussain " Love Thy Neighbour,Kill Thy Neighbour" ,Journal of Afghanistan Studies ,July-September 2004 , Issue Number One , Afghanistan Study Centre ,Kabul ,2004 ,pages 5 & 6.

50 Raja Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan,Verso Books,London ,1989,p.82.

51 Beverley Male, Revolutionary Afghanistan , e, Revolutionary Afghanistan: A Reappraisal First Printed 1982,,Vikas Books,Delhi,Reprint ,1999,pages 197 to 200.

52 Khalid Hassan, " Is the Durand Line Storm Brewing Again" ,Friday Times,Lahore , 12 September 2003.

53 Embree, " Pakistan's Western Borderlands",1979,p.135.

54 Abubaker Saddique, " A Report on the Pakistan Afghanistan Border Region (Draft)",2004 , p.29.

55 Thus the Afghan demand in this case is one of double standards.Afghanistan being a multiethnic state has no consolidated provinces on ethnic lines while the pre 1992 Afghan governments wanted Pakistan to grant provincial autonomy to its Pashtuns.

 

[ajtr]

Mumbai Mystery: American Designs on Pakistan and India – Part One​

Tariq Saeedi

with Sergi Pyatakov in Moscow and Mark Davidson in Washington

Legwork by SM Kasi in Quetta, GN Brohi in Dalbandin, and Qasim Jan in Kandahar

Mumbai episode is the latest in a long and nefarious story that started unfolding some 16 months ago in the barren hills of Balochistan, a sparsely populated province in western Pakistan.

After more than 22000 kilometers of road and rail travel, endless legwork chasing small and seemingly unrelated clues, hundreds of interviews and many dozens of field trips, all we have been able to do is just remove the lid on the American designs on Pakistan and India. Equally disturbing is the reality that Central Asia, China and Russia are also in the crosshairs of the United States. What we have found is sheer in scope, mind-boggling and frightening.

The USA seems to have decided to:

Bifurcate Pakistan using all possible means, including the religious elements that can be bought, coerced or tricked;
Pull the plug on the Indian and Pakistani economies by creating a situation of perpetual confrontation;
Prevent India from becoming an economic rival of the United States in foreseeable future by denying it the energy resources of Central Asia and Iran, and draining its precious human and material assets in dead-end pursuits;
Promote drug addiction in South and Central Asia so that all the opium produced in Afghanistan is consumed in the region and little or none is left for export to the American markets;
Block the economic growth and expanding regional influence of China and Russia;
Acquire logistics facilities and infrastructure network for military action against Iran;

The Bumper Crop of Spies

We started working on this story in July 2007 on a vague tip that some foreign spies had been caught in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. We traveled to Balochistan and started talking to people who had many interesting things to tell.

"They caught a spy transmitting from the backroom of a pharmacy in Dalbandin," said a local shopkeeper.

"Yes, it was about eleven in the night. They caught him without any trouble." said his friend.

The capture of another spy was rather hilarious.

"He was dressed like a Baloch, and he looked like a Baloch," said a shepherd.

"But we knew immediately that he was not a Baloch and we tipped a militia patrol," he added.

"How did you know he was not a Baloch," we asked.

His brief explanation: "He was not walking like a Baloch."

It is easy to understand the shepherd if you have ever seen a real Baloch in motion. The lilt and majesty of Baloch gait is inimitable.

Another spy was pretending to be a bush.

"The spy was concealed in a small bush on ——– [name of the mountain omitted deliberately]," told a farmer in a settlement opposite Ahmedwal town.

"Why did you think it was not just a bush like any other bush," we asked.

"There was no bush there the day before," was his simple reply.

Because of the keen observation and vigilance of the locals, five spies were caught in less than two months. There were at least three others, who were detected but managed to escape. It is difficult to say as to how many more operated unnoticed, completed their work and went back to wherever they came from.

What was significant was that the locals said that four of the five captured spies were Amreeki (Americans).

This sudden surge in American spies was inexplicable.

We decided to consult Sasha and Misha, two retired KGB colonels, living in a quieter district of Moscow.

Back to Sasha and Misha

Sasha and Misha (not their real names), are retired KGB colonels and top-notch experts on Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were among the architects of the original BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army) during the Russo-Afghan war. They know Balochistan better than anyone else we ever met.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are their first love and like faithful lovers they always keep tab on what is happening in that part of the world. And, they are in touch with many of their old contacts.

"There can be many reasons for increased espionage. It usually indicates some major shift in policy or preparation for a big operation. Looking at other developments, I would say that it is the both. The Americans are going for a major shift in their policy toward Pakistan and they may also be putting together some big operations," said Sasha.

"Go look for something unorthodox," added Misha.

The trouble with Misha is that he speaks Cryptese. With his inherent fondness for crosswords, anagrams and puzzles, Misha is almost always difficult to decipher.

"Unorthodox what," we asked in exasperation.

"Such as Yankee-Jihadi marriage," said Misha with a naughty twinkle in his eyes that suddenly made him look much younger.

It was clear that we were not going to get anything more from the duo before doing some spadework.

Continued . . .

 

[ajtr]

Mumbai Mystery: American Designs on Pakistan and India – Part Two​

Tariq Saeedi

with Sergi Pyatakov in Moscow and Mark Davidson in Washington

Legwork by SM Kasi in Quetta, GN Brohi in Dalbandin, and Qasim Jan in Kandahar

Continued from Part One

Yankee-Jihadi Marriage

We turned our attention back to Balochistan and patched into the local grapevine.

Misha's phrase 'Yankee-Jihadi Marriage' was the key we were trying on every lock.

Something seemed to click after a while.

There was buzz that a representative of a jihadi outfit recently had a meeting with an American in the Sadabahar area at the edge of Quetta. This was the beginning of August 2007 and the meeting was unusual. Americans of all descriptions travel frequently between Afghanistan and Pakistan but they were not known, till then, to seek clandestine meetings with jihadi elements.

According to our source, the representative of the jihadi outfit was a burly man in mid thirties with medium-length, thick beard. In Sadabahar, where the compound walls are typically high, he met an American who was dressed like a Pushtun. The meeting lasted more than three hours and the jihadi left with a canvas bag full of cash.

We could not identify the American but we managed to trace the jihadi to a splinter group of LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba).

As is known, LeT is not a single entity; it is more like a brand name, used by many groups with diverse objectives and split loyalties.

The jihadi went to Karachi and met a colleague in Shah Faisal Colony and apparently gave him some of the cash he received from the American in Quetta. This assumption is based on the fact that the jihadi's colleague in Shah Faisal Colony purchased a flashy SUV a few days later.

We returned to Sasha and Misha.

Money Explodes

"It cannot be an isolated phenomenon. There must be something before and after it. Look for patterns, always look for patterns," said Sasha.

Misha said, "This money will explode. It will explode in many places."

It was early September 2007, and Misha's black prediction was not long in coming true.

BB [Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan] returned to Pakistan on 18 October 2007 after nearly eight years of self-imposed exile, and her huge convoy was hit by suicide bombers en-route to the mausoleum of the father of the nation. Hundreds were killed and wounded but BB escaped unharmed.

Was there any connection between the suicide attack on BB's convoy and the American funding of a jihadi outfit?

Instead of jumping to conclusions, we went back to Sasha and Misha.

Look at the whole picture

"Look at the whole picture. Never get distracted; look at the whole picture," said Sasha.

"That is what we are here for – show us the whole picture, or at least as much of the picture as you can," we said.

Sasha looked Misha in the eyes for a few seconds. It is disconcerting, the way they can communicate with each other silently and make you feel dumb.

There seemed to be some kind of accord.

"OK, let's a bit of picture for you," said Sasha.

He started, "BB has hired the lobbying firm BKSH & Associates in a six-month contract for US $ 250000. It is the same firm that is working for Hillary Clinton.

"Burson-Marsteller is the parent company of BKSH and pollster Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates is its affiliate. Mark Penn is the president of Penn Schoen and CEO of Burson-Marsteller and he is also the chief advisor of Clinton in her presidential campaign.

"Now that Republicans are sure they cannot win the elections, they are betting on Hilary. She is a Republican among Democrats and by looking at her policy stance as senator, I can say confidently that if she wins the elections or finds her way into the new administration, she would continue with the Republican foreign policy. She is the last hope of Neocons.

"It is no coincidence that BB decided at this very time to return to Pakistan and hired BKSH to lobby for her in Washington."

"She has been chosen as pillion rider to a wayward Musharraf," interjected Misha.

"Yes," continued Sasha, "she is the chosen pillion rider but there are likely other plans, several of them in fact; a dead BB would be more useful for Washington."

Complicating the picture

"It is a rather confusing picture you are painting. First we find that Americans are funding a splinter group of LeT, then you predict that the money given to that jihadi outfit will lead to 'explosions' and now you are saying that BB was chosen as pillion rider to Musharraf but a dead BB will be more useful to Washington. Are you suggesting that Washington sent BB to Pakistan just to get her killed by LeT or some other jihadi lunatics?"

"Listen to the end," said Sasha rather sternly.

"Sorry," we said, afraid that he might clam up.

"First, let's clarify the question of funding by Americans. Financing, arming and training of enemy elements is nothing new in the American policy. The whole Russo-Afghan was fought on funding and training the kind of people who would never be welcome in Washington. However, their being loathsome was not a barrier against their being funded and trained to fight the Russians because, as the Americans are fond of saying, the end justifies the means.

"If BB is removed from the scene, it would bring several benefits to Washington, the topmost being swift departure of Musharraf, replaced by a weak government that would be heavily dependent on Americans for its very survival"

Misha started speaking when Sasha broke the conversation. "We are not saying that LeT did or did not engineer the suicide bombing in the BB procession on 18 Oct.

"What we are underlining is that a dead BB would be very useful for the region-wide American objectives, and the contract to bump her off may have been outsourced to more than one contractors."

Look for patterns

It was even more confusing.

"Sorry, but we cannot make head or tail of all this," we said.

"Look for patterns," said Sasha like a teacher whose patience was wearing thin.

"The pattern here is," explained Sasha, "that CIA and other American agencies are funding, training and arming MeK [Mujahideen-e-Khalq] in Iraq and Iran to use them against Iran, they are funding and supporting Jundullah in Pakistan and Iran to create trouble in Iran, and now they have co-opted some factions of LeT, possibly some other jihadi outfits also, to do their dirty work in Pakistan."

"Go chase Vickers," said Misha with the finality that indicated the end of our session with the spymasters.

Chasing Vickers

Chasing Vickers is easier said than done.

Michael Vickers is the assistant secretary of defence responsible for special operations and low intensity warfare. A former Green Beret, he was confirmed as assistant secretary for defence on 23 July 2007.

Vickers was the principle strategist for covert CIA operation in Afghanistan that resulted in the defeat, and subsequent break-up, of the Soviet Union.

At the height of Afghan operation, he was giving strategic and operational direction to 300 unit commanders, 150000 full time and 500000 part time fighters. He coordinated the efforts of ten countries and oversaw an annual budget of more than US $ 2 billion.

In other words, Vickers was the direct challenger of Sasha and Misha in Afghanistan.

Special Operations Command (Socom), a part of the portfolio of Vickers, is based in Tampa, Florida. Its annual budget is US $ 8 billion. More than 60000 covert and overt personnel are on its payroll.

Vickers has offices on the third floor of Pentagon in the 'C' ring.

X is for eXpert

Washington is not an easy place for us; the people are reluctant to talk. Everyone who knows us is wary of us, and those who don't know us, don't care to talk to us.

However, there are three experts with deep knowledge and insight, who sometimes cooperate with us. For this story, we have given them a composite name 'X' – X for expert.

"Vickers is not a bureaucrat. He is a fighter, first and last," said X.

He elucidated, "Vickers has four qualities that put him head and shoulders above the crowd: 1. His multi-track mind that can process several scenarios simultaneously; 2. His ability to co-opt enemy to fight the enemy; 3. His talent to add or remove the essential elements, as the situation demands; and 4. His uncanny sense of timing; where to strike, when and how.

"He would think a thousand times before setting a goal, but once he has decided where he wants to go, he would use endless, flexible tactics to get there."

"We are impressed already," we said, "but what is the connection between American funding of some Pakistani jihadi outfits, the return of BB to Pakistan, and suicide attack on her convoy?"

"BB is the daughter of her father. Popularity goes to her head and she tends to become stubborn, even arrogant.

"Remember? Her father, ZAB [Zulfikar Ali Bhutto], made an extremely fine impression on JFK in their first meeting. JFK said that if you were an American, you would be in my cabinet. ZAB replied, 'Watch your words Mr. President. If I were an American, you would be in my cabinet.' She is no different.

"Although she has been sent as co-pilot for Musharraf, she might change her mind any time and that would be quite inconvenient for her American handlers. However, if she is bumped off, preferably with traceable links to some jihadi outfit, it would fit nicely with American plans for Pakistan and the entire region," said X.

"And, what could those plans be," we asked.

X said, "There is general agreement among all the 16 intelligence agencies of the United States that Pakistan is 'on the edge,' the situation is 'very bad, very bleak.' The latest National Intelligence Estimate describes Pakistan as 'no money, no energy, no government.'"

He was of the opinion that not only the entire intelligence community but the mainstream Democrats and Republicans, and the Pentagon leadership, had come to the conclusion that nothing was going to go forward without dealing directly with Pakistan.

"Vickers is in the forefront. He was one of the authors of the QDR-2006-2025 [Pentagon's Quadrennial Defence Review for the next twenty years]. QDR defines terrorism as the immediate threat and China, Russia and India as long-term threats," said X.

Expanding on the theme, X said, "There is the concept of 'Total Force.' This includes active and reserve components, DoD civilians and contractors. DoD, specifically its special operations wing, has been tasked to enable 'other actors' to perform key tasks, roles and missions.

"There is also the concept of 'freedom of action' which means that indirect approach, stealth, flexible basing and strategic reach, outsourcing of missions, co-opting enemies, and conducting covert operations in countries that are not at war with the USA, are all fully permissible.

"There is the stress to 'shift the cost balance' to the adversaries. It means that military and civilian activities are to be conducted across the spectrum to establish and maintain desired order in countries and regions, and in doing so, one enemy should be used to cause damage to the other enemy.

"In addition to QDR, there is the special hit list of Socom. Vickers has short-listed 20 'high priority' countries. Pakistan is at the top of the list and India is not very far behind. These are the countries where Socom will conduct all kinds of clandestine operations. External actors will be playing, wittingly or unwittingly, the script written by Vickers.

"You should never forget that Vickers is on first-name basis with lot many of the original jihadis of the Afghan war – he was their paymaster and handler – and these are the people running or guiding most of the present jihadi outfits."

Some of it was already going over our heads. The information was piling up like a shapeless lump, eluding any handle.

The best thing was to take a break for brainstorming.

Brainstorming

We tried to put together what we had uncovered so far in our investigations and match it with the information we obtained from X, Sasha and Misha.

Only some parts of the overall picture were visible, and it looked like this:

American espionage activity has intensified in Pakistan, indicating some major shift in policy and possible preparation for big action.
Americans are funding some jihadi outfits and militant elements in Pakistan, including at least a splinter faction of LeT. This is part of the known pattern of American tactics to finance enemy to fight the enemy. Other examples are US funding, training and arming of MeK and Jundullah.
BB has returned to Pakistan after reaching some kind of understanding with the current and future power players in Washington but the actual scriptwriters would like her dead because that would accelerate their regional ambitions.
Michael Vickers, assistant secretary of defence for special operations and low intensity warfare since July 2007, is a CIA veteran and chief strategist of jihadi war against USSR. He has big budget and huge manpower at his disposal for conducting clandestine and covert operations anywhere in the world. He has successful track record of co-opting enemy to fight the enemy. Pakistan is at the top of the list of his target countries and India is not far behind.
American establishment is unanimous in its opinion that a radical solution is needed for 'Pakistan problem.'
There are region-wide American ambitions, although we don't know much about them, but whatever those ambitions are, they cannot be advanced without severe damage to, possibly bifurcation of, Pakistan.
Where do we go from here? There were no fresh leads. We were also aware that we don't know the right questions to ask.

We were still in a state of indecision. And, BB got assassinated.

Continued . . .

 

[ajtr]

Mumbai Mystery: American Designs on Pakistan and India – Part Three​

Tariq Saeedi

with Sergi Pyatakov in Moscow and Mark Davidson in Washington

Legwork by SM Kasi in Quetta, GN Brohi in Dalbandin, and Qasim Jan in Kandahar

Continued from Part Two

Benazir Assassinated

BB (Benazir Bhutto) got assassinated on 27 December 2007, when she was leaving Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi after addressing a huge rally.

It was absolutely shocking news and our first reaction was to kick ourselves in the butt for not going public with our story in November 2007. Would she still be alive had we released the story in November? It is a question that would always keep haunting us.

We went to Sasha and Misha with a blurry video clip, showing a clean-shaven young man pointing and shooting a hand gun at BB.

It didn't take Sasha and Misha long to identify the weapon.

"It is a 0.22 high velocity pistol," said Sasha.

"Standard personal weapon of Mossad agents," added Misha.

"What does it mean?" we asked.

"It points to the source of training. If you are trained to use a knife, you will use a knife when required. If you are trained to use a 0.22 pistol, you will use that when the time comes," said Sasha.

"There are all kinds of speculations, even claims, that BB was assassinated by a jihadi organization," we mentioned.

"If Americans can fund a jihadi faction, what is wrong with Israelis training them?" countered Sasha.

He added, "You keep forgetting what I tell you. Look for patterns. There is certain CIA-Mossad signature that you cannot fail to miss if you are trained to look for it. The nerve gas used to paralyze the pilots of the C-130 carrying Ziaul Haq was made in Israel, but Israelis didn't put the little box in the mango crate, they used the local people. The poisoning of Shahnawaz [younger brother of BB, who died of poisoning in mid 1980s in Cannes] can be connected to CIA-Mossad if someone cares to open the case again, but it was just the maid of Shahnawaz who did the dirty work, not the Israelis or CIA. There is unmistakable similarity in the riots and endless public processions that led to the ouster of Salvadore Allande in Chile and ZAB and Musharraf in Pakistan; in none of these cases you saw CIA or Mossad officers leading the processions and riots. Look for patterns."

Wasted time, weak leads

From January to November 2008, we were held back by weak leads and drying up sources.

Only two things of any significance came to light but hardly a story to go public.

X said in Washington, "Vickers and Gates [US secretary of defence] are close friends. My assessment is that they might like to do something really big before Bush leaves the White House so that the next man should not be able to deviate much from the Neocon agenda."

Misha said in Moscow, "The opium production in Afghanistan for the last three years is nearly twice the worldwide demand of opium-based narcotics. Have you ever wondered where all the surplus opium is going?"

Mumbai mystery and Vickers

It was the fateful last week of November 2008, when terror struck Mumbai, the economic and financial heart of India. A group of probably ten persons, split into small teams, wreaked havoc in several public places for more than 60 hours, causing death and destruction at large scale, and bringing India and Pakistan to the brink of yet another war.

We returned to X in Washington and Sasha and Misha in Moscow, determined that we will go public with our story now, even if our findings cannot be backed by definite and demonstrable proof.

"Vickers is written all over it," said Misha.

"Looks quite like Vickers," agreed X.

X in Washington and Sasha and Misha in Moscow pointed to a number of features of the Mumbai mystery that they consider hallmark of Vickers.

Here is the gist of our several conversations with X, Sasha and Misha:

Choice of the sea route to Mumbai is the first thing that should ring alarm bells. If it was a homegrown jihadi outfit, they would have chosen the Bhuj route in Rajasthan with which they are familiar and which is not as risky as the sea route.

The likely departure point was some small settlement left of Hyderi and not the main port of Karachi as is widely reported and believed. If a fishing boat starts from any point left of Hyderi and moves along, hugging the coast, it has very little risk of being challenged. This was the route followed by India to send back trained Al-Zulfikar and other militants to Pakistan. This is also the route favoured by the Shah group and other drug smugglers known to cooperate with the Americans.

In addition to the route, there is the matter of drug use by the terrorists during the siege. Being in the midst of a shooting match with the security forces was enough of a stimulant to generate necessary quantities of adrenaline to keep them awake. However, if they felt the need to use narcotics, they would not go for LSD, which is basically a fad of the American youth, not much popular in South Asia.

The use of Google Earth maps is a classic Vickers touch. None of the sites targeted by the terrorists was a military installation; they are all shown in every tourist map. Even if one doesn't care to buy a tourist map, it is easy to get there merely by asking directions. Vickers, who is very fond of killing several birds with one stone, added Google Earth to the paraphernalia of terrorists because he is known to oppose this service; he considers it a security risk, probably rightly so, and wants it to be unavailable to the general public.

And, the terrorists conveniently kept quiet about the most important part of their mission: The message they wanted to convey, the goals they wanted to achieve. This gives free hand to Vickers and co. to fill in the blanks, to attach any motive to the terrorists they like.

Then, there is the little matter of the American officials 'who preferred to remain anonymous', contending even before the Indians that Pakistan was involved in the incident. Even when the operation against terrorists was still in progress, Americans started saying repeatedly that they suspect Pakistani involvement. Among the other peculiarities mentioned here, it is this slip that removes the mask from the face of Vickers.

The conclusions drawn by X, Sasha and Misha are logically correct. Taken together with our earlier findings, these are strong arguments to suspect that Vickers engineered the Mumbai incident. However, the question is: Was it an end in itself? What was the objective?

As Sasha said in one of his conversations, "It cannot be an isolated phenomenon. There must be something before and after it."

Continued . . .

 

[ajtr]

Mumbai Mystery: American Designs on Pakistan and India – Part Four​

Tariq Saeedi

with Sergi Pyatakov in Moscow and Mark Davidson in Washington

Legwork by SM Kasi in Quetta, GN Brohi in Dalbandin, and Qasim Jan in Kandahar

Continued from Part Three

Nearly complete jigsaw puzzle

In order to get as complete a picture as possible we picked the brains of X in Washington and Sasha and Misha in Moscow in numerous lengthy, intensive sessions.

Information came thick and fast; with the hindsight of nearly 16 months of legwork we knew the right questions to ask. For the sake of readability and coherence, we have paraphrased the gist of our conversations with X, Sasha and Misha. Input from our contributors in New Delhi, Tehran and Kandahar is also blended into this write up:

American Dilemma: The US military is burning nearly 600000 gallons of fuel per day. More than 80% of this comes from Pakistan, through 700 or so road tankers that are vulnerable to all kinds of attacks on their long journey from facilities in Pakistan to American bases in Afghanistan.

The reserves in Afghanistan will suffice for only two weeks if the supply line is disrupted.

Aware of this, the Americans have been trying to create an alternate route through Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Even if the alternate route is opened fully, it is very long and inefficient and there are risks that Americans are not in a position to counter at present.

There is need to abandon the Pakistan route but there is nothing to replace it.

Bifurcating Pakistan: The solution that is agreed to nearly unanimously by the American policymakers is that Pakistan must be split into two parts: the Americans would like Balochistan province to become an independent country and they don't care where the rest of Pakistan goes.

In fact, it is a goal the Neocons have been pursuing for a long time. A few years ago, they pumped Baloch insurgency but it proved an exercise in futility.

Vickers, in one position or the other, has never been far away from the process of decision-making. He sees many advantages in splitting Pakistan into two parts.

Benefits of bifurcating Pakistan: From American point of view, there are many benefits in creating an independent Balochistan:

An independent Balochistan will be an ideal territory to keep supply lines open to the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Independent Balochistan will provide Americans with excellent locations for putting up their military and naval bases to police the Persian Gulf and make sure that no other naval power including India, China and Russia ever gets upper hand in the Indian Ocean.
An independent Balochistan will be the place from where Americans can maintain permanent pressure on Iran, even in the remote possibility that they may have to eventually leave Iraq.
China and Russia will be denied any access to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.
The Gulf countries will remain dependent on the USA for export routes of their hydrocarbon products.
Full control of the entrance to the Gulf will enable USA to allow or deny oil flow by tankers to any country in the world.
Central Asia is a land-locked region and the whole region would be on the mercy of the United States.
If Balochistan is detached from Pakistan, the rest of Pakistan is likely to exist as a perpetually unstable entity, creating a permanent source of trouble for India. This fits nicely with other American plans because India has come very close to becoming an economic rival of the United States.
Why Mumbai incident: One doesn't need to be an exceptionally brilliant person to understand immediately that Pakistan had nothing to gain and everything to lose from Mumbai incident.

If we assume that it was done by a jihadi outfit on its own, it would be the most foolish thing to do because of the consequences that should have been discernible at the time of planning.

However, if we agree to the assertion that Vickers planned it, through proxy forces, for advancement of American objectives in the region, everything suddenly makes sense.

Here are some pointers:

One logical consequence is that India and Pakistan would probably go to war or at least move their forces to the borders in a position of war readiness. Every expert knows that keeping forces ready for war is nearly seven to eight times more expensive than keeping them in the barracks. This is an excellent way to make sure that Indian and Pakistani economies would be crippled for a long time to come.
India and Pakistan are negotiating for two gas pipelines, one from Iran and the other from Turkmenistan. There are also plans to put oil pipelines from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to South Asia. USA would use every method to deny India the energy resources of Central Asia and IranIndia is not what USA has in mind. The tide has reversed already and it is not to the liking of the Americans. Students from the United States are now coming to India, Indian businessmen are giving tough time to American corporations worldwide, and India has entered some of the export markets that were traditionally dominated by the west. In short, a weak India will be acceptable as a friend but a strong India will be a pain in the neck for Americans. because an economically strong
The global financial and economic crisis was triggered by the follies and dishonest practices of the American corporations; the American economy is still in free fall and the end is nowhere in sight. On the other hand, the Indian economy has not suffered a proportionately comparative loss. The steep fall on one side and the lesser fall on the other means that the real gap between the American and Indian economies has somewhat narrowed down because of the twin financial and economic crises. Mumbai incident is an attempt to remedy the situation in favour of the United States.
In a way, Mumbai incident is similar in concept to Bin Laden tapes. With dependable regularity, Bin Laden tapes appeared whenever Bush was going through difficult times. The Mumbai incident magically appeared when Americans needed to remove Pakistani forces from the Afghan border so that American forces could operate freely in the Frontier province of Pakistan, and push for bifurcation of Pakistan to solve their supply problems permanently.
Reaction in India: As far as we have been able to confirm through our sources, Indian leadership is trying to handle the situation in a calm and measured manner. However there are two kinds of pressures on the Congress government: From one side they are being pressed by BJP and other parties through public protest, and on the other side they are being pressured by the Americans to act fast and hard against Pakistan.

For instance, we know for sure that the name of Hamid Gul was included in the list of people wanted by India on the insistence of Americans. India never wanted to put Gul on the list. Americans forced them to include his name because it is an impossible demand; refusal by Pakistan to hand over Gul would give opportunity to Americans to push India for war.

India-Pakistan confrontation: As mentioned, Americans have maneuvered India to place impossible demands on Pakistan. The next logical step would be to encourage India to deploy its forces along the Pakistan border, forcing Pakistan to do the same on its side of the border.

By any degree of confrontation, both the countries would be net losers; the only winner would be the United States.

Bonus hit on China and Russia: Mumbai incident has indirectly affected Chinese and Russian interests in the region.

Two more successful moves on the chessboard and the Americans would be in a position to block RussiaChina in the greater Central Asian region. and

If Balochistan is detached from Pakistan, it would contribute to American ambitions to put a full-stop to expansion of Russian and Chinese economic and political influence in the entire region.

Iran: Whatever the Americans are doing, they have an eye on Iran. Encirclement of Iran is central to their plans. In addition to whatever is being done through MeK and Jundullah, the Americans are spending more than US $ 80 million annually to create internal dissent in Iran.

Our sources in Iran tell that Iranian authorities are aware of American machinations and they feel adequately prepared to counter whatever is sent in their direction.

Central Asia, the traditional playground: Nothing has changed for Central Asia. What was true in the nineteenth century is true in the twenty-first century.

Central Asia is still the playground of the big powers.

There is increased pressure to acquire airports and military bases in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Colour revolutions, on the pattern of Ukraine and Georgia are being prepared in all the Central Asian countries. Money is flowing generously to anyone who shows a spark. In their desperation and hurry, Americans are sometimes using crude and obvious methods.

Disposal of surplus Opium: Afghanistan produced 6000 tons of opium in 2006, 8200 tons in 2007 and 7700 tons in 2008. On average, the world demand of opium-based narcotics, including heroin, is only half of this production. Where is the rest of opium going?

We have reports from Afghanistan that the American forces – this includes all kinds of Americans such regular forces, CIA, Socom and contractors – have been buying and storing all the surplus opium.

This report gets credence from the fact that about 70% of all opium production in Afghanistan comes from Helmand province, an area under the direct control of the Americans.

What would the Americans do with all this opium?

Experts are of the view that this opium, in raw or refined form, would be spread in the neighbouring countries (Pakistan, India, Iran, Central Asia and China). Some of it would go to Russia also.

This would bring several advantages to the Americans: 1. By increasing drug addiction in target countries, Americans would sap the economies of these countries and produce the generations of junkies that would be long-term liabilities for their countries; 2. If the opium is mostly consumed in the neighbourhood, less of it would be left for export to the American markets; 3. Narcotics are a traditional source of additional revenues for the American forces, especially the CIA.

The suspicion that the American want to spread drug addiction in the neighbouring countries is also supported by the fact that even though the 'farm-gate' price of opium has remained stable at nearly US $ 70 per kilo, it is becoming available in the neighbouring countries at around US $ 40 per kilo. Clearly, the Americans are subsidizing the export.

CONCLUDED.