Daily Times Thursday, November 25, 2010
COMMENT: Dirty dancing to the drone hum —Dr Mohammad Taqi
Both the proponents and opponents of the drone attacks agree that they are a tactic, not a strategy. There is little doubt that the campaign has successfully decapitated the senior Pakistani, Afghan and al Qaeda jihadist leadership and disrupted their movement, planning and training
http://tinyurl.com/2g8m9xa
This past weekend The Washington Post reported with an Islamabad dateline that the US has increased pressure on Pakistan to allow the CIA an expanded theatre for its unmanned aerial vehicles or drones operations inside Pakistan. Though hotly debated, the drone operations were not the newsworthy item in the story. The fact that instead of the ‘lawless tribal areas’, the US ‘appeal’ had focused on Quetta – the provincial capital of Balochistan – and its vicinity caught everyone’s immediate attention.
Analysts have since been debating whether the news item was a feeler to gauge the Pakistani official and public response to the possible attacks in or near Quetta or is a harbinger of the drones swooping down on a densely populated city. The news piece specifically mentions the members of the Quetta Shura of the Afghan Taliban as the potential targets.
The Quetta Shura has been in existence since 2003 when the Taliban leadership regrouped after the demise of their emirate in Afghanistan. It is the topmost tier of the Afghan Taliban leadership, consisting mostly of those who held cabinet, gubernatorial or military portfolios in the Taliban regime from 1996-2001. The Shura remains under the direct supervision of Mullah Omar, the doctrinal and political leader of the Taliban. (As an aside, one must note that while the man has nothing to do with spirituality in the commonly understood sense of the word, many western journalists insist – erroneously – on calling him the spiritual head of the Taliban.) It is a policy and decision-making entity dealing with both strategy and tactics. It appoints the shadow governors (waali), district administrators (uluswaal) and operational commanders, and even adjudicates criminal justice matters.
Now consider Quetta, which has a population of roughly one million people. But also of note is that the city is home to the Pakistan Army’s XII Corps, ISI regional headquarters, the Balochistan Frontier Corps, a robust army selection and recruitment centre and the Pakistan Air Force base Samungli. And last, but not the least, the Pakistan Army’s Command and Staff College, almost a required stepping stone to senior leadership in the army, is at Quetta.
Considering the massive cantonment that Quetta is, anyone familiar with the city’s grid plan and its post-1978 demographics would find it hard to believe that the head honchos of the Shura can move in or around the city without the knowledge of the security establishment. In addition, any movement of the Taliban to Karachi or northwards to South Waziristan is incomprehensible without the local authorities getting a whiff of it. It cannot be completely lost on the US planners that the Taliban cannot operate in Quetta without at least some local protection. What, then, is the US trying to achieve by threatening strikes in a major population centre?
In a situation where the US could not or would not use political, economic and full military means to resolve a major rift with Pakistan, it has chosen to continue relying on the use of limited force in well-circumscribed areas. These so-called discrete military operations carried out through Predator or Reaper drones are supposed to press Pakistan to act against the al Qaeda-Taliban sanctuaries in Quetta and FATA. But exactly how discreet are these drone operations?
For starters, the Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman in his response to the Post article has conceded that there are certain red lines that the US cannot cross. He also referred to the ‘boxes’ (aerial or geographical demarcations) over which the drones operate. More important is a small technical detail that the drones can operate successfully only when unopposed. They can be shot down by fighter jets with relative ease; Iraq’s MiG-25s did that circa 1999. It all points to an undeclared, uneasy and reluctant understanding between the US and Pakistan about the drone campaign, which George Bush also mentions in his recently released memoir, Decision Points.
Instead of publicly confronting the Pakistani security establishment for harbouring the three major components of the Afghan militancy, i.e. the Quetta Shura, the Haqqani network and Hizb-e-Islami (Gulbuddin), the US has opted to up the ante through unattributed news reports. When reached by this writer, the media contact persons at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and the CENTCOM offices in Tampa, Florida, declined to comment on The Washington Post story. What the Post report really did was point towards the hypocritical moves in the dirty dancing going on between the US and Pakistan for almost a decade now.
Both the proponents and opponents of the drone attacks agree that they are a tactic, not a strategy. There is little doubt that the campaign has successfully decapitated the senior Pakistani, Afghan and al Qaeda jihadist leadership and disrupted their movement, planning and training, thus resulting in significant execution setbacks for them in the Pak-Afghan region and around the world. It is also pertinent to note that research led by the Pashtun intelligentsia has debunked the myth of high civilian casualties perpetuated by a pro-jihadist media and some bleeding-heart liberals in the West.
Under pressure from its military commanders in Afghanistan, the US political leadership has to act. But like the original anti-Taliban campaign of 2001, they want to take the easy route and do it at a minimum human, dollar, and political cost. This approach, which involves back door dealings with the Pakistani establishment, did not give durable results then and will fail again. The US must remember that the only time their ‘allies’ make even a half-hearted move against the jihadists, is in the face of overwhelming public pressure, e.g. in Swat. Reluctant to act for two years, the army undertook the operation after intense public, media and political pressure. There is no shortcut to developing a political consensus about the strategy.
Discreet military operations cannot deliver strategic results or induce a paradigm shift in the Pakistani establishment’s thinking. If the public opinion reaching us directly, especially from the Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, is anything to go by, the people want the drone campaign to be legally regularised and the political leadership to take ownership. Without helping the Pakistani political leaders stand up to the India-centric brass, the US risks not only tactical failure but also a strategic debacle in Afghanistan. The Pakistani establishment has set the US up to keep playing whack-a-mole with the jihadists. Drone attacks in Quetta is one such whack that must be avoided.
The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com
Qissa Khwani قصہ خوانی : In Persian Qissa Khwani means story-telling. Legend has it that the story-tellers used to gather in the ancient Qissa Khwani bazar of Peshawar. The tales here focus on that region but may not be as romantic as those of yore.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
The missing link in drone debate
Viewpoint
Online issue # 27
November 19,2010
http://tinyurl.com/2b6vhtt
The missing link in drone debate
by Dr. Mohammad Taqi |
Politicians have been coerced by the Army to publicly condemn the drone attacks and parliamentary resolutions were used to indicate to the US the purported public outrage. However, privately, many are appreciative of the drone campaign
With about a hundred drone attacks this year and roughly two hundred since June 2004, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, the discussion over this issue does not seem to go away. In fact, since David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum last year, Peter Bergen this year and Hamid Karzai this week, weighed in against the use of drones – at least under the current ‘rules’- the debate has only heated up.
Between 2004 and 2007 there were about ten attacks by the CIA-operated Predator drones but the number rose exponentially after George W. Bush commissioned the CIA to conduct action against the al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies in FATA. However, the covert nature of the program and the murkiness around the understanding regarding these attacks, between the United States and Pakistan , more specifically the Pakistani Army, continues to give rise to endless questions and myths. In his recently published book, Decision Points, George Bush notes:
“By the middle of 2008, I was tired of reading intelligence reports about extremist sanctuaries in Pakistan . I thought back to a meeting I’d had with Special Forces in Afghanistan in 2006.
‘Are you getting everything you need?’ I asked.
One SEAL raised his hand and said, ‘No, sir.’
I wondered what his problem might be.
‘Mr. President,’ he said, ‘we need permission to go kick some ass inside Pakistan .’
I understood the urgency of the threat and wanted to do something about it. But on this issue Musharraf’s judgment had been well founded… no democracy can tolerate violations of its sovereignty.
I looked for other ways to reach into the tribal areas. The Predator, as unmanned aerial vehicle, was capable of conducting video surveillance and firing laser-guided bombs. I authorized the intelligence community to turn the pressure on the extremists. Many of the details of our actions remain classified…”
This brief anecdotal section of Bush’s memoir gives some insight into the genesis, success and the criticism of the drone operations. The issues of sovereignty and the alleged civilian casualties remain perennial favorites with the Pakistani right wing and the international left. The common intuitive response to a foreign power’s actions in what is otherwise considered sovereign territory is usually that of condemnation but the militant menace in FATA significantly changes the equation.
Minds entrenched in the notions of Westphalian and international legal sovereignty are inclined to denounce, in a knee-jerk manner, any violation of the international geographical borders or presence of an external authority. While it may, prima facie, appear a reasonable approach but it ignores that legitimacy and authority – two key components of the modern concept of sovereignty- are not enough by themselves to support a nation-state’s claim to sovereignty. The sine qua non of sovereignty is the ability and willingness of the entity claiming such sovereignty to exercise control and establish its writ over its territories and prevent them from being used against other sovereign entities.
The Pakistani state’s de facto policy since the 1973 has been to use the FATA as the point d'appui for launching its Islamist militant proxies against Afghanistan . Faced with the post-9/11 predicament of how to preserve its jihadist assets – then on the run from Afghanistan- the Pakistani security establishment opted to use the FATA to provide such sanctuary. The Pakistan army had retracted its Taliban and Al Qaeda allies into FATA right after the Tora Bora battle and ushered them through Kurram agency into Orakzai and the North and South Waziristan agencies, where they thrive to date.
The traditional tribal elders-led Maliki system of governance however, was a hindrance in the movement, settlement and operations of these jihadist forces. The Pakistani state, therefore, aided and abetted the systematic elimination of the traditional power structures of the Maliki system between 2002 and 2004 and hundreds of tribal elders were killed by the jihadists. Territory and authority was either ceded to or held jointly with panoply of jihadists ranging from the Haqqani network in North Waziristan to local thugs-turned-jihadists like Mangal Bagh in Khyber Agency.
The operations against the US and ISAF troops in Afghanistan were planned and executed from the bridgeheads used by jihadists throughout FATA. Where the Pashtun tribes resisted the jihadists e.g. in the Kurram agency, the state sided with the jihadists against its own people. The Pakistani establishment literally created a Somalia-like situation in the FATA where its favored warlords ruled the roost. What that navy SEAL was referring to was true from his vantage point but it was important from the Pakistani people’s standpoint too.
While the ideological heart of jihadism throbbed throughout Punjab and its brains resided in Rawalpindi , its execution arm remained active in the FATA. Hundreds of bombings across Pakistan with the resultant death toll in the thousands were planned and launched from the tribal areas. On the face of it, the covariation between the Pakistani state’s proclaimed authority and the effective control of its territories remains nonexistent. But the state has actually been perpetuating a massive fraud on its people and the world at large, as it continued to remain in bed with the jihadists, who now exercised authority on behalf of the security establishment.
Under pressure from its military commanders in Afghanistan , the US political leadership had to act. But like the original anti-Taliban campaign of 2001, they tried to take the easy route and do it at a minimum dollar and human cost. Instead of openly confronting Pakistan they opted to press, appease and buy off the junta at the helm in Islamabad . What should have been a declared joint operation with publicized and documented status of forces agreement (SOFA) with Pakistan became a legally and politically tainted back-street gig.
Musharraf at the head of the army, as Bush notes in his book, was successful in scaring the Americans away from not only direct action but also to sufficiently muddle the venture, making it nearly impossible to evolve a public opinion favorable to drone attacks. However, not willing to risk a US incursion into FATA, Pakistan reluctantly acquiesced to the drones operating from places like Shamsi airbase inside Pakistan . But the buffer created by the absence of a (publicized) legal instrument of understanding between the Pakistan and the US outlining the parameters governing the drone operations has served the Pakistan Army well, while the Americans and the Pakistani people who support the drone attacks are readily painted as evil.
The Pakistani politicians from across the political divide have been coerced by the Army to publicly condemn the drone attacks and parliamentary resolutions were used to indicate to the US the purported public outrage. However, privately, many of the center-left politicians, including from the ruling parties, are appreciative of the drone campaign but are reluctant to say that openly. This attitude of the civilian leadership has weakened the case for pursuing the jihadists through drones or other armed means. It also sends a mixed message to the US military and political leadership who then tend to rely more upon the Pakistan Army.
A corpus of research- predominantly through the efforts of the Pashtun intelligentsia- has emerged over the last two years that debunks the myths of civilian casualties and public outcry in FATA over the drone attacks. However, to let the intellectuals do all the heavy lifting on this issue is somewhat unfair and also has its limitations. Without the political leadership taking a lead in shaping the narrative in favor of sustained action against the militant sanctuaries, the public opinion could be swayed with planted news and slanted views. We have seen that, despite claims to the contrary, the Pakistani mainstream media remains beholden to the Army and whether it is the Kerry-Lugar Law or NATO incursion over Mata Sangar, it sings in chorus with them. However, when politicians speak – on record – it is hard for the media and the world powers to ignore their concerns.
It is important not just for the US to hold the Pakistani Army’s feet to fire but for the Pakistani politicians to clearly state their position on the subject of drone attacks in FATA. Americans have the luxury to pack up and leave but most Pakistani politicians do not. They must seek a formal and public state policy on the drones operations preferably through the parliament. With the Pakistan Army’s reluctance to move against the jihadists holding the FATA hostage, the Predator drones remain the most viable option against terror. Only a bold political stance can clear the fog over the FATA skies; the politicians must speak up to regularize the drone campaign.
Online issue # 27
November 19,2010
http://tinyurl.com/2b6vhtt
The missing link in drone debate
by Dr. Mohammad Taqi |
Politicians have been coerced by the Army to publicly condemn the drone attacks and parliamentary resolutions were used to indicate to the US the purported public outrage. However, privately, many are appreciative of the drone campaign
With about a hundred drone attacks this year and roughly two hundred since June 2004, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, the discussion over this issue does not seem to go away. In fact, since David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum last year, Peter Bergen this year and Hamid Karzai this week, weighed in against the use of drones – at least under the current ‘rules’- the debate has only heated up.
Between 2004 and 2007 there were about ten attacks by the CIA-operated Predator drones but the number rose exponentially after George W. Bush commissioned the CIA to conduct action against the al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies in FATA. However, the covert nature of the program and the murkiness around the understanding regarding these attacks, between the United States and Pakistan , more specifically the Pakistani Army, continues to give rise to endless questions and myths. In his recently published book, Decision Points, George Bush notes:
“By the middle of 2008, I was tired of reading intelligence reports about extremist sanctuaries in Pakistan . I thought back to a meeting I’d had with Special Forces in Afghanistan in 2006.
‘Are you getting everything you need?’ I asked.
One SEAL raised his hand and said, ‘No, sir.’
I wondered what his problem might be.
‘Mr. President,’ he said, ‘we need permission to go kick some ass inside Pakistan .’
I understood the urgency of the threat and wanted to do something about it. But on this issue Musharraf’s judgment had been well founded… no democracy can tolerate violations of its sovereignty.
I looked for other ways to reach into the tribal areas. The Predator, as unmanned aerial vehicle, was capable of conducting video surveillance and firing laser-guided bombs. I authorized the intelligence community to turn the pressure on the extremists. Many of the details of our actions remain classified…”
This brief anecdotal section of Bush’s memoir gives some insight into the genesis, success and the criticism of the drone operations. The issues of sovereignty and the alleged civilian casualties remain perennial favorites with the Pakistani right wing and the international left. The common intuitive response to a foreign power’s actions in what is otherwise considered sovereign territory is usually that of condemnation but the militant menace in FATA significantly changes the equation.
Minds entrenched in the notions of Westphalian and international legal sovereignty are inclined to denounce, in a knee-jerk manner, any violation of the international geographical borders or presence of an external authority. While it may, prima facie, appear a reasonable approach but it ignores that legitimacy and authority – two key components of the modern concept of sovereignty- are not enough by themselves to support a nation-state’s claim to sovereignty. The sine qua non of sovereignty is the ability and willingness of the entity claiming such sovereignty to exercise control and establish its writ over its territories and prevent them from being used against other sovereign entities.
The Pakistani state’s de facto policy since the 1973 has been to use the FATA as the point d'appui for launching its Islamist militant proxies against Afghanistan . Faced with the post-9/11 predicament of how to preserve its jihadist assets – then on the run from Afghanistan- the Pakistani security establishment opted to use the FATA to provide such sanctuary. The Pakistan army had retracted its Taliban and Al Qaeda allies into FATA right after the Tora Bora battle and ushered them through Kurram agency into Orakzai and the North and South Waziristan agencies, where they thrive to date.
The traditional tribal elders-led Maliki system of governance however, was a hindrance in the movement, settlement and operations of these jihadist forces. The Pakistani state, therefore, aided and abetted the systematic elimination of the traditional power structures of the Maliki system between 2002 and 2004 and hundreds of tribal elders were killed by the jihadists. Territory and authority was either ceded to or held jointly with panoply of jihadists ranging from the Haqqani network in North Waziristan to local thugs-turned-jihadists like Mangal Bagh in Khyber Agency.
The operations against the US and ISAF troops in Afghanistan were planned and executed from the bridgeheads used by jihadists throughout FATA. Where the Pashtun tribes resisted the jihadists e.g. in the Kurram agency, the state sided with the jihadists against its own people. The Pakistani establishment literally created a Somalia-like situation in the FATA where its favored warlords ruled the roost. What that navy SEAL was referring to was true from his vantage point but it was important from the Pakistani people’s standpoint too.
While the ideological heart of jihadism throbbed throughout Punjab and its brains resided in Rawalpindi , its execution arm remained active in the FATA. Hundreds of bombings across Pakistan with the resultant death toll in the thousands were planned and launched from the tribal areas. On the face of it, the covariation between the Pakistani state’s proclaimed authority and the effective control of its territories remains nonexistent. But the state has actually been perpetuating a massive fraud on its people and the world at large, as it continued to remain in bed with the jihadists, who now exercised authority on behalf of the security establishment.
Under pressure from its military commanders in Afghanistan , the US political leadership had to act. But like the original anti-Taliban campaign of 2001, they tried to take the easy route and do it at a minimum dollar and human cost. Instead of openly confronting Pakistan they opted to press, appease and buy off the junta at the helm in Islamabad . What should have been a declared joint operation with publicized and documented status of forces agreement (SOFA) with Pakistan became a legally and politically tainted back-street gig.
Musharraf at the head of the army, as Bush notes in his book, was successful in scaring the Americans away from not only direct action but also to sufficiently muddle the venture, making it nearly impossible to evolve a public opinion favorable to drone attacks. However, not willing to risk a US incursion into FATA, Pakistan reluctantly acquiesced to the drones operating from places like Shamsi airbase inside Pakistan . But the buffer created by the absence of a (publicized) legal instrument of understanding between the Pakistan and the US outlining the parameters governing the drone operations has served the Pakistan Army well, while the Americans and the Pakistani people who support the drone attacks are readily painted as evil.
The Pakistani politicians from across the political divide have been coerced by the Army to publicly condemn the drone attacks and parliamentary resolutions were used to indicate to the US the purported public outrage. However, privately, many of the center-left politicians, including from the ruling parties, are appreciative of the drone campaign but are reluctant to say that openly. This attitude of the civilian leadership has weakened the case for pursuing the jihadists through drones or other armed means. It also sends a mixed message to the US military and political leadership who then tend to rely more upon the Pakistan Army.
A corpus of research- predominantly through the efforts of the Pashtun intelligentsia- has emerged over the last two years that debunks the myths of civilian casualties and public outcry in FATA over the drone attacks. However, to let the intellectuals do all the heavy lifting on this issue is somewhat unfair and also has its limitations. Without the political leadership taking a lead in shaping the narrative in favor of sustained action against the militant sanctuaries, the public opinion could be swayed with planted news and slanted views. We have seen that, despite claims to the contrary, the Pakistani mainstream media remains beholden to the Army and whether it is the Kerry-Lugar Law or NATO incursion over Mata Sangar, it sings in chorus with them. However, when politicians speak – on record – it is hard for the media and the world powers to ignore their concerns.
It is important not just for the US to hold the Pakistani Army’s feet to fire but for the Pakistani politicians to clearly state their position on the subject of drone attacks in FATA. Americans have the luxury to pack up and leave but most Pakistani politicians do not. They must seek a formal and public state policy on the drones operations preferably through the parliament. With the Pakistan Army’s reluctance to move against the jihadists holding the FATA hostage, the Predator drones remain the most viable option against terror. Only a bold political stance can clear the fog over the FATA skies; the politicians must speak up to regularize the drone campaign.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
US mid-terms and Af-Pak policy: what lies ahead
http://tinyurl.com/2aqcdth
Daily Times
Thursday, November 11, 2010
COMMENT: US mid-terms and Af-Pak policy: what lies ahead —Dr Mohammad Taqi
The mid-term defeat has shattered Obama’s walking-on-water myth. He, therefore, will remain engaged with India, the Central Asian Republics and even Iran, as the counterpoise to Pakistan. The Pakistani establishment obviously does not like this scenario and that is the catch-22 for the US
The dust has started to settle on the US mid-term elections. With 239 seats, the Republican Party has gained control of the US House of Representatives while the Democrats have managed to hang on to a majority in the Senate with 53 seats. Out of the 37 state gubernatorial races, the Republican candidates have won 29, including 10 key swing states.
For more than half the US electorate, the economy was the top priority followed by the related issue of the budget deficit. The education, healthcare and immigration reforms were next on the voters’ mind, with environment and energy trailing way behind. While Mr Barack Obama may have literally saved the faltering world of capitalism from demise, the gains were not tangible enough for the common man to have voted for the president’s party.
Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the national security issues, including foreign wars and homeland security, were mentioned neither by the voters nor the candidates. Indeed, the words ‘war’ or ‘conflict’ did not feature in the election-day network television coverage at all. November 2, 2010 showed the wisdom of the dictum: ‘All politics is local,’ But around the world, and especially in the Pak-Afghan region, people and pundits alike are trying to make sense of what lies ahead in terms of US foreign policy, especially how it projects hard power.
The US constitution provides for both the executive and the legislative branches of the government to have a share in drafting foreign policy. Perhaps the best interpretation of these constitutional parameters came from Edward S Corwin, who wrote: “What the constitution does, and all that it does [sic], is to confer on the president certain powers capable of affecting our foreign relations, and certain other powers of the same general kind on the Senate, and still other such powers on Congress; but which of these organs shall have the decisive and final voice in determining the course of the American nation is left for events to resolve.”
However, historically, US presidents have considered and projected foreign policy as their domain. Presidents like Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan before him had reinvented themselves by literally going extrovert after election defeats at home. The US presidents have constitutional powers to formulate foreign policy in a considered manner through policy statements and implementation, proposing legislation and negotiating international agreements and treaties. Alternatively, a reactive — but still constitutional — foreign policy measure could come as a response to a world event or an altered dynamic in events already underway.
Obama has roughly 13 months to lay out his foreign policy agenda, before the Iowa Caucus in January 2012 kick-starts the presidential election campaign. Going by the recent election results and the way he has been walking on eggshells during the present tour, it seems highly unlikely that Obama will make any monumental independent decisions in the foreign policy realm. While trying to prevent any unexpected events from forcing his hand, the US president will strive to stay the course in various hotspots around the world, including Pakistan’s both frontiers.
The change of guard in the House of Representatives or the addition of a few Senate seats to the Republican tally will have negligible bearing on how the president projects both hard and soft power. The most important landmark in the congressional oversight of the current foreign policy will be the review of the Afghan war next month. In all likelihood, the policies and plans presented originally in 2008 — including the drawdown date of July 2011 — will be endorsed again without any major changes. The military side of the effort would continue to be funded but there remains a potential for political arm wrestling when it comes to financing the civilian projects, especially in Afghanistan, due to alleged corruption issues.
The same review will also focus on Pakistan’s role in the Afghan imbroglio. That Pakistan is essential for US success and ultimately peace in Afghanistan is understood clearly by both Obama and the Congress. However, the perception — and to a large extent the reality — remains that Pakistan continues to come to the negotiating table with its suicide jacket on. If — and a mighty if that is — Obama can miraculously manage to talk Pakistan’s establishment out of its delusional belief in its zero-sum regional policy, that alone may be sufficient to earn him immortality in history. Alas, the mid-term defeat has shattered Obama’s walking-on-water myth. He, therefore, will remain engaged with India, the Central Asian Republics and even Iran, as the counterpoise to Pakistan. The Pakistani establishment obviously does not like this scenario and that is the catch-22 for the US.
Around this time last year, Obama took a page out of Mikhail Gorbachev’s ‘get out of Afghanistan’ manual. To allay Pakistani concerns regarding India, he may have to revisit his handbook. A key issue at the 1988 Geneva Accords was how the various powers continued to arm their proxies in Afghanistan. George Shultz, the then US Secretary of State, had noted at the signing of the accord: “It is our right to provide military aid to the resistance. We are ready to exercise that right. But we are prepared to meet restraint with restraint.” He was alluding to what became known as negative symmetry. Unless Obama is willing to take on the Pakistani establishment militarily, establishing negative symmetry, i.e. getting all regional powers, including India, to lay off Afghanistan, may be his only realistic chance at enduring peace in that hapless country.
With the Republican victories across the board, especially in the swing states, a plethora of domestic problems that are not likely to go away, winning a UN Security Council seat for India or using trade agreements with it to force China into playing ball on currency issues, are unlikely to give Obama an edge in his re-election bid. Even an unlikely breakthrough in the stalled Middle East talks is not going to be of much help when all politics again become local. Come 2012, Obama would not be able to afford a disaster in or originating from the Pak-Afghan region. President Carter had learned something similar at his peril. What seems now like a long shot in the Pak-Afghan region could become Obama’s foreign policy legacy. But does he have any fire left in his belly?
The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com
Daily Times
Thursday, November 11, 2010
COMMENT: US mid-terms and Af-Pak policy: what lies ahead —Dr Mohammad Taqi
The mid-term defeat has shattered Obama’s walking-on-water myth. He, therefore, will remain engaged with India, the Central Asian Republics and even Iran, as the counterpoise to Pakistan. The Pakistani establishment obviously does not like this scenario and that is the catch-22 for the US
The dust has started to settle on the US mid-term elections. With 239 seats, the Republican Party has gained control of the US House of Representatives while the Democrats have managed to hang on to a majority in the Senate with 53 seats. Out of the 37 state gubernatorial races, the Republican candidates have won 29, including 10 key swing states.
For more than half the US electorate, the economy was the top priority followed by the related issue of the budget deficit. The education, healthcare and immigration reforms were next on the voters’ mind, with environment and energy trailing way behind. While Mr Barack Obama may have literally saved the faltering world of capitalism from demise, the gains were not tangible enough for the common man to have voted for the president’s party.
Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the national security issues, including foreign wars and homeland security, were mentioned neither by the voters nor the candidates. Indeed, the words ‘war’ or ‘conflict’ did not feature in the election-day network television coverage at all. November 2, 2010 showed the wisdom of the dictum: ‘All politics is local,’ But around the world, and especially in the Pak-Afghan region, people and pundits alike are trying to make sense of what lies ahead in terms of US foreign policy, especially how it projects hard power.
The US constitution provides for both the executive and the legislative branches of the government to have a share in drafting foreign policy. Perhaps the best interpretation of these constitutional parameters came from Edward S Corwin, who wrote: “What the constitution does, and all that it does [sic], is to confer on the president certain powers capable of affecting our foreign relations, and certain other powers of the same general kind on the Senate, and still other such powers on Congress; but which of these organs shall have the decisive and final voice in determining the course of the American nation is left for events to resolve.”
However, historically, US presidents have considered and projected foreign policy as their domain. Presidents like Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan before him had reinvented themselves by literally going extrovert after election defeats at home. The US presidents have constitutional powers to formulate foreign policy in a considered manner through policy statements and implementation, proposing legislation and negotiating international agreements and treaties. Alternatively, a reactive — but still constitutional — foreign policy measure could come as a response to a world event or an altered dynamic in events already underway.
Obama has roughly 13 months to lay out his foreign policy agenda, before the Iowa Caucus in January 2012 kick-starts the presidential election campaign. Going by the recent election results and the way he has been walking on eggshells during the present tour, it seems highly unlikely that Obama will make any monumental independent decisions in the foreign policy realm. While trying to prevent any unexpected events from forcing his hand, the US president will strive to stay the course in various hotspots around the world, including Pakistan’s both frontiers.
The change of guard in the House of Representatives or the addition of a few Senate seats to the Republican tally will have negligible bearing on how the president projects both hard and soft power. The most important landmark in the congressional oversight of the current foreign policy will be the review of the Afghan war next month. In all likelihood, the policies and plans presented originally in 2008 — including the drawdown date of July 2011 — will be endorsed again without any major changes. The military side of the effort would continue to be funded but there remains a potential for political arm wrestling when it comes to financing the civilian projects, especially in Afghanistan, due to alleged corruption issues.
The same review will also focus on Pakistan’s role in the Afghan imbroglio. That Pakistan is essential for US success and ultimately peace in Afghanistan is understood clearly by both Obama and the Congress. However, the perception — and to a large extent the reality — remains that Pakistan continues to come to the negotiating table with its suicide jacket on. If — and a mighty if that is — Obama can miraculously manage to talk Pakistan’s establishment out of its delusional belief in its zero-sum regional policy, that alone may be sufficient to earn him immortality in history. Alas, the mid-term defeat has shattered Obama’s walking-on-water myth. He, therefore, will remain engaged with India, the Central Asian Republics and even Iran, as the counterpoise to Pakistan. The Pakistani establishment obviously does not like this scenario and that is the catch-22 for the US.
Around this time last year, Obama took a page out of Mikhail Gorbachev’s ‘get out of Afghanistan’ manual. To allay Pakistani concerns regarding India, he may have to revisit his handbook. A key issue at the 1988 Geneva Accords was how the various powers continued to arm their proxies in Afghanistan. George Shultz, the then US Secretary of State, had noted at the signing of the accord: “It is our right to provide military aid to the resistance. We are ready to exercise that right. But we are prepared to meet restraint with restraint.” He was alluding to what became known as negative symmetry. Unless Obama is willing to take on the Pakistani establishment militarily, establishing negative symmetry, i.e. getting all regional powers, including India, to lay off Afghanistan, may be his only realistic chance at enduring peace in that hapless country.
With the Republican victories across the board, especially in the swing states, a plethora of domestic problems that are not likely to go away, winning a UN Security Council seat for India or using trade agreements with it to force China into playing ball on currency issues, are unlikely to give Obama an edge in his re-election bid. Even an unlikely breakthrough in the stalled Middle East talks is not going to be of much help when all politics again become local. Come 2012, Obama would not be able to afford a disaster in or originating from the Pak-Afghan region. President Carter had learned something similar at his peril. What seems now like a long shot in the Pak-Afghan region could become Obama’s foreign policy legacy. But does he have any fire left in his belly?
The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Kurram: the forsaken FATA
http://tinyurl.com/36awez2
Daily Times
Thursday, November 04, 2010
COMMENT: Kurram: the forsaken FATA —Dr Mohammad Taqi
The flat out refusal of the Kurramis, who have lost over 1,200 souls since April 2007, to cede their territory and pride to the jihadists and their masters has thrown a wrench in the latter’s immediate plans. Having failed to dupe the citizenry, the establishment has elected to bring them to their knees by force
General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited a tribal agency last week but he did not tender an apology to some local families, whose dear ones — including children — were killed by the Pakistan Army gunship helicopters this past September. Not that one was holding one’s breath for the general’s regrets but it would have presented some semblance of fairness given the Pakistan Army’s demands for apology and furore over the NATO choppers killing its troops in the same region during the same month. Well, life is not fair as it is, especially for the people of Kurram — the third largest Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA).
The crime of these civilians, killed by their own army, was that they had been resisting the influx of foreign terrorists into their territory. Despite the claims put forth by the military about the NATO incursion, it is clear now that the latter had attacked the members of the Haqqani terrorist network who were using the village of Mata Sangar in Kurram to attack the ISAF posts in neighbouring Khost, Afghanistan. Reportedly, the de facto leader of the Haqqani network, Sirajuddin Haqqani, was in the region at the time of the NATO attack.
What has also become increasingly clear is that the Pakistani establishment is trying its level best to relocate its Haqqani network assets to the Kurram Agency in anticipation of an operation that it would have to start — under pressure from the US — in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA) sooner rather than later. This is precisely what the establishment had intended to do when it said that the NWA operation would be conducted in its own timeframe. The Taliban onslaught on the Shalozan area of Kurram, northeast of Mata Sangar, in September 2010 was part of this tactical rearrangement. When the local population reversed the Taliban gains in the battle for the village Khaiwas, the army’s gunships swooped down on them to protect its jihadist partners.
This is not the first time that the security establishment has attempted to use the Kurram Agency to provide transit or sanctuary to its Afghan Taliban allies. It did so during the so-called jihad of the 1980s and 1990s when the geo-strategic tip of the region called the Parrot’s Beak served as a bridgehead for operations against the neighbouring Afghan garrisons, especially Khost. In the fall of 2001, the Pakistan Army moved into Kurram and the Tirah Valley straddling the Khyber and Kurram agencies, ostensibly to block al Qaeda’s escape from the Tora Bora region. The Tirah deployment actually served as a diversion, as al Qaeda and key Afghan Taliban were moved through Kurram and in some instances helped to settle there.
The use of diversions and decoys has also become a de facto state policy when it comes to Kurram. The crisis in the region has been described as a sectarian issue since April 2007. However, the fact of the matter is that the Wahabi extremists, sponsored by the state’s intelligence apparatus, were used to prepare the ground for a larger Taliban-al Qaeda presence in the area. A local mosque in Parachinar served then as the staging ground for rolling out the Taliban rule in the Kurram Agency like similar operations in other tribal agencies. At the time, the Nasrullah Mansur network — an affiliate of the Afghan Taliban — along with the Pakistani Taliban was part of the alliance that had taken over the mosque. The resistance by the Kurram people was extraordinary and the jihadists were dislodged, albeit at great cost to the life, property and peace of the region. A son of Nasrullah Mansur, Saif-ur-Rahman was reportedly killed in a later round of fighting in December 2007.
From that point on, the Kurram tribesmen have come under increasing pressure from the establishment and its Taliban assets to allow the use of their territory for waging war against Afghanistan. The Parachinar-Thall road was effectively closed to the people from upper Kurram through jihadist attacks right under the establishment’s nose. The blockade became so intense that the people had to either use an unreliable and highly expensive small aircraft service operated by the Peshawar Flying Club to reach Peshawar or look for alternative routes.
A land route to Kabul was later opened through the efforts of some Peshawar based tribal and political elders. For about two years, this 230 mile-long arduous journey has literally been upper Kurram’s lifeline and its only land route to reach the rest of Pakistan via Peshawar. Given the fact that the Kurram Agency, with its over half a million population and a 3,380 square kilometre area, is the third largest tribal agency, this route has helped avert a massive humanitarian disaster by allowing food, medicine and supplies to reach the locals. The state did not stand just idle; it actively assisted in the blockade of its own citizens.
The establishment’s strategy over the last month has been to impose the Haqqani network as the ‘mediators’ over the Kurram Agency to help resolve the ‘sectarian’ conflict there. They had coerced and co-opted three leaders from Kurram, Aun Ali, Zamin Hussain and the MNA Sajid Turi, to meet Ibrahim and Khalil Haqqani, sons of the network’s ailing chief Jalaluddin. The three Pakistani men, however, did not have the waak — a customary power of attorney or designation — to conduct a jirga or negotiation or seek nanawatai (sanctuary) on behalf of the Kurram people and therefore were not able to guarantee that Kurram would not resist the new Taliban-Haqqani network incursion there.
The flat out refusal of the Kurramis, who have lost over 1,200 souls since April 2007, to cede their territory and pride to the jihadists and their masters has thrown a wrench in the latter’s immediate plans. Having failed to dupe the citizenry, the establishment has elected to bring them to their knees by force. It announced last week that it is closing down the Parachinar-Gardez-Kabul route, trapping the people of Kurram in a pincer of twin blockades. Announcing the embargo, Colonel Tausif Akhtar of the Pakistani security forces claimed that they are closing down five border entry points to clamp down on sectarian violence. The people of Kurram, however, see this as the state opening the floodgates of oppression on them. But as long as the rest of Pakistan and the world at large do not take notice of the establishment’s tactics in Kurram, this forgotten part of FATA will be completely forsaken.
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