Afghanistan: The March of Folly

The United States is in the process of committing a historical blunder with grave consequences for not only Afghanistan but also the regions surrounding it. President Barack Obama’s decision to begin withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan in 2011 is under-standable: the long and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taxed the patience of the Americans, and the President himself must start planning his campaign for the second term. But it is the manner of the planned exit and its consequences that cause worry.

The strategy devised at the London Conference in January 2010 on Afghanistan—“reintegration and reconciliation”—is a veiled scheme to hand over Afghanistan, once again, to Pakistan. President Obama’s rhetoric on the “Way Forward in Af-Pak” has the same trust. The consequences of this dangerous scheme are not hard to foresee: the return of the brutal Taliban rule in Kabul, the resumption of a civil war which will suck in the neighbouring countries; and spread of terrorism and bloodshed farther afield. The end result will be a virtual partition of Afghanistan into Pushtoon and non-Pushtoon countries and the eventual rise of a larger, independent Pushtoonistan incorporating Pakistan’s own Pushtoon lands. I would not wish that fate for Afghanistan or Pakistan.

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THE march of folly of Af-Pak began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Today, NATO has about the same troop strength in the country as what the Soviets had in 1982—1,10,000. In late October 1982, at a meeting in the Kremlin to which I accompanied Indira Gandhi, General Secretary Breznhev ruefully told the Indian Prime Minister that he had blundered into Afghanistan; that he did not quite know what 1,10,000 Russian troops were doing there; and that he wanted to get out of the country. “Show me the way out,” he asked Indira Gandhi, who cryptically responded that the presence of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan was doing no good to Russia, Afghanistan or India. “The way out of Afghanistan,” she said, “is the same as the way in.”

In other words, Moscow should declare the mission accomplished and walk out of the quagmire. It took the Soviet Union three regime changes, eight years and a Gorbachev to do that simple thing. However, for three or four years before the Pakistan-sponsored Taliban invasion, Afghanistan was stable and at peace. That same course is not open to the US today. For, if nothing else, it will leave behind a welter of widespread unrest, conflict and violence. And the US itself will be reduced to a much diminished player, with little influence and role in a rising Asia.

At the end of the Afghan jihad, President Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan asserted that the triumph of the jihadis had earned his country the right to install a government of its liking in Kabul. And Washington readily rewarded its loyal Islamist ally, leaving it alone to manage Afghanistan as it thought best. That dispensation ignored the traditions and sentiments, cultural linkages of Afghanistan’s Hazaras, Uzbeks and Tajiks and the interests of other neighbours and friends—Iran and the Central Asian republics, India and Russia. In the event, Pakistan squandered its one chance to win the friendship and affection of Afghans of all shades of ethnicity and belief by imposing on Kabul a regime of Sunni fundamen-talists. It lost the trust of the Afghan populace, and the Taliban is hated in Afghanistan to this day.

The jihad had many other noxious side-effects. It gave birth to the Al-Qaeda, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Jaish-e-Mohammad and other terror outfits. The size, reach and mischief potential of the Inter-Services Intelligence greatly expanded. In a side bargain, Pakistan acquired the Islamic bomb and Abdul Qadeer Khan his nuclear mart. The jihad fulfilled Huntington’s prophesy of the 21st century’s civilisational wars.

And yet in their anxiety to end the war in Afghanistan, London and Washington seem poised to compound their earlier follies and make way for the induction of the Taliban in Kabul. What other objective, if not this, is there in President Obama’s new strategy? In his own words, the strategy is “centred in the full recognition that [the US’] success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to [its] partnership with Pakistan”. No wonder, Generals Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Shuja Pasha returned from the recent US-Pakistan strategic dialogue in Washington exulting over their hosts having conceded legitimacy to Pakistan’s quest for strategic depth in Afghanistan.

The London Conference was indeed a work in the same direction. The much-touted US-India strategic partnership was not much in evidence in that concourse. In a sideswipe, the conference marginalised India completely. The hosts were provocatively insensitive to India’s historical and civilisational affinity with Afghanistan and its overall strategic interests in the region. They did not deign even to mention India’s solid con-tribution in Afghanistan’s social and economic development activity.

Britain, under a Labour Government, never seems able to resist the temptation to wound India just a very little bit.

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IT is not that we in India never stumble into a stray sideshow off a clear firm path. We do. Witness, the unwholesome zeal with which New Delhi, nudged surely by Washington, has plunged into talks with Islamabad at the highest levels to strengthen and save democracy in Pakistan while Washington busily pours arms and money into the Pakistan military’s coffers to reinforce its dominance over the civil polity.

And all this at a time when the wounds of 26/11 remain unhealed, infiltration of terrorists from Pakistan into India continues, and our embassy and aid workers in Afghanistan con-tinue to be targeted by ISI-sponsored terror attacks. Have we embraced the linkage pro-pounded in London that India-Pakistan peace and a Kashmir settlement are essential for resolving the problem in Afghanistan?

In war, it is legitimate to sow dissension and look for deserters in the enemy ranks. So, in principle at least, one cannot quarrel with the policy of “reintegration and reconciliation” enunciated at the London Conference. Clearly, Pakistan is being encouraged to get involved in selecting the Taliban to be reintegrated and reconciled. It will naturally sponsor its own proxies for “reintegration and reconciliation”. How can anyone forget that Pakistan created, trained and armed the Taliban, and it still serves as the base for Islamabad’s operations in Afghanistan? The sole purpose of Pakistan’s protégés will be to subvert the Karzai Govern-ment and take over the country once again.

Wisdom demands that this task of reinte-gration be left to President Hamid Karzai. Several Afghan leaders I have talked to in recent weeks are convinced that there is no better leader in Afghanistan, the charges of corruption and inefficiency against him notwithstanding and that the Taliban’s return to Kabul, in any guise whatsoever, will mean bloodshed. Karzai should therefore be strengthened, not humiliated. There are quieter, more effective ways of dealing with corruption in high places.

The withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan is inevitable; the sooner it comes, the better for all concerned. An honourable way of achieving it with peace and stability in Afghanistan is still available. President Obama should convene a conference in Kabul, attended by heads of state or government of all countries sharing borders with Afghanistan, as well as China, India, Russia, Britain, France and the UN Secretary-General. The conference should give credible guarantees for Afghanistan’s integrity, independence and sovereignty, and for immunity against interference or intervention by any of its neighbours and, indeed, any other power. The result should be formally endorsed by the UN Security Council, which should also station in Afghanistan an adequate peace-keeping force for a sufficient period to allow the Afghan Army and police to assume full responsibility for internal and external security. The conference should then convert itself into a consortium for aiding Afghanistan’s rapid economic develop-ment over 10-15 years.

(Courtesy: The Hindu)

The author is a former Foreign Secretary. Currently he is the President, Observer Research Foundation (ORF) Centre for International Relations.