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India's Afghan
nightmare
By Ramtanu Maitra
New Delhi is increasingly concerned that
the United States, having done all it possibly can
to make its presence acceptable to Afghans, is now
in the process of withdrawing from northern and
western Afghanistan and reducing its presence in
the southern and eastern parts of the country. The
process would entail maintaining the existing US
bases scattered all over Afghanistan, but handing
over the charge of maintaining peace and stability
in the non-urban areas of Afghanistan to
international troops, including those from
Pakistan.
The violent demonstrations that
took place in Nangarhar and in a number of other
Afghan provinces in the wake of the Newsweek story
about apparent desecration of the Holy Koran in
the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, seem to
have advanced the process, under consideration as
an option in Washington for some time. The
demonstrators chanting "Death to America" made it
known that the Americans are not welcome as
permanent residents in Afghanistan.
Scaling-down in Afghanistan
What New Delhi is most concerned about is that
handing back the mantle to Washington's allies,
especially Pakistan, could mean a resurgence of
orthodox and anti-India Muslim groups. Already
developments in Central Asia, particularly the
reactivation of armed orthodox Wahhabi-style
Islamic groups in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, have
made New Delhi sit up.
Reports indicate
that during their recent visits to India,
Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State
for South Asia Christina Rocca communicated the US
decision to reduce its four-year-long deployment
in Afghanistan by October 2005. The American
officials urged all these nations to deploy their
troops in Afghanistan to help maintain peace and
stability.
New Delhi believes the American
proposal is a backhanded way to get India's
approval to bring Pakistani troops into
Afghanistan. India, which did not supply troops to
aid the US in Iraq, will not send its troops to
Afghanistan under the US banner either. According
to New Delhi, the situation has become worse along
the Afghanistan-Pakistan border than it was during
Taliban rule. This area is under the control of
anti-American and anti-Indian militia which are
protected by the Pakistani army. US troops have no
capability to break this stranglehold: Washington
is dependent on Islamabad to produce an
"extremist" as and when they choose.
According to one Indian official, Pakistan
will certainly revive its old intelligence and
jihadi networks in the region, rolling back the
political gains the Indians made since the Taliban
were ousted from the areas in and around Kandahar
and Jalalabad, among other places, following the
US attack in late 2001. This official also
believes that Pakistan could be planning outright
military offensives to take control of the area
once the Americans give them the proverbial green
light.
Pakistan back in the saddle?
To run an effective operation to flush out the
anti-American Islamic groups from this area
requires full cooperation from Pakistan, which,
Washington has come to realize, Islamabad will
never extend. As a result, all of eastern and
southeastern Afghanistan is heading back under
control of the Pakistan Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) and, indirectly, the Pakistan
army, who will keep the orthodox anti-American and
anti-Indian Taliban in tow.
On May 26,
Sarah Chayes, a former National Public Radio
reporter, wrote in the New York Times that the
recent violent demonstrations in Afghanistan did
not stem from the Newsweek story, but were a
response to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's May 8
announcement that Afghanistan would enter a
long-term strategic partnership with the United
States. In fact, the desecration of the Holy Koran
by American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay is not
new news; it has been reported by Muslim detainees
since 2002 to the International Committee of Red
Cross. Subsequently, the Pentagon reports have
also admitted that such desecration occurred,
albeit unwittingly, until 2003. Why weren't there
such demonstrations earlier?
According to
Chayes, it is not the Afghans, but the Pakistanis
who are most upset by Karzai's decision to allow
the US to set up permanent military bases inside
Afghanistan. As the Islamabad establishment
continues to treat Afghanistan as a subject
territory, Chayes points out that while Pakistani
officials have "mastered their role" as allies in
the "war on terrorism" and play it convincingly,
Pakistan would like the US to pull out of
Afghanistan, leaving the field open for Islamabad.
In fact, the process has begun already, and it
worries Karzai to no end. Karzai, who does not see
eye-to-eye with Islamabad and has strong ties to
New Delhi, most likely expressed his concerns to
US officials during his recent visit to
Washington. It is unlikely, however, that the
George W Bush administration, which needs
Islamabad more than it needs Karzai, paid much
attention.
That the process of Pakistani
takeover of the Pashtun areas has begun becomes
evident from some of the information provided to
the reader by Chayes. She points out that a large
number of Pakistani students are now in Kandahar
University. Kandahar was the font of the Taliban
movement and remains a bastion of Pashtun and
Taliban power.
Wondering what could
possibly attract Pakistani students to Kandahar
University, Chayes says: "The place is
pathetically dilapidated; the library is a locked
store-room, the medical faculty bereft of the most
elementary skeleton or model of the human body.
Why would anyone come here to study from Pakistan?
Our unshakeable conclusion has been that the
adroit Pakistani intelligence agency, the
Inter-Services Intelligence, is planting
operatives in the student body. These students can
also provide agitation at Pakistani officials'
behest, while affording the government in
Islamabad plausible deniability."
What was
clear to Chayes is clearly no secret to American
officials - and this is very distressing to New
Delhi. Pakistan's objective will be to
re-establish its control over Afghanistan by using
the Taliban, or some such orthodox Islamic group.
The objective is to regain strategic depth and
remain a player in the volatile Central Asian
region.
Central Asia gambit
New
Delhi also knows that while Islamabad will play
along with Washington in Central Asia to undermine
Russian and Chinese interests, it would be
impossible for India to do so. Any Indian
deployment in Afghanistan would thus deeply
undermine India's interests in Central Asia, which
at this time coincide favorably with those of
Russia and China. India is also looking at Central
Asia as a major supplier of oil and gas, which it
needs badly. Pakistan is aware of this Indian
requirement, and some in the strategic quarters
would walk an extra mile to see it denied.
New Delhi's worries can be expected to
grow proportionately with those of Karzai in the
coming days. At the time of the Jalalabad riots,
described by observers as the biggest anti-US
protests since the fall of the Taliban, Karzai was
in Brussels for talks at North Atlantic Treaty
Organization headquarters about proposals to
expand the alliance's role in Afghanistan. He was
not in a position to blame Pakistan or the US for
the riots. Instead, he took the path of least
resistance, proclaiming that the demonstrations
were not anti-American. The riots showed only the
inability of Afghan security institutions to cope,
he said, adding that such freedom of expression
was a proof that democracy was taking root.
But Karzai is not fooling anyone, even
himself. His days of worry have just begun. His
best ally, US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, has
been shifted to Iraq and the new ambassador,
Ronald Neumann, is a well-known friend of Israel.
His presence in Kabul will only help the orthodox
Islamists, controlled by Islamabad, to go after
Karzai in a big way. It should not surprise anyone
if Osama bin Laden makes his overdue appearance
once more to attack the "Zionist" US envoy.
A new problem
But Karzai's -
and India's - problems are only in the first phase
of development. The Afghan president's visit to
Washington has already been described by his
opponents from the Panjshir Valley as a total
failure. In all fairness, it was an appropriate
evaluation of the trip.
After the
demonstrations, Karzai, often viewed by his
opponents as an American puppet, attempted to
assert his autonomy by saying his government
should have the final say on US military
operations. He also called for the quick
repatriation of Afghan prisoners now in US
custody. But he lost on both counts. President
Bush made clear that US military operations would
remain entirely in the hands of US commanders, and
the Afghans would have nothing to do with them. It
would be difficult for Karzai now to keep a
straight face and tell anyone he heads a sovereign
nation-sate.
As a lollipop, however, Bush
told Karzai that the US was committed to a
"strategic partnership" with Afghanistan - sending
the message to Afghans that America was in no rush
to leave. "It's important for the Afghan people to
understand that we have a strategic vision about
our relationship with Afghanistan," he said.
Karzai knows that a strategic relationship between
a donor-dependent Afghanistan and the powerful US
has little meaning. As reports point out,
strategic partnership between Afghanistan and the
US entails serving the US's strategic interests.
Nonetheless, Karzai made a few ostensibly
independent noises while he was in Washington.
New Delhi fears that Karzai, who never had
a significant hold over the Pashtun majority, will
now become a figurehead, with no power to wield.
The Panjshir Tajiks, who never accepted him as the
leader, will now once more begin to stir and seek
support from Russia and India. The Pashtuns,
effectively handed over to the Pakistani ISI by
the US, will play along as long as Kabul does not
come under control of a non-Pashtun. Meanwhile,
poppies will bloom as pretty as ever all over
Afghanistan and US troops, ensconced in the small
bases scattered across the country, will wait for
the next move of the Bush administration. Needless
to say, for New Delhi, none of these developments
looks helpful.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
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