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2 All roads leading to
Pakistan By M K Bhadrakumar
The British ambassador to Kabul, Sherard
Cowper-Coles, told British Broadcasting Corp radio
in an interview this week that Britain needs to
keep a presence in Afghanistan for several
decades. He described Afghanistan as "one of our
very highest foreign-policy priorities".
The ambassador singled out three main
factors why a long-term British presence becomes
unavoidable, namely the fight against terrorism,
economic development, and the "task of standing up a
government" in Kabul that is
"sustainable". In fact, Britain is having an
Afghanistan "surge" - increasing its 7,000-strong
troop presence by 10%. What makes Afghanistan so
special for Britain?
Britain often
operates as the "brains trust" of the
Anglo-American alliance. The criticality of the
Afghan theater was underscored last week when
hardly days ahead of the scheduled visit of
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri to
Washington, three senior US officials arrived in
Islamabad for consultations, namely the chief of
the US Central Command Admiral William Fallon,
Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, and
assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher.
Washington evidently decided there were
matters that were best discussed with President
General Pervez Musharraf. The visitors from
Washington seemed pleased with their discussions.
Meanwhile, the chorus of criticism by the Kabul
setup about Pakistan's support of the Taliban
insurgency has also noticeably diminished.
President Hamid Karzai is finely attuned
to Washington's priorities. He will have pointed
out that the six-year war is outgrowing
Afghanistan, and he can see Washington's new
priorities. He will have noted that all the
cacophony about the restoration of democracy in
Pakistan isn't impacting on Washington. Clearly,
the US administration will not lose sleep if
Musharraf keeps on his uniform.
What makes
Musharraf an indispensable ally at this point in
time? In a nutshell, in the Anglo-American global
agenda, larger considerations overlap the
day-to-day vicissitudes of the "war on terror".
They relate to the "new cold war". Musharraf's
stance as an ally can make a big difference.
Pakistan, in other words, is regaining the status
of a "frontline state" in Anglo-American regional
policy. This centrality of Pakistan is comparable
to the period under president Zia ul-Haq
(1977-88). Militant Islam once again assumes
potency in the geopolitics of Central Asia.
The "new cold war" necessitates a robust
strategic push by the Western alliance into
Central Asia. As German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Wednesday after
the European Union foreign ministers' meeting in
Luxembourg, Central Asia has been "like a blind
spot in the EU's line of vision". The EU foreign
ministers gave approval to the bloc's first-ever
strategy toward Central Asia. In recent months,
Washington has been keenly goading the EU to do
precisely that.
The hullabaloo is not
entirely about oil and gas, either. Steinmeier
stressed that the EU is adopting a broad strategic
view. He said, "Economic links, energy-trading
links can be one basis, but it is just one among
many. We are also very concerned about political
stability in this context, which, as you know, is
threatened by instabilities in the southern
neighborhood, be it Afghanistan or Iran."
Anglo-American efforts to unite Europe,
and to secure a strong European partner in Central
Asia, have assumed urgency with the need to pursue
a more robust strategic thrust into that region.
That the various "ink spots" are interconnected in
the Anglo-American strategy may not be obvious,
but Fallon's stopover in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan,
after the visit to Islamabad did reinforce that
point. Simply put, Turkmenistan and Pakistan are
vital to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) operations in Central Asia. And both
countries border Iran.
Again, it is not a
mere question of working out the logistics for
Western military aircraft flying through Russian
airspace to Afghanistan. The fact is Pakistan is
uniquely placed - geographically and politically -
to affect the outcome of Anglo-American strategy
toward Iran and Central Asia. Zia was extremely
prescient about such a geopolitical setting.
In recent months, the US media have
reported on the role of Pakistani security
agencies in enabling covert US operations aimed at
destabilizing Iran. If US Vice President Dick
Cheney has his way and a US-Iran military
confrontation indeed takes place, Pakistan's role
becomes of vital importance to Washington.
To quote prominent Pakistani journalist
Ahmed Rashid in the Los Angeles Times recently,
"Current and past US officials tell me that
Pakistan policy is essentially being run from
Cheney's office. The vice president, they say, is
close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any
criticism of him ... No one at Foggy Bottom
[Department of State] seems willing to question
Cheney's decisions."
Cheney's interests do
not usually go beyond oil and the New American
Century project. Even making allowance for
Rashid's proximity to Karzai or his well-known
antipathy toward Musharraf, it is extraordinary
that Cheney has developed such a keen interest in
Pakistan. Musharraf is well placed to take a leaf
out of Zia's life and times. He can ask the White
House for a quid pro quo for his role with
regard to Iran and the "new cold war".
Indeed, influential figures in the US and
Britain have begun arguing lately that Pakistan's
legitimate interests in Afghanistan must be
accommodated. Former British foreign secretary and
defense secretary Malcolm Rifkind recently wrote
in The Independent newspaper, "The key will be
winning full Pakistani support ... That will not
be achieved by threats or exhortations. It needs a
more sophisticated approach, one that recognizes
legitimate Pakistani concerns and interests. Only
then will we make real progress."
Rifkind
identified two aspects to Pakistan's "national
interests that have been largely ignored by the
West". First and foremost, he said, Pakistan's
Pashtun-Balochi problem and the entire Taliban
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