US knows pressure on Pakistan won't work
By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - The United States threat last week that "all options" are on the
table if the Pakistani military doesn't cut its ties with the Haqqani network
of anti-US insurgents created the appearance of a crisis involving potential US
military escalation in Pakistan.
But there is much less substance to the administration's threatening rhetoric
than was apparent. In fact, it was primarily an exercise in domestic political
damage control, although compounded by an emotional response to recent major
attacks by the Haqqani group on US-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
targets, according to two sources familiar with the policymaking process on
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
One source close to that process doubted that there was any
planning for military action against Pakistan in the immediate future. "I'm
sure we're going to be talking to the Pakistanis a lot about this," the source
told Inter Press Service (IPS).
Despite the tough talk about not tolerating any more high-profile attacks on US
troops, the sources suggested, there is no expectation that anything the United
States can do would change Pakistani policy toward the Haqqani group.
The Haqqani network, a force of 15,000 to 20,000 Pashtun fighters led by former
anti-Soviet mujahideen figure Jalalludin Haqqani, has long declared its loyalty
to Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
The Taliban on Tuesday maintained that Haqqani took his orders from the Taliban
Quetta shura (council) and was not controlled by Pakistan.
"The respected Maulawi Jalaluddin Haqqani [the group's founder] is [one of the]
Islamic emirate's honorable and dignified personalities and receives all
guidance for operations from the leader of the Islamic emirate," they said.
Referring to the ongoing tension between Pakistan and the US, a Taliban
statement said, "Our advice to the people of Pakistan and its government is
that they should deliberate on America's two-faced and implacable politics."
The Taliban operations under their spring offensive, Badr, had convinced
foreign military commanders that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won and that
foreign forces must leave. It alleged the US was wrong to reassure its allies
that the situation was under control.
Looming over the discussions about how to react to the latest attacks is the
firm conclusion reached by the Barack Obama administration in last December's
AfPak policy review that it was futile to try to put pressure on Pakistan over
the issue of ties with the Haqqani group.
The Obama administration had tried repeatedly in 2009 and 2010 to put pressure
on Pakistani army chief Ashfaq Kiani to attack the Haqqani network in the North
Waziristan tribal area, but without any result. Finally, in the December policy
review, it was agreed that attacking Pakistan publicly for its ties with the
Haqqani network and its refusal to attack those forces in North Waziristan not
only would not achieve the desired result but was counter-productive and should
stop, according to sources familiar with that review.
But a rising tide of Haqqani group attacks on US and NATO targets in 2011 has
made the Obama administration's AfPak policy much more vulnerable to domestic
political criticism than ever before.
The New York Times reported on September 24 that the number of attacks by the
Haqqani group was five times greater and the number of roadside bombs had
increased by 20% in 2011 than during the same period of 2010, according to a
senior US military official.
Even more damaging to the administration's war policy, however, was the
impression created by the attack by the Haqqani network on the US Embassy and
the US-NATO headquarters in the most heavily-guarded section of Kabul on
September 13, and a truck bomb attack on a NATO base three days earlier that
wounded 77 US troops.
Top US national security officials had no choice but to cast blame on Pakistan
for those attacks and to suggest that the administration was now taking a much
tougher line toward Islamabad, despite the knowledge that it was not likely to
shake the Pakistani policy, according to the two knowledgeable sources.
"We're in a situation where the administration could not do nothing," said one
of the sources.
The administration decided within a few days of the high-profile attack in
Kabul on September 13 to highlight the claim that the Pakistani intelligence
service, ISI, was somehow complicit in the recent Haqqani group attacks.
On September 17, US ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter charged that the
Haqqani network had carried out the attack on the US Embassy and US-NATO
headquarters a few days earlier and declared, "There is evidence linking the
Haqqani network to the Pakistani government."
Three days later, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters, "We are going
to take whatever steps are necessary to protect our forces" in Afghanistan.
Then the administration put out a story through the Washington Post on
September 21 that was clearly aimed at satisfying the domestic political
audience that the administration was sufficiently tough toward Pakistan on its
ties with the Haqqani group. Diplomatic correspondent Karen DeYoung reported
that the Obama administration had given "what amounts to an ultimatum" to
Pakistan to cut ties with the Haqqani group, warning that the United States
would "act unilaterally if Pakistan does not comply".
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on September 22,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen made the unusual
admission that the Haqqani network's attacks in Afghanistan had become "more
brazen, more aggressive, more lethal" than ever before, but explained it as a
function of ties between the group and Pakistan's ISI.
He portrayed the Haqqani group as "a veritable arm of the ISI" and suggested
that there was "credible evidence" that the ISI was behind the truck bomb
attack on the NATO base on September 10 as well as the attack on the embassy
and the International Security Assistance Force headquarters a few days later.
He used oddly contorted language in characterizing that evidence, saying that
"the information has become more available that those attacks have been
supported or even encouraged by the ISI".
That same line, which only suggested ISI "encouragement" as a possibility, was
then peddled to Reuters and CNN, among other news outlets. CNN Pentagon
correspondent Barbara Starr quoted a "US military official" on September 23 as
claiming ISI "knowledge or support" in regard to Haqqani network attacks -
another formula revealing the absence of hard intelligence of ISI complicity.
And Mark Hosenball and Susan Cornwell of Reuters reported on September 22 US
officials had conceded that information suggesting that ISI had encouraged
Haqqani attacks on US forces was "uncorroborated".
Absent from these reports was any indication that the US intelligence community
had been consulted by Mullen before making claims about "credible intelligence"
of ISI complicity.
What was missing from the administration's public pronouncements and leaks was
the fact that both the George W Bush and Obama administrations had been well
aware that the Pakistani military had close strategic relations with the
Haqqani network.
"It's not as if the United States didn't know that the Pakistani military
considers the Haqqani network a strategic asset," said one knowledgeable
source.
The long AfPak policy review by the Obama administration in 2009 was based on
the knowledge that the Pakistani government was unlikely to give up its support
for the Haqqani network and the Taliban Quetta shura.
On November 29, 2009, the day Obama made his final decision to support an
increase of more than 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, his Afghanistan war
adviser, General Douglas Lute, warned him that Pakistan's policy of support for
the Haqqani network and other insurgents was one of four key factors that
created a serious risk of policy failure in Afghanistan, according to Bob
Woodward's book Obama's Wars.
Even those who had held out hope in the past that pressure on Pakistan could
lead to change in its relationship with the Haqqani group have now given up on
that possibility. The New York Times reported on Saturday that officials who
once believed Washington could manipulate the Pakistani military to end its
support for the Haqqani group "through cajoling and large cash payments" were
now convinced that Pakistan would not change its policy as long as it feels
threatened by Indian power.
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing
in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book,
Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was
published in 2006.
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