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2 Afghan
endgame has Pakistan shuddering By Brian M Downing
Those concerns may
have been behind the Pakistani army's disapproving
response to the US's deployment of troops into
southern Afghan provinces, just north of
Balochistan, as part of its 2009 surge. The
Pakistani army protested that the surge there
would drive Taliban forces into Balochistan,
requiring the redeployment of troops from the
Indian border into Balochistan.
In that
the Pakistani army only fights the Pakistani
Taliban, not the Afghan Taliban, the protests
reveal concern over US raids into Taliban
sanctuaries in Balochistan and potential ties
between the US and Baloch separatists - unlikely
though it is from outside Rawalpindi.
Paradoxically, yet quite understandably in
the context of Pakistan's security anxieties, the
army also fears that the Taliban
bands enjoying safe
havens in Balochistan will find common elements
with Baloch separatists. This concern leads to a
further one: the Pashtuns and Balochs will break
away and provide their own pathway for Central
Asian commerce to reach the Arabian Sea
independent of Pakistani controls - by way of a
Baloch Gwadar, not a Pakistani Gwadar or Karachi.
Long-standing resentment and hopes may
bring about an at least nominally unified
Pashtunistan embracing both sides of the Durand
Line. Whether it would be an autonomous part of
Pakistan as is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, or an
autonomous part of Afghanistan, or a separate
state entirely is of great interest and concern.
More astute members of the Taliban's high
council cannot be unaware of conditions in
Pakistan and what they portend for their
movement's post-settlement future. Pakistan is
unstable, thanks in no small part to the Pakistani
Taliban, but also due to ethnic antagonisms,
immense poverty, and inept Punjabi generals and
politicians. Pakistan is not trusted by other
countries in the region and even China is stepping
back from military and economic cooperation.
Pakistan, then, is of less usefulness to
the Taliban once a settlement is reached. The
Taliban know that they failed to develop the
country during their rule and that it led to
discontent, scattered insurgencies, and a lack of
public support that revealed itself so well when
the US intervened and ousted them in short order.
The Taliban will look for broader international
support than Pakistan can give - or want them to
have.
It is unlikely that the US can take
advantage of fissures between the Taliban and
Pakistan, welcome though they'd be. Whatever
reservations the Taliban have for Pakistan pale in
comparison to the enmity they have for the US,
which has occupied their lands for over a decade
and killed their fighters in large numbers and
many civilians also. However, the US can provide
economic aid and perhaps could even be, under
certain circumstances, helpful in the creation of
a Pashtun autonomous region, aloof from the
northerners of Afghanistan and alarming to the
generals of Pakistan.
Portents of a US
withdrawal Pakistan must also be concerned
with the consequences of a settlement that ousts
the US. The more humiliating the US departure, the
more concern for the Pakistani generals.
The US is slated to give its putative ally
$1.7 billion in military aid this year, and
another $1.5 billion in economic aid. Cuts in
military aid and perhaps elimination altogether
may be looming, though economic aid and trade
advantages would likely continue to help the
civilian government in its continuous power
struggle with the army. Further, the US could move
still closer to India. The two are cooperating in
countering Chinese influence along the sea lanes
to Persian Gulf oil supplies, and both look warily
at Pakistan.
The Rawalpindi generals have
long felt that triangulation between China and the
US gave leverage over both and that the US would
not press them too hard for fear of having the
"China card" tossed down triumphantly on the
table. The high command in Rawalpindi can no
longer have that confidence. China has expressed
reluctance to go forward with a naval base in
Gwadar, despite its position only 800 kilometers
from the Strait of Hormuz.
China has also
backed away from funding an Iran-Pakistan
pipeline. This was perhaps a reluctant concession
to international sanctions on Tehran, but perhaps
more importantly a reconsideration of Pakistan's
utility. The country is wracked by various forms
of instability, not the least of which is the
separatism in the western province of Balochistan
where Gwadar lies and through which an
Iranian-Pakistani pipeline would pass. Baloch
separatists often target Chinese engineering teams
to limit Pakistani exploitation. Furthermore,
China reasons that Pakistan's untrustworthiness
with the US may be repeated with them one day.
An exit from Afghanistan would free the US
to press the Pakistani army on its ties to various
militant and terrorist groups – a project that
many states will support. A less than gracious US
exit from Afghanistan would add resolution to the
effort. International support for the effort would
be substantial. The effort may have been recently
signaled.
The US placed a $10 million
bounty for assistance in arresting and convicting
Hafiz Saeed, the leader of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT),
the Punjabi militant group behind the deadly 2008
attack in Mumbai. The choice of LeT is significant
in that the Mumbai attack might be second only to
the September 11 attacks in global significance.
There are two surviving accomplices to the
attack, a plotter and a member of the assault
team, both of whom have testified that they were
funded and trained by Pakistani army officers. Of
further international significance is LeT's ties
to al-Qaeda and the 2005 attacks in London. The
two groups operate alongside one another in
eastern Afghanistan, share their deadly skills,
and hold the same Salafi beliefs.
Saeed
has rallied popular support, openly. He operates
freely inside Pakistan, on LeT's well appointed
compound. He does not have to hide himself near a
remote army base, nor must his followers skulk in
the mountains of North Waziristan and Paktia,
though some of them do. Saeed's public posture
makes it clear to all that LeT is condoned by
Pakistan.
Pakistan may be on its way to
being designated a state sponsor of terrorism and
enduring international sanctions, though it would
take a year or more to build the case before the
world. The ruinous consequences of such sanctions
can be observed just to the west in Iran, and
Pakistan does not have oil resources to attenuate
their effects. The generals must fret over what if
anything was on the scores of hard drives the US
seized on Osama bin Laden's compound in
Abbottabad.
The Pakistani army and its
client groups The threat of sanctions or
their actual imposition along with other
international pressures will aim at forcing the
Pakistani army to break with its militant client
groups along the Durand Line and become a
professional force geared to national defense and
in a manner consistent with international law.
This will be Pakistan's way back into the world
order. Though desirable and almost inevitable,
breaking from the client groups will be difficult
and dangerous.
A settlement in Afghanistan
would likely lead to LeT and kindred groups such
as Jaish-e-Mohammad turning against Pakistan,
especially if the Kashmir question isn't ended in
a satisfactory manner - and in all likelihood, it
will not. Sensing betrayal, militant groups will
turn their attention to the army - former mentors
now seen as traitors.
Some members of LeT
have already sensed flagging commitment to the
Kashmiri cause and taken part in assassination
attempts on then-president Pervez Musharraf. The
full force of LeT, those elements based in eastern
Afghanistan and many others in Punjabi cities,
would be fearful if launched against the army and
state. There are thousands of officers in the
Pakistani army, long indoctrinated by the Kashmir
creed, who would back them.
Even in the
unlikely event of a satisfactory conclusion to the
Kashmiri matter, there would still be the problem
of trained and zealous fighters, still under the
sway of Islamist militancy and indisposed to
returning to unappealing civilian occupations. In
this respect, they may be similar to the Arab
mujahideen after the Afghan war in 1989 or the
Tuareg after Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's overthrow
last year in Libya. They will be available for
other causes that require their special skills.
The world is unlikely to refuse them.
Regardless of Pakistan's disposition
toward its client groups, international pressure
will come down upon Islamabad not only to break
with them but also to take actions against them.
Similarly, any Afghan settlement will insist that
the Taliban break with, if not try to crush, the
various groups operating in eastern Afghanistan.
Win or lose in Afghanistan, the Pakistani army
will one day have to fight the deadly groups that
it helped to create and was confident it would
always control.
Note: 1. See also Amin Tarzi,
"Political Struggles over the Afghanistan-Pakistan
Borderlands," in Shahzad Bashir and Robert D
Crews, eds, Under The
Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan
Borderlands. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 2012). )
Brian
M Downing is a political/military analyst and
author of The Military Revolution and
Political Change and The Paths of Glory:
War and Social Change in America from the Great
War to Vietnam. He can be reached at
brianmdowning@gmail.com.
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