Roadmap for Afghan Peace
Preceding Hillary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan, the US had two very widely differing objectives, viz (1) to deliver a final wake-up call for Pakistan’s military and its intelligence services and (2) attempt damage control to save the rapid deterioration in the US-Pakistan relationship in the aftermath of Mike Mullen’s effectively fingering of the ISI as being complicit with the Haqqani network in the recent attack on the US Embassy in Kabul, he labeled the Haqqanis as being “a veritable arm of the ISI”.
Despite the misgivings expressed about each other’s intention in the recent past, Vali Nasr, Senior Advisor to late Richard Holbrooke, emphasized that the US must re-engage with Pakistan, “every one of our assumptions about our timetable of getting out of Afghanistan and our success on the ground with military operations has been predicated on the kind of at least minimal cooperation we have had with Pakistan over the past two years. If that cooperation ceases to exist and our relations get any worse than they are currently, it is very difficult to see how the US can meet its deadlines in order to be able to withdraw from Afghanistan, unquote.
At her last stop in Kabul, Clinton promised some tough talking with the Pakistanis about the Haqqani network purported link. As it happened she engaged in a bit of both, giving weightage to the latter, at least this was the perception from what emerged after the visit, a favouring of a reconciliation of sorts in mapping a way forward for solving the Afghan problem. In effect the US agreed that they could not push Pakistan in a direction that they themselves were not likely to take in Afghanistan.
The State Department confirmed that the US and Pakistan had agreement on 90-95% of the issues they were confronted with, and had agreed on. According to renowned former US policy-making official William Polk, “the future of Afghanistan shape should be a coherent nation-state. Even in the midst of the civil war, no responsible Afghan favours the break up of the country. To Balka-nize Afghanistan would be to create a disaster”. The US had been insisting that three conditions had to be met by the Taliban before the negotiations viz (1) denounce Al-Qaeda (2) lay down arms and shun violence and (3) acceptance of US-tailored Afghan Constitution. It is believed the Pakistanis explained they would try their best to get the Taliban to denounce Al-Qaeda, but it would be impossible to get them to lay down the arms and accept the Afghan Constitution in its present form. Instead of these being pre-conditions the Pakistani premise was these should be part of the negotiations, the US agreed to reconsider their stance on these two issues.
Informed sources confirmed that the concept for reconciliation in Afghanistan proposed by Pakistan was accepted by the US with some caveats, and in return Pakistan promised to give full support in helping facilitating the US in such reconciliation. The roadmap how to operationalise the agreed plan envisaged, viz (1) the final decision about the reconciliation would remain with the US (2) lays down what the US would do and what Pakistan would do (3) sets out the sequence of the reconciliation steps and (4) the timelines. It is understood that Pakistan could not guarantee that the outcome of the reconciliation effort would be positive. Pakistanis would try and get the horse to the water, whether the horse would drink that water was not in their control and they could not held responsible if the Taliban walked away from the negotiating table.
One very important clarification from the Clinton visit, “the US has no evidence of the ISI being linked with any terrorist organization”. Diplomatic language would state the original accusation was “found to be incorrect”, the blunt fact is that for this outright lie which has done tremendous harm to the image of the ISI and the Pakistan Army. One has faced many uncomfortable moments answering pointed questions from un-believing friends.
Since Afghanistan is an impoverished country without the resources to keep the current salary levels. Pakistan were concerned as to whether it would be economically feasible for Afghanistan to maintain the large Afghan National Army (ANA) and other law enforcement security forces once the US and NATO withdrew from the country. Historically that has meant trouble for any ruler in Kabul. As far back as 1879 the Afghan Army rebelled against the then Emir of Kabul because he could not pay them. The mob then descended on the British Legation headed by an Italian-born British diplomat (formerly DC Peshawar) Maj Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari (popularly known as “Camnery Sahib” by the Pathans) and demanded that the British pay them what the Emir owed them. When he expressed his inability to do so, the mutinous soldiers attacked the British Residency.
Alongwith his protective detail, composed of a detachment from the Corps of Guides, he was killed (a memorial arch commemorating this action stands in the Frontier Force (FF) Centre, originally the HQs of the Queen’s Own Corps of Guides Regiment in Mardan). Mutiny for unpaid salaries is common for earlier and/or subsequent Afghan Armies, it has been repeated umpteen times over the past century. For how long would the US and its coalition partners continue the annual largesse of almost US $ 4-5 billion to maintain such forces? What will happen if trained manpower armed with the latest weapons decides to take matter into their own hands if not paid to their satisfaction?
An important consensus between the US and Pakistan was that political strategy should be in the lead and not military strategy. Afghans would not only to decide about the pace and scope of the planned talks with each other as well as a new constitution, the present one being unacceptable widely in Afghanistan as US-framed. The Constitution will have to undergo substantial changes to be acceptable to the Afghan psyche. On the other hand, the Taliban cannot deny women their due role as stakeholders. Whatever their misgivings and culture, such a denial of women’s rights cannot be acceptable to the people of Pakistan.
The US represents a fair and equitable society, given that we have differing core national interests we can engage with them without demon-izing them. What William Polk elaborated as the fourth US objective in his detailed analysis was more important to me personally, “Prevent contamination of American institutions and laws by activities begun in Afghanistan including the effects of large-scale money-laundering and the destabilizing of the American system of law, justice and opposition to torture”.
An honourable exit out of Afghanistan for the US means they must have partly, if not fully, achieved the aims and objectives they had set for themselves when they entered the country. Having given great sacrifice and incurred huge monetary cost, for the Americans to do so without anything to show for it would be a great setback in perception. To quote William Polk, the US policy forward should “prevent a “blow back” of the Afghan conflict that might constitute or appear to constitute a major failure and so encourage anti-American actions in other, in particular Islamic areas”.
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