Talking tough

Afghanistan is a cause of cooperation as well as conflict between Pakistan and the United States. It brings Pakistan and the US together because both want to control terrorism and have a mutual interest in Afghanistan’s stability. It also divides them because whenever the US/NATO troops face a setback in Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban, Pakistan is blamed for the incident because American security authorities claim that the Haqqani group based in North Waziristan engineered it. It is argued that Pakistan does not pay heed to American advice to dislodge the Haqqani group from its territory.

Afghanistan’s political and security situation is so complex that the resurgence of the Taliban cannot be explained with one factor, i.e. Pakistan. No political and military entity based outside the territorial limits of a country can completely manage insurgency. There has to be local basis of an insurgency; well entrenched local groups must exist before an outside entity can be active. The Afghan Taliban insurgency is not limited to Afghan territories adjoining Pakistan. They are active in other areas as well. Therefore, NATO/US military authorities need to adopt a realistic and multifactor approach to understand their problems in Afghanistan.

The latest American tough message for Pakistan was delivered after the Taliban assault on September 13-14, 2011 in an area in Kabul where the ISAF headquarters, US Embassy and Afghanistan’s intelligence agency (National Directorate of Security) are located. It took Afghan and NATO troops 19 hours to eliminate the attacking Taliban group. This was the third Taliban attack on Kabul in the last three months. The earlier attacks took place on June 28 and August 19.

As expected, Pakistan became the target of US wrath. US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta claimed that the Haqqani group was responsible for the attack and that the US would use all possible means to target the terrorist groups based in Pakistani territory. He said, “They (Taliban) escape back into what is a safe haven in Pakistan. And that is unacceptable. So the message they need to know is that we are going to do everything we can do to defend our troops…. I am not going to talk about how we are going to respond, I will just let you know that we are not going to allow these kinds of attacks to go on.” On top of this, a Pentagon official declared that Al-Qaeda’s new leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri is still based in Pakistan, questioning the media reports that he fled from Pakistan to Yemen or Somalia. The US ambassador to Pakistan also blamed Pakistan’s security establishment of linkages with the Haqqani group.

Unless the US Defence Secretary was catering to domestic American public opinion, his statement does not offer a credible solution of the problem of growing insurgency in Afghanistan. The US military authorities in Afghanistan need to recognise that the roots of the present trouble in Afghanistan are domestic. There is definitely support available to the Afghan Taliban from Pakistani tribal areas but the movement of people across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is two-way. As different Taliban groups move from Pakistan to Afghanistan, there is traffic from Afghanistan to Pakistani tribal areas. The latter attack Pakistani security posts on the border or the adjoining villages. There is a need to examine the problem in a holistic way by focusing on all trans-border movement.

If problems of American troops are caused only by the groups based in Pakistani tribal areas, the US/NATO should seal the Pakistan-Afghanistan border by moving the troops to the border. At the moment, Pakistan has more security posts on the border than American or Afghan security posts on the other side. Further, Kabul is not a couple of miles away from North Waziristan. The groups based there have to travel a reasonably long distance to reach Kabul. Where is the security between the border and Kabul? The US has launched more drone attacks in North Waziristan than other tribal regions over the last one year. Such operations can be accelerated in order to build pressure on the groups based there. However, any other unilateral military strategy will accentuate US/NATO security problems and cause yet another crisis in its relations with Pakistan. It would be unfortunate if some hawkish strategists are thinking of aerial bombardment or quick special operations or use of regular troops for an extended period at a time when the US has started withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan. The expansion of the area of military operations will negate the spirit of drawdown without a guarantee of overcoming the Taliban challenge, especially when the Haqqani group claims a strong presence inside Afghanistan.

The diplomatic interaction between Pakistan and the US over the last one year clearly shows that Pakistan will not fully accept American guidelines for designing its policy of countering terrorism; it will maintain autonomy despite its dependence on Western, especially American, military and economic assistance. Therefore, the US authorities need to focus on expanding the scope of cooperation rather than expecting Pakistan to comply with their considerations and concerns. Further, public denunciation of Pakistan does not serve the purpose. It increases anti-Americanism in Pakistan which is already high and it has gone deep into Pakistan military personnel. This results in polemical statement from Pakistani political leadership and the media which makes Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership defensive on its relations with the US. They are unable or unwilling to publicly justify the need of normal interaction with the US.

Any US military adventure in the tribal areas will serve the cause of Islamist-Jihadist groups who argue that the real target of US military operation is not Afghanistan but Pakistan and Iran. The former has nuclear weapons and the latter is moving in that direction which is not acceptable to the US.

Pakistan and the US need to take up the contentious issues at the diplomatic level while recognising that the national interests of the two countries are not identical. Public denunciation of Pakistan will not force Pakistan to comply with American agenda in the region.

The US global role and national interests are threatened by terrorism but Pakistan faces a bigger threat. Terrorism has polarised and brutalised the society and it has become a threat to each and every citizens. In Pakistan, both the state and society are threatened and this will continue to haunt Pakistan after the US withdrawal. The US troops are leaving the region, not the Taliban and other militant groups.

The writer is an independent political and defence analyst.