Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani told participants of Thursday’s All-Parties Conference that various organs of the US administration were not on the same page vis-à-vis the Af-Pak policy and there were “wheels within wheels” in the Obama administration having separate views on the Afghanistan situation, Pakistan Today has learnt reliably.
Background interactions and interviews with various political leaders revealed that General Kayani gave an overview to the political leadership of the country on the situation in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s strategy on the war on terror and also detailed the future course of action by the Pakistan Army. “The Americans themselves are confused and have no clear action plan on their Afghanistan strategy… Pentagon, White House, CIA and US State Department are not on the same page over the Afghan plan and rather there are wheels within wheels. Due to this complex situation, their pullout plan could face a huge mess,” the source quoted the COAS as telling the meeting.
The source said the army chief told the country’s political leadership that he had told Americans that when the US forces pulled out of Afghanistan, they would leave behind a huge mess. “They plan to raise and train around 0.25 million militiamen as Afghan security forces who are going to be paid $8 billion every year. But on the other hand, all the indicators of the US economy are reflecting negatively and if the US administration can’t pay such a huge bill to Afghans, the trained militiamen may fall into the hands of militant groups or end up with some other militant force. All this will create hell in Afghanistan and we will have to face all this as was the case in 1980s when the Americans left the warlords to turn Afghanistan into a hell,” the source quoted the army chief as saying.
General Kayani, the source said, opined that if around 0.15 million US forces could not hold their control on mere 10 percent of Afghanistan, how could 0.25 million semi-trained Afghan army personnel succeed. The source said Kayani added that the US wanted to leave Afghanistan with victorious pride and wanted to make Pakistan a scapegoat for its vested interests. Clarifying the allegations of ties of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) with the Haqqani Network, Kayani said the Haqqanis were an influential and a powerful tribe settled along both sides of the Pak-Afghan border. He said Jalaluddin Haqqani was a jihadi leader who had fought against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
“Jalauddin Haqqani is lame and is not active anymore. He had two wives and has two sons from each of them. They are a big tribe that is influential and strong, but they have never created problems for Pakistan. We don’t have any ties with any of Haqqani’s sons, rather we interact with their distant cousins who are not involved any insurgency. They (cousins of Haqqanis) roam around the world for business purpose and we have evidence of their passports having visa stamps of various European countries,” Gen Kayani said. He also explained that Pakistan was a sovereign country and had its own interests to be followed and relations with Haqqani’s cousins were important as the US was planning a pullout.
“Since the US forces are planning to leave Afghanistan, why should we turn our friends into foes? We will and have to pursue our strategic objectives,” he added. The army chief also said that Pakistan had advised the US administration to adopt a practical and prudent policy framework for Afghanistan but they had ignored it and were now facing a huge mess. “Since the US had followed the idea of Afghanistan surge, we had warned them against pressurising the Taliban insurgents, telling that this flawed policy would not succeed. We also told them that this military approach would backfire and the Taliban would not come to the table if the US talked to them from a position of strength. We had advised them to talk to insurgents without attaching preconditions, but again the US did not follow this advice. Later, they were forced to withdraw all conditions one by one but things had worsened by that time,” Kayani said.
The sources said that being fed-up with scathing criticism of the army by Munir Khan Orakzai, FATA parliamentarians’ parliamentary leader in the National Assembly, General Kayani snubbed the MNA, saying he was ready to pull out his troops from FATA if the FATA parliamentarians assured that they would return to their hometowns and bring peace in the region. “Kayani said FATA parliamentarians were themselves afraid of living in their homes in the restive region,” the source added.
Gen Kayani also brushed aside US media propaganda against the ISI and said the army wanted peace across its eastern and western borders. “We are not seeking the so-called strategic depth in Afghanistan. We want a peaceful Afghanistan so that the 3 million Afghan refugees can return to their homes in Afghanistan,” he asserted. Another source said that some politicians, led by PML-N President Nawaz Sharif, were of the opinion that Pakistan should refuse to accept US aid and the government should concentrate on its indigenous resources.
The source said Nawaz went all out to reassure the armed forces of his party’s support. “We love the army and want to see the Pakistan Army a strong and robust institution and want to see the army and people on the same page. But the army should play its role which is enshrined in the constitution – to safeguard the borders of the state,” the source quoted Nawaz as saying. Another source said that during her briefing, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told the meeting that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was bitter during her three-and-a-half hour-meeting held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.
“Later when Khar presented Pakistan’s case with a specific focus on the contributions and sacrifices by Pakistan, its army and people, Clinton’s stance softened. She said Pakistan was itself a victim of terrorism but propaganda against it by friends was unfair,” the source said. Another source quoted Awami Tehreek leader Rasool Bakhsh Palijo as telling the prime minister to give moderate politicians a chance to get rid of Mullahs, who he said had took the country to a stage where the entire world was accusing it despite its sacrifices and contributions.
“Palijo showered praises on Hina Khar, saying that after listening to her briefing, he could confidently say that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had made a good choice,” the source said. The source said that the heads of religious parties had nothing concrete to suggest for resolving the ongoing crisis and they all kept on proving (as usual) that the US had lost war in Afghanistan and wanted to expand the war to Pakistan. “When PTI chairman Imran Khan refused to sign the draft resolution, PPP ministers asked Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to convince Khan and he succeeded in convincing him after minor amendments to the draft bill,” the source added.
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