Obama's Moment in South Asia

WASHINGTON -- Afghanistan and Pakistan are at the very top of President Obama's list of foreign and security priorities. This week, the president hosted the leaders of both countries for trilateral and bilateral discussions. The U.S. military has embraced this new emphasis, as indicated by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen's recent statement that the war in Afghanistan is now more important than the struggle in Iraq.

The increased emphasis on Afghanistan and Pakistan is laudable, because what happens in these two countries is critical in determining the future of extremism and terror -- a defining security challenge of our time. The outcome will depend on whether the United States and its partners can successfully tackle three key issues.

First, extremist and terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan must be eliminated. Pakistan has been ambivalent about preventing extremists from using its territory, in large part because Pakistan's security agency, Inter-services Intelligence (ISI), found the extremists to be useful tools in dealing with Afghanistan and India and in attracting the interest and attention of the United States.

Now, however, the extremists are threatening Pakistan itself, which hopefully will cause the new Pakistani government to end its ambivalence and actively confront the extremists.

The civilian part of the government, led by Asif Ali Zardari, is on board. However, the two other power centers in Pakistan -- the military and the ISI -- are not doing all that they can, and gaining their sustained support will not be easy. Key players in both institutions do not have the necessary confidence in the U.S. and still see India as more of a threat than the extremists. They also believe they must hedge against U.S. disengagement from the region and increased U.S.-Indian cooperation -- and they see continued utility in using extremists to foment unrest in neighboring countries. These ideas and concepts have deep roots in the military and ISI.

Second, the coalition's military and economic strategy needs to be adjusted. Not surprisingly, the Obama administration has reviewed the military posture. It has judged that there was a gap between ends and means, and plans to close that gap by increasing U.S. forces in Afghanistan dramatically while also committing to significantly build up the size of the Afghan armed forces. This is a necessary move, but taken by itself it will not suffice.

One of the key pillars of improved security in Iraq was the dramatic increase in the size of Iraqi forces, which now number one million. Afghanistan has around the same population as Iraq, living on a larger territory -- yet its army and police forces combined currently number less than 150,000. Resources have to be found to train and sustain a much larger Afghan force.

A number of other military problems remain. To name two: More efforts have to be made to avoid civilian casualties and NATO's model of provincial deployments led by single countries, and therefore following varying rules of engagement, has caused significant confusion. The coalition needs a unified approach to dealing with insurgents.

International civilian efforts have not been well coordinated, either. The U.N. Security Council has designated the U.N. special representative as the civilian coordinator for these efforts, but donors have proven unwilling to surrender control to this coordinator.

Third, the Afghan government and the Obama administration must form an effective partnership. Success will be difficult if the Afghan government cannot play its role. The current situation is not encouraging. Also, there is a crisis of confidence between President Karzai and the Obama administration. The new administration has encouraged several potential candidates to run against him in elections later this year. This has had the unfortunate effect of pushing Karzai into the arms of those who are hostile to the West, while also fragmenting the opposition -- since every member of the opposition, having been encouraged by Washington to run, assumes that he as an individual has the support of the United States.

An effective strategy for the political track is still missing. A weak Afghan government, led by a resentful Karzai whose ties to the United States are strained, is a very bad, but at the moment the most likely, outcome. This can only redound to the benefit of the Taliban, even though they are otherwise unpopular among Afghans.

The success of the administration's diplomacy will have to be measured by whether it produces a credible and agreed-upon roadmap for eliminating extremist sanctuaries in Pakistan, including ending the use of Quetta by Afghan Taliban leaders.

President Obama's immediate challenge is how to put U.S.-Afghan relations on a more productive path as the Afghans prepare for the presidential elections. Finally, Obama must send a message to the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, acknowledging their hopes and dreams and assuring them that the U.S. will not abandon them to extremists, military dictators and warlords.

Zalmay Khalilzad is the former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the UN, presently a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

(C) 2009 GLOBAL VIEWPOINT NETWORK

 

Comments

[freshnotbitter]

02:20 PM on 05/07/2009

here is how Patrick Cockburn sees it at ground level in Afghanista­n:

http://www­.independe­nt.co.uk/n­ews/world/­asia/patri­ck-cockbur­n-where-th­e-taliban-­roam-16797­97.html

He concludes that Taliban are not popular (I agree) but that Bush erred in 2001 when he handed the government to Northern Alliance Afghanis ( who helped us oust the Taliban). It was a mistake because these people are as unpopular as Taliban.

In my opinion, Obama must, at some point soon, explain to the US public that Bush's total bungling of the situation in Pakistan/A­fghanistan has led to a situation that cannot be saved in Afghanista­n. I believe any future regime in Afghanista­n will understand that we will be back quickly if they harbor internatio­nal
terrorists­.

Pakistan - we have enough cash to pay off a few at the top who will let a little trickle down the ranks, sufficient to retain order and gain a "drop hands" settlement with the Taliban that leaves the situation where it was in 2001. Presumably­, the Taliban know we will return if they export their terrorism again.

Simply continuing with combat operations will likely result in a worse outcome.

That leaves Iraq which we should assist in countering Iran's claim on Iraqi soil by giving their troops air cover and artillery support as they take over the water/land around the Shatt-El-A­rab which they need to ensure their security against an obviously insane regime in Iran.

[jaysan]

11:58 PM on 05/08/2009

The Northern Alliance are of course popular in the North of the country dominated by Tajiks and Uzbeks, while the Taliban are Pashtuns who would naturally get support in the Pashtun south of the country. I'm from the region, and I can see you're clearly not familiar with it, because you seem to be missing vital details in your perspectiv­e.

The problem is that Afghanista­n is not one country - it's a patchwork state - the result of wars between the British and the locals. Same thing for Pakistan - it's a patchwork state composed of different groups living on lands that the British conquered and carved away from others. Like the Kurds, the Pashtuns used to have their own land, but part of it was conquered by the British and kept under their control, later to be inherited by Pakistan. The part they didn't conquer became the rump of Afghanista­n, which itself then tenuously conquered areas to the North, who likewise chafed under Afghan control.

So 'AfPak' as Obama's admin calls it, is just a set of different ethnic groups who've been artificial­ly divided and slapped together into an unstable arrangemen­t. They all naturally want to get out of this crazy arrangemen­t and re-merge with their original peoples. The Pakistanis fear this, so they've been using Islamic fundamenta­lism as a religious glue to try and hold everything together, and they created the Taliban as enforcers towards this end.

[jaysan]

11:59 PM on 05/08/2009

(cont'd)

But the Taliban have grown into a monster that can't be controlled easily, and are threatenin­g to swallow up everything­. All the Pakistanis can do now is ride the tiger and hang on for dear life, because they know it will devour them if they try to get off.

[stpmdn]

01:30 PM on 05/07/2009

You sir should be tried for war crimes and not able to write articles on Huff post. We haven't forgotten you're role in the run up to the war in Iraq and afghanista­n

[CaptainStormfield]

11:28 AM on 05/07/2009

http://www­.atimes.co­m/atimes/S­outh_Asia/­KE08Df01.h­tml
Al-Qaeda seizes on Taliban's problem
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

[Euthyphro]

09:19 AM on 05/07/2009

Any aid granted to Pakistan will be funnelled through shadow channels and will eventually wind its way through to fundamenta­lists. Americans don't seem to, and never have, grasped the complex creature that Islam is and the way politics in S. Asia truly functions. Pakistan is a nation founded on a faulty premise, the exaggerate­d ambitions of one individual­. It relates to itself through its hatred, envy, paranoia, and insecurity of its neighbour. The civilian government­, whenever the country has been fortunate enough to have one, has never been in control of its security apparatus. The Pakistani army and the ISI is penetrated deeply by radical elements who found their existence around a need for confrontat­ion with India. Granting aid to such a state is tantamount to endorsing militancy in the region. America needs to close shop and pull out.

[Gunga-Din]

08:58 AM on 05/07/2009

The mondays bombs were a beautiful messagem.

[ApolloSpeaks]

08:11 AM on 05/07/2009

FEARS OF TALIBAN VICTORY OVERBLOWN

Fears of a Taliban victory in Pakistan are way overblown. The better trained and equipped Pakistan military have about a 30 to 1 advantage over the Taliban. And if per chance I'm wrong and the Taliban against all odds prevail the US, as a last resort, will intervene to stop them. Once the Taliban are defeated in Pakistan they will focus their jihadic energies on reconqueri­ng Afghanista­n where the prospects of victory are better.

[BottomLine2008]

08:53 AM on 05/07/2009

So there's no chance of a Taliban takeover. Except there is, and so we'd send troops there to stop it.

Okey-dokey­.

[CitizenT]

09:04 AM on 05/07/2009

Troops we don't have, to boot.

[jaysan]

08:02 AM on 05/07/2009

Pakistan will never act against the Taliban monster it has created, because Pakistan is still controlled by the shadowy military men and ISI types who dictate policy. The civilian govt in Pakistan is just an impotent figurehead­, unable to assert their own policy and get the military to follow it.

The hardliners in the Pak military establishm­ent do not see Taliban as a threat, since the military are themselves driven by Islamic nationalis­m. The military went out of their way to make Taliban as Islamist as possible when creating them in the first place. They view such Islamist fundamenta­lism as a guarantor of allegiance to pursuit of Pakistan's interests, particular­ly against infidel India.

Given the military's lack of respect for the civilian govt and institutio­ns, I don't think they'd be averse to an Islamist takeover at all. After all, Pakistan's military has been under steady Islamizati­on for over 30 years, since the days of Zia-ul-Haq uptil now.

The Pakistani military are part of the problem and not the solution. They are the ones who fostered the menace of religious fanaticism­, in pursuit of their military interests. The key is to restructur­e the Pakistani military and subordinat­e them to the supremacy of civilian institutio­ns. Without this, nothing can move forward.

[Austintatious]

10:12 AM on 05/07/2009

Got to believe you're right, on this. The Pakistanis­, especially its military, have been playing the government of the U. S. like a 5 string banjo for years. It was individual­s in Pakistan's ISI, in cahoots with certain Saudi elements, who were responsibl­e for 9/11.

What's worse, the criminals in the White House used trumped up charges against Sadam, who had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, as the scapegoat to start an immoral and illegal war with Iraq, as part of their grand scheme for the region. The crimes of the others pale in comparison to those of Bush, Cheney, and their minions.

[Ginger5]

06:37 AM on 05/07/2009

Looks to me like the Taliban, in that there were no suicide bombings when they were in control

[arvay]

05:41 AM on 05/07/2009

Unfortunat­ely, our "messages" are often delivered via drone-laun­ched missiles, which kill civilians as well as Taliban leaders, who are replaced and greeted with a swarm of eager and vengeful recruits.

[WarSkeptic]

03:13 AM on 05/07/2009

Is there anything that neocons don't think instigatin­g a civil war will solve?
That seemed to be your solution in Afghanista­n, Iraq, Palestine, and now for Pakistan
How often do your plans have to fail and infact backfire completely for you to see that your strategy is wrong?

[Balloonman]

02:58 AM on 05/07/2009

Agree? Pakistan and India a better relationsh­ip? Sure. I guess. Or face history in the region and leave it to the natives to sort out. Tribal, ethnic, religion in incessant conflict. So many diverse ways of looking adversely at each other enuf to round up each other and kill. Infernal skirmishes­. War after wars. Interventi­ons by alien power cultures. Occupation­s. Occupiers, invaders never accepted. The intercepte­d peoples never assimilate into the 'advanced' cultures. Trouble first place getting along with their own kind. Nothing new. Including millions and millions of people killed. Forced exodus. Refugee camps. Reservatio­ns. Families ruined. Outsiders noses stuck up the region for the grace of their nations and glory of their righteous manners and politic and or God, lose face and blood of their soldiers. Reputation­s if they had any left, disgraced. Insiders, the indiginous disrupted, cutoff from their natural momentum, insane as that direction might be, truncated, short circuited from reaching on their own their self generated destiny. Assigned enemy left helter skelter consequent the goodness of annoited predator invaders advancing their righteous hoods. It is madness you know. Nobody comes out ahead realyl. Look it up.

[dru]

09:31 PM on 05/06/2009

I think that your comments should be prefaced by full disclosure of your role in the conflagrat­ion that is "Obama's moment in South Asia". In my opinion you do not have the credential­s or the credibilit­y to be making recommenda­tions about what should be done to address the crisis that you in large part helped to create. Have you repudiated your neoconserv­ative ideals? Are you still planning to profit personally on a pipeline project? Do you have any plans to run for office in Afghanista­n?

[cobobs]

08:32 PM on 05/06/2009

Any plans for smuggling those weapons out, should the Taliban become dangerousl­y close? Those weapons in the hands of a Taliban government will seriously endanger Pakistan, because not only will India feel threatened­, but so will China and the USA. Even the Russians will be worried. If boggles the mind that the Pakistani military does not get this.

[S1m0n]

08:25 PM on 05/06/2009

But first, the army has to figure out how not to drop bombs on civilians. Absent that, all these other suggestion­s are moot, and the US might was well pack up and come home.

[apatheticreader]

07:54 PM on 05/06/2009

I'm curious, to what extent this Pakistani proto-civi­l war is an ethnic one? It seems to me, and I might be wrong here, that all the demonstrat­ors in support of the government and Zadari are from the South: Sindhis, Punjabis, and of course Muhajirs. But in the North one has the Pashtun, who are either pro-Taliba­n, or at least neutral. And of course you have the Baluch in the West, who have been advocating autonomy for decades.

Are we seeing here several things: a Pashtun regional/t­ribal movement using Salafi discourse as justificat­ion and allied to a worldwide ARAB movement, the demise of an untenable Pakistani nationalit­y based on religion, designed by a secularist­; the final blowback of British colonial policies, and overpopula­tion.

As long as we potray this war as a Manichean struggle of good vs. evil, civilizati­on we are bound to fail. Our American and Pakistani leaders will continue to look like hypocrites everytime a child is killed "regretful­ly by accident," or the poorly-tra­ined police or military act aggressive­ly towards the local populace. Folks, if you launch a moral crusade you better be prepared for everyone to watch everything you do. Be spotless or else.

This also applies to foreign aid, which has been a parasitic feeding frenzy by various levels of Western and Afghan aid workers. And as far as warlords go, well does that mean we don't deal with Karzai's 2nd in command? And what about Karzai's bro?

[Khirad]

11:08 PM on 05/06/2009

You, my friend, get it! We must read the same things. I think one of the biggest things to do as well is with trade. Pakistan needs to be made a viable economy. Thanks for your post, you saved me considerab­le time. Also, thank you to Ambassador Khalilzad. I felt he was one of Bush's few appointmen­ts, along with Ryan Crocker, that actually made any sense and knew the region.

[apatheticreader]

03:21 PM on 05/07/2009

Thanks! Well, it seems to me that in all this fervor over Islamic militancy people are forgetting that Pakistan still faces the same economic and demographi­c issues that many developing countries face.

Pakistan does need a viable economy. Too many of her sons have to go seek employment elsewhere. There is a huge Pakistani diaspora in the Persian Gulf region. And those guys work and live in horrendous conditions­; I've seen this with my own eyes.

The way the world distribute­s AID has got to change, Khalizad is right. But this isn't just a problem for Afghanista­n. Look at Africa, for 40 years aid has been flowing and disappeari­ng and people have it worse now than they did in the 1950s and 1960s. And it is not just the fault of corrupt politician­s. We need to aknowledge how much of the money gets sucked up by various Westerners working for AID agencies. The amount of money people are making currently in Kabul is sickening. Kabulis can't even afford to live in their own city anymore!

And, I've said it elsewhere, the issue of water, deforestat­ion, and soil degredatio­n are things no one has even talked about. And those problems will only get worse. Afghanista­n is losing arable ground at an alarming rate. I don't know about Pakistan, but I suspect the same is true.