Bruce Riedel: Much of Pakistan’s problems originate in Afghanistan

Posted on 08 August 2008. Tags: Brookings Institution, Bruce Riedel, Obama, Pakistan

Along with Joe Biden Bruce Riedel is one of the major foreign policy advisor to President Barack Obama. His understanding of Pakistan is based on Necon think tanks and Neolib polemical writings–some of which are Pakistanphobic. It is up to President Barack Obama to distinguish the bull from the bluster. It is pedalogical ro analyze the writings of Mr. Reidel. Judging from the reaction of the Indian mainstream media , Mr. Reidel has ruffled a lot of tri color feathers. In many ways he makes a lot of sense.

Taken in isolation Mr. Reidel’s writings may just be another sane man whistling in the wind. However the cacophony of voices on the spectrum now echo the sentiments of Mr. Reidle. In a nutshell resolving Kashmir, and withdrawal from Afghanistan the swan song of all major experts on South Asia–from the UK, to NATO, to ISAF to the EU, no General has the stomach to continue the “uniwinnable war”.

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It is very clear about Indian intelligence: “‘the aim of RAW is to keep internal disturbances flaring up and the ISI preoccupied so that Pakistan can lend no worthwhile resistance to Indian designs in the region.”

Those that the gods will destroy they first make mad…

Was Samuel Huntington right?

Most Americans do not support the Iraq war and they do not support the reasons for the preemptive war on Baghdad. However many Americans still seem to think that the war on Afghanistan was justified. Recently a huge debate is brewing in the think tanks about the justification for the Afghan war. Amazingly some of the most stinging criticism is coming from the Rand Corporation and the Brezinskis.
Resolute US diplomacy urged to address disputes on Pakistan’s borders

WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (APP): The United States should fully stand with the democratic Pakistani leadership and make resolute efforts to settle disputes on its borders with India and Afghanistan as part of a regional approach to ensuring peace and security, American experts said.

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India intelligence: “‘the aim of RAW is to keep internal disturbances flaring up and the ISI preoccupied so that Pakistan can lend no worthwhile resistance to Indian designs in the region.”

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The U.S. needs to stand clearly with this newly elected democratic leadership. we should avoid shortcuts. we need to build confidence in Pakistan’s democratically elected leadership,” Bruce Riedel told a conference at Brookings Institution.

Speaking on the U.S. policy towards Pakistan, Riedel advocated the need for an overall regional approach to problems of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pakistan, he said, is in an unusual situation in terms of its borders with its two neighbors—the Durrand Line with Afghanistan and with India in the disputed Kashmir territory.

“Two of its borders have never been fixed, its border with Afghanistan was drawn by the British more than a 100 years ago and has never been accepted by Afghans. Its border with India in Kashmir has never been accepted by either.”

“If you want Pakistan to provide a secure border, you first of all have to have a border that everyone has agreed to,” he reasoned.

The South Asian analyst rejected suggestions of foreign troops on the Pakistani soil. “We need to avoid loose talk about larger military options, the notion of moving NATO forces into the FATA is crazy. The notion for us to secure Pakistan’s nuclear arms is even more crazy.”
The US, he said, should work energetically to reduce tensions between India and Pakistan.

Riedel observed the Indian embassy bombing in Kabul is a dangerous development but when asked about the evidence to justify allegations against the Pakistani intelligence, he said he is not privy to seeing the government intelligence and “the evidence that is available in the unclassified arena is not conclusive by any means.”<

In response to a question, he said: “India has been quite active in Afghanistan, it has been one of the major donors of economic assistance to the Karzai government given its own economic, serious poverty problems at home it is remarkable actually that India has been willing to put in to helping to try to rebuild Afghanistan. It has also been politically very active in Afghanistan, it is no secret that President Karzai’s sympathies are much more with India.”

He said the Pakistan-Afghanistan situation is “very interdependent.” “You can make a very strong case that much of Pakistan’s problems originate in Afghanistan. The Talibanization of the Western part of Pakistan is really a phenomenon that was born out of the Afghan civil wars in the 1990s.”