US AfPak policy review results mimic Chinese demands given to Hillary

Categorized | Afghan, Current Affairs, Pak CA, US CA, US Int Rel.

US AfPak policy review results mimic Chinese demands given to Hillary

Posted on 27 February 2009. Tags: Afghan, Pakistan, USA

It could be a coincidence, but it is amazing that the growing signals out of Washington seem to be a carbon copy of the demands made by China about the the Afghan war. It could also be a grand coincidence that the Amir of the Jamat e Islami visited China on a visit happened at the same time as the Chinese hostage was released by the militants. It could also be a concidence that the deal with the militants was signed at the time the President of Pakistan was in China and Hillary. China sets conditions for bailing out US and buying US T-Bills

The impact of the global financial crisis has been felt beyond Wall Street, the mortgage bankers and the automobile industry. The reverberations of US bankruptcy have now been felt in capitals across the planet. US goes begging to Beijing: India feels the pain. Hillary Clinton’s itinerary to Asia said reams about the new thinking in Washington as enunciated by Hillary Clinton during the campaign. Why the US gave up India as a strategic partner

It is clear that without Pakistan’s cooperation, the US cannot win the war on terror. Therefore, to safeguard its own interests in the fight against terrorism in South Asia, the US must ensure a stable domestic and international environment for Pakistan and ease the tension between Pakistan and India. This makes it easy to understand why Obama appointed Richard Holbrooke as special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan issues, and why India is included in Holbrooke’s first foreign visit. In fact, the “Afghan problem”, the “Pakistani problem” and the “Indian-Pakistani problem” are all related.China’s Official Newspaper: The People’s Daily

Beaten by an incessent insurgency that refuses to die the US military has belatedly reassessed and changed direction in Iraq. Barack Obama on February 27th announced a schedule for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. There were various reassessment on Afghanistan which were completed under the Bush Administration. These were

1) The NIE and CIA assessments

2) Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, which was commissioned by the Bush administration

3) Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

4) General David Petraeus, the Centcom commander who oversees the region.

Part of these reviews are a change in direction in South Asia also. The US now wants Kashmir resolved and tensions reduced between Pakistan and India so that Islamabad can concentrate on Afghanistan. These US interests directly clash with the irredentist and revanchist agenda in Delhi. The change in the itinerary of Ms. Clinton, the mention of the “K” word by David Milliband, and Richard Holbrooke and the clear cut statements by Hillary Clinton that China is the most important ally of the US has done much to raise hackles in Delhi. India’s worst nightmares come true: Long term strategic malaise

In the two-front war that Washington is now calling “AFPAK,” there’s more head-scratching going on than is immediately visible. Yes, President Obama approved a Pentagon request to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan. But at the same time, he has ordered a strategy review to make sure the United States isn’t marching blindly into what historians call “the graveyard of empires.”

Obama’s War and the Risks Of Realism
Ordering troop deployments before deciding on strategy isn’t a great idea — as Iraq demonstrated. But the additional troops are only about half of what U.S. commanders have requested. “The decision on the 17,000 troops is not predictive of the outcome of the strategy review,” cautions a top Pentagon official.

Obama and his special adviser for the region, Richard Holbrooke, want to put their own stamp on policy. They inherited three reviews on Afghanistan: one by Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, which was commissioned by the Bush administration; a second by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and a third by Gen. David Petraeus, the Centcom commander who oversees the region.

Obama promptly ordered up a fourth assessment — a review of the reviews, if you will. The baseline is the idea that Afghanistan and Pakistan are two theaters in the same war, combating the Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists that are operating in both countries. Hence, AFPAK. Overseeing this meta-review is Bruce Riedel, a former senior analyst at the CIA who’s on loan for 60 days from the Brookings Institution.

As part of the review, top military and intelligence officials from Afghanistan and Pakistan are visiting Washington this week. “We agree that there is one front, from Kabul to Calcutta,” a senior Pakistani official told me. But what that will mean in practice is far from clear.

U.S. officials were flummoxed by Pakistan’s announcement last week that it had negotiated a truce with Islamic rebels in the Swat Valley region. Pakistani officials portray the deal, which would impose Islamic sharia law in the area, as a way to placate tribal leaders and pry them loose from Taliban militants.

But American officials are skeptical. They say that while 100,000 Pakistani troops are deployed in the northwest, the war is going badly. “Even with all that manpower, they’re not making much progress,” says one key official. Washington fears that Pakistan may want to fold its hand in Swat to avoid morale problems in an army that would rather be confronting India in the east than Muslim militants in the northwest.

A similar stand-down took place several years ago in Waziristan, where Gen. Pervez Musharraf agreed to a truce rather than continue a failing campaign. Today in Waziristan, the only real threats to Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters come from U.S. Predator drones overhead.

Asked about the Swat truce, Mullen said in a telephone interview: “It’s too soon to tell, but the history is not encouraging. It’s not good if it’s a repeat of what happened before.”

Pakistani officials say that the government of President Asif Ali Zardari is ready to fight the Muslim militants, if America provides the tools and training for counterinsurgency. On the Pakistani “wish list” are attack helicopters, night-vision equipment, light artillery for the mountainous border regions, jamming equipment to stop Taliban radio broadcasts and other high-tech surveillance gear. A Three-Pronged Bet on ‘AFPAK’ By David Ignatius, Sunday, February 22, 2009; The writer is co-host of PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address is davidignatius@washpost.com.

The US thinktanks have no clue about Afghanistan. They do not understand Pakistan. In general Americans do not get it. this is evident in the defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan. The inability to comprehend the Swat deal has led to the imbroglio in Afghanistan. Swat and FATA for dummies: Who are the terrorists?

The US agenda in Afghanistan is simple. Eliminate threats to the USA. The Pakistani Foreign Minister Mr. Quresihi has done much to allay the fears of the US Administration. A trilateral meeting between US, Pakistan and Afghansitan has been consecrated into a periodic meeting.

The change in mood in Pakistan can be judged by the fact that the US is listening the Pakistani point of view. Based on the fact that 80% of Afghanistan has fallen to the Taliban and the NATo and ISAF are impotent, unable and unwilling to do anything about this fact.

Swat & FATA for dummies: Who has Infiltrated the “Taliban”. Who are the terrorists in Pakistan?
Imran Khan predicts that the USA will leave Afghanistan in one year. Other analysts and “Taliban” leaders are willing to allow them 2 years. The Grand Bargain? Pakistan key to Afghan Great Game
Solutions to “Obama’s Vietnam”

So why not just get out? As always, it’s not so simple. If the Americans pull their troops out, the already shaky Afghan Army could collapse. (Once they lost U.S. air support, South Vietnamese troops sometimes refused to take the field and fight.) Afghanistan could well plunge into civil war, just as it did after the Soviets left in 1989. Already, the Pashtuns in the south regard the American-backed Tajiks who dominate Karzai’s administration as the enemy. The winning side would likely be the one backed by Pakistan, which may end up being the Taliban—just as it was in the last civil war.

Some argue this wouldn’t be such a bad outcome, if the Taliban could be bribed or persuaded to not let Al Qaeda set up terrorist training bases on Afghan territory. According to one senior Taliban leader, a former deputy minister in Mullah Mohammed Omar’s government who would only speak anonymously, some Pakistani officials are urging the insurgents to do something like this now—in return for talks with the Americans. On the other hand, Islamabad could be playing with fire. Given the longstanding ties between the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, a jihadist state on its border is a threat to Pakistan, too. And here, U.S. national-security interests definitely do come into play. Newsweek. With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai

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The Americans would like to teach counterinsurgency tactics to a Pakistani army organized to fight a traditional war against India. Here again, Zardari’s government says that it is ready. The Pakistanis say that they already have authorized 70 U.S. Special Forces advisers to train the Frontier Corps constabulary in the tribal areas along the border — and that they are willing to approve three times that number. They even talk of secret training camps in America to reduce the U.S. footprint in Pakistan.

The Obama team’s broad goal for AFPAK is a three-way strategic engagement to fight a common enemy. This means billions in economic aid for a collapsing Pakistani economy; it means a new focus on fighting corruption in Afghanistan; and it may mean distancing the United States from President Hamid Karzai in advance of Afghanistan’s presidential elections in August. (Complicating the situation is the fact that Karzai’s legal mandate may expire in May.)

Will the new strategy require more U.S. troops than the 17,000 Obama decided to add last week? He will make that call over the next month, and it will be one of the fateful decisions of his presidency. A Three-Pronged Bet on ‘AFPAK’ By David Ignatius, Sunday, February 22, 2009; The writer is co-host of PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address is davidignatius@washpost.com.

Many military anlysts including some of the most virulent haks are now openly disuccinsg immediate retreat from Afghanistan.

Instead of floundering in search of a strategy, we should consider removing the bulk, if not all, of our forces. The alternative is to hope blindly, waste more lives and resources, and, in the worst case, see our vulnerable supply route through Pakistan cut, forcing upon our troops the most ignominious retreat since Korea in 1950 (a massive air evacuation this time around, leaving a wealth of military gear). Raph Peters

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