Two templates in regional politics are seriously debilitating the United
States's campaign to bring Pakistan down on its knees in the Afghan endgame.
One is that Delhi has distanced itself from the US campaign and pursues an
independent policy toward Islamabad.
The second factor frustrating US policies to isolate Pakistan is the South
Asian nation's bonhomie with Iran. Pakistan would have been pretty much
isolated had there been an acute rivalry with
Iran over the Afghan endgame. The current level of cordiality in the
relationship enables Islamabad to focus on the rift with the US and even draw
encouragement from Tehran.
It's baloney
A recent statement by the Indian External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on the
US-Pakistan rift underscored that India doesn't see eye-to-eye with the US
approach. (See US
puts the squeeze on Pakistan, Asia Times, October 22). It was carefully
timed to signal to Washington (and Islamabad) that Delhi strongly disfavored
any form of US military action against Pakistan.
There is a string of evidence to suggest that the Pakistani leadership
appreciates the Indian stance. The general headquarters in Rawalpindi acted
swiftly on Sunday to return to India within hours a helicopter with three
senior military officers on board which strayed into Pakistani territory in bad
weather in the highly sensitive Siachen sector. The official spokesman in Delhi
went on record to convey India's appreciation of the Pakistani gesture. Such
conciliatory gestures are rare (for both sides) in the chronicle of
Pakistan-India relationship.
Again, last week, India voted for Pakistan's candidacy for the Asia-Pacific
slot among the non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council
and the Pakistani ambassador promptly responded that he would work with his
Indian counterpart in New York. Ironically, the UN has been a theater for India
and Pakistan's frequent clashes over the Kashmir problem.
Looking ahead, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan are likely to meet on
the sidelines of the South Asian Association For Regional Cooperation summit in
Male on November 10-11. Washington would have been quick to insist that it
acted as "facilitator" in fostering the improving climate in India-Pakistan
relations. But the US is instead watching with a degree of discomfort that its
complicated South Asian symphony is throwing up jarring notes. Calibrating
India-Pakistan tensions traditionally constituted a key element of the US's
regional diplomacy.
Washington has "retaliated" to Krishna's statement by issuing a travel advisory
cautioning American nationals from visiting India because of heightened
terrorist threats. Delhi, in turn, ticked off Washington saying it considered
the US move "disproportionate" - a cute way of saying that the advisory is a
load of baloney.
Jundallah in retreat
What is happening in Pakistan-Iran relations is even more galling for the US.
There has been a spate of high-level visits between Islamabad and Tehran and
the two capitals have reached mutual understandings on a range of security
interests. Last week, Tehran acknowledged that there had not been a single
attack by the terrorist group Jundallah from the Pakistani side of the border
in the Balochistan region during the past 10 months.
Tehran has accused the US of masterminding the Jundallah terrorists to stage
covert operations to destabilize Iran. However, since the detention of Central
Intelligence Agency operative Raymond Davis in Lahore in January, Islamabad has
clamped down on hundreds of US intelligence operatives functioning on Pakistani
soil, seriously cramping the US's capacity to dispatch Jundallah terrorists
into Iran.
Tehran is satisfied that the Pakistani security establishment is finally acting
purposively to smash the US-backed Jundallah network. It reciprocates
Pakistan's goodwill by trying to harmonize its Afghan policy and scrupulously
avoided pointing fingers at Pakistan for the assassination of Afghan Peace
Council head Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was closely allied with Tehran.
Essentially, Iran appreciates that Pakistan's "strategic defiance" of the US
will be in the interest of regional stability, the bottom line being that
Tehran is keen to force the American troops to leave the region.
Tehran succeeded in the pursuit of a similar objective in Iraq by prevailing on
Shi'ite political elites in Baghdad not to accede to the desperate pleas by the
US to allow US troops to continue even after the stipulated deadline of
withdrawal in December 2011 under the Status of Forces agreement. But
Afghanistan is a different kettle of fish and a common strategy with Pakistan
will help.
Pakistan keeps an ambivalent stance on the issue of a long-term US military
presence in Afghanistan, but it can count on the Taliban to robustly oppose the
US plans apropos military bases. Unsurprisingly, Tehran purses a multi-pronged
approach toward the Taliban.
Concerted effort
In sum, the overall regional scenario is becoming rather unfavorable to the US.
The easing of tensions in Pakistan's relations with India and Iran undermine US
strategy to get embedded in the region.
The US's travel advisory was intended to raise hackles in India about the
imminent possibility of Pakistan-supported terrorist activities. Again,
US-sponsored disinformation is reappearing with claims that China and Pakistan
are conspiring against India by setting Chinese military bases in the northern
areas of Pakistan, which form part of Kashmir.
This is coinciding with a distinct improvement in the security situation in the
Kashmir Valley, to the point that chief minister Omar Abdullah openly advocated
last week in Srinagar that decades-old emergency regulations should be
progressively withdrawn and that Delhi should initiate a serious engagement of
Pakistan to settle the Kashmir problem.
United States-backed propaganda about the prospect of Chinese military bases in
the Pakistani part of Kashmir is intended to serve a dual purpose: namely,
creating discord between Pakistan and India and in Sino-Indian relations, too.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a significant statement last week
that he was "convinced" that the Chinese leadership wanted a peaceful
resolution of all problems between India and China, including the long-running
border dispute. Significantly, he expressed his "sincere hope [that] it is
possible for us to find ways and means by which the two neighbors can live in
peace and amity despite the persistence of the border problem".
Manmohan's remarks assumed significance since the two countries are to shortly
hold the 15th round of talks on the border issue in New Delhi. In a meaningful
move, the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded to Manmohan's political overture.
Beijing said China was "ready to work with India to enhance the China-India
strategic partnership". The statement said:
As important neighbors to
each other, China and India have maintained sound momentum in the bilateral
relationship. As for the border issue left over from history, the two sides
have been seeking a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution through
friendly consultations. Pending a final solution, the two sides are committed
to maintaining peace and tranquility in border areas.
A season
for propaganda
The speculative, unattributed - and unverifiable - reports regarding Chinese
intentions to establish military bases in the upper reaches of the Kashmir
region under Pakistani control are surging again at a formative point in
regional security. Their labored thesis is that Delhi should be extremely wary
about the "devious" intentions of China and Pakistan and should go slow on the
normalization of relations with these "treacherous" neighbors.
Curiously, Delhi is also being bombarded at the same time with US propaganda
that Washington is striking a "grand bargain" with Pakistan over the Afghan
problem whereby there will be a mutual accommodation of each other's concerns,
which may include US intervention to mediate the Kashmir problem and US
pressure on Delhi to roll back its presence in Afghanistan.
In a motivated commentary in Foreign Policy magazine last week on the eve of
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Islamabad, two prominent US
think-tankers wired to the Washington establishment actually tried to
alternatively bait Islamabad and frighten Delhi by putting on the table the
ingredients of the "grand bargain". Truly, this is all turning out to be a
season for propaganda.
The heart of the matter is that the US is desperate to clinch a strategic
agreement with the government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul that would
allow the establishment of a long-term American military presence in
Afghanistan.
On Monday, hundreds of Afghans demonstrated in Kabul against US bases. The same
day, the lower house of the Afghan parliament rejected terms guiding the
operations of the Afghan government's existing agreement with the International
Security Assistance Force as violating the country's sovereignty. The mood in
the Afghan parliament seems hostile.
Karzai is convening a loya jirga (grand council) to seek endorsement for
the US-Afghan pact. Matters will come to a head when it meets on November 16.
Karzai promises that the US-Afghan pact will be sent to parliament for approval
after being discussed in the jirga. Washington insists that the jirga
approves the draft pact before the Bonn II conference convenes in December.
Karzai's political future depends on whether he can deliver on the pact.
All sitting parliamentarians, some former members, one-third of the provincial
council members, representatives of civil society and distinguished people,
religious scholars and influential tribal leaders have been invited to the jirga.
Two hundred and thirty representatives of Afghan refugee communities in
Pakistan, Iran and Western countries will also be in attendance in the
2,030-strong jirga.
On September 13, Afghan National Security Advisor Dadfar Spanta told Afghan
parliamentarians that the US might set up military bases in Afghanistan after
the signing of the pact, but that the pact wouldn't be inked unless approved by
parliament. Spanta added, "Concerns of our neighbors [over the US-Afghan pact]
are genuine, but we will not allow our soil to be used against them."
The Afghan parliament fears, however, that Karzai might choose to bypass it
after extracting endorsement from a pliant jirga and interpreting that
as the collective opinion of the Afghan nation. Parliament directed the speaker
on Monday to address an official communication to Karzai highlighting its
constitutional prerogative to approve foreign policy issues.
The Afghan endgame is moving into a crucial phase; much will depend on regional
politics. The worst-case scenario for the US is that subsuming the
contradictions in the intra-regional relationships between and among Pakistan,
Iran, India and China, these countries might have a convergent opinion on the
issue of American military bases.
An accentuation of these contradictions, therefore, would serve the US's
geopolitical interests at the present juncture, hence the US's
"divide-and-rule" strategy.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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