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COMMENT: A grand failure —Shahzad Chaudhry

The revised American policy also underwrites a more prominent role for Pakistan; to begin with the US would like Pakistan to engage and neutralise all hues of Taliban and al Qaeda purported to be in Pakistani territory. Thereon, Pakistan may be expected to exorcise militancy from its midst

This could have been the only epitaph to the US’s eight-year long foray into Afghanistan. When the US arrived in Afghanistan immediately after 9/11, it was a grand impulse. Since superpowers, and the only superpower at that, do not act on impulse alone, the world at large began an endeavour to unearth the US’s long term strategic objectives through its presence in Afghanistan.

There could have been four possible grand objectives: one, to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda; two, establish a foothold in the region through American military might to curtail Iran’s liberty of action in emphasising its defiance and persistence in its pursuit of nuclear capability, as indeed influence and manipulate a change of regime in Iran more amenable to Israeli-American interests; three, expand and establish US influence in the Central Asian ‘-stans’ to exploit the huge reserves of oil and more pertinently natural gas, and force a direct challenge to the growing Chinese influence and presence; and lastly, find a proximate presence to a nuclear Pakistan and through both direct and indirect means, defang Pakistan in nuclear terms.

Whether the US had ever thought in such detail in identifying superlative objectives was certainly not the concern; what mattered was its capability and intent compatible with its superpower mantle. With all its perceived omnipotence, the US has been in Afghanistan now for eight years and has failed to achieve any of the above stated objectives.

Al Qaeda or their newer generic mutation, the Taliban, is hale and hearty and thriving. Living with 30,000 troops for eight years does not bestow the capacity, even if you be a superpower, to overwhelm a large country and a hostile nation in a dastardly terrain that anyone would find uninhabitable. The Pakistan Army has gone into Swat and Waziristan with that number of troops in two separate sectoral applications displaced in time and with an entirely separate set of troops. Such terrain is troop-hungry and can consume armies, as is the lesson of history. One needs a combination of numerous elements of warfare knitted into an integrated whole in parallel application of military power tactically, and more importantly hold territory when cleared. Following the US COIN strategy, if the need be to rebuild, that will need a totally separate allocation of resources. The US never had enough to even launch an operation, much less mount a dedicated COIN.

Obama increased the troops to their current level, 68,000, and found to his surprise and dismay that his chosen general, McChrystal, considered them grossly inadequate. That is when the voracious nature of the undertaking must have hit him; every 1,000 soldiers cost a billion dollars a year to maintain in Afghanistan. The American economy is incapable in the current economic recession to sustain such a luxury over any extended period, and hence the pay-off between the numbers, 30,000, and a reduced time-scale over which the US can have them abroad. Economic compulsions can forestall or modify security imperatives to the ‘affordable’ — the 21st century’s operative word in security narratives.

Lest we misunderstand, the US has always had the capacity and wherewithal to engage in a COIN effort in Afghanistan. But beyond the initial impulse, the urge withered under a more pressing priority in Iraq. Bush’s America underestimated the resilience and hardiness of the ‘barbaric hordes’, and ended up wasting time, resources and an opportunity to benefit from an ill-conceived and ill-prepared venture. Bush’s eight years in Afghanistan have been a grand failure.

Delving on a part-time basis with Abdul Malik Regi can deliver an odd general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards but cannot deliver Iran. Ahmedinejad got himself re-elected without too much fuss and Iran continues to defy the world on its nuclear ambitions. An opportunity wasted, or is the world’s lone superpower on a descent after a rather luminous and glorious perch at the top?

Central Asia would have anyway been an indirect picking; that none of the other central strategic objectives materialised meant a truncated gain in Central Asia, if at all. Pakistan’s nuclear assets have sustained despite a horrific domestic security environment and an incessant effort by regional and global players to cast aspersions on Pakistan’s capacity to safeguard them. The effort with respect to Pakistan is likely to sustain, but shall be pillared around an indirect strategy of internal and external pressure with emphasis on lack of stability, dysfunctional governance, fractured polity and society, and an entirely dependent economy. Pakistan shall need to be wary of such undertakings. The threat of a direct control by the Americans, howsoever unlikely given Pakistan’s own defensive apparatus and touted unendingly by people such as Seymour Hersh, too has come to naught.

Under such an obtaining reality, only a bold leader will have the face to accept failure. Obama’s policy address on Afghanistan was the most brilliant embellishment to acknowledging a failure of such enormity. Economics, domestic politics, and the truthful realisation of a lost cause could have only been worded and delivered by as gifted an orator as Barack Obama, and he did a great job of sounding stately, and in donning grace while letting the world know that America is out of here.

Obama wants Afghanistan to carry its own burden. For that he will stay on till 2011 but then his troops head home. No doubt the US will regulate their exit to coincide with a reasonable semblance of a politically functional government, a sense of security in some larger towns, and leave behind enough civilians to mind American interests as well as wind up at a gradual pace. In so doing and before the time of his own re-election in 2012, he would hope to have the boys back from both Iraq and Afghanistan, and possibly recover the slack in the American economy — both recipes for a successful bid in the elections.

The revised American policy also underwrites a more prominent role for Pakistan; to begin with the US would like Pakistan to engage and neutralise all hues of Taliban and al Qaeda purported to be in Pakistani territory. Thereon, Pakistan may be expected to exorcise militancy from its midst.

It is prudent to remember that four essential areas of vital interest should govern Pakistan’s response. We must differentiate between extremist sentiment and militant extremism, and take on only what is doable and in our interest. Militancy shall therefore need to be eliminated through a series of laws, controls, and an effective counter-terrorism campaign through well-trained LEAs. The current COIN operations will form a useful backdrop and add to the effectiveness of these measures. Some extremist sentiment will persist, for that is the nature of any religion; strict preventive action can keep it from becoming militant. Second, we need to avoid committing our military to counter-terrorism and a far too expanded COIN undertaking. It will become difficult with time to recoup expended capacity, rendering a much-diminished military equation vis-à-vis India. The overarching nuclear umbrella makes up for the disparity but in turn is linked to a credible military structure and capacity to provide for a stable détente in the region. This dependence will sustain till a more rational alternative of cooperative existence can be worked out with India. Thirdly, we will need to recover our political and socio-economic stability, which along with strong institutions can become the best defence against any effort to defang Pakistan of its nuclear capability. And, lastly, we need to earnestly use the space that the evolving dynamics of Afghanistan offer to ensure a peaceful, friendly and cooperative western neighbour. How Pakistan leverages the space in Obama’s policy shall be the test of its sagacity. In the absence of such a sense, at least Pakistan will have nowhere to cut and run.

The writer is a retired air vice marshal and a former ambassador

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