US must address Pakistan’s security concerns through South Asia diplomacy
February 22, 2009Report by Washington-based think tank says US must acknowledge Pakistan’s security concerns have worsened after it joined hands with Washington
WASHINGTON: The United States should dedicate robust economic assistance for uplift of the Pakistani people along its Afghan border and also help resolve Pakistan’s security concerns by engaging Islamabad and New Delhi as part of a regional solution to the Afghan conflict, a new study by a Washington think tank said Tuesday.
The research released by the US Institute of Peace acknowledged that Pakistan “has legitimate security interests in its region and it has few conventional political, military, or diplomatic tools to achieve its interests”.
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“Moreover, its key neighbours, India and Afghanistan, have shown resolute disinterest in accommodating Pakistan’s security concerns,” authors Christine Fair and Seth Jones point out in the study entitled “Securing Afghanistan”, which stresses solutions to a spate of problems inside Afghanistan as well as broader considerations for a realistic way forward in the insurgency-wracked country.
The two experts noted that the US and its allies had also shown little inclination to promote regional solutions that would have helped resolve Pakistan’s legitimate concerns.
Worsening: “Since joining hands with Washington, Pakistan’s security concerns have worsened rather than improved. The US and the international community should acknowledge these realities,” they added.
The two experts said Washington should encourage Pakistan for sustained efforts against Al Qaeda and the Taliban and at the same time suggested linking some US assistance to the country’s security efforts against terrorists in the border region.
“Washington needs to make a concerted effort to engage both Pakistan and India, which have competing interests in Afghanistan. Transforming regional security perceptions among the Afghans, Pakistanis, and Indians will be a monumental challenge but constitutes the only way to stabilise and secure Afghanistan so that it does not again become a terrorist sanctuary,” they wrote.
“Washington will have to step up diplomacy in South Asia, with a particular focus on promoting regional cooperation among all three countries and defusing conflict between New Delhi and Islamabad, on the one hand, and Kabul and Islamabad, on the other,” the study added.
Favouring support for economic development in the impoverished Tribal Areas, the report said currently, international reconstruction and development assistance had focused on the Afghan side of the border.
“But this strategy is a half-measure. International assistance needs to be directed toward Pakistan’s tribal areas, not just Afghanistan.” APP
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Since the new US administration is in the process of reviewing the US policy on the so-called war of terrorism, it may be a good time to put forward a few points as a fuel for new thoughts. The proposed changes in US policy will hopefully not only help securing the US interests but, rather more importantly promote global stability in general and that of South and Central Asia in particular. Since America has been acting, and quite deservingly so, as a leader of the free and civilized world, American policies must reflect the values of civilized human life and truly respect the globally recognized human rights. Obama administration must shun the disgraced and disastrous policies of neocons that were aimed at enslaving other nations, occupying others lands, and grabbing others natural resources – all in the name of US national interest and security. That change ought to be a corner stone of our foreign policy its goals.
The respect for human life and dignity directly translates into the principal of avoiding and preventing war and destruction all over the world. We need to ensure safety and stability for all people of the world – equally so for the Afghani and Pakistani people – by promoting peaceful conflict resolution through negotiations rather than imposing solutions through naked and red-hot gun barrels.
The Afghan quagmire too must be solved peacefully through the promotion of dialog and negotiations while protecting the US national interests as well as those of all regional countries – specially the neighbors of Afghanistan. To achieve that goal, one thing that we must consider is how to use the stability and peace in Pakistan and expand it as a cure for the instability in Afghan. Unfortunately enough, the US policies adapted so far aimed at doing just the opposite – that is, spreading Afghanistan’s instability and fighting into Pakistan – apparently to lower the pressure on foreign troops fighting in Afghanistan. That cold-blooded and inhuman policy of spreading destruction and killings has proved a disastrous strategy entailed with unpredictable outcome for the foreign powers active in Afghanistan. NATO and American forces are losing the war (of hearts and minds as well as of guns and barrels) while the militants are gaining increasing public support.
The European countries of NATO have apparently no interest and stakes in the Afghan war. In fact, Europe was safer before nine-eleven. Europeans were dragged into the Afghan mission by the US on false hopes to get a share in the booty of Caspian oil and other Central Asian resources. After the bloody seven years of Afghan fighting without an end in sight, the European people see no point for wasting their resources, sacrificing their troops, killing Afghani civilians in continued Afghan fighting, and ending up as the enemies of Afghani people. The net gain for them is lesser security even after pouring so much resources and sacrificing so many lives in Afghan war. It will better serve the US national interests if NATO is allowed to leave Afghanistan before it gets too exhausted and before the internal strife breaks out in participating European countries.
The new administration needs to set clear goals for the Afghan war. Eliminating Taliban may not be an achievable goal even in another decade of fighting. Both sides will ultimately have to come to the negotiation table. It may be more prudent to sit across the table now before the foreign forces get fully exhausted. The international clout of the US is obviously on the decline with increasingly high pace particularly in recent years. Cutting an early deal with Afghan resistance leaders from a position of strength (i.e. when the US enjoys a relatively better global position) is clearly more desirable than having it later when the influence of regional powers such as China and Russia will have increased by many folds. The question, however, is whether the Afghan militants will agree to negotiations. Taliban are demanding for a complete withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan before such negotiations. In fact Taliban have no thing more to lose in continued fighting. Nevertheless, if there is a genuine desire for peace and stability on the part of real stake holders, a middle course can be charted by providing iron clad guarantees for gradual withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan after a mutually acceptable agreement is signed. In such a scenario the following steps can be taken once both sides are willing to have a negotiated solution.
1. Before any formal talks with militants are actually held, a conducive environment must be created for cordial negotiations. That can be achieved by declaring a general amnesty for all Afghani fighters and ceasing the military operations.
2. Once the basic links get established between the two sides and initial discussions get on track, an interim setup may be installed in Kabul with Taliban representatives as part of that new setup.
3. The new interim regime in Kabul will be responsible for creating an interim constitutional document and making arrangements for general elections in Afghanistan – of course, with the help and cooperation from world community.
4. At that stage, the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan should start.
5. General elections must be held within a clearly specified period. No excuses for delaying the electoral process should be acceptable. Afghans have bitter experiences in the nineties when first Mujaddadi and then Rabbani reneged from their constitutional obligations to hold timely elections. Both of them preferred to cling to the power in Kabul – mostly at the cost of Afghan unity and stability.
6. Afghans do not like outsiders imposing rules and dictating their terms. However, all neighbors of Afghanistan – Pakistan, Iran, and Tajikistan – and some influential countries – America, other countries in NATO, China, Russia, and some Central Asian states – have considerable influence in Afghanistan. These countries can act collectively as the guarantors and facilitators to ensure that all the terms in mutually agreed upon plan are properly implemented.
7. India has deliberately been omitted from the above list of influential countries. While Indians are pretty much active recently in Afghanistan, they do not really enjoy a wider acceptability in that country. It is only a negligible ultra modern elite of Afghanistan that is known to be close to India. Indians were among only a few countries that supported the Soviets invasion of Afghanistan in late seventies. Common Afghan people have really not forgotten that Indian mischief. Later in most of the nineties, Indians have been orchestrating a bloodbath in Afghanistan by providing arms, military advisors, and financial support to some Afghani groups to keep the intra-Afghan fighting continued – apparently to block any possibility of Pakistan getting a trade route through Afghanistan to Central Asian states. That is why a vast majority of Afghans, especially the Pashtuns, furiously oppose any Indian role in Afghanistan. Afghanistan under the Taliban rule was really reflective of that inner mistrust and hate of Afghans for the Indians. Any role for India in solving the current Afghan quagmire will be a negative factor – a potential source of mistrust, breaches, and misconceptions. Better keep the environment cordial and conducive by leaving the Indians out. They can, however, have their concerns heard through Iran and Russia – the two other countries that have been India’s partners in orchestrating Afghan bloodbath in the nineties. But these two countries can not be sidelined because Iran is a direct neighbor of Afghanistan and Russia can play a role as a global guarantors needed for the success of any negotiated solution of Afghan war.
This is from the editorial form a leading Pakistani daily, a few days ago :
- “The Pakistani national security establishment links its threat perception to a serious Indian presence in Afghanistan and thus subordinates all its policies against terrorism to the Indian factor. The mainstream political parties had tried to change this threat perception in their Charter of Democracy but have beaten a retreat from it after the Mumbai attacks and the reactive upsurge of Pakistan’s India-driven nationalism” -
Pakistan will not be allowed to link its security with Kashmir. Kashmir will never be offered to Pakistan on a platter. Only after the Tibetians get Tibet, and the Baloch’s get Balochistan, can there be any shift in India’s stand on Kashmir.
“India seeks no hegemony”, is a Pakistani manufactured myth, India would rather like to ignore Pakistan totally.
If Pakistani’s Army and the ISI can learn, to come to terms with these simple facts of life, their security concerns would disappear in no time !
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