PRESIDENT OBAMA’S AFGHANISTAN POLICY AND THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT - ISI

In his first primetime press conference on 09 Feb when US President Obama didn’t mention the word ‘Taliban’ while responding to a question on his administration’s Afghanistan policy, it was clear something was cooking. The omission of the word ‘Taliban’ came as a bit of a surprise because till this presser whenever President Obama spoke about threats to US from Afghan-Pakistan area, he always mentioned Al-Qaeda and Taliban in the same breath.

Be that as it may, it is now clear that US does not wish to look at Taliban through one coloured lens – US wishes to distinguish between ‘good’ Taliban and ‘bad’ Taliban. Ostensibly, the motivation for this thinking comes from supposed success in Iraq where some Sunni elements hostile towards US apparently switched sides and started working with the coalition forces in fighting insurgency.

Clearly, US is trying to devise a strategy for Afghanistan which will prevent it from getting bogged down in that area in Vietnam-like manner. Hopefully, lessons learned from Vietnam are apparently being applied to make sure that US doesn’t have to leave Afghan theatre with a bloody nose, mutilated prestige and negative gain on the ledger.

Extending the logic of success in Iraq to Afghanistan is conceptually tenable. But what about translating that in to reality? Are the scenarios identical? What are the additional challenges? Surely, US strategists must have carried out necessary SWOT and other analyses – one hopes they did so! Incidentally, one had hoped that US had done necessary home work about post-Saddam scenario in Iraq also but sadly that proved to be so hopelessly untrue!

Anyway, it seems that US thinks that Taliban being a Sunni outfit will be amenable more or less in the same way as the Iraqi Sunni elements turned out to be. As well, the American policy makers are hoping that there will be support from Pakistan in making the new policy initiative successful. It seems that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is also in favour of this vector of new US Afghan policy.

But here is the fly in the ointment – Pakistan – and this could be potentially serious. Why? Because, Pakistan (through ISI) was a co-sponsor of Taliban when Soviets had occupied Afghanistan. But after the Soviets withdrew from that region, Pakistan (through ISI) continued to keep Taliban alive because it served them in more than one way.

By keeping Taliban alive and active, Pakistan’s dangerously shrewd and mean SOB's in politics and in ISI could continue to have foothold in Afghanistan, devilishly prise out American aid, keep fingering India, and last but not the least hold on to their positions of power.

Just to provide brief historical context, Pakistan’s former dictators Zial-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf were America’s darlings because they were so good in licking the boots of their American masters and also convincing them that US interests in the region are safe with them (Zia or Musharraf). Taliban was a good pawn in this political chess game Pakistan played for last so many years vis-à-vis US.

Washington probably understood how the mean schmuck Pakistanis (including ISI) were pulling wool over US eyes but the Americans chose to ignore (if they didn’t understand the Pakistani game, then God bless them!). Anyway, after 9/11 things changed, albeit very slowly, in Washington. During his second term President Bush started realising there was more benefit in cooperating with India (e.g. civil nuclear cooperation).

In order to win India’s confidence US started to acknowledge, more in private though, the dangers posed by ISI's support to Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Slowly, US started to acknowledge in public also the areas where Musharraf had to do more with regard to Pakistan's support to Taliban and Islamic insurgents than his usual theatricals.

But the 26/11 Mumbai attack completely changed everything. This attack reinforced the fact that Pakistan was indeed the epicentre of Islamic terrorism, and was playing double game with US with regard to Taliban and even Al-Qaeda. The reported killing of American intelligence operatives, and the Jews in the Mumbai attack forced the Americans to take serious note of Pakistan’s dubious role in the whole game.

Consequently, the Americans are infuriated, rightly so, and they want to get down to the bottom of the sinister plot. So are the Israelis, and given their unfettered clout in Washington they are kicking their American counterparts to punish the perpetrators. Both US and Israelis know the diabolical role of ISI in all this.

US probably is aware that Pakistan hates President Karzai and Pakistan will do everything possible to destabilise him. Taliban is one of the instruments Pakistan uses to play its dirty game against Karzai and anybody and everybody who support Karzai – including the American troops and ISAF. Pakistan plays this sinister game through ISI. No wonder American troops and ISAF are finding their task in containing Taliban getting difficult by the day.

Ultimately, Americans are now realising that it is about time they wielded the hobnailed boot with Pakistan and some how brought a stop to ISI’s support to Taliban. US knows (so does Canada and other constituents of ISAF) that unless ISI is disciplined and Pakistan stops providing safe haven to Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements in FAR and NWFP, chances of gaining any upper hand against the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is next to impossible.

US Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, eventually couldn’t be more candid about ISI. In an interview with PBS broadcast recently he said that (Pakistan Army Chief and de-facto boss of ISI) Kayani "certainly is aware of the concerns that I have with respect to his intelligence agency, ISI".

"They (ISI) have been very attached to many of these extremist organizations," Mullen said warning that "in the long run, they have got to completely cut ties with those in order to really move in the right direction". Kayani, he said, had appointed in Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha, "one of his best guys", as the new director of ISI. "I'm encouraged with his views and I'm encouraged with how he sees the problem." But "it's going to take some time to get at it inside ISI".

So, in summary, the new US Afghan policy of engaging with ‘good’ Taliban may not bear any fruit whatsoever unless and until the chief actor of the dangerous Islamic insurgency game – Pakistan and ISI – is properly corralled and contained. US should learn from history (their strategists have a bad habit of not reading history) that elements in modern day Pakistan and the Afghan-Pak border areas could be contained only through sledge hammer policy (refer to early 20th century Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his general Hari Singh Nalwa’s tactics in the region).

One hopes President Obama and his advisors will learn from history and move forward carefully with force (and some carrots) without getting fooled by Pakistani chicanery. Only if they can do so, they will be able to minimise losses to American troops and ISAF and at the same time achieve their objective of containing Islamic insurgency threat to USA and other western countries. And while doing so for God’s sake US should not get blindsided and/or misguided by agenda-driven advice from the wily British. USA has for so long been deceived and misguided by British advice on South Asian matters. It is time US used its own brain while developing strategies for the Afghan-Pakistan theatre.