Karzai Continues to Undermine Progress in His Own Country

Even in the best-case scenario, for COIN operations to have any chance of success, the US needs a cooperative and supportive host-country partner.  As much as practically possible, the US and Afghanistan’s interests must align. 

So while President Karzai’s resolve and determination for cleaning up his administration’s act has thus far been minimal, he is reportedly chiding the US behind its back and questioning the sincerity of its motives.  Excerpts from the NY Times:

Even as Mr. Obama pours tens of thousands of additional American troops into the country to help defend Mr. Karzai’s government, Mr. Karzai now often voices the view that his interests and the United States’ no longer coincide.

But according to Afghan associates, Mr. Karzai recently told lunch guests at the presidential palace that he believes the Americans are in Afghanistan because they want to dominate his country and the region, and that they pose an obstacle to striking a peace deal with the Taliban.

Mr. Karzai said that, left alone, he could strike a deal with the Taliban, but that the United States refuses to allow him. The American goal, he said, was to keep the Afghan conflict going, and thereby allow American troops to stay in the country.

Mr. Karzai’s ultimate motives are not always clear. It may be that while Mr. Karzai supports the Americans presence here, he believes that distancing himself from the United States plays well among average Afghans.

The US is stretching itself thin economically, militarily, and politically in order to dominate a barely functioning (at best) state?  Has Karzai not been following the domestic debate about his country in the US or has he simply subscribed to the same idiotic conspiracy theories that are partly responsible for driving violent anti-American Islamist movements such as Al Qaeda, in the first place? 

Trust me, Mr. Karzai, the US does not want to keep its troops there for a day more than they are required. 

If he is truly just being duplicitous, hoping to garner the support of average Afghans and save whatever political face he has left, his strategy doesn’t make too much sense.  Instead of spewing nationalistic rhetoric in public, he attempts to frame a populist image while hosting private lunches with a select few, elite Afghans? 

Not entirely clear what exactly is going on in Mr. Karzai head. But one this is for certain, the President himself continues to impede efforts to foster a better future for Afghanistan.  Sad story.

Pakistan Army Sponsors (De-)Radicalization Program

According to the Washington Post, a newly instituted school in Pakistan’s Swat Valley aims to de-radicalize young children, many of whom were either forcibly or voluntarily mingling with various militant groups operating in the country.  Ironically, the Pakistan Army, which has historically supported and nurtured militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban — and continues to maintain direct ties with terrorist groups such as Lakshar-e-Taiyba – is overseeing this initiative. 

Does anyone else see a conflict of interest here? 

At a new school tucked near the fragile peace of the Swat Valley, peach-fuzzed veterans of Taliban camps wear burgundy sweaters to math classes, counseling sessions and religion lessons, where they hear that Islam favors democracy over suicide. Teachers work in fear of militant attacks and of hardened students — but also in hopes of de-radicalizing the gangly boys who make up a growing part of Pakistan’s insurgency.

The 86 adolescents at this army-sponsored school are a drop in that ocean, a fact that its director, neuropsychologist Feriha Peracha, said she tries not to dwell on.

More significantly, she and other teachers said, most of the boys are middle children who have been lost in the shuffle of large, poor families with absent fathers. Few had much formal schooling, many are aggressive, and most score poorly on educational aptitude tests.

While I commend the concept of such an effort, I am not fully comfortable with the fact that the Army has authority over the school.  Does this mean the Army developed the school’s curriculum? What type of influence or control will the Army have over the student’s future opportunities in society? 

This should be a civilian-led program, in my opinion.  But, as with many things in Pakistan, the Army has more than enough institutional inertia behind it to do what it wants.

A Taliban Leader’s Perspective on Baradar’s Capture, Negotiations, Al Qaeda, and the Pakistani Taliban

For what it’s worth, an alleged senior Taliban leader conducted an interview with Asia Times reporter, Syed Saleem Shahzad.  The interview was published yesterday and there is a lot of interesting material and quotable comments  — too much to quote here — from the Taliban leader (using the alias Abdullah).  I will let readers examine the article in full.

It is interesting to note how he implicitly distances himself and the Afghan Taliban from Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban and fails to reject the idea of negotiations with the US — choosing only to question American intent.

Implications of HIG’s Peace Plan

Delegates from one of the main factions of the Afghan insurgency, Hezb-e-Islami (Gulbuddin), recently proposed a 15 point peace plan to senior Afghan officials in Kabul.  Although this overture will not in and of itself solve Afghanistan’s security problem, it is certainly a positive development and step forward. 

A spokesman for the delegation, Mohammad Daoud Abedi, said the Taliban, which makes up the bulk of the insurgency, would be willing to go along with the plan if a date was set for the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country. Publicly, a Taliban spokesman denied that.

The plan, titled the National Rescue Agreement, a copy of which was given to The New York Times, sets that date as July 2010, with the withdrawal to be completed within six months.

Those dates are ahead of the schedule outlined by President Obama, who set a target of July 2011 to start drawing down American troops. But the representatives said the dates were a starting position and could change.

“This is a start, this is not the word of the Koran that we cannot change it,” Mr. Abedi said.

“They have said if the U.S. announces a withdrawal date, they are ready to support our plan,” said Mr. Abedi, an Afghan-American businessman. “I promise that personally, this is my own connection and I personally promise that. I have said that to the U.S. all along.”

Politicians familiar with Mr. Hekmatyar warned that any agreement would be a long way off. Yet the document clearly had Mr. Hekmatyar’s fingers all over it, said Daoud Sultanzoi, a member of Parliament who met with Mr. Hekmatyar’s delegation on Tuesday.

“The gist of the whole is very important,” he said. “He senses a fatigue in American and European public opinion and he is seizing on that,” he said.

Several inferences can be made from these formal, publicized talks. 

First, the HIG spokesman explicitly contends that the Taliban is also willing to adhere to the plan should US forces agree to a concrete withdrawal date.  While a Taliban spokesman publicly denied the claim, a growing body of evidence suggests that HIG’s stance is indeed correct.  The UN (most prominently, the outgoing Afghan Envoy), the Karzai government, some US officials, and my own sources in Afghanistan with insider knowledge and contacts with both the Taliban and the Afghan government have all confirmed this. 

In fact, there is nothing all that controversial about such a claim — the Taliban have long argued that they are willing to cease fighting if and only if foreign forces withdraw. 

The second inference, then, is that the conventional wisdom that the insurgents would never negotiate a settlement at this point in time since they believe they are winning, is likely flawed.  As I have previously suggested, the US perspective and the Taliban perspective about what constitutes “success” and “winning” are probably fundamentally different.  In other words, the US may be unintentionally falling into the analytical trap of mirror-imaging the problem set, leading to a misleading determination of what is rational for the Taliban.  But in actuality, the US itself will be more inclined to negotiate — not less — when it also believes the momentum has fully shifted in its favor. 

So why should it be fundamentally different for the Taliban? Right now, when they believe they are winning  and can negotiate from a position of perceived strength, is actually the best time to signal their willingness to lay down their arms. 

The best counter-argument to this, however, is that the Taliban can simply wait it out.  If the US starts to withdraw beginning in July 2011, it could theoretically get increasingly easier for the Taliban to establish firmer control and expand its presence.  But the Taliban is also smart enough to realize that even a complete withdrawal does not  mean the US will surrender Afghanistan to the Taliban and wish the Karzai government all the best.  They also may realize that as the US begins to withdraw, the glue that holds the various factions of the insurgency — the fact that the US is seen as an occupying force — will lose strength and all hopes of a unified insurgency will begin to crumble.   As such, establishing uncontested control may actually get harder, not easier. 

Whatever the motivations are, I think it is fairly safe to say that the Taliban leadership and, of course, HIG are interested in talks — or at least talks about talks.  And that’s a good start.  Now, about those Haqqanis…

The Key to Stabilizing South Asia

The enmity, distrust, hostility, and (at times) immaturity of South Asia’s nuclear-armed states, Pakistan and India, severely undermines the security and prosperity of the entire region and beyond.  Afghanistan is also a victim of this six-decade long conflict.  A viable solution that suits both country’s interests and normalizes relations between the South Asian juggernauts is therefore a prerequisite for long-term stability in the region. 

Most likely, however, this process of normalization will not be a top-down effort — all too often political power is consolidated in each country by opposing such a process.  

On Saturday, Nirupama Subramanian, in the Indian newspaper The Hindu, wrote poignantly about the necessity for a broad-based, grassroots awakening in both countries that could gradually alleviate much of the tension that plagues the region. 

“There is a Pakistani in every Indian; and an Indian in every Pakistani,” President Asif Ali Zardari famously said two years ago. Those words rang in my head with new resonance as I packed my bags and left Pakistan recently after a nearly four-year-long assignment as this newspaper’s Islamabad-based correspondent.

Walking across the Wagah border into India took me less than five minutes. But as I turned at the gates to wave to a Pakistani friend who had come to see me off, the distance between the two countries seemed huge and daunting.

At home, family and friends greeted me with relief, and asked me how I had managed to survive four years in “a country of terrorists.” Despite the close geographical proximity of the two countries, and the reams written and spoken in India about Pakistan, there seemed little patience for or understanding of the complexities of, an important neighbouring country, the shades of political, social and religious opinion among Pakistanis on such issues as terrorism and extremism.

There is similarly much in the way Pakistanis react to India that can send even the mildest Indian’s blood pressure rising. For instance, even well-educated Pakistanis continue to believe that the Mumbai attacks were staged by RAW to defame Pakistan with the ultimate aim of snatching its nuclear weapons or dismembering the country.

I would have heated debates with Pakistanis who consider themselves modern, enlightened, liberal and secular but would suddenly go all Islamic and religious when it came to an issue such as Kashmir, seeming no different from their ultra-conservative compatriots who protest against the clamping down on Islamic militancy in Pakistan as harassment of “brother Muslims.”

But at the end of the day, the goodwill I experienced in my daily interactions with ordinary Pakistanis, even during the most heated debates, was overwhelming and more powerful than anything else. Despite the heavy hand of the state in every sphere of life, I found people who were willing to set aside long internalised stereotypes and prejudices about Indians and Hindus to try and understand me and my point of view, and they accepted with good faith that I was trying to do the same. We may not have entirely convinced each other every time but we managed to build little bridges of our own and find our own modus vivendi.

If there is anything I learnt from those personal experiences in Pakistan, it is that these little bridges are the key to peace. And for this reason, peace-making cannot be left to rulers. It is the people on both sides that have to take charge of it.

When I was in India last, I casually asked my driver — who happened to be Muslim — if he had ever been to Pakistan.  The driver laughed and said, “No, sir.”  I asked why not and he said, “For a few reasons.  One is that I am a Hindustani, an Indian, so I have no desire to go.  The other is that Pakistanis are dirty people.”  

His words speak volumes.

What Did I Miss?

I am back safe and sound from my trip (although very jet lagged).  I apologize for not being able to update the blog while I was gone, I barely had any time to spend reading the news let alone analyzing it.  Although I am way behind on several things now at work, I will do a quick roundup of stories that jumped out at me over the last two weeks (in no particular order). 

1) The Washington Post reported that the CIA’s drone program has “hobbled” Al Qaeda. 

So profound is al-Qaeda’s disarray that one of its lieutenants, in a recently intercepted message, pleaded with bin Laden to come to the group’s rescue and provide some leadership, Panetta said.

With so many articles touting the success of drones appearing in major US newspapers the past few years, it seems as though the CIA’s program has solidified itself as the shining model for success in the war against Al Qaeda, offering the only tangible evidence to Americans and the world that the US is relentlessly disrupting the group.  If true, the intercepted Al Qaeda messages adds more validation to this notion. 

But the drones can only do so much and their utility is beginning to plateau.  Many Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders are increasingly scattering and re-organizing themselves in densely populated, cosmopolitan areas — far from any drone’s reach.  And even if this trend temporarily “hobbles” Al Qaeda and its regional partners, they will no doubt find a way to effectively adapt. 

2) Former UN Special Envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, spoke with BBC News and sharply criticized the recent arrests of many senior Taliban leaders. 

Mr Eide told the BBC the arrests had completely stopped a channel of secret communications with the UN.

Pakistani officials insist the arrests were not an attempt to spoil talks.

Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, was also purportedly angered by Baradar’s capture, as some sources allege he was conducting indirect talks with the Taliban no. 2.   I still do not think it is clear what Pakistan’s motives have been regarding the spate of recent arrests of Taliban leaders.  But Pakistan is damned if they do and damned if they don’t.  Was the alternative not to arrest any of these guys in the name of negotiations?

3) According to the Los Angeles Times, Al Qaeda has shifted their tactics, settling for simpler operations that are unlikely to cause mass casualties akin to 9/11, but are also much harder for US intelligence to decipher and thwart.

An examination of recent plots, including the bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, has convinced U.S. counter-terrorism analysts that Al Qaeda is becoming more opportunistic, using fewer operatives and dramatically shrinking the amount of planning and preparation that goes into an attack.

Yet again, nobody finds it necessary to distinguish between Al Qaeda affiliates — who carried out the Christmas Day attempted attack — and Al Qaeda central.  I am not arguing that Al Qaeda central is unwilling to settle for less spectacular attacks, but at least don’t lump Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula with Al Qaeda central and claim that the failed tactics of the former are evidence that the latter has also shifted its tactical operations. 

4) Pennsylvania woman, Carleen LaRose aka “Jihad Jane”, was indicted last October on charges that she was involved in recruiting terrorists for overseas operations. 

According to a federal indictment unsealed this month, Ms. LaRose, 46, was intent on killing a Swedish artist who depicted the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.

I can’t say I was all that surprised about this.  This is not the first US citizen that defies all stereotypes of a terrorist and it unfortunately won’t be the last.  The threat Americans face from terrorism is global.  The US itself is simultaneously a target and incubator — albeit several orders of magnitude lower than those found overseas in countries like Pakistan — for terrorists and steps need to be taken in order to address both.  As of now, most of the attention and resources are funneled only to address terrorist’s predilection for targeting the US.

On Vacation

I will be on vacation out of the country for the next few weeks, with only intermittent access to the internet.  I will try my best to still update the blog as much as I possibly can while I am gone. 

Thanks!

More Theories Emerge on Baradar’s Capture

Since Pakistan’s ISI captured Taliban No. 2, Mullah Baradar, experts seem to have determined that Pakistan calculated Baradar’s arrest in order to ensure influence in future negotiations.  Or, they did it to sabotage negotiations altogether.  Indeed, the most plausible explanation varies depending on factors such as which analysts you are referring to and…what time of day it is. 

Recently, a brand new theory has been added to the conflicting mix.  In an interview yesterday, General McChrystal stated that Baradar’s arrest might be attributed to an internal Taliban agenda to purge the group of its more moderate, amenable leaders. 

A theory in some intelligence circles, however, is that Baradar was captured only after he had already effectively been expelled from the Taliban after an internal tribal feud, leaving behind a more radical rump Taliban leadership.

U.S. and NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal said it was not entirely clear why Pakistan arrested Baradar now, but that an internal Taliban feud was one plausible explanation.

“I think that’s very possible,” McChrystal said in an interview with Reuters and the New York Times, when asked about reports that an internal Taliban purge had led to the arrest. “I did hear that. I can’t confirm it but I find it possible.”

Given that there is evidence to suggest the ISI and CIA did not plan on arresting Baradar in their joint raid some weeks ago, it seems unlikely that Pakistan’s arrest was pre-meditated in order to garner a key seat at the negotiating table.  After the fact, however, this may indeed be Pakistan’s strategic plan — which is at least one way to analyze the Supreme Court’s decision not to extradite Baradar and several other Taliban members and the government’s indifference toward legal appeal. 

If Pakistan’s aim is to secure and protect a valuable stake in the negotiation process, it has probably already clinched it. 

Yet there are reports that in recent days Pakistan has captured yet another Quetta Shura Taliban member (also in Karachi), Mullah Omar’s son-in-law, Motasim Agha Jan.  Does Pakistan want an extra comfy seat at the negotiating table — equipped with HDTV and surround sound? If not, what is the motive behind all these other arrests — besides Baradar – that go above and beyond any potential anxiety to make sure Pakistan’s influence is substantial?  I am not totally convinced one way or another, so I am simply playing Devil’s Advocate since many people have already reached a definite conclusion about Pakistan’s intentions, motives, and strategic posturing. 

Alternatively, if the Taliban really does have a plan to trim excess fat in the group, what does this say about the strength of the movement and the mindset of — not just one or two members — but more than half of the leadership in Quetta Shura who have also been recently detained?  Was Mullah Omar’s own son-in-law not on board with continuing the fight and was therefore dismissed by the group? 

In actuality, it is more likely that Pakistan’s motives for these recent operations are much more nuanced, and we may never know the entirety of this complex situation.

Col Imam’s Words of Wisdom

Retired Pakistan Army Brigadier, Sultan Amir aka Col Imam, has been speaking to the media increasingly in recent months, offering some interesting and insightful comments about the Taliban and its leadership — particularly Mullah Omar.  Given that he is still an ardent supporter of the Taliban and its cause, it would be imprudent to consume his carefully crafted opinions raw.  Yet his observations are still useful and interesting to consider.  From the NY Times article published yesterday:

A United States-trained former colonel in Pakistan’s spy agency, he spent 20 years running insurgents in and out of Afghanistan, first to fight the Soviet Army, and later to support the Taliban, as Pakistani allies, in their push to conquer Afghanistan in the 1990s.

In the interviews, Colonel Imam denied any continued link to the Taliban. But he admitted that some “freelancers” — meaning former Pakistani military or intelligence officials — might still be assisting the insurgents.

The Taliban cannot be defeated, he said, and they will not be weakened by the recent capture of senior commanders, including the No.2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

The Taliban movement is so devolved, he said, that commanders on the ground make most of their own decisions and can raise money and arrange for weapons supplies themselves.

“The Taliban cannot be forced out, you cannot subjugate them,” he said. “But they can tire the Americans. In another three to four years, the Americans will be tired.”

Yet for Afghanistan, the solution was to negotiate with the Taliban leadership, he said. Mullah Omar wants peace and is capable of compromise, he said.

He was also the only leader who could keep Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan or in abeyance, including Osama bin Laden, he said. Mullah Omar’s popular support was such that Mr. bin Laden would have to listen, he said.

Mullah Omar had refused to hand over Mr. bin Laden, the Qaeda leader, in 2001 because he calculated that if he did, it would be only the first of many demands placed on him, he said.

Col Imam’s statement’s underscore a few reoccurring themes in the broader discourse surrounding the Afghan insurgency.

He emphasizes that the overarching strategy of the Taliban is simply to tire the US and NATO forces out — which is already indeed occurring.  But if the Taliban recognizes that the US and NATO forces are increasingly exhausted, restless, and/or bogged down, why not wait a little bit longer for the whole pie instead of negotiating now for a small piece?  These two competing forces are never fully explained by Col Imam or anyone else who amplify the negotiation route.  Sure, the Taliban may perceive that the time is ripe now since they are in the position of strength.  But if the your enemy will potentially give up entirely should you continue the fight, the incentive to negotiate now diminishes.

I still believe negotiations will be the only path to a sustainable cessation of violence and insurgency in the country.  Nevertheless, from a Taliban perspective — if they truly believe they are winning and the Americans are on the brink of throwing in the towel — it doesn’t seem to make much sense that senior leaders such as Mullah Baradar or even Mullah Omar would be interested in cutting a deal.   Yet there is mounting evidence that they indeed are responding — even indirectly — to overtures from a variety of actors.  Why?

Debating the Afghan War: Pillar vs. Nagl

Somehow, I managed to miss an epic debate last week between two very well-respected academics (both of whom teach in Georgetown University’s SSP Program) in the security studies field — Paul Pillar and John Nagl.  I urge all readers to peruse the text of this article in-full.  But even though I am days late, just for fun, I decided to cut excerpts from each scholar’s article and unilaterally decide the winner of the latest incarnation of the Afghan War debate. 

Pillar’s most persuasive points:

1. ALTHOUGH THE popular desire to strike forcefully at America’s enemies seems to have placed military force front and center in the counterterrorist toolbox, the same basic principles apply to it as to any other tool. Each has its uses but also its limitations, and none can strike a knockout blow. And military force also has downsides: monetary and human costs; collateral damage; and the potential to be counterproductive.

2. Bin Laden and his partner Ayman al-Zawahiri also would see little to be gained in restoring the previous arrangement. They have successfully hidden in Pakistan for nearly a decade; a return to Afghanistan would only expose them, or their underlings, to uninhibited U.S. firepower, even if U.S. troops were not on the ground.

3. THE WEAKNESS of the rationale for pressing the fight in Afghanistan has led many supporters of that war to say that the real concern is next door in Pakistan. Visions of mad mullahs getting their hands on Pakistani nuclear weapons are tossed about, but exactly how events in Afghanistan would influence the future of Pakistan does not get explained. The connection seems to be based on simple spatial thinking about instability spreading across borders, rather like the Cold War imagery of red paint oozing over the globe. A Taliban victory in Afghanistan would not bring any significant new resources to bear on conflict in Pakistan, which has a population five times as large and an economy ten times as big as its South Asian neighbor.

4. THIS ALSO ignores how circumstances have drastically changed since al-Qaeda’s earlier time in Afghanistan.  In the 1990s, there was sufficient intelligence and offshore firepower but insufficient political will to damage that presence heavily.

9/11 has changed all that. If al-Qaeda began to rebuild what it had before, it would be bombs away—and the leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban know it.

Nagl’s key point:

1. Afghanistan is one of the critical battlefields in this war; while winning in Afghanistan would not by itself defeat al-Qaeda, losing in Afghanistan would materially strengthen it and prolong the fight, potentially at the cost of many more American lives.

Pillar’s least compelling arguments:

1. Most obvious is that the archenemy, al-Qaeda, isn’t even there—except, National Security Adviser James Jones tells us, for fewer than a hundred members.

(Editor’s Note: For Al Qaeda, a relatively small organization in terms of full-fledged members, 100 may not be a small number at all).