Choreographers’ acts
7/17/2010 2:52:42 PM
Sooner the Afghan nightmare presented to India is better. So far, India relies on the shoulders of Washington or NATO to get a comfort zone in Afghanistan. But the emerging realties are now in favor of Pakistan. Six months ago Richard Holbrooke had told Indian NSA clearly that “time is up for packing”. Neither strategic dialogue-a calculated balancing farce, nor top level visit to US has earned any assuage to India’s sleepless nights

As US and NATO troops get tired in the rocky mountains of Afghanistan, Pakistan has sharpened its knives for a role in the war ravaged nation and all set to reclaim its lost strategic depth. But India which spent billions in a decade will have to return home empty.

Although every nation calculates its gains and losses, India is different because strategic decisions are pet projects of PMO, MEA and ruling establishment. A gullible Indian opposition is equally ignorant and illiterate in this area to question the inflated image of UPA.

In fact, the much-hyped peace jirga ended June 4 in Kabul with a call for making peace with the Taliban by integrating them in the political mainstream. Around 1,600 tribal elders, religious leaders and members of parliament straddling social and political spectrum, gathered and discussed for three days Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s plan of national reconciliation to end the nine-year-war that was showing no sign of ending any time soon.

Peace process

The jirga got off to a rocky start on the opening day with the Taliban insurgents, who boycotted the meeting, firing rockets at the massive tent in which meeting was held. Although no one was killed, the attack underlined the challenge in the path of the so-called reintegration and reconciliation plan.

In the end, after marathon discussions, Karzai managed to win the backing for his key proposals of seeking reconciliation with top Taliban figures while re-integrating foot soldiers in the insurgency with cash and job incentives.

In a 16-article declaration, the jirga called on the Afghan and NATO-led international forces to release Taliban prisoners against whom no solid evidence was available. It asked the government to form a high peace commission, which should include representatives from all provinces and districts, to work on the peace process.

The declaration also asked the government to ensure the safety of those insurgents who join the peace process, the declaration said. It recommended that Taliban are to be removed from a UN sanctions list, but it was not clear if that recommendation included Taliban leaders such as Mullah Omar.

The Taliban were urged to renounce violence and cut off their ties with the Al Qaeda terror network, while the international community was asked to support the reconciliation process.

The contentious reconciliation plan, which was first cleared at the London conference and backed by leading Western countries whose troops are fighting an increasingly bloody and frustrating war, is underpinned by the premise that there was no alternative to making peace with the Taliban since neither US-led NATO forces nor the Afghan army could guarantee security to Afghans, said organizers of the jirga. Predictably, the Taliban trashed the jirga and boycotted it, saying they will not think of any deal or negotiations before all foreign forces withdraw from the country.

On the eve of the conference, the Taliban’s statement made it clear that the jirga did not represent the Afghan people and was aimed at promoting the interest of foreigners.

Hizb-i-Islami, led by ex-Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, called the conference a “useless exercise”. The Afghan government, on its part, has demanded that Taliban lay down its weapons, renounce violence and accept the constitution.

While the Taliban reconciliation plan, endorsed by the jirga, has evoked mixed reactions, it reflected a clear ascendancy of Pakistan in the evolving strategic calculations, led by the US, as the Obama administration gears up for a planned withdrawal of troops in July 2011.

In many ways, it is a strategic setback for India, which has continued its reconstruction activities in Afghanistan in the face of scare tactics and attacks masterminded by the Taliban and Pakistan’s ISI.

Although the Indian External Affairs Ministry has been loath to admit any setback, the hard reality is that the Pakistani propaganda machinery has been able to gull a war-weary West into believing that this was the only way to end the insurgency and in creating an impression about Islamabad’s centrality in any final solution to the Afghan imbroglio.

In a sense, since the January London conference, there is a growing perception that the West, including US, is asking India to scale down its activities in Afghanistan as the Indian presence in the form of reconstruction projects is resented by Pakistan.

The logic underlying this argument is warped-up, but the West has been seduced into buying this lie as it is convinced that it can’t win this war without active support of Pakistan’s ISI-military complex despite its continuing vital links with sections of the Taliban leadership.

The US, which is already in withdrawal mode, has succumbed to Pakistan’s blackmail tactics, and is ready to concede any demand if it helps to get it out of the deepening Afghan quagmire. Therefore, if Pakistan wants India to scale down and shut consulates, freeing up Islamabad to concentrate on its Western frontier, then so be it.

It is not just the US, but some European countries, too, have allowed themselves to be tricked. A senior European diplomat, who did not wish to be identified, admitted that Europe does not want “too much of India” in Afghanistan as it would make that country a theatre of India-Pakistan rivalry and will complicate the exit plan to that extent.

Concerns for India

Does all this mean that India, which has acquired enormous goodwill among ordinary Afghans who have benefited from $1.3 billion projects, is set to witness a diminishing of influence in that country post 2011.

A Taliban takeover, aided by Pakistan after the exit, is a veritable nightmare for India’s foreign policy-making and strategic establishment that has nurtured its influence and relations with the Karzai regime after the US-led ouster of the Taliban in 2001.

It is not clear how India plans to secure its long-term strategic interests in Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban reconciliation plan, but New Delhi has not given up and is trying to persuade Washington to see the Afghan situation from its perspective.

The results have been mixed so far. The Afghan issue figured prominently in the inaugural June 2-3 India-US strategic dialogue between External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Officially, there was an attempt at projecting a congruence of interests in creating “a stable, sovereign, democratic and pluralistic Afghanistan.” In a joint statement, both reiterated the importance of a sustained international commitment to Afghanistan that builds local capacities through Afghan-led initiatives.

Allaying India’s concerns, Clinton welcomed India’s vital contribution to reconstruction, capacity building and development efforts in Afghanistan and its offer to enhance efforts in this direction.

What is more, the two sides agreed to explore opportunities for coordination on civilian assistance projects that advance Afghan self-sufficiency and build civilian capacity.

“India and the US committed to regularly consult with each other on Afghanistan. It is in our common interest that the people of Afghanistan succeed in their reconstruction and development efforts without outside interference, in an atmosphere free from violence and extremism.”

In so far as official statements go, this was just perfect, but the surface bonhomie concealed deep-seated differences. Before the dialogue began, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake was more forthright in articulating Washington’s approach.

“We have strongly welcomed the important role that India has played through its various reconstruction and development projects,’ Blake said in a webchat from Washington, relayed through the State Department website. He was, however, emphatic about Pakistan’s central role in the success of the US exit plan.

“We will not be able to succeed without the active support of friends in Pakistan,” he said. What Blake said may be jarring to India, but it is a plain statement of facts from the American viewpoint.

Conversely, India can also interpret is positively, hoping that the US has finally realized the depth of cross-border links of the Pakistani insurgency and its mentors in the military-ISI complex. But this would be merely self-comforting.

If Pakistan does indeed cooperate with the US in bringing the Afghan situation under control, it is bound to extract a stiff price for its support: to reclaim control over its fief which it lost in the last nine years. The challenge for India would be to prevent this nightmare from coming true.

(SOURCE: The article was published in the June 2010 issue of STRATEGIC AFFAIRS magazine, an outfit of CASS-India)