the problem with pakistan

One of the major obstacles the Obama administration faces in bringing stability to Afghanistan with the launch of Operation Moshtarak last month is the complete instability of neighboring Pakistan and the deadly Pakistani Taliban.

There have been 17 strikes by drones to hit Pakistan so far this year, according to the Long War Journal, many of which were targeted at South Waziristan, a Taliban stronghold, where the Pakistani military has also begun their own battle against the Taliban, much to the surprise of the U.S. and NATO.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has been accused of being a puppet tyrant left over from the Bush era, has been predictably apathetic to the situation, while Pakistan has stepped up their game with their own military offensive, a growing relationship between CIA operations and those of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, and the arrest of a top Taliban official, second only to commander Mullah Omar, the spiritual head of the network.

However, the trouble is far from over.

Now, the biggest problem is how to deal with the fact that the much-publicized action in Marjah has pushed some high-level Taliban into hiding underground across the border – because guys with drones and remote controls can only do so much.

Pakistan’s help and support was an unexpected plus for McChrystal’s big push into the Helmand province, but it may be more trouble than it’s worth.

The biggest fear emanating from across the border is that “when the Americans go, [Pakistan’s] neighbors – especially India, Pakistan’s hated rival – will be influential” in Afghanistan, and all the help from Pakistan may be because they’re “making a case to be given a seat in eventual peace negotiations,” according to Time’s March 8 article, “Taking it to the Taliban.”

While at this moment, the aims of the U.S. and Pakistan may be the same, it will likely not stay that way for long. “Pakistani officials… view the Taliban as strategic assets and believe they should have a role in Afghanistan after the NATO withdrawal. They point out that many Afghans still regard [Mullah] Omar as a legitimate figure – more so, in fact, than Karzai, who is seen as an American puppet.”

So where does it leave the two countries once a peace deal is brokered?

The U.S. will not stand for a figure like Mullah Omar, who has been a consistent thorn in their side, taking over Afghanistan. However, another well-liked Afghan, Dr. Abdulla, Afghanistan’s Obama-like figure (who dropped out of the presidential elections last year after it became abundantly clear that Karzai would win reelection through wide-spread fraud and corruption) would be a good compromise.

Also, Pakistan is facing an incredibly serious refugee problem. With the huge number of Afghans who have fled their homes since the original U.S. invasion are still packing the refugee camps, as well as hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis who are refugees in their own country, attempting to escape the Taliban.

“The refugees started fleeing the tribal areas where there was fighting,” said Shanan Mufti, GlobalPost’s Pakistan correspondent in an interview last year. “Pakistan has a long history of hosting refugees, external refugees. I think that the scale of this is something the United Nations has called one of the biggest internal migrations in history, so it’s obviously on a huge scale.”

What needs to happen next is the U.S. not be ungracious for the help Pakistan is giving them and be sympathetic to the internal, existential problems the country is facing by scratching the back that is scratching theirs.
If Pakistan swings back the other way, the so-far, so-good Operation Moshtarak may end up being the biggest exercise in futility the U.S. military has seen in years.

This article is continued from “Why Operation Moshtarak is a responsible way to fight the war,” published in the Suffolk Journal

governments in a box

“You have to understand that if you don’t do what you say, we’ll all be killed.” These are ominous words to anyone, but to General Stanley McChrystal, it’s nothing more than the truth. One of 450 tribal elders and scholars from the Helmand Province who gathered in Kabul earlier this month, readying the U.S., British, NATO and Afghan forces against the Taliban, said those words to McChrystal, who then passed the message along to President Obama, who responded, “Do not clear and hold what you are not willing to build and transfer.”

Time Magazine this week recounted this story in their feature “Taking it to the Taliban,” which details the plans for the allied offensive against the insurgency in the southern-central Helmand Province city of Marjah.

The Obama Administration has for months insisted that they are not fighting President Bush’s war. Now, it finally seems like they’re telling the truth.

According to Time, the tribal elders of the region “signed off on the plan” General McChrystal laid out, specifically, hitting the province, hitting it hard, but minimizing civilian casualties and unveiling what McChrystal refers to as “Government in a Box.”

These boxed governments are made up of current and former Afghan officials who have been training with the military for months, waiting for Operation Moshtarak. They will essentially be dropped into hostile territory and will be responsible for governing the civilians. They will “enforce law and order, provide basic facilitates, build schools, create jobs, and persuade local farmers to give up the poppy crop.”

The new mayor of the city of Marjah, Haji Zahir, has returned to his native Afghanistan after spending the last 15 years in Germany.

McChrystal ultimately wants to “help Afghans build and take responsibility for their country, rather than depending solely on Western forces to thump the Taliban.”

Besides plopping stable governments into an area that hasn’t seen one for decades, McChrystal is right to include tribal elders in his decisions and ask them for their opinions and advice on how to proceed to win the war.

Because of a deeply ingrained culture of clans and tribes, it has always been silly of U.S. forces to assume that the Afghan people will trust that the guys with guns and tanks are there to help.

Many of the clan leaders are also ex- and moderate members of the Taliban who feel disenfranchised by the way their tribal lands and members have been decimated by a Taliban that refused to sit down to talk, which they see as a step in the right direction – or at least a way to better understand the differences between themselves and the U.S. commanders and what the military’s ultimate goals are.

Last summer, GlobalPost executive editor Charles Sennott sat down with two of these moderate members, Abdul Hakim Muhajid and Arsalla Rahmani, who are involved with alleged secret talks between the Taliban, the Afghan government and U.S. representatives.

Bringing these moderate Taliban members into negotiations was one of the first things President Obama called for and even General Petraeus, who was the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, called these moderate members “reconcilables” because of how important their input and help will be in maintaining a functioning Afghan government when the U.S. pulls out.

Muhajid was the pre-9/11 U.N. representative for the now-deposed Taliban government and has years of experience with U.S negotiations.

“[The Obama administration declares] mutual respect and mutual understanding. This is very important to the U.S. and Islamic countries,” he said to GlobalPost. He added that Obama “will achieve many more advantages and many more objectives in the dialogue than if they were fighting with the opposition.”

Besides allowing trained and able Afghans to run their own local governments in areas besieged by fighting and bringing tribal leaders into the fold of negotiations and idea-sharing, the Obama administration is also using one other hugely important tactic, opposite of Bush’s policy: there have been no over-the-top proclamations of victory and the words “Mission Accomplished” are nowhere to be found.

Cautious optimism is the name of the game these days. While Gen. McChrystal admits that the operation is going well, there is a sense of restraint and quiet hopefulness that reflects Obama’s own.

It seems clear now, even for all the naysayers and non-believers that Obama’s diplomatic touch is exactly what the battle for Afghanistan needed to start looking up.

Part 1 of 2. Check back next week! This article was printed in the March 3 issue of The Suffolk Journal.