A turn or same old futile U.S. policy concerning Pakistan?

[ComradePashtun]

PAKISTAN HOLDS THE KEY TO PEACE IN AFGHANISTAN

BY ZALMAY KHALILZAD , JAMES DOBBINS ON 1/8/16 AT 10:53 PM

During his most recent visit to Kabul, Pakistani army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif promised Afghan leaders that he would press Pakistan-based Taliban leaders to resume peace talks and take action against those who resort to terrorism and violence.

Against the backdrop of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s friendly visit to Islamabad earlier this month, Sharif’s announcement has raised hopes that the Afghan reconciliation process and related steps can help end the country’s bloodshed.

The Afghan government announced that in early January, Pakistani, Afghan, U.S. and Chinese officials will meet in Islamabad to decide on a road map for reconciliation and reduction in fighting and violence. This is a positive development.

However, Pakistan's record on Afghanistan calls for caution and sustained pressure. Whether or not there is concrete progress by the start of the next fighting season in late March will be an indicator of Pakistani intentions.

For the past several years, Pakistani officials have deflected American and Afghan requests to shut down the sanctuaries that the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network enjoy in their country and cut off support to the insurgency from Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence Agency by offering help in promoting peace talks.

Pakistan's interest in a negotiated settlement to the Afghan war seems real enough, but the Pakistani military has never been willing to take the very steps most likely to advance the process, which are to close down Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network operations in Pakistan and imprison any of their leaders not actively negotiating peace with the government in Kabul.

Why does the Pakistani military want to maintain cooperative relations with the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network? This policy likely stems from some combination of opportunism and fear. It sees the Taliban/Haqqani as surrogate forces that could protect and advance Pakistani interests in Afghanistan, while combating Indian influence.

But Pakistani authorities also fear that if they put too much pressure on the Afghan Taliban, it might join forces with the Pakistani Taliban in the latter’s effort to overthrow the Pakistani government and introduce a radical Islamist regime.

Since 2010, the Obama government has pursued a negotiated settlement to the Afghan conflict and sought Pakistan’s help in this regard. Ghani, since taking office in late 2014, has expended a good deal of his own political capital in relations with Pakistan, and paid a steep price as a result of the sparse return on investment.

Ghani choose Islamabad as the first foreign capital to visit upon his election. Seeking to turn a new page in relations, he followed up with a number of unilateral steps to demonstrate his commitment to a new relationship. Notably, Afghan security forces arrested Pakistani Taliban leaders and turned them over to Islamabad.

After years of flatly denying that it harbors insurgents, Pakistan admitted to maintaining contacts with the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network, and offered to act as a conduit between the Taliban and the United States and Afghanistan.

Pakistan also convened one symbolic meeting between the Afghan government and the Taliban—which occurred in the presence of U.S. and Chinese observers—but failed to persuade the Taliban to reduce its military operation against coalition and Afghan forces.

In fact, military pressure on the Afghan government and civilians escalated and no follow on meetings have taken place since.

The Taliban have advanced in the south, east and northern areas of Afghanistan. Afghan forces have fought bravely but appear overextended. ISIS and Al-Qaeda also have made their presence felt in the country. Ghani is now politically weakened at home because his gambit with Pakistan has not paid off.

Once the death two years earlier of the Taliban's founding leader Mullah Omar was revealed, Pakistan engineered the accession of Mullah Akhtar Mansour to the leadership position. The head of the Haqqani network, a longstanding surrogate of Pakistan, emerged as Mansour’s deputy.

This may have enhanced Pakistan’s influence over the dominant faction of the Taliban, but also exacerbated fault lines within the extremist movement when a number of Taliban rejected Mansour’s leadership. Pakistan may now be in a stronger position to influence Mansour’s followers—the largest Taliban faction—but probably cannot deliver all of the Taliban to any peace process.

Division within the Taliban high command makes genuine peace negotiations difficult, and the Taliban’s recent advances on the battlefield probably diminish its interest in any real accommodation with the government in Kabul.

This suggests that the Washington and Kabul should focus less on fostering talks and more on persuading Pakistan to take action against those engaged in terrorism and violence. While opening peace talks could be a positive step, it will only yield fruit if Pakistani authorities also begin to close down Afghan Taliban military operations.

Without Pakistani initiative, talks with the Taliban are unlikely to succeed. Perhaps with Pakistani consent and support the Taliban will continue to push their advantage on the ground. Alternatively, given ground realities, the Taliban might demand that the United States and Afghanistan cede provinces in the east and the south to them.

Territorial demands in particular would prove unacceptable to Washington and Kabul, as they would create a new terrorist sanctuary and serve as a launching pad for insurgents to divide Afghanistan and seize Kabul.

Continued U.S. pressure is needed to induce Pakistani cooperation in reducing the violence. Congress withheld nearly a third of the military assistance allocated to Pakistan for 2015 due to Islamabad's failure to take meaningful action against the Haqqani network. An even larger proportion of the assistance should be conditioned in the coming year on Islamabad closing down the Haqqani network and Taliban military in the country.

Another step that would steer Pakistan in a more cooperative direction is for the United States to move urgently in addressing the gaps in Afghan capabilities identified during the last fighting season in areas such as intelligence, logistics and air support. Washington should not rule out deploying some additional forces and easing rules of engagement for targeting the Taliban and ISIS targets.

At this juncture, sustained and intensified pressure on Pakistan offers the only viable path to advancing the reconciliation process in a way that does not turn Afghanistan into a launching pad for terrorism and extremism.

Zalmay Khalilzad, a former American ambassador to Afghanistan and U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, is a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

James Dobbins, a veteran diplomat who most recently served as the State Department's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is a senior fellow at the nonprofit, nonpartisan Rand Corporation.

[ComradePashtun]

HONOR OUR FALLEN BY GETTING REAL ON PAKISTAN
C. CHRISTINE FAIRMAY 26, 2015



Yesterday, Americans celebrated Memorial Day to remember and commemorate the millions of men and women in uniform who sacrificed their lives in the service of their country. For many Americans this is not simply a day to light up the barbecue and quench our thirsts with beer; rather, it is a sacred day. We go to cemeteries and place wreathes and flowers upon the graves of loved ones who served in wars past and present. Those whose family members have returned from theater safely give thanks. American officials at the highest level of government declare their respect for the slain, the wounded, and the families who must manage these varied losses. However, when the government gets back to business on Tuesday, many of these same officials will continue to engage in policies that disgrace the memories of our fallen by aiding and abetting the various countries whose policies are responsible for so many of these deaths over the last thirteen years. One of these countries is Pakistan. And it is well past time for Americans to start paying attention.

A history of deadly appeasement

Americans have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001. It has been our longest war. Since then, 2,215 U.S. military personnel have died in that country and another 20,007 have been wounded in action. This is in addition to the deaths of over a thousand civilian contractors, hundreds of allied troops, and tens of thousands of Afghans in and out of uniform. The United States invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban, who then governed that country, were harboring Osama Bin Laden and refused to hand him over in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. While destroying al Qaeda may have been the initial objective, the goal evolved to include degrading the ability of the Taliban to exercise control over Afghanistan and taking steps to ensure that the regime would never again come to power. The vast majority of the fatalities and injuries incurred in Afghanistan have been at the hands of the Taliban — not al Qaeda.

It should outrage Americans that the Taliban enjoy ongoing support from Pakistan, a country that claims to be fighting this war with the United States and its allies rather than against it. In exchange for its putative support of the U.S. war effort, Pakistan has received some $30 billion in economic and military support as well as more than $10 billion in reimbursements for Pakistan’s contributions to the coalition. This reimbursement program, operating under the name of Coalition Support Funds (CSF), was intended to reimburse Pakistan for marginal costs associated with assisting the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. In 2008, the Government Accounting Office wrote a scathing assessment of CSF noting Pakistan’s dodgy documentation, dubious claims for expenses that were not covered by the program, and inexplicable pricing for services and goods rendered. In fact, CSF operated essentially as a lucrative bribe to keep the transit corridors into Afghanistan open and Pakistan’s army on board with U.S. efforts in the region. The U.S. government has reformed the CSF program since the GAO report came out, instituting a more rigorous accounting process. Yet a key rationale for continuing to provide reimbursements remains inducing the Pakistan army to stay in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, essentially paying Pakistan for doing what any sovereign state should do: eliminate terrorists exploiting its territory.

In addition to these copious allurements, the United States has allowed Pakistan to acquire, through various U.S. assistance programs and by allowing Pakistan to use its own so-called “national funds,” extensive naval, ground and air assets that better enable Pakistan to wage war against America’s democratic partner, India than the terrorists at home. The U.S. Department of State justifies these sales by arguing that they enhance Pakistan’s ability to conduct counter-terror and counter-insurgent operations. These claims are not entirely risible. Some of these systems are “dual use” meaning that Pakistan could use them in counter-terror operations against the militants as well as conventional operations against India. Indeed, transport and attack helicopters are such examples of dual-use platforms. However, other items such as a Perry-class missile frigate and dozens of nuclear capable F-16s seem more suited to fighting India than the militants inside Pakistan.

All of these remunerations and inducements have proceeded even though Pakistan undermines U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan at every turn. The United States and its international and Afghan partners have paid a heavy price in blood and treasure battling the Taliban and their allies, such as the Haqqani Network and even Lashkar-e-Taiba. Meanwhile, Pakistan has been equally busy providing these same groups with sanctuary, military and financial assistance, operational planning and guidance, as well as political and diplomatic cover. Without Pakistan’s extensive support, it is doubtful that the Taliban could have weathered the U.S. and allied operations. It is doubtful that the Taliban could even be a serious insurgent organization in the first instance. Yet despite the thousands of dead American and coalition soldiers and tens of thousands of Afghan partners, American officials in Congress, the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, and even the White House facilitate ongoing support to Pakistan in the face of the mountain of evidence that Pakistan is not a partner — much less an ally — but a hostile state dedicated to undercutting U.S. interests in the region and beyond.

Even the location of Osama bin Laden’s compound, a leisurely peregrination from the prestigious Pakistan Military Academy, did not shake American support for Pakistan. Nor has the United States seemed terribly vexed that the country has not made any effort to investigate how he came into the country, how he took up sanctuary in a cantonment town, and what Pakistanis made this possible.

America under Pakistani nuclear coercion

What explains this madness? Why does the United States continue to reward Pakistan when it takes American money with one hand and enables America’s enemies to kill its men and women with the other? The answer is appalling yet simple.

Pakistan has cultivated the notion in Washington and in other European capitals that it is “too dangerous to fail.” The United States and partner governments fear that without lucrative bilateral support and unending multilateral support, Pakistan may collapse. In turn, the Islamist terrorists may exploit the chaos and obtain nuclear weapons, materials or knowhow and devastate the western world. Another equally frightening scenario is that the Pakistan army may collapse under financial pressure. An anti-Western rump, sympathetic to the terrorists and their Islamist ideology may hand over the nuclear assets to their newfound terrorist allies who, in turn, devastate the world with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Pakistan’s well-publicized efforts to acquire “tactical nuclear weapons” exacerbate these fears.

The problem with these threatening scenarios is that Pakistan cultivates them itself for purposes of extracting these rents from the international community, which knows too little about Pakistan and succumbs to such coercion. Pakistan’s media management specialists in the ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence agency), the ISPR (the armed forces’ press organization), and the Ministry of Information deftly manage international and domestic coverage of Pakistan’s twinned menaces of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. By stoking these fears, Pakistan is assured that the United States will never abandon the land of the pure.


When I have proposed treating Pakistan like a normal state and allowing it to bear the costs of its own behaviors, American officials have bristled with discomfort. They offer several counter arguments. Most immediately, Americans believe that the United States benefits in some way or another from Pakistan’s selective war on terror. The rationale goes that it’s better they target some of the terrorists than none. There is some truth to this. However, unless Pakistan makes a strategic move away from using terrorism as a principle tool of foreign policy, Pakistan can use this argument to receive recompense in perpetuity. This is likely part of Pakistan’s scheme to monetize its insecurity in the first instance. Second, and more distally, American officials defend the status quo by contending that, without this assistance, Pakistan may fail and the afore-noted nuclear-doomsday scenario may ensue. Third, without massive American spending in Pakistan, the United States will have no influence over Pakistani behavior whatsoever. Fourth, these programs grant the United States some degree of visibility into Pakistan’s ever-expanding nuclear weapons program and its persistent instrumentalization of Islamist militant groups as tools of foreign policy in Afghanistan and India.

The same officials are at a loss to explain the tangible benefits from this so-called influence or insight allegedly bought with American monies. Worse, given the fungibility of funds, there is a very good chance that the United States has subsidized Pakistan’s investments in nuclear weapons and Islamist terrorism, the various tools Pakistan uses to extort resources from the United States.

A new way forward

Americans must understand that Pakistan will not change. Pakistan pursues these reckless policies not out of security concerns, as Americans presume, but out of its Islamist ideology. The United States government cannot reshape Pakistan through ongoing policies of appeasement. The sooner it realizes this, the better.

Instead, the United States must take advantage of our diminished troop presence in Afghanistan to wean itself off of the poisoned Pakistani teat. India is the most important U.S. partner in South Asia. However, U.S.-India cooperation has been stymied by the American habit of indulging Pakistan. The United States needs to make a serious pivot towards India. The world’s oldest democracy and its biggest democracy share, among other things, concerns about Islamist terrorism, the rise of China, and the stability of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

While the United States re-optimizes its relations in the region, it must work to adopt a different policy for Pakistan. The United States should cease engaging in a strategic dialogue process with Pakistan. Pakistan cannot be a strategic partner with the United States in the region when it undermines virtually every American strategic objective there. I advocate pursuing a policy of containment. This does not mean that the United States should cut Pakistan off. But it does mean that the United States should treat it as a hostile state. This new policy should prohibit providing strategic weapons systems that have utility in fighting India. If Pakistan wants material and other forms of support to fight its domestic terrorists, the United States should comply with the proviso that Pakistan stop supporting other terrorists.

What should the United States ask of Pakistan in exchange for ongoing counter-terror and counter-insurgency assistance? The United States should look for verifiable evidence that Pakistan has shut down the various training camps for the so-called Kashmiri group that continue to operate with impunity. This can be verified by national technical means. Pakistan should act to eliminate the Haqqani Network, including its senior leadership safely tucked away in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Pakistan should shut down terrorist social media network sites as effectively as it shuts down Youtube. It can detain and prosecute terrorist leaders such as Hafez Saeed and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi. It can seize the assets of numerous terrorist organizations operating within Pakistan and it can discontinue political partnerships with key terrorist leaders. That Pakistan has long balked at these actions simply underscores my point that it makes little sense for the United States to arm Pakistan to kill some terrorists that it considers enemies while continuing to nurture and raise militant groups that Pakistan considers allies.

The United States should continue its various the International Military Training (IMET) program should Pakistan be interested. If such training continues, it should focus on peacekeeping, counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, disaster relief and professionalization issues such as the importance of civilian control over the military. In fact, the United States should expand these efforts, should Pakistan be amenable. However, it is very likely that Pakistan will demure when it is denied the coveted weapons systems it desires most. But the opportunities should remain open if for no other reason than that Pakistan is a regular contributor to peacekeeping operations, confronts disasters such as earthquakes and floods with some frequency, and desperately needs mentoring in how to have a professional military under civilian control.

The United States should invest in Pakistan’s people with the intent of aiding those who want a safer Pakistan that neither uses terrorism abroad nor suffers the wrath of proxies gone wild at home. However, for U.S. human development assistance to have meaningful impacts, USAID needs to revamp its business model.

Finally, the United States must stop bending its laws to accommodate Pakistan on the basis that it is too dangerous to fail. Currently, U.S. assistance is going to Pakistan under various waivers because numerous Pakistani behaviors make this support illegal under U.S. law without such waivers. Only CSF, which is technically a reimbursement program, has requirements that cannot be waived. When the United States does this, it makes a mockery of our laws and reassures Pakistan that by continuing to terrorize the United States, the U.S. government will keep writing the checks.

U.S. government officials must understand that most soldiers who are slain or injured in Afghanistan have suffered because of Pakistan. American service personnel do not set the policies that result in their demise or permanent disability. Elected politicians may not get re-elected due to their bad decisions, but our soldiers bare the cost of this policy folly with their lives. There is no better place to start righting the wrongs that undergird American policies than Pakistan.



C. Christine Fair is an assistant professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She is the author of Fighting to the End: the Pakistan Army’s Way of War and the co-editor of Pakistan’s Enduring Challenges

[tilla_jogian]

"PAKISTAN HOLDS THE KEY TO PEACE IN AFGHANISTAN"

Don't give Pakistanis to much credit or expect to much from them. Afghans holds key to peace in Afghanistan. This is yet another way to blame Pakistanis for what ever happen in Afghanistan. They butcher each other in Afghanistan and then afghani internet soldiers blame Pakistanis.

[Da Bannu Mazdigar]

Pakistan and America policies considering this region are almost similar