Understanding the Great Game and role of India & Asian stability

[SSridhar]

The Pakistani general's mind is able to arrive at the same conclusion without the grace of Gracie. I hope you don't mean it as to absolve Pakistan of this policy.

Of course not. But, true to the nature of inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent who listen to a 'gora sahib' more readily than its own people, the Pakistani politicians in those early days were far more receptive to words coming out of a British General. This was especially true in Pakistan which was dependent on British officers in large numbers and for a very long time. India had seen through the perfidy of the British officers and very quickly expelled them or decided not to involve them in decision-making. And, in those early days, strategic decision making was at its infancy in Pakistan (which continues even today) and so it was easy for the British to force their opinions on an already malleable Pakistan.

[svinayak]

The Pakistani general's mind is able to arrive at the same conclusion without the grace of Gracie. I hope you don't mean it as to absolve Pakistan of this policy.

Of course not. But, true to the nature of inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent who listen to a 'gora sahib' more readily than its own people, the Pakistani politicians in those early days were far more receptive to words coming out of a British General. This was especially true in Pakistan which was dependent on British officers in large numbers and for a very long time. India had seen through the perfidy of the British officers and very quickly expelled them or decided not to involve them in decision-making. And, in those early days, strategic decision making was at its infancy in Pakistan (which continues even today) and so it was easy for the British to force their opinions on an already malleable Pakistan.

This is correct. The British had studied the Indian history from ancient times to their times. They figured correctly that Indian sub continent is a large economic union and connected with each part. The only way to break it is create economic isolation to different parts of this region.

Pakistan was created to isolate different parts of the region. Creating the image of enemy of India was the first plan so that there is no integration. Economic firewall between the two regions is the most important one which is still the policy of the Pak govt. This was inbuilt by the British strategist inside Pak govt. The idea is to outlast the separation so long and wait for disintegration of India. This is the real secret.

[Paul]

Ahem....the point I was trying to make is that we have found surrogates willing to do the dirty work for India in Afghanistan.

[svinayak]

Ahem....the point I was trying to make is that we have found surrogates willing to do the dirty work for India in Afghanistan.

I know. Those entities have found that they are isolated and they dont have any other state other than India as the support.
The natural region for them is Hindustan.

[Paul]

I am not even referring to the Northern Alliance.

[svinayak]

I am not even referring to the Northern Alliance.

It does not matter. All sub regional ethnic groups have historical memories.
Any group on the west side of Indus river will refer to region east of Indus as Hindustan.

[Paul]

Acharya: There is no relation between your posts and the article I posted (it led to the discussion in the first place). What I am referring to is the fact that status quoist powers and the oldest powers of the great game are not a party to the WOT.

As time goes by, these revisionist parties are turning on each other thus validating the time tested policies of the status quoist powers.

It does not matter.All sub regional ethnic groups have historical memories.
.

This may well be pertinent at a point in time in the future, but as of now the revisionist powers are holding the initiative.

[svinayak]

Let us discuss this when the time is right.

[ramana]

chowk article: History of MQM by Ali Chisti

As Paul says the kabila is the mohajirs' and not the rest of TSP who all have their native places. Need to think about this.

Paul is there a part 2?

[ramana]

A key factor of TSP instability is the Mohajir group wose ethnicity is only due to language. Language cannot be a basis for longterm stability. The Mohajirs are TSP muslims of various Indian sub-continent origin whose only glue is the language of Urdu. They need to be addressed to let the TSP kabila settle down. There are various options but all are unstable exceopt for one.

The only way that can happen is if these Mohajirs are allowed to comeback into Indian society in the areas of their origin and readjust. How acceptable is that for India?

[Paul]

Ramana: Let me look to see if there are more parts to that article.

WRT to the kabila...As I said before I think it is the mohajirs and specifically the mohajirs from the UP region who hold the key to this question. If you will notice the ideological sustenance for the IM/SIMI is coming from the UP region.

There is something in the UP region which makes the UP hindus hesistant to take on the muslim issue head on. This problem does not seem to exist in Bihar or any other region of North India...Hyderabad is an exception but the people are learning real fast.

To make the mohajir solution implementable in India....I wonder it does makes sense to split up UP into 2 or more states...cuz I think the UP hindu pop is not mature enough to address the problem. In the carrot and stick approach, the stick is not strong enough yet.

Other alternative would be to give them land in the thinly populated parts of west Pakistan and settle them. That way they can keep themselves busy scrapping with the predatory tribes of that region and keep these tribes too too busy to divert their attention to India.

[Sanku]

There is something in the UP region which makes the UP hindus hesitant to take on the Muslim issue head on.

That "something" is easy to find. Do a quick finger counting of the 1300-1700 CE historical structures in U.P. and what their characteristics are.

Some things take time in forgetting.

[harik]

There is something in the UP region which makes the UP hindus hesitant to take on the Muslim issue head on.

That "something" is easy to find. Do a quick finger counting of the 1300-1700 CE historical structures in U.P. and what their characteristics are.

Some things take time in forgetting.

Just find out who are the land owners. then follow the dependencies.

Why do you think those bhainsa from SP is questiong DP inspector's death. If you understand that You can be the CM

Let me add to my post, these folks from UP are so wedded to idea of Audh & Aligarh. Amazing.

UP is the prime example ppl get what they deserve. May be only surpassed by Bihar

[Paul]

Bottomline is, IMs in the UP region have to be tamed before even thinking of addressing the mohajir issue. This could include a number of admistrative measure like splitting UP as has been mentioned before. The hoary thoughts of Awadh has to be extinguished permanently from the minds of the UP elites.

secondly the madarassas of UP - Deoband case in point provide feeder sustenence to madarasas all over the subcontinenent. These should be shut down or headed by govt appointed moulvis as has been done in egypt to address a similar issues.

Until steps like these are taken IMs can never be sufficiently tamed....this needs to happen in time for the coming softening(voluntary/involuntary!!! - no choice. get ready for it) of our western borders in the near future.

[ramana]

And all this doesnt need uncle's permission or waiting for bananas to fall.- eg.TSP collapse. I think the Partition tragedy caused the focus on the wrong groups to undo the damage. The solution was always in India rather than in TSP.

Awadh was a Shia power. How does it inspire the Sunni Deobandis?

[Paul]

Ramana: When Muslims of UP were agitating for partition, the Shia-Sunni distinction was not as sharp as it is now. Mahmudabad, Agha Khan, Jinnah,and other leading lights of aligarh were non sunnis.

So in essence they are two separate streams which joined together for a common purpose and have split up again. Objective of extinguishing awadh is to
1. dedhimmification of the UP elites (all that nonsense about hindus fighting in karbala needs to go)
2. prevent these streams from re-merging again in the future.

This way the onion remains unpeeled(This is very important), and the shias and other muslim minorities can be coaxed to be on Indian side and take on the sunni deobandis in the future.

[Prem]

This is the reason i have always longed for revisisting 47 issues to open up again . The role of UP, Bihari, Andhra Muslims need to be explored and remedial methods taken to neutralize them for good. We need house cleaning to stop the spread of deadly disease and sickness caused by them.

[harik]

Bottomline is, IMs in the UP region have to be tamed before even thinking of addressing the mohajir issue. This could include a number of admistrative measure like splitting UP as has been mentioned before. The hoary thoughts of Awadh has to be extinguished permanently from the minds of the UP elites.

secondly the madarassas of UP - Deoband case in point provide feeder sustenence to madarasas all over the subcontinenent. These should be shut down or headed by govt appointed moulvis as has been done in egypt to address a similar issues.

Until steps like these are taken IMs can never be sufficiently tamed....this needs to happen in time for the coming softening(voluntary/involuntary!!! - no choice. get ready for it) of our western borders in the near future.

Bottomline is, IMs in the UP region have to be tamed before even thinking of addressing the mohajir issue. This could include a number of admistrative measure like splitting UP as has been mentioned before. The hoary thoughts of Awadh has to be extinguished permanently from the minds of the UP elites.

secondly the madarassas of UP - Deoband case in point provide feeder sustenence to madarasas all over the subcontinenent. These should be shut down or headed by govt appointed moulvis as has been done in egypt to address a similar issues.

Until steps like these are taken IMs can never be sufficiently tamed....this needs to happen in time for the coming softening(voluntary/involuntary!!! - no choice. get ready for it) of our western borders in the near future.

Bottomline is, IMs in the UP region have to be tamed before even thinking of addressing

I am commtig a sin by reducing my post only to India here.
I am keeping Mohajirs out it.

I would rather say, tame the Avadh poojaris and then it may lead to some path towrads some kind of solution.

Taming Mohajirs supporters is asking for too much!

Best thing that be done is split UP. That may perhaps do some automagic.

[harik]

My Post is to nobody in partiular, just haiving my say here , before I get yet another fatwa .

But I will say what I understand.

Some of us here are being too much of Einstein.

[harik]

This is the reason i have always longed for revisisting 47 issues to open up again . The role of UP, Bihari, Andhra Muslims need to be explored and remedial methods taken to neutralize them for good. We need house cleaning to stop the spread of deadly disease and sickness caused by them.

Prem ,

House cleaning needs to start from our own house.

Who is reading/supporting the nazams of erstwhile era. Its not *bad* element of IM.

Why is nobody listening to Arif Mohammad Khan ?

Edited for spello. I dont know how else to do it.

[Paul]

Thanks for the compliment!!!!

Stay on this forum for the next 10+ years and learn like I did and I guarantee that you will be the next Newton.

Now moving on - Here is a fundmental assumption - The crux of the problem is not in the Punjab, Kashmir, NWFP, or BD - but in our own heartland - specifically the UP!!

[harik]

Thanks for the compliement!!!!

Now moving on - Here is a fundmental assumption - The crux of the problem is not in Punjab, NWFP, or BD - but in our own heartland - The UP!

My answer may be very naive, but problem les with elites in India.

Try to check out Jayanti Natrajan ( very much Dravdian ) response to Amar Singh doubt abt Delhi cleanup.

Untill the elite makes up its mind to beocme pan-indian! , nothing is going to happen.

They continue to retain their position on some boguey or there. Which some ppl on BRF itsef induleg in.

Sorry If I have ruined this thread too as I have been accused. No more posting here for a while.

[fanne]

HariK
Dude seriously did you graduate from a madarsa that also taught english or did the nurse dop you on your head when you were born. This has nothing to do with spello (I am as bad), but what are you writting. Does it even make sense to you. I mean, please take time to write (more than one lines please) and write something that makes sense.
Thanks,
fanne

[ramana]

Curious, How and when did you get a fatwa? Your non-sequitors will sure invite one. Other than serial thread interruptions what do you contribute to BRF?

[ramana]

UK/US is helping create the Pakiban state. The US financial crisis and being duped by TSP in their war on terror has led to this. At the root of teh Kunduz airlift am sure there will be UK advice. I think Karzai and the Durrani type Pashtuns are history. What we are seeing is the slow and orderly transition to the Islamist Pastuns and the end of sarkari Pashtuns. Expect the Northern Alliance to get hit hard by the new Pakiban and the Durrani type Pashtuns totally marginalized. The Great Game is still going on.

A fatal flaw in Afghan peace process by M K Bhadrakumar: Asia Times Online

With the reported intra-Afghan talks under the mediation of Saudi Arabia in Mecca on September 24-27, attention inevitably shifts to the hidden aspects of the "war on terror" in Afghanistan - the geopolitics of the war. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has committed to pulling out Canadian troops from Afghanistan in 2011, let the cat out of the bag last week when he said that some Western leaders wrongly believed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops could stay there forever.

"One of the things I disagree with some other Western leaders is that our [NATO] plan can be somehow to stay in Afghanistan militarily indefinitely," Harper said during a televised election campaign debate in Ottawa. What lends particular importance to Harper's statement is that he has shifted from his earlier position that Canada wouldn't leave Afghanistan until that country was able to cope for itself.

He stressed the importance of a timeline for the NATO presence in Afghanistan, "If we are to truly pacify that country and see its evolution ... we won't achieve such a target unless we actually set a deadline and work to meet it ... If we never leave, will the job ever get done?" Harper revealed he had made this point to both US presidential candidates, Democratic Senator Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain.

The Saudi role in mediating the intra-Afghan talks will bring to the fore the geopolitics of the Afghan war. This is already evident from the contradictory reports regarding the talks in Mecca.

There is acute embarrassment in Kabul that any premature leak may only help undercut further the credibility of the political edifice housing President Hamid Karzai. Kabul took the easy route by refusing to acknowledge that any talks took place during the Iftar in Mecca.

CNN broke the story in a London datelined report on Monday quoting authoritative sources that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia hosted high-level talks in Mecca between the Afghan government and Taliban who "are severing their ties with al-Qaeda".

The quibbling by the Kabul spokesman is typically Afghan. Can a get-together in the nature of the Iftar, the meal that breaks the fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, be construed as "peace talks"? The answer is "yes" and "no". On one plane, the gathering was a "guest celebration", as explained by the colorful former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan and a Guantanamo Bay detainee, Abdul Salam Zaeef, who sat in the important religious meal in Mecca.

But on the other hand, the hard facts are the following. Saudi Arabia is a leader of the Sunni Muslim world. It was one of the handful of countries to have recognized the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It was the Saudi king who hosted the religious meal, which was attended by Taliban representatives, Afghan government officials and a representative of the powerful mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Former Afghan Supreme Court chief justice, Fazel Hadi Shinwari, was among the government representatives at the Iftar. The Afghan army chief of general staff, General Bismillah Khan, also "happened" to be in Saudi Arabia at this time.

Furthermore, as CNN put it, quoting sources, the meal in Mecca took two years of "intense behind-the-scenes negotiations" to come to fruition and "US-and-Europe-friendly Saudi Arabia's involvement has been propelled by a mounting death toll among coalition troops amid a worsening violence that has also claimed many civilian casualties".

Besides, media reports have spotted that behind the Saudi move lingers the recognizable shadows of the controversial former Saudi spy chief and nephew of the king, Prince Turki al-Faisal, who is an old "Afghan hand", having headed Saudi Arabia's al-Mukhabarat al A'amah (General Intelligence Directorate) during the 25-year period from 1977 until shortly before the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. Some even say Turki secretly negotiated with Taliban leader Mullah Omar in 1998 in a vain attempt to have Osama bin Laden extradited to Saudi Arabia.

Above all, there has been a spate of statements in recent days underscoring the futility of the war in Afghanistan. Karzai himself has invited Mullah Omar to step forward as a presidential hopeful in elections slated for next year.

Britain's military commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier General Mark Carleton-Smith told the Sunday Times newspaper of London that the war against the Taliban cannot be won. He specifically advised the British public not to expect a "decisive military victory", but to prepare for a possible deal with the Taliban. "We're not going to win this war. It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army," the British commander said.

The British army top brass is not known to speak out of turn. His stark assessment followed the leaking of a memo detailing a gloomy statement attributed to the British ambassador in Kabul, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, that the current war strategy was "doomed to fail". To say the least, the timing of these statements is highly significant. According to the influential Saudi newspaper Asharq Alawsat, British intelligence is ably assisting the Saudi efforts at mediation.

Longtime observers of the Afghan civil war will recollect the tortuous diplomatic and political peregrinations culminating in the Geneva Accords in April 1988 that led to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Informal negotiations began as early as 1982. That is to say, claims and counter-claims, constant streams of denials, statements attributed to faceless or anonymous sources, even stony silence if not outright falsification - all this promises to be the fare in the Afghan bazaar in the coming weeks.

However, what is beyond doubt is that inter-Afghan peace talks have finally begun. There is a readiness to admit that the legacy of the Bonn conference in December 2001 must be exorcised from Afghanistan's body politic and stowed away in history books. The recognition seems to have dawned that peace is indivisible and victors must learn to share it with the vanquished.

Several factors have contributed to this realization. One, the seven-year war is in a stalemate and time favors the Taliban. Two, the US is increasingly focused on the bailout of its economy, which leaves little scope both in terms of time and resources for Washington to indulge in the extravaganza of undertaking on its own open-ended wars in faraway badlands. Three, the US is having a hard time persuading its allies to provide troops for the war effort and even faithful allies like Britain seem fatigued and appear uneasy about the US's war strategy. Four, whatever little popular support the puppet regime in Kabul headed by Karzai enjoyed so far is fast declining, which makes the current setup unsustainable. Five, the Taliban have gained habitation and name on the Afghan landscape and no amount of allegations regarding Pakistan's dubious role can hide the reality that the Taliban's support base is rapidly widening. Six, the regional climate - growing instability in Pakistan, tensions in US-Russia relations, NATO's role, Iran's new assertiveness, including possible future support of the Afghan resistance - is steadily worsening and the need arises for the US to recalibrate the prevailing geopolitical alignments and shore up its political and strategic assets created during the 2001-2008 period from being eroded.

Against such a complex backdrop, Washington could - and perhaps should - have logically turned to the United Nations or the international community to initiate an inter-Afghan peace process. Instead, it has almost instinctively turned to its old ally in the Hindu Kush - Saudi Arabia.

The US and Saudi Arabia went a long way in nurturing al-Qaeda and the Taliban in their infancy in the late 1980s and almost up to the second half of the 1990s. Al-Qaeda turned hostile in the early 1990s, but the US's dalliance with the Taliban continued up to the beginning of the first term of George W Bush as US president in 2000. {I guess Leila Helms cant be too far behind!}

It is possible to say that Washington has no real choice at the present juncture but to turn to the Saudis for a helping hand. The Saudis precisely know the Taliban's anatomy, how its muscles and nerves interplay, where it is at its tender-most, where it tickles. The Saudis undoubtedly know how to engage the Taliban. Now, they can almost do what Pakistan, which had similar skills, was capable of doing until it began losing its grip and its self-confidence and became increasingly worn out. Islamabad tended to linger in the shade and watch as the Taliban began taking its performance seriously and didn't seem to need mentors.

Washington is also unsure to what degree Islamabad can be trusted with the central role in any such sensitive mission to finesse or harness the Taliban. All said, while President Asif Ali Zardari is a predictable figure who can be trusted to dance to just about any American tune, far too many imponderables remain in the post-Pervez Musharraf power structure in Islamabad for the US to be confident that it holds all the controlling strings.

Arguably, the Saudis, too, would have their own sub-plots in the Hindu Kush, given the al-Qaeda factor and al-Qaeda's unfinished business in the Middle East, but, on balance, Washington has to pitch to a mediator whom the Taliban leadership and mujahideen leaders like Hekmatyar and sundry other commanders will listen. A final clincher is that the Saudis have no dearth of resources to bankroll an intra-Afghan peace process and money is power in today's impoverished Afghanistan.

Beyond all these considerations, from the US perspective, a big gain out of the Saudi involvement would also be that Iran's efforts to build bridges with the Afghan resistance would be checkmated.

Afghanistan has always been in the cockpit of great power rivalry. The backdrop of US-Russia tensions is of great significance. On October 10, NATO defense ministers are scheduled to gather in Budapest, Hungary, and they are expected to take stock of the souring NATO-Russia ties. The US is advancing the idea of a NATO "defense plan" against Russia.

Any such plan invoking the centrality of Article 5 of the NATO charter regarding collective security for the newly inducted countries of Central Europe and the Balkans will need to be based on threat perceptions to the alliance emanating from post-Soviet Russia. In other words, the US is trying to propel NATO into an adversarial stance with regard to Russia on lines similar to the Cold War era.

But there is a catch. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia is not peddling any pernicious ideology of "expansionism" threatening Western security. On the contrary, Russia is allowing NATO to transport its supplies for Afghanistan via its airspace and territory. Despite tensions in the Caucasus, Moscow has not called off such cooperation, especially involving NATO countries like Germany and France, which are skeptical about the US strategy of pitting the trans-Atlantic alliance against Russia. The US dislikes the prospect of Moscow using its equations with Germany or France within an overall NATO framework as a trump card in its relations with Washington.

Paradoxically, Washington will be relieved if Russia-NATO cooperation over Afghanistan altogether ceases. There is simply no other way that NATO can cast Russia as an adversary. But Russia is not obliging. Russian officials have recently alleged that Washington has prevailed on Karzai to freeze all cooperation with the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) on the vital front of combating drug trafficking. But Russia has failed to react and instead has began fortifying its own mechanism within the framework of CSTO (and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization) to counter drug-trafficking.

The main challenge for NATO is that its dependence on Moscow for logistical support in the Afghan war cannot be terminated as long as there is uncertainty about the supply routes via Pakistan. Here the Saudis can be of help. Their involvement in the Afghan peace process will discourage the Taliban from seriously disrupting the supply routes through Pakistan.

From the US perspective, the immediate political advantage of the Saudi involvement will be two-fold: its impact on Pakistani public opinion and, secondly, in countering expanding Iranian influence within Afghanistan. The Saudi role will hopefully temper the stridency of "anti-Americanism" in Pakistan. The US can learn to live with the Pakistani people's "anti-Americanism" provided it remains at an acceptable level and in the realm of political rhetoric. This is where the Saudis can be of help, given their considerable influence on the Islamic parties in Pakistan, especially the Jammat-i-Islami, which makes political capital out of anti-American rhetoric, and a range of Pakistani leaders, both civilian and military.

Interestingly, CNN has quoted Saudi sources to the effect that "perceived Iranian expansionism is one of Saudi Arabia's biggest concerns" in Afghanistan, which is what motivates them to mediate a peace process involving the Taliban.

It is worth recalling that one of the attractions underlying the US-Saudi sponsorship of the Taliban in the early and mid-1990s was the movement's manifestly anti-Shi'ite stance and its infinite potential to be pitted against Iran on the geopolitical chessboard.

The Taliban had killed nine Iranian diplomats in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif in August 1998. The Iranian Foreign Ministry said at that time that "the consequences of the Taliban action is on the shoulders of the Taliban and their supporters". Then-Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani viewed the incident as part of "a very deep conspiracy to occupy Iran at its eastern borders".

Given the ebb and flow of the US-Saudi-Pakistani role in promoting the Taliban in the 1990s, Tehran and Moscow are bound to sit up and take note of the current trends. On the face of it, neither Tehran nor Moscow can take exception to the Saudi role in Afghanistan as that would run against the grain of their recent years of sustained efforts to foster relations with Saudi Arabia at the bilateral level. Tehran, in particular, will be keen to maintain the current semblance of cordiality in its complicated, multi-layered ties with Riyadh and will be averse to playing into the hands of the US to turn Afghanistan into yet another turf of Sunni-Shi'ite (Iran-Saudi) antipathy like Lebanon or Iraq.

But Iran and Russia will be deeply concerned about the US strategic designs. What will perturb the two countries most will be the US's continued plan to keep the Afghan peace process within a tiny, exclusive, charmed circle of friends and allies, which betrays Washington's resolve not to let Afghanistan go out of its tight grip any time in the foreseeable future. Clearly, they would take note that the US strategy, as it is unfolding, is only to make the war in Afghanistan "cost-effective" and not to cut and run.

A Pentagon official was recently quoted as suggesting that "[NATO] countries that have had a reluctance to contribute forces, in particular combat forces, may be able to take part in this mission through a financial contribution". As the official put it, there are "those who fight and those who write checks". The NATO meet in Budapest on Thursday will be discussing these issues of the alliance's mission in Afghanistan.

Apart from the cost-effective methods that ensure the war doesn't tax the US financially, the new head of the US Central Command, General David Petraeus, can also be expected to make the war more "efficient". He followed a somewhat similar strategy in Iraq with what he labeled a policy of "awakening" Sunni tribes. The strategy's Afghan variant, which Petraeus will now spearhead in his new capacity as the head of the Central Command, can be expected to involve hiring Pashtun mercenaries to fight the war so that Western casualties are reduced and NATO's continuance in Afghanistan doesn't get imperiled due to adverse public opinion in the West.

The strategy requires making inroads into the Taliban camp and playing havoc with its unity. In the US military jargon in Iraq, this was called "non-kinetic activities", which helped reverse the spiral of violence for the US troops. It may bring "new hope" to NATO's war in Afghanistan.

Evidently, Washington expects that a clever operator like Prince Turki acting with the blessing of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques will do a neat job in regard to splitting the Taliban and separating them from al-Qaeda. (Turki also served as the Saudi ambassador in Washington.) Turki's brief will contain an almost near-optimal mix of the godly and the worldly, which is useful for finessing a movement like the Taliban that crisscrosses religion and politics.

The Saudi involvement is a desperate gamble by the Bush administration in its dying months. In immediate terms, if Turki makes headway, Taliban violence against Western troops may diminish, which would give an impression that Afghanistan is finally coming right for the US.

But it will not remain so for long. Afghanistan is far more fragmented ethnically than Iraq. The Saudis with all their sovereign wealth funds out of petrodollars cannot bridge the hopelessly ruptured Afghan divides. At the very least, much time is needed to heal the deep wounds. Saudi involvement will almost certainly be resented by several Afghan groups, which viscerally oppose the Taliban, such as the Hazara Shi'ite groups. As it is, things were poised to come to a boil in 2009, which is an election year in Afghanistan.

Petraeus beat his war drum and claimed victory in Iraq, but that is not the final word. Political events are seldom what they seem. The heart of the matter is that Iran's cooperation made Petraeus' "victory" in Iraq possible. A peace process predicated on the exclusion of Iran and Russia - leave alone any "Islamization" of Afghanistan on Wahhabi lines - will not succeed.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

In one way the West hedged against the Indian Muslims(Deobandi/Wahabi) of the UP variety by winning the Arab Islamist fort in Saudi Arabia under their tutelage.

and

Look who came to dinner ... by Syed Saleem Shahzad: Asia Times Online

KARACHI - Although the Taliban and al-Qaeda have consistently rejected overtures to make peace with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces until they leave Afghanistan, the latest initiative led by Saudi Arabia, and approved by Washington and London, is on track.

Reports emerged this week that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recently hosted high-level talks in Mecca between representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban. If a middle road is found, next year's elections in Afghanistan could be held under the supervision of peacekeeping forces from Islamic countries, rather than those of NATO.

The first move in the peace process was made by Saudi Arabia last year when a Saudi consul based in Islamabad secretly visited the North Waziristan tribal area and met the al-Qaeda leadership. His mission was to convince them of the necessity of a peace process in Afghanistan and provide them with assurances of an amnesty. (See Military brains plot Pakistan's downfall Asia Times Online, September 26, 2007.) Al-Qaeda refused the consul access to its senior leaders, and anyway rejected the initiative.

Undeterred, Riyadh pitched the idea to the Taliban rank and file that if the forces of Islamic countries were involved in peacekeeping operations for the elections, it would create a climate of reconciliation in which both the Taliban and NATO would not lose face. The Taliban also did not accept this idea, but the proposal did generate low-profile debate and in this sense a peace process had begun.

Like the Taliban, the Western coalition was divided over peace formulas but decided to at least initiate a political process to resolve the seven-year conflict in Afghanistan. The British Embassy in Kabul sent some people to Helmand province to initiate talks with the Taliban, but the procedure backfired as the Taliban dismissed their commanders involved in the negotiations. And the Afghan government, under instructions from the US Embassy in Kabul, expelled European Union officials from Afghanistan for their involvement in the dialogue process.

Pakistan, meanwhile, despite American pressure, kept open channels of communication with the Taliban. All the while, the conflict in Afghanistan escalated, reaching new heights this year.

Kabul is virtually under siege and the Taliban have established pockets in Wardak (30 kilometers from Kabul) and Sarobi (50 km from Kabul) as well as in neighboring Kapisa and Parwan provinces. More ominously, the Taliban-led insurgency has spread to Pakistani territory where vast areas have been brought under its control, especially in the tribal areas that border Afghanistan. From a military standpoint, this is particularly worrying for NATO as most of its supplies pass through this area.

Against this backdrop of a seemingly unwinnable war, as Britain's senior commander in Afghanistan has commented, the stalled pace process was revived.

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan was used as a cover for revived backchannel diplomacy in the Saudi holy city of Mecca. Afghan officials, former Taliban leaders and leaders of mujid Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan shared an Iftar fast-breaking meal with King Abdullah. Separate meetings were held with other top Saudi officials, including Saudi intelligence chief Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz.

One person who was present at the king's table was former Taliban foreign minister Wakeel Ahmed Muttawakil. He spoke to Asia Times Online by telephone from Kabul.

Asia Times Online: Did you meet King Abdullah?

Wakeel Ahmed Muttawakil: I traveled to Saudi Arabia to perform umra [pilgrimage] in the holy month of Ramadan ... and it is true . You know, the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan [as the Taliban's regime was known from 1996 to 2001] had good relations with Saudi Arabia and therefore I know everybody over there.

ATol: Your meeting with Saudi intelligence chief Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz is believed to be the real beginning of a dialogue process between the Taliban and Saudi Arabia over a truce between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

WAM: As I said, I met with many people during my stay in Saudi Arabia, but it had nothing to do with politics. Our reason to travel was to perform pilgrimage and prayers in Ramadan. Since I am known to the Saudi government, they invited me for Iftar.

ATol: Then was it a coincidence that immediately after your visit, Afghan President Hamid Karzai stepped up efforts to engage the Taliban and mentioned a Saudi role in that regard?

WAM: I said earlier that Saudi Arabia had very good relations with the Taliban in the past, therefore the Afghan government expects the Saudi government to play a role. Not only with the Taliban, Saudi Arabia had very good relations with Sheikh Osama bin Laden and other jihadi movements. So its role would be very effective.

ATol: Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan has also been approached by the Saudis. Do you have any knowledge in this regard?

WAM: I don't know anything in this regard, but I can guess that since the Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami are both part of the present insurgency, but still keep separate commands, Hekmatyar would have been approached separately. Like the Taliban, Hekmatyar also keeps very good relations with Saudi Arabia and with his connections with the Ikwanul Muslemeen [Muslim Brotherhood] he is even closer to the Saudis.

An earlier Taliban statement said:

The mainstream media is reporting about a "peace process" between the Taliban and the Kabul puppet administration which is being sponsored by Saudi Arabia and supported by Britain, and that there are "unprecedented talks" involving a senior ex-Taliban member who is traveling between Kabul and the alleged bases of the Taliban senior leadership in Pakistan. The Afghanistan Islamic Emirate leadership council considers such as baseless rumors and as failed attempts of the enemy to create mistrust and concerns among Afghans and other nations and mujahideen.

No official member of the Taliban is currently or has in the past negotiated with the US or the puppet Afghan government. A few former officials of the Taliban who are under house arrest [Mullah Zaeef, former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan] or have surrendered [Wakeel Ahmed Muttawakil] do not represent the Islamic Emirate.

The Taliban's denial and Muttawakil's reticence apart, it cannot be denied that something is afoot. This is no better illustrated than by Washington-backed Karzai at the weekend asking "terrorist" Mullah Omar to join the political process and saying that he would convince the international community about him.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at [email protected]

The Great Game begins anew! Will post there too

What we are seeing is the Wahabization of Afghanistani Pashtuns. A new fortress of Isalm is being created by a number of events that were ennumerated above.

[RajeshA]

A good question right now, would be how the Britain-Saudi sponsored Reconciliation between the ruling setup and Taliban is going to affect the Pushtoon Areas of Pakistan.

Is it going to increase the Pakistani strategic depth through Pakistani-Taliban entente, with Pakistani politics in general moving more Islamist, or does is still hold some scope that the non-Pushtoons in Pakistan are going to fight back against the encroaching Talibanisation.

Talibanized Pushtoon lands is a reality. Talibanized Punjab is a nightmare, because then Pakistan and its nuclear weapons fall to the Islamists and Kashmir gets pulled in too.

It is important that the Pakjabi RAPEs show a will to fight the Taliban and the Islamists. After this reconciliation, the will to fight could disappear, because Taliban will be carrying a huge victory from this turn of events and one will see the upsurge. Does one really think, that the Pakjabis would be standing up to the Talibanized Pushtoons after they vanquish NATO and American might?

Reconciliation will mean, the Pakistanis return to the times when the Taliban and the radical groups started putting up all sorts of madrassas and mosques in Islamabad and started threatening people to grow beards, burning Film and Music shops, to the days before LMU was laid under siege. Either the Pakjabis start fighting and set the borders of the Talibanized Lands or Pakjab will drown slowly. This reconciliation means, one should expect the latter.

There is nothing wrong in a Talibanized Pakhtoonkhwa, indeed it is welcome, because it destroys Pakistan for once and for all but there is everything wrong in a Talibanized Pakjab or even worse a Talibanized Pakistan.

Indeed Nawaz Sharif's mediation means that he is willing to live in a Talibanized Pakjab, because it is an illusion for the Pakjabi to believe that the Taliban would stay out of Pakjab and live in peace. No way! The Pakjabis need a hard border with the Talibanized Pushtoon lands.

In Afghanistan, the Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Nuristanis, etc. may not get Talibanized because of tribal loyalties, but in Pakistan, there is no guarantee that the average Pakjabi will escape it, as he has grown up believing more in Islam than in his ethnicity, which he shares with the Kafirs in the East.

This does not bode good for India at all.

[ramana]

RajeshA, you have so many good points that to answer them in one psot will be futile.

The key is that its the British hand that is enabling this creation. What is happening either willingly or unwittingly is that the Pashtun Nation is getting its state. The British hand shows that the Great Game is still in progress and US is not the driver of the Game. Brobst in his book on caroe makes it clear that the stability of Central Asia and by extension of Asia is dependent on Indian stability. By careful reading its clear the India that they want for this CA stability is the region West of the Indus. So that is what is being attempted.

A resurgent Islamist Pashtun based on the lower Pashtun society(ghilzai etc0 has many impacts locally and regionally. Locally the high pashtuns (Durrani etc.) will get their comeuppance since the Nadir Shah days. The Indianized sarkari Pashtuns of Mughal, Sikh and British vintage will be first Islamized. These folks will turn on East of Indus Pakjab after consolidation. The Pashtuns despise the Pakjabis.

Once consolidation of Pashtuns happens on both sides including the FATA expect the rest of the Afghans will be Islamized failing which they will break away. here the hand of the British could play its hand to deny these breakaway factions- Shi'ite hazaras, uzbegs and Tajiks their self determination. Dont know if there will be a violent or velvet revolution. Most likely the former. the map of Afghanistan and adjacent areas will be remade. Following countries wil be effected: TSP, Afghanistan, A new Pashtunistan (comprising: FATA and Pashtun regions of Afghanistan) Iran, Uzbegistan, Tajikistan and some portions of Trukmenistan. Then there will be spillover to spread the din. About five to ten years. More later.

Lets see. Paul was the first to understand this phenomena of thwarted Pashtun nationalism( Abdul Ghafar Khan) turning to Islamism. It was Caroe's machinations that led to the aborting of AGK's ideas. Now they are midwifing the Isalmist ashtun nation.

[RajeshA]

ramana Ji,

One would expect, that some party/country will adopt a certain plan, because it will further its interests - access to natural resources, control over strategic geographical space, influence over other influential ethnicities, markets for products, means to hurt one's enemies, etc.

What do the British get out of this? Central Asian Oil? What makes the British think, they will be the ones, who will secure those oil fields and its transport to the markets?

The British can't still be thinking about hurting India, which is almost an Anglicized mirror of it.

Or do they still want to hurt the Russians and steal the Oil from under their noses in Central Asia? The British cannot hope to ride the Islamic Tiger. Nobody can. The Brits do not have the wherewithal any more to act as they used to - cunning and deviousness is not sufficient.

So I must confess to you, I don't really understand, why the Brits would willingly move the pieces to give the world the modern day version of absolute terror, Al Qaida with Nukes.

[ramana]

RajeshA, Sorry to be cryptic but you need to study and understand Mackinder's work. Its not just local dominoes but allows control of whole geopolitical sphere.

In google you can find his original 53 page essay in Royal Geographic Society meeting buried in a very alrge pdf. BTW RGS and all other similar societies the world over are cover for studying imeprial possibilities! It has nothing to do with ethnography and curiosity.

[Prem]

Then will WEST be able to live with Talibanised Pakdom with Nukes, May be Saudi/US will have control over Strategic weapons in Isloobad. How will Chicom react if they loose Bakstan as their bitch, may be this is why they are trying to set up new proxy in Bangledesh and Burma. Onlee one thing becoming pretty abvious and i.e break up of Afghanistan. Tajik, Hajaras , Uzbeks are not going to roll over and play dead to please Pashtoons and then there is no gurrantee of eliminating Al Qaida and its threat to the WEST . Jihadi movement worldwide will gather strength if NATO/US cave in Afgnaistan now.
We are indeed getting into interesting times with increase possibilty of Nuke being used to settle issues.

[Paul]

The counterreaction to the Afghan state on it's west side will be not only come from Iran but Uzbekistan. Uzbeks are the traditional Turkic rivals to afghans. Afghans are not turkics.

AQ after getting afghanistan on a platter will look to spread their wings across the Oxus. Uzbekistan is the central asian superpower....it is dormant for now but when they shake the whole of asia will bake. This will have very interesting consequences for PRC as Xinjiang is former east turkestan. FUture Uzbeks will see this is as within their sphere of influence.

The dominos(the stans I mean) may start falling one after the other. Of course, give it a few years to play out.

We could be going back to a replay of mughal(turkic) vs. afghan rivalries. More it changes, more it goes back to the same.

[Paul]

If story of Brit perfidy is true, then it is game as usual. Brits will never give up the islamist card. They are one step ahead of zalmay khalilzad who is working with karzai to set up afghanistan as the next poodle. The fool thinks he can best the power of sunni islam.

I had said this in pakiban thread in early sept.

Karzai can never win.

The next task for Taliban after consolidating it's hold on the western banks of the indus will to oust karzai's secular state. We all know what the inevitable result is when hardline islam comes into conflict with a more mellowed and tolerant ideology which allows women to go to colleges.

This is happening even faster than anticipated.

only diff is, the brits know more than the naive amirkhans the havoc value of the taliban. After all, as we discussed in the early parts of this thread, hey are ustads of this game and will want to leave a ticking time bomb as a parting gift to explode across central asia....with radioactive fallout over India, Iran, China, and Russia.

[RajeshA]

Thank you Ramana Ji, will do!

[ramana]

X-posted from TPS thread for completeness....

Please - let us not get washed under with all this talk of a Taliban peace treaty. I am surprised that this suggestion is just automatically accepted based on how some treaty & rekindling jihaad in Kashmir will some how take care of all problems related to Afghanistan for US/NATO. Consider events going back to when this monstrosity emerged in afghanistan and since then - from their drive and almost complete success in taking all of afghanistan, ostensibly as paki army,ISI protegees, to now. Many powers have a stake in Afghan outcomes. Iran, India, Russia, China to name major players without whom some garbage US/NATO/Taliban/Pakis "Treaty" will be a laughable bit of toilet paper. Additional points to consider are the consequence of any such treaty even for the US/West & Pakis alone. These talibs were defiantly providing binLadin/AlQaida refuge & operational space after 911. Despite obvious consequences spelled out to them, they persisted leading to hostilities and to the present condition after seven years. Who really thinks that if allowed to regain some form of power sharing in Kabul and operational control at whatever level, they will not reinstate that status quo ante - with US/NATO efforts in the intervening 7 years a total loss? and will the US be willing to go back to that situation in defeat? and what of US strategic goals for the region? are the talibs going to follow US agenda as part of such a "treaty"? Where & what are the basis for any accomodation between the talibs/ISI on one hand & all the rational actors on the scene in Afghanistan on the other? There are none. There just cannot be any common ground between those animals & the rest. Besides, the talibs and their ideological blood brothers of the ISI are going to persist much more successfully after any such "treaty" to try taking over paki occupied afghanistan (NWFP), even as they drive their jihaad more forcefully eastward via paki occupied Kasmir & Gilgit into India, & northwards into CARs & islamic PRC. Taliban/ISI are going to be the only winners in this. and who would be wanting that? No, just look at it as the brit afsar corps pushing for more men & resources for their fight. Whoever wins the election in four weeks will be bound up in making sure that he "did not loose Afghanistan" [re: who lost China, etc from cold war times]. No, not, geht nicht.

and reply

No, not, geht nicht.

Geht schon. The Americans and the Europeans are facing a crisis in the very core of their civilization, their financial institutions. That is their priority. The World comes later.

It is for the other powers in the region to come up with some solution. The Brits and Yanks have lost their will to fight long wars far away from home. They know their limitations. They are giving away Afghanistan, Pakistan and possibly even the nukes to the Wahabbis on a platter.

After the financial crash, America and Europe are going back to their base camps. From now on, I don't expect, McCain or Obama to be losing too many words on far away Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is the economy stupid, is going to be the refrain now.

India will have to have serious discussions on this with Iran, Russia and even China.

and reply to that...

RajeshA:

The Americans and the Europeans are facing a crisis in the very core of their civilization, their financial institutions. That is their priority. The World comes later.

No, Rajesh, the current financial tempest in a tea cup is just that, a minor blip. For starters, check comprables from the 1930s. "The very core of their civilization" (Western Judeo-Christian Helenist rationalism) is still to be found in Genesis Chapter I [....& God created man to hold dominon over birds of the air, beasts of the land & creatures of the deep....] This continues to drive western civilization, being its rationale for being [the struggle to hold dominion (over nature)]. And that means resources. And that means the middle east, Afghanistan, central Asia, Africa, & so on & so on....So there we are.

[Prem]

Question is who will rent this new Talibani/Pashtoonistan?
Pukes dont have money ,Pakjabis will accept Ashna status in no minute ( all of their heros are non Pakjabis any way)
Saudi has money but ROyal Family will be worried for their good health, Uncle will fear another 911 and Europeneas show great distate for these supposed mancubs.
This leaves Britain alone , can they be so bold or act independently or are they dreaming of empire again?

[RajeshA]

No the Brits have it all sorted out. They will all convert on mass to Ahl-e-Hadith or Wahabbism. As the superior white race among the crazy Sunnis, they will then control the world through their Sunni brothers in arms in Central Asia. They will become the new Elite of Islam along with the Saudis. Brilliant.

Disclaimer: Just trying my hand at black humor.

[harbans]

I do the 2 card Monte well in different versions. It never ceases to amaze me, how naive people really can get. Ultimately at the core to all these issues is the root problem. Without any effort to tackling that, it's all showmanship. Whichever side you look at. Roots are not in moderate or extreme interpretations of Islam. It is in Islam itself. To tackle Afghanistan and Pakistan one has to stand to the ideology of Islam. Without putting that into every picture one paints on the region is fraught in self defeat. Indeed this is a big setback to India, and Rajesh Ji correctly says India will have to talk to Russia and maybe even China to prevent Talibanization of Afghanistan again.

However i don't see any softer version of Islam emerging out of conventional use of force in the region. Islam is a one way journey from moderate first gen converts of Indonesian style that imposed moderation due to their original cultural values to the hardened Pashtun style talibanization. Islam NEVER evolves from hard to soft versions with time. Only soft to hard.

Nato and UK/ US forces must come up with solutions to tackle Islam as an ideology. That alone will help secure the Afghan/ Pak region of extremism and tribal conflict. Nothing else will work other than nukes.

India must realize NOW that the problem is not Muslims but Islam and it's revered founder Mohammed. Find solutions and ways to tackle that. The strategic partnership that US has initiated is the first subtle trick in the 2 card monte. India has fallen hook, line onto it, without realizing what it means at the core for the US..remember the GWB quote 1 week ago.."This deal is VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT for the US". it's also VERY important for India.

A Talibanized Pakistan will NOT be permitted nukes. India's soft liberal self defeating thinking will have to be hardened through a strategic relationship with the US. This has to begin ASAP. Time is running out for the US in this region. GWB has been made to see that..

Not realizing that is being the sucker in the 2 card monte.

[Paul]

One hitch to this sellout thingie....PRC!!!

Why should they accept this lying down. The Taliban are not going to sit quietly and watch the pork eaters gerrymander east turkestan.

PRC will not take this quietly. Xinjiang even more so than Tibet is it's soft underbelly. It will not be easy to sell this to the other parties. Brits are likely looking at this short term and wanto get out in one piece. most likely on their own.

Either way the glass is half full.....for no matter what happens, there will others who will suffer along with India, maybe more as these parties are the ones that set the fire.

[vsudhir]

No the Brits have it all sorted out. They will all convert on mass to Ahl-e-Hadith or Wahabbism. As the superior white race among the crazy Sunnis, they will then control the world through their Sunni brothers in arms in Central Asia. They will become the new Elite of Islam along with the Saudis. Brilliant.

Disclaimer: Just trying my hand at black humor.

Would've been funny if it weren't so disturbingly familiar.

The Turks (gora-ish) made the caliphs and lorded over the swarthier ayrabs who they treated as dirt despite the arabs being the victors in the war against Byzantium that finally felled Constantinople.

Maybe the Brits have a similar plan up their ace, who knows? Like Rhett Butler dashes southern hopes in 'Gone with the Wind' : "Have you ever known Britain to not side with the likely winner?"

[ramana]

One small step is to promote the urdu in devnagari script.