Gentlemen,though this take overlaps the Af-Pak scenario,the fundamental epicentre of our problems in the region lies with Pak,therefore this piece.
In recent days there have been a few major developments which will have a profound effect in the immediate and coming future,the first being Obama's Af-Pak policy,wherein he has said that the US "will withdraw" from Afghanistan.The editor of the NIEx paper has said today that champagne will be flowing in the ISI HQ for many reasons,not least that being 18 months hence,when the US withdraws,the ISI can simply retake Kabul through their offspring,the Taliban.He advocates that India should prepare for using its "battle trained" forces in Afghanistan,something that I feel would be a massive disaster,as from the invasion of Alexander he Great,the British thrice,the Russians,the Porkis during the first taliban govt.,and now the Americans and their allies,none has ben able to rule the land and have retreated after years of very costly experience.We must therefore adopt another more intelligent strategy to deal with the events which will take place in 2012!
The second point is that the country,barring those in the know,are either sleeping or just watching indifferently about the "demographic shift" taking place on India's western coastline.This is the steady change taking place in the Muslim community where the skull cap and traditional dress of our neighbour is fast becoming more prevalent,rather than the slightly modified ethnic dress of the various states .A friend in the forces told me that in his state,Rajasthan too,the Muslim community ealier used to wear dress which was a slightly modified version of local tradition,but now is rapidly becoming that which demonstrates the hard-line Wahabi usurping of the more liberal minded Muslim community in India.Friends,I am reliably told from those that this is not an accident or "evolution" in that faith,it is a concentrated,relentless policy of the ISI which is being carried out and the ISi supported to the hilt by the Saudi Wahabis (in an earlier editorial , the NIExp. editor asked why India should not attack the Saudis who are the patrons of the ISI who were behind the policy of terror against India?).The aim therefor of the ISI is to engineer massive internal chaos in India though repeated acts of terror,sending Indo-pak relations into a fatal tailspin,allowing Pak to retake Afghanistan through its proxy the Taliban and hthrough the chaos created internally in India weaken the country enough for China to achieve its regional goals without firing a shot preferably.
Now the gameplan of the ISI is also at the behest of the Chinese! The last thing that China wants is for an Indo-Pak "entente coridiale".Pak will then be less willing to be China's catspaw against India.The Chinese policy of encircling India is taking shape in Burma,where we are losing out to the Chinese on the energy front and the establishment of Chinese intel bases and future logistic bases for the PLAN there,in various nations and island states in the IOR ,at Gwadar,the improvement of the Karakorum Highway,so that Chinese troops can move rapidly into the region "to save Pak".Now saving Pak has become a key priority of the PR%C.Having invested so much in their vassal state,which is virtually a Chinese proxy to keep India diverted from China's take over of Asia.Informed sources say that the recent Chinese aggro on our northern borders was aaprt from China's long term ambitions at defeating India yet again in another military battle,was in the main to keep India off balance in case it wanted to settle scores with Pak taking advantage of Pak's current crisis,which thanks to intense US pressure had to fight the rogue anti-Pak extremist forces ripping its country apart.India have apparently given the US a firm assuarance that we will not attack Pak or cause trouble for it on its eastern front,but the worthy uniformed tribe in Pak,used to permanent double-crossing and backstabbing decided that some insurance was needed and took out a "Chinaman's policy".
Unfortunately,the current dispensation in India invested in too much US "paper" and have found that the worth of US assuarances to India,that pak would behave,has become as the Mahatma once said of British promises,"a post-dated cheque on a failing bank".We abandoned our closest and truest friends the Russians and the key Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union and Iran too,in formulating a strategy of neutralising any attempt by Pak to take over Afghanistan agaain through its proxy the Taliban.Therefore,we have to now plan for the coming US withdrawal in around 2012,which will see the resurgence of the Paki led Taliban into Afghanistan.What are our options?
Wlll for a start,let's look at Pak.It has options too.It can "behave" follow US orders and clean up its act,which will be a very costly and bloody affair.But at the end of it,it will have reduced Islamic extremism in the land a great deal and can begin to concentrate upon an economic recovery,also through investing in the SAARC group,forming a regional economic equivalent to the EU,if not a security appratus too.That is the most sensible route for Pak to travel upon,but will it?
As long as the ISI calls the shots in the military and the military in the country, it will never happen.In a conversation with a well-informed Paki in the know some time back,he looked at me as if I was from Mars when I asked him if a day would come when the Paki and Indian armed forces could work together in securing each others security.The anti-Indian hatred just runs too deep in the blood of the Paki military and they will take their country to the brink of collapse if only to" cut off their nose to spite their face",peace with India.
What are India's options then? There is little point in supporting the Pax Americana,which is also collapsing in the region and Asia.The US has its own interests first and always and has abandoned old friends and allies on innumerable occassions in the past,and will do so to India which is not even an ally! It is inconceivable that the US continues to swamp Pak with lethal arms which can be used against India.Time and time again Pak keeps fooling the Yanquis and their love for their rent-boy runs as deep as the Paki military's hatred for India.Unless the US completely stops all arms sales to Pak,there is little use in any Indo-US military exercises where the US is trying to integrate India into its global gameplan to do its dirty work where it cannot,and beggar us in the process of fighting its wars and enriching the pockets of US arms manufacturers. We have to change tack and fast.Let us hope that the Indo-Russian summit will provide us with new options and the establishment of a new strategy of dealing with the Sino-Pak-Saudi axis of evil.We can debate and enlarge upon the strategy and tactics to be adopted so that the diabolic plans of our mortal enemies may be totally defeated.
ISI’s feeling pretty bubbly
Aditya SinhaFirst Published : 05 Dec 2009
Champagne popped open this week as Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) celebrated US President Barack Obama’s announcement that American troops would start withdrawing from Afghanistan in July 2011. Despite the extra 30,000 soldiers and the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) expansion of its unmanned drone operations inside Pakistan’s tribal areas, Islamabad was jubilant. The ISI’s strategy of waiting for the Americans to leave was paying off. Soon, Islamabad would recapture Kabul after eight years of domination by New Delhi. Absurd as it may sound, that’s the way the Pakistan military sees it: not in terms of the Frankenstein called Islamist terrorism, not in terms of jihadis taking over the border areas of Pakistan and launching suicide attacks into the Punjabi heartland, but simply in terms of a competition with India to dominate Afghanistan. The Americans have obliged them. All the Pakistan army need do now is sit tight 18 more months.
The ISI strategy is not rocket science. The British gave up on Afghanistan thrice in the 19th century (as revenge, they drew the Durand Line through the Pushtun tribal areas to serve as Afghanistan’s artificial border with Pakistan); The USSR gave up in 1989 and disintegrated soon after. The ISI thinks it’s now America’s turn.
The Pakistanis have got this far by sheer stubbornness and wile. Since 9/11, when the US began looking for Osama bin Laden and gang in and around the Durand Line, the Pakistanis have controlled events either by saying that direct American intervention would only alienate the local population and pose a threat to the army’s hold on power (a long Cold War association convinced the Pentagon that the Pakistan army are a bunch of great guys who can be trusted with running the country); or by handing over, one by one, a “number three” al-Qaeda gentleman to calm the Americans (Pakistan has caught scores of “number three” al-Qaeda terrorists over the past eight years); or by insisting there is a big difference between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistan only wants to target the latter. To say that there are different Taliban is as dubious as saying there is a moderate Taliban (a ploy Pakistan has tried before). It simply does not exist.
Clearly, the ISI runs circles around the CIA. The CIA knows it, but can do little except gnash its teeth, because it has no spies among the jihadists. The ISI doesn’t need spies; it created the Taliban.
The Americans ought to demand that the ISI demonstrate sincerity by handing over Mullah Omar, the Taliban chief. The one-eyed Mullah and his cohorts are said to have converted one of Quetta’s suburbs into a kind of mini-Taliban city; it is a place which neither Pakistani police nor journalists dare visit. Houses, shops and mosques have all been purchased by the Taliban (using ISI money, which is basically US military aid; yes, ironic). The ISI is in constant touch with the Taliban hierarchy. And even with expanded CIA drone operations, it will be difficult to get Mullah Omar; the drones have been hitting targets in the countryside and mountains, not in the cities, and even that has swelled anti-American sentiment, according to every Pakistani leader, civilian or military. Imagine what a strike in a crowded urban area would do.
It would not be surprising if the ISI gave Osama up to the Americans in this 18-month interim, to encourage the American plan for a 2011 withdrawal. But it will not give Mullah Omar up, because there can be no regime more pro-Pakistan than the one Mullah Omar may head in Kabul. The Pakistan army wants nothing more than his return. The army wants India ejected from Afghanistan, and not just because it suspects India of supporting insurgents in Balochistan (which credits too much to Indian intelligence, and anyway President Asif Ali Zardari is working out a political and economic package for the province); but also because it has been assisting President Hamid Karzai with high-profile projects. India has been involved in educating Afghans, something the population enthusiastically responded to after the Taliban were deposed. The Hazaras have apparently taken advantage of new educational opportunities. India has also been building roads, linking up Central Asia to Iran via Heart, in an effort to someday revive the traditional Silk Route for trade in energy.
The Americans aim to build capacity for the Afghan army and police; the US wants to hand over Afghanistan’s security to them and withdraw its troops in time for the next presidential election (but even that is too late for some of Obama’s fellow Democrats). Theirs is a pipedream. The police are corrupt, parochial and ineffectual (perhaps because the CIA since 9/11 allowed the Afghan warlords to flourish instead of building institutions). The army is only slightly better. More alarmingly, it is believed that both the Afghan police and army have been deeply penetrated by Taliban agents. Expect more of this in the next 18 months, as the Americans go on a recruiting and training spree so that they can hurry out of Afghanistan.
The best way to keep the Taliban out, even after 2011, is to replace American troops with other professionals. The Europeans don’t want to deploy, so that leaves India; but Pakistan will hear nothing of it. Deploying Indian troops defeats the purpose of the Pakistan army’s whole Afghanistan strategy; everyone knows there is no peace-keeping in Afghanistan, only battles against the Taliban (ask the British who deployed in opium-rich Helmand province). The US, mindful of Pakistan’s protest, does not push the matter.
Yet, if over the next 18 months the CIA gets more exasperated with the ISI for not helping nab Mullah Omar or Osama, or for not being able to control the terrorism inside Pakistan, then attitudes will be ripe for change. Things will never get better in Pakistan. Its 176 million population will increase to 309 million by 2050, the UN says. Without a social sector — education, healthcare, jobs, or hope — even a miniscule fraction of that can make for a lot of anti-America jihadis.
Over the next 18 months, India needs to convince the US that the Pakistanis are not up to the job of controlling terrorism. India needs to convince the US that there can be no other solution to reviving Afghanistan (and throwing a political life-line to the US administration) than for allowing India to deploy its counter-insurgency hardened soldiers to Afghanistan. India needs to convince the US that when Pakistan controlled Afghanistan then 9/11 happened; on the other hand, India’s influence on Afghanistan brought calm and peace. And if there is another terrorist strike against India, then the US will have no choice but to deploy Indian troops. This ought to be India’s plan. Then, come 2012, maybe we’ll be popping open the champagne.
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About The Author;
Aditya Sinha is the Editor-in-Chief of ‘The New Indian Express’ and is based in Chennai
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/stor ... wcg==&SEO=
This is the usual Paki line "India must cooperate with Pakistan in fighting terror! We are so bious and so sincere.