Bharat Rakshak

abhischekcc wrote:>>Iran is however an independent primary geopolitical player in Asia.

Only the Iranians think so. The truth is that the Iranian economy is in dire need of a strong supporting economy that will buy oil and sell goods. Iranian economy can be subsumed more easily than you think - thanks to decades of sanctions.

abhischekcc wrote:PAST: Whose geostrategic interests does paksitam (I like this word: Pak=Pure, Sitam=Torture, PakSitam means Pure Torture) serve - Britain. It was Britain that created paksitam for controlling the ME, stopping Russia in CE, opening a gateway to China, and keeping India down. It worked really well for 60 years.


PRESENT:

Today, all the ground realities have changed. US/west needs India to balance China, bailout W Europe , keep paksitam down, and manage the ME.

IOW, the British world view is no longer relevant, and with it its arrogance of imposing its own world view on the world is gone.


FUTURE:

The west needs a large country (or alliance) that will:
1. Help keep open Asia's markets to the west.
2. Manage China.
3. Manage the global commons.
4. Has some respect for the rule of law (if at least for public consumption only).
5. Be a democracy (if at least for public consumption only).

What the west really needs to do is change the way it looks at the world. And for that it has to change the way it looks at itself.

Pratyush wrote:For an independent Baluchistan to happen Iran must provide its blessings. Unless Iran does so, it will never happen.

I say this because the Baluch population straddles the Iran and current TSP borders. Iran will not agree t an independent Baluchistan because it will fear its Baluch population will try to merge with an independent Baluchistan.

This fear was one of the reasons why the Iranians have historically supported Paki genocidal policies on Baluchistan. Right from the annexation of Baluchistan by the TSP.

WASHINGTON — A senior U.S. official says the Obama administration is considering shifting the U.S. military role in Afghanistan from primarily combat to mainly advisory and training duties as early as next year.
If this approach is adopted it would mean a reduction in American combat duties in Afghanistan sooner than the administration had planned. But it would not mean an early end to the war.US amd its NATO partners agreed a year ago that coalition forces would complete their combat mission by the end of 2014. Advising and training Afghan forces would gradually become a more dominant part of the mission, particularly after the U.S. completes the withdrawal of 33,000 “surge” troops by September 2012.The official spoke on condition of anonymity because no decisions have been made.

KABUL — The Taliban has warned majority Muslim Kazakhstan that its decision to send troops to the NATO-led war in Afghanistan would have severe consequences and was not in its regional interest.
The statement, distributed to media on Saturday, appeared to nod to a growing Islamist tendencies in ex-Soviet Central Asia, where militants enjoy support from the Taliban and have worried Kazakhstan and neighboring Russia.The Kazakh parliament decided on May 18 to become the first nation of mainly Muslim, ex-Soviet Central Asia to send troops to join the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) as the war drags into its 10th year.Though not a member of NATO, Kazakhstan said it would send an unspecified number of soldiers on six-month missions. It has been providing air and ground corridors for the delivery of supplies to Western troops in Afghanistan."(Kazakhstan) has has focused on protection of American interests instead of taking into account the aspirations of their people and the regional interests," the English-language Taliban statement said.Kazakhstan is Central Asia's most successful economy and largest oil producer. Seventy percent of its 16.4 million people are Muslim. The vast nation has to date avoided the Islamist violence that has occurred in its ex-Soviet neighbors."The Muslim people of Kazakhstan should stand against this wrong policy of their rulers ... This step on the part of Kazakhstan will leave a long-term negative impact on relations between Afghanistan and Kazakhstan and the region," the statement said.

Setting out it's perspective for 'Heart of Asia' with Afghanistan at its centre, India on Wednesday stressed on its vision for a regional economic cooperation, with railways and highways, energy pipelines and cross-investments, reiterating on the idea of linking South Asia to Central Asia.

At a crucial conference on Afghanistan in Istanbul, external affairs minister SM Krishna made a reference about the meet addressing "issues of safe havens and sanctuaries" beyond the Afghanistan border, in an oblique reference to Pakistan.

"Terrorist networks are by far the major threat to Afghanistan's security," Afghan president Hamid Karzai had said earlier, adding "they continue to have sanctuaries outside of our border from where they conduct their merciless campaign..."

The conference discussing security and development in Afghanistan is being held against the backdrop of western forces withdrawal.

Rooting for a regional framework, Krishna stressed the need for linking south Asia with central Asia through Afghanistan. He said India's partnership doesn't look at Afghanistan and the region in "competitive" terms, but for "regional economic cooperation".

"This cooperation would be founded on trade and transit routes, railways and highways, energy pipelines and electricity networks, economic projects and cross-investments. This cooperation would not be only between governments, but have civil society and business as stakeholders," Krishna said.

He went on to explain the idea by recalling the historical roots of regional trade routes.

"Today our investments in Afghanistan require a framework of regional collaboration for their success", Krishna said.

He also clarified on India's concerns about the safe havens for terrorists beyond the Afghanistan border. It got duly reflected in the Istanbul document.

"The recent history has shown that an end to Afghanistan's suffering requires an end to external interference in its internal affairs. This conference is addressing issues including safe havens and sanctuaries beyond Afghanistan's borders," Krishna said.

ramana wrote:Cutting to the chase this is what I see as viable. I can go on and on about the factors that influence Afghanistan but it will be like a RAND report or worse IDSA article.

PLAN:

- US increase troop presence and crushes bad Taliban. Otherwise it will lose and the malaise kicks in.
- US manages TSP while doing this. Not at cost of any other nation.
- The good Taliban get regularized into para-military scouts etc. Crucial to get them under a uniform and get rid of their tribal dress. The Afghan National Army still gets its share of Tajiks and Uzbegs and Hazaras as top layer to guarantee the ethnic rights.
- The Ghilzais and Durranis have to make up and work out a compromise certified by the loya jirga to ensure Pashtun solidarity.
- An all powers conference to declare Afghan neutrality is crucial to return Afghanistan to buffer status like in the 19th century. This is to neutralize any wet dreams of wannabe jihadis. Same time all the ethnic areas will have millat/autonomy status: Pashtuns, Tajiks and Hazaras and Uzbegs. The rights of sub-minorities in these areas are guaranteed by Afghan National Govt eg. Pashtuns in Tajik areas und so weiter.

A G-8/OECD/INDIA and PRC economic program has to be worked out to stabilize the country. US will have the TSP economic stabilization program.

A strong advice is to seek Pashtun autonomy in TSP as a self determination right same as the Kurds in Iraq to satisfy the self determination rights. as this is related to the Afghan issue.

Army not prepar­ed to direct­ly confro­nt the networ­k but will tighte­n border securi­ty.
By Kamran Yousaf
Published: November 2, 2011

Army not prepared to directly confront the network but will tighten border security. PHOTO: AFP/FILE
ISLAMABAD:

The United States, it seems, has been successful in winning Pakistan’s support to curtail the Haqqani network.

In what appears to be a significant development, the Pakistan Army is planning measures to restrict the network’s movement at the Afghan border as part of an understanding reached with the US.

At least two senior security officials confirmed that the military has decided not only to restrict the movement of all militant groups, including the deadliest Afghan Taliban insurgents, but also deny them space within Pakistan’s borders.

“We will play our part while coalition forces will stop infiltration from across the border,” said a Pakistani military official.

However, officials refused to divulge details of the plan and it could not be independently verified since media does not have access to border areas.

The move, if confirmed, will be seen as a departure from the security establishment’s years-old approach towards the Haqqanis. Washington has long demanded that Pakistani military go after the Haqqanis, believed to be operating from the Pak-Afghan borders areas in North Waziristan.

But this change on Pakistan’s part does not mean the army will directly confront the group, which the country believes will have a vital role in any future political dispensation in Afghanistan.

These new border security measures are believed to be the result of a deal that was struck between Islamabad and Washington during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent visit to Pakistan.

Under the agreement, the US is no longer asking for a full-scale military offensive against the Haqqani network in return for Pakistan’s commitment to ‘take care’ of the group by using means other than an operation. This includes tightening border security to keep a check on the movement of the Haqqanis and persuading them to come to the negotiating table with the US.

Media reports emanating from Washington also indicate a new approach by the Obama administration on the Haqqani network.

The New York Times quoted a senior US official as saying that Clinton did not use her meeting to convince the Pakistani military to mount an offensive to root out the Haqqanis and other militants allegedly operating from sanctuaries in North Waziristan. “Instead, the administration says, it is pressing the Pakistanis to provide intelligence on the Haqqanis, arrest some of the group’s operatives and reduce ties to the terrorist group – all steps well short of military action,” the official said. “We’re at the point where Pakistanis have told us they’re going to squeeze the Haqqani network.”

When approached, Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Major-General Athar Abbas did not speak of any specific plan but reiterated that Pakistan has a stated policy not to allow its territory to be used against any third country, including Afghanistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2nd, 2011.

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Proposes economically linking Central Asia with SAARC

Going beyond the “New Silk Road” vision unveiled by the United States, India has proposed economically linking Central Asia with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) as that would act as a “critical confidence building measure” in a region affected by a decade of violence in Afghanistan.

Speaking at the Turkey Foreign Ministers' regional conference on Afghanistan on Wednesday, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna welcomed the first gathering of all neighbours and near-neighbours of Afghanistan and was confident that these countries would be able to assist Kabul as the NATO-ISAF prepared to drawdown its combat role by 2014 end.

India was well placed to assist Afghanistan, argued Mr. Krishna, because it was involved in all three critical requirements of that nation — security, good governance and development. But to achieve this, there must be an end to external interference in its internal affairs. Mr. Krishna drew attention to the continuation of safe havens and sanctuaries beyond its borders.

What made this conference stand out was that previous attempts were ad hoc and piece-meal, in exclusive groups of three, four or more, more often than not with different foci, and competing interests, pointed out Mr. Krishna.
SAARC market

Expanding the U.S.-led Silk Road initiative, Mr. Krishna highlighted the potential of the SAARC market and felt the cooperation linking the Indian subcontinent with Central Asia through Afghanistan “could be a critical confidence building measure.”

“The idea of linking South and Central Asia recalls the historical roots of regional trade routes. Today our investments in Afghanistan require a framework of regional collaboration for their success.” Though Mr. Krishna mentioned Afghanistan's first ever strategic agreement [signed with India] in passing, his speech focussed more on economic matters.

India, he said, had or was planning substantial investments in Afghanistan. Ingress and evacuation of investments and material was of considerable important to India. [Indian companies are frontrunners in the bid for Hajigak iron ore deposit, said to be the largest untapped mine in this part of the world. Its strategic pact also envisaged joint exploration in minerals and hydrocarbons.]

He drew attention to the greatest lacunae in the West's strategy towards Afghanistan since 2001 – neglect of the role that regional countries could play in bringing stability to Afghanistan — and endorsed the meet's aims and objectives — to bring regional countries on an inclusive platform to address the common challenges facing the region, and working towards cooperative confidence-building measures and solutions.

Setting out India's perspective on security and cooperation, the Minister argued that the international community's vision for this period of transition must take account conditions on the ground and the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces to preserve the independence and the integrity of their nation. “We also need to overcome the deficit in trust through regional cooperation, linked to a larger vision of how our region relates to the world,” he suggested.

Investments in Afghanistan requires a framework of regional collaboration

Bring regional countries on an inclusive platform

devesh wrote:if we are going for Pashtun autonomy then the non-Pashtuns should be allowed to break away from Afghanistan. if Pashtuns keep KP, then Indian presence in the non-Pashtun areas is a necessity to keep some "control" on Pashtuns. this is the only way that we can let them have KP and still keep reminding them to stay away from any adventures...

By Abubakar Siddique

Afghans are putting their anger over Pakistani policies regarding their country on full display.

Protests have been staged by Afghan youths objecting to statements made by Pakistani public figures. And Afghanistan's media and civil society have moved to the forefront to resist perceived efforts by their eastern neighbor to fill the vacuum as the West looks to exit their country.

Combined, they help capture the public mood and uneasiness about Pakistani intentions on their soil, even as the two countries' presidents -- Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai and Pakistan's Asif Ali Zardari -- cite progress in restoring trust, as they did during a face-to-face meeting in Istanbul on November 1.

In the eastern city of Jalalabad, located about 50 kilometers from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, hundreds of youth activists gathered on October 30 to protest recent statements made by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and pro-Taliban Islamist leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

Musharraf, who was ousted from the presidency in 2008 and now lives in exile in London, made his controversial remarks before a think-tank audience in Washington on October 26.

"Afghanistan always has been anti-Pakistan because the Soviet Union and India have very close relations in Afghanistan," he said. "So we must not allow this to continue because then one must not [be]grudge if Pakistan orders the ISI [the country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency] to take countermeasures to protect its own interests."

Promoted Violence

Statements made in Peshawar on October 23 by Rehman, the leader of Pakistan's conservative Jamiat Ulama-e Islam party, came under fire because he promoted violence in Afghanistan by the Afghan Taliban, even as he denounced violence in Pakistan by the Pakistani Taliban.



Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf: "Afghanistan always has been anti-Pakistan."​​For their statements, Musharraf and Rehman were characterized as hypocrites and accused of fanning conflict in Afghanistan and of looking out only for Pakistani interests.

Saifur Rehman Abid, a local leader, received strong backing as he read out a unanimous resolution the gathering adopted during the October 30 gathering.

"The elected federation of the youth and the Nangarhar Youth Shura [council] strongly condemns the latest statements of former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Maulana Fazlur Rehman about Afghanistan," Abid said. "Afghanistan is an independent country and has a right to sign strategic pacts with any country to preserve its national interests."

'Interfering Openly'

The Afghan media have been quick to criticize such comments, as well.

Kandahar-based analyst Mohammad Omar Sathey says opinion makers and tribal leaders now consider Pakistani interference a key factor for instability in their country since the Soviet invasion in 1979.

"Our civil society, intellectuals, and the public knows that Pakistan is interfering openly," Sathey said. "They think that instability and war in Afghanistan is a source of income for Pakistan because it attracts international help in the name of fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It also has convinced the international community that its influence inside Afghanistan is the key to resolving the problem there."

Such perceptions are further strengthened by what Afghans see, hear, and read in the Pakistani media about their country.

Aqeel Yousafzai, a Peshawar-based columnist, says that during the past two decades Pakistani media have created a perception that Kabul needs to toe Islamabad's line. Few Pakistani journalists ever report from Afghanistan, despite the fact that Afghan issues often dominate Pakistani news bulletins.

"Overall, the media's role has remained negative," Yousafzai said. "The print and electronic media, the magazines, and the books published in Pakistan still treat Afghanistan as Pakistan's fifth province. Their coverage creates an impression that Afghanistan needs to follow on whatever Pakistan wants it to do."

Afghan politician and popular TV presenter Daud Sultanzoi says that Afghan perceptions of Pakistan can only change if they see a genuine transformation of Islamabad's outlook about their country.

"Pakistan should accept the fact that Afghanistan is not its puppet state," Sultanzoi said. "Another important prerequisite is that a civilian government in Pakistan controls its strategic direction, including control over its military and intelligence services."

RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan contributed to this report

abhischekcc wrote:>>Iranian economy can be subsumed more easily than you think - thanks to decades of sanctions.

Also, it must be remembered that, in the tribal context, revenge is closely linked with honour. Revenge is publicly taken to restore honour. Honour is personal and tribal. This implies that the person or tribe (sub-tribe, clan or sub-clan) whose honour has been violated must restore it by taking revenge with his/its own hands. No other person, tribe, sub-tribe, clan or sub-clan can take revenge for them to restore their honour. In this tribal context it looks hilariously non-serious to think of other Pakhtun tribesmen or other ethnic groups, such as the Punjabis, Arabs etc taking revenge to restore the honour of the Wazir and Dawar tribes!

The Ahmadzai Wazir, Utmanzai Wazir and Dawar tribesmen and women are overpowered by the ISI-Taliban-al Qaeda trio. The Taliban among these three tribes are the ‘good’ Taliban, the ones who carry out attacks on US and NATO forces in Afghanistan but refrain from committing terrorism in Pakistan. This is precisely the reason — their attacks inside Afghanistan — behind why their area is repeatedly attacked by US drones. The Taliban fighters and commanders from these three tribes are a tiny minority within their own homeland. The majority of the militants in their area are the Punjabis, al Qaeda foreigners and also Pakhtuns from other areas on both sides of the Durand Line, including the Mehsud militants, who were not eliminated by Pakistan in Operation Rah-e-Nijat but simply relocated to the Wazir areas in Waziristan.

Above all, revenge may be imperative in the tribal context but pragmatism is even more imperative. In the tribal context, which is a bottom-up egalitarian culture, the notion of revenge successfully works as a deterrence and is rarely put into practice. The war on terror with so many powerful state and non-state external actors involved is a radically different context in which the idea of revenge has neither deterrence nor practical value in terms of settling scores with perceived enemies. This is precisely the reason why none of the tribal families of over 1,000 tribal leaders, who have been target killed since 2003 due to their anti-Taliban stance, have been involved in violent acts of revenge despite the fact that the families hold the ISI responsible for the killings of relatives and tribal leaders. These families can rightly be called pillars of Pakhtunwali in FATA. If these families have refrained from violent acts of revenge, the ordinary tribesmen are even less likely to commit violence for revenge. This explains why hundreds of thousands of tribesmen have preferred to live and work in degrading conditions during the displacement caused by the Pakistan Army operations rather than joining the Taliban who offer lucrative salaries. The elders of the Kala Khel tribe — in response to the deadly Taliban attack on their school children — requested the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) to take revenge from the Taliban to give them justice. There are countless other examples of this kind in FATA.

The suicide bombings that have struck Pakistan are part and parcel of the strategic calculus of the Pakistani security establishment and the al Qaeda jihadi ideology, which has nothing to do with the tribal culture or sufferings of the tribal people in the war on terror.

...
The Afghan and U.S. governments have already written several drafts of partnership documents during months of negotiations but have not reached an agreement. In recent weeks, U.S. officials have said that the bargaining is far from over and that no agreement is imminent. U.S. military officials strongly defend the use of Special Operations night raids as a key tactic for killing and capturing insurgents.

The United States wants access to military bases in Afghanistan for the decade after 2014 in order to conduct counter-terrorism operations and train Afghan security forces. Afghan officials want the United States to commit to funding Afghan troops and to control how American soldiers operate in the country.

At the end of the gathering, Karzai told the delegates that he approved of their resolution.

“I noticed that Afghanistan’s jirga put before the international community and the United States the logical conditions based on Afghanistan’s interests and traditions and religion,” he said after arriving by helicopter from his palace across town.

Executive Summary

The US is on the thin edge of strategic failure in two wars: the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan/Pakistan. This failure may never reach the point of outright defeat in either country. Iraq may never become hostile, revert to civil war, or come under anything approaching Iranian control. Afghanistan and Pakistan may never become major sanctuaries for terrorist attacks on the US and its allies.

Yet Iraq is already a grand strategic failure. The US went to war for the wrong reasons, let Iraq slide into a half decade of civil war, and failed to build an effective democracy and base for Iraq’s economic development. Its tactical victories – if they last – did little more than put an end to a conflict it help create, and the US failed to establish anything like the strategic partnership it sought.
The US invasion did bring down a remarkably unpleasant dictatorship, but at cost of some eight years of turmoil and conflict, some 5,000 US and allied lives and 35,000 wounded, and over 100,000 Iraqi lives. The Congressional Research Service estimates that the dollar cost of the war to the US alone is over $823 billion through FY2012, and SIGIR estimates that the US and its allies will have spent some $75 billion on aid – much of it with little lasting benefit to Iraq.

The outcome in Afghanistan and Pakistan now seems unlikely to be any better. While any such judgments are subjective, the odds of meaningful strategic success have dropped from roughly even in 2009 to 4:1 to 6:1 against at the end of 2011. It is all very well for senior US officials to discuss ―fight, talk, and build,‖ and for creating a successful transition before the US and ISAF allies withdraw virtually all of their combat troops and make massive cuts in the flow of outside money to Afghanistan. The US, however, has yet to present a credible and detailed plan for transition that shows the US and its allies can achieve some form of stable, strategic outcome in Afghanistan that even approaches the outcome of the Iraq War.

Far too many US actions have begun to look like a cover for an exit strategy from Afghanistan, and the US has never provided a credible set of goals – indeed any goals at all – for the strategic outcome it wants in Pakistan. Unless the US does far more to show it can execute a transition that has lasting strategic benefits in Afghanistan and Pakistan well after 2014, it is all too likely to repeat the tragedy of its withdrawal from Vietnam.

Such a US strategic failure may not mean outright defeat, although this again is possible. It is far from clear that the Taliban and other insurgents will win control of the country, that Afghanistan will plunge into another round of civil war, or that Afghanistan and Pakistan will see the rebirth of Al Qaida or any other major Islamist extremist or terrorist threat.

However, the human and financial costs have far outstripped the probable grand strategic benefits of the war. Given the likely rush to a US and ISAF exit, cuts in donor funding and in-country expenditures, and unwillingness to provide adequate funding after 2014, Afghanistan is likely to have less success than Iraq in building a functioning democracy with control over governance, economic development, and security. Worse, Pakistan is far more strategically important and is drifting towards growing internal violence and many of the aspects of a failed state.


Even if Afghanistan gets enough outside funding to avoid an economic crisis and civil war after US and allied withdrawal, it will remain a weak and divided state dependent on continuing US and outside aid through 2024 and beyond, confining any strategic role to one of open-ended dependence. As for a nuclear-armed Pakistan, it is far more likely to be a disruptive force in Afghanistan than a constructive one, and there is little sign it will become any form of real ally or effectively manage its growing internal problems.
Regardless of which outcome occurs, the result will still be strategic failure in terms of cost-benefits to the US and its allies. The Afghan War has cost the US and its allies over 2,700 dead and well over 18,000 wounded. There are no reliable estimates of total Afghan casualties since 2001, but some estimates put direct deaths at around 18,000 and indirect deaths at another 3,200-20,000. And the war is far from over.

The Congressional Research Service estimates that the dollar cost of the war to the US alone is over $527 billion through FY2012, and SIGAR estimates that the US and its allies will have spent some $73 billion on aid – much of it again with little lasting benefit. Similar cost estimates are lacking for Pakistan, but they have also taken significant casualties and received substantial amounts of US aid.
The key question now is whether the US can minimize the scale of its strategic failure. Can the US move from concepts and rhetoric to working with its allies, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to create a credible transition plan that can secure Congressional and popular support and funding? Can they actually implement such a transition plan with the effectiveness that has been lacking in its efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan to date?

Some form of success (or limited failure) may still be possible, but the analysis in this paper warns that nothing the US government has said to date raises a high probability that this will be the case, and that much of the progress it has reported may be misleading. There are four critical areas wherein any lasting level of success is now unlikely:

Strategic failure? The US has not shown that it can bring about enough of the elements required to create Afghan security and stability in a way that creates more than a marginal possibility that Afghanistan will have a successful transition by 2014, or at any time in the near future. It has never announced any plan that would make this possible. It has no strategic plans or clearly defined goals for Pakistan, although it has far more strategic importance than Afghanistan.

Talk Without Hope: It is far from clear that any major insurgent faction feels it is either losing, or cannot simply outwait, US and allied withdrawal. Nor is it clear that Pakistan will ever seriously attempt to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries within its borders. If insurgents do chose to negotiate it may well be because they feel the US, allied, and GIRoA position is becoming so weak they can use diplomacy as a form of war by other means and speed their victory through deception and by obtaining US, allied, and GIRoA concessions. They have already used similar tactics in Helmand and Pakistan, and Nepal and Cambodia are warnings that ―talk‖ may do little more than cover an exit.

Tactical Success? The very real gains the US and ISAF have made in the south may not be possible to hold if the US move forces east, and the US and ISAF are cutting forces so quickly that it is doubtful they can achieve the goals that ISAF set for 2012. ANSF development is being rushed forward as future resources are being cut, and it is far from clear that the insurgents cannot outwait the US and ISAF and win a war of political attrition without having to win tactical battles in the field. The ISAF focus on significant acts of violence is a questionable approach to assessing both tactical and strategic progress, and ANSF transition has been little more than political symbolism.

Spend Not Build? The latest Department of Defense and SIGAR reports do little to indicate that US and allied efforts to improve the quality of government, the rule of law, representative democracy, and economic development are making anything like the needed level of progress. They are a warning that Afghanistan and the Afghan government may face a massive recession as funding is cut, and the dreams of options like mining income and a ―new Silk road‖ are little more than a triumph of hope over credible expectations. Once again, the very real progress being made in the development of the ANSF is being rushed as future funding is being cut, and it is unclear that current gains will be sustained or that the US has sufficient time left in which to find credible answers to these questions, build Congressional, domestic, and allied support, and then to begin implementing them. It is now entering the 11th year of a war for which it seems to have no clear plans and no clear strategic goals. The new strategy that President Obama outlined in 2009 is now in tatters.

There are no obvious prospects for stable relations with Pakistan or for getting more Pakistani support. The Karzai government barely functions, and new elections must come in 2014 – the year combat forces are supposed to leave. US and allied troop levels are dropping to critical levels. No one knows what presence – if any – would stay after 2014. Progress is taking place in creating an Afghan army, but without a functioning state to defend, the ANSF could fragment. Far less progress is taking place in creating the police and justice system. Massive aid to Afghanistan has produced far too few tangible results, and the Afghan economy is likely to go into a depression in 2014 in the face of massive aid and spending cuts that will cripple both the economy and Afghan forces.

It is time the Obama Administration faced these issues credibly and in depth. The US and its allies need a transition plan for Afghanistan that either provides a credible way to stay – with credible costs and prospects for victory – or an exit plan that reflects at least some regard for nearly 30 million Afghans and our future role in the region. It needs to consider what will happen once the US leaves Afghanistan and what longer term approaches it should take to a steadily more divided and unstable Pakistan.

In the case of the US, this also means a detailed transition plan that spells out exactly how the US plans to phase down its civil and military efforts, what steps it will take to ensure that transition is stable through 2014, and a clear estimate of the probable cost. The US needs a meaningful action plan that Congress, the media, area experts, and the American people can debate and commit themselves to supporting. If President Obama cannot provide such a plan within months, and win the support necessary to implement it, any hope of salvaging lasting success in the war will vanish.

Even if the US does act on such a plan and provide the necessary resources, it may not succeed, and Pakistan may become progressively more unstable regardless of US aid and actions in Afghanistan. Any de facto ―exit strategy‖ will make this future almost inevitable.

The most likely post-2014 outcome in Afghanistan, at this point in time, is not the successful transition to a democratic Afghan government with control of the entire country. Nor is it likely that the Taliban will regain control of large parts of the country. Rather, the most likely outcome is some sort of middle ground where the insurgents control and operate in some areas, while others are controlled by the Pashtun. Some form of the Northern Alliance is likely to appear, and the role of the central government in Kabul would be limited or caught up in civil conflict.

This would not be what some US policymakers call ―Afghan good enough,‖ it would be ―Afghan muddle through.‖ What, exactly such an ―Afghan muddle‖ would look like, and how divided and violent it would be, is impossible to predict. But it is the most likely outcome and the US needs to start now to examine the different options it has for dealing with a post-2014 Afghanistan that is far less stable and self-sufficient than current plans predict, and make real plans for a Pakistan whose government and military cannot move the country forward and contain its rising internal violence. As is the case in Iraq, strategic failure in the Afghanistan/Pakistan War cannot end in a total US exit. The US must be ready to deal with near and long term consequences.

Gameplans for Afghanistan
Pakistan's policies are forcing Mr. Karzai to seek autonomy. But that makes Islamabad more paranoid.

As the Obama administration pushes for an earlier drawdown of U.S. troops, Kabul must quickly take responsibility for maintaining internal stability and charting an independent foreign policy. We asked four analysts—Michael O'Hanlon, Marin Strmecki, Amin Saikal and Nitin Pai—how Kabul should address the challenge.

Don't Turn to India
By Michael O'Hanlon

Afghan President Hamid Karzai went to New Delhi last month and signed a long-term security agreement, making many believe that Kabul can choose India over Pakistan for its key strategic partner in the region. Yet the notion that India can be a substitute for Pakistan is an unwise gamble. If Kabul continues down this road, the most probable outcome would be Islamabad waging a full-blown proxy war.

Pakistan is paranoid about its arch rival gaining a major foothold in Afghanistan. This is its chief motivation for all the trouble its intelligence agencies have caused by supporting the Haqqani network and the Quetta Shura Taliban.

This problem is bad enough as is, but it could grow more severe. In a worst case, as NATO winds down its effort in Afghanistan, Pakistan could seek to stir up even more trouble, with the possibility of civil war and even the partition of Afghanistan becoming much more real. In turn, the country could once again become a terrorist sanctuary.

To be sure, it would be useful if New Delhi and Kabul expanded their economic interactions. However, even as Kabul seeks better ties with New Delhi it must work hard to strengthen relations with Islamabad. Kabul should seek a bargain in which it addresses some of Pakistan's fears in exchange for Islamabad reining in the Haqqani network and the Quetta Shura.

One step Kabul should take is clarifying the nature of military relations with India. In the aftermath of President Karzai's trip to India, where New Delhi and Kabul agreed that India would help train Afghan security forces, Afghanistan could promise Pakistan that such training will occur only under the auspices of NATO's training mission, as long as NATO remains in Afghanistan.

Second, Kabul also could request that India close its consulates in eastern and southern Afghanistan. Islamabad sees these Indian outposts in Jalalabad and Kandahar as intelligence collection sites and covert action staging bases in disguise. Though it's doubtful that the consulates are as threatening as Islamabad thinks, they are not important enough to risk antagonizing Pakistan.

Kabul also should commit to respect the Durand Line that has separated Pakistan and Afghanistan since British times as the effective border indefinitely. Afghans continue to resist accepting this arbitrary line as their boundary. But it makes little sense for small, weak Afghanistan to pick a fight with its big neighbor over where the border should be, especially since what is at stake are remote mountain regions that are hardly the heartland of either country.

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David Gothard
Finally, Kabul should further develop Afghanistan-Pakistan border management discussions, with high-level government participation on both sides. In this forum, Islamabad could also convey its preferences as to who among the Haqqanis or other tribes might be accorded government jobs in Afghanistan's eastern provinces. Islamabad should not get to choose Afghanistan's local leaders, but there is no reason to deprive it of a chance to advocate for certain interests. Afghanistan might do the same in reverse.

None of this will be easy. But for those looking for fruitful peace talks to secure Afghanistan's future, a conversation with Pakistan is a more promising arena for diplomacy than with India, and certainly better than those between Kabul and the Taliban.

Mr. O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

ramana wrote:So Brookings advise is to appease the TSP more. When there is dialog between unequals the lesser party can do nothing except commit suidice to assuage the larger party and will still be bad mouthed. So he needs to get an equalizer or somebody whom the other guy fears.

Pakistan’s rising political star, Imran Khan, attracted tens of thousands to a rally in Lahore last month with a version of this narrative. Stop the drones, and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban, can be engaged in peace talks to end a wave of bombings across Pakistan.

The first problem with the narrative is that it slides over the fact that radicalisation in the tribal areas (and Pakistan as a whole) began long before the U.S. drone campaign. Many ascribe it to Pakistani support for the United States in backing the jihad against the Soviet Union after the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979. I might go further back, perhaps to the 1973 oil boom when a disproportionate number of Pashtun from the tribal areas went to seek work in the Gulf . The results were twofold – the migrant workers were exposed to the Wahhabi puritanical Saudi Arabian tradition of Islam, and the remittances they sent home upset the traditional balance of power in the local economy. I could go back even further, to the origins of the Pakistani state in 1947 and its use of Islam as a unifying force to counter ethnic nationalism, including Pashtun nationalism. In short – it is complicated. Stopping drones may or may not be a moral imperative, depending on your perspective. But let’s not be fooled into thinking that in itself, it will bring peace.

Writer and academic Farhat Taj has taken this argument further by saying that people actually prefer drone strikes to living in fear of the Taliban and their foreign allies. Now I don’t know the truth. I have been to the tribal areas only once, on a one-day army-supervised trip to Bajaur. Incidentally, I was struck by how far the landscape differed from my own Kiplingesque imaginings of “the Frontier”. In Bajaur, I saw agricultural prosperity, neatly laid out fields, and mountains which in relative terms (ie compared to Siachen, the Karakoram and even the barren mountains of Scotland) seemed unexpectedly tame. I gather other parts of FATA are wilder, but that Bajaur trip was a lesson for me in how far my imagination (no doubt heavily influenced by colonial literature) was very different from reality. Many Pakistanis never get a chance to visit FATA at all – and so it remains in the Pakistani heartland as much of an imagined frontier as it was under the Raj.

In the “stop the drones, win the peace argument”, the people of FATA are crucially assumed not to be able to speak for themselves. They are frozen in time in an idealised village life, people who will revert to their ancient traditions as soon as the drones and the Afghan war ends, as though the last 60 years of history never happened. As though not not one of them had ever got on a plane, worked in the Gulf, or migrated to Karachi.

Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Cabinet have awarded iron-ore mining rights to an Indian government-backed alliance and to Canada’s Kilo Goldmines Ltd., a Mines Ministry official said.

Karzai and the Cabinet awarded three of four blocks at Hajigak, Afghanistan’s biggest iron deposit, to a group of seven Indian steel and mining companies, led by state-owned Steel Authority of India Ltd. and NMDC Ltd., said Mines Ministry policy director Abdul Jalil Jumriany.

The group also includes state-owned Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd., and private-sector companies JSW Steel Ltd., Jindal Steel & Power Ltd., Monnet Ispat Ltd. and JSW Ispat Steel Ltd.

The government awarded the fourth block at Hajigak to Kilo Goldmines Ltd., Jumriany said in a phone interview in Kabul. Unsuccessful bidders included India’s Corporate Ispat Alloys Ltd. and Iran’s Gol-e-Gohar Iron Ore Co. and Behin Sanate Diba Co.

Contrary to what Pakistan wants, India cannot abandon its efforts to ensure that Kabul remains friendly to New Delhi after American and Nato troops leave Afghanistan. We cannot allow the Taliban or those backed by Pakistan to occupy the political space in Afghanistan as that would be inimical to India’s interest. But India should calibrate its engagement The signing of a strategic partnership between Afghanistan and India on October 4, is a landmark event. It is a clear signal of India’s wider neighbourhood policy. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has emphasised in a press conference that India will stand by the people of Afghanistan “as they propose to assume responsibility for their security and governance after the withdrawal of international forces in 2014”. The strategic accord between Afghanistan and India did outline areas of common concern including trade, economic expansion, education, security etc. Two other pacts have also been signed between India and Afghanistan. One calls for enhanced cooperation in the exploration and production of oil and gas and the other calls for promoting mineral exploration and investment in Afghan mines. Thus, at a time when the West is distancing itself from Afghanistan, India is trying to help the country in nation-building.As expected, this development has caused fear and unease in Islamabad. Pakistan experiences an existential fear of encirclement by India. Former President Pervez Musharral has dubbed this development as proof that India is seeking to create “an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan”. Increasing Indian influence on Afghanistan on account of this pact may encourage Pakistan to sponsor further terrorist attacks against the Indian targets in Afghanistan.Reports from Kabul indicate that the US and Afghan forces have now launched ‘Operation Knife-edge’ against the Haqqani outfit in Northern Waziristan. Washington wants Pakistan to destroy the Haqqani network or allow Nato troops to do so. So far, General Kayani has not agreed to play ball and launch operations against the militants in North Waziristan. US drones are targetting the Haqqani militants in Northern Waziristan and some of their leaders have been killed. But these drone attacks have not been very successful because Pakistan does not share actionable intelligence regarding the Haqqanis with the Americans. It is unlikely that American troops will go inside Pakistan in pursuit of the Haqqanis. This will trigger a confrontation that America will like to avoid at present.India cannot totally withdraw from Afghanistan when American forces draw down their kinetic operation, leave the field open for the Taliban and allow Afghanistan to become a centre of terrorist-training and operations to be directed against India. There are strategists who feel that, if necessary, India should put its own troops on the ground to prevent a hostile Talibani takeover. But, the dispatch of troops will raise hackles from many quarters, and it will require a robust national consensus.

On my most recent trip to Afghanistan I found improvement. The Afghan army is growing and will be better by 2014. Insurgent expansion into the north has been contained. District and provincial government positions are being filled. Despite periodic high-profile attacks, the Taliban was unable to disrupt a recent three-day gathering of more than 2,000 Afghan notables in Kabul. If time and money were unlimited, this progress would be reassuring. But they are not.The alternative is to begin going directly after the sanctuaries — not all at once but slowly, with increasing missile and air attacks. The aim would be to degrade them, put militants on the run, disrupt the serenity of leaders who send their forces into battle while they remain safe, and make clear that Pakistan cannot safely retain the insurgent card for later use. We should press Pakistan to aid the effort while expecting an angry initial reaction. Truck convoys would get burned; the Afghan border would be closed, at least temporarily , as it is now. We would have to prepare to answer such measures with even more attacks, including hitting the sanctuaries in Baluchistan (despite Pakistan’s vehement objections) to show our resolve. Islamabad might ban the flights that bring our munitions to Afghanistan. One answer would be to fly anyway with fighter escorts.
This policy would be highly dangerous. Pakistan’s military will not bend easily. Its support for Afghan militants is as deeply embedded as the conviction that only such allies can prevent Afghanistan from becoming an existential threat. To control tension with Pakistan we would need attacks in the border areas over time — not a one-time strike or ground invasion and certainly not hitting Pakistani troops — and do it while maintaining economic assistance and other help to Pakistan. Both confrontation and assistance have to be maintained, with care on which is emphasized at any particular moment. The quiet message to the Pakistani military would be: It’s your choice — you can stay in power and we’ll help you, but if the sanctuaries aren’t brought under control we’re going to hit them harder, even if that causes you pain.This policy would not solve the poor governance in Afghanistan, a separate, critical issue that we will not get to if we lose on the battlefield. And this approach could leave Afghanistan and Pakistan in turmoil. It is not an approach I advocated when I was in Afghanistan — when our time horizons seemed longer — or one I would choose now if Washington had the will to remain engaged. But would its risks be worse than losing after 10 years of war, being faced down by a small, vicious group of insurgents allied to al-Qaeda and watching the whole area in chaos for years? Top military and civilian officials in Afghanistan say the option is to defeat sanctuaries and succeed, or ignore them and lose. Our choices are that stark

SABARI, Afghanistan — As targeted killings have risen sharply across Afghanistan, American and Afghan officials believe that many are the work of counterintelligence units of the Haqqani militant network and Al Qaeda, charged with killing suspected informants and terrorizing the populace on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Military intelligence officials say that the units essentially act as death squads and that one of them, a large group known as the Khurasan that operates primarily in Pakistan’s tribal areas, has been responsible for at least 250 assassinations and public executions. Another group, whose name is not known, works mainly in Afghanistan and may be responsible for at least 20 killings in Khost Province over the summer alone, including a mass beheading that came to light only after a video was found in the possession of a captured insurgent. The video shows 10 headless bodies evenly spaced along a paved road, while their heads sit nearby in a semicircle, their faces clearly visible. One chilling case attributed to the second death squad came after American forces captured the senior Afghanistan-based leader for the Haqqanis, Hajji Mali Khan, and killed his top deputy this summer. Just days later, the bodies of two men accused of helping the Americans turned up near the village where Mr. Khan was captured. Scalding iron rods had been shoved through their legs. One victim had been disemboweled, and both had been shot through the head and crushed by boulders. Fear shot through the entire village

ManuT wrote:

johneeG wrote:My take on strategic depth, do correct me where I am wrong:
A strong and formidable Astan is a huge threat to pakistan. The stability and integrity of pakistan is challenged by Astan. Astan could easily lay claims to representing the pashtuns and thereby laying claims to the lands that they are in settled within pak.

This could open a can of worms for the idea of pakistan.

Also, the generals of pak may want to keep the exit door open, so that they can save their skin when things get too hot.

Strategic depth in Astan is not an offensive strategy.

WRT 'Strategic depth' of TSP.
Its aim it is to gain an advantage in terms of space in a war with India.
The Durrand line issue is secondary in this.

The framework for this has existed in the Taliban regime 1.0 which was recognised by Pakistan and KSA and UAE (on the persuasion of Pakistan).

Examples of it in action:
1. In proxy war in Kashmir in 90s as foreign fighters.
2. The hijacking of the IA flight 814 which landed in Kandahar in Dec 1999. The behaviour the Taliban regime 1.0, in the negotiations between GOI and the hijackers, acting on the instructions from Pakistan.

Today I would say it, has three components:
1. Afghanistan to be a sanctuary to which the TSP forces would retreat to after it losses in the conventional war India.
2. The Afghans thrown as cannon fodder against India.
3. A certain part of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal moved to Afghanistan as second strike capability.

Afghans do not get a say in all this. In return, they are to be eternally dependent on TSP with a in a bear hug of 'Islamic brotherhood'.

TSP current objective in Afghanistan to ensure this: A Taliban Regime 2.0.

Days after the Pakistanis closed their borders to the passage of fuel and supplies for the NATO-led war effort in Afghanistan, for very different reasons the Russians threatened to close the alternative Russia-controlled Northern Distribution Network (NDN). The dual threats are significant even if they don’t materialize. If both routes are cut, supplying Western forces operating in Afghanistan becomes impossible. Simply raising the possibility of cutting supply lines forces NATO and the United States to recalculate their position in Afghanistan.