There is a quip attributed to historian Bernard Lewis that the problem with being friends with the United States is that you never know when it will shoot itself in the foot. The trouble for the US is that two central players of the war in Afghanistan know variations of the theme very well. History in mind, Pakistan is deeply apprehensive of the long-term American commitment in Afghanistan. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda, whom the US is dead set to finish off, know that it just takes staying power for them to make their enemy shoot itself in the foot and leave Afghanistan for good.
As a suicide bomber attacked the Indian embassy in Kabul last on October 8, killing at least 17 people in a second attack on the building in little over a year, the Taliban have sent a clear message. Afghan cities are no longer strangers to Taliban suicide bombings, and the point that they can strike anywhere in Afghanistan at will is by now well-taken. Implicit in the attacks on Indian interests are two messages ? as much as the US/Nato military presence, the Taliban resent India?s growing influence in Afghanistan, too; and they seek to halt all reconstruction efforts that might shore up the Western-backed President Hamid Karzai government?s already deeply discredited standing among the Afghan people.?
It?s not as if the Taliban are enjoying a free ride. Almost every time the Taliban fight a ground battle, they lose to overwhelming firepower. However, such Western victories make no strategic sense. After they have taken a heavy toll, all lost ground is for the Taliban to regain as the US/Nato forces leave the area for another mission elsewhere. The cities, where Western troop presence is the heaviest, are hit by frequent suicide and roadside bombings. Western supply lines are also similarly disrupted. Plus, there is palpable insecurity in vast tracts of this intractable country where Western troops are absent and where the Taliban flourish. The political boost the insurgents get from all these is clearer to see, and it beats hollow the ?can-do? philosophy of their adversaries and demoralise them.
Curtailing India?s influence in Afghanistan might serve the Taliban?s and Pakistan?s sense of realpolitik. Outside of coalition troops under the US command they are fighting, the Taliban detest India for its deep commitment to reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. And nowhere do Pakistan?s and the Afghan Taliban?s interests converge than on scaling back India?s clout in the country. Pakistan?s military establishment doesn?t explicitly put it that way, of course. But that is the necessary implication of its time-worn claim that India is actively pursuing a policy of encirclement in Afghanistan, using it also as a springboard to foment insurgencies in Balochistan and Sindh.?
Within Pakistan, fighting the Taliban insurgency and Al-Qaeda sanctuaries in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of the country, on the one hand, and the escalating Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, on the other, is popularly seen as an American cause, not Pakistan?s. Officially, Pakistan?s government knows which side of its bread is buttered on and supports US President Barack Obama?s Afghanistan-Pakistan, or AfPak, strategy. But, as the Obama administration tries a hardsell of its plan to Pakistan, by and large, the country?s public, political class and the military have rebuffed the idea, deflecting attention to India?s growing presence in Afghanistan ? the building of roads, construction of power transmission lines and the opening since 2001 of two consulates in two cities close to Pakistan ? as the real menace. ?You can?t alter geography. Once day you would pack up and leave, leaving us in the lurch on the eastern and western sides of our border,? goes the grouse conveyed by Pakistani officials to their American counterparts behind-the-scenes. They know the potential of this bogey and take full advantage of it.
The danger for India is two-fold. Rather than Pakistan being encircled by India, in reality, it?s the other way round. If reports appearing in the American media are to be believed, Pakistan?s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate has sanctioned the latest embassy bombing, as last year?s. Also, the Lashkar-i-Tayyaba?s terror infrastructure in Pakistan is alive and well, and the group is planning another 26/11-style attack on India. The ISI?s help to extremists goes beyond information sharing and cooperation is planned ?in a fairly disciplined way?, reports say. The second issue is the growing American ambivalence about India?s role in Afghanistan. Does this provoke ?countermeasures? from Pakistan and ?exacerbate? regional tensions, as the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, described in his strategic review presented to President Obama? Or, does it ?largely benefit the Afghan people,? as the general himself said in the review? India has to make sure that its reconstruction work in Afghanistan is not reduced to a wild-goose chase.
Just as he contemplates his next moves on the Afghan front, President Obama should ask himself some fundamental questions: will pouring in more troops and more money do anything other than fan the flames? Is the Nato-led force capable of clearing a space for political accommodation with ?moderate? Taliban? Can it realistically disabuse Pakistan of its illusions of ?strategic depth? in Afghanistan and its obsession with maintaining the state of perpetual war-preparedness with India? If the answer to these is no, there is a crying need to review the whole intervention. What actually matters is whether this intervention can achieve its aims. President Obama was inaugurated to office with loftiest rhetoric, which has won him a Nobel Peace Prize also. In the US, where political support for Afghanistan is fast shrinking, the war is increasingly called ?Obama?s war?.
The problem for the President is, often the Vietnam-era dreaded word ?quagmire? is heard in the same breath.
rajiv.jayaram@expressindia.com