More chaos to India's west
Business Line
G. Parthasarathy / August 19, 2010
Faced with mounting casualties, the US is under pressure to reduce its involvement in Afghanistan. Its reliance on Pakistan to take on the jihadi groups has backfired. The chaos in the region is not without implications for India
The US, battling economic problems at home, is learning to face up to the reality of an emerging multi-polar world. The Obama Administration's grandiose plans to fashion a new world order based on a virtual Sino-American Condominium lie in tatters, with a militarily assertive China challenging US maritime power in the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea, while threatening the use of force to enforce maritime claims on such neighbours as Vietnam, Japan and the Philippines.
In fact, given the prevailing climate, it is believed that the ruling Democrats could suffer reverses in the Congressional elections scheduled for November this year, notwithstanding initiatives such as healthcare and financial sector reforms.
MESS IN AFGHANISTAN
President Obama's real challenge is to steer through the minefield that is Afghanistan. A vociferous section of the public is now demanding a speedy withdrawal from Afghanistan, amidst rising casualties in the US' longest war on foreign soil.
As many as 1,221 American soldiers have been killed in operations in Afghanistan since 2001. Casualties have climbed steeply in recent years, from double digits till 2005, to 521 soldiers killed in 2009 and 423 soldiers already killed in the first seven months of this year.
The costs of the war in Afghanistan are also steadily escalating. The Appropriations Committee of the US Congress approved a Supplementary Budget of $33 billion for the current financial year, for the additional 30,000 US troops recently deployed in Afghanistan. This exceeds the annual budget for India's entire armed forces!
The US spends an estimated $84 billion annually for its military presence in Afghanistan, at a time when its budget deficit is rising.
ASSISTANCE TO PAKISTAN
Apart from US spending in Afghanistan, the American taxpayer has shelled out $18 billion since 2001 in military and economic assistance to Pakistan, a country designated as a “major non-NATO ally”.
Of this, military assistance approved for Pakistan was around $13 billion. The bulk of this money has gone towards purchasing Chinese military equipment such as fighter aircraft, tanks and frigates, apart from American F-16 fighters, air to air missiles and naval equipment — all of little use or relevance for fighting the jihadis operating from within Pakistan.
The “Wikileaks” revelations are only the tip of an iceberg, on how Pakistan has milked, misled and double-crossed the US, using American naiveté and gullibility to secure military assistance, even as the ISI continues to arm, train, equip and harbour Taliban and other terrorists, who kill US soldiers in Afghanistan.
The US strategy of looking up to Gen Kayani and his cohorts in the vain hope that they can be sweet-talked into giving up support for and instead taking on — jihadi groups, including the Taliban, is destined to fail. These groups have, after all, been nurtured by the ISI. All this leaves President Obama with a major dilemma. Growing American casualties in Afghanistan as a result of counter-insurgency operations will cast a shadow on his re-election in 2012. But cutting losses and running from Afghanistan will invite ridicule, both domestically and internationally.
The only way out is perhaps to move towards visible reduction of US forces in Afghanistan, while disengaging from active counter-insurgency operations, particularly in Southern Afghanistan, by November 2012.
It does, however, appear that the Americans will retain a reduced troop presence and air power in Afghanistan beyond 2012 to back up and train an ill-equipped, poorly motivated and inadequately trained Afghan National Army.
EMERGING POSSIBILITIES
India has to be prepared for a situation where ISI-backed Taliban groups will gain increasing control over Southern Afghanistan. How will this play out in the rest of Afghanistan, a country where around 56 per cent of the population is made up of non-Pashtuns who would find any return to Taliban rule unacceptable?
The Afghanistan President, Mr Hamid Karzai, has recently, under Pakistani pressure, sidelined the two most influential non-Pashtun officials in his government — Intelligence Chief, Mr Amrullah Saleh and Army Chief, Gen Bismillah Khan. Criticising President Karzai's efforts at “reconciliation” with the Taliban through the good offices of the ISI, Mr Saleh asserted: “The ISI is part of the landscape of destruction in this country. So it will be a waste of time to provide evidence of ISI involvement. They are part of it.”
If the Taliban, with ISI backing, establishes a strong presence in Southern Afghanistan, non-Pashtun ethnic groups, such as the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Shia Hazaras, will seek a loosening of ties with a weakened central authority in Kabul, reverting to the situation that prevailed in the mid-1990s. Influential Americans suggest that non-Pashtuns also be armed, while their leaders are demanding regional autonomy.
Should the US, however, reduce its dependence on Pakistan as its troop levels fall, its ability to deal with safe havens across the Durand Line will be enhanced. This will necessarily require the US to seek closer cooperation with the Russians and Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbours. As Pakistani scholar, Mr Ahmed Rashid, once observed, the stage appears set for a “descent into chaos,” in our western neighbourhood.
(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)
