Crunch time comes in Afghanistan

Crunch time comes in Afghanistan
M.K. Bhadrakumar
http://www.hindu. com/2008/ 07/05/stories/ 2008070553951000 .htm

Even an intrepid traveller will fail to realise the half-hour on the
crowded highway leaving Peshawar, by when he is already in the
Khyber Pass. The winding road stretches ahead for another 50 km
until he reaches the summit at Landi Kotal, just inside Pakistan,
after a lifetime journey through mountains and canyons of such
staggering beauty that he loses track of time and space. And then a
breathtaking decline commences, depositing him summarily at the
border town of Torkham. The Khyber Pass simply envelops you with its
charm.

The Khyber Agency has always presented in history and politics an
intriguing turf of the great game. Indeed, the dispatches in the
western media from the Khyber in the recent days proclaim one thing
insistently: it is unfair to say Pakistan isn't fighting the "war on
terror," and with such a committed ally on its side, there is no
need for the NATO to bypass Islamabad and deal directly with the
tribes.

The Khyber operation will help to blunt the United States and NATO
criticism — for the time being, at least — that the Pakistan
military easing pressure on the militants in the tribal areas in the
recent weeks gave them more space to operate within Afghanistan. It
has given high publicity to the operation. Influential western
journalists have been taken to the frontline. But does the Khyber
operation make a difference?

It must be seen for what it is — a thoughtful public relations
exercise. Khyber's brooding mountains come out with stunning effect
on western television screens. During the Afghan jihad in the 1980s,
ambitious American politicians almost invariably visited Peshawar
for a "photo opportunity" in the Khyber in the company of handsome
Afghan mujahideen.

In fact, the Pakistani military was not involved in last week's
operation before the expected arrival of U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State Richard Boucher in Islamabad. The paramilitary Frontier Corps
under the control of the North West Frontier Province government was
in charge. A day into the operation, Major General Alam Khattak,
head of the Frontier Corps, told Kathy Gannon of the Associated
Press on the Afghan beat: "We have occupied, captured all important
heights, and we have taken control of the area."

If so, it was a historic feat. Ms Gannon promptly wrote: "The
offensive in the Khyber tribal region marked the first major
military action Pakistan's newly elected government has taken
against the militants operating in the tribal areas along the border
with Afghanistan. The government had said it preferred to try to
defuse tension with the groups through negotiations, but with
threats by Islamic militants to the city of Peshawar growing in
recent weeks, the military decided to take action. Khyber is also a
key route for moving U.S. military supplies into neighbouring
Afghanistan. "

But the "success" of the operation proves nothing — neither the
Frontier Corps' professionalism nor the future of militant activity.
There was no fighting; there were no casualties; there was no
capture of irreconcilable militants. Nothing changed hands. If
anything, Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud turned more
rowdyish, warning that he would "turn into furnace" Sindh and
Punjab. Baloney, of course. The mystery of Mr. Mehsud deepens.

Meanwhile, the war rolls on inside Afghanistan. It has become much
more serious. For a second successive month, more U.S. and NATO
troops were killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq. In June, the number
touched 44 in Afghanistan compared to 30 in Iraq. But statistics can
never tell the whole story. At any rate, scores of Afghans are also
getting killed on any single day in the rain of American bombs. The
war is becoming indescribably mean. Britain's Ministry of Defence
admitted to the London Times the use of the controversial
thermobaric weapon, Hellfire AGM-114N. When fired from Apache attack
helicopters or predator drone aircraft, the missile sucks the air
out of the Taliban's chest, shreds his internal organs and crushes
his body. He cannot take shelter, as the blast creates a human-
crushing vacuum with a second explosion. He instantly disintegrates.

Britain's MoD spokesman in London said: "We call it an enhanced
blast weapon." But the unfortunate part is the weapon — also known
as vacuum bomb — cannot identify a Taliban fighter. At the end of
the day, no wonder, the Taliban's "area of influence … is constantly
growing," to quote Zamir Kabulov, Russia's veteran Afghan specialist
who is serving as ambassador in Kabul. He believes that the Taliban
has influence in "more than half of Afghanistan' s territory and
controls up to 20 per cent of that area."

A Pentagon study, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability
in Afghanistan, which was released in Washington DC last week, also
depicted a "fragile" security environment in Afghanistan. The report
anticipated that the "Taliban will also probably attempt to increase
its presence in the west and north." No doubt, the Taliban has
infiltrated the Afghan security organs. An inquiry into the abortive
attempt to assassinate President Hamid Karzai in Kabul in April as
he sat on a podium with foreign dignitaries revealed that at least
six Afghans blamed for the attack were government functionaries,
including an army general.

Curiously, the Pentagon study did not identify threats emanating
from the Pakistan-Afghanista n border region as a primary security
challenge facing the U.S. troops. Instead, it cited a weak Afghan
government, a non-functioning economy, narcotics production and
corruption as the main challenges. It admitted that the Taliban
had "coalesced into a resilient insurgency," and would
likely "increase the scope and pace" of its activities. The study
saw the possibility of "two distinct insurgencies" appearing — the
Taliban-led insurgency in the south and a "more complex, adaptive
insurgency" in the east by several groups — with mutual cooperation
and coordination.

But the NATO member-countries resist Washington's exhortations to
step up their troop commitments. The U.S. military does not have the
manpower to cover the shortfall. In a presentation recently,
chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen
said: "The simple math is that I can't put any more forces in
Afghanistan until I come down in Iraq." He said the U.S. troops
were "pressed very hard" from multiple deployments to both Iraq and
Afghanistan and keeping up the present operational tempo would
be "impossible. " At the same time, Adm. Mullen pointed out that
Afghanistan was "at the heart of NATO right now. And I believe that
whether NATO is relevant in the future is tied directly to a
positive outcome in Afghanistan. "

Clearly, the crunch time is coming in Afghanistan. Added to the
crises there — ranging from corruption and misgovernance to the drug
problem — and growing alienation of the people due to the
increasingly barbarous military tactic adopted by the coalition
forces, plus the inability of the NATO to step up troop presence,
there is the inchoate factor, what the outgoing NATO commander in
Afghanistan, General Dan K. McNeill, called the "dysfunctional"
political situation in Pakistan.

Diverse power centres

The reality is that whereas Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani
military took all decisions previously, diverse power centres have
since emerged and there are fundamental differences over the
insurgency. Across the board — both civilian and military — there is
reluctance to use the military for counterinsurgency operations.
Army chief Ashfaq Kayani appears to be sensitive to the sentiment in
the barracks, which is one of guilt about fighting the Taliban. Thus
the NATO and U.S. attempts to shift the locus of the war to the
Afghan-Pakistan border and the Pakistani tribal areas are meeting
with resistance.

But the problem is also over the U.S.'s war strategy. To quote Mr.
Kabulov, "There is no mistake made by the Soviet Union that was not
repeated [by the U.S.] … Underestimation of the Afghan nation, the
belief that we have superiority over the Afghans and that they are
inferior and that they cannot be trusted to run the affairs … A lack
of knowledge of the social and ethnic structure of this country; a
lack of sufficient understanding of traditions and religion." As he
put it, NATO soldiers and officers "communicate with them [Afghans]
from the barrels of guns in their bullet-proof Humvees." Mr. Kabulov
admitted that he couldn't help having some satisfaction that those
who once backed the mujahideen were now suffering in the same way
the Soviet troops suffered.

Managing the Afghan war is not going to be easy for the U.S. The
window of opportunity in 2001 was to go in with an overpowering
force, annihilate the Taliban and get out quickly. Instead,
Washington placated Pakistan by allowing the Taliban to escape,
settle down in the Hindu Kush and create a surrogate regime that
would serve its regional strategies. Now, the Taliban is back —
"refit, retrained, and rearmed," as the former CIA officer, Michael
Scheuer, wrote. A winless situation is developing where the choice
is between an interminable conflict — oscillating between killing
and conciliation — and retreat in shame and agony. Either way, the
path seems to be leading to a humiliating defeat.

(The writer is a former ambassador belonging to the Indian Foreign
Service.)