Pakistan's strategic interests, Afghanistan and the fluctuating U.S. strategy.

• Author: Hasnat, Syed Farooq
• Position: Report

Contrary to some optimistic estimates and expectations, Afghanistan and the adjoining tribal areas of Pakistan still present a serious strategic challenge for U.S. policymakers. Even after more than eight years, the United States--along with NATO forces--has not been able to eradicate terrorists in the region. The Taliban resilience in defying foreign forces is intact. The Al Qaeda leadership and its infrastructure are believed to be in place, albeit curtailed and damaged. The Taliban are still receiving arms from various sources and are not short on finances. At the same time, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government is seen as inept, corrupt and dysfunctional. The second Afghan presidential election held in August of 2009 was counterproductive to establishing national unity, despite being urgently needed to repair a fragmented Afghanistan.

Although much was expected from the Afghan election, it did not live up to the hopes of the world community. The election failed to transform Afghanistan from a tribal society into a modern democratic state. In the previous election of 2004, it was predicted that elected officials would bring stability and cohesion to the fragmented country. An experiment in enforced democracy, it was accompanied by the increased detachment of the nation's largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns. The central authority in Kabul exercised little writ over the provinces, and most of the tribes in the southeastern region of the country remained independent of any administrative control. In the social sphere, the Afghan people saw little improvement in the education and health sectors. Vital elements of a modern state, such as political parties, struggled to establish themselves. To make matters worse, the influence of corrupt warlords remained dominant in every sphere of life. Hopes for building a new Afghanistan were effectively shattered. (1)

Afghanistan received considerable foreign aid to build new institutions, solidify existing ones and improve the quality of life of its people. In the last eight years, Afghanistan received around $38 billion dollars from the United States alone. This massive amount of aid was provided to facilitate an exit strategy for U.S. forces by stabilizing the regime. Under this logic, aid was meant to reorient local support away from the Taliban and toward the Americans. This, however, has not had the desired effect, as the Taliban have only grown in number. (2)

President Karzai applied all means at his disposal, including employing the services of various warlords, to win the 2009 elections. He appointed Muhammad Qasim Fahim, a warlord with a criminal record including human rights violations, as his running mate. This choice came in spite of the displeasure of U.S. President Obama's administration as well as opposition from European states and the United Nations. As one Afghan-based observer wrote, "People will tend to vote for the local strongman who has daily power over their lives. This is hardly surprising in a country more familiar with the Kalashnikov than the ballot box." (3)

Karzai, desperate to gain support from various ethnic groups, allowed Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum to return from seven months of exile in Turkey. Dostum enjoyed considerable support among another Turkic population, the Turkmens. To make matters worse, he was given back his previous status of chief of staff of the Afghan army. The Uzbek general has been accused by various independent sources in and outside Afghanistan of the torture and brutal murders of thousands of prisoners of war in 2001. The British Daily Telegraph has described him as "one of Afghanistan's most brutal leaders from the 1990s civil war onwards," noting that "he is notorious for disciplining a thieving soldier by running him over in a tank and faced allegations--which he denies--that his forces oversaw the suffocation of up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners packed into steel shipping containers in 2001." (4) It is generally believed that, in spite of pressure from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to keep Dostum away, he was allowed to return as "part of a backroom deal with President Karzai." (5) Karzai's plans to win the election at any cost put at risk his credibility and legitimacy as president. Such tactics signify that the Afghan presidential election was won not on the basis of public support, but rather through the influence of warlords.

Inducting the over-represented ethnic minorities and their notorious leaders into the Karzai government could start a violent ethnic reaction, splitting the country along the fault lines of ethnic divide. If so, it will gravely endanger the already delicate security landscape of Afghanistan. The Taliban could further gain Pashtun support, having an adverse effect on the military goals of the NATO and American forces. This ethnic-related support could also have a negative spillover effect across the border areas of Pakistan.

Despite the Karzai administration's weakness, the Obama administration still supports him as Afghan president. Although he has been unable to win the support of his entire ethnic community, he is still a Pashtun, and thereby likely to maintain support from Afghanistan's largest ethnic group. Abdullah Abdullah, his main opponent in the August elections, is not expected to rally the much required Pashtun support, especially in the southeast region of the country. By publicly providing support for Abdullah, Americans and Europeans may risk ruining any future chance of opening a dialogue with the "moderate" Taliban. The Taliban come primarily from Pashtun tribes, whose cooperation is a pre-condition for achieving stability in the war-torn country. A Washington Post editorial states that, "Unless the fraud can be reversed or repaired through a UN-backed complaints commission or a runoff vote, Mr. Karzai may emerge as a crippled winner, his already weak and corruption-plagued administration facing further discredit or even violent protests." (6)

While all Taliban may be considered Pashtuns, not all Pashtuns are Taliban. On the Pakistani side of the border, the Pashtuns are in the mainstream of society in terms of politics, the economy and shared cultural sentiments. Pakistani Pashtuns are generally considered to be more educated, sophisticated and politicized than their counterparts in Afghanistan. That is also true when it comes to the art of entrepreneurship. Pakistani Pashtuns are part of a society whose development ranges from agrarian to high-technology sectors (a small portion is tribal but with increasing linkages to advanced sectors), while the Afghan Pashtun society is purely tribal, where warlords operate freely and administer vicious control with great force and brutality. During Taliban rule in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, the Pakistani tribesmen living in the border region had little or no political strategic contact with the regime in Kabul. During this time, the Taliban placed little focus on the Pakistani tribes. Instead, the supreme Taliban leader Mullah Omar and his commanders aligned themselves with the military establishment of Pakistan, especially the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), whose agents came from various ethnic backgrounds. The Afghan Taliban were closer to their Saudi Arabian allies than their fellow ethnic tribes of Pakistani Pashtuns who lived just across the border. The emergence of a Pakistani Taliban came much later as a reaction to various military assaults in the tribal areas. The linkage between the Pakistani Taliban and the war-hardened Afghan Pashtuns has remained disjointed, irregular and delicate.

Given these differences between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the neologism of AfPak irritates every section and shade of the Pakistani society. These resentments are further reinforced by the rapid change in the U.S. perception of Afghanistan's security...