Berlin Mandate: With Obama out to lunch, some members of Congress come up with their own plan for Afghanistan

Jumpin' Jehosaphat, gentlemen, couldn't you have come up with an easier plan? Like trying to impeach Obama or raising Patton from the dead?

March 3, Washington, DC, al Jazeera:

Over the last few months, a small faction of congressmen, minority Afghan groups, Baloch nationalists, and their supporters have laid out the framework for an alternative US policy approach for Southwest Asia. This alternative policy centres on backing remnants of the Northern Alliance and Baloch insurgents, who seek to carve out semi-autonomous territories or independent states from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

While supporters of this new approach are motivated by a variety of interests, they appear unified in their rejection of what they see as three cornerstones of the Obama administration's current regional policy approach:

1) Normalising relations with Pakistan's government and military;
2) Incorporating the Taliban into the current Afghan political system;
3) Overly accommodating an emerging Iran.

In one broad stroke, this new approach would attempt to advance US national interests by redrawing the political borders of Southwest Asia - contrary to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of three existing states.
[...]

Regarding the summary of Obama's current policy -- true, true, all true, but that's one whale of a complex plan the congressmen have in mind. Granted, if their actions prompted Obama and the U.S. military command to feel their way to the concept of war that could redeem the American people, and boy do we need redeeming. I mean, how many people in history have paid another military to murder their own troops? Come to think of it, that would be all the people who pay for the NATO enterprise in Afghanistan and who saw their soldiers killed by proxies for Pakistan's military.

Speaking of Pakistan's military, they're already a few steps ahead of the congressmen. They got Hamid Karzai to agree to shut down Baloch nationalist training camps in Afghanistan; the Afghan Minister announced that just this past Sunday.

Not only that, the Pakistani military has launched a charm offensive to head off international outcries about ethnic cleansing in Balochistan. One result, according to the report I link to above, is that Balochistan's Chief Minister has suddenly discovered that only 800 activists are missing, not the 6,000 they'd originally estimated.

And looking through the al Jazeera report, written by Eddie Walsh, "a senior foreign correspondent who covers Africa and Asia-Pacific" who also serves as a nonresident fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS, I see that the congressmen think they can outfox Pakistan's military by depriving them of "strategic depth" in Afghanistan. They're a little behind the times. Why, just the other day the Dragon Lady aka Pakistan's Foreign Minister cooed that it was time for Pakistan to get over its "strategic depth hangover." Not only that:

Hina Rabbani Khar has said she hopes for a relationship with Afghanistan based on trust and called for leaving behind the past associated with interference in that country and support for Taliban.

Yes indeed; Pakistan's military is launching charm offensives on all fronts. Even on the Indian front.

And while I don't like playing wet blanket, there are a few problems with the congressmen's plan as described by Mr Walsh. One problem, from geologic maps I've seen, is that Afghanistan's fabulous but largely untapped natural resources are not exclusive to the region the congressman see as becoming independent; the resources, different types, are distributed throughout the country.

The bigger problem is that balkanizing Afghanistan won't stop international terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba from continuing their expansion in areas in Afghanistan not controlled by a 'Northern Alliance.' Nor will it prevent the Arabization or to be more precise Saudification of such areas.

Another problem is found in the congressmen themselves, or at least in Dana Rohrabacher's terming of criticism about one part of the plan as, "a bunch of leftist garbage from liberal professors," as Walsh reported. If they're going to get past square one with their plan the congressmen need all the friends they can get, so go light on the insults. I think there are plenty of genuine liberals here and abroad and right next door in Canada who would support the basic plan -- and there could be many more supporters by the time liberals absorb this news from Afghanistan, datelined yesterday:

Afghan clerics' guidelines 'a green light for Talibanisation'
By Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul
The Guardian

Edicts released by Hamid Karzai issue repressive rules for women who, they declare, are subordinate to men

Women are subordinate to men, should not mix in work or education and must always have a male guardian when they travel, according to new guidelines from Afghanistan's top clerics which critics say are dangerously reminiscent of the Taliban era.

The edicts appeared in a statement that also encouraged insurgents to join peace talks, fuelling fears that efforts to negotiate an end to a decade of war, now gathering pace after years of false starts and dead ends, will come at a high cost to women.

"There is a link with what is happening all over the country with peace talks and the restrictions they want to put on women's rights," said Afghan MP Fawzia Koofi, who warned that the new rules were a "green light for Talibanisation".

The points agreed at a regular meeting of the Ulema Council of top clerics are not legally binding. But the statement detailing them was published by the president's office with no further comment, a move that has been taken as a tacit seal of approval.

"Ultimately, I don't see a way you can read it as not coming from (Hamid) Karzai," said Heather Barr, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch. "It's probably not an extreme position for the Ulema Council, but it's an extreme position for Karzai, and not compatible with the constitution, or Afghanistan's obligations under international law."

The clerics renounced the equality of men and women enshrined in the Afghan constitution, suggesting they consider the document that forms the basis of the Afghan state to be flawed from a religious perspective.

"Men are fundamental and women are secondary," the statement says, according to a translation by Afghan analyst Ahmad Shuja. "Also, lineage is derived from the man. Therefore, the use of words and expressions that contradict the sacred verses must be strictly avoided."

The statement drew criticism in parliament, where some politicians took it as a direct assault on the constitution and the wider government. If a ban on men and women working and studying together were implemented, it would in effect dissolve the legislature.

"The statement is against the constitution, against human rights and against women's rights," said Ahmad Shah Behzad, a member of parliament from western Herat province, who warned that Karzai risked being in dereliction of his duty to protect the constitution.

The clerics also appeared to condone violence against women in some circumstances.[...]

So. The plight of Afghanistan's more fair-minded citizens is a big-tent situation; it attracts interest from all parts of the Western political spectrum.

I see a few additional problems with the plan, but for now I'll return to Eddie Walsh's report:

[...] While its advocates clearly do not yet have broad support for their initiative, the campaign for an alternative Southwest Asian policy approach is maturing and garnering increased attention in Congress and beyond, especially as a result of three recent high-profile events: a Balochistan National Front strategy session in Berlin, a US congressional hearing on Balochistan, and the introduction of a Baloch self-determination bill before the US Congress.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree, it's nevertheless critical to understand how this alternative policy approach framework has evolved over the past few months.

The 'Berlin Mandate' as a loose framework

In early January, a bipartisan congressional delegation, led by Representative Dana Rohrabacher (Republican-California), held a "strategy session" in Berlin with Afghan opposition leaders, including the country's former intelligence chief. The meeting addressed constitutional reforms that would make Afghanistan a federal system.

Meeting participants argued that vesting political and economic power in the provinces, instead of centralising power in Kabul, would protect the US' Northern Alliance allies from retribution at the hands of Pashtuns once the Taliban is fully reincorporated into the Afghan political system.

By advancing these policies, the attendees portrayed the Taliban's incorporation into Afghanistan's political system as a greater risk than the threat posed to Afghanistan's territorial integrity by their alternative - which would risk the partition of "Afghanistan between the minority-dominated north and the Pashtun south". This clearly runs counter to the the interests of Hamid Karzai's government.

A few weeks later, Representative Louie Gohmert (Republican-Texas), a Berlin meeting attendee, added fuel to the fire by arguing in a video interview that the US should not just push for a new political system in Afghanistan but go further by rearming the Northern Alliance.

In the same breath, Gohmert provided one of the first definitive links between support for the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and Baloch nationalists in Pakistan: "Let's talk about creating a Balochistan in the southern part of Pakistan. They'll stop the IEDs and all of the weaponry coming into Afghanistan, and we got a shot to win over there."

With these remarks, the two pillars of an alternative Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) policy approach were now set: To advance its interests, the US should support the carving out of an independent Baloch state and semi-autonomous Afghan territories - even if it undermined existing US partnerships with the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In early February, Rohrabacher convened a public congressional hearing on Balochistan. While human rights violations in Pakistan's Balochistan province were discussed (per the agenda), the hearing also provided a forum to start a larger (and arguably off-topic) national dialogue on the viability of Southwest Asia's state borders.

As a result of the hearing, witnesses - including Ralph Peters and M Hossein Bor - were able to argue that the dismemberment of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan would serve the United States' long-term strategic interests. But, even more importantly, the hearing allowed the witnesses to inject their views into the larger debate on US foreign policy in Southwest Asia. This included Bor's controversial assertion (which was later censored in Pakistan) that supporting an independent Balochistan stretching from "the Strait of Hormuz to Karachi" would be a better policy approach than ongoing US efforts to counter the Iranian and Pakistani regimes.

Rohrabacher, Gohmert, and Representative Steve King (Republican-Iowa) followed up the hearing by introducing a new bill in Congress stating that the Baloch nation has a historic right to self-determination. With this action, the congressmen went from "familiarising themselves" with Balochistan to calling for Congress to recognise the Baloch nation's right to sovereign independence in roughly a week.

In many ways, this brought the "Berlin Mandate" full circle. In less than two months, a small group of congressmen, minority Afghan groups, Baloch nationalists, and their supporters had gone from voicing displeasure with the current Obama Administration's Af-Pak policy approach to advancing a revolutionary alternative policy approach that called for supporting the minority interests of the Northern Alliance and Baloch against the sovereign interests of Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan.

Reflecting upon this effort a few days after the bill was introduced, Rohrabacher confided to me in an on-the-record interview:

"There is a natural extension from the Berlin meeting with the Northern Alliance to the Balochistan bill. I have always stood for self-determination, but there are certain things that activate me to start pushing more on that philosophy. Clearly, the whole issue of the Taliban being reintegrated in Afghanistan and Pakistan, providing safe haven to terrorists like Bin Laden, are major factors.

"There is also my support for immediately withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. To do so, we need to have a major policy dialogue on what our policy is in Southwest Asia, how we properly transition out of Afghanistan, and what will be our ongoing relationship with Pakistan. Balochistan is clearly part of that debate."

Cross-linking with other congressional causes

While the introduction of the Baloch self-determination bill marks an important milestone for their cause, it is important to point out that there has been an equally big change in how "Berlin Mandate" supporters have advocated their cause. Over the last month, these supporters - particularly Baloch nationalists in the US diaspora - have increasingly sought to extend their cause beyond US foreign policy in the Af-Pak region. They appear to recognise the need to latch onto larger foreign policy issues as part of their efforts to garner mainstream support for their cause. Four of the most important include:

I. Punishing Pakistan for supporting terrorism and nuclear proliferation

Rohrabacher, Gohmert, and other key supporters of the alternative policy approach for Southwest Asia have been unabashed in overtly linking the need for policy alternatives to Pakistan's "betrayal of America's trust". It is even alleged that the Balochistan hearing was called specifically to "stick it to the Pakistanis" for their arrest of a reported key informant in the bin Laden operation. Even after widespread criticism for his past remarks against Pakistan, Rohrabacher does not shy away from his criticism: "Quite frankly, the Pakistani military and leaders that give safe haven to the mass murderer of Americans should not expect to be treated with respect."

Such rhetoric almost certainly will find a receptive audience in Congress - even among the many members who have never heard of Balochistan or know little about the Northern Alliance's struggles over the last year. For this reason, Peters pointed out to me recently as part of a yet unpublished post-hearing interview that the current high levels of anti-Pakistani sentiment in Congress probably provide the best opportunity that the Baloch may see to advance their cause.

II. Containing a rising China and an emerging Iran, and preventing Pakistan from achieving strategic depth

According to supporters, an independent Balochistan, "extending from Karachi to the Strait of Hormuz", would help to contain a rising China and an emerging Iran, provide a long-term security guarantee against China, Iran, and Pakistan emerging as maritime powers, and undermine the strengthening of strategic relationships between these three potential adversaries.

In an interview after the congressional hearing, Bor made this case:

"There are many interrelated issues at play. When one discusses Balochistan, you are discussing a way to contain China. You are also discussing economic relationships between Iran and Pakistan If (the Chinese) build their port in Gwadar, they will have a land route from Western China to the Indian Ocean.

This is of strategic interest to the United States because Chinese ships would have a direct route to China and no longer have to transit past the Indian and American navies. It therefore is logical that Balochistan should be concerned as part of the larger shift to the Pacific announced by the Obama Administration. (Separately,) Iran is an empire and they are using Baloch lands to try to become the dominant regional player. The Iranians are using the Strait of Hormuz as a choke-point for a huge percentage of the world's oil. They also are building a pipeline to Pakistan which violates UN sanctions. Such growing Iran-Pakistan cooperation is a major concern."

Other supporters have advanced similar arguments with respect to Afghan minority groups against the Pashtun-dominated central government. They assert that support for the autonomy or independence of the Northern Alliance serves as an insurance policy against Pakistan's military achieving strategic depth once the Taliban is fully integrated into Afghanistan's political system.

III. Providing the West with an opportunity to profit from Southwest Asia's natural resources

Recognising "the tremendous deposits of oil, gas, and minerals" found within or made accessible through the Baloch and Northern Alliance territories, some supporters have argued that the West should advance the "Berlin Mandate" if for no other reason than self-serving economic interests.

They have asserted that an independent Balochistan and autonomous Northern Alliance territories would provide Western companies with valuable new economic opportunities, which could help offset the costs of two failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and spur economic growth following the global economic downturn. They have also said that the West should do so to prevent potential strategic adversaries, including China, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia, from profiting off the natural resources of Central and Southwest Asia at their expense.

While Rohrabacher has called this "a bunch of leftist garbage from liberal professors", it must be said that his committee purposely selected a witness whose expertise lies in forging such partnerships in the Middle East region and who remains a vocal advocate for their consideration in the context of an independent Balochistan. Baloch nationalists clearly have started to reach out more aggressively to Western commercial interests on these grounds in recent months as well.

IV. Preventing gross human rights violations and providing post-colonial nations their right to self-determination

While members of Congress have long condemned the Taliban and the Pakistani government for human rights violations, supporters - particularly Baloch nationalists - have used novel approaches in recent months to win over members of Congress. They have increasingly restrained themselves from leading with the genocide argument. Recognising that this argument has failed to win over Congress in the past, they have instead turned to a more complex argument: that the Baloch, like the South Sudanese and numerous minority groups in the former Yugoslavia, have won their right to self-determination because Pakistan and Iran have failed to provide basic human rights protections. Pakistan and Iran have, they argue, thereby forgone their sovereignty over Baloch territories - regardless of historical precedent.

While few in Congress will support their cause on these grounds alone, Baloch nationalists acknowledge the moral power of the argument for members of Congress who may be seeking to justify their support for an oppressed group on other grounds. This argument could become a powerful advocacy tool for Baloch and Afghan minority interest supporters, especially when reaching out to congressmen serving on other minority group interest caucuses with their own claims to self-determination.

Afghan War: all eyes on the secret cable

Secret U.S. cable warned about Pakistani havens. That information about the cable was leaked suggests a bare-knuckle brawl underway in Washington ....

[...] The cable, which was described by several officials familiar with its contents, could be used as ammunition by senior military officials who favor more aggressive action by the United States against the Haqqani havens in Pakistan. It also could buttress calls from senior military officials for a more gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan as the 2014 deadline for ending combat operations approaches.

These military officials have maintained for months that the strategy of targeting raids against Taliban leadership and building local Afghan governance is showing impressive results. But they warn that worsening conditions in Pakistan and the ability of insurgent groups to find haven there necessitates a larger American force than many in the Obama administration are advocating.
[...]

Reductio ad absurdum

"Pundita, [Re February 10 Pundita post, Amrullah Saleh on Afghanistan's neglected majority] please explain what majority [Amrullah] refers to, in terms other than a poll. I'm not an A'stan vet, I'm an Iraq vet, but I don't see any government or country worth mentioning. My counsel is GTFO ['Get the fuck out']; if we must return it is as Jackson not Wilson. Do I have it wrong?
B Doran"

B Doran:
I'm not clear on exactly what you mean by your question about Afghanistan's majority. So this might not be the kind of answer you're looking for, but for the record:

You don't have to take the word of pollsters to be assured that the majority of Afghans don't want Taliban to have a say in running the country. All you need do is note that the majority of Afghans insist that Pakistan controls the Afghan Taliban, and stack this against the persistent efforts of NATO and Pakistan's military to discredit the widely held belief. I can't recall offhand whether NATO spokesmen have ever specifically referred to the belief as 'paranoid' but they've consistently and clearly implied that's the case, as has Pakistan's military.

"The Afghans see us behind every rock," said one Pak brass -- or maybe he said "every tree," but the point is that Afghans do see Pakistanis behind every rock and tree. So whether or not these sightings are imaginary, the majority of Afghans believe that Pakistan has been using the Afghan Taliban to wreak mayhem on their country with the aim of controlling it.

Ergo, the majority of Afghans, to include the Afghan Pashtun, don't want the Taliban to have a say, if for no other reason than the belief that Afghan Taliban are Rawalpindi's puppets. NATO and its various member regimes should remember that, the next time they argue that most Pashtuns sympathize with the Taliban.

They should recall the same point whenever they field the argument that NATO can't win the war in Afghanistan because historically Afghans have never stop fighting foreign occupiers in their country. I'm not sure this view of Afghanistan's history is entirely correct. But following the logic of the argument, we're left to conclude that Afghans will never stop fighting Pakistan's occupation of their country, real or imagined as the case may be.

I think I completely understand the second part of your question, which I'll answer in the next post. I'll sign off by posing you a question. If Pakistan does indeed occupy Afghanistan via Taliban proxies, then who are the true insurgents?

American Raj

MICHAEL WRIGHT: You wrote in one of your recent essays that Americans shouldn't try to help Pakistan, that they're the wrong people to try and help, and that Indians are the only people who could really help because they're family. You know that nobody in Washington is going to listen to your advice. So is there any insight you could give Americans on how to do the least harm in their relations with Pakistan? I know you've given lots of insights and recommendations over the years but if you could get across only one thing what would it be?

PUNDITA: Try and look at things on the Indian subcontinent from the top down, from the viewpoint of the rulers, during the British Raj at the height of its power. From that view, the Indians weren't living in subjugation to a foreign power, a colonialist power, they were an integral reason for the success of the British Raj -- they were the Raj, co-ruling with the British a vast swath of humanity. They sat at the right hand of the most powerful ruler on earth, in a manner of speaking, and that's how they saw themselves.

The British sought their help and advice, and in tribute to the Indian rulers they built and maintained roads, railroads, postal and telegraph systems, flood management systems, and many other infrastructure modernizations and improvements.

Then the unthinkable happened; it all came to an abrupt end. The British could no longer afford to keep up appearances on the subcontinent. They could no longer afford to maintain the infrastructures they built.

Then came Independence. The rulers who stayed on the Indian side, even though soon stripped of the legal power to rule, were better able for a variety of reasons to adjust to the death of the British Raj than the rulers who were on the Pakistan side at the time of Partition.

It's very hard to convey even to today's young generation of Indians, let alone Americans, how traumatic the situation was because Indians tend to focus on the trauma and horror of Partition -- and as with Americans, Indians are steeped in the harshly critical postcolonial views of the subcontinent's rulers, which are mixed with views on democracy and a rejection of monarchism. But the Pakistani rulers had assumed the British Raj would go on forever and that their special relationship with the British would also go on. Then it was all swept away.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: You once mentioned the flooded ballroom in Cameron's Titanic when you were trying to get across what it was like, with all those bodies in evening finery floating in the ocean waters.

PUNDITA: It was the best analogy I could think of at the time. But the point for Americans is that a big part of the special relationship was that the British paid what the Indian rulers considered tribute, in exchange for help from the rulers, and that the tribute included maintaining the subcontinent's infrastructure systems. That's the way things were done, that's the way they were always done. That was the way of the world.

If left to their own devices, as the Indians were after Independence, the Pakistani rulers might have gotten away from the idea of tribute and adjusted to the fact that nobody was going maintain their nation's infrastructures unless they did it.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: I get it; then along came the American Raj.

PUNDITA: Yup. The British maharaja was dead, long live the American maharaja.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: But the American Raj didn't perform to expectations.

PUNDITA: Yes and no. The great difference was that instead of wanting to rule over a vast swath of humanity the American Raj wanted to beat the Soviets. So the Pakistani rulers adjusted the kind of help they gave to this new raj. The trouble was that American aims meant that tribute -- what the Pakistani rulers considered tribute -- flowed more and more to Pakistan's military, which gave the military more and more power. This left the country's traditional rulers, who were soon demoted to the status of feudal landlords by the thinking of the West, in an increasingly desperate position.

And who was going to maintain the infrastructures built by the British Raj? Who was going to finance the building of new infrastructure systems while the rulers were busy with their traditional role of getting a decent day's work out of people who oversaw the laborers and settling the endless disputes that arose between them?

Then, just when it seemed the world was going to end -- drumroll, please.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: [laughing] Along came the World Bank.

PUNDITA: Yup. The Bank was already in existence by then but along came its International Development Association and the accounting practices that for some bizarre reason, from the viewpoint of Pakistan's rulers, the Americans considered corrupt. What corruption? It was simply the modern way for the American Raj to keep up tribute payments.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: [laughing] So much for development philosophy.

PUNDITA: Heck, the Pakistanis practically invented development philosophy. But Americans and Pakistanis had two very different interpretations of what development meant. Americans looked at development as a stepwise process toward modernization: we loan you the money to develop, then you build on that development and progress to more and more development, until voilà! you reach self sufficiency.

From the Pakistani view, the view of the rulers, the point of development was toward closer and closer relations with the American Raj with commensurate increases in tributes.

Fast forward to the present era, which sees Washington tearing its hair out over all the development aid and loans that the West poured into the bottomless hole of Pakistan, and asking what the Pakistanis did with all that money. Everywhere Washington looks, it sees infrastructures built more than a century ago by the British, and left to fall into disrepair.

There's the Pakistani flood management crisis, the water crisis -- which is largely a water management crisis -- education crisis, energy crisis, roads and bridges crises, and on and on.

Whose fault is that? The fault of the American Raj for not keeping things in better repair.

A secondary problem with this attitude is that it trickled down in the society, so people who don't earn any kind of tribute still have the sense of entitlement that goes with earning it.

When Pakistan's mango growers wanted a larger share of the global market, they expected someone else, the Americans it turned out, to build them modern facilities for processing the mangos and giving them training in getting the mangos ready for markets that wanted cleaner mangos.

It's like that with everything. If you want us to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps you make the bootstraps, put us in them, then pull. That attitude drives the Chinese up a wall, I might add.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: The really crazy part is that while we were pouring aid into underdeveloped countries, our own infrastructures fell into despair.

PUNDITA: The American Raj turned out to ignore its flanks as much as the British did theirs. But so much of the aid and loans got misused in Pakistan because it actually was a form of tribute. Americans were buying help in fighting the Soviets so if the aid money and IDA loans weren't used correctly, well, there was always more where that came from.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: That view wasn't limited to dealing with Pakistan. But to put it in one sentence, what Washington needs to know is that what it considers to be aid, Pakistani's ruling class still thinks of as tribute.

PUNDITA: I don't like putting things in one sentence but that's close enough, except I'd say that they prefer to think of it as tribute. They're not primitives, Michael. They know the way the modern world works.

But the end of the British Raj was relatively abrupt and so traumatic for Pakistan's leaders that another analogy is an amputation made on the battlefield. The legs are there one minute and then they're gone. Even under the best of conditions, where the person has had some time to adjust to the idea of amputation, there can be the 'ghost limb' phenomenon, where the amputee still thinks he can feel the lost limb.

In the same manner, a way of life was unceremoniously uprooted and with it a sense of order that the American Raj was not able to restore. This sense that 'something is missing but should still be there' percolates down through all levels of the society.

For a time the Pakistani military was able to backfill some of the lost order but at a very high price -- a debilitating cold war with India that exploded into hot war a few times with humiliating defeats. And a brutally enforced military rule that further eroded the sense of order. Neither could Pakistan's place in the world as an Islamic state restore the sense of order.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: Because the sense of order isn't rooted in Islam.

PUNDITA: Right. The Muslims who conquered parts of India took on the traditions they found on the subcontinent, where rulers were seen as living gods and expected in act in that manner.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: Do you think it would help if Pakistanis confronted more about their eras of kings?

PUNDITA: Well in many ways they've never stopped thinking of their kings. But by the mid-twentieth century the democracy advocates, socialists and anti-colonialist philosophers had demonized those eras. In doing so, they stripped away the pride that the peoples of the subcontinent should have about being part of those eras. It's like the British, who've spent the modern era beating themselves up about their colonial rules, whereas in fact there's much to be proud of about those.

You can't demonize or reject a big part of your past without incurring a big psychological cost. So, yes, at some point in the future it might be a help if they confronted the fact that the British Raj was a pretty glorious affair and that they were a big part of that. Seen from up close, the raj had an awful aspect, a very cruel one, but so did all other rules. It was just the way things were.

But you see I don't like to use the word 'help' anymore within earshot of Washington. There are times to attempt to be helpful and times to pull back, and this is one of those times when Washington needs to pull back.

If Washington wants to help, help itself. Going back my entire lifetime, it's misread one situation after another around the globe because it was always blind to how a monarchist past influences many crises.

I understand why the blindness exists. But if you want a better informed foreign policy and even defense policy, you've got to set aside your theories and try to overcome your blind spots, so you can see the way things are and how they were.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: It was never really about the money, was it?

PUNDITA: In British India? Of course not. Many of the subcontinent's rulers were fabulously wealthy. It was about what the tributes meant.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: An acknowledgment from the lord of the modern era, in that time, that the rulers had tremendous importance.

PUNDITA: An important place in that era. And, they thought, an important place in this era with the American Raj.

Recently State had to inform Pakistan that it couldn't have a Most Favored Nation trade agreement with the United States because those were only for major economies. The Pakistanis knew that, but still they wanted special treatment. And yet Pakistan's leaders had been talking for months about putting their relationship with the USA on a purely transactional basis.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: Old attitudes die hard. Maybe more of Pakistan's ruling class should read Gone with the Wind. But as long as they keep spawning terrorism we can't leave them alone to work out their present.

PUNDITA: With all due respect, that is the typical view of the enabler.

NATO's Superduper Top Secret You Mustn't Read This leaked report: "ISI supporting Afghan Taliban" or what NATO and waterbugs have in common

Once I was chasing a waterbug around the house to kill it when it made an executive decision to hide instead of run.

"You do realize I can see you, you nitwit," I said peevishly.

It didn't realize; it thought that because it could no longer see me, I couldn't see the back of its body sticking out from the hiding place.

I couldn't bring myself to kill a creature that meant me no harm and couldn't comprehend that its attempts at subterfuge were completely transparent.

So, in the manner of the samurai who sheathed his sword and walked away when the thief he'd cornered spat in his face, I lowered the swatter then made enough noise to scare the waterbug into running again. The chase resumed until the waterbug lucked into a cranny big enough to hide its entire body from my eyes.

At least as far back as 2005, when the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan became evident, the British government has wanted a 'political' settlement with them, and other NATO nations that haven't wanted to confront Pakistan's regime have wanted the same settlement. And hang the facts that most Afghans hate the Taliban and don't want any settlement that puts Pakistan and its Taliban proxies in control of their country. The following report, which has set off another predictable cascade of denials from Pakistan's regime, is best understood with those facts in mind:

Pakistan helping Afghan Taliban - Nato
February 1, 2012

"The Taliban are not Islam. The Taliban are Islamabad."

The Taliban in Afghanistan are being directly assisted by Pakistani security services, according to a secret Nato report seen by the BBC.

The leaked report, derived from thousands of interrogations, claims the Taliban remain defiant and have wide support among the Afghan people.
[...]
The report alleges that Pakistan knows the locations of senior Taliban leaders.

"We have long been concerned about ties between elements of the ISI [Pakistan's intelligence service] and some extremist networks," said US Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby, adding that the US Defence Department had not yet seen the report.
[...]
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says the report - on the state of the Taliban - fully exposes for the first time the relationship between the ISI and the Taliban.

The report is based on material from 27,000 interrogations with more than 4,000 captured Taliban, al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters and civilians.

The report notes: "Pakistan's manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly".

It also says that Pakistan is aware of the locations of senior Taliban leaders.

"Senior Taliban representatives, such as Nasiruddin Haqqani, maintain residences in the immediate vicinity of ISI headquarters in Islamabad," it said.

It quotes a senior al-Qaeda detainee as saying: "Pakistan knows everything. They control everything. I can't [expletive] on a tree in Kunar without them knowing. The Taliban are not Islam. The Taliban are Islamabad."

Pakistan is finding it harder to convince outsiders it is not helping the Afghan Taliban and giving safe haven to its leaders.

In effect, the accusation is that Pakistan is betting on the insurgents being the strongest power in Afghanistan and most likely ally once Nato leaves - something Islamabad of course strenuously denies.

The leak of this report comes at a particularly sensitive time. Pakistan is already blocking the supply route to coalition forces in Afghanistan, following a Nato attack in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed.

With increasing pressure being heaped on Pakistan, public support here for formally ending co-operation with the West simply grows.

Our correspondent says the report seems to suggest that the Taliban feel trapped by ISI control and fear they will never escape its influence.

However, it states: "As this document is derived directly from insurgents it should be considered informational and not necessarily analytical."

Adm Mike Mullen, former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has explained Pakistan's closeness to the Afghan Taliban by pointing to infiltration of its army by the religious right, but he also says it is part of a grand strategy to increase leverage in the region via "proxies".

Despite Nato's strategy to secure the country with Afghan forces, the secret document details widespread collaboration between the insurgents and Afghan police and military.

Lt Col Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan, said the document was "a classified internal document that is not meant to be released to the public".

"It is a matter of policy that documents that are classified are not discussed under any circumstances," he said.

The report also depicts the depth of continuing support among the Afghan population for the Taliban, our correspondent says.

It paints a picture of al-Qaeda's influence diminishing but the Taliban's influence increasing, he adds.

Taliban influence

In a damning conclusion, the document says that in the last year there has been unprecedented interest, even from members of the Afghan government, in joining the Taliban cause.

It adds: "Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over the Afghan government, usually as a result of government corruption."

The report has evidence that the Taliban are purposely hastening Nato's withdrawal by deliberately reducing their attacks in some areas and then initiating a comprehensive hearts-and-minds campaign.

It says that in areas where Isaf has withdrawn, Taliban influence has increased, often with little or no resistance from government security forces. And in many cases, with the active help of the Afghan police and army.

When foreign soldiers leave, Afghan security forces are expected to take control.
The report says that surrender is far from their collective mindset.

"For the moment, they believe that continuing the fight and expanding Taliban governance are their only viable courses of action," it adds.

According to the report, rifles, pistols and heavy weapons have been sold by Afghan security forces in bazaars in Pakistan.

The report adds that Taliban members "do not receive salaries or other financial incentives for their work", but their operations are funded by the narcotics trade and they frequently take a cut from the trade.

Their main revenue, though, is from donations, and they travel around the country from door to door making no secret of their affliation, it says.

Yo, State: how do you explain this?

China wins first Afghan oil extraction contract. Oh but that's right I forgot: you were so busy helping Pakistan scare up American investors to mine Thar coal after China pulled out of the deal that you didn't have time to negotiate with that bunch of losers in Kabul's ministry of mines and precious metals, or whatever it's called.

Speaking of Thar coal, if you want to start the week with a belly laugh read Fouad Khan's beautifully researched and written analysis for the (Pakistan) Express Tribune, Chasing a pipe dream: three reasons why Thar coal will not save Pakistan. Just a little preview:

The fixed carbon content of Thar coal is less than 22%. The low carbon content translates into low energy generation capacity, which means that if energy is invested into transporting the lignite from source to point of consumption, the net energy output of the mining, extraction, transportation and conversion process becomes less than zero; you end up investing more energy making energy out of coal than you get out of it in terms of megawatts. In order to get any energy out of lignite, it has to be converted into electricity almost entirely onsite; where it is being mined. Which brings us to the first reason why Thar coal will not save Pakistan.

There isn’t enough water
[...]

Gee I hope the Thar-Pak folks don't read the Express Tribune if their intention is actually to help Pakistan; I think that's the name of the American coal-mining consortium that was thrown together.

Where was I? China snapping up contracts in Afghanistan that should have gone to the USA seeing how Americans are spilling so much of their blood there and all.

I know; it's not State's fault. It's never State's fault because it was born under an unlucky star. When you're wrong there's a President in office who follows your advice. When you're right it so happens there's a President who won't listen to a word you say. And then there are presidents, such as Obama, with a built-in homing device: if State is right that means he doesn't listen; if it's wrong he loves the advice.

But has it ever occurred to State that Foggy Bottom might be built on top of a Native Indian burial ground? I'm serious; maybe the problem is not in the stars. It could be ghosts. In that case State doesn't need a bigger budget; it needs a shaman or two. Have them do a blessing ceremony to pacify any angry spirits hanging out in the halls. Or State could always solve the problem by relocating its headquarters to somewhere else. Like Brussels.

All right, all right, Pundita; somebody get the hook because I could on like this for the rest of week.

Urgent advice for State: Warn Obama to stop pushing the envelope (UPDATED 2X)

UPDATE 2:05 PM ET January 29
Adding two important news reports to the footnotes, both of which I'd misplaced at the time I published this post and just found.

Footnote #1: Egypt faces hurdles in securing IMF aid, January 25, Reuters. Although the January 25 report doesn't contain the news about the billion dollar-'bridge' loan that I'd mentioned in the text, it presents key observations that were dropped from the updated January 26 Reuters report I'd originally linked to.

Footnote #8: Pakistan stoking anti-Indian sentiments to divert attention from the heat at home, January 26, Times of India. At first glance this report doesn't differ markedly from the one in The Hindu about the LeT 'resurgence' in Pakistan but it brings out points which underscore the seriousness of the development, and not only for India. LeT is one of the world's most dangerous international terrorist organizations; that Pakistan's military let its leader out of his cage at home at this juncture is almost beyond belief. Almost.
******************
I was sitting on the patio one morning six years ago, enjoying the quiet and early Spring weather, when I heard the most godawful sound. I'd barely blurted, "What the --?" when I learned the sound was a squirrel's idea of a battle cry issuing from maybe 200 squirrel throats. All the squirrels in the neighborhood, it seemed, had banded together to run off a large rat and the chase was taking them through my back yard. I never saw or heard anything like it my life. And let me tell you that rat was burning rubber. Never saw a rat run so fast.

I told this story not to insult any government but to graphically illustrate that when sufficiently provoked and desperate, even the weakest governments can set the mighty United States back on its heels. Once this gets underway it can snowball into a trend.

With all such situations it's perceptions of American actions that count, or to be more precise the perceived pattern of actions. During the past year the perceived pattern is that President Barack Obama is throwing his weight around the world, everywhere he can.

I understand that Obama can cite reasons for each instance in which he's crashed national borders in pursuit of the bad guys. Yet the perception is that Obama has gotten hold of two very efficient lethal weapons -- U.S. Special Forces teams and armed drones -- and is deploying them anywhere in the world he sees fit.

But even President George W. Bush and his most aggressive predecessors in the Cold War managed to meddle in ways that didn't make it look as if the entire planet was suddenly under surprise attack from the United States. They knew when to back off -- and they were operating in a communications era when their every move in a foreign country wasn't broadcast around the world.

Times have changed. It's the piling-on phenomenon that's leading people to these perceptions Okay, so you wanted to shoot rockets at al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan's badlands. Okay, so you had to support Sarkozy's war against Gaddafi. Okay, so you had shoot rockets at al Qaeda in Yemen. Okay, so you had to take out Osama bin Laden when you found him. Okay, so you had to rescue an American citizen who was kidnapped by common criminals.

But all of these "okay" situations are piled on top of Obama expressing public support for Egypt's democracy activists and as much telling Mubarak to decamp. And piled on top of meddling in spectacular fashion in Pakistan's internal affairs. And starting a cold war with Iran's regime not to mention starting a cold war with Syria's regime.

All this within the space of a year.

I don't need to tell State that the juntas in Pakistan and Egypt are in absolutely desperate straits. They are both staring at the imminent prospect of a complete economic collapse in their countries. And the fear is that raising loans amounting to a billion dollars from the World Bank and African Development Bank until the IMF can (if it chooses) to bail them out might not be enough to stave off economic collapse in Egypt. (1)

Nor should I need to tell State that both juntas have broad and deep support in their respective countries, if for no other reason than the large number of civilians the businesses owned by the juntas employ.

So a reasonable person would assume that last month, after Egypt's junta gave a clear warning to the Obama administration to back off in Egypt, State would have immediately yanked the Democratic and Republican party NGOs that were operating in Egypt. I mean -- how much more of a warning do you need, when a security force raids the NGOs and confiscates their computers while the junta accuses the NGOs of being fronts for the American government and meddling in Egypt's internal affairs? (2)

But no, the NGOs continued to operate in Egypt -- all for a good cause, of course -- after State pulled their irons out of the fire in December. Now we learn as of yesterday some Americans working for the NGOs have been barred from leaving Egypt. This is a prelude to arrest warrants being issued -- or at least that's the implied threat of the action to prevent the Americans (and some Europeans who work for othe ngos from leaving Egypt. (2)

Obama is understandably furious about the situation but he could have seen this coming even before Mubarak left office. And now Egypt's generals believe they have no other choice but to find a scapegoat for the country's economic crisis. The Obama administration's ill-conceived attempt to bring more democracy to Egypt, which is using a very small number of Egyptians, has handed the junta the perfect goat.

Now I turn to Pakistan. The country is not only facing economic collapse but it's also in the throes of the worst fuel crisis in its history. (3) So why has the Obama administration decided that this is the perfect time to turn the heat up on Iran by trying to get Pakistan's regime to abandon the gas pipeline Iran is building for them, and sign up to get gas from the TAPI pipeline? (4)(5)

Is the answer that chipmunks are managing the Pakistan portfolio for the Obama administration? I ask this also because this is the same question they're asking in Afghanistan. I mean -- our war office and State couldn't even keep track of containers being transshipped through Pakistan, many of those containers containing desperately needed food supplies for Afghans.

Why "desperate?" Because the Obama administration and Congress haven't wanted the Afghan government to use an Iranian route for shipping food to Afghanistan and because the Northern Distribution Network, where it's the middle of winter anyway, is full up with shipping war supplies for NATO. So they've had a food shortage in Afghanistan, which has driven food prices, even for food basics, through the roof.

But how can you lose track of almost 160,000 shipping containers? The containers have disappeared in Pakistan. Gone! Poof! (6)

And not to put too fine a point on it but the U.S. command can't even win a war against a bunch of guys in baggy pants who take their orders from Rawalpindi. What's been the Obama strategy to deal with this situation? Play patty-cake with the Emir of Qatar and increase meddling in Pakistan. (7)

What has the answer been from Pakistan's junta? They've let Lashkar-e-Taiba out of its cage in Pakistan. (8) Do I have to draw stick figures to explain to State what that implies?

For starters, the junta is saying to forget Doha; the Obama administration can negotiate a truce with Mullah Omar all it wants, and it won't mean squat to LeT, which just might take the prize as the world's most dangerous international terrorist organization. (9) The larger implication is that the junta is signaling Obama that if he's worried about international terrorists taking over Pakistan's nuke weapons, the worry is misplaced because the junta will simply hand them a nuke if they get any angrier at him.

I understand that little blame for the entire mess I've described above can be laid at State's door. But someone has to take responsibility for conveying the facts of life to President Obama and State has to be the designated fool in this instance.

In summary, this is one of those times it's crucial for the American government to practice message discipline across the board. Sometimes you can have it all, but if you try to have it all at the same time, you sow the impression that you're crazy. That's a fast way to replace respect with fear. When people become afraid that you're both crazy and hogging their turf, they act in the same way a bunch of Washington squirrels did one fine morning.

1) January 26, Egypt says to seek extra $1 billion to support budget; Reuters

Egypt said on Thursday it would ask the World Bank for a $500 million loan and another $500 million loan from the African Development Bank to help it fill a budget gap widened by a year of political and economic turmoil.

Egypt has also persuaded the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce the interest rate it would charge on $3.2 billion loan Cairo had requested from the IMF, Planning and International Cooperation Minister Faiza Abu el-Naga told reporters.

"We have achieved a reduction from the IMF on the interest rate on the loan from 1.5 to 1.1 percent," she said, adding that this would put the cost of the finance more in line with interest rates worldwide.

The turmoil in Egypt has pushed up unemployment, widened its budget and balance of payments deficits and drained its foreign reserves. Many economists believe a currency devaluation is imminent.

Egypt announced earlier this month it had formally asked the IMF for an aid package, saying it wanted the money as soon as possible and hoped an agreement would be signed within weeks.

The IMF, however, says any agreement would have to be accompanied by financial commitments from other international donors and attract broad political support within the country.

Thrashing out the technical details of a loan will take two to three months, it said.

The World Bank and African Development Bank loans would carry an interest rate of between 7 and 8 percent, Abu el-Naga said. Egypt would request a mission from the World Bank come to Egypt soon, she added, without giving details or a date.The central bank, trying to keep the Egyptian pound stable against the dollar, has run through $9 billion of its foreign reserves since June, when the government rejected an IMF agreement similar to the one it is now seeking.

The depletion accelerated before the parliamentary election and during a series of violent political protests in November and December, with the central bank spending at least $2 billion in each of the last three months. By the end of December, reserves had fallen to $18 billion.

January 25, Egypt faces hurdles in securing IMF aid; Patrick Werr, Reuters

2) January 27, 2012: Egypt Bans Travel for 10 U.S. Citizens; Ben Hubbard, Associated Press via TIME online

CAIRO) — Egypt banned at least 10 Americans and Europeans from leaving the country, including the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood, hiking tensions with Washington over a campaign by Egypt's military against groups promoting democracy and human rights.

The United States warned Thursday that the campaign raised concerns about Egypt's transition to democracy and could jeopardize American aid that Egypt's battered economy needs badly after a year of unrest. [...]

The travel ban was part of an Egyptian criminal investigation into foreign-funded democracy organizations after soldiers raided the offices of 10 such groups last month, including those of two American groups.

The investigation is closely intertwined with Egypt's political turmoil since the fall of Hosni Mubarak nearly a year ago. The generals who took power have accused "foreign hands" of being behind protests against their rule and they frequently depict the protesters themselves as receiving foreign funds in a plot to destabilize the country.
[...]

3) January 25, 2012: Energy Deficit Renders Punjab Uncompetitive; Dawn (Pakistan)

4) In the first version of this post I referred to the TAPI pipeline as "crazy;" without getting into a discussion of TAPI, I had it confused in my mind with the Nabucco gas pipeline. So many pipelines to keep straight.

5) This report is undated although it was surely published within the past week; I'm linking to this version rather than the International Herald Tribune report because of the wording of the title supplied by the Pakistani website that quotes IHT: US enticing Pakistan with cheap gas; Online International News Network (Pakistan)

6) January 27, 2012: Afghanistan bound 157,736 US containers; Aftab Maken, The News International (Pakistan)

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Thursday made a stunning revelation before the Senate Standing Committee on Commerce that a total of 157,736 containers of the United States destined to Afghanistan have never reached the landlocked country and disappeared inside Pakistan.
[...]

7) January 25, 2012: Brahma Chellaney learns U.S. Afghan War exit strategy is literally full of gas; Pundita

8) January 24, 2012:Hafiz Saeed ‘threatens' India; Hasan Suror, The Hindu

In a spectacle guaranteed to “send a chill through New Delhi,” as The Financial Times put it, Hafiz Saeed, the suspected mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai terror bombings, is being feted in Pakistan as a “hero” attracting thousands of people as he “criss-crosses” the country at the head of a radical road-show targeting India and calling for “jihad.”
[...]

January 26, 2012: Pakistan stoking anti-Indian sentiments to divert attention from the heat at home; Times of India

9) January 26, 2012: What's wrong with the following sentence?, Pundita

An eerie journey back in time

"What is happening? Both Hagenbeck, who boasts to the media about the high quality of his intelligence, and Khalilzad, who is unquestionably in a position to know, have stated that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are being nurtured, not in some inaccessible terrain along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border but in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province where the Pakistan Army and the ISI have a major presence. Yet President Bush and his neo-conservative henchmen have remained strangely quiet, allowing Pakistan to strengthen the Taliban in Quetta, and, as a consequence, re-energize al-Qaeda -- the killers of thousands of Americans in the fall of 2001." -- Ramtanu Maitra, 2003

There are actually many news reports and published analyses from the early part of the Afghan War that now produce an eerie effect because they pointed so clearly to the very situation that exists today. But Ramtanu Maitra's analysis might be the eeriest of all because in light of where the Afghan War stands today it greatly challenges the widely-held assumption that the Bush administration simply dropped the ball in Afghanistan because it was distracted by the Iraq invasion and subsequent insurgency in the country. Perhaps that's true or partly true, but then there is the Maitra writing, clanking its chains, as it were, in the manner of Dickens's Ghost of Christmas Past --

Why the US needs the Taliban
By Ramtanu Maitra
July 30, 2003
Asia Times Online

Since Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf made his much-acclaimed visit to Camp David and met US President George W Bush on June 24, new elements have begun to emerge in the Afghan theater. US troops in Afghanistan are now encountering more enemy attacks than ever before, and clashes between Pakistani and Afghan troops along the tribal borders have been reported regularly.

On July 16, speaking to the [Electronic] Telegraph of the United Kingdom, US troop commander General Frank "Buster" Hagenbeck, based at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, reported increased attacks over recent weeks on US and Afghan forces by the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other anti-US groups that have joined hands. He also revealed some other very interesting information: the Taliban and its allies have regrouped in Pakistan and are recruiting fighters from religious schools in Quetta in a campaign funded by drug trafficking. Hagenbeck also said that these enemies of US and Afghan forces have been joined by Al-Qaeda commanders who are establishing new cells and sponsoring the attempted capture of American troops. One other piece of news of import from Hagenbeck is that the Taliban have seized whole swathes of the country.

Reliable intelligence

Hagenbeck's statements were virtually ignored in Washington. Also ignored were a number of similar statements issued from Kabul by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his cabinet colleagues. On July 17, presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin spoke to the Pakistani newspaper The News of the Afghan government's concern over the volatile situation on its border with Pakistan. Ludin urged Pakistan to "take steps" to prevent the Taliban fighters from crossing over to launch terrorist attacks against Kabul. "We will take it seriously to confront it," he warned. "So our expectation is for all those involved in the war against terror to take serious steps," Ludin added, clearly addressing the Bush administration.

A week later, on July 24, in an article for The Nation, a Pakistani news daily, Ahmed Rashid, the well known expert on the Taliban and Afghanistan, quoted President Hamid Karzai, during an interview at Kabul, as saying: "As much as we want good relations with Pakistan and other neighbors, we also oppose extremism, terrorism and fundamentalism coming into Afghanistan from outside. We have one page where there is a tremendous desire for friendship and the need for each other. But there is the other page, of the consequences if intervention continues, cross-border terrorism continues, violence and extremism continue. Afghans will have no choice but to stand up and stop it."

Among Americans, only the special envoy of the US president to Afghanistan and a good friend of President Karzai, Zalmay Khalilzad, has shown any concern about the recent developments. Khalilzad has little choice but to keep up a bold front to the Afghans, telling them how his bosses in Washington are doing their best to rebuild Afghanistan, and attributes the present crisis to the security situation. Like everyone else, Khalilzad has little in reality to offer and, given the opportunity, falls back on what "must be done" and "should be done". At a July 15 press conference at Kabul, Khalilzad said every effort has to be made by Pakistan not to allow its territory to be used by the Taliban elements. This "should not be allowed", he said. "We need 100 percent assurances [from Pakistan] on this, not 50 percent assurances, and we know the Taliban are planning in Quetta."

What is happening? Both Hagenbeck, who boasts to the media about the high quality of his intelligence, and Khalilzad, who is unquestionably in a position to know, have stated that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are being nurtured, not in some inaccessible terrain along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border but in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province where the Pakistan Army and the ISI have a major presence. Yet, President Bush and his neo-conservative henchmen have remained strangely quiet, allowing Pakistan to strengthen the Taliban in Quetta, and, as a consequence, re-energize al-Qaeda - the killers of thousands of Americans in the fall of 2001.

Recall for a moment: Following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, no other terrorist was portrayed by the United States as more dangerous than al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and no other Islamic fundamentalist group was presented to the American people as more despicable than the Taliban. Within a month the United States invaded Afghanistan to "take out" the Taliban, al-Qaeda and bin Laden, while the world lined up behind the new anti-terrorist messiahs from Washington, providing it the necessary moral and vocal support. Why, then, is Washington now weakening President Karzai and allowing the strengthening and re-emergence of the Taliban?

Karzai shared with Ahmed Rashid his belief, like that of the average Afghan today, that the answer to that question lies in an understanding reached between the United States and Pakistan during Musharraf's visit to Camp David, that Afghanistan could be, in effect, "sub-contracted" to Pakistan. Karzai also told Rashid that Musharraf's critical remarks about the Karzai regime during his visit to the United States reminded him of the pre-September 11 days when Pakistan was fully backing the Taliban and exercising ever-more-strident control over Afghanistan. Musharraf had said, among other things, that the Afghan president does not have much control over Afghanistan beyond Kabul. But, Karzai added in the interview with Rashid, no matter what the outsiders are planning or plotting, as of now, "I want nobody to be under any illusion that Afghanistan will allow any other country to control it." Is Karzai overreacting? Most likely, he is not. He has seen the writing on the wall. It is arguable whether the Taliban's return to power is inevitable, but there is little doubt that under the circumstances it is very convenient for the US.

Bowing to realities

To begin with, it was clear from the outset that the United States never really wanted to be in Afghanistan. It was basically a jumping-off point for the "big enchilada", the re-shaping of the Middle East's politics and regimes. The Afghan reconstruction talk was mostly wishful thinking. For anyone familiar with present-day Afghanistan - its security situation, the drug production and trafficking, its destroyed infrastructure, its rampant illiteracy and poverty - its reconstruction by foreigners is either a dream or a string of motivated lies.

Now, after a half-hearted effort that lasted for almost 18 months, the Bush administration has come to realize that it is impossible to keep Pakistan as a friend and simultaneously keep the Northern Alliance-backed government in power in Kabul. The "puppet" Pashtun leader in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, does not have the approval of Pakistan and the majority of the rest of the Pashtun community straddling both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. So, either one has Pakistan as a friend with an Islamabad-backed Pashtun group in power in Kabul, or one gets Pakistan as an enemy. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind how the Bush administration would act when confronted with such a choice.

Secondly, look at the Northern Alliance (NA) allies. The best ally of the NA is Russia, the Bush administration's key contestant for supremacy in Central Asia. In the 1980s, the United States spent billions of dollars to get Afghanistan out of the Russian orbit. It is ridiculous to believe that the Bush administration would act differently now to protect the NA and Karzai. Much better is to have Afghanistan sub-contracted to Pakistan and keep the Russians at bay, than to yield ground to Moscow, who is hardly friendly to Pakistan.

Thirdly, the NA, and particularly the Shi'ites of the Hazara region of Afghanistan, are close to Iran. Iran is building a road which will connect the Iranian port of Chahbahar to the city of Herat in central Afghanistan and link up with Kandahar in the southeast. While this is going on, some neo-conservatives in Washington are screaming for Iranian blood. Even if the Bush administration is not quite willing right now to spill that blood, it is nonetheless a certainty that Washington will be more than eager to see the Iranian influence in Afghanistan curbed. If the NA-backed Karzai government stays in power for long, Iran would most definitely enhance its influence. The Taliban do not want that and they have sent a message recently by slaughtering the Shi'ites in Quetta with the full knowledge of the Pakistani authorities. Besides being anti-Russia, the Taliban are also anti-Shi'ite, or anti-Iran. This added "virtue" of the Taliban has not gone unnoticed in the corridors of intrigue-makers in Washington.

Finally, there is the India factor. A minor factor, it does, however, come into play in calculating the pluses and minuses of the resurgent Taliban option. The Bush administration wants closer relations with India - not on New Delhi's terms, but on Washington's terms. Indian activity in Afghanistan has increased multifold since the Karzai government came to power in the winter of 2001. These developments are being eyed suspiciously by Islamabad. While Washington would not make a federal case out of it, it surely does not like to see India forming a strategic alliance with Russia and Iran in Afghanistan. Washington would rather like to break such an alliance quickly, particularly if its ally, in this case Pakistan, wants such an alliance broken. Significantly, a well-connected relative of Musharraf, Brigadier Feroz Hassan Khan, formerly at the Wilson Center and now a fellow at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, addressed these issues directly in a recent publication.

Not just whistling in the dark

In the January issue of Strategic Insight, a publication for the Center for Contemporary Conflict, Khan observed: "In Iran, President Khatami is moving in tandem and cooperation with Pakistan in supporting the Karzai government as manifest in the recent visit to Pakistan. However there are hardliners in Iran who would want to continue with the old game of supporting warlords and factions and consider Pakistan as rival vis-a-vis Afghanistan, and who are still suspicious of the Saudi role. Iran is pitching its bid, by constructing a road from Chahbahar Port in the Persian Gulf through Iran's Balochistan area to link up eventually with Kandahar in the hope of 'breaking the monopoly of Pakistan'. Afghanistan is currently sustained primarily through the Karachi-Quetta/Peshawar routes - Bolan and Khyber passes respectively - which has provided Afghanistan with trade and transit with the outside world for centuries."

Furthermore, Khan pointed out, "Russia remains involved with the major warlords [of Afghanistan]. One such warlord, Rashid Dostum, was recently on a shopping spree for arms and equipment from Moscow. Russia believes it has its own experience and expertise in Afghanistan and must reestablish its interests. Given the history, Pakistan is very uncomfortable with this development."

Of course, the Khan's treatise would not have been complete without pointing to the devious role of the Indians in Afghanistan. He said: "India is a major proactive player now. It is providing well-coordinated military supplies to the Northern Alliance thorough the air base in Tajikistan. This includes weapons, equipment and spare parts aimed at strengthening those elements that had become the sworn enemies of Pakistan during the Taliban's rule. Fear in Pakistan is that despite Afghanistan's changed policies, some elements still hold a grudge against Pakistan and would be willing to do India's bidding. This would bring the India-Pakistan rivalry into the Afghan imbroglio."

It is safe to assume that Khan, who has an extensive background in arms control, disarmament and international treaties, and who formulated Pakistan's security policy on nuclear war, arms control and strategic stability in South Asia, is not merely whistling in the dark.

The terms of convenience

Now the question remains: what might Pakistan be expected to deliver in return for the Bush administration granting it control over Afghanistan once more? In the real world, Pakistan can help the United States significantly. It has already agreed not to provide nuclear technology to Islamic nations. Musharraf may have to give the United States control of its nuclear research facility, among other things. More important will be to hand over Osama bin Laden to the United States and send two brigades of Pakistani troops to Iraq to help out the beleaguered US troops there. The arrest of Osama would surely justify the US mission to Afghanistan, and could set the stage for America's eventual withdrawal from that country. Another likely item on the agenda is Pakistani recognition of Israel.

Would this new arrangement of "sub-contracting" (to use Karzai's apt term) Afghanistan to the Pakistan-Taliban combination complicate the already complex situation any further? Probably not. It was evident in October 2001, when the United States went pell-mell into Afghanistan with the help of the Northern Alliance, that America's hastily-organized arrangement there was unsustainable. It was clear that no matter what Islamabad says, or how much pressure is brought to bear on it, Pakistan has absolutely no reason whatsoever to agree to such an arrangement.

Washington came to appreciate the non-sustainability of this arrangement when Musharraf, in a sleight of hand, brought the Muttahida Majlis-e Amal - the MMA, also known as "Musharraf, Mullahs and the Army" - to power in the two provinces bordering Afghanistan. At that point, Karzai's tenure as president of Afghanistan shrank abruptly, and Washington deemed it time to give up the "Marshall Plan for Afghanistan" and settle for next best - Taliban rule in Afghanistan under Pakistani control, once again.
******
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The Perfect Son and the Afghan War (Updated 8:15 PM ET)

8:15 PM ET Update
I added a few links and expanded and elucidated some of my discussion since I first published this post. I did so with the sinking feeling that I might as well be talking from inside a glass booth, a feeling that often besets me when I advise on Pakistan and the Afghan War.

I am looking at things from such a vastly different viewpoint than Washington's (to include academia and think tanks) that I might as well be writing in a dead language; in a way I am, because as I noted in the updated version, considerations about human nature, which are much broader than found in any academic study of psychology or anthroplogy, etc., are completely absent from policy thinking in Washington, including war planning. Human nature has been relegated to the closet, with predictable results that manifested again and again during the U.S. prosecution of the Afghan and Iraqi wars.

But what use is it to say any of this to ears that can't hear?
************************************
I wrote the following for the comment section at Small Wars Journal; this was in response to a post there by the SWJ editors to announce the publication of a book titled An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban/Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan, 1970-2010 by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, and also to specifically answer observations that Robert C. Jones inserted in the comment section about the book.

Jones also writes for SWJ and is, I discovered from reading his bio at SWJ, "a retired Army Special Forces Colonel who has recently been hired as the strategic advisor to the USSOCOM J5. [...]"

At the last moment, just as I was about to post my reply, which turned out to be essay length, I decided against lecturing Colonel Jones and the other brass (both retired and active-duty) who hang out at SWJ, about how to win the Afghan War including the best approach for Washington to Pakistan. So while regular visitors to this blog probably know the gist of my advice on both topics by heart, I've repeated it so many times, I'm going to publish my reply here.

The caveat is that I only quote a small part of Colonel Jones's comments, so you'd want to go to Small Wars Journal to read his entire commentary and those of other SWJ readers (including Doctor Madhu, a blogger in her own right who posts at Chicago Boyz) who responded to the book announcement.

Ready? Here goes:

Regarding Robert C. Jones's comment, "The Taliban and the populace they emerge from (that half of Afghan society and the aspect of the same that extend into Pakistan not represented by the Northern Alliance Friends and Family plan ...) have always been both the source and key to AQ sanctuary in the AFPAK region." --

The sanctuary is not so much a physical space as a tangle of strategies, fixed ideas and tacit agreements that have overgrown the history of Afghanistan since the USA got involved in ejecting Soviet Russia from the country -- a tangle that has little to do with Taliban or the history of the movement's relationship with al Qaeda. So van Linschoten and Kuehn are phoning in from the Moon, if they're arguing that because Taliban shouldn't be conflated with Qaeda it's possible for NATO and/or the Afghan government to negotiate a peace settlement with them.

Down here on Earth:

> The Haqqani Network has evolved into a transnational criminal syndicate that's a textbook example of Black Globalization, and which like all BG outfits cares nothing about having say in a government -- and which, despite pro forma nods to Mullah Omar's status as a religious leader, now cares nothing for the fate of Taliban.

> The great majority of Afghan Pashtuns have turned against Taliban -- 90 percent of them have turned, according to a Pakistani ex-intelligence official who spoke recently to Pakistan-based Los Angeles Times reporter Alex Rodriguez.

> The original Northern Alliance has morphed into a vastly expanded political network and its leaders recently read the riot act to some members of Congress in Berlin about the U.S. ploy to negotiate with Taliban.

> Caught now between the devil NATO and the deep blue sea of furious countrymen, Hamid Karzai has finally grown a spine and insisted that (1) he and not the USA will lead any peace talks with Taliban and (2) there will be no negotiations until Taliban stop fighting. He's made such noises before but this time he has the new, improved NA forcing him to walk out far out on the plank.

> By some miracle the British defense ministry has overridden the foreign office by recognizing that an India in the hand is better than two Pakistans in the bush. Maybe this change in thinking has something to do with the realization that today the vast majority of Pakistanis in the U.K. have no sympathy left for 'Islamist' terrorism, but who can fathom the ways of miracles?

> Germany, which reportedly now runs the European Union, has lost patience with Washington's preference for bailing water with a sieve in Afghanistan over getting tough with Rawalpindi and all because the 'Get Russia' crowd on both sides of the Pond fears that the Kremlin might someday make contact with a Klingon battleship. A fear that delayed for years the building of the NDN.

> More U.S. soldiers returning from Afghanistan are learning in graphic detail that their commanders in Afghanistan looked the other way while their civilian bosses in effect paid Pakistan's military to murder and maim Americans -- while the American military establishment yapped about counterinsurgency theories and the State Department yapped about 'fixing' Pakistan.

That's just the short list of how things stand these days on Earth, but it all amounts to a greatly changed world since Dick Cheney okayed the Airlift of Evil. I've mentioned the airlift several times over the years but just as a reminder: the airlift, which was so large it was actually an air bridge, evacuated

... thousands of top commanders and members of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, their Pakistani advisors including Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agents and military personnel, and other Jihadi volunteers and sympathizers, from the city of Kunduz, Afghanistan, in November 2001 just before its capture by the forces of the U.S. and its allies the Northern Alliance during the War in Afghanistan. All these anti-U.S. combatants were safely evacuated from Kunduz and airlifted by Pakistan Army cargo aircraft to Pakistan Air Force air bases in Chitral and Gilgit in Pakistan's Northern Areas. [...]

See the Wikipedia article I linked to above for the source notes.

So. Vice President Cheney, who at the time had the Pakistan 'portfolio' at the White House, made an executive decision reportedly without President Bush's knowledge, which laid the groundwork for the very 'insurgency' that soon enough murdered and maimed so many Americans and other NATO troops -- and Afghan civilians and troops.

In my view Mr Cheney should have been brought up on a charge of treason for his decision but the incident starkly illustrates the way official Washington treated Pakistan's military at the time. By today, the American taxpayer has suffered enough because of that special relationship and so has the American enlisted man and woman; okay?

So the first task is to dispense with some of the tangle by looking at water and geological survey maps in Afghanistan; this, in order to grasp that no matter how many USAID projects are created to help Pakistani mango growers and to reduce illiteracy in Pakistan, this will not stop Pakistan's military from wanting to control Afghanistan.

And anyone in Washington naive enough to assume that bringing real democracy to Pakistan will change its military's designs on Afghanistan also probably believes that bringing real democracy to Iran will stop Iranians from insisting that there is no such thing as an Arab Gulf.

What, then, is the best the way for Washington to best relate to Pakistan? It's the same way that the USA can pull off a decisive victory in Afghanistan. So write this war plan on the back of your hand:

The next time Rawalpindi complains that the USA is building an Afghan army that will rival their own -- and they make this complaint every hour on the hour -- the response from Washington should be, 'Don't whine if you don't want us to also build them a nuclear weapons facility.'

That's pretty much the entire plan for those who have considerable life experience under their belt; for those who don't: The key idea is for Washington to stop playing Sahib in Pakistan. For Americans who don't understand the Sahib angle I'll put it another way: every time Washington does or says something that causes Pakistan's military to lose face, they have to do something awful in Afghanistan to prove they're not girly men or children.

> So don't praise the Pakistanis in public because that's patronizing them, in their view. Don't criticize them in public, because that's bossing them around, in their view. Don't offer to help fix Pakistan because that's making Pakistan's leaders look unable to look after their own people.

> Confine comments to "Tsk tsk" and "Gee that's a shame" when they complain about their problems. If they ask for more money, pay only what's fair for NATO transports through the country and work like mad to get the remaining 29 percent of NATO supplies now trucked through Pakistan transferred to the Northern Distribution Network.

> At the same time never outright refuse a request for financial aid; that's insulting in their view; simply reply, "Yes yes," which in that part of the world doesn't mean "Yes I will;" it means "Yes I heard you." If that concept is too hard to grasp, Washington should simply hear its phone ringing or mutter about bureaucratic red tape in response to requests for aid.

> The CIA and U.S. military should stay on the Afghan side of the Durand Line no matter how fuzzy the line. Stop all drone attacks in Pakistan, no matter how counterproductive that might seem at first.

> When Rawalpindi asks for the millionth time how long America is going to stay in Afghanistan, lie like a trooper and reply, "Forever."

> Above all, recognize that decades ago the United States inserted itself in a family feud -- and that only Indians can help the Pakistanis because Indians are the only family the Pakistanis have, and so they're the only people the Pakistanis really pay attention to. This isn't even getting into the caste system in Pakistan and India, which is not something Americans who're trying to win a war need to know about in any detail. In short, just assume there are some things Americans can't fix and shouldn't try to fix, and that Pakistan is one of them.

That's it; it would take a book, which I will never write, to explain all the reasoning behind every piece of the advice but I've simply compressed a great deal of hard-won experience into as few words as possible to get across the general idea. I add that much of my advice has more to do with considerations about the ways f human nature, which have been completely excluded from policy thinking in Washington, than with the 'culture' of any specific peoples.

As to how long the war plan would take to work -- longer than it would take the Iranian military to deal with the Haqqanis and Afghan Taliban, but it wouldn't take forever and there's a way to speed up the process. The way would be for Washington to break bones at a NATO confab.

But first Washington would have to set the example. If all other NATO members are persuaded that the USA has really turned over a new leaf, they would be more inclined to toughen their own approaches to Rawalpindi. A united front in this respect would do more than anything to persuade Pakistan's leaders that while they can deploy non-aggressive means to achieve a stake in the new Afghanistan, they can no longer hope to control it.

As to where all this leaves Taliban: the so-called "Afghan Taliban" are a Pakistani military invention -- and I don't want to hear the guff that it was the ISI that did it, as if the ISI is a separate entity from the military; it's separate only for purposes of deniability. The military will dismantle its Frankenstein once it's assured that NATO will no longer turn a studiously blind eye to Islamabad's use of terrorism as a foreign policy instrument.

The real problem is not Taliban or even the Haqqanis but the non-Taliban ultraconservative Afghans that Hamid Karzai pandered to, with NATO studiously looking the other way, in the attempt to offset the perception in Afghanistan that he was dancing to America's tune. The attempt fooled no one, but the pandering gave the ultraconservatives greater power in Afghanistan than they'd ever enjoyed.

The only reasonably fast antidote I can see would be to resurrect the monarchy in Afghanistan because if the king said a modern approach to something was okay, it was okay with the ultraconservatives. So it was all downhill for a modern Afghan state once the monarchy folded.

(Anyone who doubts that Afghanistan ever had anything approximating a modern state should study the photographs in Once Upon a Time in Afghanistan at Foreign Policy magazine. The modernity, however, was not supported by institutions and infrastructures that would have allowed it to withstand the first real test, so when the monarchy crumbled, Afghanistan's modern state also crumbled and with terrifying swiftness. Some measure of the totality of the collapse is the rarity of the photographs that an Afghan expat found and published at Foreign Policy. Yet the images in the photos are a silent rebuke to those who claim that Afghanistan never progressed beyond the 12th Century.)

But restoring the monarchy seems impossible at this juncture, and besides even if an acceptable heir to the throne was scared up, I think the way is forward not back, although I'd get an argument about this from monarchists.

In any case this problem is entirely up to the Afghans to solve even though we had a hand in bringing it to a head again. If it's any comfort to Americans, this is a problem that will continue recycling in Afghanistan, as it has in many other countries including Pakistan, until the Afghans somehow resolve the sense of a vacuum left by the absent monarch.

Maybe the Afghans will hit on the kind of compromise that exists in several European countries, whereby a "constitutional monarchy" is glommed onto democratic government. Certainly the Afghans will soon enough be rich enough to afford such a compromise, in the way North Sea oil has allowed Norwegians and the British to go on compromising -- until the oil runs out -- but any such discussion is, I hope, outside the scope of the Afghan War.

To wrap it up, in the Afghan War Americans need to learn to play to their strengths instead of their weaknesses. Leave it to the Europeans to try and 'understand' the Afghans because quite frankly Europe's monarchist past (and present) makes them better suited than Americans to understand. Americans should just hew as closely as possible to the classic American archetype: Strong. Taciturn. Steady as a rock. Dependable as the sunrise.

The archetype happens to be pretty much the same as the most universally loved archetype and the most powerful one, that of the Perfect Son -- the man every man would be proud to call a son. When you fit the role of the Perfect Son, you won't need words to give the Afghans assurances that you won't leave them in the lurch again. They'll look at you and know, and with that knowledge they'll face their very uncertain future with great courage. That's how powerful the Perfect Son is -- far more powerful than a mountain of foreign aid and bribes.

"It is a bold challenge to the United States and Pakistan to live up to their pious homilies."

"This is the first time that the leadership of the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara communities has come to a common line of thinking to oppose the US's peace strategy and to present an alternate blueprint of pan-Afghan settlement. In essence, the Northern Alliance is being resuscitated as a political entity."

"What may have incensed the Northern Alliance groups partly at least is that, despite the chill in US-Pakistan relations, Washington has kept the Pakistani military and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the loop on the Qatar talks, while blithely ignoring them as protagonists."

"Karzai has sprung a surprise by insisting that peace talks should be "Afghan-led" - meaning, he expects a "hands-on" role for himself. He has said this before, but this time he means it. He knows that regional opinion strongly disfavors a US-led peace process, and he also anticipates the danger of being left behind as road kill unless he is in the driver's seat."

". . . On Monday, Karzai raised the stakes much higher by demanding that the Taliban must agree to a ceasefire before formal peace negotiations could begin."

- M.K. Bhadrakumar, January 12

On October 1 and again on December 29 I observed that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was being forced to stiffen his spine in his relations with Washington; Indian former Career Diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar makes the same observation and then some in his January 12 column for Asia Times Online, There's more to peace than Taliban . The column makes up for a lot of hot air he's blown from his perch at AToL; this time, he absolutely nails a situation. (Unless one also wants to see a discussion about which nations the U.S. regime is carrying water for in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but that topic would be outside the scope of writing, as it is for every news outlet that exists.)

Before I turn to Bhadrakumar's discussion I'll note a development that probably occurred after the column was put to bed; in any case his discussion of a meeting in Berlin between Afghan opposition leaders and U.S. members of Congress didn't mention that on January 11 the Afghan Foreign Ministry issued a statement "condemning" the meeting as a breach of Afghanistan's constitution and as interference with Afghan's internal affairs and national unity.

I am still waiting for the Foreign Ministry to issue a statement condeming NATO and specifically the United States of America for trying to sell Afghanistan to Pakistan but I'll let Amb. Bhadrakumar do the talking for me this time because he says it all quite wonderfully:

There's more to peace than Taliban
by M K Bhadrakumar
January 12, 2012
Asia Times Online

The hype over "secret discussions" between the United States and Taliban officials has subsided; the hot topic is vanishing from public view once again.

Nevertheless, Iranian media insist that three high-ranking Taliban leaders have been released - Mullah Khairkhawa, former interior minister; Mullah Noorullah Noori, a former governor; and Mullah Fazl Akhund, the Taliban's chief of army staff - in exchange for an American soldier held by the Taliban.

United States diplomats might have put the cart before the horse in their hurry to get a peace process going before North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders gather for their summit in Chicago in May. They may have made two cardinal mistakes. One, they underestimated Afghan President Hamid Karzai's political compulsions. Two, the US took it for granted that the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance groups would fall in line since many of them have been co-opted through the 10-year period of the war and their capacity to unite is in doubt.

Karzai has sprung a surprise by insisting that peace talks should be "Afghan-led" - meaning, he expects a "hands-on" role for himself. He has said this before, but this time he means it. He knows that regional opinion strongly disfavors a US-led peace process, and he also anticipates the danger of being left behind as road kill unless he is in driver's seat.

Besides, Karzai is demanding that the US should transfer any Taliban prisoners from the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to his custody rather than to Qatar (as apparently sought by the Taliban). He is also raking up a related issue questioning US control of Bagram airbase near Kabul as a detention center.

On Monday, Karzai raised the stakes much higher by demanding that the Taliban must agree to a ceasefire before formal peace negotiations could begin. His spokesman, Emal Faizi, said, "When the talks start, there should be a ceasefire and the violence against the Afghan people should stop." Faizi also said it was too soon to send a delegation from Kabul to Qatar for talks. "The government has no immediate plans for such a trip."

The hardening of Karzai's stance also needs to be understood against the backdrop of growing restiveness on the part of the erstwhile Northern Alliance groups.

On Monday, the alliance stalwarts came out against the Barack Obama administration's secret discussions with the Taliban. These leaders - Ahmed Zia Massoud, brother of late Ahmad Shah Massoud and formerly vice president under Karzai; General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek leader who leads the Jumbish in northern Afghanistan; Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, the Hazara Shi'ite leader from Mazar-i-Sharif who heads the Hezb-e-Wahdat; Amrullah Saleh, former head of Afghan intelligence - held talks with a group of four US congress members - Dana Rohrabacher, Loretta Sanchez, Louie Gohmert and Steve King (all except Sanchez are Republicans) - in Berlin over the weekend and issued a joint statement on Monday.

This is the first time that the leadership of the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara communities has come to a common line of thinking to oppose the US's peace strategy and to present an alternate blueprint of pan-Afghan settlement. In essence, the Northern Alliance is being resuscitated as a political entity.

Their statement attacked the power structure headed by Karzai as dysfunctional, far too centralized and rampantly corrupt and demanded that in the first instance what Afghanistan needed was an inclusive parliamentary form of government "instead of a personality-oriented presidential system", which could optimally represent all ethnic and regional interests.

They also sought a thorough revamping of the country's electoral system from the present single non-transferrable voting system to a "national-accepted variant of the proportional representative system" and the direct election of governors and provincial council leaderships with delegation of powers to create budgets, collect revenue and oversee local policing and administer social sectors.

But, most important, they frontally questioned the US's locus standi to initiate peace talks with the Taliban. Their statement said:

We firmly believe that any negotiation with the Taliban can be acceptable, and therefore effective, [only] if all parties to the conflict are involved in the process. The present form of discussions with the Taliban is flawed, as it excludes anti-Taliban Afghans. It must be recalled that the Taliban extremists and their al-Qaeda supporters were defeated [in 2011] by Afghans resisting extremism with minimal human-embedded support from the United States and international community. The present negotiations with the Taliban fail to take into account the risks, sacrifices and legitimate interests of the Afghans who ended the brutal oppression of all Afghans.

In order to speed the withdrawal of international forces, the participants believe it is essential to strengthen regional and national institutions that are inclusive and represent the concerns of all the communities of Afghanistan. [Emphasis added.]

A challenge to Obama

The Northern Alliance statement challenges the US's monopoly of conflict resolution and Washington's unilateralist estimation that the Taliban are the only group that matters as protagonists on the Afghan chessboard in a peace process.

Its entire approach is to take the "Afghan settlement" from the narrow path of a secretive US-Taliban-Pakistan compromise formula to a transparent, inclusive, broadly-participatory inclusive approach that would not ignore any Afghan interest group, which has genuine mass support, from participation, with strong, elected local leaderships that enjoy delegated powers of local governance.

In sum, it offers a vision for returning Afghanistan to its historical character of a federated system of government that allows a plural society to thrive, but with a representative form of government as a modern-day democracy. Indeed, the Northern Alliance statement implies readiness to reconcile politically with the Taliban, provided they "seize" power through the ballot box rather than the guns supplied from the Pakistani military inventory, among other places.

It is a bold challenge to the United States and Pakistan to live up to their pious homilies.

The alliance's strategy puts enormous pressure on Karzai. He is caught between two contending constituencies. The Northern Alliance leaders are critical of Karzai, but he finds no acceptability with the Taliban, too. Karzai's position becomes precarious if he antagonizes the Northern Alliance groups and turns them hostile. He won't want to put all his eggs in the American basket, either, since the US may find him expendable at some point. Karzai needs time to maneuver and create a new coalition that strengthens his standing.

What may have incensed the Northern Alliance groups partly at least is that, despite the chill in US-Pakistan relations, Washington has kept the Pakistani military and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the loop on the Qatar talks, while blithely ignoring them as protagonists. Nonetheless, interestingly, they made no critical reference to Pakistan.

Unsurprisingly, Islamabad is sitting tight. It refrains from taking open stance on the proposed talks with the Taliban in Qatar. At the same time, the ISI is on the ball and its chief, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, even paid an overnight visit to Qatar.

Pakistan would draw satisfaction that Washington finally dropped its pre-conditions for talks with the Taliban. Equally, Pakistan would welcome any release of top Taliban figures from Guantanamo. And Pakistan didn't put roadblock when former mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (who lives in Peshawar in Pakistan) deputed envoys to Kabul to sound out the US and NATO officials whether he too could be provided a seat at the conference table in Qatar.

However, Pakistan won't proffer an opinion on the prospects of the talks, rather pretending it is all a matter between Taliban leader Mullah Omar who is quartered in Quetta in Pakistan and American officials.

All this is being played against the backdrop of the troubled US-Pakistani relationship. Besides, the Taliban comprise hopelessly fragmented factions and neither Mullah Omar nor the Haqqani clan has yet commented on the proposed talks in Qatar.

Pakistan can rest on its oars that the ISI would be the only party capable of shepherding the Taliban factions to come on a united platform for talks, and the US ultimately has no choice but to knock on its doorstep seeking help.

As the Northern Alliance groups see it, Pakistani strategy is to wait out the period between now and 2014 - the date set for the US troop withdrawal - and then regroup the Taliban and make a bid to capture power in Kabul. Their strong show of unity in Berlin suggests that they will not roll over and give way to an exclusive US-Taliban-Pakistan settlement being imposed on their nation.

Their challenge to Barack Obama is to concede for the Afghan people the very minimum privilege of an Arab Spring so that Islamism can reconcile with democracy - quintessentially, expecting the US to be on the "right side of history". It is not too much to ask for, really.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.