Opinion

Drafting Obama’s Agenda
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA

In overwhelming numbers, Americans voted for change on the 4th of November. The vote was a repudiation of the Bush administration’s domestic and foreign policies. Republicans, led by a president whose popularity stood at 22 percent, lost not only the White House but also many Congressional seats.

President-elect Obama declared, “Change has come.” Nowhere is the need for change more apparent than in US policy toward Pakistan. Before discussing Obama’s options, it is necessary to state what should not be done.

Invading Waziristan with special operations forces in order to hunt down the terrorists would invite disaster. Any such incursion would be viewed by 170 million Pakistanis as an attack on their country. Suicide attacks on soft civilian targets would get a boost, just as they did when the Pakistani Army attacked the Red Mosque in Islamabad last year. Al-Qaeda would have a field day picking off American targets throughout the Muslim world.

Another bad idea is the continued firing of drone-launched missiles inside Pakistan. To be successful, these attacks require precise human intelligence on the ground. In its absence, the attacks kill civilians, which simply makes it easier to recruit terrorists. Giving the Pakistani military control over the drones won’t solve the problem either since people would see right through that ploy.

And lastly, handing Pakistan over to its military won’t solve the myriad problems facing the nation.

As Obama huddles with his advisors to devise a new Pakistan policy, three options are likely to be on the table:

Status Quo
Incremental Change
Radical Change

The Status Quo, i.e., bringing “shock and awe” to the region, is not viable. The Taliban are resurgent courtesy of the US desire to pursue a military option in Afghanistan. It has not helped matters that Hamid Karzai is widely disliked in his own country because of his incompetence and because of the corruption that he has allowed to flourish in the country. On Karzai’s watch, the power of the warlords in the countryside has been restored, along with its attendant drawbacks.

Incremental Change would involve transferring General Petraeus’s Iraqi formula to Afghanistan. A pincer movement would be aimed at the insurgency, with one branch of the pincer operating along the military axis and the other branch operating along a political axis.

The first branch involves a temporary surge in US troop strength to impose law and order on the streets while the second branch seeks to co-opt some of the tribes to the US side. Obviously, this involves talking to members of the Taliban, a break from the past.

Saudi-sponsored talks have already begun between elements of the Taliban and the Karzai government. There is recognition, even by America’s commanding general in Afghanistan, that the war cannot be won simply by killing people, i.e., the time for a military solution is gone.

Indeed, many analysts question whether Afghanistan can be tamed by force. Time and again, it has fallen to mighty conquerors who have subsequently been humbled by their failure to pacify it. Just in the past two centuries, the British and the Soviets have tried and failed. So why are the Americans going to fare any better?

The success of the Incremental Change option depends on being able to separate the good Taliban from the bad Taliban. The latter are those who are sworn to pursuing terrorism as a weapon for achieving their political goals and who are the ones who originally brought Al Qaeda to the region.

The Radical Change option requires a regional approach but one that only includes Afghanistan but also India. While such an approach may not be acceptable initially to New Delhi, it is the only option that has the potential for long-run success.

Much of the extremism in the region can be traced back to the links between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and various radical groups which were set up by the ISI to mount a guerilla war against India in Kashmir. The ISI has created an illusion to which many Pakistanis now subscribe, that India dreams of reabsorbing Pakistan and creating a greater India (the Akhand Bharat of antiquity).

The vivisection performed by the Indians in 1971 continues to be presented in Pakistan’s military academies as evidence of India’s “nefarious designs.” This insecurity has led Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons, maintain a large military and most notably to engage in unending war with India through guerilla attacks. The object of this proxy war is two-fold.

First, tie down the much larger Indian army in Kashmir, making it difficult for India to mount a full-scale invasion of Pakistan while simultaneously bleeding the Indian Treasury and weakening the country with the hope of one day dismembering the Indian state. And second, create strategic depth by allowing Pakistani forces to retreat into Afghanistan if faced with an all-out Indian invasion. The latter strategy led Pakistan to support the Taliban in Kabul during the mid-nineties.

The war on terror will only be won if Pakistan takes ownership of it. And it will only do that if its underlying insecurities are addressed. Kashmir is the most manifest demonstration of this insecurity but there are several others as well.

The Obama administration should actively seek to resolve the simmering conflict between India and Pakistan of which Kashmir is but a symptom. If resolved, it has the potential for transforming the strategic culture of the region.

The Radical Change policy option would also need to be equipped with a long-term component focusing on human and economic development in Pakistan. The Biden-Lugar Senate bill would be a good place to start, especially now that Joe Biden is the vice president-elect.

This bill would provide $1.5 billion annually to Pakistan over the next five to ten years. Of course, for this aid program to be successful, it will need to have clear goals and to be monitored very closely.

In conclusion, the Incremental Change may appear to be the best way for the Obama administration to get its feet wet. But there is no guarantee of its success. The evidence from Iraq has a short history and Afghanistan’s tribal culture is very different from Iraq’s.

It would be best for president-elect Obama to engage in a more fundamental reassessment of the situation that would bring Radical Change to the region.

(The author is an associate with the Pakistan Security Research Unit at the University of Bradford)

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