White House Plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan
By Anila Ali
Irvine , CA
As a Pakistani American, I hail the President’s New Plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As the new plan was being unveiled, a suicide bomber attacked innocent worshippers at a mosques in Peshawar.
Agreed that a reduction in violence came with the surge of 30,000 troops, but that should not be considered a panacea for the problems in Afghanistan. The reason why the troop surge was successful was because the Sunni Awakening Movement decided to join the US forces. It isn’t as if Baghdad is a very normal city; it’s walled and there are numerous checkpoints. To model the Afghanistan policy isn’t exactly wise. We are dealing with a completely different mindset of people and geographical conditions. Iraq is flat land and Afghanistan is full of rugged and mountainous terrain. To model a strategy after a concept like the Sunni Awakening Movement may lead to failure because the Iraqis conceptualized this movement. The Afghans must come up with their own movement for the restoration of peace and democracy; it should not be conceived by the US. It’s peace, economic stability and progress that can give root to such movements.
Afghanistan has other socio-economic problems that need to be addressed beginning with a change in the corrupt and unpopular government of Hamid Karzai. This starts with a president who is chosen by the Afghans and not seen as a crony of the Americans. He may be less friendly to the US but may prove to form a strong central government. The next step would be to provide training and structure to the Afghan government. Then the US can focus on economic development and stability of that region.
As far as Pakistan is concerned, the US has to provide economic assistance to the FATA tribal areas of Pakistan. The government of Zardari is extremely vulnerable and Nawaz Sharif seems to have matured as an opposition leader. His ties with the religious organizations could prove to be an asset for our goals in Pakistan: getting rid of Al_Qaeda, as he gathers more support for his party. His recent call for March proved the people’s desire to rally for change and their discontent with the present government.
