The Lame Ducks’ Tango
By Dr Mohammad Taqi
Florida
A lame duck US president led a virtually lame duck Pakistani Prime Minister (PM) last week in a high-level tango in Washington DC that got about four minutes coverage on the National Public Radio and almost none on network television in the US. As predicted, including in this column, nothing earth-shattering came out of the meeting between PM Nawaz Sharif and US President Barack Obama.
While no knockouts were expected, one is tempted to grant the bout to Pakistan, on points. PM Nawaz Sharif’s key success was to maintain the status quo in Pak-US relations. That he was not able to get anything groundbreaking done is the function of the political space rapidly shrinking around him. While the PM and his Foreign Affairs/National Security Advisor (NSA) Mr Sartaj Aziz were still in Washington, the cabinet division in Islamabad issued a notification that Mr Aziz had lost the national security portion of his portfolio and the just-retired Lieutenant General Nasir Khan Janjua had replaced him.
General Janjua had already met the PM before his departure for Washington and was tipped to replace Mr Aziz. The nuance might be lost on the Americans but the message was loud and clear: even the semblance of PM Sharif’s control over and say in security and foreign policy has all but vanished. What is also clear is that Pakistan’s approach to handling issues like Balochistan and Afghanistan is not going change. General Janjua was after all the military commander in Balochistan on whose watch a massive military operation was carried out in that hapless region. The human rights abuses, forced disappearances, missing persons and mutilated bodies remained the norm in Balochistan over which the human rights campaigners have been crying hoarse without any redress in sight. It is convenient to dismiss the Baloch activist and writer Ahmer Masti Khan whose protest interrupted PM Nawaz Sharif’s speech at the US Institute for Peace (USIP) as a heckler, but appointments like the new NSA’s do not exactly assuage bleeding Balochistan.
On the Afghan issue, the US-Pak joint statement made some muffled noises without actually setting any verifiable metrics of success. The statement noted, “The Prime Minister outlined the actions that Pakistan is taking under the National Action Plan (NAP) to ensure that the Taliban — including the Haqqani network — are unable to operate from the soil of Pakistan.” This verbiage was in response to recent US concerns about the deadly Haqqani terrorist network still operating out of Pakistan. On October 6, 2015, the commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, testified before the US Senate Armed Services Committee saying, “Based in, and operating from Pakistan, the Haqqani network remains the most virulent strain of the insurgency. It presents one of the greatest risks to coalition forces, and it continues to be an al Qaeda facilitator. The Haqqani network shares the Afghan Taliban’s goal of expelling coalition forces, overthrowing the Afghan government and re-establishing an extremist state.” Back in September 2011, testifying before the same senate committee, the then top US military commander, Admiral Mike Mullen, was even more damning in his indictment, stating under oath, “The Haqqani network acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency” and going on to add that “with ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted that truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy.”
The recent Wikileaks release, which it claims is from a non-governmental email account of the current CIA boss John Brennan, shows that he warned about the same problem in 2008. Brennan, who was an advisor to candidate Barack Obama’s campaign then, discussing “Pakistan‘s use of militant proxies in its conflict with India” wrote to Mr Obama: “Pakistan’s desire to counter India‘s growing influence in Afghanistan and concerns about US long-term commitments to Afghanistan increase Pakistan’s interest in hedging its bets by ensuring that it will be able to have a working relationship with the Taliban to balance Indian and Iranian interests if the US withdraws.” The joint statement notes: “Both leaders expressed their commitment to advance an Afghan-owned and led peace and reconciliation process between the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban, and called on Taliban leaders to enter into direct talks with Kabul and work toward a sustainable peace settlement.” Coming on the heels of General Campbell’s sworn testimony, the joint statement could not have been more phony and farcical.
PM Nawaz Sharif then claimed that Pakistan could not bring the Taliban to the negotiating table and be asked to kill them at the same time. The Afghan NSA, Mr Hanif Atmar, was right to retort, “If you have the ability to bring (Taliban) to the negotiating table, you also have the ability to stop them from committing terror acts.” The Afghan government needs to understand rather quickly that despite delaying the troops’ withdrawal, the US civilian establishment still sees the solution to the Afghan crisis through a Pakistani lens. As the aphorism goes, the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. Mr Obama is a shrewd man but is either not able to think outside the box or is unwilling to do so. The US is always averse to rocking the geopolitical boat in South Asia even if it means the lame duck US president bequeathing the Afghan stalemate, largely of his making, to his successor. PM Sharif would be happy with not getting even a rap on the knuckles for the tactical nukes, getting away with mere lip service about the India-oriented jihadist groups and a boilerplate statement on Afghanistan. The mantra of Afghan-led peace remains a hoax so long as Pakistan is unwilling to verifiably deny sanctuary to those who General Campbell has clearly pointed out. As the Pakistani army chief heads to Washington next month, Afghan President Dr Ashraf Ghani will eventually have to put his foot down and reject the sham peace overtures for he and the Afghan people will have to live with the consequences of the lame ducks’ tango in Washington.
(The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com and he tweets @mazdaki)
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