"It
may play well with Obama’s political objectives and his plans to stand again
for the presidency, but it will certainly do him no good coping with the Afghan
insurgency. … It may fit President Obama’s goals, but it spells doom for
Pakistan."
So the United States is now to
fight its Afghan war in Pakistan and not Afghanistan. That is clearly the
upshot of President Barack Obama’s Wednesday announcement of a plan to draw
down U.S. forces in Afghanistan. After untenably asserting that the drawdown
was beginning “from a position of strength,” he warned that he wouldn't
tolerate safe havens for terrorists in Pakistan. The implication is quite
obvious. Henceforth, it is Pakistan that is to receive most of the punishment
for a war that America's commanders, their political bosses and their allies have
so-terribly botched that even a troop surge has failed to retrieve it.
In all likelihood, in days
ahead Pakistan is in for intensified U.S. drone attacks and more ground raids, particularly
in its tribal areas, especially the North Waziristan
Agency. President Obama may wane lyrical about the surge having dented the
Taliban insurgency. But at best he could only self-interestedly have said such
a thing. The ground realities definitely don't support such effusion. The surge
may have led to increased killings of insurgents, but the insurgency has in no
way been diminished. The insurgents are fighting on relentlessly, even daring
the occupation forces in their fortified citadels and springing out of their
strongholds in the south and east to expand into the north and west.
The surge aimed at securing
the major population centers. Two years down the road, the occupiers can't credibly
claim to having secured even one locale in the insurgency-blighted region. They
had at first touted Marjah as being the showpiece of
their surge’s success. Yet they only tenuously hold this cluster of villages by
doling out dollars to local warlords in huge wads to buy peace. Kandahar they claim to have brought under their thumb. But
it remains as restive as before, experiencing lethal strikes by insurgents on
targets including the security establishment, regional police headquarters and
intelligence offices. The city also witnessed a major jail break that ended in
the flight of scores of insurgent commanders and fighters.
Even the much-ballyhooed
Taliban reintegration program has come a cropper. Not even 2,000 gunmen have
surrendered, whereas the occupiers estimate the insurgents numbering from 25,000
to 40,000. And, bewilderingly enough, the bulk of surrenders have come in Tajik-dominated
regions, raising the suspicion that these were anything but genuine surrenders,
and instead, fakery to obtain money and jobs.
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The same goes for the post-surge
campaign to raise local police forces. This, too, has taken off mostly in the
relatively peaceful north and west, rather than in the troubled southern and
eastern regions.
Indeed, there is much perfidy
about this drawdown. It is dubious, to say the least. It
may play well with Obama’s political objectives and his plans to stand again
for the presidency, but it will certainly do him no good coping with the Afghan
insurgency. In any case, from the beginning they have fought their
Afghan war with lies, deceit and false pretences, making a scapegoat of
Pakistan for their ineptness and unwillingness to fight.
These days, the Americans
make much of Osama bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. Undoubtedly, this is major
slur on the face of Pakistani intelligence and law-enforcement agencies for
being ignorant of his presence. But the key question is why he was free in the
first place. Hadn’t the U.S.-led invaders attacked Afghanistan to dismantle his
terrorist network and capture him dead or alive? Why did they fail to achieve
this war objective of theirs? And if the Afghan Taliban of the Haqqani group
and their al-Qaeda allies are holed up in North Waziristan,
the question again arises: why didn't the invaders corral them in Afghanistan
after the Taliban’s ouster; and why did the U.S. permit them sneak into the
Pakistani territory? And why is that U.S. drones, which are so “unsparing” of
al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists on Pakistani territory, have yet to strike any
of 100 or so al-Qaeda terrorists embedded with the Haqqani group inside
Afghanistan - which is what Western strategists assert?
Indeed, there is much skullduggery
in this drawdown. It may fit President Obama’s own goals, but it spells doom
for Pakistan - notwithstanding the few customary platitudes he sprinkled here
and there in his announcement. And these were likely said only to soften his
stern warning, which he is sure to follow up on - if only to look credible to
his electorate. But it will do no good in terms of coping with a war that the U.S.-led
occupiers have decidedly lost in Afghanistan.
