Afghan Endgame - The Dilemma, The
Pakistan Factor, The Geopolitical Dimension
20 July 2012By Imran Malik
In a blatant display
of overwhelming power and clout, the US forced
Pakistan's hand in the nerve wrecking and vital battle
of wits for the Nato supply routes and by implication
the future of its Afghan campaign. The US pressure
tactics included a double pincer movement of sorts,
comprising a strategic and an economic prong targeting
Pakistan's obvious vulnerabilities. The strategic
prong mainly threatened to declare the Haqqani Network
(HN) a terrorist organisation and by implication
Pakistan a ‘state sponsor of terrorism'.
The USS Enterprise led aircraft carrier group was
moved off Gwadar to add weight to the argument. The
other prong mainly threatened military and economic
sanctions, while withholding about $1.2 billion owed
to Pakistan under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF).
Under pressure the weak and bankrupt Pakistan
government capitulated rather spinelessly.The Nato
supply routes were reopened - and the first step in
the endgame for Afghanistan had been taken!
US design for the
Afghanistan-Pakistan Region (APR):- The Geopolitical
Dimension:
The US would like to see a self-serving conducive
environment prevail over the South Central Asian
Region (SCAR) and APR. It would like to see a stable
Afghanistan and a compliant Pakistan at peace with
themselves and with their neighbours. It would also
like to ensure that Russia and China remain contained
and blocked out of the region with no direct access to
a marginalised Iran or the Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean.
It would also like to see India emerge as a major
player in Afghanistan at least, if not in the SCAR.
However, in the final analysis the US would like to
see itself directly ascendant, dominant and in
exclusive control of the
geopolitical/strategic/economic destinies of the SCAR
and the APR in particular.
The Geostrategic Dimension:
The US has already set about crafting the geostrategic
environment for the endgame in Afghanistan. In the
next step hereon, it will require Pakistan to play a
proactive and decisive role in eliminating the
terrorist's threat (Al-Qaeda, HN, TTP-?) across the
APR. It could mean undertaking unilateral/combined
military operations against them or bringing/coercing
them around to the negotiating table. Either way, the
US will expect Pakistan to play a vital role in
neutralising/eliminating this cross border threat -
under the pain of being declared a state sponsoring
terrorism and its attendant ramifications! Further,
the US will retain its foothold in the APR and SCAR
through the establishment of US/Nato bases all around
Afghanistan ostensibly to train and support the
emerging Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).
The Geo-economic Dimension:
The US would like to be the sole determinant of the
economic destiny of the region, controlling the
mining, flow, transportation, refining and marketing
of the minerals/fossil fuels of the region. Further,
it would like to have absolute control over the
emerging (north-south and east-west) trade routes
going across the region like the New Silk Road Project
(NSRP). Ideally, it would like to link Europe to
India, including all the regions in between in a
seamless trade corridor under its sole oversight and
to its sole advantage. The US would also want to
encourage the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India
(TAPI) gas pipeline while blocking the Iran-Pakistan
(IP) pipeline, which potentially could have been
extended to India and China as well. It would require
Pakistan to mould its policies and fall in line. The
economic development of the region will thus remain
subject to the vagaries of US national interests.
The Afghan Political Dimension:
The US would further want a Northern Alliance (NA)
government to be firmly in power in a peaceful and
secure Afghanistan with its writ extending far beyond
the municipal limits of Kabul to the extremities of
Afghanistan's vast badlands - albeit an unsustainable
and patently unfair and undemocratic political
dispensation with a minority ruling roughshod over the
majority Pashtuns. Furthermore, the US would like to
see the elimination of terrorists, warlords and drug
czars and their fiefdoms/businesses. The regional
players, including Pakistan, will be expected to
remain non-interfering. The US would also expect the
international community to help sustain Afghanistan
beyond 2014 - Tokyo Conference.
The Dilemma/Pakistan Factor:
The main US demand from Pakistan would be for it to
unconditionally support all US initiatives in the
region, even to the peril of its own national
interests. Not only would the US want Pakistan to help
the US/Nato/Isaf combine egress from the region safely
and securely, but also to ensure that the scourge of
international terrorism is eliminated once and for
all. Furthermore, it would want Pakistan to support it
and its proxies' continued residual presence in the
region.The national interests of the US and Pakistan
in the APR-SCAR remain generally divergent. It may
have been relatively easy for Pakistan to concede on
the reopening of the Nato supply routes. It will not
be so in the case of further US imperatives in the
APR/SCAR. The answer to this dilemma lies in the USA's
acceptance of Pakistan's genuine national interests.
Pakistan desires a friendly government in Kabul with
no Indian influence at all and would like to see the
majority Pashtuns get their rightful democratic place
in any political dispensation in Afghanistan. Pakistan
too would like to see the terrorist threat neutralised,
but in toto and not selectively. Pakistan would want
the mineral riches of the region to be exploited to
the benefit of the people of the region and a
continuing mutually beneficial relationship with the
US and all countries in the region.Now will the US
want a willing or an unwilling Pakistan for the
endgame?
Does the US want to succeed hereon? Will the US still
use arrogant, coercive diplomacy, the sickening carrot
and stick routine, or will it take a genuine reality
check of the emerging geostrategic environment of the
APR and modify its policy/strategy accordingly? It may
be time for the US to blink now!
The writer, Mr. Imran Malik, is a retired brigadier
and a former defence attaché to Australia and New
Zealand. Email: im_k@hotmail.com
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