Pakistanis for Peace
An American Pakistani's Hope For Peace in South Asia & Around the World~
Posts Tagged ‘ Obama Administration ’
Afridi Sentence Pushes U.S.-Pakistan Relations From Bad to Worse
As Compiled by Araminta Wordsworth for The National Post
Full Comment’s Araminta Wordsworth brings you a daily round-up of quality punditry from across the globe. Today: One country’s freedom fighter is another nation’s traitor, from Benedict Arnold on down.
That’s the fate of Shakil Afridi. The Pakistani doctor is now behind bars, serving a 33-year sentence for treason and excoriated by fellow citizens.
His crime: helping the Americans track down the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden.
The physician organized a fake vaccination drive in Abbottabad, a leafy town about an hour north of Islamabad where the al-Qaeda chief had been bunked down, apparently for years. Nurses went from house to house, taking DNA samples. Among the doors they knocked on was that of bin Laden.
The sentence has been greeted by outrage in Washington, where relations with Islamabad are going from bad to worse. Americans believe they should at least get co-operation for the $1-billion in aid they dish out to Pakistan each year.
Pakistanis meanwhile are affronted by perceived infringements of their sovereignty — chiefly the US Navy SEALs’ raid that killed bin Laden, which was carried out without notifying Islamabad; but also U.S. drone attacks, a friendly fire accident that killed about 30 government troops, and the CIA’s continuing clandestine operations.
Reporting from Islamabad for The Guardian, Jon Boone explains the Pakistani position.
For some Americans the Pakistani doctor who worked on a clandestine operation to track down one of the U.S.’s greatest enemies is a hero who should be given citizenship. But for Pakistan’s security agencies Dr. Shakil Afridi, a 48-year-old physician who once led campaigns to vaccinate children against polio on the Afghan frontier, is a villain.
On Wednesday a representative of the country’s main spy agency said Afridi had got what he deserved when he was sentenced to 33 years in prison for conspiring against the state, for his role in trying to help the CIA track Osama bin Laden to his hideout in the garrison town of Abbottabad.
American lawmakers quickly responded, hitting Pakistan in the pocketbook, writes David Rogers at Politico.
Angered by the prosecution of a Pakistani doctor for helping the CIA locate Osama bin Laden, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted Thursday to cut another $33-million from an already much-reduced military aid package: $1-million for each of the physician’s 33-year prison sentence.
The 30-0 roll call followed a brief but often bitter discussion that underscored the deteriorating relationship between Washington and the Islamabad government, which remains an important ally in the war in Afghanistan.
“We need Pakistan. Pakistan needs us,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, who helped to craft the amendment. “But we don’t need a Pakistan that is just double dealing.” Judson Berger at Fox News believes the Obama administration was caught flat-footed by Afridi’s conviction.
Former U.S. intelligence officers accused the Obama administration of dropping the ball … — with one openly challenging the State Department’s claim that it pressed his case “regularly” with Islamabad.
Officials are now raising a slew of concerns with how the U.S. government has handled the case.
Peter Brookes, a former analyst and adviser with several intelligence agencies who is now a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News on Thursday that the U.S. should have had a plan to get him out of Pakistan immediately following the raid.
But CNN’s national security contributor Fran Townsend told the program Starting Point Afridi probably thought he was “safe enough” in Pakistan and didn’t want to leave, especially without his extended family.
The United States is working to secure Afridi’s release, and Townsend confirms that [U.S. Secretary of ] State Hillary Clinton has intervened on the doctor’s behalf. Although she believes that Afridi may face some jail time, Townsend says that she ultimately thinks he’ll be released through negations between the U.S. and Pakistan.
“Pakistan will use it as a leverage point,” Townsend explains. “They’re going to want some concession, some commitment from the United States that there will be no use of Pakistani citizens inside their own territory by American intelligence.”
Her view of Afridi as a bargaining chip is confirmed by the BBC’s M. Ilyas Khan, who explains the significance of trying Afridi under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa tribal law .
A trial by a regular court could have gone on for months, involving a proper indictment, witnesses and lawyers, all under the glare of television cameras.
But the political officer in Khyber has made sure that it stays secret and swift … Analysts say the Pakistani establishment has done this not only to defy the Americans but also to send a message to all Pakistani contacts of American diplomatic missions to desist from repeating Dr Afridi’s “mistake.”
They also point to an enduring feeling in Pakistan that at some point it has to mend fences with its Western allies, in which case the release of r Afridi could be one of the bargaining chips.
As and when that happens, the governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province can legally order his release.
Pakistanis for Peace Editor’s Note- The jailing of Dr Afridi is not only another stain in the US-Pakistani relations, such as the hiding of OBL, but rather it is another carriage of injustice in a nation that is guilty of it daily with its population. From the lack of providing rights and freedoms to many of its citizens to the downright shameful behavior towards its religious minorities and women, it regularly is guilty of miscarriage of justice.
Please don’t even get us started on failing miserably to provide basics such as power, clean water, security from home grown terrorists or even a remotely functioning democracy. This action, as well as others in the last thirteen months illustrate, in our view, simply no reason other than, we are sad to say, that Pakistan has essentially told the Americans that we are not with you.
Peace Pipeline Moves Closer To Fruition
By Mohammed Aasim Saleem for Deutsche Welle
Officials from India and Pakistan have announced they are moving closer to inking a deal to import gas from Turkmenistan via a pipeline through Afghanistan. The 1,700-kilometer “TAPI” duct will transport over 30 billion cubic meters of gas annually from fields in Dauletabad in southeastern Turkmenistan.
In high-level talks in New Delhi this week, Indian Oil Minister S. Jaipal Reddy said “considerable progress” has been made on the project. His Pakistani counterpart, Asim Hussain, added at the meeting that “the issue of transit fees is being discussed with Afghanistan. A joint strategy is also being created between India and Pakistan.”
When the four countries signed a framework agreement back in 2008, the Asian Development Bank estimated the cost of the TAPI pipeline project at around $7.6 billion.
After the talks in New Delhi, the Indian oil minister emphasized that the pipeline would help address the energy needs of the region. Reddy also clarified that security concerns were discussed with Afghan officials, who themselves sought to provide reassurance that necessary measures would be taken to protect the TAPI project.
“We consider it a pipeline of peace,” Reddy said. “Everyone needs gas.”
Improving cooperation between the nuclear armed and traditionally hostile neighbors is seen as a positive development towards establishing long term stability in South Asia.
Pakistan gave India a “Most Favored Nation” trading status when the countries’ commerce secretaries met in New Delhi in November last year to discuss energy and bilateral trade. Indian commerce chief Rahul Khullar expressed his desire to boost bilateral trade to $6 billion within the next three years. Currently, total trade amounts to $2.7 billion.
Reddy said that Pakistan had pledged to also consider a proposal to import Indian petroleum products, highlighting the cost advantages for Pakistan. India, meanwhile, offered electricity to Pakistan through its power plants in Punjab and Gujrat.
The Indian oil minister went on to express disappointment over a failed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project. With the US leaving no stone unturned in trying to corner Iran over its nuclear ambitions, any possibility of India, Afghanistan or Pakistan going against the Obama administration is somewhat remote. India imports 12 to 14 percent of its oil from Iran, making the Islamic Republic India’s second largest source of oil after Saudi Arabia.
There was significant domestic pressure in India as the analysts and masses called for a stern stand against the US in determining trade relations with Iran. With other regional countries, including China, also refusing to follow US directions, India is still continuing with the import of oil from Iran. In this regard, Reddy said that New Delhi would continue importing oil from Iran and was not bound by new sanctions imposed by the European Union on the Islamic Republic earlier this week.
“We, as a member of the UN, are obliged to follow UN sanctions. Other sanctions imposed by big blocs of countries, we can have some freedom there,” he added further.
Improving relations and cooperation in the energy sector between India and Pakistan will go a long way to establishing harmony and stability in the region. Pakistan is experiencing a severe energy crisis whilst India needs to feed its rapidly developing economy. Mutual dependency and cooperation in this sector with projects such as the TAPI pipeline can also ensure smoother political ties.
Pakistanis for Peace Editor’s Note– A Peace pipe was often used between the Native American tribes when they ended their wars and called a truce. A different sort of peace pipe between Turkmenistan and India via Pakistan can do great wonders for the bilateral relations of the two feuding neighbors and must be encouraged to fruition.
Pakistan Kicks U.S. Off Air Base
By Farhan Bokhari for CBS News
The U.S. faces the challenge of quickly establishing alternative facilities from which to launch drone aircraft inside Afghanistan after Pakistan ordered U.S. personnel and hardware out of a base believed to have been used in the past for CIA drones, two senior Western defense officials tell CBS News.
Concern mounted Wednesday over the future of Pakistan’s clandestine support for Washington’s use of drones after the country’s defense minister announced Pakistan had told the U.S. to vacate the small Shamsi air base in the southwestern Baluchistan province.
Only “Pakistani aircraft will be flown from Shamsi in future,” Pakistani defense minister Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar told reporters. “No U.S. aircraft will fly from Shamsi.”
“U.S. personnel will not be allowed to use the Shamsi air base,” a senior Pakistani government official added to CBS News.
Another senior Pakistani official, who spoke Thursday to CBS News on condition of anonymity, said there previously “have been U.S. activities at the Shamsi air base. All those activities are being ceased now.”
The news comes as the Obama administration details its new strategy for combating extremism across the globe — a strategy which shifts the focus sharply away from the large-scale ground operations espoused by President George W. Bush, to smaller “surgical” strikes, like drone attacks.
The official refused to specify the types of U.S. activities that have now been ceased at Shamsi.
Pakistan has always publicly criticized the U.S. for carrying out attacks using pilotless drones, and has never acknowledged that it cooperates with Washington on the use of such aircraft. The drones have become widely unpopular across Pakistan after some of the attacks reportedly resulted in civilian casualties, including women and children.
“The damage to the U.S. drone program will not be substantial. But Pakistan’s decision is a setback for efforts to improve U.S. relations with Pakistan,” a senior Western defense official based in Islamabad told CBS, also speaking on the condition of anonymity. “It will take some time for the Americans to establish the program in Afghanistan. It can be done.”
Relations between the U.S. and Pakistan have remained frosty since U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in the country’s northern city of Abbottabad.
That attack was undertaken without the U.S. offering advanced information to Pakistan, out of fear that militant sympathizers in Pakistan’s intelligence and security establishment might have alerted al Qaeda or the Taliban.
The 2nd May operation has been followed by a hardening of attitude by Pakistan’s influential military, which claims the attack violated Pakistan’s sovereignty. In reaction to the raid, Pakistan has already ordered more than 150 U.S. military trainers to leave the country.
Pakistan Shuts Down U.S. ‘Intelligence Fusion’ Cells
By David S Cloud for The Los Angeles Times
In a clear sign of Pakistan’s deepening mistrust of the United States, Islamabad has told the Obama administration to reduce the number of U.S. troops in the country and has moved to close three military intelligence liaison centers, setting back American efforts to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries in largely lawless areas bordering Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.
The liaison centers, also known as intelligence fusion cells, in Quetta and Peshawar are the main conduits for the United States to share satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence with Pakistani ground forces conducting operations against militants, including Taliban fighters who slip into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and allied forces.
U.S. special operations units have relied on the three facilities, two in Peshawar and one in Quetta, to help coordinate operations on both sides of the border, senior U.S. officials said. The U.S. units are now being withdrawn from all three sites, the officials said, and the centers are being shut down.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the steps are permanent. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew Thursday to Pakistan for a hastily arranged meeting with Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the head of the Pakistani army. A Pentagon official said the two will probably discuss Pakistan’s demands for a smaller U.S. military presence.
The closures, which have not been publicly announced, remove U.S. advisors from the front lines of the war against militant groups in Pakistan. U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus spearheaded the effort to increase the U.S. presence in the border areas two years ago out of frustration with Pakistan’s failure to control the militants.
The collapse of the effort will probably hinder the Obama administration’s efforts to gradually push Pakistan toward conducting ground operations against insurgent strongholds in North Waziristan and elsewhere, U.S. officials said.
The Pakistani decision has not affected the CIA’s ability to launch missiles from drone aircraft in northwest Pakistan. Those flights, which the CIA has never publicly acknowledged, receive assistance from Pakistan through intelligence channels separate from the fusion centers, current and former officials said.
The move to close the three facilities, plus a recent written demand by Pakistan to reduce the number of U.S. military personnel in the country from approximately 200, signals mounting anger in Pakistan over a series of incidents.
In January, Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor, shot dead two men in Lahore who he said were attempting to rob him. He was arrested on charges of murder but was released and left the country in mid-March, prompting violent protests in several cities.
Soon after, Pakistan ordered several dozen U.S. special operations trainers to leave the country in what U.S. officials believe was retaliation for the Davis case, according to a senior U.S. military officer.
Then, on May 2, five U.S. helicopters secretly entered Pakistani airspace and a team of U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden and four others at a compound in Abbottabad, a military garrison city near the capital, Islamabad. The raid deeply embarrassed Pakistan’s military and inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment across the country.
Javed Hussain, a retired Pakistani brigadier, blamed the decision to close the three intelligence centers on the mistrust that has plagued U.S.-Pakistani relations in recent months. Washington’s decision to carry out the raid against Bin Laden without informing Pakistan’s security establishment brought that mistrust to a new low, he said.
“There is lot of discontent within Pakistan’s armed forces with regard to the fact they’ve done so much in the war on terror, and yet they are not trusted,” Hussain said. “Particularly after the Abbottabad raid … the image of the armed forces in the eyes of the people has gone down. And they hold the U.S. responsible.”
The two intelligence centers in Peshawar were set up in 2009, one with the Pakistani army’s 11th Corps and the other with the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which are both headquartered in the city, capital of the troubled Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
The third fusion cell was opened last year at the Pakistani army’s 12th Corps headquarters in Quetta, a city long used by Taliban fighters to mount attacks in Afghanistan’s southern provinces. U.S. troops have staffed the Quetta facility only intermittently, U.S. officials said.
The closures have effectively stopped the U.S. training of the Frontier Corps, a force that American officials had hoped could help halt infiltration of Taliban and other militants into Afghanistan, a senior U.S. military officer said.
The Frontier Corps’ facility in Peshawar, staffed by a handful of U.S. special operations personnel, was located at Bala Hissar, an old fort, according to a classified U.S. Embassy cable from 2009 that was recently made public by WikiLeaks.
The cable, which was first disclosed by Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, hinted at U.S. hopes that special operations teams would be allowed to join the paramilitary units and the Special Services Group, a Pakistani army commando unit, in operations against militants.
“We have created Intelligence Fusion cells with embedded U.S. Special Forces with both the SSG and Frontier Corps” at Bala Hissar, Peshawar, the 2009 cable says. “But we have not been given Pakistani military permission to accompany the Pakistani forces on deployments as yet. Through these embeds, we are assisting the Pakistanis [to] collect and coordinate existing intelligence assets.”
Another U.S. Embassy cable said that a “U.S. Special Operations Command Force” was providing the Frontier Corps with “imagery, target packages and operational planning” in a campaign against Taliban insurgents in Lower Dir, an area of northwest Pakistan considered an insurgent stronghold.
In September 2009, then U.S. ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, wrote in another classified message that the fusion cells provided “enhanced capacity to share real-time intelligence with units engaged in counter-insurgency operations” and were “a significant step forward for the Pakistan military.”
The intelligence fusion cell in Quetta was not nearly as active as the facilities in Peshawar, current and former U.S. officials said. Pakistan has long resisted pressure to intensify operations against Taliban militants in Quetta. The city, capital of Baluchistan, is outside the tribal area, which explains Pakistan’s reluctance to permit a permanent U.S. military presence, a U.S. official said.
Despite the ongoing tensions, Pakistani authorities have agreed to allow a CIA team to inspect the compound where Bin Laden was killed, according to a U.S. official. The Pakistanis have signaled they will allow U.S. intelligence analysts to examine documents and other material that Pakistani authorities found at the site.
A U.S. official briefed on intelligence matters said the reams of documents and electronic data that the SEALs seized at the compound have sparked “dozens” of intelligence investigations and have produced new insights into schisms among Al Qaeda leaders.
The Tangled Reality of US/Pakistan Relations
By Mark Urban for The BBC
WASHINGTON – The current crisis in US/Pakistan relations is not the first – but it is the most difficult one since 9/11, and it could easily be aggravated further by the intelligence arising from the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound.
For this reason, Washington insiders are not so sure that diplomatic moves to ease the problem will succeed.
Senator John Kerry has just been in Islamabad asking for “action not words” from the Pakistani authorities. He says he has gained some agreement for practical steps but, apart from gaining the return of remnants of the US helicopter that was destroyed at the compound, has not yet specified what these might be.
This morning he and other members of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations will be holding hearings on Pakistan, including the question of how the billions given in aid could be used more effectively to buy the kind of counter terrorist cooperation that the Americans are after.
Juan Zarate, counter terrorist adviser to President George W Bush, argues that the kind of benchmarks that congressmen have advocated in the past for linking aid to performance on specific actions against militant groups could prove counter-productive in the short term because the Pakistanis consider this “humiliating”.
He poses the further question, “what happens tomorrow if we have to go after Ayman al-Zawahiri?”, referring to the former Al Qaeda number two and presumed leader after Bin Laden’s death.
The question of what leads are thrown up by the intelligence trove from the raided Abottabad compound is now in itself a key factor in whether Mr Kerry and members of President Barack Obama’s administration are able to soothe the relationship. Myriad questions arise from the material seized on flash drives and laptops.
Pakistani officials insist there was no contact between their Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Bin Laden – but what about possible ties with the courier who owned the house and was the key figure in sheltering him?
Will phone numbers leading to ISI officials be found in Bin Laden’s effects? Will there be intelligence that allows the CIA to quickly pinpoint Dr al-Zawahiri or other key figures who might now take control of Al Qaeda?
John McLaughlin, deputy director of the CIA until 2004, argues that even in this current difficult moment for US/Pakistan relations, America will reserve the right to act unilaterally against terrorist targets in Pakistan.
He believes though that ties can slowly be re-built with Pakistan, despite the fact that the raid, mounted without their leaders’ foreknowledge, gave them their “biggest shock for a generation”.
At previous moments of tension between the two countries, accommodations have been found. Intelligence about Al Qaeda suspects has flowed or the army has been sent in to one of the restive tribal areas on the Pakistan border. The US has signed off on new aid payments.
What tends to happen though is that within months, the Americans again accuse the Pakistanis of foot dragging in the fight against militancy, and Islamabad for its part counters with arguments that the US routinely violates its sovereignty.
The tangled reality of the situation is made worse by the fact that Pakistani ministers, mindful of anti-American sentiment in their country, will often not admit publicly to their agreement to drone strikes or other steps. Many people I have spoken to here compare the relationship to a dysfunctional marriage in which both sides need one another but find the reality of daily life increasingly unbearable.
There are those who see ways though in which the two countries might navigate their way through the perfect storm of recrimination and resentment that the Bin Laden operation has produced.
Juan Zarate and some others believe that if the materials seized in the raid produce some nugget of intelligence that leads to the discovery of Dr al-Zawahiri or other key figures, the US may chose to trust the Pakistanis with this knowledge, and make them partners in acting upon it.
If the exploitation of the intelligence went wrong and a leak was suspected the US could use this to place further pressure on Pakistani ministers. But if it all went well, trust might be re-built. The problem is though that there are many within the secret side of US counter terrorism who, because of the way that Osama Bin Laden hid for years where he did, are no longer prepared to take that risk.
AfPak envoy comes down heavy on Pakistan
Reported by The Press Trust Of India
Making it clear that Pakistan needs to do “more” to deal with the safe havens of terrorists on its soil, US AfPak envoy Marc Grossman on Friday said it will help in bringing peace to Afghanistan. On his maiden trip to New Delhi after being appointed in February as US special representative to Afghanistan-Pakistan, Grossman called on foreign secretary Nirupama Rao and held extensive consultations on the situation in the region.
“There is always more to do and we are encouraging Pakistan to do everything possible to deal with the safe havens…..which will also play a big role in bringing peace to Afghanistan,” Grossman told reporters after his meeting with Rao which lasted for nearly one-and-a-half hours.
Asked about the recent remarks of chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen accusing Pakistan’s ISI of backing the Haqqani network, an Afghan Taliban group, he said, “I have nothing to add or to subtract to whatever Mullen has already said. We do a huge amount of work with Pakistan in countering terrorism and extremism and that’s what we will continue doing.”
Appointed after the sudden death of Richard Holbrooke, Grossman since he was new to the job, it was important for him to come to India and take advantage of the expertise and experience of the “people here”.
Apart from Rao, he will also be meeting other senior officials, including National Security Advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon before resuming his journey, which will take him to Kabul, Islamabad and Riyadh. Giving some details of the meeting with Rao, the US envoy said they discussed the Indo-US global partnership, its future and their joint projects in Afghanistan.
“We have a lot of work to do together in Afghanistan and some of that work is very important…,” he said.
Recalling US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s February speech at the Asia Society, Grossman said the military surge in Afghanistan has been effective and Taliban has been degraded but his worry was that being unable to do much militarily, they might resort to terrorist attacks targeting civilians and Afghan police.
Pakistan’s Hypocrisy Has Run Its Course; It Needs A New Relationship With U.S.
By Ahmed Humayun
Best Defense department of frenemy relations
The U.S.-Pakistan relationship has long been volatile, but recent weeks have witnessed an unprecedented level of open discord between the two countries. On April 11, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Pasha, the head of Pakistan’s ISI, met with American officials and demanded that the United States sharply limit its counterterrorism efforts inside Pakistan. Just two days later the CIA launched drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas, provoking angry protests from Pakistani officials. And in a sign that Washington is determined not to back down, last week Admiral Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, publicly chastised the ISI for its “longstanding relationship” with the Haqqani network, one of the prime targets of the drone campaign.
Pakistan’s recent criticisms are partially a response to the rising public backlash against America’s counterterrorism operations. Till now, Pakistan has tacitly cooperated with the drone campaign while reluctantly permitting a few CIA agents and special operations forces to enter the country. At the same time, Islamabad has publicly denied cooperating with Washington due to domestic political sensitivities. In the aftermath of the Raymond Davis incident, however, this always-fragile pretence has become untenable. (Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor, killed two Pakistanis with possible links to the ISI in broad daylight in January. Three months later, the subsequent media frenzy has not diminished. )
No state wants its territory to be a hunting ground for covert foreign operatives. Still, the fulminations of some in Pakistan omit critical context. The Pakistani state’s ambivalent attitude towards extremist groups — acting against some while tolerating or supporting others — has forced the United States to take proactive action. The rights of sovereignty also come with duties: if Pakistan is indulgent of or incapable of acting against anti-American terrorist groups, then foreign preventive counterterrorism should be assessed more soberly by Pakistanis.
To complicate matters further, elements in Pakistan’s security establishment have deliberately stoked public sentiment. Extensive leaks to the Pakistani press about the government’s demands to the United States hint at a desire to exert pressure on Washington through exploiting populist anger. For the ISI, this diplomatic crisis is a unique opportunity to obtain long desired strategic concessions from the United States. Among other things, the ISI does not want militant groups favored by Islamabad under America’s microscope — especially those perceived to defend Pakistani interests in Afghanistan.
This is a dangerous strategy. It is premised on the mistaken assumption that the United States is unwilling to increase pressure on Pakistan. If the Pakistani government faces domestic political constraints, this is no less true of the United States. Sentiment in the U.S. Congress is already heavily tilted against Pakistan. If reports about Pakistan’s entanglement with extremist groups persist, or in the worst case scenario, an attack on the United States by a Pakistan-based terror group succeeds, Washington will find it difficult to avoid taking harsh actions. Loose talk by some Pakistani politicians about cutting off supply routes to U.S. forces in Afghanistan is similarly self-defeating. It is in Pakistan’s long-term interests to prevent an irrevocable rupture with the United States.
At the same time, Washington should appraise the scope of its direct counterterrorism drive within the broader effort to stabilize Pakistan. According to U.S. officials, the drone campaign has been remarkably successful in weakening militant networks; in private, some Pakistani military and political leaders also acknowledge the program’s efficacy. That may be the case, but displays of U.S. coercive force on Pakistani soil — especially those involving U.S. personnel on the ground — have also accentuated the most extreme tendencies in that country’s public discourse. They have empowered those in Pakistan who maintain that the war on terror is America’s war, not Pakistan’s struggle, and that the United States has fundamentally hostile aims towards Pakistan.
Policymakers might shrug their shoulders at conspiracy theories. That would be short-sighted. The fact is that the United States cannot directly extinguish the threat posed by Pakistan-based terrorism. U.S. forces can certainly kill a few extremists through drone strikes or ground operations. But the militant threat is geographically dispersed: not only do insurgent sanctuaries infest the isolated border regions, terrorist networks are also embedded in the heavily populated areas of the Punjabi heartland. Some of these groups have deep roots stretching back decades and enjoy local political cover. Kinetic action by a deeply unpopular foreign power will not uproot them.
The single most decisive factor in disrupting Pakistani militancy will be the willingness of the state and society to commit to a long-term struggle. Only Pakistan can overcome the jihadi Frankenstein it has spawned through a combination of stepped up military force, political dialogue, and local governance. The impact of U.S. policies on the internal Pakistani debate about militancy should therefore be factored heavily into Washington’s policymaking calculus.
Pakistan is making progress — however halting or incomplete — in adopting a more robust anti-militant posture. Since 2009, its military offensives in the tribal areas have degraded insurgent sanctuaries at a heavy price in blood and treasure. Pakistani intelligence has also helped the United States capture numerous high-level al Qaeda operatives. The Obama administration’s economic assistance to Pakistan and its diplomatic efforts to stabilize the country’s fractious politics have contributed to these advances. Going forward, the core policy challenge is to generate the political will inside Pakistan that will expand these activities. Right now, Washington’s ability to do so is vitiated by Pakistani paranoia.
In the short term, Islamabad and Washington need to negotiate a new counterterrorism relationship. The old strategy of ambiguous private compromise veiled by public dissembling has run its course. Pakistan’s legitimate concerns should be weighed against the immediate threat to the American homeland and to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. This is a herculean task given the underlying strategic differences, but the alternative is likely to be much starker.
Ahmed Humayun is a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) and senior analyst at Georgetown University’s Emerging Threats Project. He can be reached at ahmed.a.humayun@gmail.com .
Pakistan Rejects US Taliban Report
As Reported by The BBC
The Pakistani military has dismissed the findings of a US report that says it has no clear plans to defeat the Taliban insurgency.
The report assessing the war against militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan has been submitted by the Obama administration to the US congress.
But a senior Pakistan security official told the BBC that operations against militants have been a great success.
The official said that Pakistan should be proud of the progress it had made.
The White House report said that Pakistan still has no “clear path” to defeat militants on its soil.
But the senior official – who wished to remain anonymous – said that Pakistan’s plate was full enough already.
“Instead of pushing us to do more, the other side should carry out an introspection of its own operations,” he said.
“We are quite satisfied with our counter-insurgency campaign in the Swat and Malayan regions and parts of the tribal areas. We can safely say this has been a great success story.”
The BBC’s Shoaib Hasan in Pakistan says that the White House report has been released at a time when relations between the security establishments of the two countries have been strained.
Our correspondent says that the report is likely to raise the ire of the Pakistan military – which says it has lost more men than any other country in the fight against militancy in the region.
‘Vexing’
The White House report said that in spite of “tremendous human sacrifices” made by Pakistani security forces and increased military co-operation between Pakistan and US in the last three months, the fight against militancy was making little progress.
Pakistan claims to have lost more men than any other country in the fight against militancy It cited the example of the this January’s third operation in two years to clear insurgents from Mohmand and Bajaur tribal agencies.
The Pakistani military’s efforts have been hobbled by resistance from the militants, bad weather and the need to settle internally displaced people.
“What remains vexing is the lack of any indication of ‘hold’ and ‘build’ planning or staging efforts to complement ongoing clearing operations,” the White House report said.
“As such there remains no clear path to defeating the insurgency in Pakistan, despite the unprecedented and sustained deployment of over 147,000 forces.”
The report said that Pakistan and Afghanistan needed to co-operate more to destroy insurgent havens on both sides of the border.
The US has long expressed frustration about Pakistan’s reluctance to take on militants in the tribal areas.
Will India Win Coveted UN Seat?
By Sunil Sharan for The Huffington Post
Indian foreign secretary Nirupama Rao says Pakistan is hypnotically obsessed with India but she and her bosses too are fixated on a coveted prize, a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council. The mandarins of New Delhi must be pleased as punch to have had over to visit leaders of all five permanent member countries in quick succession. Inexorable appears the march but will India find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? And, if it does, what are the implications for itself as well as for Pakistan?
First in was David Cameron of Britain, who arrived during the summer and offered unstinting support, whetting local appetite for the main American course. And, did he fail to disappoint? No sir, Barack Obama set the cat amongst the pigeons by endorsing India for the seat, the first time ever by the US. India rejoiced while Pakistan recoiled.
But a careful examination shows him adhering closely to what he told Bob Woodward in the book, Obama’s Wars. In lieu of the seat, he expects India to resolve Kashmir. At a press conference with Manmohan Singh, Obama characterized Kashmir as a long-standing dispute making the latter stutter that the K-word was not scary. Only then did Obama hand over the endorsement in India’s Parliament but couched in such diplomatese that countless local hair were split over when “the years ahead” would dawn.
Next waltzed in Nicolas Sarkozy of France. The French, like the British, have consistently seen merit in India’s case. Sarkozy though, true to type, proved an enigma. He first tagged on the applications of Africa, the Arabs and pretty much the rest of the world onto India’s, befuddling his hosts, who are willing to concede as equal aspirants only “self-appointed frontrunners” Germany, Japan and Brazil. Just as they were about to give up on him, Sarkozy warmed the cockles of India’s heart by throwing in 2011 as early as when it could make it.
But soon came the caveat. Sarkozy, just like Obama before him, cautioned that with great power status came great responsibilities. Whereas Obama wanted India to be more mindful of human rights violations of countries such as Iran and Myanmar, Sarkozy wanted India to send military forces to keep world peace. With India already being one of the foremost contributors to UN peacekeeping missions throughout the world, the mandarins of New Delhi must have been left wondering what more was being asked of them.
No matter, three down, two to go. By now the state jets were landing at Delhi airport almost on top of one another. Wen Jiabao, the leader India was least looking forward to, came with the master key to entry. Shortly before his visit, WikiLeaks revealed China’s opposition to any council expansion. Indian hopes were up nevertheless but Wen remained inscrutable, willing only to acknowledge an understanding of India’s aspirations. No one in India knew quite what to make of him and since Wen was off to Pakistan next, all the country could do was wait with clenched teeth to hear what he would say there.
Rounding off the passage to India was Dmitry Medvedev. Relations between Russia and India have frayed considerably since the heady days of the cold war, so much so that Russia has waffled on India’s bid. Medvedev signaled that the waffle still needed baking, voicing support for India while reiterating that reforming the council was tough and required consensus.
All the while Pakistan protested vociferously against what it deemed an indulgence of Indian hegemonism. But what will India gain with a permanent UN seat? Could it block Pakistani claims on Kashmir? True a permanent member wielding veto power can stonewall but the veto seems unattainable for seekers since they themselves have forsaken it. And, while India sees red when the K-word is uttered in the UN by Pakistan, no ascension to permanency can make it strangle the latter. Nor can it efface any past security council resolutions.
So then, what is it? Nothing comes to mind but the obvious, the acceptance that any arriviste craves. Even that appears a false hankering because ever since its early years, Gandhi’s legacy and Nehru’s charisma burnished the country with global influence disproportionate to its economic and military capabilities. A bee once in one’s bonnet is hard to get rid of though. And, as every journey must have a fitting end, India has found a destination to its liking.
Flush with cash, New Delhi wants to beef up its military. All of the recent visitors bar China are major suppliers of defence equipment to India. As bees flock to honey, they arrived armed with catalogues of the most terrifying stuff. Inherent was a delicate diplomatic quid-pro-quo. The more arms you buy from us, the more we will push your candidacy. As Islamabad keeps raising the bar for India’s seat, so too will India have to up its arms binge.
Lost in Pakistan’s current rhetoric was its vote in October to put India in the security council for two years beginning January 1, 2011. Once on, we will never get off is the new mantra of India’s brave. India seemingly returned the favor by taking in stride the sale of Chinese nuclear reactors to Pakistan. Is there more afoot than meets the eye?
Every country is entitled to its obsession. Pakistan’s is obvious. By continually thumbing its nose at a NATO mired in Afghanistan, it has put the K-word in spotlight, albeit on the backstage. A deal has been blessed by the powers that be. Both the seat and Srinagar are not far away.
The writer edits a website on India: http://www.scooptime.com.
Holbrooke Mentioned Afghan War Before Surgery
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karen DeYoung for The Washington Post
As friends and colleagues from four decades of diplomatic life reflected on the intensity of Richard C. Holbrooke’s dedication, many were not surprised to learn that concerns about the Afghanistan war were apparently among his final thoughts.
After Holbrooke’s death Monday, The Washington Post, citing his family members, reported that the veteran diplomat had told his physician just before surgery Friday to “stop this war.” But Tuesday, a fuller account of the tone and contents of his remarks emerged.
As physician Jehan El-Bayoumi was attending to Holbrooke in the emergency room at George Washington University Hospital, she told him to relax and asked what she could do to comfort him, according to an aide who was present.
Holbrooke, who was in severe pain, said jokingly that it was hard to relax because he had to worry about the difficult situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
El-Bayoumi, an Egyptian American internist who is Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s physician, replied that she would worry for him. Holbrooke responded by telling her to end the war, the aide said.
The aide said he could not be sure of Holbrooke’s exact words. He emphasized Tuesday that the comment was made in painful banter, rather than as a serious exhortation about policy. Holbrooke also spoke extensively about his family and friends as he awaited surgery by Farzad Najam, a thoracic surgeon of Pakistani descent.
Holbrooke’s statement was seized upon quickly by critics of the Afghan war debate, some of whom interpreted it as a clarion call to end the conflict. Others viewed his comment as a last-breath disavowal of the Obama administration’s war policy, which has involved a troop surge – which Holbrooke publicly supported – to combat the Taliban. But State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley cast Holbrooke’s words simply as “humorous repartee.”
Crowley said the comment “says two things about Richard Holbrooke in my mind. Number one, he always wanted to make sure he got the last word. And secondly, it just showed how he was singularly focused on pursuing and advancing the process and the policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan to bring them to a successful conclusion.”
Holbrooke’s deputy, Frank Ruggiero, has been named to fill his post as special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan in an acting capacity, Crowley said, adding that no significant move had been made to select a permanent replacement.
Obama Prays for Holbrooke’s Recovery
As Reported by The Associated Press
Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s diplomatic point man for Afghanistan and Pakistan, remained in critical condition Saturday night after surgery to repair a tear in his aorta. President Barack Obama Saturday expressed support for Holbrooke’s family in the difficult hour and prayed for his recovery.
“Earlier today, I spoke to Richard Holbrooke’s wife Kati and told her that Michelle and I are praying for Richard. Richard Holbrooke is a towering figure in American foreign policy, a critical member of my Afghanistan and Pakistan team, and a tireless public servant who has won the admiration of the American people and people around the world. I know that Secretary Clinton, Admiral Mullen, Tom Donilon, and other members of our team have been with him at George Washington hospital, and we continue to pray for his recovery, and support his family in this difficult time,” Obama said in the statment.
Holbrooke, 69, was rushed to George Washington University Hospital on Friday morning after he had chest pains during a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, The Washington Post reported. He was almost immediately taken into surgery that extended for 21 hours into Saturday, the paper added.
With Holbrooke in intensive care only blocks away, President Obama’s senior national security advisers met at the White House on Saturday to discuss a major internal assessment of the war in Afghanistan. Obama will review the assessment Monday, with release to the public scheduled for later in the week.
Meanwhile, according to the Post, the U.S. administration officials said that Holbrooke’s condition would not affect the war review, compiled over the past month by the National Security Council staff from assessments made by Holbrooke and his staff and by the military coalition led by Gen Patreaus.
Holbrooke’s long diplomatic experience has given him a unique perspective within the administration and has positioned him perhaps better than anyone to navigate the often messy intersection of diplomacy, counterinsurgency and politics, the newspaper noted. Holbrooke, the newspaper reported, has been a strong advocate of a negotiated settlement of the war and of massive increases in development and governance aid. Under his direction, the number of U.S. civilian officials in Afghanistan has more than tripled, to exceed 1,000. He experienced health problems in August, when he underwent treatment for heart problems.
How to Win Back Pakistan
By Michael O’Hanlon for Foreign Policy
Nine years into the war in Afghanistan, the United States should have a clear idea of Pakistan’s interests there. It’s time to take these lessons to heart — and start applying the right incentives. As recent intelligence findings reported in late October confirm, Pakistan remains at the heart of the U.S.-led coalition’s problems in Afghanistan — where the war is hardly lost, yet hardly headed for clear victory either. Indeed, Pakistan arguably remains the most complex ally the United States has ever had in wartime, making President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s challenges in dealing with Stalin (a far worse leader, but at least one who knew the outcome he wanted) seem simple by comparison.
Nine years into the campaign, we still can’t clearly answer the question of whether Pakistan is with us or against us. America needs bold new policy measures to help Islamabad — in all its many dimensions and factions — make up its mind.
The crux of the problem is this: Despite allowing massive NATO logistics operations through its territory and helping the United States pursue al Qaeda operatives, Pakistan tolerates sanctuaries on its soil for the major insurgencies fighting in Afghanistan. These include the Afghan Taliban (otherwise known as the Quetta Shura Taliban because its principle base remains in Quetta in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan) as well as the Haqqani and Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (HiG) networks. The Haqqanis straddle the border between the Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika as well as North Waziristan and other tribal areas within Pakistan; HiG is further north, operating in and around the Khyber Pass connecting Kabul and Jalalabad in Afghanistan with Peshawar and points east in Pakistan. Thus, all three major Afghan insurgent groups have home bases in Pakistan, and despite the occasional drone strike are generally beyond NATO’s reach as a result.
Pakistan has done some worthy things against extremists in its remote northern and western areas in recent years. Specifically, it has recognized the so-called Pakistani Taliban (the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP) as a mortal threat to the Pakistani state and responded accordingly. After suffering hundreds of bombings and assassination attacks by the TTP, including the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 and several thousand casualties a year to its troops and citizens since roughly that time, it has responded in force, particularly over the last year and a half or so. It has swung about 100,000 troops previously guarding the border with Pakistan’s nemesis India to the northwestern tribal regions and cleared several major areas including South Waziristan, Bajaur, and the Swat Valley. This is all to the good.
Pakistanis argue, however, that limited numbers of ground troops combined with the past year’s admittedly devastating floods prevent them from doing more. Quetta, North Waziristan, and other key places remain dens of iniquity, havens for extremists who continue to attack NATO and Afghan troops across the border and then return home for rest, regrouping, and fresh recruiting. Major command-and-control hubs are permanently located within Pakistan as well, and key insurgent leaders like Mullah Omar (to say nothing of Osama bin Laden) probably remain safely ensconced on Pakistani territory where U.S. forces cannot get at them.
But even if limited Pakistani capacity is part of the problem, there’s more at stake. Pakistan worries that President Barack Obama’s promise to start reducing U.S. troops in Afghanistan come July will lead to anarchy and civil conflict next door, and it is retaining proxies that it can use to ensure that its top goal in Afghanistan — keeping India out — can be accomplished come what may. Pakistan would rather have the Taliban and the Haqqanis back in power, especially in the country’s south and east, than any group like the former Northern Alliance, which it views as too close to New Delhi. It is this strategic calculation, more than constrained Pakistani resources, that constitutes Obama’s main challenge in Afghanistan. And it could cost him the war.
Under these circumstances, part of the right policy is to keep doing more of what the Obama administration has been doing with Pakistan — building trust, as with last month’s strategic dialogue in Washington; increasing aid incrementally, as with the new five-year $2 billion aid package announced during that dialogue; and coordinating militarily across the border region. But Obama also needs to think bigger.
First, he needs to make clear America’s commitment to South Asia, to wean Pakistan away from its current hedging strategy. Obama has frequently used general language to try to reassure listeners in the region that there will be no precipitous U.S. withdrawal next summer. But few fully believe him. Hearing stories like Bob Woodward’s accounts of how the vice president and White House advisors have generally opposed a robust counterinsurgency strategy in favor of a counterterrorism-oriented operation with far fewer U.S. troops, they worry that next summer’s withdrawal will be fast. Obama needs to explain that he will not revert to such a minimalist “Plan B” approach under any imaginable circumstances. More appropriate would be a “Plan A-minus” that involves a gradual NATO troop drawdown as Afghan forces grow in number and capability, without necessarily first stabilizing the entire south and east, should the current strategy not turn around the violence by next summer or so. This would represent a modification to the current plan rather than a radical departure. The president can find a way to signal that this is in fact his own thinking, sooner rather than later — ideally before the year is out.
Second, Obama should offer Islamabad a much more expansive U.S.-Pakistani relationship if it helps win this war. Two major incentives would have particular appeal to Pakistan. One is a civilian nuclear energy deal like that being provided to India; Pakistan’s progress on export controls in the wake of the A.Q. Khan debacle has been good enough so far to allow a provisional approval of such a deal if other things fall into place as well. Second is a free trade accord. Struggling economically, Pakistan needs such a shot in the arm, and a trade deal could arguably do even more than aid at this point.
But the key point is this: Pakistan should be told that these deals will only be possible if the United States and its allies prevail in Afghanistan. Small gestures of greater helpfulness are not adequate; bottom-line results are what count and what are needed. If Afghanistan turns around in a year or two, the deals can be set in motion and implemented over a longer period that will allow the United States to continually monitor subsequent Pakistani cooperation in the war.
It may seem harsh to Pakistan that America would put things in such stark terms — but in fact, it is not realistic that any U.S. president or Congress would carry out such deals if the United States loses the war in Afghanistan partly due to Pakistani perfidy. As such, these terms are really just common sense, and they are based on political realism about America’s domestic politics as well as its strategic interests.
America’s current strategy for the war in Afghanistan is much improved. But it is not yet sound enough to point clearly toward victory. The most crucial problem is the role of Pakistan in the war, and so far, the Obama administration is not thinking creatively enough about how to fix it.
Obama Will Try to Avoid the K Word
By Paul Beckett for The Wall Street Journal
To some U.S. officials, it is known simply as the “K-word.” Kashmir. It’s a topic we expect U.S. President Barack Obama to try his level best to avoid during his three-day trip to India that starts next week.
The issue got the former British foreign secretary in hot water when he was here last year. And when Richard Holbrooke, Mr. Obama’s special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan at one point suggested he tackle Kashmir too, the idea received a furious rebuff from the Indians.
If the topic does come up, Mr. Obama will likely follow the same tack taken by his advisers earlier this week in a briefing with reporters. When asked, “Will the President talk publicly or privately about Kashmir and the tensions between India and Pakistan?” this was the response from Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor for strategic communication.
“The President believes that the U.S. relationship with India and the U.S. relationship with Pakistan does not take place within any kind of zero-sum dynamic. It’s often been viewed that way in the past, that if we become closer to one it’s at the expense of the other. And we’ve tried to send the signal that it’s the opposite with this administration; that, in fact, actually you see that borne out in the fact that we had a very successful strategic dialogue here, with the Pakistanis in town last week, discussing greater security cooperation in governance and economic issues.
And as a part of that, the President met with the Pakistani delegation and ended up speaking to President Zardari yesterday to discuss that strategic dialogue and said that he’d very much like to visit Pakistan next year and is planning to visit Pakistan next year.”
If you’re counting, that almost 150 words – and not one of them is “Kashmir.”
William Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, added his own non-Kashmir Kashmir response. “We have always welcomed dialogue between India and Pakistan and certainly encouraged efforts to improve relations between those two very important countries. Obviously, the pace, scope and character of that dialogue is something that Indians and Pakistanis have to shape. But we’ll continue to both welcome and encourage it.”
White House reporters being an intrepid bunch, another questioner brought up the topic again, using the K-word specifically.
“Just to follow Steven’s question on Kashmir. Will the President be making some public remarks explaining the U.S. position on Kashmir? And will he also be addressing — explaining the U.S. relationship with Pakistan publicly?”
This time Mr. Rhodes was even more eloquent, going for a full 286 words, not a single one of them Kashmir.
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Pakistanis for Peace 
Pakistan: Between a Rock and A Hard Place
By Yekaterina Kudashkina for The Voice of Russia
Interview with Dr. Theodore Karasik – the Director of Research and Development at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA) in Dubai.
Particularly you have to first understand that the situation in Pakistan is rather icy politically, as well as on the religious scale. Pakistan now finds itself between a rock and a hard place when it comes to how it fits into the US and Western plans to halt fighting in Afghanistan as well as to get rid of terrorist events in the northwest frontier province. So, the Pakistani press is going to be very inflamed though, not only because of the NATO Summit, but also because of the sentencing of the doctor who outed Bin Laden for a sentence of 33 years.
Apparently what happened was that the US had managed to find a Pakistani physician who was able to pinpoint the location of Bin Laden’s compound and as a result of the leakage of this information in the US and foreign press this doctor was arrested and tried very quickly in Pakistan and sentenced to 33 years in jail for giving up Bin Laden’s position. This is a political trial where Pakistanis want to make an example of this individual by arguing that he managed to fail the state by giving up the secret of where Bin Laden was hiding.
Do you think that this case is going to further deteriorate the relations between the US and Pakistan or is it just a root in development?
I think it is a bit of both. I think that will embarrass the US-Pakistani relations. I think that will be pressuring the United States of why did the US revealed the identity of this doctor. There is also a discussion about how this relationship with Pakistan and the United States will continue in terms of transport of nonlethal goods to Afghanistan.
Now, talking about that issue. Do I get it right that the negotiations are still under way in Islamabad regarding the transportation routes agreement, the new one?
Yes, the negotiations are still ongoing in Islamabad about transferring nonlethal goods into the Afghan theatre. And Pakistanis are using this episode to put political pressure on US to make concessions, particularly when it comes to military aid or paying of very high prices for use of this supply lines.
Are we talking about concessions in terms of money or in some other aspects?
It’s a combination of both money and political support for the Zardari Government.
Is the US prepared to offer a political support for Zardari Government in the present circumstances?
At this time I would say that the United States is going to play quite tough with Pakistan. Let’s face it – Pakistan is just barely above a failed state. And the US needs to make sure that Pakistan does not descend in the total chaos while at the same time applying pressure on Pakistan to guarantee that the state remains somewhat coherent together.
The signals of the resumption of negotiations in Islamabad were generally seen as a sign that perhaps they could be ameliorating. And then came Zardari’s visit to Chicago. By the way, why would the Pakistanis be so disappointed with the results of his visit? What were their expectations?
I think that they were expecting to be treated more as an equal and key to solving the Afghan problem as well as to part of trying to help with the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. But instead you had this political issues popup and then you had Zardari acting in a very strange way by missing the key events like the group of progress of all the leaders and so on. I think that they left Chicago messed.
Does the United States want to ameliorate them and what needs to be done if there is a certain desire to make them better?
Clearly a lot of problems need to be discussed and we need to find the right remedies that would help both countries work together in this difficult time. I think it is going to get more difficult as tensions build over what to do with Afghanistan and the withdrawal from Afghanistan of NATO forces. Pakistan has an important role to play in all this because of the supply routes as we talked about previously. So, I think we are going to be entering a period of more jostling for position, negotiation that could get quite ugly at some points.
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