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Afghanistan's Great Game And Superficial Analysis By US Foreign Policy Analysts
By Yasser Latif Hamdani
The article below from Examiner epitomizes bad analysis that some in the US insist on carrying out which is damaging to the much flaunted “common objective”. God forbid if the author is right, it just means that the US is pursuing a perilous path by ignoring advice from Pakistan’s hardened policy hands. The author is absolutely wrong when she says the Pakistan Army “has never been excited” about US aid and intervention. The Pakistani military has always been very close to the Pentagon. What Obama needs is a sustainable strategy which brings on board every key player including Pakistan’s civilian federal government and the Pakistan Army.
This means that the US will have to address Pakistan’s concerns vis a vis Indian involvement in Afghanistan. All of India’s so called interests in Afghanistan are Pakistan specific. Furthermore, the US needs to come out clearly and distance itself from the horrendous and ridiculous Col Peters’ Plan which finds an increasingly audience amongst the new great gamers. How would US do that? Well for one - US has no business dealing directly with the NWFP and ANP. US should make it very clear that its channel of communication is with Pakistan’s Supreme Commander President Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. The US Administration should stop making direct contacts with either Asfandyar Wali Khan, Amir Haider Hoti etc and treating them as the founding father and prime minister of a new state. They should be treated on merit as a provincial party and a provincial government. ( I wonder if there are people in the current administration naive enough to flirt with this idea of an independent Pakhtunistan. If there are indeed such geniuses, they should know that their new found favorites will be swept away in a flood.)
Here is the article I was talking about:
It is not possible for President Obama to declare a surge against Pakistan. After all, we are allies, and we are not supposed to be fighting on their soil. Why did it take so long to finally endorse the troops requested by General McChrystal?
The excuse came in the form of waiting for Afghan election results, despite the fact that the US knew well in advance that Karzai had no serious competitor. And, as reported earlier, the only possible man who could have had a chance at winning was pressured by the US to withdraw. See U.S. pressured Abdullah Abdullah to withdraw from presidential race
This afternoon, we heard Richard Holbrooke say: ‘no country is more important to our success than Pakistan‘, during an interview with Fareed Zakaria. He also spoke of the hostility faced by Secretary of State Clinton during her recent visit to Pakistan. We wondered about the same animus in our report: Pakistan: ‘Kerry-Lugar bill is unacceptable’ – who is the real enemy?
According to all indications, al-Qaeda is no longer operating in Afghanistan. And the number of ‘dangerous’ Taliban has been reduced to less than one hundred men. The question has already been posed: do we need another 30,000 men to take out 100 men?
During another interview this Sunday on State of the Union, National Security Advisor, General Jim Jones was pressed hard about this surge, its meaning and its purpose. A single sentence stood out amid all of the rhetoric: the troops will be concentrated on the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan where the fighting has been heaviest.
Another fact which has recently emerged on Democracy Now! was the quiet work being done by the CIA in Pakistan, supported by private mercenaries (i.e. Blackwater) who are conducting a war so secret that it was indicated that the current administration may not have known about it. This is inclusive of the drone attacks which have killed many Pakistanis, including civilians.
And we have reason to worry about Pakistan now more than ever: President Zardari has been forced to relinquish some powers, as he has been accused of corruption. The Pakistani Army has never been expecially excited about American presence or assistance to the country. And then, there are those nuclear arms that need to be secured.
So as everyone continues the conversation about President Obama’s war in Afghanistan, we may want to pause and read between the lines.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Army, India, North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan, Politics, Terrorism, USA, violence, war, World, Yusuf Raza Gillani, Zardari · Tags: Afghanistan's great game, Amir Haider Khan Hoti, ANP, Asfandyar Wali Khan, Examiner, Foreign policy, NWFP Government, Pakhtunistan, Pakistan, strategy, US
128 Responses to "Afghanistan's Great Game And Superficial Analysis By US Foreign Policy Analysts"
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@Majumdar
@Milind Kher
I think it is fair to say that nobody knew what was coming.
Colonialism was a new paradigm in the fifteenth century; so was coming out of colonialism. We are very wise today some two generations after the events of first beginning to let go of colonies, taking the American case as an aberration, way, way ahead of its time. The pattern that the South Asian case followed was followed by many others; of course, in a way, disregarding the racial differences, the Vietnamese followed an older pattern, fighting their way to freedom through three sets of wars with three gigantic powers.
It is also fair to say that now most of us now know what will be coming, but pretend we don’t know.
Although many, perhaps most of the answers are with us, we are not paying attention to them. Most of what we need to know about the nature of identity, ethnic, linguistic, religious, whatever, is fairly clear and on the table. But since we refuse to take this evidence on board, it takes a Nelson Mandela to take obvious steps for unity overcoming the clash of identities that make us call him a transcendental leader. We consider the Bangladesh case a failure, but we pretend that China and India are successful, ignoring the evidence lying around us in huge mutilated heaps.
The point being that what we allowed to happen out of ignorance sixty years ago should not be allowed to recur because of obstinacy, lack of mental effort in matters of governance, and a refusal to either get along with each other, or get along without each other. There is no longer any real excuse for Darfur, Xinjiang, Tibet, Kashmir, Nagaland. There are other examples in many other countries; these will suffice to make the point.
Telengana is just history repeating the pattern she had woven earlier, this time in a farcical mood.
These Indian examples are not intended to distract attention from matters germane to Pakistan; they are intended to make a point without pointing a finger, if you get what I mean.
@Mk partition of Punjab was something clearly did not want but was foisted upon him by Mountbatten. My own opinion is that if it wasn’t for Nehru’s ambition and if things had been left more between Gandhi and Jinnah I suspect the cabinet mission plan would’ve been implemented.
@Hossp: What’s your opinion on Qayyum Khans ( hero to the odd person here) role in the use of the tribal areas (1948)?
@Vajra,
China and India can in no way be called successful as far as internal politics is concerned.
As you have rightfully pointed out, Xinjiang and Tibet in China and Kashmir and Nagaland in India are issues that are far from resolved.
This gets infectious, so you have Swat, Waziristan, Balochistan. All in all a cocktail more of the Molotov variety..
Milind babu,
so you have Swat, Waziristan, Balochistan.
Well, you are right in comparing Balochistan with Tibet, Kashmir and Nagaland.
But not Swat and Waziristan. The people in this latter category do not want to secede from Pak. Rather, some Swatis and Waziris wud like to implement the system they consider ideal for Swat/W’stan to the rest of Pakistan as well. (And in this they have support of some of the res of Pakistanis as well including some luminaries we see on PTH as well).
Regards
so jinnah asked and bribed a non-resident, former political agent and (jinnah’s bitter opponent) dr khan sahib’s best mate to do the dirty work amongst the tribes?? he obviously didn’t have any one elese to turn to, e.g. the proper politicians living in the community like habibullah khan or wazirzada gul muhammad… or even nawab of tank, for that matter.
@Majumdar Saheb,
There is truth in what you say. They do feel that way. The frightening part is that they could succeed, if not neutralized before the end of December.
Milind babu,
Chill, there is not even a remotest chance that the Talibs can overwhelm the Pak Army.
The real danger (although remote too) of course is that after having won the war, the Pak Army and Pak state may concede the Talib’s political demands in peace.
Regards
Btw, waht is so sacrosanct about the end of December, why wud heavens fall apart if the Talibs are not finished off by end Dec?
Regards
@takhalus
if things had been left more between Gandhi and Jinnah I suspect the cabinet mission plan would’ve been implemented
have you read the history of gandhi through the CMP months?? he made it very clear that he was going to oppose it even if the AICC had somehow accepted it.
majumdar + gorki
you’ve both agreed that regardless of a slip this way or that of radcliff’s pen, the loss and tragedy suffered by a family ending up on this side of the slip or that would have remained unchanged.
as for majumdar saying: unless of course your people wud have reverted, if you mean to their old traditional profession… then gorki might have been an officer in the PA today. and it would have been all the more interesting to see PMA sb’s view of Gorki and his views. no less interesting than it has been to see majumdar’s view of the whole hypothetical scenario.
@Majumdar Saheb,
Hakimullah Mehsud has gone on record to say that he is conserving his energy for a major offensive during January, when there would be major snowfall.
This will surely put the Pak army at a disadvantage. Let us not forget that in Afghanistan, after killing Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Taliban had overwhelmed the Afghan army.
@MK
by the time ahmed shah masoud was assassinated, the Taliban had long been the Afghan Army.
Milind babu,
Civvie mian is right, moreover a day after ASM was assassinated, 9/11 happened and the Talibs got overwhelmed, we will never know whether the Talib Afghan Army wud have beaten what remained of the NA.
Civvie mian,
tragedy suffered by a family ending up on this side of the slip or that would have remained unchanged.
Tragedy of course was only if you belonged to the wrong faith.
as for majumdar saying: unless of course your people wud have reverted, if you mean to their old traditional profession… then gorki might have been an officer in the PA today.
Of course that is a possibility. Had Gorki sb’s people reverted he may well have been a proud Pakistani Muslim soldier in the Pak Army.
Regards
Takhalus,
Which odd person…because so far it seems to me that you and uncle hossp form the odd couple here. Now you’ve brought Qayyum in the picture. I am not a big fan of Qayyum ..he was an ex-Frontier Congressman and a comrade of Bacha Khan.
But I must say he did very well to expose the Khan brothers and their politics.
Do tell us if you are going to admit that Iskandar Mirza was a close friend of both Dr. Khan sb and Bacha Khan and later was instrumental in installing Dr. Khan sb as the King’s Party’s CM.
It goes without saying that Qayyum Khan atleast did not hobnob with Iskandar Mirza and Ayub Khan as was the wont of Jabbar Khan mian aka Dr. Khan sb.
Dr. Khan sb proved to be exactly what people instinctively knew about him. Bacha Khan and Dr. Khan sb played a dangerous game in Pakistani politics which in the end cost Khan sb his life.
Qayyum on the other hand remained a powerful politician who refused to play the establishment’s game … unlike Khan brothers.
On cabinet mission plan, I think Nehru was a political idealist who inexperience and impulsive nature were used his colleagues in the Congress to heap the burden of failure on him.
Gandhi played Nehru like a fiddle. It was Gandhi and his crew that were responsible …Nehru was only the frontman.
Nehru came into his own as a leader and statesman on 30th January 1948. He made several mistakes and was found wanting on occasion in fairness, but Nehru sought power for idealistic reasons. Nehru was in many ways the post Edwardian version of younger Jinnah. He became the leader Jinnah should have..had he not broken with the Congress and had Jinnah not been a minority. In the great story of India’s partition, Nehru and Jinnah are Istari wizards…vascillating between Saruman and Gandalf… The question is who is Sauron… Gandhi or the British.
@BC,
You are right. I will put it another way. The Taliban had managed to beat the Northern Alliance which was the ruling power, and itself become the ruling power.
@Majumdar Saheb,
The fact that the Taliban was running the show is already an indication that they had defeated the Northern Alliance
Yasser,
Gandhi played Nehru like a fiddle. It was Gandhi and his crew that were responsible …Nehru was only the frontman.
I don’t quite agree here. The real “villains” that is if Partition is to be viewed as a crime were Rajaji, Patel and Nehru. The order does not reflect the magnitude of villainy of the characters involved, but the order in which we can trace their conversion to the Partition cause. Gandhi too had a role no doubt but his role was different as BRA has pointed out. It was his refusal to address the core issue of Hindu-Muslim distrust and how to resolve it politically which caused Partition, not so much an actual desire to bring about Partition.
Coming to the three “villains” the former two were driven by the belief that the interests of INC’s core constituency – the Hindu middle class- was best served by Partition. The latter- a dispossessed Mughal/Gupta at heart- would have been willing to make compromises to keep India United but was driven to support Partition by a realization that in an United India not only wud INC have to share power with AIML, that he may have to play second fiddle to MAJ, the better man.
Regards
majumdar
wrong faith was also subject to the same equal opportunity rules, incapable of avoiding the loss and tragedy for the family.
and…. he may well have been a proud Pakistani Non-Muslim or Muslim soldier in the Pak Army.
regards
Gorki (December 11, 2009 at 10:27 am):
First of all thank you for the kind words but “intellectual, poet, historian” will be too much of a burden to bear. Also please forgive me for saying that you are stretching this non-issue too far. There is hardly any reason for any of us to personalize these discussions here at PTH. So let us leave the personalities alone and talk about the subjects and issues related to Pakistan if we wish. Shall we?
@MK
The Taliban had managed to beat the Northern Alliance which was the ruling power, and itself become the ruling power.
The Northern Alliance was formed after the Taliban had pushed those who formed the alliance into a small territory around mazar e sharif in the North; hence the name. the allies within NA were not necessarily allies before that. some were bitter enemies of each other.
if by your mention of december/january/winter you mean winter is a bad time to initiate an offensive in half of afghanistan, you are right. virtually none of the taliban’s conquests of afghan cities were in the winter.
Folks. I hate to inform you that ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Punjab was not invented in 1947. Sikhs had employed that method during their rule as well. For those of you familiar with the geography of Punjab, and particularly you Gorki Sahab just across the border. There was a stretch of small towns along the left bank of the River Chenab in Punjab named Ali Pur Syedan, Rasul Nagar and Syed Nagar. These were small hamlets set up by some Shia clans of Persian origin. Their misfortune was that they had sided with Abdali during his conflicts with Sikhs. Finally when Sikhs were able to wrestle Punjab away from the Afghans, the inhabitants of these small towns paid the price. The entire area was ‘cleansed’ of Muslims and renamed as Akal Gar. I know that because my clan was one of those subjected to the wrath of the Sikhs. In 1947 Akal Gar was ‘cleansed’ once more. Now, please, I state this merely as an historical event and not as to incite any religious passions. It is unfortunate, but this happens all the time.
@BC,
You must be right. I did not follow the chronology in depth, was au fait with an overall picture of sorts. Interestingly, Rashid Dostum’s stars are bright, he survived the exile in Turkey, withstood the defection of Malik Pehelwan and has a powerful post back in Afghanistan.
Regarding the other powerful militia, the Hizbe Wahadat, I understand that Khalili is discredited and Muhammad Muhaqiq calls the shots.
You would know better than me about the above, so do correct me where I go wrong.
“Exulting with joy we reached the city of ……… on Tuesday, June 6, and we besieged it in a wonderful manner. One of our officers climbed on to the wall of the city. When he reached the top, all the defenders of the city quickly fled along the walls and through the city. Our men followed and pursued them, killing and hacking, there was such a slaughter that our men were up to their ankles in the enemy’s blood. The …(there leader) who commanded the tower surrendered to the ….(our leader) and opened the gate where pilgrims used to pay tribute. Entering the city, our pilgrims pursued and killed the enemy up to the …..(holy place) There the enemy assembled and resisted fiercely all day, so that the whole area flowed with their blood. At last the ……(non believers) were overcome and our men seized many men and women, killing them or keeping them alive as they saw fit. Then the ….(holy warriors) scattered throughout the city, seizing gold and silver, horses and mules, and houses full of all sorts of goods. Afterwards our men went rejoicing and weeping for joy to adore the glory of our Saviour and there discharged their debt to Him. . . .”
contd.
Contd…
PMA Sahib is right.
Ethnic cleansing was not invented in 1947 for the Germans had been seeking a Lebensraum in WWII. Before that the ‘young Napolean’ Custer in the US had been busy clearing up the west of the savages, making it safe for the gentle folks. I remember reading his clinical account of one such clearing in which he marveled how the young 6 to 7 year Indians children ’squealed like struck pigs’ when shot.
Way before that there was an account left by historians of how the Romans had eradicated a rival city; Carthage, massacred all men, sold women and children into slavery and then sowed salt on the city site so that nothing would ever grow there again. But then they too were not the first, Alexander the great had made a similar example of Tyre, a city that chose to resist him.
The Mongols went building minarets out of the heads of defeated and helpless civilians and the example was taken up with exuberance by other central Asian tribes. Taimur left such death and destruction in Delhi that crows and eagles feasted for years afterwards. Nadir Shah is said to have ordered a general massacre in Delhi for 3 days and 3 nights and only relented after Emperor Muhammad Shah fell at his feet.
The Sikhs destroyed an entire cities of Sarhind and Samana to avenge a long gone insult and Abdali massacred more than 36000 Sikhs, mostly women and children in a heroic effort to wipe out their rebellion once and for all.
More recently thousands of men, women and children were wiped out after the usual orgy of rapes and torture in India in Delhi in 1984 and in Ayodhya and Godhara…. Then the Hindu demagogues exhorted their followers to rid the land of ‘Babur ki Aulaad’.
The list is endless and each ‘side’ can come up with valid grievance to justify the ‘retribution’.
Interestingly, once such justification is found, we feel no need to empathize with the victims and we can move on.
We talk of ‘our clans’ and their suffering, and ‘other people’ and their atrocities; regardless of the fact that we all who are alive today are far more alike in our habits, culture and aspirations than we are with these long dead medieval savages on either side. Not every one is as stuck in the cement of history as we from the Subcontinent. The Europeans of today; say the French and the British realize that they are very different people than Harold Godwin or William the bastard.
We on the other hand are only a heartbeat away from our own balance sheet of grievances and atrocities.
I can bet that at least a few of the readers will hastily scan the account of the massacre described in my previous post to decide who were the perpetrators and who were the victims in order to assign proper blame or come up with a valid rationalization depending upon the person’s own POV.
They can relax.
The above barbarous behavior mixed with exultation and holiness is an eyewitness account of the fall of Jerusalem to the Crusaders in 1099, left behind by a holy warrior. The victims were poor ‘Saracens’. It was posted to show that artocities in the name of religion is as old as mankind itself. When looking for someone to blame for the past, we need only to reach for a mirror.
An BTW, I apologize to PMA Sahib for the suffering that the people of his clan had to endure from the savages in the days gone by who perhaps felt they were acting on the behalf of my people.
If it any consolation, there was adequate retribition and then some.
My small farm in India is an inheritance that has been in my family from the times of Akbar the Great; a much bigger family farm was left in the Nanakana Sahib area. Recently a woman member from the family that currently occupies that land met my sister with great affection and invited us with families to visit her in Pakistan. May be we will go and visit once peace returns to that land.
Regards.
“Nehru came into his own as a leader and statesman on 30th January 1948. He made several mistakes and was found wanting on occasion in fairness, but Nehru sought power for idealistic reasons. Nehru was in many ways the post Edwardian version of younger Jinnah. He became the leader Jinnah should have..had he not broken with the Congress and had Jinnah not been a minority.”
Yasser:
Agree with everything above; you nailed it.
Nehru’s lowest point in life occured (in my opinion) in 1937 when perhaps over awed by Gandhiji and other congressmen, he refused MAJ’s offer of a coalition.
The highest point of his life also had an exact date, Jan 26th 1950. I have a picture of him signing the Indian Constitution on that day.
Regards.
“One death is a tragedy; a million deaths are but a statistic” Josef Stalin.
Dear Majumdar Da,
You are truly an enigma.
You claim to respect only one leader from the generation of Independence leaders; MAJ who you agree did no particularly want a partition and had partition thrust upon him. You blame men like Gandhi and Nehru for the partition and call them villains yet you also seem to feel that the partition was the right thing. So much so that you feel the deaths of thousands, maybe millions of innocent civilians was a small price to pay for this just event. You further claim to believe that India should be populated by the ‘Indic’ peoples (I don’t know who you believe is non-Indic.) yet you lampoon all its leaders and icons endlessly. You admire MAJ but call the Hindus who went to Pakistan with MAJ as the ‘traitors’ and gloat over their misfortune in Pakistan after MAJ.
Just curious; what exactly do you stand for?
Is there any Indian from among a billion specimens alive today whom you could begin to consider a good enough leader?
Heck is there any person from the last 5000 years of Indian history who you could meet your approval?
Regards.
Gorki (December 12, 2009 at 2:15 am):
Sir, you need not to apologise to me or to anyone for what Sikhs did to the Muslims during their rule in Punjab. At the same time the senseless killing that went on in 1947 from both sides could not be of any consolation for the acts of the generations before that. We both are stating the obvious here. Savagery does not exclusively belong to the medieval man. Even today human beings are capable of committing the atrocities that you have so painfully listed above. My original point was that ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Punjab did not start at 1947. It been going on for centuries. All sides have done it, and as you have pointed out these gruesome acts are still going on.
@YLH ..I do recall your hero worship for Qayyum Khan in one of your posts, as such I imagine you endorse the tribal “jihad” of 1948 and introduction of Islamist ideology into the tribal belt
..your bit about his anti establishment credentials are hilarious. I suggest you read Ayub Khans diaries at the very least on the establishment support for Qayum especially before the mythical free 1970 elections.
As far as Kings party’s concerned, you are again factually incorrect the first kings party was in fact the Muslim League in itself, when on the dismissal of Nazimuddins govt, most if not all the league supported Ghulam Mohamed, the first establishment head of state in Pakistan’s history.
As such there is a pattern here in the league’s leading lights history.. your hero Qayum Khans role in turning FATA as a base to export militancy, Daultanas role in introducing anti Ahmadi riots, Nazimuddin role in creating the language controversey in East Pakistan and the precedent of rigging elections which was introduced by Qayum which ultimately led to the first martial law.
Finally Iskander Mirza in the book has clearly stated his admiration for Jinnah and how he served the Raj in keeping a check on the KK movement in the frontier. His relationship remained cordial with Dr Khan Sahib but in case of Jinnah he was willing to resign his job and carry out the mission he was entrusted.
The ethnic cleansing that the Sikhs carried out well before 1947 was something not known to me. This may have been a factor that the Muslims bore in mind in 1947.
However, barbarism lives on even in the 21st century.