COMMENT: Deploying forces intelligently

[fatman17]

COMMENT: Deploying forces intelligently —Zafar Hilaly

Being more cerebral than the usual American general, Petraeus intellectualises the US occupation. He believes that ideas are more important than values. The trouble is that it is his ideas and other peoples’ values

This time it is not in the jungles of Vietnam but the hills of the Hindu Kush that the Americans are likely to meet their Waterloo. Like in Vietnam, where they won all the battles but lost the war, so too in Afghanistan, the writing is on the wall. What was accomplished by a few hundred Americans and their local allies nine years ago is unravelling today, notwithstanding the presence of 130,000 American troops. A superpower (and not for the first time) has been brought to a virtual standstill by a few thousand antediluvian rustic vagabonds like the Taliban.

Why? Two reasons come to mind.

First, the Americans, notwithstanding doctorates from stellar universities, overlooked the one lesson that contemporary history has handed down – nationalism when pitted against foreign occupation will always prevail. A foreign army of occupation has never succeeded in winning the battle for the hearts and minds of a people.

Second, as long as the Taliban have the support of some of their fellow Pashtuns in Pakistan, they will have the critical support they require to reverse their losses. It is not a question of the Pakistan government two-timing the Americans, or facilitating safe havens. It is also not because it is Islamabad’s embedded policy to help the Taliban regain their erstwhile dominance, although it can be spun to seem so. It is inherent in the situation and as natural and permanent as is the topography of the area. It is something that any Pakistani regime can only challenge at the risk of its own survival and that of the country regardless of what Islamabad may wish, or the Americans demand.

Viewed thus, there is no battlefield victory to be had for the US. There is no anvil for the hammer, as the border can never be sealed. And that is precisely why the continued American occupation, without any effort to arrive at a negotiated peace, has convinced many here that the war is no longer about eliminating al Qaeda or containing extremism but rather about sitting atop strategic pipelines, surrounding Iran, containing China and, more so, destabilising Pakistan by forcing a weak and bankrupt government to do its bidding by pitting it against those with whom Pakistan has had equable relations in the past and whose other ambitions Pakistan can thwart by dint of its own efforts and a little help from its friends.

It is not the good sense of the administration but rather the American public that Pakistanis are now banking on to stop this pointless war, much as the Vietnamese did during the earlier, equally futile war in Vietnam when Johnson and his general, Westmoreland, like Obama and Petraeus today, were equally bent on winning. However, till the American public is stirred into revolt, Pakistan has to be careful lest Petraeus succeeds in expanding the war to Pakistan.

Petraeus needs scapegoats for the slow progress that his forces are making and has predictably alighted on Pakistan. Being more cerebral than the usual American general, he intellectualises the US occupation. He believes that ideas are more important than values. The trouble is that it is his ideas and other peoples’ values.

Petraeus’s bete noire is General Kayani. He believes that if the Taliban safe havens in North Waziristan are eliminated, he can win; and he wants Kayani to go in and clear them out. Even if Kayani wanted to, he would first have to further denude the Indian border of the army because the present force levels are insufficient for such an operation. Assuming that Kayani was to be so irresponsible, what would he achieve? At best, the dislocation of the Taliban in North Waziristan and a mite’s less pressure on US forces across the border.

In return, he would have earned the enduring hatred of the Afghan Taliban followed inevitably by a spike in acts of terrorism within Pakistan. Retaliatory action by the army would follow which, in due course, would escalate into counter insurgency operations to forestall attacks by the Afghan Taliban from across the border.

Inevitably, at some point in time, this new war would further radicalise the frontier tribes, postponing for longer the much needed development effort and leading conceivably to a recrudescence of Pashtun nationalism and, thereafter, who knows? A civil war in Pakistan? And for what? To enable Petraeus to declare what would have been essentially a pyrrhic victory and to retain his laurels as a victor when he returns home? It is a ‘fool’s bargain’ which, if Kayani were to accept, he would be rightly criticised as being irresponsible.

In an article in The Washington Post last week, a fellow Pakistani columnist wondered why Kayani considers India to be “a major threat” to Pakistan rather than “militancy”. It is “mind boggling”, he concluded. The reason is simple. Until 700,000 Indian troops are poised, some within hailing distance of our borders, ready to attack Pakistan at a moment’s notice, and unless we have some verifiable agreement on the demilitarisation of borders and confidence building measures, all of which India has avoided, India is by far a greater existential threat than the Taliban militants who attack our forces in FATA and with whom we are grappling with some success. It is indeed ‘mind boggling’ to think otherwise.

It is from Washington that there now emerges the greatest threat to our security, as Mullen and Petraeus attempt to bully Kayani into taking on the Afghan Taliban or permitting US forces to enter Pakistan. Both courses of action are inadvisable, for reasons already explained, in the case of the former, and the resultant public outrage in the case of the latter.

The Taliban have to be fought by a judicious mix of military force, negotiations, socio-economic measures and by a counter ideology that has a greater appeal, and not exclusively by force. It is a war that may well be generational. Against India, on the other hand, in the absence of any signs of peace or a willingness on Delhi’s part to enter into negotiations to forge peace, force is the only deterrent. Hence, Kayani rightly views the military threat from India as his foremost concern. Not to do so would amount to a dereliction of duty.

The writer is a former ambassador. He can be reached at charles123it@hotmail.com

 

[Mabs]

This article is like a breeze of fresh air. Glad to see more and more people able to see through the mess, that is the American WoT strategy in Afghanistan. If Petraeus wants an ego boost, we'll give him an honorary medal as shiny as Holbrookes', but that's all he is gona get for now.

 

[Ratus Ratus]

Inevitably, at some point in time, this new war would further radicalise the frontier tribes, postponing for longer the much needed development effort and leading conceivably to a recrudescence of Pashtun nationalism and, thereafter, who knows? A civil war in Pakistan? And for what? To enable Petraeus to declare what would have been essentially a pyrrhic victory and to retain his laurels as a victor when he returns home? It is a ‘fool’s bargain’ which, if Kayani were to accept, he would be rightly criticised as being irresponsible.

This sounds familiar...
Think I made comment along this line but above is much better presented.

In an article in The Washington Post last week, a fellow Pakistani columnist wondered why Kayani considers India to be “a major threat” to Pakistan rather than “militancy”. It is “mind boggling”, he concluded. The reason is simple. Until 700,000 Indian troops are poised, some within hailing distance of our borders, ready to attack Pakistan at a moment’s notice, and unless we have some verifiable agreement on the demilitarisation of borders and confidence building measures, all of which India has avoided, India is by far a greater existential threat than the Taliban militants who attack our forces in FATA and with whom we are grappling with some success. It is indeed ‘mind boggling’ to think otherwise.

When the US initially pushed Gen Kayani to move against the TTP et al, and wanted him to pull troops off the Pakistan-Indian border they never pushed India to pull their troops back. Any attempts by the US with India was in essence lip service to this.
The US had leverage to make this happen but did not use it. Why?

 

[American Eagle]

1. Pakistan has never had effective law and order controls/domestic security in the frontier and northern areas...too wild an area geographically, ethnic/tribal/racial if you will differences from "main line" ruling elite of Pakistan, be the ruling elite civilian or military.

2. ISI and various Presidents, dictators or not, have relied psychologically on Taliban as "auxiliary forces" to be used against India.

3. Pakistan has long used elements of what morphed into today's Taliban to go inside IAK to cause trouble. Vain hope of "taking or capturing" IAK.

4. One of the few things Musharraf did right, inspite of his very mixed signals then and now to various other conflicted special interest groups, was to work effectively with then Indian PM Singh to use status quo, LOC, etc. to start the process for a single Parliament of Kashmir to move toward what I refer to as the "Andorran Model" to over very many yeas and lifetimes defuse the religiously charged claims and counter claims invovling PAK, IAK and CAK.

5. India as a basic democracy with a mixed population as a secular nation with freedom of all religions will always have the so called upper hand until the day comes that Pakistan gets rid of the blasphemy laws, the mad mullahs and the madrassas that train youth to be terrorists/suicide bomers.

6. Pakistan would do better to move much of it's prepositioned military forces to the wild west regions of Pakistan and set up a permanent, long lasting law and order, security structure to make folks fell safe and a welcomed part of the total nation of Pakistan.

My views and opinions having lived and worked inside Pakitan, and having since been an International Banking Officer for that sector of the world, and later on as a reserve officer at the Joint Chiefs of Staff agencies and commands level focused on the negative evolutions that got us where we are today in SW Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan/India.

Blaming others is a tired old game in the subcontinent. Blame rests in my view on radical Wahabbism which has created heretical so called versions of Islam.

 

[Ratus Ratus]

Blame rests in my view on radical Wahabbism which has created heretical so called versions of Islam.

This is a valid point and it is more important for most to see that this is a real fact and not try to hide it under the generalisations of Islam.

As for the 'blame game', seem that is a past time that will not vanish as no one wants to let old wounds heal. It is so much easier to harp on the past not look to what is needed for a future.