DesiGuy
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WASHINGTON - With its 10-day block on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) convoys headed for Afghanistan through the Torkham border crossing, Pakistan's military leadership brought an end to the unilateral attacks in Pakistan pushed by General David Petraeus and forced Washington to make a new accommodation.
And it may make it impossible for Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, to make the argument in the future that the United States can succeed in Afghanistan, given Pakistan's drastic action.
The halt in NATO convoys bound for Afghanistan - which ended on Sunday - and unhindered attacks on tanker trucks continued
despite a decision by the White House to direct US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W Patterson and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, to apologize to the Pakistani government for the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers resulting from a US helicopter raid from Afghanistan into Pakistan.
President Barack Obama, in an effort to reduce tensions, has clearly abandoned the tough line toward Pakistan represented by cross-border helicopter attacks and accelerated drone strikes.
United States and Pakistani officials were engaged at various levels to find a way out of the impasse, according to one administration official.
The Pakistani government clearly saw the border closure and the attacks on tanker trucks as giving it powerful leverage on Washington to stop all cross-border attacks and to strictly limit the number of drone attacks and the areas in which they take place.
In a press briefing on Thursday, Foreign Office spokesperson Abdul Basit attacked the drone-strikes policy as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty and said it "does not serve larger strategic interests, especially in the context of our efforts to win hearts and minds".
Pakistan's leverage stems from the fact that 70% to 80% of the US-NATO logistical supplies for the war in Afghanistan go through Pakistan. As much as 80% of the supplies that enter Afghanistan from Pakistan go through the Torkham crossing. A second logistics route through Chaman remained open.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on Friday that 6,500 NATO vehicles were backed up along the entire 1,500-kilometer route from the port of Karachi to the Khyber Pass.
Despite the claim by the spokesperson for the US-NATO command in Afghanistan, General Josef Blotz, that the closing of the border crossing posed "no danger to ongoing future ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] operations", replacing the Pakistani routes with alternative routes through Central Asia would be prohibitively time-consuming and expensive.
The crisis in US-Pakistani relations was the result of a decision by the Obama administration - which press reports suggest was on the basis of a strong recommendation from Petraeus - to act much more aggressively and unilaterally if the Pakistani military did not do more to attack militant groups in the North Waziristan tribal area, especially the Haqqani group, which dominates the successful insurgency in eastern Afghanistan.
Unnamed US officials were quoted in the Wall Street Journal
on October 2-3 as saying that there was less concern about upsetting the Pakistanis than there had been only a few months earlier. Two days later, the Journal reported, without attribution, that Petraeus had determined that the safe havens in Pakistan were a greater threat than he had previously thought.
The Petraeus decision to push for a unilateral escalation of force thus provides an additional element for the narrative that he will have to construct to protect his personal interest in avoiding responsibility for military failure in Afghanistan.
One element of the decision was to increase drone strikes in Waziristan dramatically, to an unprecedented 22 in September - more than four times the average number in the previous six months. In the past, the United States had received approval from the Pakistani government for specific geographic "boxes" in which drone strikes could be carried out, as revealed in Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward.
Evidently that was not done, however, before the sudden dramatic increase in drone strikes in September.
The second element of the US escalation of force was to carry out at a series of cross-border helicopter-gunship attacks in Pakistan that were not cleared in advance with the Pakistani military. During the cross-border strike on September 30, moreover, three Pakistani army troops were killed by US helicopter fire.
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
And it may make it impossible for Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, to make the argument in the future that the United States can succeed in Afghanistan, given Pakistan's drastic action.
The halt in NATO convoys bound for Afghanistan - which ended on Sunday - and unhindered attacks on tanker trucks continued
despite a decision by the White House to direct US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W Patterson and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, to apologize to the Pakistani government for the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers resulting from a US helicopter raid from Afghanistan into Pakistan.
President Barack Obama, in an effort to reduce tensions, has clearly abandoned the tough line toward Pakistan represented by cross-border helicopter attacks and accelerated drone strikes.
United States and Pakistani officials were engaged at various levels to find a way out of the impasse, according to one administration official.
The Pakistani government clearly saw the border closure and the attacks on tanker trucks as giving it powerful leverage on Washington to stop all cross-border attacks and to strictly limit the number of drone attacks and the areas in which they take place.
In a press briefing on Thursday, Foreign Office spokesperson Abdul Basit attacked the drone-strikes policy as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty and said it "does not serve larger strategic interests, especially in the context of our efforts to win hearts and minds".
Pakistan's leverage stems from the fact that 70% to 80% of the US-NATO logistical supplies for the war in Afghanistan go through Pakistan. As much as 80% of the supplies that enter Afghanistan from Pakistan go through the Torkham crossing. A second logistics route through Chaman remained open.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on Friday that 6,500 NATO vehicles were backed up along the entire 1,500-kilometer route from the port of Karachi to the Khyber Pass.
Despite the claim by the spokesperson for the US-NATO command in Afghanistan, General Josef Blotz, that the closing of the border crossing posed "no danger to ongoing future ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] operations", replacing the Pakistani routes with alternative routes through Central Asia would be prohibitively time-consuming and expensive.
The crisis in US-Pakistani relations was the result of a decision by the Obama administration - which press reports suggest was on the basis of a strong recommendation from Petraeus - to act much more aggressively and unilaterally if the Pakistani military did not do more to attack militant groups in the North Waziristan tribal area, especially the Haqqani group, which dominates the successful insurgency in eastern Afghanistan.
Unnamed US officials were quoted in the Wall Street Journal
on October 2-3 as saying that there was less concern about upsetting the Pakistanis than there had been only a few months earlier. Two days later, the Journal reported, without attribution, that Petraeus had determined that the safe havens in Pakistan were a greater threat than he had previously thought.
The Petraeus decision to push for a unilateral escalation of force thus provides an additional element for the narrative that he will have to construct to protect his personal interest in avoiding responsibility for military failure in Afghanistan.
One element of the decision was to increase drone strikes in Waziristan dramatically, to an unprecedented 22 in September - more than four times the average number in the previous six months. In the past, the United States had received approval from the Pakistani government for specific geographic "boxes" in which drone strikes could be carried out, as revealed in Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward.
Evidently that was not done, however, before the sudden dramatic increase in drone strikes in September.
The second element of the US escalation of force was to carry out at a series of cross-border helicopter-gunship attacks in Pakistan that were not cleared in advance with the Pakistani military. During the cross-border strike on September 30, moreover, three Pakistani army troops were killed by US helicopter fire.
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
