Post-US Afghanistan: Pakistan deepens presence

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Post-US Afghanistan: Pakistan deepens presence


First the foremost, the Americans have to be given a win-win situation in Afghanistan so that they can declare victory and head home. Afghanistan has to cleansed of threats to America. If the US feels safe, it will quickly lose interest in far away Kabul–just like it lost interest in Ho Chi Minh City and Panama City.

Islamabad should do whatever is necessary to give the US a feeling that it can leave Afghanistan and not have to worry about the likes of Bin Laden.

With the departure if General McChrystal from Afghanistan, the insurgents can smell victory and the Pakistanis can taste success. Before the peace doves begin flying over Kabul, there is a lot of work to be done in Kabul. The Bharati infestation has to be cleared–the nest of spies has to the eliminated, and the Tajik puppets of the so called Northern Alliance have to be told in clear terms to recognize the realities of the day.

1. Pakistanis are creating a win-win situation for America–giving it the face saving exit it needs.

2. Islamabad is pushing various proxies to broker a deal with the insurgents.

3. Pakistan has presented itself as the indispensible partner for Afghanistan and President Hamid Karzai acknolwedges the Role of Islamabad.

4. The dismissal of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal will almost certainly embolden the Pakistanis.

Jane Parlez and gang of he New York Times seem to have found a Eureka moment when they say that Pakistan wants a presence in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has a presence in Pakistan since time immemorial and Pakistanis have had a presence in Pakistan since the days of the Indus Valley Civilization thousands of years ago. When there was only jungle in Bharat–the Indus Valley Pakistanis were building modern cities and trading with China and Egypt the other superpowers of the era.

1. General Kayani and Pakistan’s spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, shuttle between Islamabad and Kabul, telling Mr. Karzai that they agree with his assessment that the United States cannot win in Afghanistan, and that a postwar Afghanistan should incorporate the Haqqani network

2. At a briefing this week at the headquarters of Pakistan’s premier spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistani analysts laid out a view of the war that dovetailed neatly with the doubts expressed by Mr. Karzai. They depicted a stark picture of an American military campaign in Afghanistan “that will not succeed.”

3. They said the Taliban were gaining strength. Despite the impending arrival of new American troops, they concluded the “security situation would become more dangerous,” resulting in an erosion of the American will to fight

4. Pakistan has already won what it sees as an important concession in Kabul, the resignations this month of the intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, and the interior minister, Hanif Atmar–Indian decoys in Kabul.

The Pakistani machinery is moving full steam ahead–working all the angles with the Americans and the Afghans. Ms. Parlez seems to think that the Pakistanis are working behind the scenes and without the knowledge of the Americans. Islamabad is working in concert with the Americans, so that Pakistan can help the US leave Afghanistan. This is in the best interests of both countries. Obviously Islamabad knows that if the US feels uncomfortable, it will not leave Afghanistan.

The US media is not presenting the correct picture of the Hindu Kush and the Khyber.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan is exploiting the troubled United States military effort in Afghanistan to drive home a political settlement with Afghanistan that would give Pakistan important influence there but is likely to undermine United States interests, Pakistani and American officials said.

The dismissal of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal will almost certainly embolden the Pakistanis in their plan as they detect increasing American uncertainty, Pakistani officials said. The Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, preferred General McChrystal to his successor, Gen. David H. Petraeus, whom he considers more of a politician than a military strategist, said people who had spoken recently with General Kayani.

Pakistan is presenting itself as the new viable partner for Afghanistan to President Hamid Karzai, who has soured on the Americans. Pakistani officials say they can deliver the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ally of Al Qaeda who runs a major part of the insurgency in Afghanistan, into a power sharing arrangement.

In addition, Afghan officials say, the Pakistanis are pushing various other proxies, with General Kayani personally offering to broker a deal with the Taliban leadership. Pakistan Is Said to Pursue a Foothold in Afghanistan, Published: June 24, 2010. By JANE PERLEZ, ERIC SCHMITT and CARLOTTA GALL.

Whle Jane Parlez focuses on the negative side of the US-Pakistani relationship–as usual, it is pedagogical to note that the Obama Administration is bent upon a staged and organized withdrawal from Afghanistan. Pakistan wants the same. Islamabad does not want a the Afghans embroiled in another decade of civil war. Pakistan wants an orderly withdrawal from Kabul so that all the players are put in place properly.

1. “We didn’t say we’d be switching off the lights and closing the door behind us,” said Mr. Obama. “What we said is we’d begin a transition phase in which the Afghan government is taking on more and more responsibility.”

2. Defense secretary Gates says everyone at the Pentagon agrees with that.

3. “We are all on board for beginning this process of gradual process of draw down in July of 2011,” said Gates. “That is the president’s decision and that decision stands as far as all of us are concerned.” CBS News.

Washington has watched with some nervousness as General Kayani and Pakistan’s spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, shuttle between Islamabad and Kabul, telling Mr. Karzai that they agree with his assessment that the United States cannot win in Afghanistan, and that a postwar Afghanistan should incorporate the Haqqani network, a longtime Pakistani asset. In a sign of the shift in momentum, the two Pakistani officials were next scheduled to visit Kabul on Monday, according to Afghan TV.

Despite General McChrystal’s 11 visits to General Kayani in Islamabad in the past year, the Pakistanis have not been altogether forthcoming on details of the conversations in the last two months, making the Pakistani moves even more worrisome for the United States, said an American official involved in the administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan deliberations.

“They know this creates a bigger breach between us and Karzai,” the American official said.

Though encouraged by Washington, the thaw heightens the risk that the United States will find itself cut out of what amounts to a separate peace between the Afghans and Pakistanis, and one that does not necessarily guarantee Washington’s prime objective in the war — denying Al Qaeda a haven.

It also provides another indication of how Pakistan, ostensibly an American ally, has worked many opposing sides in the war to safeguard its ultimate interest in having an Afghanistan that is pliable and free of the influence of its main strategic obsession, its more powerful neighbor, India.

The Haqqani network has long been Pakistan’s crucial anti-India asset and has remained virtually untouched by Pakistani forces in their redoubt inside Pakistan, in the tribal areas on the Afghan border, even as the Americans have pressed Pakistan for an offensive against it.

General Kayani has resisted the American pleas, saying his troops are too busy fighting the Pakistani Taliban in other parts of the tribal areas.

But there have long been suspicions among Afghan, American and other Western officials that the Pakistanis were holding the Haqqanis in reserve for just such a moment, as a lever to shape the outcome of the war in its favor.

On repeated occasions, Pakistan has used the Haqqani fighters to hit Indian targets inside Afghanistan, according to American intelligence officials. The Haqqanis have also hit American ones, a possible signal from the Pakistanis to the Americans that it is in their interest, too, to embrace a deal. Pakistan Is Said to Pursue a Foothold in Afghanistan, Published: June 24, 2010. By JANE PERLEZ, ERIC SCHMITT and CARLOTTA GALL.

The role of Vice President Joe Biden and Ambassadoe Eikenberry is seminal in the US transition.

1. Last fall, Vice President Joe Biden and others contended that a large, unconditional troop withdrawal starting in July 2011 would convince the Afghan government to fight the insurgents more effectively.

2. The president’s announcement of that date has had the opposite effect. Leaders in and out of the Afghan government—including Mr. Karzai—are now reluctant to combat the Taliban because they figure they’ll need Taliban assistance in the political and ethnic conflicts that will follow an American departure. The WSJ

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General Petraeus told Congress last week that Haqqani fighters were responsible for recent major attacks in Kabul and the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, adding that he had informed General Kayani.

Some officials in the Obama administration have not ruled out incorporating the Haqqani network in an Afghan settlement, though they stress that President Obama’s policy calls for Al Qaeda to be separated from the network. American officials are skeptical that that can be accomplished.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said on a visit to Islamabad last weekend that it was “hard to imagine” the Haqqani network in an Afghan arrangement, but added, “Who knows?”

At a briefing this week at the headquarters of Pakistan’s premier spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistani analysts laid out a view of the war that dovetailed neatly with the doubts expressed by Mr. Karzai. They depicted a stark picture of an American military campaign in Afghanistan “that will not succeed.”

They said the Taliban were gaining strength. Despite the impending arrival of new American troops, they concluded the “security situation would become more dangerous,” resulting in an erosion of the American will to fight.

“That is the reason why Karzai is trying to negotiate now,” a senior analyst said. Pakistan Is Said to Pursue a Foothold in Afghanistan, Published: June 24, 2010. By JANE PERLEZ, ERIC SCHMITT and CARLOTTA GALL.

The war in Afghanistan is not going well. General McChrystal knew it well. It is perhaps for this reason that he deliberately provoked his firing. He can now claim martyrdom and shift blame for the failures in Afghanistan on General Patraeus.

The operation in Marja, once cited as a model for future battles, has failed to quash the insurgency. Mark Moyer of WSJ

General Pasha, the head of the intelligence agency, dashed to Kabul on the eve of Mr. Karzai’s visit to Washington in May, an American official said. Neither Mr. Karzai nor the Pakistanis mentioned to the Americans about incorporating the Haqqanis in a postwar Afghanistan, the official said.

Pakistan has already won what it sees as an important concession in Kabul, the resignations this month of the intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, and the interior minister, Hanif Atmar. The two officials, favored by Washington, were viewed by Pakistan as major obstacles to their vision of hard-core Taliban fighters’ being part of an Afghanistan settlement, though the circumstances of their resignations did not suggest any connection to Pakistan.

Coupled with their strategic interests, the Pakistanis say they have chosen this juncture to open talks with Mr. Karzai because, even before the flap over General McChrystal, they sensed uncertainty — “a lack of fire in the belly,” said one Pakistani — within the Obama administration over the Afghan fight.

“The American timetable for getting out makes it easier for Pakistan to play a more visible role,” said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the spokesman for the Pakistani Army. He was referring to the July 2011 date set by President Obama for the start of the withdrawal of some American combat troops.

The offer by Pakistan to make the Haqqanis part of the solution in Afghanistan has now been adopted as basic Pakistani policy, said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of international relations at Islamabad University, and a confidant of top military generals.

“The establishment thinks that without getting Haqqani on board, efforts to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan will be doomed,” Mr. Hussain said. “Haqqani has a large fighting force, and by co-opting him into a power-sharing arrangement a lot of bloodshed can be avoided.”

The recent trips by Mr. Kayani and General Pasha to Kabul were an “effort to make this happen,” he said.

Afghan officials said General Kayani had offered to broker a deal with the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and had sent envoys to Kabul from another insurgent leader and longtime Pakistani ally, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, with the offer of a 15-point peace plan in March.

As for the Haqqanis, whose fighters stretch across eastern Afghanistan all the way to Kabul, were prepared to break with Al Qaeda, Pakistani intelligence and military officials said.

The Taliban, including the Haqqani group, were ready to “do a deal” over Al Qaeda, a senior Pakistani official close to the Pakistani Army said. The Haqqanis could tell Al Qaeda to move elsewhere because it had been given nine years of protection since 9/11, the official said. Pakistan Is Said to Pursue a Foothold in Afghanistan, Published: June 24, 2010. By JANE PERLEZ, ERIC SCHMITT and CARLOTTA GALL.

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