Daily Times

The long awaited strategic partnership agreement between the United States and Afghanistan signed in May 2012 sparked a reaction in neighbouring states like Pakistan and China, demanding the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan. This agreement will widen distances between Afghanistan and its neighbours, as they understand that the US could use Afghanistan for creating instability in their states. “Today, we are agreeing to be long-term partners in combating terrorism with the Afghan security forces, strengthening democratic institutions, supporting development and protecting human rights of all Afghans,” President Obama said.

Afghans from all walks of life termed this agreement as a long-term enslavement of Afghans, because the US and its allies neither strengthened democratic institutions, nor trained the Afghan army or protected human rights. The Obama administration and the CIA killed, humiliated and severely tortured innocent Afghans, destroyed their country, and sectarianised and ethnicised state institutions, specifically the army and police. The US and NATO failed to bring peace and stability to the country while distrust between the Afghan National Army (ANA) and their foreign partners may further create problems in the days to come as the Taliban have already infiltrated into the rank and file of the security forces and the police.

Recently, segments of Afghan society criticised the US policy of strengthening war criminals and militias in the Uruzgan province. The US’s military commanders and Australian generals have signed a contract with Matiullah Khan (commander of a 2,000-strong militia) to provide security to their military convoys. Matiullah Khan receives $ 340,000 per month ($ 4.1 million annually). Without the consent of the ANA, this contract created a lot of misunderstandings between the NATO allies and the Afghan security forces. The Afghan army views the process of rearming private militias and Mujahideen as controversial and counterproductive.

Recently, four US senators have demanded the downsizing of the Afghan security forces after 2014. Mr Obama and his Pentagon friends want to heavily downsize the ANA to reduce the burden of military expenses on the US and the NATO allies. Prominent Pakistani military analyst Brigadier Asif Haroon Raja in his recent article warned, “The US military supported by the armies of 48 countries, including 27 of NATO, swooped upon heavily sanctioned, impoverished Afghanistan, devoid of regular armed forces, technical and technological means.”

Afghans ask which security forces the US wants to train if it does not trust the ANA military command and its intelligence reports. During the Panjwai incident, the Afghan army chief, Sher Muhammad Karimi, severely criticised the US for the killing of 17 innocent Afghan villagers and complained that the US forces did not allow the ANA investigation team to enter the village until the evidence was covered up. Sher Muhammad said that the killing of 17 Afghan civilians, including nine children in Kandahar, was a premeditated murder plan.

The Afghans complain that NATO and the US are struggling to establish their own rogue, private militias, instead of strengthening the Afghan security forces, while NATO and the US complain about Taliban infiltration within the ANA. Consequently, the process of the establishment of a strong ANA remained in limbo. Different affiliations, inclinations and associations within the Afghan security forces and intelligence infrastructure created many suspicions about their loyalties to the state and the government.

As we understand, the deepening distrust between the NATO allies and Afghan security forces jeopardised efforts in the war on terror. The latter have started viewing NATO and the US forces as occupying forces. In their comprehension, the way NATO is tackling the insurgency in Afghanistan is ultimately wrong because they kill innocent civilians instead of terrorist Taliban militias. Experts and analysts understand that there is little chance things would work out as per the US’s plans.

The recent Pentagon China-phobia policy, its containment of China, the emergence of a new military intelligence agency and the US hegemonic designs in South and Southeast Asia have become a hot debate in the electronic and print media in Europe. The increasing Chinese influence in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, its capture of European and African markets, together with the improvement of the Russian economy and military have caused unending torment for the US. The Pentagon authorities did not sleep a wink since the commencement of the recent joint Russia-China naval exercise in the Yellow Sea, between the east coast of China and the Korean Peninsula, and their stance on the Arab Spring.

These new developments and the recent US policy in Afghanistan, negotiations with Taliban insurgents and the deterioration of Pak-US relations signal new military challenges for China, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The clouds of a new war are about to spread, while either Afghanistan or Pakistan might become the battlefield of this intelligence game in the near future. This is the beginning of a new economic war as the US Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta declared that his country was at a strategic turning point after a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Having realised the sensitivity of the recent political and military developments in the region, the Pentagon established a new military intelligence agency to strengthen its control over the region.

The writer is the author of Policing in Multicultural Britain and can be reached at zai.musakhan222@gmail.com