Daily Times

They came, they saw, they bombed.
The ugly American just got uglier.

At the Bonn Conference underway as these lines are being written, this hideous American visage will not be on display. Instead, blush-on and mascara-wearing Yanks will strut across the hallways selling a post-2014 Afghanistan to a bevy of stakeholders who want nothing more than to get the hell out of the Afghan killing fields. But they cannot. And so in the next few years, many more will die. Some will get a bullet in their head. Others in their spine. Some US marines will end up with their brains splattered all over the dusty Afghan landscape. Others will roast to death as the flaming wreckage of their helicopter crashes onto rocky terrain. Their loved ones will mourn them, and light candles in their memory. Wives will be widowed and children orphaned as the population of the Arlington cemetery grows with melancholic regularity.

This reality hangs like an ominous shadow over Bonn as representatives from 85 countries and 16 international organisations huddle to make sense of the senseless conflict in Afghanistan. At the end of the proceedings, Bonn will realise once again that it has a problem. And the problem has a name.

The Taliban.

Here is the problem with the problem. It cannot be crushed; it cannot be negotiated into irrelevance; and it cannot be wished away. Like a Disney rubber doll, it springs back the moment you release your grip. It takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.

Bonn knows this. Bonn also knows if it wants to save face, it will have to lose some face. In other words, it will need to talk to those it has been trying to kill. Bonn will have to admit grudgingly that the green-robed leader of the Afghans is in reality the leader of a minority faction known as the Northern Alliance. When he speaks, he speaks for them, and only them. But Bonn is stuck with him. The truth is, Bonn would have been a resounding success if the man on the rostrum were not Hamid Karzai, but Mullah Omar.

But he is in Kandahar, or Quetta, or Karachi. It does not really matter. What does matter is that if anyone has the key to a peaceful Afghan endgame, it is he. The hunted is now the hunter, and this hunter is carving out a reality from his remote hideout, which is resonating thousands of miles away in the plush halls of Bonn. The Americans can see the contours of this new reality. They also know the shortest road to this reality lies through Islamabad (or Rawalpindi, to be more precise).

And Washington just bombed this road. How dumb can one get? Either the American generals took complete leave of their senses, or some nutjob local commander decided to have his John Wayne moment and gunned down his nation’s stated policy. Both ways, the Ugly American just went ahead and proved to the Pakistani nation that its historical pejorative is richly and deservedly earned.

The bloodbath in Salala is a game-changer. There is something sickening about helicopter gunships and C-130s using heavy ammo to kill unsuspecting troops on a mountaintop. The American pilots hover their birds in the air and keep on shooting till their guns have snuffed out 24 precious lives.

These men were not terrorists. They were proud soldiers of the Pakistan Army. Their gruesome killing by the Americans must not be forgotten. To quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hands?” In this case, clearly not.

The American enquiry on the bloodbath has a December 23rd deadline. Expect it to be a whitewash. Pakistan has retaliated the way it could. NATO supplies remain suspended so far, Shamsi base is being evacuated and Bonn has been boycotted. Is the Ugly American hurting? Probably not much. What else do we do? Stick our tongue out at them?

If we cannot hurt them tactically, let’s try and squeeze them strategically. The Americans are undergoing serious Afghan withdrawal symptoms. They want out. And preferably by the 2014 deadline. That is where we and the Taliban come in. The Taliban may not blindly trust us any more — for proof read Mullah Zaeef’s book — but they know they need us, as we do them. And we both do not like the Ugly American.

Now Afghanistan can go two ways: a) a peaceful settlement is negotiated in which the Taliban have the dominant role. This means the Americans and the Northern Alliance will have to bite the bullet and accept Taliban supremacy in the post-2014 period; b) no settlement is reached and a civil war breaks out in which the Taliban will prevail sooner or later. In both scenarios, the Taliban and Pakistan hold the aces. Here is where we should squeeze the Americans for all they are worth. If Obama wants his re-election, he better be ready to pay for it.

Post-Salala, Pakistani gloves should come off. Tag-teaming with the Taliban is now the most viable option, even if the wrestling match is on a negotiating table. If we are the ones who are going to bring the Taliban on the table, then we clearly have a bigger say than the Indians, Iranians, Russians, British and other stakeholders. This should be crystal clear to Washington. And yes, the Haqqani network is now to be talked to, not shot at. The ‘do more in Waziristan’ rhetoric is now so passé. No more getting trumped by the Indians in Afghanistan, no more insults by Karzai and his ragtag militia called the Afghan National Army. No more threats by the Northern Alliance quislings and no more cowardly attacks by Americans. Now Pakistan will talk with gritted teeth and clenched fists. And Mullah Omar, Sirajuddin Haqqani et al will sit on the table with their Kalashnikovs on their knees.

This then should be the new reality. That is the least we can do to honour the memories of those 24 Pakistani soldiers massacred by the Ugly American.

The writer hosts a primetime show on a private TV channel. He can be reached at fahd.husain1@gmail.com