Browsing through autobiographies of prominent American statesmen and the National Archives, it seems that history has not been a strong suit of American intelligence community, or perhaps the latter suffers from a collective and selective dementia. Case in point: everytime, the US intelligence or strategic-community briefs the Congress on Afghanistan, they sound as if they have discovered a new planet that’s uninhabitable or inhospitable for life.
In his recent Congressional hearing on the Afghan war, Defence Intelligence director Lt Gen Vincent Stewart — stating the obvious with a rather smug expression and condescending smile on his face — observed that Pakistan does not like to see heavy Indian influence in Afghanistan because it “views all of the challenges through the lens of an Indian threat to the state of Pakistan”. Stewart’s so-called observation or analysis, by and large, is shared by the defence and intelligence community in the US, including National Intelligence director Dan Coast.
So what’s new or novice in their analyses?Gen McChrystal, the former commander of US and International forces in Afghanistan, had already provided the same, and even better assessment on Afghan war and Pakistan’s concerns over Indian involvement in Afghanistan. McChrystal argued that the stability and peace in Afghanistan cannot prevail unless the interests of the Pakistani state are taken into account.
And from that perspective, Mc Chrystal asserted, enhanced Indian interests in Afghanistan are inimical to peace in the region and that increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan would likely exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani counter measures in Afghanistan.
Instead of going back in time to see what had caused Pakistan’s fixation with Afghanistan, the Trump administration, like previous administrations of Obama and George W Bush, tends to view the geopolitical conundrum of Afghanistan from ‘an ahistorical perspective’ (an ‘ahistorical approach’ avoids a thorough examination of geopolitical, geo-economic and geo-cultural dimensions of issues/conflicts in their historical context).
Notwithstanding, the intractable and porous nature of borders,the issue of 2,430 kilometre Durand Line between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Indian support for Kabul’s demand for an independent Pushtunistan-state has long triggered and reinforced Pakistan’s real or perceived threat of an Indo-Afghan nexus,aiming at strategic encirclement of Pakistan (ie in the event of an Indo-Pakistan war over Kashmir, the Afghans would open a second front against Pakistan on the north western frontier).
Such apprehensions or threat-perception became more pervasive among Pakistan’s strategic community after India tacitly approved the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Furthermore, when Americans, in the wake of Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, couldn’t wait to wash their hands of the brewing civil war in Afghanistan, the Pakistani junta did not, or, perhaps, could not walk away from Afghanistan, lock, stock and barrel, especially when other regional countries had begun to see instability in Afghanistan as an opportunity to press their own geopolitical and geostrategic interests and agendas.
Coming back to the American approach, if Trump’s strategists believe that Pakistan “views all of its challenges through the lens of an Indian threat. So it holds in reserve terrorist organisations… so that — if Afghanistan leans towards India, Pakistan will no longer be supportive of an idea of a stable and secure Afghanistan that could undermine its interests,” then they (Trump’s strategists) would do well to brief the Congress on how to bring Pakistan and India on a negotiating table. One wonders: why have Americans been so reluctant to exert their economic and diplomatic leverage to push Islamabad and New Delhi to reach some sort of an understanding over their differences, including Kashmir dispute?
Even if Trump’s strategists are so eager to bring their military might back to Afghanistan to bear on Taliban and Haqqanis, shouldn’t Congressmen or American public be asking them as to why US withdrew forces from Afghanistan in the first place? Why had American strategists, during 1980’s, told the holy-warriors (today’s terrorists) that ‘your cause is right, and God is on your side,’?
One wonders: why have Americans been so reluctant to exert their economic and diplomatic leverage to push Islamabad and New Delhi to reach some sort of an understanding over their differences, including on Kashmir dispute?
None of this would have happened — including carnage in Afghanistan and Middle-East, terrorist attacks in Europe and, of course, 9/11 terrorism — if American public had not been so naïve to acquiesce to the whims of their presidents and the propaganda of hawkish warmongers, sponsored by military industrial complex in the US. A careful analysis of US war on terror, especially in Afghanistan, shows that the use of brute military power has failed to curb the extremism and terrorism. Before Trump’s military strategists persist with their claims, the US Congress and Americans, at large, must grill them about how and when did they discover a new planet (Afghanistan) and how they propose to makes it habitable or hospitable for life?
To begin with, the Congress and American public can, perhaps, ask the very fundamental question from the Trump’s strategists: if we were to use military might and somehow succeed in decimating the Afghan Taliban and Haqqanis, then the turf they vacate should not be available for ISIS to take, and their wounded and dispersed-followers would not end up joining the Islamic Caliphate? For if that happens, will we not just be replacing one terrorist organisation with another?
The writer is a research fellow at CSSPR, University of Lahore