In the latter’s case, there’s too much in the 90,000 pages of documents to quickly digest. But one element already stands out as particularly troubling: the nefarious role that elements in Pakistan have from the outset played in the conflict.
Pakistan has, in the words of the New York Times, been playing something of a ‘double game,' allowing ‘representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.’
So what should US policymakers take from this? It’s not that Pakistani officials are ambivalent about what’s happening in Afghanistan (that should already be obvious). Instead, it’s that the country's political society is so fractionalized that in many crucial respects there are actually two ‘governments' simultaneously in play in the country.
These two ‘governments’—one headed by President Asif Ali Zardari and the other a de facto shadow government that is nurtured by the military and which surreptitiously maintains links to the Taliban—are working at cross-purposes to each other.
The WikiLeaks data make it clear that as long as this shadow government remains viable and effective, the constitutional government of Pakistan can neither effectively cope with the Taliban quasi-state embedded in the AfPak tribal region, nor successfully carry out its recently negotiated political and economic agreements with the United States. Indeed, the legitimate government of Pakistan is paralyzed by political schizophrenia and can’t hope to be truly effective against Islamic fanatics in its midst until it finds ways to assert full sovereignty over the entire country, and particularly the ISI cancer that infects the military.
So what next? At the very least the Obama administration should consider a significant course correction in its AfPak strategy.
The time has come to cut Pakistan loose from the decades-long policy of treating it as a ‘rental state', to use Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani's well-worn phrase. This would mean curtailing US military assistance only to that which directly affects Pakistan's ability to effectively battle the jihadi quasi-state. If the government is not willing to do this, then military assistance should be suspended.
On the Afghan side, meanwhile, to quote Haas, ‘The time has come to scale back US objectives and sharply reduce US involvement on the ground.’
Where, then, should the US turn if it leaves Pakistan and Afghanistan to their own devices? The answer is India. The United States should materially increase its military collaboration with India—the only genuinely politically stable state in the region—so that together they can form a strategic nexus of stable states confronting a Pakistan that seems poised to collapse unless it finds ways to get its political house in order. Above all, Pakistan must be allowed to solve its own political problems, free of American paternalism and overindulgence of its military.
This of course implies a radical reworking of the US strategic orientation to South Asia and would mean crafting what is effectively an alliance designed to preserve as much peace, secularism and political stability as the considerable resources of the two states working in concert can achieve.
It’s a tall order. But as the situation disintegrates around the US forces in the region, what does it have to lose?
Harold Gould is a Visiting Scholar in the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Virginia
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Gabriel
“The United States should materially increase its military collaboration with India—the only genuinely politically stable state in the region—so that together they can form a strategic nexus of stable states confronting a Pakistan that seems poised to collapse unless it finds ways to get its political house in order.”
The Author’s idea that the US should bolster it’s relationship with India as a solution is unrealistic in that the Indian State does not play the same rules of the ‘realist’ model game so many US policy-makers and commentators seem to follow. India has no intention of creating any such model of interaction with the US.
It is much more complex than this, and preferencing India would have a number of ramifications, one for example would be a strong signal to China, who are typically paranoid and very sensitive with respect to any, real or perceived, containment policies.
The author, although I do not know when this article was written, has not made any mention of the catastrophic situation Pakistan is currently facing with reports of 20 million people displaced by the extreme flooding, a situation that will not be resolved over night and may take years to reconstruct and rehabilitate. The 30 year conflict in Aceh, for example, was halted due largely to the massive destruction of the Boxing Day Tsunami. The current disaster may provide a small opportunity to ‘assist’ Pakistan with the second recommendation of the author with appearing too paternalistic: “Above all, Pakistan must be allowed to solve its own political problems, free of American paternalism and overindulgence of its military.”
I agree with the author on this point and believe that without the support and the control of the legitimate Pakistani government, a solution to the conflict in the short term will be impossible. If the US do not, or cannot, use this possible opportunity, it may in fact have the opposite effect, with the Pakistan government completely hamstrung by the ongoing disaster, the Taliban may be able to strengthen their position further as it’s own quasi-state outside of the reach of the US across Pakistan’s porous border.
With the strong public anti-Afghan war sentiment in the US, a new approach, a strategy that attempts to place responsibility in the hands of legitimate States and stakeholders that have the means, and the responsibility, for finding a sollution to this conflict is essential, and will need to be done now.
atta rasool malik
Harold Gould, a good analysis but wrong recommendation. Do it as you have suggested and you will hasten the defeat of NATO forces there. Pakistan is helping you at the cost of its cracks in the social fiber of Pakistani society. You probably do not understand the tribal bondages of divided tribes across Durand lines. USA is already punishing Pakistan through drone attacks and its contractor Xe and black water busy in target killing. You have tried massive killing, daisy cutter, carpet bombing and drone attacks. So what is left is nuclear weapons, either use nuclear weapons on AfPak as you had done it in Japan or try something else. attarasul@hotmail.com
arif
The objective of guerilla activity is not to win the war but to make the enemy’s bleeding and exploiting their resources to fight a long guerilla warfare”. No wonder the dutch lost the indonesian guerilla war 1945-1948, so did us in vietnam, the afghans is so mastering the guerilla method in the vast desert and they use underground tunnels to fight coalition forces, that’s why the sovyet withdrawn their forces from afghanistan an 1988.how can coalition expect to win the afghan war while sovyet couldn’t