Strategic Paradigms by Ehsan Ahrari

Assuming that General David Petraeus, the new Combat Commander of CENTO, was victorious over al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), the question of the hour is whether he can replicate that success in Afghanistan.  However, before answering that question, it should be clearly understood that, despite a marked reduction in violence in the  Sunni-dominated region of Iraq, no one can state with any amount of certainty that the United States has really won its campaign against AQI-dominated terror. 

 

What really happened is that the “Sahwa” movement helped the United States drain the Sunni swamps where the AQI was creating mayhem and chaos with impunity.  The Sunnis got tired of being at the receiving end of terror without fighting back.  And fight back they did by joining hands with the American troops.  The result was a palpable success of the surge strategy of Petraeus.

 

Now that the Sahwa movement has achieved its mission, it is facing a new threat.  This time it is coming from the Shia-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.  That government refuses to integrate 30,000-40,000 Sunni paramilitary forces into the Iraqi Army.  In fact, many Sahwa leaders have escaped to Syria and Jordan fearing for their security from the government.  So, we might be witnessing the unraveling of the “surge” strategy of General Petraeus  whereby Iraq has emerged as a peaceful place.

 

Now, David Petraeus is getting ready to focus on Afghanistan.  But what kind of strategy will he be applying in that country?  There will be no Afghan version of the Sahwa movement.  There is intense animosity between the dominant Pushtoon and the Tajiks, both of whom are predominantly Sunni.  Their fight is about who will govern Afghanistan, where there has been no history of a strong central government.

 

A winning strategy for Afghanistan should, first and foremost, address the issue of distribution of political power between the Pushtoon and the Tajiks.  There has been no such arrangement since 2002, when the United States became the occupying power in that country.  The Bush administration has remained highly focused on eradicating al-Qaida and Taliban forces, but has done a poor job at that.  Then it relied on NATO’s international security assistance forces (ISAF), which never had its heart in that mission.

 

The Bush administration realized that the only credible alternative military tactic is to rely on the American forces, with visible assistance from the British, Canadian, and Dutch troops.  But the ISAF military leadership is looking at Petraeus to pull another rabbit out of his hat in the form of another strategy: an Afghan version of the surge, or a strategy that has different characteristics but would create potent results.  

 

The United States has never understood one simple fact in Afghanistan: the security of that country is intrinsically linked with the security of Pakistan.  A realization of that fact would have enabled American civilian and military officials to construct a strategy that involves both countries.  Instead, the United States remained focused on killing or capturing the al-Qaida and Taliban leadership and forces, and left the ISAF to conduct the brunt of the military fighting in the rest of Afghanistan. 

 

Now realizing that such an approach was a mistake, the U.S. has started to deploy more American troops.  But that is merely the beginning of a new strategy, a minor aspect at that, to be precise. 

 

Secondly, what is most urgently needed is a trilateral conference among the leaders of the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan for a brutally frank dialogue to understand what Pakistan and Afghanistan must do to defeat the forces of terror inside their borders.  An important aspect of that dialogue is a U.S. clear signal to India to reduce its diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, especially from areas close to Pakistan-Afghan borders.  As long as India has a large “diplomatic” presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan will interpret it as the larger aspect of India’s hegemony in Afghanistan, something Pakistan will not allow.

 

Thirdly, the United States has to understand the Pakistani perspective that the need of time is an anti-terrorism strategy, which is much more comprehensive than simply emphasizing the use of force in the federally administered tribal areas (FATA) and the northwestern frontier province (NWFP).  That also means that negotiations between the Islamists and the civilian Pakistani and Afghan governments must initiate to involve their truce in both those countries.  Failure on the part of the Islamists to live up to their promises should result in coordinated military actions from Pakistan and Afghanistan.  

 

Fourthly, one of the most important issues of any negotiations between the Islamists, Pakistan, and Afghanistan has to be that all foreign fighters must leave the FATA and the NWFP regions of Pakistan as well as the contiguous areas of Afghanistan.  As long as the Islamists are not serious about fulfilling this part of the bargain, there ought to be no bargain at all.

 

Finally, there has to be a comprehensive reconstruction program for Pakistan and Afghanistan involving political, economic, and educational institutions.  The United States and the OECD countries and members of OPEC ought to foot the bill.

 

While the preceding issues are important in the making of a winning anti-terrorism strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, the issue of Islamization of the 1970s has to be revamped in a major way.  And Pakistan is the only country that can do that. 

 

Exactly how it should be done is the sixty-four thousand (or even a multi-billion) dollar question.  Only the civilian and military leadership of Pakistan should play a visible and conclusive role in it.  The Saudi or the Deobandi version of Islamic Puritanism was brought into Pakistan in the 1970s, from where it became an integral part of Afghanistan in the 1990s. 

 

The path toward religious moderation is the necessity of time, not just for Pakistan but for the entire world of Islam.  However, since religious extremism has been causing so much havoc in Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is in those countries that Muslims ought to make serious endeavors to bring religious moderation back, once and for all.

 

The making of this strategy is anything but an easy endeavor.  But Pakistan and Afghanistan have no other option at their disposal.  More to the point, if the United States is serious about defeating al-Qaida, the best option is to spend a big chunk of its capital in developing and implementing this strategy or a something akin to it.