Petting the Cobra When We should be Looking for a Big Rock
On SECDEF Robert Gates doing Q&A in Pakistan: Attackerman and Duck of Minerva (Vikash Yadav)
The Depth Of Official Pakistani Anger At Us
Simple and plain: the Obama administration has to do something about Pakistan’s legitimate security fears emanating from India. As Gates points out, it’s completely absurd to argue that the U.S. has had a policy of “propping up” formerly-Soviet-allied India, but it doesn’t matter at this point (yes, yes, you guys who are big on “narrative”; score one for you). The Pakistanis believe that the lack of U.S. hectoring directed at India is part of a concerted policy of supporting India at Pakistan’s expense. Consequently, pushing the Pakistani military into Waziristan, to fight fellow Pakistanis, is easily misconstrued as weakening Pakistan for India’s sake.
There were good arguments for not stuffing the India relationship into Richard Holbrooke’s pillbox of headaches. India is too big a relationship to reduce to just a security issue. And for much of last year, the U.S. was waiting for India to elect a new government. But if we mean what we say about security, diplomacy, politics and development being interrelated and mutually supportive/corrosive, then it’s time to broker a real India-Pakistan peace process. Unless we want Gates’ next appearance at the Islamabad NDU to go even worse.
Gates Grilled at Pakistan’s National Defense University
The Defense Department has pulled from its website the transcript of the Q and A session last month between Secretary of Defense Gates and Pakistani military officers. The frank talk was apparently a bit heated. At one point, one of the Pakistani military officers asked Secretary Gates point blank: “Are you with us or against us?”The transcript reveals a deep level of distrust between the US and the Pakistani military. It also shows that some junior officers of the Pakistani military do not take ownership of their government’s current offensives against militants in the North West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.
Yadav has posted the entire transcript.
Count me as someone who thinks the single most effective move the US could do in the War on Terror is to bomb ISI headquarters with a few 30,000 lb superbombs shortly after everyone arrived at work. Yes, I know that’s completely non-serious – I’m venting my irritation.
The second best moved be reducing our footprint in Afghanistan to what can be sustained via air from the ‘Stans and cutting off all aid to Pakistan. Every last dime. Our dollars are paying for the IEDs and bullets that kill our soldiers but shhhhhhhhhh….we’re not supposed to talk about that in polite company. That part is serious. We can live without Islamabad. Really, we can. We’ll do just fine. And they’re the bad actors who make a lousy neighborhood a whole lot worse. That Pakistan has legitimate security concerns is true – let’s tighten the screws on those and see if that helps induce a more cooperative attitude as eight and a half years of bribery has been counterproductive.
SECDEF Gates has an unenviable task. Pakistan, or at least an autonomous part of its military, is our enemy in Afghanistan and have been since 2001. Let’s accept that reality and revise our policies accordingly. Being an enemy of the United States ought to come with some costs rather than aid packages.
Steve Metz:
February 15th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
The argument that the U.S. is biased toward India (go figure–we favor a functioning democracy and growing economy in a society that does NOT spawn terrorists who attack us!) is simply Pakistan’s alibi du jour. If the United States did something to make that one go away, Pakistanis would simply concoct some other explanation for why they are not responsible for their own problems.
Eddie:
February 15th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
While I don’t think American policy makers fully appreciate the problems we helped impose on Pakistani society in the 80’s/90’s/now with our policies and decisions, Steve is right that it has now become a blame-shifting exercise for the Pakistani elite. They are unable to own up to their failures and continued lack of leadership. They doom their country with kleptocratic economic policies, divisive political jockeying (increasingly based on ethnicity and religious sect as much as class and geography), and obsession with India’s success and their own failure. It seems best both for dealing with the current problems we have and embracing the future opportunities in the region that we strengthen our relationship with India instead of trying to be "fair" or "balanced".
J. Scott:
February 15th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Zen, Gates has an impossible task w/respect to Afghan/Pakistan. While I’m not certain, I suspect that Pakistan suffers the same governmental structure problems of Afghanistan; a culture where tribes trump more secular/Western methods of politics (central government). There was a post at chicagoboyz where Michael Kennedy posted a link to a Theodore Dalrymple essay called After Empire. Dalrymple’s essay offered an answer/explanation for "why" the peoples displaced/subjugated by colonial powers were unable to cope or govern once the ruling party departed. Dalrymple observed:. "In fact, it was the imposition of the European model of the nation-state upon Africa, for which it was peculiarly unsuited, that caused so many disasters. With no loyalty to the nation, but only to the tribe or family, those who control the state can see it only as an object and instrument of exploitation. Gaining political power is the only way ambitious people see to achieving the immeasurably higher standard of living that the colonialists dangled in front of their faces for so long. Given the natural wickedness of human beings, the lengths to which they are prepared to go to achieve power—along with their followers, who expect to share in the spoils—are limitless.". Dalrymple’s observations were of tribes in Africa, but has application in Pakistan/Afghanistan where tribal connections/affiliations trump all. The presumption by Western powers that a “one-size-fits all” centralized government can govern in an environment with a strong, existing tribal system is wrong-headed and doomed policy for all concerned. The presumption and policy is devoid of current realities and history.
onparkstreet:
February 15th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
I read that post at Attackerman, too, some time ago and with some bemusement. Am I a horrible person for thinking it is somewhat naive? The comments to said post are interesting (particularly those of commenter "Hugh").
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I’ve said this here before, and more than once, but our aid "regimes" to many countries are brittle, stale, old, unthinking and a part of an inert Foreign Policy status quo. What else is there to say?
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– Madhu
onparkstreet:
February 15th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
I have no idea why the above is bolded? I guess I really, really meant it!
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– Madhu
omar:
February 16th, 2010 at 3:45 am
cross posting from SWJ..i think its relevant:Something is going on and obviously we (the general public) have not been told exactly what is going on, so everyone is speculating. My own thoughts are: 1. The US wants to get out of Afghanistan reasonably quicky, but not without establishing a government that can hold the country, that is not dominated by any one regional power, and that will not openly host terrorists in its midst. Pakistan is offering to help arrange an honorable exit and (at least some people in) the US is/are interested. 2. This has set off a definite frenzy of self-congratulatory back slapping amongst the "paknationalist" crowd about how the ISI was right all along, the Americans are going to leave and we hold the cards, aka Taliban and Haqqani sahib and whatnot. 3. The Pakistani army is prone to delusions (maybe all armies are, but in many states their brilliance is restrained by civilians with other priorities) and it will be no surprise if many of them put out propaganda in the morning and then rejoice in the evening when they see the "good news" on their TV sets. 4. But the hard reality is that there is no going back to the good old days of "strategic depth" in Afghanistan. No way, no how. It doesnt matter if some distant American can even be tricked into giving the whole jihadi apparatus back to the ISI to play with….it STILL wont work. I suspect that the people at the top know this, but everyone else (the officers you are meeting who are one hundred percent sure the taliban will win) has no idea what a contradictory set of positions they are trying to reconcile. On the one hand, the army (and the civilian political establishment) are in no position to become jihadi outcasts from what Chomsky calls "Int com" (the "international community"). In their more deluded moments (very common after 8 pm in any army mess in Pakistan) I have had officers tell me that China and Saudi Arabia will pay our way no matter what because we will keep India in check (China pays for that) and Saudi Arabia pays for needling Iran and sharing the bomb. Thats total dangerous delusion. First of all, even China (where some PLA types, "strategic thinkers" no doubt, may have such illusions) is not in a position to bankroll Pakistan (and doesnt necessarily want to use them as their pet attack dog against India) and neither is Saudi Arabia. Secondly, the country is on the verge of social and economic chaos as it is, no amount of Chinese or Saudi help will put humpty together again if Uncle Sam is not in a good mood. So, the good old days of arming and training a jihadi army (and then losing track of who you trained) are not coming back and the state has to find a way to coexist more normally with everyone around them. And that means no more hardcore taliban or jihadis. But if they cannot bring back the hardcore jihadis and taliban, then what can they offer? "reconcilable taliban" have less loyalty to Pakistan than Karzai does. Its all an illusion. I dont see them getting anything beyond what was always on offer, a chance to work WITH intcom on THEIR side and against the jihadis. I think the high command knows this by now and that is exactly what they will end up doing. In the end, they will be fighting their dearest Mullah Nazir and Haqqani and Gul Bahadur as well as the current "bad taliban". The army may wish to play both sides, but the jihadis will not oblige. The problem is that a lot of them (Pakistani army officers) have no "vocabulary" for such an existence (as an anti-jihadi army). The ideological background is all jihadi all the time. Monumental feats of hypocrisy and "compartmentalization" are needed to prevent A from mixing with B and blowing up. THAT is going to to be their problem for the foreseeable future, not how to manipulate a "friendly" regime in Kabul. 5. No one is getting out anytime soon. Underneath all the calculations and manouvering, there is a real clash. Between the irreconcilable jihadis and an international community which cannot afford to live with them running countries, and certainly not with them running nuclear armed countries. It doesnt even matter if the US leaves Afghanistan before the war is settled. There will still be a war. The diference is in how it ends…with existing countries or new arrangements? The first is much much more likely, the second is the worst case scenario and involves very vicious fighting for a long time. Either way, no one is going back to the late nineties. One way or the other (one way being less painful than the other), Pakistan is going to be allied with the US, fighting against irreconcilable jihadis and benefiting from "normal" relations with Afghanistan IF Pakistan can keep the peace on OUR side of the border. Neither India, nor Pakistan will own Afghanistan, and either would be foolish to try. Who knows, maybe this "competition" is another way the evil imperialists make fools of both countries and get them to buy more weapons and "do more" to help out the elders of Zion? Just kidding. Just kidding. or at least, that’s what it seems to my amateur view….
zen:
February 16th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Excellent comments, gentlemen. The extended analysis you provided helps the readership.