A Blow to ‘War on Terror’

The death of Benazir Bhutto has changed the whole scene. While the USA would want to push its plan to contain the Taliban by its increased presence in Pakistan, it would now be anathema to the Pakistani military and rulers now. Compounding the problem is the fact that apart from Nawaz Sharif there does not seem to be any other politician of stature who can build credible alliances.

by M K BHADRAKUMAR

The German weekly Der Spiegel had reported in mid-December that at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Allied Joint Force Command in Brunssum, the Netherlands, and at NATO military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, top-secret strategy games have been held about worst-case scenarios in Afghanistan.

That may turn out to be smart forward thinking. The computer simulations assumed that if the situation in Pakistan were to spin out of control, the Taliban would get a free run on the border regions with Afghanistan, and NATO’s supply lines through Pakistan might be jeopardized.

In November, USA Today quoted Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell as saying that the US military was reviewing contingency plans in case unrest in Pakistan began to affect the flow of supplies for American troops fighting in Afghanistan. He underscored that the supply lines were “very real areas of concern”, since three-quarters of the supplies for the 26,000-strong US military deployment in Afghanistan flowed via Pakistan by land and air. “Clearly, we do not like the situation we find ourselves in right now,” Morrell commented.

Asked how long US commanders would take to switch to alternate supply lines, he responded he didn’t know, but that “if we needed to have it done tomorrow, we would have it done tomorrow”. The crucial question is whether that “tomorrow” has drawn dramatically closer with the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.

One of the NATO strategy games apparently simulated the withdrawal of the troops from Afghanistan that had been cut off from supplies. Of course, no one expects such a contingency to develop - in the immediate term, at least. But anything now becomes possible. There is cause for deep anxiety when an acknowledged American area specialist and author like Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institute says, it is “hard to be optimistic”. He fears for Pakistan, visualizing that “separatism will increase, as will violent, extremist Islamism” and Pakistan will face a “fundamental crisis” within the next five years.

In many ways, it is a classic boomerang. With Bhutto’s assassination, Pakistan, which became seriously destabilized by America’s “war on terror”, may be about to turn the heat on US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. According to Der Spiegel, senior NATO leaders fear that “Pakistan could very well descend into total chaos after the scheduled elections”. NATO leaders assess that everything depends critically on President Pervez Musharraf managing to retain his hold on power”. If he doesn’t, “the already half-hearted efforts by the Pakistani military leadership, permeated with Islamists, to stem Taliban and al-Qaeda activities in the Pashtun tribal regions could fail completely”.

The political dilemma of the George W Bush administration will be very acute in the coming weeks. On the one hand it will have to suspend all disbelief and earnestly work for Musharraf’s continuance in power in the critical weeks ahead, while on the other hand it is intensely conscious that as long as he continues in power, Pakistan will remain a dysfunctional state.

At the same time, on a parallel track, Washington has to build up confidence in NATO capitals that Pakistan can be put on the road to recovery and that the campaign against the Taliban can gain traction, if only they showed the readiness to commit more troops for Afghanistan at this critical juncture.

Washington’s frustration is two-fold. On the one hand, it has limitations in augmenting troop strength in Afghanistan. At the same venue where Gates spoke, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, frankly admitted that the US military has limitations in what it can do in Afghanistan due to overstretch in Iraq. He said, “In Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must. The war in Afghanistan is, by design and necessity, an economy-of-force operation. There’s no getting around that ... Our main focus, militarily in the region and in the world right now, is rightly and firmly in Iraq.”

On the other hand, NATO allies stubbornly refuse to pay heed to Washington’s calls for increased troop contributions. European opinion is steadily turning against the war in Afghanistan. In Germany, the latest opinion polls, in December, indicated that half the population favored withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. The same is the case in Canada. In the event of an opposition victory in this year’s parliamentary election, a withdrawal of Canadian troops will be likely. The Dutch have already decided to pull out. It may trigger a domino effect. The Czech Republic, Denmark and Norway are already in the process of withdrawing their troops from northern Afghanistan. Taliban heading north Meanwhile, the Taliban have begun moving toward the Amu Darya region in northern Afghanistan. They seem to be virtually repeating their strategy in the 1996-98 period, making their northern advance in a pincer movement. One arm of the Taliban is moving toward Kabul from strongholds in Helmand and the southeastern provinces, while other groups are moving up from Kandahar along the Iranian border regions and the western provinces of Herat, Badghis and Faryab. (Faryab has old Pashtun settlements.)

In October, the Taliban tested the waters by overrunning several districts in the Faryab and Badghis region. The Bala Murghab, Ghormach and Qades districts of Badghis are virtually under Taliban control. They are recruiting people in the countryside. They have established intelligence and operational networks in most district centers in the northwestern provinces. In 1997, the Taliban used Badghis as the base for their operations in the provinces to the east, such as Jowzjan and Balkh.

They have also begun harassing the 400-strong German contingent in the northern province of Kunduz with sporadic firing, booby traps and mines and firing rockets and rocket-propelled grenades into German camps. A concerted Taliban attempt to capture Kunduz, a highly strategic area in the north, seems a possibility. The fall of Kunduz in 1997 to the Taliban was a turning point in their capture of the Amu Darya region, including the remote Takhar and Badakhshan regions in the east.

All signs are that the war effort is deteriorating. What is taking place is the syndrome in which the Soviet occupying troops in the 1980s found themselves trapped - tactical achievements but a potential strategic failure. Recent NATO operations in the town of Musa Qala, a dust bowl in the middle of nowhere in Helmand’s stretching desert region, are a poignant indicator. NATO touted it as a decisive battle - a veritable Waterloo for the Taliban - when it dispersed the Taliban who had been in occupation of the town for close to a year.

Clearly, from the Bush administration’s perspective, there couldn’t be a worse time for the unraveling in Pakistan. But what is it that the US can do to ensure that Pakistan stabilizes? The simple answer is, precious little at the moment. Even with the elections delayed, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid that supports Musharraf cannot hope to return to power - unless, of course, the elections are blatantly rigged, which, in the present circumstances, cannot be ruled out.

In all probability, in a relatively free and fair election, an alliance of Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League and the late Bhutto’s PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) may well capture power. But that may set the stage for a confrontation between the democratic opposition and Musharraf. Can Washington prevail on Sharif and Asif Zardari (Bhutto’s husband) to let bygones be bygones and work under Musharraf?

But even assuming that a PML-PPP coalition government refrains from confronting Musharraf, its willingness to go along with the “war on terror” on Washington’s terms is highly doubtful. Any elected government will be sensitive to the deep-rooted opposition to the war in Pakistan public opinion.

US special forces in Pakistan Pentagon sources have been quoted by influential columnist and former Army intelligence analyst and consultant William Arkin as claiming that Washington is expecting, in terms of an agreement reached in November with Islamabad, to “vastly expanded” the US military presence in Pakistan’s frontier area. Arkin wrote in the Washington Post that the “first US personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early in the new year”.

The new head of the US Special Operations Command, Admiral Eric T Olson, visited Islamabad in August, November and December, meeting with Musharraf, the chairman of the Pakistan Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Tariq Majid, and the commander of the military and paramilitary troops in northwest Pakistan, Lieutenant General Muhammad Masood Alam. Arkin says that what appears to have been under discussion is a “shift for the US military and for US-Pakistan relations” whereby Musharraf will lift restrictions on US involvement in cross-border military operations by special forces as well as paramilitary operations within Pakistani territory.

The Washington Post has separately reported that planning for the proposed US military deployment in Pakistan is already underway at the headquarters of the US Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida. The report characterized the proposed counterinsurgency campaign as a “vivid example of the American military’s asserting a bigger role in a part of Pakistan that the Central Intelligence Agency has overseen almost exclusively since September 11".

The project is no doubt critically important for the success of Afghan operations. NATO has been insisting for some time that Washington cannot any longer “afford to leave the Pakistani military to clean up its side of the border”.

However, Bhutto’s assassination may have upturned the project for the deployment of US Special Forces in Pakistan. In the present volatile situation there is bound to be an overwhelming popular uproar if Musharraf is seen as acquiescing with US military operations - under whatever pretext- on Pakistani soil. With Bhutto’s death, there has been a paradigm shift in the power calculus. Bhutto might have, arguably, gone along with the new US plan, but not Sharif.

No doubt, Sharif’s strength lies in creating allies among conservatives and Islamists. Indeed, he is the only national figure left in Pakistani politics today who can possibly walk the tightrope between Pashtun tribalism and Islamism in the Pakistani northwest. But that’s about it. Sharif will militate against any perceived dilution of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity by the US military.

Conceivably, Washington brought immense pressure to bear on Musharraf to agree to Washington’s carefully crafted schematic plan to station US special forces on Pakistani soil. Any “vastly increased” presence of these forces in the northwest regions will be anathema to the Pakistani military. Apart from the aspect of professional pride and patriotism, the Pakistani military will be uneasy about a US presence in the northwest close to where almost the entire nuclear arsenal of Pakistan is kept.

The new year has come, but it is unlikely special forces are heading for Pakistan’s northwest any time soon. Bhutto’s assassination has taken the pressure off Musharraf and the Pakistani military for complying with the US plan, no matter the imperative needs emanating out of NATO’s war in Afghanistan.