US Afghan offensive missing key target

By Srinath Raghavan

http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/opinion/opinion/us-afghan-offensive-missing-key-target.aspx

Aug 07 : July was a tough month for Western forces in Afghanistan. More soldiers were killed in combat than in any earlier month during the past eight years. The months ahead may be tougher still, for the American military "surge" in Afghanistan has barely begun. On the political front, too, this period is bound to be significant. The presidential elections are slated to be held in two weeks' time, and will be followed by a phase of readjustment amongst all partners in the war against the Taliban. Western strategy in Afghanistan, then, is about to enter choppy waters.

For some time now, relations between Kabul and Western capitals have been strained. To the extent possible, the Obama administration has distanced itself from Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's bid for re-election. The problem is that there are few credible alternatives in sight. Yet the Americans have already expressed fears about possible electoral malpractice and lack of transparency in the process. The leader of the European Union's election observer mission to Afghanistan has pointedly stated that his top priority is to prevent fraud. These thinly veiled attacks on the Karzai government betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues at stake.

The greatest problem about the elections is that considerable sections of the populace, particularly in the Taliban-dominated southern areas, might be unable to exercise their franchise. The Taliban have explicitly stated their intention to disrupt and prevent the elections. In a bid to convey the seriousness of their threats, they have made so bold as to launch large coordinated attacks on Afghan government installations and an American military base in the provincial capitals of Jalalabad and Gardez. If such tactics succeed in instilling fear in the local populace, the turnouts could be very low. This would result in the Pashtuns of these areas being further alienated from the Central government. Such an outcome would, of course, make the counter-insurgency efforts all the more onerous.

Mr Karzai, for his part, feels that much of the current mess is of the coalition's making. Consider, for instance, the much vaunted problem of poppy cultivation and its links to the Taliban insurgency. This stems at least partly from the coalition's policies. Prior to sending their troops into Helmand in 2006, the British insisted that the province's governor was a drug lord and hence needed to be sacked. Mr Karzai rightly observes that since then poppy cultivation has increased almost four-fold in the province. This is to a large extent because of the coalition forces' unwillingness to go after the drug traffickers and money launderers. Instead, they sought to wean the farmers from poppy cultivation by encouraging the market for other crops — a policy that failed to recognise the fact that the farmers were in the business not just for lucre but out of fear.

Perhaps the most serious differences between Mr Karzai and the Obama administration centre on the coalition's military strategy. At first blush, it might seem that the two sides are reading from the same page. Both Kabul and Washington have emphasised the importance of talking to sections of the Taliban insurgency and possibly co-opting them. The Americans feel that such an approach has worked in Iraq and could yield results in Afghanistan too. But Mr Karzai appears to support this approach because he recognises the potential weaknesses of the coalition's strategy.

In particular, he realises that unless the Taliban's safe haven in Pakistan is disrupted, the insurgency can continue almost indefinitely. The availability of this sanctuary not only enables the Taliban to push more forces into Afghanistan, but also enables the insurgents to evade the coalition forces. As long as the sanctuary exists, there is no way that Western or Afghan troops can take the battle to the insurgents. Sealing the Afghan-Pakistan border is not a viable option either: it would require many more troops than could possibly be made available. Merely increasing the quantum of forces will result in additional casualties and battle fatigue. The acrimonious debate in Britain about operations in Afghanistan underscores the limitations imposed by domestic politics.

Mr Karzai's misgivings get to the core of the problem. Barack Obama rightly recognised the need to club together Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the administration has focused excessively on counter-insurgency in the former and inadequately on the latter. American officials have argued that Islamabad's military efforts in recent months point to the seriousness with which it views the Taliban threat. Such claims, however, rest on a grave misreading of the situation.

The Pakistan Army has acted against groups such as Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, which predates the Taliban and has a regional agenda in Swat, and other Pakistani Taliban outfits which turned against the Pakistani state after the Army's incursions into the tribal areas in 2004. But the Afghan Taliban — Mullah Omar and his cohort — continue to be ensconced in Balochistan. The Pakistan government has made no moves thus far to curb them, nor has it shared any intelligence about them with the Americans. The "high-value targets" of American drone attacks are almost invariably individuals who have links with Al Qaeda, and not the Afghan Taliban.

From Pakistan's standpoint, the Afghan Taliban are the proteges best placed to further their interests in Afghanistan. Besides, they have proved useful in other ways. Mullah Omar's forces have come handy in dealing with Baloch nationalist insurgents and the Shia tribes in the area. The so-called Quetta Shura of the Afghan Taliban has also been an intermediary in dealing with the Pakistan Taliban. In fact, in late 2008, Omar dispatched a team to convince the Pakistan Taliban leaders to forsake their fight against Islamabad and instead join the battle with the coalition forces in Afghanistan. The current round of military operations notwithstanding, Islamabad knows that Omar could be important for future negotiations with the Pakistan Taliban.

Given this complex of considerations, there is currently no incentive for the Pakistan government to act against the Afghan Taliban. Unless the Obama administration applies concerted pressure on Islamabad to move in this direction, its military efforts inside Afghanistan may well be doomed to failure.

Srinath Raghavan is at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru