SELECTED STUDIES

Section Editor: Prof. Talaat I. Farag

Pak-Afghan Predicament:
A Way Out

By Dr. Muzaffar K Awan, MD

The U.S. is now deeply engaged in trying to translate the broad strategic concepts for the Afghanistan war that President Obama announced on March 27 ^th   2009.  There have been subsequent visitations of Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari to the U.S., with broad-based triumvirate gruelling discussions. The details of all these efforts have not been announced yet and many complex issues are still being debated within the U.S. Administration. What is clear thus far is that the President Obama from the get-go has been looking beyond the war in Afghanistan; he has linked Afghanistan and Pakistan together, and is calling for a broad-based regional approach.

Future historians will give the final verdict on the terrorist attacks on US soil on Sept. 11, 2001 arguing that the attackers achieved their ultimate goal by provoking a U.S. foreign policy disaster and the miscalculated invasion of two Muslim nations.

President Obama inherited the Iraq and Afghan wars from George W. Bush, and he will be doing his best to end both wars in order to focus on more pressing problems and economic priorities. While Iraqi situation remains difficult and still unresolved, the situation in Afghanistan is rapidly turning into an American worse nightmare.

The Bush administration from the very start, by essentially adopting the same polarizing language and religiously-based worldview of those who attacked the United States on September 11, essentially transformed the “war on terror” into a religious war. A war that alluded to an endless battle on a higher plane between oversimplified forces of “good” and “evil”.  For about eight years, the U.S has essentially been fighting the same war of the imagination as the Al-Qaeda mindset itself has been fighting. That is precisely why the so-called ‘war on terror” has been an appalling failure by inadequately confronting the extremists in the Muslim world.

The idea of religious warfare (crusades and holy wars) actually has its roots in all major faiths---distorted ideas of religion and violence and the similarities of ways they have developed in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are impulses that are just as prevalent among right-wing Jews in Israel and certainly among right-wing evangelicals in the United States. This is understandably a universal phenomenon, and is by no means exclusive solely to Muslim groups. Today the world feels the wrath of the descendants of the Crusaders and Holy warriors who have ruthlessly destroyed the Jewish-Christian-Muslim symbioses.

Pundits from all political persuasions agree that Barak Hussein Obama has been elected to the U.S. presidency at a crucial time that comes at most once- in -a- generation.  The scope and breadth of the problems, both domestic and foreign, come perhaps once a century.  The question is whether American politics will foster or hinder what could amount to a desperately needed Second American Revolution.

Domestically, the basic split had occurred among the Republicans into neos and paleos and for some decades the neo-cons had pitted against the paleo-cons.  At least until recently, the neo-cons had won resoundingly and were the staunch supporters of the chaotic Bush regime.

We in America tend to forget our own history. If we recall our history, it becomes abundantly clear that the Great American Experiment in self-government started on the basis of the Scottish Renaissance, which emphasized enlightened faith as the key to balance and good government. It was opposed to the militant secularism (Laicism) of European Enlightenment, which ironically and inevitably led to the French Revolution based on maximized (physical power) force as the solution to all problems.

When we look back from the perspective of the 21^st Century, we can see that Nazism, Communism, Likudnik Zionism, Neo-Conservatism, and Al Qaeda have been in practice of utopian perversions of reality.   Neo-conservatism [1]   is the precise opposite of the paleo-conservatism or “traditionalism” of the late 18th century that had warned us against the French utopianism.

The founding Americans, following their mentor in Edmund Burke [2], leader of the minority Whig Party in the English Parliament, created a union to be based on justice as the source of freedom not as its product.  This founding premise, principle, and purpose   were enshrined in the preamble to the American Constitution.

The two frameworks that have always competed in human history and life have been power and justice.  Since the era of the first cavemen, power necessarily has focused on the immediate future, like whether and how to kill members of a tribe that are encroaching on one’s own hunting grounds, or how to do the same thing perhaps in less bloody ways to rivals in one’s own tribe.  This is known as politics.  Aristotle said that human beings are social and political animals, for better or worse, and he said that democracy based on group-thinking or consensus or least common denominator is the worst kind of government

That is why democracy everywhere in the world is “work –in- progress” and an evolutionary Process. Our own democracy in America, a beacon and a model to less evolved democracies around the globe, is not at all fully matured democracy on the stratified evolutionary scale [4].

The true framework of thought and action in the 21^st century has to be justice indeed.  This framework focuses not on what “is” or has “been” but on what “ought” to be. This requires recognition of an authority beyond mere human will and beyond majoritarian  democracy  in herd mentality, which is merely a tool of elitist governance devoid of specific content related to distributive   justice or fairness in society, ignoring the ethical and normative content of the idea of democracy and disregarding the idea that democracy should be a crucial component of any proposal for the organization of a ‘good society’,  rather than a mere administrative or decisional device.

In America both the definition and practice of justice require a strategy to rehabilitate religion as it was understood by America’s Founders.  In the Preamble to the American Constitution the purposes of  forming a more perfect union are stated to start with justice and thereby leading to peace, prosperity, and, lastly, to freedom. Freedom is listed last because freedom without justice is mere license and can lead to chaos.  Justice, however, without a transcendent authority recognized by the members of society can lead to tyranny and to the imposition of a utopian and totalitarian ideology that will preclude any possibility of peace, prosperity, and freedom.  If justice is the product merely of human will, rather than of a higher truth that humans were created to seek, justice will inevitably come, as Mao Tse Tung once claimed, from the barrel of a gun. And that is not acceptable to the masses of the world in the 21^st century. The masses of the world supported recent election of president Obama and in this context he is the world president.

President Obama can carry through his hopes for better future of America and the world only if he is consistently supported by the people of America and the world.

What then is the nature of the traditionalist movement that forms the perfect opposite of Neo-conservatism?  Often one can understand something by comparison.  In this case, we can compare the triumphalistic ideology of Neo-conservatism with the humble faith-based inter-faith dialogue that has been developing over the past many years under the Gulen transnational civil movement,   “Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Tolerance” [3] and the Common Word or Logos in a search for Common Ground as the basis for cooperation in transforming truth into compassionate justice. 
 
The basic traditionalist premise of the Common Word, which is found in all the world religions, is that we are created in the image of God, Whose essential nature is love, mercy, and justice.  We, as human beings, are also powerful to the extent that we have limited freedom to pursue hatred, revenge, and injustice.  Without this freedom we would not be created in the image of God. 

The Obama administration’s Afghanistan strategy deep down strikes most of the right notes, by emphasizing the critical importance of internal unity amongst the multiple factions and helps build the Afghan National Army, without which nothing can be achieved in Afghanistan in the long term. The plan also rightly seeks a U.S. (presently unannounced) exit strategy rather than "staying the course" and   creating a modern, Western-style alien democracy in Afghanistan. Putting the Bush era mistakes, neoconservative influences   and unilateralism aside, the Obama administration has also done something that should have been obvious from the very beginning: It reaching out to Afghanistan's northern, southern and western neighbours. After all, once the US eventually gets out, it is these regional countries that will have to manage Afghanistan's ongoing difficulties.

During his campaign, president Obama while talking about the war in Iraq said,” It is not just that we have to get out of Iraq; it is not enough to get out of Iraq; we have to get out of the mindset that led us into Iraq.”  What is the mindset that got U.S. into Iraq .It is the mindset that says pre-emptive force will do the trick. Violence, war and bombers---- will bring democracy and liberty to the people through God-given American right to invade other countries for their own benefit. We will bring civilization to the Mexicans in 1846.We will bring freedom to the Cubans in 1898.We will bring democracy to the Filipinos in 1900.You know how successful America has been at bringing democracy around the globe.

President Obama will understandably have a difficult task of helping the U.S. tame down its militaristic missionary mindset and zeal. The history of Afghanistan has been centuries of alien empires trying to impose their will on Afghanistan by force. Alexander the Great, Chengez khan, the British, the Russians and now the Americans. The result has been a devastated country and a graveyard of previous empires.

America has to this day, military bases in more than a hundred countries. America does not need to send more troops to Afghanistan; it does not need to have bigger military--- already with an enormous military budget. The American   citizens   expect that   the politicians and the president start talking about ending wars, achieving peace through dialogue being an honest broker in resolving conflicts around the world and thus cutting our military budget in half or even less. The new administration has to be pulled by the citizens who elected them, to renounce the militaristic mindset of using force to accomplish things around the world. The U.S. cannot go on the way that makes it a hated country in the world.

The U.S citizenry at this juncture expects and supports president Obama with a new vision of a nation that becomes at least liked all over the world. We cannot expect to be loved---it will take a while to build up to that. A nation that is not feared, not disliked, not hated, as too often we are, but a nation that is looked upon as  peaceful, because  we have withdrawn our military bases from all these countries.

We no longer need to spend the hundreds of billions of dollars on the militaristic budget, and---this is part of the emancipation----We can use that money to give everybody at home free health care, to guarantee jobs to everyone who does not have a job, guarantee payment of rent to everyone who cannot pay his rent, and build child care centers. The Monies can also   be used to help poor people around the world instead of sending bombers over there.

America needs a total turnaround. We want a country that uses its resources, its wealth, and its ability to help people, not hurt them. This is the vision we have to keep alive. President Obama is surrounded by numerous politicians who will have difficult time breaking from the past. We the citizens know the story of our country, where progress has been made, and any kind of injustice has been overturned. It has been so because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They did not just grumble. They worked, they acted, they organized, they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people who were in-charge and were elected by them. And that is what we the citizens may have to be doing even more in today’s troubled times.

 There is an urgent need for genuine global democratic law that is becoming desirable, inevitable and achievable only when the integral worldview is adapted by a critical mass of about 10 % of the intellectuals around the world and masses are made aware and educated by new media as honest watch dog. This may come about in the next 50 years only if no catastrophe and regression occurs between now and then. We can certainly begin using this future evolutionary goal to shape our policies in the hot spots like Afghanistan and Middle East at the present. Using an integral political  perspective ,we can  transcend  the current conditions  of a post- colonial world of competing  nation-states  “in a state of nature” and envision geopolitical solutions that  could be achieved by  regional  and global   integration .One such solution may  be  urgently applicable  now   to  the unending  chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

How could all this ever be achieved? This may sound too farfetched and would probably be opposed by the U.N., Afghans, Pakistan, India, and perhaps even the West. But   this may be the best solution of last resort. Perhaps NATO will have to withdraw, let the Taliban come back through dialogue /reconciliation, or a second time invasion if necessary to create a "clean slate" under which borders could be adjusted to correspond to the natural borders of consciousness.  Certainly this war must end in a less dramatic and the least disruptive way.  Staying the present course will only produce another Vietnam—a lengthy and bloody conflict that America will inevitably lose eventually. Thus, if we come up with regional integrative idea for peace in the region, we can resolve this difficult problem to the best satisfaction of all involved.

 The west is already on the verge of losing the war in Afghanistan and the masses in Pakistan and Afghanistan are unhappy about their own innocent citizens being killed in both countries. Hamid Karzai has not been able to unite different afghan factions and exert control over the Afghan countryside. Despite the best efforts of the NATO alliance and many well-intentioned Afghans, the Karzai government remains a very fragile entity whose existence is totally dependent on the ongoing presence of 30,000 American troops.

Applying the same strategy that defeated the Russians in the 1980s, the Taliban have used the rugged border between Afghanistan and Pakistan as their primary weapon, conducting hit and run attacks in Afghanistan and retreating to their sanctuary across the border in Pakistan.

Although Pakistan has made ostensible efforts to attack Taliban sanctuaries within its territory, these initiatives have been undermined by the ineptitude of the Pakistani army, and by the fact that Pakistani military leaders covertly support the Taliban. This unwillingness to combat the Taliban arises from the perception that the continuing military viability of the Taliban is necessary to counter Karzai and his Northern Alliance’s increasingly close ties with Pakistan's enemy, India. During the Musharraf Raj, Karzai had consistently favoured India over Pakistan in his foreign relations, and this had helped to fuel the ongoing "cold war" in the region. With civilian government in Pakistan, there are better prospects of three way reconciliation between India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Exacerbating the conditions of a nearly failed state in Afghanistan, there is a real danger of Pakistan also eventually becoming a failed state. The recent U.S. ground and predator missile attacks into the tribal areas of Pakistan may not   have taken out any Taliban leaders, but these attacks have put severe domestic pressure on Pakistan's new democratic government. Thus, the simplistic strategy of "chasing the Taliban into their cross-border sanctuaries in Pakistan and finishing them off" does not appear to be a viable option because of its destabilizing effect on Pakistan. The conflict with Pakistani Taliban in Swat unfortunately adds more fuel to the fire .Innocent people keep suffering and dying.

The claim is, we are very precise with our weapons.” We have the latest equipment. We can target anywhere and hit just what we want.” This too is the part of the mind-set of technological infatuation. Yes they can actually decide that they are going to bomb this one house. But they do not know who is in the house. They can hit one car with a rocket from a great distance but they certainly do not know who is in the car. After the bodies are taken out of the house--- they tell you, “there were   three suspected terrorists killed in that house, and yes, there were seven other people killed, including two children, but we got the suspected terrorists.” And they do not know who the terrorists really are.

President Barack Obama has already sent perhaps 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan. However, even a reinforced total of 50,000 U.S. troops are unlikely to resolve the conflict. During their war in Afghanistan the Russians maintained troop levels of approximately 120,000 and still suffered over 15,000 deaths at the hands of the Mujahedeen. Like the North Vietnamese before them, the Mujahedeen effectively used the protection of an international border to defeat a more technologically advanced enemy. And this is the same situation U.S. faces today; the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is proving to be as reliable a weapon in this century as it was in the last.
Recently, acknowledging the futility of US military efforts, former White House Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski had called for a "political solution" which would seek to disengage with the Taliban in exchange for a promise not to harbour or support Al Qaeda. However, it is perhaps doubtful at this point that the Taliban's central command could make such an agreement while alien troops remain in Afghanistan. The associated tribal leaders have already broken similar repeated agreements with Pakistan. So it is naive to expect that any agreements made with the Taliban regarding Al Qaeda would be ever honoured as long as the US and NATO remain involved.

Michael O’Hanlon from the Brookings Institute in the U.S.  Recommends a less conciliatory strategy that would concentrate on training and expanding the Afghan National Army. However, the Russians did try the same strategy that had failed badly due to the unreliability of Afghan troops under Soviet influence and the Mujahedeen’s effective use of the border as a shield for its guerrilla warfare.

The U.S. is thus faced with an apparently no-win situation. If we withdraw our troops without constructive engagement, Afghanistan will revert back to the pre-9/11 status quo within weeks. If we go on accelerating the war by attacking the Taliban in the tribal areas of Pakistan we could trigger a civil war in Pakistan and destabilize the entire region. And if we try to "stay the course" by sending in two more brigades of U.S. troops with the hope of training the Afghans to eventually take over the war for us, we will have embraced a Vietnam like losing strategy that will bleed us slowly until we finally capitulate.

In Afghanistan we need a bold and innovative strategy, similar to Nixon's China trip in 1972, which turned the tables on the Russians and marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War. We need a strategy that will improve grassroots conditions in Afghanistan and Pakistan simultaneously. Such a strategy will not be without risks, but wars are rarely won through plodding caution.

If we want to win in Afghanistan we need to eliminate the artificial, colonial relic border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This could be done by confederating Afghanistan to Pakistan as a union in exchange for a joint security agreement with the Pakistani military under which temporary yet direct military access to the tribal areas could be obtained. The divided region of Pashtunistan, which currently straddles the border, could be united as a province within an expanded Pakistan and given a degree of autonomy; providing something of a "victory" for this proud people, while simultaneously taking away the Taliban's primary weapon—the border that divides their country. The remaining Persian speaking regions of Afghanistan could also be given a high degree of provincial autonomy within a greater Pakistan, similar to the kind of autonomy enjoyed by the Kurds in Iraq.

 Such a bold move will deprive the Taliban of tactical ability to make war in Afghanistan; it would also strengthen and support Pakistan, making it more secure in its relations with its Indian and Iranian neighbours. Moreover, through this action we would remove the primary justification for the Pakistani military's tacit support for the Taliban—with the two countries consolidated into one federal region, the Taliban's role of buffer force for Pakistan will become unnecessary.

 The Karzai government's sovereignty extends for only about five square blocks in Kabul, and would quickly collapse without the presence of U.S. troops. Afghanistan's de facto government consists of corrupt warlords, and the countryside is increasingly lawless. Thus, if we want to bring lasting peace to this region we must face the fact that the "country" of Afghanistan is not a sacrosanct entity. Like a house with a faulty foundation, the current geopolitical container of the Afghan people cannot be built upon in a sustainable way. As long as Afghanistan remains occupied by NATO and defined by the 1,600 mile border that once marked the frontier of the British Empire, it cannot succeed as a nation.

There will certainly be inevitable objections and difficulties provoked by this unexpected but innovative proposal. However, if the U.S. wants to put an end to the increasing bloodshed on both sides and avoid spending needless billions in a war without an end, we then certainly need to give a serious consideration to this innovative proposal. We need to learn from the lessons of Vietnam and not allow ourselves to be defeated by a border that we must recognize but that our enemies may ignore

Iran is also critical in this regard. Because the U.S. and Iran share a common agenda in Afghanistan, the U.S .administration is quite rightly using talks on Afghanistan as an avenue towards improving the wider relationship with Tehran. Iranian support saved the opponents of the Taliban from complete defeat before 9/11 and will be essential to preserving whatever arrangement the US leaves behind in Kabul. Trade with Iran will be vital to the Afghan-Pak economy, and aid from Iran will be necessary to its development.

Interestingly, as far as Afghanistan is concerned, the real challenge for the U.S. is not cooperation with Iran but more so with Pakistan. As the new US strategy aptly explains, Afghanistan and Pakistan are now deeply intertwined. The AFPAK crisis, as it has come to be understood, needs a new strategy that deals with the Taliban insurgency rooted in the Pashtun populations of both countries. U.S. pressure on the Afghan Taliban will achieve nothing without help from the Pakistani state and military against Taliban support on their soil.

As the recent weeks clearly illustrate, getting Pakistan to fight the Taliban is an enormously difficult challenge. On this particular issue, the Obama administration perhaps still does not fully recognize the depths of the AFPAK problem. It is almost impossible to get Pakistan fully on board against the Taliban for two main reasons. First, the large majority of ordinary Pakistanis are bitterly opposed to Pakistan helping the US, especially if this involves the Pakistani army fighting the Taliban. Second, calculations by the Pakistani security establishment and intelligence services play a major part in limiting Pakistani actions against the Taliban.

Let's focus on the first factor. A democratically elected government cannot simply defy public opinion. The army has to recruit its soldiers from Pakistani villages and ask them to risk their lives. Pakistan can survive without American money and arms, but it cannot survive without the loyalty of its own citizens. For the majority of the population and the Pakistani security establishment the country is facing a much more serious threat than the Taliban and that is India. Dealing with the fact that the Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict is linked to the India-Pakistan conflict, and the overall security of Central Asia, vital Russian and Chinese national security interests are also linked. This is why an American strategy that focuses on the AFPAK problem without the Indian dimension will be missing a crucial part of the bigger regional picture.

 Islamabad and Delhi have been at war—hot and cold, defused, but war nonetheless since the partition of India since 1947 .Even to this day, half of India's million-strong strike forces are near the Pakistan’s eastern border or on the armistice line that divides Kashmir, the perennially disputed Himalayan territory claimed by both countries. Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani has reportedly told Washington he would move troops from the eastern border if India did the same. Delhi's response was to mount three days of "war games." On May 15 Kayani told Parliament there would be no movement of troops from east to west, even though US  had given "guarantees" against any Indian "misadventure." Parliament applauded him.

In other words--Obama’s recent comments notwithstanding--Pakistan's "threat recognition" hasn't changed. The tactical foe is the Pakistani Taliban today, but the strategic adversary always remains India. The Pakistani army will act ruthlessly against those who challenge the state, such as the Taliban in Swat and Al Qaeda-linked militants elsewhere. But it will not act against those who, like the Afghan Taliban, seek only a haven from which to fight America and NATO in Afghanistan. On the contrary, should the cold war on the eastern border become hot once again, such militants could again be proxies to hurt India's interests in Afghanistan or Kashmir.

Obama knows that resolving Kashmir is a critical piece of the "Af-Pak" strategy; he even talked about  a renewed push for negotiations during his campaign for president. But in white-house  he has been faced with a massive Indian lobbying effort warning that his special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, would be shunned by Delhi if his brief included Kashmir conflict. It has worked; Holbrooke hasn't mentioned Kashmir even once. And the Pakistani army is convinced that America and India formed an axis against it. How can Pakistan army go against Taliban whole-heartedly to eliminate them?

There  remains a  big hole at the heart of Af-Pak issue. It's called peace between Pakistan and India. And no amount of aid, "decided shifts" or apocalyptic warnings will fill  that  hole.

This was a big mistake to exclude Kashmir, but the innovative proposal will bring India and other neighbours to integrating regional politics for common good. The long-term    solution to the  chaos in the  region perhaps  lies in creating at this point  the proposed confederacy between Afghanistan  and Pakistan  and this could then  gradually expand  with inclusion of  India, Bangladesh  and even other countries  into a South Asian Union (SAU). It is about time this region breaks the Berlin wall of caste and communal politics that has separated and hurt these countries profoundly. Only then will there be a permanent end to the killing.

References:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_(U.S.), March 2009.

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

3. M. Fethullah Gülen, Toward a Global Civilization of  Love and Tolerance  _2004

4. http://www.spiraldynamics.net/DrDonBeck/essays/stages_of_social_development.htm(Developing countries, Democracies and values) by Alan Tonkin 14 July 2008.
    

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Dr.Muzaffar Khan Awan, MD, is a Pakistani-American physician has lived in the USA for over 30 years. He originally hails from Punjab, Pakistan. He practices medicine in Detroit Metropolitan area of Michigan. He has keen interest in the moderate enlightenment thought in Islam and interfaith dialogue and is an amateur writer and has written many articles in the Pakistani English newspapers and magazines. Dr. Awan firmly believes that slowly but surely civil society movements are underway in the Muslim world that are contributing to the development of positive relationships between Islam and the West. His email is:  mkawanmd@aol.com