![SASFOR [home]](/users/sasfor/site_logo.jpg "SASFOR"){kind=logo}
Summary
AREF KARIMI/AFP/Getty Images
Taliban fighters join Afghan forces Dec. 29, 2011
Analysis
The Afghan Taliban movement and the United States are appearing increasingly open to political accommodation and a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan. Events in the first few weeks of 2012 have indicated either progress in talks, or at least that those talks are moving toward becoming more official.
The increasing formalization of talks in no way means that a significant agreement is close, but there are two important trends to note: First, the United States has made significant progress toward its original goals in Afghanistan. The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to hunt down the core al Qaeda leadership, disrupt its network and bring down the Taliban government that sheltered it. With the successful degradation of the old al Qaeda core and the killing of Osama bin Laden, Washington has good cause to consider that mission accomplished -- though continued pressure and vigilance are widely considered prudent and warranted. But while al Qaeda and the United States are fundamentally irreconcilable, this is not the case for the current Taliban movement. Though diffuse and decentralized, today's Taliban have national political ambitions but no longer espouse or seek to support transnational jihad.
Second, the United States and its allies have already begun to withdraw forces from the country. While a significant number of forces are slated to remain in Afghanistan until 2014 -- and there is interest in maintaining a smaller military presence for the foreseeable future -- at the moment neither side appears interested in dragging out the fighting. And with much of the foreign combat strength in the country effectively holding ground and protecting territory the Taliban have either ceded or lost, the intensity of combat operations is hardly at its peak (not to mention the fact that winter has arrived, marking the end of the traditional fighting season).
Given the current force structure and timetables of foreign forces in Afghanistan, there is no prospect of military defeat for the Taliban. The Taliban said as much when they declared victory Jan. 16. But their leadership is being aggressively hunted in special operations night raids and by armed unmanned aerial vehicles. And while the leadership has survived, they will face continued pressure from the $6 billion-per-year security apparatus being installed under Afghan President Hamid Karzai's regime in Kabul. Furthermore, unlike in Iraq and Vietnam, there is not a powerful domestic American movement to end the war, so the United States and its allies have time to continue pursuing their goals. This means political accommodation, where the Taliban's principle objectives are readily achievable, is likely being seen as an increasingly attractive alternative to the movement compared to trying to retake the country by force while -- and after -- the United States and its allies accelerate the drawdown.
Taken together, both sides have powerful incentives to seek a negotiated settlement, even though there will inevitably be sticking points, and a finalized and implemented agreement is far from assured. This is the context for the series of notable developments that have occurred thus far in 2012.
On Jan. 3, the Taliban officially expressed interest in negotiations with Washington (its longstanding position has been that no talks can take place until foreign troops leave Afghanistan). They also announced an agreement to open a political office in Qatar (though no date for an actual opening has been released), specifically with the stated objective of reaching "understanding with other nations." The next day, Karzai "approved" the new office, which he has long opposed because it creates an avenue for negotiations outside of Kabul, which he has endeavored to keep at the center of any such discussions.
On Jan. 11, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that discussions regarding the Taliban office in Qatar were taking place and that the release of Taliban prisoners held in the Guantanamo Bay was under consideration. The following day, Washington stated that it was prepared to enter into negotiations with the Taliban if Karzai approves the process. The real problem is reportedly that the Taliban have no interest in negotiations involving the government in Kabul, particularly given the fact that they seek a new constitution as a condition for entering into an inclusive national government as opposed to accepting a role in the current architecture -- which Karzai has spent the bulk of the last decade shaping to support his own influence and power.
Ethnic minority leaders in Afghanistan have meanwhile begun to make statements that they support a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. And on Jan. 16, the Taliban officially declared victory -- potentially clearing the plate for a negotiated settlement -- and U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman visited Qatar and Afghanistan. In addition, the Taliban have announced publicly that recently leaked video footage purportedly showing U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters -- classic fodder for their own propaganda efforts -- would not disrupt recent progress toward talks.
Alone, any one of these developments would be noteworthy but not necessarily remarkable. But taken as a whole, this flurry of activity is one of the most important developments of 2012 thus far and indicates significant progress toward formalizing political accommodation and a negotiated settlement between the United States and the Taliban. Stratfor does not forecast such success for negotiations in 2012, but the recent overt signals are difficult to ignore.
The way to put the Pakistani genie back in the bottle and cork it is to help the Baluchis go the way of the Bangladeshis in achieving their dream of freedom from tyranny, corruption and murder at the hands of the diseased Pakistani military state.
An independent Baluchistan would create a territorial buffer and provide a transportation corridor for access to Afghanistan
M. Chris Mason is a retired diplomat with long service in South Asia and a senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Defence Studies in Washington.
Map Source: http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-on-baluchistan.html (Map added by SASFOR)
Relations between the United States and Pakistan have reached an all-time low. The Khyber Pass is closed to NATO cargo, U.S. personnel were evicted from Shamsi airbase and Pakistani observers have been recalled from joint co-operation centres.
Much more importantly, senior officials in Washington now know that Pakistan has been playing them false since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and understand that Pakistan was sheltering Osama bin Laden a few hundred yards from its version of West Point. The recent shelling of Afghan troops inside Afghanistan by the Pakistani army, and the NATO counterstrike, cleared in error by Pakistan, has further embarrassed the Pakistani military.
It should be obvious by now that Pakistan has no intention of doing what the United States has wanted for the past decade. The combination of wishful thinking, admiration for the emperor’s new clothes and $10-billion in payments to the Pakistani military have accomplished nothing. Admiral Michael Mullen was not wrong when he testified recently that the terrorist Haqqani network is operating as an arm of the Pakistani army. He might have added that the Taliban is the Pakistani army’s expeditionary force in Afghanistan. Pakistan shelters, funds, trains, supplies and advises the Taliban. The simple fact is that Pakistan is the world’s No. 1 state supporter of terrorism.
In Afghanistan, Pakistan will never be happy unless it has a puppet regime in Kabul and can run the country like a colony. Islamabad does not intend to allow the current Afghan constitution to remain in effect, and as soon as NATO pulls out, it will push the Taliban into an all-out civil war in Afghanistan designed to return it to power. All of which has led to a lot of hand-wringing in Washington, accompanied by a revolving-door procession of senior U.S. officials going to Islamabad to read a toothless riot act the Pakistanis can now recite by heart.
The permanent solution to the Pakistan problem is not more of this chest-beating appeasement. The answer lies in 20th-century history. In 1947, when India gained independence, a British Empire in full retreat left behind an unworkable mess on both sides of India – called Pakistan – whose elements had nothing in common except the religion of Islam. In 1971, this postcolonial Frankenstein came a step closer to rectification when Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, became an independent state.
The answer to the current Pakistani train wreck is to continue this natural process by recognizing Baluchistan’s legitimate claim to independence. Baluchistan was an independent nation for more than 1,000 years when Great Britain notionally annexed it in the mid-19th century. The Baluchis were never consulted about becoming a part of Pakistan, and since then, they have been the victims of alternating persecution and neglect by the Pakistani state, abuse which escalated to genocide when it was discovered in the 1970s that most of the region’s natural resources lie underneath their soil. Since then, tens of thousands of Baluchis have been slaughtered by the Pakistani army, which has used napalm and tanks indiscriminately against an unarmed population.
Map of Pakhtoonistan by : http://www.khyberwatch.com (Map added by SASFOR)
Changing maps is difficult only because it is initially unimaginable to diplomats and politicians. Although redrawing maps is the definition of failure for the United Nations and the U.S. State Department, it has, in fact, been by such a wide margin the most effective solution to regional violence over the past 50 years that there is really nothing in second place. Among the most obvious recent examples (apart from the former Soviet Union) are North and South Sudan, Kosovo, Eritrea, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, East Timor and Bangladesh.
An independent Baluchistan would, in fact, solve many of the region’s most intractable problems overnight. It would create a territorial buffer between rogue states Iran and Pakistan. It would provide a transportation and pipeline corridor for Afghanistan and Central Asia to the impressive but underutilized new port at Gwadar. It would solve all of NATO’s logistical problems in Afghanistan, allow us to root the Taliban out of the former province and provide greater access to Waziristan, to subdue our enemies there. And it would contain the rogue nuclear state of Pakistan and its A.Q. Khan network of nuclear proliferation-for-profit on three landward sides.
The way to put the Pakistani genie back in the bottle and cork it is to help the Baluchis go the way of the Bangladeshis in achieving their dream of freedom from tyranny, corruption and murder at the hands of the diseased Pakistani military state.
Pakistan's immediate reaction to the tragic November 26 air attacks on two check posts located barely 400 meters from the Afghan border in Mohmand tribal agency, which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, was to declare that the attacks were "unprovoked aggression" and convey impressions to the local media that the attack was a premeditated assault by U.S and NATO forces in Afghanistan. This aroused a nationwide furor, further roiling an already tense relationship and leading to immediate retribution against American military and political interests in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Soon after the incident, Pakistani army officials reportedly changed the rules of engagement for forward-based units on the country's western border, authorizing them to fire on any such air intrusions without having to seek permission from senior commanders or headquarters, and indicated that air defenses would be beefed up in that sector. But amid the hue and cry within Pakistan, some also questioned why Pakistan's large and expensive military forces had not responded with air defenses to protect the posts, especially since the army claimed the supposedly "unprovoked" NATO aircraft attacks had lasted up to 2 hours. Why were Pakistani Air Force (PAF) fighter aircraft not scrambled and dispatched to the scene? Did the PAF prudently stay out of an army screw-up (if, as U.S. officials insist, Pakistani forces fired first), or did they just not get the word? It would have been an acute irony if Pakistan had sent up its American-built F-16 fighters against American helicopters or slow-flying AC-130 gunships being used against the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
'_India should send military to Afghanistan post-US withdrawal' - With the gradual withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, time has now come for India to send its military inside _
"It makes sense for the two largest democracies to be military allies. On Afghanistan, India, as you know, as a security establishment, is already fighting over 30 insurgencies or guerilla operations," Senator Mark Kirk said at a discussion forum organised by Washington-based think tank, Foreign Policy Initiative.
"The Indian security establishment well understands this challenge. I think can correctly perceive that moving terror from North or South or general parts of Dafatan into secured bases around Kabul with the fall of the Karzai government would represent a long-term real security threat for India," he said.
"Remember, if you have terror bases operating against India from Pakistan, Pakistan is subjected to pressure from India. If Pakistan could offload that terror training and operations into metropolitan Afghanistan, it makes it much harder for India to pressure for the end of those operations," Kirk said.
A very pertinent comment about this article:
Only an idiot will believe this nonsense from this American clown. By: B S Kumar | 15-Dec-2011Reply | Forward India has better things to do than getting militarily involved in America's wars. Who is the Indian military going to fight in Afghanistan? If the Afghan government asks for India's help that is another matter. But that is between India and Afghanistan and none of the USA's business. India told the USA a long time ago that Pakistan was the hotbed of world terrorism. But those clowns thought Pakistan is an ally. Why should India now get involved to correct that arrogant mistake?
© 2012 http://sasfor.shareist.com/
