[Marxism] Tangled web of imperialism's Afghan-Pakistan war

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

LRB Vol. 31 No. 7  .  9 April 2009 
 
Taliban v. Taliban
Graham Usher 
Pakistan and India have been at war since 1948. There have been occasional
flare-ups, pitched battles between the two armies, but mostly the war has
taken the form of a guerrilla battle between the Indian army and Pakistani
surrogates in Kashmir. In 2004 the two countries began a cautious peace
process, but rather than ending, the war has since migrated to Afghanistan
and the Pakistani tribal areas on the Afghan border. 'Safe havens' for a
reinvigorated Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida, the tribal areas are seen by the
West as the 'greatest threat' to its security, as well as being the main
cause of Western frustration with Pakistan. The reason is simple: the
Pakistan army's counterinsurgency strategy is not principally directed at
the Taliban or even al-Qaida: the main enemy is India.

In the Bajaur tribal area, for example, the army is fighting an insurgency
led by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of one of Pakistan's three Taliban
factions, but it's not because he is a friend of al-Qaida. What makes him a
threat, in the eyes of Pakistan's army, is that he is believed to be
responsible for scores of suicide attacks inside Pakistan (including the
assassination of Benazir Bhutto). He is also thought to have recruited
hundreds of Afghan fighters, among them 'agents' from the Afghan and Indian
intelligence services - 'Pakistan's enemies', in the words of a senior
officer.

An enemy in Bajaur, the Taliban is a friend of Pakistan in North and South
Waziristan. Like Mehsud, the guerrilla commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, who
directs the Afghan Taliban's 'central front' from bases in Pashtun villages
in Pakistan, has ties to al-Qaida. Unlike Mehsud, he's not attacking
Pakistan, and his fight against the US and Nato enjoys the support of the
army and of broad sections of the Pakistani public. The same courtesy has
been extended to Mullah Omar, whose headquarters are in Quetta, where he's
reportedly sheltered by the ISI. 'They are our people; they're not our
enemies,' one ISI officer says. So what does it mean to be 'anti-Pakistan'?
The short answer is pro-India, in practice if not intent. Insurgents in the
tribal areas are deemed anti-Pakistani if their actions advance the
perceived goals of India in Afghanistan. They are pro-Pakistani as long as
they don't attack the Pakistani state or army, even if they launch attacks
against Nato forces in Afghanistan, Islamabad's supposed allies in the 'war
on terror'. Indeed, the Afghan Taliban is considered an 'asset', a hedge
against the day when the US and Nato leave, but also a counter to India's
expanding influence in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has been worried by India's increasing interest in Afghanistan
since the Bonn conference in November 2001 at which Afghan factional leaders
and UN officials met to discuss the formation of a post-Taliban government.
At that conference it became clear that the pro-Pakistani Afghan Taliban
would be purged from the new Afghanistan under Karzai and replaced by forces
dominated by commanders from the Northern Alliance (NA), which had opposed
the Taliban regime before 9/11 and fought with US troops to overthrow it.
India, Iran and Russia were the NA's main supporters while Islamabad was
backing the Taliban. Neither Pakistan nor the Taliban was invited to Bonn -
this was 'the original sin', according to Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN
representative.

India is one of Karzai's few remaining champions. Delhi sees the new
Afghanistan as a part of its sphere of influence. It has four consulates in
Afghanistan and has given its government $1.2 billion in aid: a remarkable
sum for it to donate to a country that is 99 per cent Muslim and with which
it has no common border. Delhi has also put up the new parliament building
and chancery, and has helped to train the army. India's most ambitious -
and, for Pakistan, most alarming - Afghan project is a new highway that will
provide a route to the Iranian port of Chabahar. Not only will Afghanistan
no longer need to use Pakistani ports, the road's destination is a clear
indication of India's intention to consolidate an alliance with Iran in
western Afghanistan in order to counter Pakistan's influence in eastern
Afghanistan. The road network, as they see it, is a new way to fight an old
war. It's precisely in order to resist the India-Iran bloc - as well as the
emerging axis between Delhi and Washington - that the ISI has aligned itself
with the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani.

Washington has tilted towards Delhi since 2004, lured by the size of India's
markets and its potential as strategic counterweight to China, Pakistan's
closest regional ally. Last year the US signed an agreement that allows
India to buy civilian atomic technology, including nuclear fuel, from
American firms, even though it is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation
Treaty. Pakistan, by contrast, has been criticised for developing a nuclear
weapon, and of course for the activities of its former top nuclear
scientist, A.Q. Khan.

Since 9/11 Washington has tended to use Islamabad as a gun for hire: the
army was given around $1 billion a year on condition that it secured
supplies to US and Nato forces in Afghanistan and fought against the Taliban
and al-Qaida in the tribal areas. In agreeing this condition Pakistan had
expected that its interests would be taken into account following the
Anglo-American invasion. But unlike India or Iran, and despite its services
to Washington, Islamabad was given no say in the formation of the Afghan
government. This confirmed Pakistanis in their view that Musharraf and his
army were no better than mercenaries fighting 'America's war', and as a
result of this humiliation, the Pakistani army has interpreted its
commitments selectively, opposing 'safe havens' that might be used to launch
attacks against other countries, but supporting the Afghan Taliban
insurgency. Washington is exasperated by Pakistan's refusal to fight the
Taliban, but it's been given little incentive to do so.

Fear of India's influence was heightened by Bush's decree last July allowing
US Special Forces in Afghanistan to pursue al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives
into Pakistan's territory without the approval of its government. There has
been one US ground assault and more than 30 drone attacks since then,
overwhelmingly in North and South Waziristan. Washington claims to have a
tacit agreement about the drone strikes with the Pakistan government. The
government denies this. Army officers admit that the strikes may have killed
scores of al-Qaida fighters, and that the ISI may have supplied intelligence
for the operations, but the missiles have also killed civilians, including
pro-government tribal elders.

The Pakistan army believes India is responsible for the CIA's new
belligerence. Some even believe India wants to create such turmoil in the
tribal areas that Nato forces and the new Afghan army are compelled to
invade, destroy the 'terrorist havens', and wrest back Pashtun lands claimed
by Kabul. Others think that India wants to dismember Pakistan because of the
'danger' it poses as the world's only Muslim nuclear state. According to
another source in the army, 'the Americans have decided India will be the
regional power. And India thinks a fragmented Pakistan would reduce the
threat level.' It's true that Washington's nightmare is Pakistan's nuclear
materials falling into the hands of al-Qaida militants. Indeed war games
have been staged in the Pentagon to work out what kind of military
intervention would be needed to rescue them. The ISI's charge that there is
Indian involvement in the unrest in the tribal areas is unconvincing, and
the evidence scant, but it's safe to assume that India is keeping a close
eye on what's going on there.
[snip]



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