Afghanistan? Wrong number!

Claude Arpi

Born in Angoulême, France, Claude Arpi's real quest began 36 years ago with a journey to the Himalayas. Since then he has been an enthusiastic student of the history of Tibet, China and the subcontinent. He is the author of numerous English and French books including. His book, ‘Tibet: the lost Frontier’ (Lancers Publishers) was released recently. In this exclusive column, he argues that the Western obsession with Afghanistan while ignoring Pakistan’s terror network is a exercise in futility.

‘Secretary Rice's visit to India is a further demonstration of the United States' commitment to stand in solidarity with the people of India as we all work together to hold these extremists accountable.’

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino before the recent visit of the Secretary of State to New Delhi.

Not only Ms Rice, but Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and even Senator John McCain, the unsuccessful Presidential candidate, suddenly landed in Delhi in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks.

Was it to only to express solidarity? Why then did they not show their faces when India was struck by terrorist attacks in Bangalore, Jaipur, Delhi or Gujarat?

The answer is simple.

As George Friedman explains in a Stratfor.com analysis, “In 2001-2002 [the attack on Indian Parliament], the Indo-Pakistani crisis played into American hands, in 2008, the new Indo-Pakistani crisis might play differently. The United States recently has demanded increased Pakistani cooperation along the Afghan border. Meanwhile, President-elect Barack Obama has stated his intention to focus on Afghanistan and pressure the Pakistanis.”

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“Therefore,” Friedman argues,”one of Islamabad’s first responses to the new Indo-Pakistani crisis was to announce that if the Indians increased their forces along Pakistan’s eastern border, Pakistan would be forced to withdraw 100,000 troops from its western border with Afghanistan. In other words, threats from India would cause Pakistan to dramatically reduce its cooperation with the United States in the Afghan war.”

Once the Iraq is over, there will be only one war for the United States: the Afghan War. During his campaign, Afghanistan was the focus of Obama’s foreign policy. He promised to make the mountainous country the main front in the war on terror. After his election, he confirmed to Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the United States would send more aid and men after January 20.

The question is: why this obsession with Afghanistan, while terrorists roam free in Pakistan and particularly in PoK?

It was mainly the fear of an escalation on the eastern front of Pakistan and India’s decision to make Islamabad pay the price for its terror attacks on Mumbai that some action was finally taken. A few leaders of the Laskar-e-Toiba are said to have been arrested in PoK and Maulana Masood Azhar, the Jaish-e-Mohammed boss put under house arrest in his hometown of Bhawalpur in the Punjab province.

When Washington realized (or was told by President Zardari) that the Afghan-Pakistan border could by emptied of its troops, the State Department quickly twisted Islamabad’s arm and ordered the arrests of the Laskar terrorists. Were they not acknowledged terrorists earlier? Were their addresses unknown to the CIA or the Pakistani government earlier?

The tragedy is that for Washington as well as for other Western governments, the groups operating in Kashmir are not terrorists, they are just ‘militants’ (it is like the BBC’s reporters who repeated described the Taj terrorists as ‘gunmen’ only).

This has been the general attitude of the US since the 1950’s. Unfortunately, it also seems the path being taken by Barack Obama’s interim administration. India and Pakistan have been always equated: two kids fighting for a toy (Kashmir). If one could manage to separate them and give them some candy, all the problems would be solved and the big powers could then be able to tackle ‘terrorism in Afghanistan’.

This is the Western chimera.

This was probably what the US President-Elect thought when he told journalists that he might consider appointing former President Bill Clinton as a special envoy on Jammu and Kashmir to resolve the decades-old dispute between India and Pakistan. In an interview to the Time Magazine, Barak Obama said that “working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve the Kashmir crisis in a serious way is one of the critical tasks for my Administration.”

Mumbai terror attack special

This is also the reasoning of the French government. “The renewed interest and the new international push to solving the long standing Kashmir dispute, makes sense,” Eric Chevallier, Special Advisor to the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs as well as spokesperson for the French Ministry of External Affairs, told a group of journalists recently.

His logic was the same as that of Rice and Obama: with decreased tension on the Pakistan-India border, the Pakistani security forces could exercise enhanced efforts in securing Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan. The settlement of ‘disputed’ Kashmir will therefore help the security situation in Afghanistan. Chevallier believed that "solving the Kashmir dispute will help everybody in the region."

Such Cartesian logic! Poor Descartes, whose name is synonymous with that famous French clear thinking, must be turning in his grave!

Earlier this month, France organized a conference on Afghanistan and its neighbours. Bernard Kouchner, the French Minister of External Affairs invited his counterparts from Pakistan, Iran, China, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan to participate. Till the last minute, India had not confirmed its participation.

The meet was supposed to be a follow up to the June International Conference on Afghanistan, also held in Paris. “Which message to address [to the participants]?” asked the French daily Le Monde. “Some partners of Paris are asking themselves about the content which should be given to the debate.”

Washington would, of course, like to see a greater European engagement. "Afghanistan will be at the top of the U.S. priorities," Tomas Valasek, director of a London think tank told Time Magazine. “Obama will put more troops in the country and expect Europe to do the same. And even though all European governments are short on troops and money, many will respond in kind," he said.

At the same time, President Hamid Karzaï insists that that a time limit should be fixed to the NATO intervention.

Claude Arpi Columns | Read all our hard-hitting columns

What will happen next?

Afghanistan being the panacea to solve terrorism is a myth. It is like President Bush thinking he would solve all the problems of the world and ensure an ‘enduring freedom’ by just controlling Iraq.

Whoever knows Afghanistan is aware that there can be no military solution to the problem.

George Washington University recently published declassified documents on the retaliatory cruise missile strikes against Bin Laden in Afghanistan on August 20, 1998.

The lengthy report prepared by Dr. Gary W. Richter in 1999 concluded that, “The war against terrorism will never be ‘won’, as terrorism will always be a global problem.”

There’s no chance of the Alliance winning the Afghan war, simply because the root of the problem is not Afghanistan, but Pakistan.

The last demonstration is the burning by a gang of the Talibans of over 160 vehicles (including 70 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle or Humvees) belonging to NATO and destined for the US troops in Afghanistan. This was the largest assault on a military supply line since the beginning of the NATO intervention.

Of course, as the US military officials claimed the losses had ‘minimal’ impact on their attempts to control the country, the Taliban attackers happily fled the scene of the attack.

Last August, in the midst of the Olympic Games, 10 French soldiers on a reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan were killed by the Taliban. France went into deep shock. The French commandos were part of a contingent of 70,000 serving under a 40-nation NATO coalition called the International Security Assistance Forces. They were ambushed in a mountainous region of Surobi about 50 kilometers east of Kabul. It was the deadliest attack on international troops in Afghanistan since June 2005, when 16 American soldiers were killed in their helicopter, which was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.

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Strangely, AFP reported that the French soldiers were hit by NATO planes that had come to help them escape the ambush.

Some the surviving soldiers complained that once they had fallen into the trap, they had to wait for four hours before any rescue was sent. When the NATO planes arrived, they may have missed their target and hit the French troops.

Some other reports said the young French soldiers were tortured before being killed by the Taliban.

In the meantime, the families of the young French soldiers (between 21 and 23 of age) who got killed must be asking: was it worth it? It was probably not, especially as long as the sanctuaries in Pakistan remain active.

Frankly, what can the NATO forces do? Though technologically far superior to the Taliban, they will always be in a state of inferiority in terms of ground knowledge and intelligence gathering.

So the question remains: why concentrate on Afghanistan alone and let other terrorists in Pakistan (particularly in PoK) run their business as usual? Cynics will answer: to weaken India. Possible. As long as the Dawood Ibrahims, the Masood Azars and their ilk are free or only under house arrest, nobody can take Washington and its allies seriously.

Full coverage: Mumbai terror attack

Bernard Kouchner stated that France had organized a ‘reflection’ between Afghanistan and its neighbours on ‘regional dynamism’. This should have been extended to the known sources of terrorism inside Pakistan. Otherwise, it was an entirely futile exercise.

Let us not forget that terrorism did not start on 9/11 in the US.

The views expressed in the article are the author’s and not of Sify.com

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