How to lose less quickly

The rest of the world is little the wiser for President Trump laying out his long-awaited Afghan strategy on 22^nd August. However, of two things we may be certain — the realities of the presidency look different from behind the Oval Office desk to those on the campaign trail, and Pakistan is squarely in American sights. The US president was unequivocal — Pakistan is offering safe haven to ‘agents of chaos’ and American action in response to that was said to be immediate but with no indication as to exactly what form ‘immediate’ might take. He acknowledged the sacrifices that Pakistan made on the battlefield at the same time as referencing ‘billions’ of dollars given to Pakistan by the USA over the years — and Pakistan having failed to clear the snakes from the bottom of the garden. Rather than Pakistan, in the future India is being looked to for cooperation in economic development in Afghanistan, a move that will play badly in Islamabad and is a waymarker for where America is going to lean in terms of any resolution of the Kashmir issue.

The broad-brush proposals of President Trump are not going to win the war in Afghanistan for the Americans — or the Afghans for that matter. Ultimately the Taliban are going to prevail and have suzerainty over the remaining 50 per cent of the country that they have yet to bring under their dark wing. It may be that American and Afghan forces will overpower al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Afghanistan (though the latter is very much a moot point) but fundamental flaws will hobble and eventually short-circuit efforts to defeat the Taliban. Those flaws lie at the American doorstep and first among them is a Constitution that is a virtual guarantee of eternal conflict in a tribal society with zero experience — or desire — for democratic governance.

For its part Pakistan historically gave good advice to the Americans to which they failed to listen — namely that by alienating the Pashtun who have a national majority, and aligning with the Tajik-led Northern Alliance as well as not engaging with what at the time were regarded as ‘moderate’ Taliban who had direct experience of governance in the Afghan context, the ground was prepared for the bloody morass that has developed. Within that context lie Pakistan’s own failures, and the vulnerabilities that allow America and its allies to point accusatory fingers at Pakistan.

The failed doctrine of ‘strategic depth’ is rarely mentioned today, but it played an important part in the opening of Pakistan to extremist influences and allowed the perception to develop — and persist — that Pakistan is at best ambivalent in its approach to some of the groups that operate within its borders. That ambivalence is perhaps best exemplified by the highly selective pursuance of the National Action Plan (NAP); with the complete failure to construct a national countervailing narrative to the culture of extremism that is today predominant and a direct legacy of the era of General Ziaul Haq. Although not mentioned by President Trump, this failure to deliver across a range of indicators will have been closely noted by the Americans because it delivers the very environment in which ‘safe havens’ find easy lodging.

As ever those with fingers in the Afghan pie have failed to learn the lessons of history. Seventeen years of relentless warfare have produced no military solution nor ever will. The Taliban are a lesser threat to Afghanistan underpinned as they are by the Pashtun majority, than that posed by the IS. If there is to be a solution it will be based upon power-sharing that is achieved by dialogue not warfare; and what President Trump has delivered is a recipe for losing less quickly than is currently the case. Pakistan is both its own worst enemy and elective scapegoat. A purge of the snakes at the bottom of the garden could head off narrow American perceptions but peace is not, nor is likely to be, on any table.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23^rd, 2017.

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