Mr Grossman, did you bring along a plan?

Going into N Waziristan will only prolong the sapping war. Hoping to find a grand vision will remain only a pipedream.

Meeting some of America’s key policy wonks a couple of months back at Stanford University was instructive. These were no ordinary men and women. They have their hand, and say, in whatever becomes of Afghanistan and US-Pakistan in the coming months. Tellingly though, they did not have a plan, or what I prefer calling a blueprint, on what may play out in the remaining 26 months as “curtains” is called on America’s latest military expedition. They were honest enough to admit that they needed help as December 2014 rushes unremittingly.

Since then there have been other American experts on the region, who have been travelling in to feel the sense around and gather pointers to help lead their own thought process. Forget, Iran, Russia or China or any misgivings of a fanciful Great Game; they are thinking Afghanistan and Pakistan and what might work. One other nugget is to see how the UK-Pakistan-Afghanistan trio results and whether America’s imminent desire to exit Afghanistan can find a plausible basis from that interaction. The US is equally keen for Afghanistan’s main regional players, including Russia and China, to cobble an agreement to find sustainable peace in Afghanistan. The New York Times in an editorial on October 13 conveniently glossed over even that imperative of  ‘sustainable peace’ and practically concedes that there will be an inevitable mess in Afghanistan after the US leaves, and there is little that the US may do which just might retard such an eventuality.

Enter Paul Kennedy, the uncontested doyen of geo-political assessment, and this is what he had to say in a piece for the NYT, reproduced in the International Herald  Tribune of October 19, 2012, “that the foreign policies of the number one power are those of drifting downstream, with little sense of destination”. He does not consider such a drift inimical to long-term US interests, since he sees, “(an) amazingly lucky geopolitical situation that the United States inhabits” — Canada and Mexico are no threats; “its armed forces are huge”, as an insurance against any surprise; and, “its agricultural sources are massive, as are its secure freshwater supplies. And its demographic future is … a favourable one. So, why the need for America to go rushing around everywhere? Why not stay still for a while?” He then concludes by saying: “America may drift downstream a while longer, until it bumps into a really transforming event?” He foresees none such in the current environment. So, expect America to sleep longer by contemporary standards in geopolitical developments. That includes Arab Spring and what will finally fall Afghanistan’s way as its inevitable fate. Forget the niceties, the human rights or assurances against gender equality, it is ‘Time to pack up’.”

Narrow down to North Waziristan and our current obsession to go in, or not go in there. Place it in the emerging geopolitical context and it boils down to a very localised, national decision. Yes, it will impact Afghanistan some and will have repercussions for Pakistan itself, but when both Afghanistan and Pakistan are out there in the cold, without as much as a hug from those who drove the dynamics here for the last full decade, it better be left to Pakistan’s own capacity, own objectives and own means; and indeed own timing. Suddenly, the proverbial ‘do more’ seems comical and irrelevant.

Here then is the deal: both Afghanistan and Pakistan develop a timeline of dialogue between various factions within Afghanistan and with those nestled in Pakistan — this is where Pakistan has a role in an intra-Afghan dialogue. This will find a place back home for those that have availed of our hospitality for all these years and lighten the load for our own burden to follow. This will also leave some hope for the surviving structure to endure when the foreign props are no more. Walk into North Waziristan without such extrication of the foreign groups and you ensure their continuous engagement and location in situ. That might lighten the burden for Afghanistan but is sure to set fire to the entire region of Fata without a chance to control the spread of the cinder.

Pakistan has its own war to fight for sure, but it hasn’t yet begun. It shall have to be fought in parallel on more than one front from ideological to armed, but only when the enemy is cleansed of its foreign composites. Act against the Afghans, while you ostensibly fight your own nemeses, since they remain collocated, and you tie them both in an inextricable brotherhood without ever hoping for your load to lighten. In such a situation, the Pakistani military should expect itself to remain stuck in the muddle for at least 10 to 15 years, if not longer. Detractors need only see the US/Nato experience in Afghanistan. In the current scenario, with the army still not kinetically engaged in North Waziristan, stabilising operations in the rest of Fata will need at least another five years.

It would be safe to assume that Mr Grossman would have imposed North Waziristan in the discussions, though, it has zilch impact on the ultimate American decision, if nothing else works, to ‘cut and run’. He must have done so to keep the baddies engaged in Pakistan and more importantly headed away from Kabul giving a sense of stability and sustainability to post-American Afghanistan and as a convenient fig for the world sole superpower to save face. The NYT editorial — no mean indicator of official thinking — envisions a worst case scenario where the Pashtuns/Taliban combo will control the south and the east and impose their philosophy of life while Northern Afghanistan may simply continue in the momentum that the US will leave behind and Kabul would sustain. What that will deal to Pakistan as a hand can only be feared for its dastardly consequences.

Going into North Waziristan on impulse will only prolong the sapping war that has already emaciated us to the utmost. Hoping for Mr Grossman to find us a grand vision will remain only a pipedream; going by what I know, none exists. Little fermentation is possible in minds that are already toying futility. The solution will have to be ours alone and it better be rational.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2012.