Monday, April 6, 2009

Af-Pak Policy- Mere lexical creativity

Whether they actually achieve anything or no, the American establishment is good at lexical creativity. The latest ‘Afpak’ policy is an excellent example of it. Barring a few cosmetic changes, the Obama administration is committing the same mistakes as the Bush administration did.
Undoubtedly, Afghanistan remains the biggest foreign policy challenge for Obama. He made all the right noises about it just after his elections, and appointing a seasoned troubleshooter- Richard Halbroke as the special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan (or Afpak as the term was devised then) was the first and possibly the last right step in dealing with the Afghanistan problem.

Faulty Understanding:

The much-hyped Afpak policy, which was unveiled last week, betrays any sincerity of purpose and lacks creativity. The new policy is based on an extremely faulty understanding of the situation. By stating that there is convergence of USA’s and Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan, the Americans have began on a wrong track. While for the Americans stabilizing Afghanistan is the main goal; Pakistan still nurses its dream of having a ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan. And Pakistan would be fine with having a fundamentalist Islamic regime in Afghanistan. The Americans are either unable to see this divergence or they are choosing to ignore it. In both cases, it is a dangerous thing for
the stability and security of the entire region.

Outsourcing the policy:

The other element of the ‘Afpak’ strategy was the massive 7.5 billion dollars aid that USA will give to Pakistan, and along with the additional military aid in terms of resources and hardware. This clearly, is outsourcing of the Afghanistan policy to Pakistan. It is amazing to see to Pakistani establishment has consistently managed to fool the Americans while dealing with Afghanistan. The Pakistanis are able to extract huge aid without delivering anything concrete. And this time also, Obama with all his tough talk seem to be hoodwinked by the Pakistanis.

The American policy in Afghanistan needs a major overhaul. The first crucial mistake was committed by Bush, when he abandoned the war in Afghanistan to go after Saddam Hussein. This indicated that America was not very serious about stabilizing Afghanistan. The already jittery Hamid Karzai government was weakened further, and it rapidly lost any credibility that it ever enjoyed.

Any policy towards Afghanistan will have to give an important place to political solution. The distinction made by Obama administration between ‘moderate Taliban’ and the ‘extremist Taliban’ is too immature and simplistic. A comprehensive political strategy has to be evolved, and the excessive dependence on Pakistan has to be reduced. As of now, the Americans seem to be merely engaging in semantics, with no serious consideration of the ground realities.