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Think of Afghanistan policy as a game of musical chairs. When the United States this month killed Osama bin Laden, it stopped the music.
Now everybody's scrambling to make sure they have a seat.
Pakistan, despite its myriad failures as a partner in the "war against terror" is guaranteed a seat. It has managed to establish itself as an unavoidable interlocutor in negotiations with the Taliban. Thanks to signature American diplomatic clumsiness, Pakistan will also be reserving a chair for America's main strategic competitor in Asia - China.
As the American orchestra is packing up, its favored South Asian partner, India, is nervously trying to squeeze its way onto a chair.
The Barack Obama administration is extremely anxious to declare victory and shed responsibility for the Afghanistan mess.
Now that the al-Qaeda monster has been slain, the US has an excuse to pursue reconciliation with the Taliban and crank back its faltering and expensive counter-insurgency operations. Unfortunately, the United States clings to the conflicting goal of ensuring the survival of a moderate, multi-ethnic regime in Kabul. And that dream has poisoned its relations with Pakistan.
When the whole sorry history of the Afghan adventure is written, a special chapter must be reserved for the combination of delusion and arrogance that guided US relations with Pakistan. When former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage conveyed the George W Bush administration's threat to bomb Pakistan back into the Stone Age if it didn't assist in the overthrow of the Taliban regime, he was simply displaying understandable American arrogance.
America's image of hyperpower impunity had taken a hit on 9/11, and destruction of a third-world regime in Afghanistan was a suitable demonstration of the maxim that America dishes it out ... it doesn't take it in.
When the Bush and Obama administrations decided it was a laudable and feasible goal to deny Afghanistan as a terrorist haven by establishing a moderate, pro-Western regime in Kabul, that was delusion.
By conflating al-Qaeda terrorists and Taliban militants, the United States did more than commit itself to a grinding, unwinnable war in Central Asia. It forced Pakistan to transform a nagging, peripheral security problem in its western borderlands ... into a grinding, unwinnable war in Central Asia. As an added bonus, Pakistan was obliged to wage civil war on its own people, with the unwelcome assistance of US cross-border raids and drone attacks.
Now Pakistan's economy is in a shambles, its government in the hands of President Asif Ali Zardari, a generally derided and incompetent American stooge, and its civil society increasingly riven by sectarian tensions. In matters of domestic security, Pakistan suffers around 2,500 to 3,000 civilian and security force fatalities a year from terrorist attacks - basically, a slow-motion 9/11 ever 15 months or so.
Heckuva job, Uncle Sam.
From the perspective of many who run things in Pakistan, the US war in Afghanistan is the problem and a Taliban victory - either military or political - is the solution.
No surprise that Pakistan hatred of the United States is visceral and widespread. No wonder that members of Pakistan's security establishment were willing to provide covert aid to the Afghan Taliban and perhaps even harbor Bin Laden.
And no wonder that, as America contemplates the implications of Bin Laden's long-term residence in the heart of Pakistan and calls to disengage the US from the bloody and expensive Afghan tar baby mount, its resentment at this unwilling and seemingly worthless ally is boiling over.
It is a fury, by the way, that is shared by Pakistan's embattled advocates of democracy and civil society, who view the reckless and cynical Afghan adventurism promoted by the entrenched military and security elite as a national disaster.
The Indian press have reported Pakistani discomfiture over the Bin Laden raid - and American threats to cut off aid as retaliation for Pakistani shortcomings - with ill-disguised glee.
Times of India Washington correspondent Chidanand Rajghatta, who apparently learned how to mix editorializing with reportage while studying Mass Communications at Bangalore, detailed Pakistan's woes:
If American Afghan policy was a mixture of delusion and arrogance, Indian policy was a matter of simple delusion.
India yielded to the temptation to meddle in Afghanistan and discomfit Pakistan.
One does not have to buy into the hysteria and calculated paranoia of Pakistan's security apparatus about India's Research and Analysis Wing spreading its tentacles inside Afghanistan to see that India was trying to gain a cheap and easy geostrategic victory in Afghanistan by allying itself with the anti-Taliban, anti-Pakistan power propped up in Kabul by US arms and money.
The Afghan intervention was not simply a matter of Indian support for a regime that denied "strategic depth" to a Pakistani security establishment that probably didn't deserve it. By promoting the anti-terrorism narrative in Afghanistan and making it the basis of its dealings with Pakistan, India helped enable the aggressive, cross-border counter-insurgency strategy that pushed the Taliban puss deeper into deeper into the wounds of Pakistan's wounded society.
Small wonder if the Pakistani security forces decided to return the favor by unleashing the Lashkar-e-Toiba to inflict the bloody Mumbai horror of August 2008.
India compounded its Afghanistan woes by turning its back on President Hamid Karzai when the United States tried to remove the Afghan leader and replace him with somebody they considered more capable, honest and responsive.
As a result, the fundamentally pro-Indian Karzai - who didn't want to be pushed out of office by the Americans or hung from a lamppost a la former Afghan ruler Mohammad Najibullah by the Taliban - threw in his lot with Pakistan and its stubborn, decade-long effort to shoehorn the Taliban back into the Kabul government.
This leaves India with a distinct shortage of interested interlocutors and very little leverage in Afghanistan. Outlook India took a close and clear-eyed look at India's precarious position in Afghanistan:
"There's no question of retreating from Afghanistan," says a senior Indian diplomat. Such brave words are perhaps for public consumption, for there are tell-tale signs of India scaling down its presence here. Nearly 50% of Indian personnel working on various projects in Afghanistan have been sent home.
The Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health in Kabul - the only children's hospital in the country - is without an Indian doctor; any medical guidance from New Delhi is rendered through teleconferencing. And though four other medical missions are working now, India isn't taking on any new projects, content to complete the two on hand - the Salma dam and construction of the Afghan Parliament - of the $1.3-billion worth of Indian projects initiated here.
The SEWA (Self-Employed Women's Association) scheme, hugely popular as it empowered Afghan women, has been put on hold; Indian-run vocational courses have been suspended; and the training of Afghan civilian personnel, whether in government or civil society, will only be imparted in India now.
The article also described the marginalization of India in Afghan politics, at least that quadrant of Afghan politics where the Indian presence would be most welcome: among anti-Pakistan and anti-Iranian Pashtuns, Tajiks and the liberal cosmopolitans who nervously inhabit Kabul:
India's claims to relevance in Afghanistan separate from the Western military presence appear to rely on exaggerated ideas of what soft power can accomplish in a war zone
Sometimes it seems that Indian pundits believe that their adored Bollywood dramas will prove decisive when thrown into the scales of the trillion-dollar conflict:
A few years ago, the Indian Embassy in Kabul entertained a curious request. Afghan counter-narcotics officials, despairing that poppy-eradication efforts weren't working, came up with a novel idea. They proposed to hire an Indian soap opera star, Smriti Irani, to record anti-poppy public service announcements for television and radio.
Given Afghans' obsession with Irani's character, Tulsi, on the show Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (The Mother-in-Law Was Once the Daughter-in-Law), Afghan officials believed the public service spots could have broad appeal. At the time, viewing the show was a national obsession: Even wedding ceremonies were sometimes suspended so that guests could watch the daily telecast. In the end, the proposal never took off, but it did demonstrate the depth of Indian soft power in Afghanistan. [2]
To be unkind, this episode is apparently an illustration only of the limits of the soft power that India chose not to exercise in Afghanistan, and the depth of desperation of the flailing Afghan anti-narcotics operation.
Another weapon: India's sophisticated marketing prowess! At least, according to Times' South Asian bureau chief, Jyoti Thottam:
I think Thottam's vision would be best encapsulated in the slogan "Unbelievable Afghanistan".
Some Indian observers, apparently wedded to the narrative of India as an assertive and committed regional power and eager to see it continue to play the Great Game in central Asia - despite Delhi's equivocation in Afghanistan even when things were going its way - profess to see signs that India, unlike the United States, is "here to stay" in Afghanistan.
Harsh V Pant, an academic at King's College, London, in an op-ed "New Opening for India in Afghanistan" expressed the hope that India could gain a greater voice in Afghan affairs by exploiting the image of duplicity and incompetence projected by Pakistan in the Bin Laden affair.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently visited Kabul to acknowledge the reality of America's adoption of the Pakistan track, and voice cautious and equivocal endorsement of Taliban reconciliation with the Kabul government.
This was viewed wishfully by observers across the political spectrum in India as evidence that India was going to play a continuing, meaningful role in Afghanistan befitting its stature as an emerging superpower.
Optimists, such as Asia Times Online writer M K Bhadrakumar, took this as a heartening sign that India was taking Afghanistan off the table as a factor in Indo-Pakistani relations, or, as he put it "removal of the "Afghan contradiction" from the cauldron of India-Pakistan differences". [5]
The Indian Express also lauded the prime minister's speech and its promise of a realistic and positive role for India in Afghan affairs.
About that parliament building.
The Afghan parliament building is, as the writer says, "greatly symbolic". Indeed, it is an almost perfect metaphor for India's Afghanistan project.
Because it's not built.
When Manmohan last visited Kabul in 2005, he laid the cornerstone for the new parliament building, just across the way from the shelled-out hulk of the previous one, which had served as an irresistible target for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar during the three-way civil war that preceded the final victory of the Taliban in 1996.
The Indian government promised to pay for the project and Indian architects designed the structure.
In an indication of Indian intentions or cluelessness, the design ignored the overwhelmingly Muslim character of contemporary Afghanistan to evoke the civilization of ancient Ganjara under the Mughal emperors, when India and Afghanistan were part of a single cultural continuum.
After an outcry, the design was subsequently revised to appease Muslim sensibilities. For three years, India's Central Department of Public Works rewrote the specs and increased the budget but was unwilling to find an Indian contractor willing to shoulder the risk. Finally, in 2008, C&C Constructions Ltd, an ambitious roadbuilder, took on the project.
But the parliament building took a back seat to rebuilding and hardening the Indian chancery building in Kabul, which had been shattered in a suicide attack. The parliament building was put on a leisurely three-year timetable. Judging from recent photographs, it is now little more than an unedifying tangle of rebar and concrete. [7]
Afghanistan's legislature currently meets in a building that, by a neat piece of synergy, is owned by Hamid Karzai's brother. [8]
In context of the damage that the US intervention has done to Pakistan in particular and security in South Asia in general, the modesty of India's efforts and aspirations in Afghanistan are perhaps contemptible, not commendable.
Despite hopeful prognostications, it is quite likely that the emergence of a reconciled-Taliban Kabul government through Pakistan's mediation is not going to be a good thing for India.
As the Western world showered it with abuse and scorn after the Bin Laden raid, Pakistan certainly did not reach out to India for consolation and diplomatic cover.
In the post-Bin Laden furor, Pakistan's first move was to seek solace from its all-weather friend, China.
On one level, this is a predictable ploy meant to spook the United States with the specter of Pakistan falling into the Chinese camp, so that Washington will swallow its misgivings and disgorge the military and long-delayed economic aid.
Because of the overbearing post-9/11 military and security relationship between the US government and Pakistan - and the US maneuverings that led to the removal of president General Pervez Musharraf and the installation of a pro-US government under Benazir Bhutto's widower, Asif Zardari - China is often portrayed as a subsidiary factor in Pakistani affairs.
Quite the contrary.
China really is Pakistan's all-weather friend and neighbor, not to mention its natural ally, source of advanced civilian and military technology, and biggest trading partner.
It is, I daresay, a little-known fact that Musharraf's bloody assault of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in the heart of Islamabad in 2007 - viewed as the first salvo in the government's battle against extremists - was launched at the behest of China, in part to shield the Chinese associates of a local massage parlor from the indignities of sharia law as applied by the mosque's fundamentalists. [9]
Most importantly, Pakistan has been China's ally against their joint enemy/strategic competitor, India, for decades. China provided critical assistance to Pakistan's crash program to develop nuclear weapons to counter the Indian nuclear capability, and has armed the Pakistani military with tanks, jet fighters and cruise missiles. [10]
This relationship was bulldozed to the side by the US-led "war on
terror", but now that we are finally moving on, the traditional configuration is reasserting itself with a vengeance.
For the most part, China had treated the Zardari government with distance and disdain because of its role as an American client.
However, as Pakistan struggled to cope with its post-Bin Laden embarrassment, China's Foreign Ministry came up with a rare and welcome endorsement of Pakistan's anti-terrorism efforts:
When Prime Minister Yusuf Gilani invoked the special Sino-Pakistani relationship, calling China "a true friend and a time-tested and all-weather friend" prior to his trip to China, Beijing made a full-throated response. Gilani was given a high-profile official reception, including review of an honor guard at the Great Hall of the People, a well-publicized meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao, and nice words from Wen:
The brother of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Nawaz Sharif, Shabbaz, visited Beijing in April for a party-to-party meeting with the Chinese Communist Party and declared:
"The friendship between Pakistan and China is higher than the Himalayas, deeper than the ocean and sweeter than honey and sugar." [13]
China's current support for Pakistan represents a major initiative to shift Pakistan away from the US and toward the Chinese sphere.
Some analysts assert that there is no way China will trade good relations with burgeoning economic and military power India for the sake of propping up basket case Pakistan. That ignores the fact that, if Pakistan successfully midwives a Taliban-tainted government in Kabul, China gets a stable, pro-Chinese Pakistan and a markedly more stable and pro-Pakistan and pro-China administration in Afghanistan.
And it seems that India is unwilling or unable to try to do anything meaningful about it.
China isn't necessarily pursuing an anti-India strategy in Afghanistan, simply because India is little more than a peripheral factor there.
The Chinese strategy for South Asia isn't zero sum - it is just that Beijing's equation includes Pakistan as well as India. In any case, the situation inside Afghanistan is unlikely to be a total loss for India.
It seems likely that the United States will continue to maintain bases inside Afghanistan, engage in military operations, and do its best to restrain the ambitions of the Taliban and prop up a moderate government in Kabul. This while India continues in its role as geostrategic free rider, providing insignificant security and economic aid while the debilitating counter-insurgency dynamic in Afghanistan continues to drain Pakistan, albeit at a reduced rate.
As for Pakistan, after a failed war, an embittered alliance and a near-existential political and security crisis, there is little residue of good feeling between the United States and Pakistan, and little appreciation for India's role.
And that means, despite the past disbursement of billions of dollars in US military and economic aid, Pakistan will probably settle into a geopolitical alignment that offers it a measure of security and hope for the future: China and Pakistan counterbalancing India.
If the Indian government had decided to play the non-aligned card and opposed or moderated the US adventure in Afghanistan, the future history of Indo-Pakistani relations might have been a lot different.
Instead, as part of the whole democracy/superpower/nuclear package, India sided with the United States and bought into the Afghan adventure.
That may be the takeaway from the Afghan war that is remembered 50 years from now: that it drove a wedge between Pakistan and the United States, deepened the divisions between India and Pakistan, and gave China a firm foothold on the Indian Ocean.
Notes
1. US backs aid to Pakistan despite public opposition, Times of India, May 20, 2011.
2. Afghanistan: India Woos Kabul as Influence Wanes, Eurasianet, May 17, 2011.
3. India Makes a Move in the Afghanistan Endgame, Time, May 13, 2011.
4. New opening for India in Afghanistan, Rediff News, May 17, 2011.
5. Manmohan Singh resets Afghan policy, The Hindu, May 16, 2011.
6. Kabul corrective, Indian Express, May 13, 2011.
7. Afghanistan: India's Uncertain Road, Time, Apr 11, 2011.
8. India Doubles Down in Afghanistan ... Maybe, Counter Punch, Nov 20, 2008.
9. In the Shadow of Lal Masjid, China Matters, Nov 7, 2007.
10. China-Pakistan nuclear deal: Why the surprise?, Rediff, Jun 22, 2010.
11. China unswervingly supports Pakistan's anti-terror efforts: spokeswoman, Xinhua, May 17, 2011.
12. Pakistani PM hails China as his country's 'best friend', BBC, May 17, 2011. China, Pakistan reaffirm all-weather friendship, Xinhua, May 18, 2011.
13. Pakistan-China cooperation to develop further: Pakistan opposition party leader, Xinhua, Apr 22, 2011.
Asia Times Online :: India left standing in Afghan musical chairs
