bribing Taliban leaders in Musa Qala, Helmand, where British troops were fighting – not always to advantage.
Karzai, apparently enraged that the British were paying off the Taliban behind his back and demanding that these “leaders” be accommodated in the Afghan government, refused to comply, and in the face of British displeasure, expelled them.
Semple, said security officials in Afghanistan, is probably best described as the Afghanistan-Taliban brains trust for the UK’s MI6, its external intelligence arm. In a re-run of the 19th Century ‘Great Game’ adventurers, Semple has been a prime advocate of ‘reintegration’ and ‘reconciliation’ with the Taliban as a key strategy to win the war in Afghanistan.
His background is equally interesting – Semple’s father was a general in the British army and his wife Yamima’s father, General Mirdha, a buddy of former Pakistani president Yahya Khan, putting him on an inside track to military-intelligence decision makers in Pakistan. The idea of wooing over softer Taliban leaders and quelling Pashtun anger isn’t new or novel. Today, it is largely Semple’s doctrine of ‘reconciliation’ that’s driving the present British-led initiative to sift the ‘good’ Taliban from the ‘bad’, and bring the ‘good’ into the tent. It’s a line that Pakistan has pushed, leveraging the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and army’s deep contacts with the Taliban. Islamabad is peddling a promise, once betrayed in 1996 when the group overran Kabul, that the Taliban could be persuaded to control violence and create a backdrop that would allow the West to make a face-saving exit from Afghanistan. Alongside, the Taliban could be persuaded to be a replacement for Karzai, despised by Pakistan and slowly disgraced in Washington.
LONDON MOVE STUNS INDIA
The Afghanistan conference in London last week was a shocker for Indian mandarins who had hoped to muscle in and get a larger say in Afghan policy given the money and effort New Delhi has put into the reconstruction efforts. But what happened was that India got blindsided by the British swallowing the Pakistani line that Islamabad could deliver peace by negotiating a deal with the Taliban. Shivshankar Menon, the new national security adviser, along with foreign secretary Nirupama Rao, is leading a massive review of India’s own Af-Pak policy, which will determine not just India’s approach to Afghanistan, but also craft out a new policy of engagement with Pakistan. The announcement on Thursday of resumption of foreign secretary-level talks between New Delhi and Islamabad is a movement in that direction.
Pakistan has pushed hard to remain in the driver’s seat on Afghan policy. And, at least for now, it appears to be winning by hard-selling the line that without the involvement of the ISI, re-integration will remain a non-starter. That was evident first at the Istanbul Af-Pak meeting leading up to the January 28 London conference , where Pakistan insisted India be kept out of the talks, and even a feeble attempt by Karzai to get India to the table was brushed off. India fretted and fumed impotently, but found itself completely dealt out of the game by Pakistan and the UK leading the charge, letting Karzai announce that he was going to draw his brothers back into the tent, and requesting the Saudis to mediate a ‘reintegration and reconciliation’ with the Taliban.
This was only formalizing a process that had started in 2009, when the Taliban leadership had met with the Afghan government in the desert kingdom . These meetings broke the ice, even quietly blessed by US special envoy to Af-Pak , Richard Holbrooke. After the London conference, Saudi envoy to India Faisal Tarab told Crest in a carefully worded comment, “We are ready to mediate with the Taliban, but we will not talk to terrorists.” Saudi King Abdullah has just met Karzai and the outcome of that conversation could determine the success or otherwise of the proposed venture.
For India, global approval of the reconciliation process implies Pakistan, with its ISI and army, is likely to take a leading role. As Holbrooke told MK Narayanan, who was till recently NSA, and Nirupama Rao quietly during his last visit a couple of weeks ago, Pakistan has worked itself into a paranoia about India’s presence in Afghanistan; India would have to be removed from all decision-making on Afghanistan, they insisted. As London showed, Islamabad got its way.
For the US and UK, even though India’s assistance programme punches all the right buttons, India had to be sacrificed . Therefore, when British foreign secretary David Miliband was asked about India’s role, he hummed and hawed saying “by and by” . In London, India insisted on putting in phrases like the process should be “Afghan-led” and “transparent and inclusive” – words to prevent the British and Pakistanis from controlling it. But as every diplomat understands, these are words than cannot , and indeed, will not be enforced.
The Pakistani demand has been succinctly laid out by Munir Akram, one of its top diplomats: “Pakistan’s cooperation should be offered only in exchange for tangible and immediate US support for Pakistan’s national objectives: an end to Indian-Afghan interference in Baluchistan and FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas); a Kashmir solution; a military balance between Pakistan and India; parity with India on nuclear issues; transfer of equipment and technology for counter-terrorism ; unconditional defense and economic assistance; free trade access.”
KARZAI CORNERED?
Steve Coll in his book Ghost Wars recounts an event in the life of Hamid Karzai that bears repetition, because it might be instructive even today. In 1999, when his father, Abdul Karzai, a respected Pashtun tribal leader, made an overture to Mullah Omar against al-Qaida, he was gunned down by the Taliban leader’s henchmen in Quetta, Pakistan.
The pragmatist that he is, Karzai has been half-way down this path before. In 2004, after Karzai won his first presidential election, he held out an olive branch to the Taliban, in a ‘reconciliation’ exercise. This was called Tahkim-e-Solh (Strengthening Peace). Established in May, 2005, it tried giving Taliban not guilty of criminal activity a way to return to society. It did not work, because the process was imperfect, the reintegration did not happen in many cases, the payments were delayed or not made at all. Since most were neither provided security nor money, they soon returned to the Taliban, which was more lucrative. Officials say that will be fixed, because the US-UK duo will now control the funds. But Gen David Petraeus (who’s credited with the success of the coalition forces in Iraq and now heads the US central command) is skeptical. “If you have an area that is insecure to begin with, then it is difficult, though not undoable, to guarantee security for somebody who wants to come in from the cold.”
CAN INDIA PROJECT HARD POWER?
Afghanistan and its future will prove to be India’s real test as a regional power. For the past decade, India has successfully turned itself into a huge presence and influence peddler in Afghanistan – through its biggest-ever use of soft power: roads, hospitals, schools, scholarships, community development projects. India’s financial commitment in Afghanistan is upwards of $1.2 billion. Opinion polls put India’s popularity rating among Afghans at 71%, in extreme contrast to only 2% for Pakistan.
India has refrained from using hard power in Afghanistan, and, in many ways, the Indian presence is guaranteed by the US’ security role. As soft-power author, Harvard University’s Joseph Nye says, “Achieving transformational objectives may require a combination of both hard and soft power.” Soft power is only credible when it is matched by or surpassed by hard power. India is paying the price, because, beyond a point, roads and dams don’t help buy influence. As one top-level Afghan official said, wryly, “We love India, but we fear Pakistan. That is a stronger emotion.” India’s power projection in Afghanistan has been primarily by showing its “goodness” . Pakistan, on the other hand, negotiates with the world with a gun held to its own head. That, as India has discovered several times in its history, is far more persuasive.
For the moment, Pakistan has the upper hand, because both the UK and US need it more than ever. Pakistan is playing an adroit diplomatic game of chicken with the US – and winning. Islamabad may be hopelessly dependent on Washington‘s money, but that doesn’t stop it from refusing to give visas to US officials, refusing money that comes with ‘conditions’. Pakistan has made it clear it will not stop supporting the Afghan Taliban; there is absolutely no attempt to tackle al Qaida; and Mullah Omar’s Quetta Shura functions unimpeded. In short, it holds veto power over whether the Obama surge succeeds in Afghanistan. Washington, said an Indian official scornfully, is “kowtowing to Pakistan just like they did to China.”
Harsh perhaps, but this view is prevalent in the upper reaches of the Indian government – to the extent that even the PM is believed to have remarked that if India and Pakistan have another fracas, Washington may not weigh in on India’s side.
According to high-level officials in New Delhi, a successful Taliban reintegration is another term for a Taliban takeover in Kabul. “Look at Yemen and you see the Afghan future. If and when that happens, we may be looking at a pre-9 /11 situation,” said one of them.
Will Karzai survive? Unlikely. But if he is to avoid the kind of fate that befell Afghanistan’s president Mohammed Najibullah – who was tortured and strung up from a light post by the Taliban in Kabul in 1996 after the Soviets withdrew – Karzai needs new and improved survival strategies. These must include working out deals with warlords – tribal leaders who can help him survive the Taliban – because despite everything, the average Afghan still prefers the present government to the harsh rules of the Taliban. He can’t look to the UK, US or Pakistan for help. He can look to India. Will India step up to the table? This would entail getting our hands dirty. So far, India has shied away from a robust security role in Afghanistan.
ThereAreNoSunglasses 