Friday, December 2, 2011

Our terms, our victory?


T’S all happening so fast that analysis seems like a pretty futile pursuit just now.
There you are, all smug about your handy analysis and juicy sound bites, trotting them out to clamorous demand and wham! Mid-sentence something else happens and you have to tear up the sheet and start all over again.
So forget the analysis, mostly anyway, and behold some of the contradictions.
A week ago, as the memogate controversy raged, it looked like the Americans may be up to their tricks again. As curiouser and curiouser comments about The Memo were made, for a while it seemed that anyone in Pakistan could pick up a phone and get a senior American official to comment.
But nary a word of solace for the unfortunate Haqqani, who was being frogmarched to his resignation, or for the beleaguered civilians. It looked like the Americans were sick of the bumbling civilians who couldn’t deliver jack.
Working to an American electoral stopwatch and a deadline in Afghanistan, maybe the Americans had made their peace with the fact that there’s only one sheriff in Pakistan and he ain’t sitting in the presidency.
It was a delicious conspiracy and it helped that only weak dissenting voices were heard. Those who were suggesting that maybe it was just a case of the Americans not picking sides, as opposed to running with the boys, didn’t sound very convincing. After all, you can understand Mullen’s first statement on The Memo maybe, but the second? It’s like the Americans had suddenly forgotten the words ‘No comment’.
So yes, it looked like the Americans had come around to the reality of Pakistan and the need to engineer a face-saving exit from Afghanistan. Then Mohmand happens.
The Americans and Isaf refuse to blink, refuse to apologise and pretty much suggest that it’s self-righteous of Pakistan to get so worked up over the death of its soldiers when Americans and others routinely die in Afghanistan at the hands of militants
presumably backed or tolerated by Pakistan.

So much for the auguries of the US and the army here inching towards a hardnosed deal. The public is up in arms, the Americans are being chucked out of Shamsi again, and this time we really mean it, and even reasonable folks are calling for
thumbing the superpower in the eye for expectorating in our direction.

Oh yes, it’s all doom and gloom again. The glimmer of hope in memogate has been forgotten; it’s back to daggers and knives. So much for analysis.
Elsewhere, though, people are trying to piece together at least the background to the Mohmand killings.
No surprises for guessing who the other player in the game is, though you may not hear too much about them from the talking heads and pontificators here: the Taliban.
This from the Long War Journal, which tracks militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan and can hardly be described as
sympathetic to Pakistan: “The Salala security posts are located in the Taliban-controlled Baizai area of Mohmand, a well-known hotbed of militant activity that has significantly impacted security on both sides of the border.”

Both sides of the border, that’s the key phrase.
The phrase features again in the LWJ’s analysis: “Taliban incursions on both sides of the border have successfully exploited a tense border situation to the breaking point.”
While officials here are muttering darkly about a ‘deliberate’ attack by the US, few seem to want to talk about what’s actually been going on along the stretch of border in the Dir-Bajaur-Mohmand-Kunar-Nuristan triangle in recent months.
Maybe the Americans did want to smack Pakistan around and that’s what happened in Mohmand last Saturday. But is it possible that Taliban activity in the area, which for months has rattled both American and Pakistani forces, on that night
triggered a reaction from the US side that in the fog of war in a very tense area went disastrously wrong, hitting the Pakistani posts instead of the Taliban?

Here’s more from the LWJ, zooming in on stuff that’s been covered by the Pakistani media before but which has been forgotten over the last week in a bout of collective, and convenient, amnesia:
“Since March, numerous Taliban swarm attacks have ravaged Pakistani outposts in the region, prompting violent reactions from Pakistani forces who frequently shell suspected militant positions located in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nuristan
provinces…. Baizai is a known transit point and safe haven for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commanders Maulvi Faqir Mohammad and Mullah Fazlullah.”

Of course, had the Americans wanted they could have been profuse in their apologies and helped mollify a raging Pakistan. But it now seems that while the Americans are tiring of Pakistani games they are still struggling to reconcile themselves with what
the army here believes is the inevitable: that a deal on Afghanistan will have to be cut with Pakistan ultimately.

Our terms, our victory, or else we’ll take the whole neighbourhood down with us. The bet here is that with Osama out of the picture and a domestic US political clock ticking, the Americans will ultimately reconcile themselves to our army’s
perspective on Afghanistan.

It’s been that way for a while now. Given the uncertainty of purpose on the American side and the certainty of purpose on the Pakistani side, it has seemed likely for a while that the army-led security establishment will get its way in Afghanistan.But an
equally likely corollary: ‘victory’ will come at a great cost to us, three, five, seven years down the road. We may get rid of the Americans, but once they’re gone we’ll still have to deal with the Taliban scampering across the border and seeking to kill and
destroy in Pakistan.

Defeat wrapped up as victory? Never mind. Once we’ve bent the Americans to our will, we’ll be too busy gloating to figure out
what’s coming our way next.

cyril.a@gmail.com

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