Donny, You're Out of Your Element

by Eric Martin

Shocked, shocked I tell you:

The Taliban’s widening campaign in southern Afghanistan is made possible in part by direct support from operatives in Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, despite Pakistani government promises to sever ties to militant groups fighting in Afghanistan, according to American government officials.

The support consists of money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance to Taliban commanders who are gearing up to confront the international force in Afghanistan that will soon include some 17,000 American reinforcements.

Support for the Taliban, as well as other militant groups, is coordinated by operatives inside the shadowy S Wing of Pakistan’s spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, the officials said. There is even evidence that ISI operatives meet regularly with Taliban commanders to discuss whether to intensify or scale back violence before the Afghan elections.

Details of the ISI’s continuing ties to militant groups were described by a half-dozen American, Pakistani and other security officials during recent interviews in Washington and the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. All requested anonymity because they were discussing classified and sensitive intelligence information.

The American officials said proof of the ties between the Taliban and Pakistani spies came from electronic surveillance and trusted informants. The Pakistani officials interviewed said that they had firsthand knowledge of the connections, though they denied that the ties were strengthening the insurgency.

American officials have complained for more than a year about the ISI’s support to groups like the Taliban. But the new details reveal that the spy agency is aiding a broader array of militant networks with more diverse types of support than was previously known — even months after Pakistani officials said that the days of the ISI’s playing a “double game” had ended.

Afghanistan is directly adjacent to Pakistan.  On the other hand, Afghanistan is half a world away from the United States.  Powerful elements in the Pakistani government have long cultivated allies, proxies and influence in Afghanistan - which is viewed as a necessary ally, and strategic redoubt, given its proximity and Pakistan's ongoing conflicts with India. 

After the toppling of the Taliban-led government (which had friendly relations with Pakistan), India has greatly enhanced its presence Afghanistan, developing strong ties to the Karzai government, complete with several million dollars worth of aid. Those same powerful Pakistani elements are not about to abandon their strategic objective of establishing influence in Afghanistan just because the United States is backing other factions, especially given India's evolving position and relations with those US-backed groups. 

Long after we're gone from Afghanistan, Pakistan will still be its neighbor, India will still be Pakistan's regional rival and Pakistan will still be seeking influence in Afghanistan to balance its position with India.  In the meantime, the Pakistani government will make official statements to the effect that no portion of its fragmented structure supports Afghan militants comprising the insurgency, despite the reality of the situation.  

Some factions within Pakistan's government might sincerely want to sever those relations, but they lack the ability to exert control over the totality of Pakistan's government, and pushing too hard in such a direction will leave them vulnerable - both politically and, literally, to assassination.  Expecting them to make such a push mostly at our behest is, in a word, unrealistic.  And so the show will go on. 

The only questions, really, are how much time and money we want to waste deluding ourselves about Pakistan's interests, and whether or not we can figure out a way to placate Pakistan while also convincing its potential proxies to sever ties to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.  Eliminating, or containing, al-Qaeda's presence should be the overriding goal, not undertaking a massively expensive and time consuming nation building exercise when at the end of the day, the sand castles we erect in a foreign culture on the other side of the globe will likely be washed away by prevailing regional ebbs and flows.

Comments

[...now I try to be amused]

I didn't know that India was playing a Great Game with Pakistan over Afghanistan. That complicates things a lot. Would it help to reduce India's influence there?

[Eric Martin]

To the extent that we can remove Pakistan's incentive to play spoiler - and back groups that are friendly to al-Qaeda - it would be in our interest. Part of that would probably entail lessening India's influence.

[Pithlord]

Interesting moral calculus. Tiny incremental changes in the risk of American commuters being blown up are enormously important. How many girls in Afghanistan become literate is of zero importance.

Methinks the American left has overreacted to Bush.

[Eric Martin]

Not moral calculus, realistic calculus.

What can we accomplish, not what is morally satisfying to attempt to accomplish. Not "zero importance" just: is it worth trillions of dollars and thousands of American soldiers' lives?

I would add: Our efforts to "improve" the lives of Afghanis also involves us killing thousands of Afghanis - including, unfortunatley, hundreds, if not thousands, of women and children.

War has a tendency to do that. Even wars that mean well.

[Eric Martin]

For example, if I were to propose invading North Korea and toppling the current regime, if someone else pointed out how costly and uncertain an endeavor that would be, could I then strike the morally superior pose?

Could I ask them why they consider the oppression of North Korean citizens to be of "zero importance"?'

Would it change anything if that conversation took place mid-mission in North Korea when the second person was describing a viable exit strategy that fell short of deposing the NoKo regime?

[cleek]

we begin bombing in five minutes

[Pithlord]

Eric,

What you are saying now is different from what you say in the post. In the post, you say the only important norm is American self-interest. In the comments, you say whatever the important norms may be, no one can do the impossible. Those are just different concepts, and the fact that "realists" (and for that matter, Bush-fanatics) like to confuse them doesn't change that.

[Eric Martin]

In the post, you say the only important norm is American self-interest.

Do I? Where?

[Pithlord]

Frankly, I don't think the risk from al Qaeda, as such, is that big a deal. As an organization, it is as disrupted as it is ever going to be.

The question is whether the bourgeois West can really be secure with large swathes of the world in which women have no rights. There is a lot of evidence that if you give a generation of women primary education, you will see massive changes in economic development and political freedom later.

Americans and Canadians are as selfish as anyone else, but I think we owe the Afghan people something -- given that they trusted us. We can't make Afghanistan completely safe or stable, but so long as there is the political will in the bourgeois democracies to accept some casualties, we can keep the unreconstructed Taliban out of power long enough to educate a generation of women.

[Eric Martin]

We can't make Afghanistan completely safe or stable, but so long as there is the political will in the bourgeois democracies to accept some casualties, we can keep the unreconstructed Taliban out of power long enough to educate a generation of women.

Well, political will and a couple trillion dollars and a perilously overstretched military.

Truth be told Pithy, I'm with you 100% on the plight of women, and the value of educating women. I just don't think it's as easy to accomplish in Afghanistan as maintaining our political will.

If I sound like a cold realist, I'm not. Perhaps my tone gives that impression.

But it just astounds me when people discuss these massive endeavors as if it's just a choice of whether or not to do it.

[spockamok]

It's an issue of alliances. Unfortunately for the U.S. agenda, Pakistan seems to only form alliances with those Afghan Pashtuns who tend to align in turn with international takfiri types, and who are the most backward domestically. All the other Afghan factions - Tajiks, Karzai's Pashtuns, Afghan royalists, etc., hate Pakistan and Pakistan reciprocates.

Meanwhile, within Pakistan, the secular National Awami Party, which actually won the local elections, is anti-Taliban, but is associated in the minds of the Pakistani military with treason and separatism. The military seems to distrust the Taliban types a good deal less than it distrusts elected Awami politicians. Even if they regret Talib tactics, they see their fundamental strategic orientation as less dangerous.

What would solve alot of problems for Americans, Afghans and Pakistanis would be an ethnic and factional "diplomatic revolution", where Islambad and the Punjabi political elite, the Pakistani military, and the anti-Taliban factions all became allies, and the Taliban insurgent types in both countries became the common enemy. But entrenched distrust militates against this.

The unfortunate historical reality is that previous historical Afghan governments (royalist and monarchist and Karzai)all appealed to pan-Pashtun sentiments by claiming Pakistan's northwest frontier. The Taliban was one of the few governments that did not. So, Islamabad feels like the Taliban are its best investment. By the way, those Pakistanis driving that agenda also are behind the abuse of the Shiite population within the Indus valley regions of Pakistan.

Pakistani peasants in all regions are right to be angry. They just direct their anger to the wrong places. They really would be best off becoming militantly *leftist* not Islamist, overthrowing the feudal order and either forcing the wealthy to pay taxes or breaking their economic power. Now, they are not going to do this because I said so, but if Pakistan does end up letting things get out of hand and Islamist militancy leads to total war with India, they can't say I didn't warn them about the suicidalness of identity politics.

[Pithlord]

Eric,

Do you really believe the American military is overstretched (as opposed to not-omnipotent)? By any objective measure, it has greater dominance relative to its rivals of any military power in history. Most of the other major military powers are your allies.

Yes, doing the right thing in Afghanistan is costly and risky and unsatisfying. But even the current Afghanistan is a big improvement on the pre-2001 Afghanistan. Some XX chromosome types are learning to read, and opening businesses, and doing science. That's not a sand castle, because evidence from around the world suggests that universal education for women brings irreversible social change -- demographically, politically and economically.

I see the appeal of the Ron Paul approach, but it's an illusion. We're bound up with the Muslim world, whether we like it or not, and we have to engage.

[Eric Martin]

I see the appeal of the Ron Paul approach, but it's an illusion. We're bound up with the Muslim world, whether we like it or not, and we have to engage.

I see the appeal too, but I don't support the Ron Paul approach. It's too absolutist in my view, often simplistic, and outright unrealistic in many ways.

I think even Bacevich can be too rigid in certain areas, and he's a good deal better than Paul in my opinion.

But yes, we DEFINITELY need to engage the Muslim world. No doubt about that. The question is, should that engagement take the shape of decade(s) long military occupations of multiple Muslim nations - with a concomitant commitment to interfere with a heavy hand in the internal affairs of another (Pakistan)?

I tend to think not. I don't think that type of engagement is beneficial to our relations with the Muslim world. Poll after poll confirms my hunch - in overwhelming numbers - in terms of the way Muslims view those attempts to engage.

Do you really believe the American military is overstretched (as opposed to not-omnipotent)?

Soldiers are. Suicide rates are at all time highs, enlistment standards have been lowered several times, across a wide array of criteria. That has long lasting negative effects.

Material is being chewed up fast too. Replacing what we've gone through already is going to be enormously expensive. Adding to that scrap pile by embarking on a massive, decades long commitment will be even more expensive.

Iraq and Afghanistan will cost us around $3 trillion if we end both in the next three years.

If we continue Afghanistan for another 10 years after that, you can tack on another $1 trillion, maybe $2 trillion.

Do you think the US government has got an extra couple of trillion laying around? If so, where?

Especially considering how costly even withdrawal from Iraq is going to be:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402741.html

[mckinneytexas]

Isn't the wild card here Pakistan? If it goes full out Jihadist, can war with India be far behind? Then, the issue becomes whether Pakistan has the wherewithal to fight a two front war if, but only if, the US has a presence in Afghanistan. Or, at least the above is one scenario within the realm of foreseeability. If we get out of Iraq, and if we expand our ground forces (as we should), 41,000 troops in Afghanistan isn't unsupportable. The money is a factor, although less so, it seems, if we are stimulating the economy.