Ramazan’s lost chance for an Afghan truce

A slew of questions were raised when a Chinook helicopter was shot down on 6 August in Afghanistan’s Wardak province killing 30 US servicemen – most of them elite Navy seals – and eight Afghans.

Will the heaviest loss of American lives in a single incident since 2001 heighten doubts about the Afghan mission among an already war-weary American public and Congress? Does the downing of the helicopter show the limits of America’s changed war effort that increasingly involves special operations missions? Will the blow signal a psychological shift in the war or was it a one-off? Does the incident dramatise the fragility of the transition underway, in which security responsibilities being transferred to Afghan forces have to be completed in 2014?

Most importantly what this development laid bare is the continuing tension in US policy between the declared goal of pursuing a negotiated political settlement and a military strategy still centred on kinetic actions. By the time the planned international conference convenes in Bonn this December, Washington wants to be able to announce that serious negotiations with the Taliban are in progress to end the decade long war. But are its military actions in Afghanistan serving this goal? Or are they undercutting the start of serious talks?

The answer is clouded in confusion. The helicopter incident came in the midst of escalating violence in Afghanistan. Recent months have seen a series of assassinations of high-profile Afghan officials and aggressive military actions by US/Nato forces targeting the Taliban in Kandahar, Helmand and extending to eastern Afghanistan. This cycle of violence has intensified even as trilateral meetings of the so-called core group – Afghanistan, Pakistan and the US – have been underway to discuss how to reach out to Taliban leaders and engage them in negotiations.

The Taliban’s hit and run tactics have increasingly taken the form of assassinating top Afghan government figures. Since March, several officials have been killed including President Hamid Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai in a campaign that has especially unsettled Kandahar.

Meanwhile US Special Forces have been conducting an intense campaign of kill-or-capture raids to eliminate mid-level commanders and degrade the Taliban. These have entailed controversial night raids, which have provoked sharp criticism from President Karzai and calls from Afghans for an end to the deadly operations. Nato officials say that between April and July there were around 2,832 special operations raids. The mission in which the US helicopter was shot down was one such operation.

Meanwhile the renewal of Drone-fired missile attacks into North Waziristan is part of the same US strategy of killing as many Taliban commanders as possible even as American officials accept that all Taliban groups could potentially be part of the peace process. Confusion abounds over what the US hopes to achieve by simultaneously wanting to target and talk to Taliban leaders. In this ‘kill-capture-or-reconcile’ strategy, the US expects Pakistan to assist by facilitating contacts and at the same time take action against Taliban leaders unwilling to ‘reconcile’. And this while the US itself continues to ramp up military actions against the Taliban.

This approach will produce more not less violence, and is hardly a promising setting for serious talks. The cycle of revenge killings by both sides will hinder not help the start of meaningful negotiations. That is why a change of course is essential especially as there are indications of Taliban interest in a negotiated settlement – reflected in recent statements posted on its website. Instead of pursuing the current fight-and-talk approach, Washington in fact had the opportunity to offer a Ramazan ceasefire to help prepare the ground for negotiations that it acknowledges is the only way to end its violent entanglement.

Such an offer, whether confined to selected areas or signalling an end to night raids, would have tested the Taliban’s interest in peace and given a sharp focus to the trilateral process. A halt in fighting during the holy month would have helped to ascertain who among the Taliban could be brought into the reconciliation process and which elements opposed talks. Instead violence this Ramazan has far surpassed that in the same month in previous years.

The US unwillingness so far to consider any interim confidence-building measures – suspending nighttime raids in return for the Taliban’s cessation of assassinations – may reflect the continuing lack of clarity in the Obama Administration about how to proceed in Afghanistan. Different parts of the administration seem to want different things. While the White House and the State Department appear to want the reconciliation process to accelerate and military strategy recalibrated to support that goal, it is not clear if the Pentagon and the CIA are fully on board. The US military still seems to balk at talks with the Taliban, regarding them as an admission of failure to win the war. Where the CIA stands on this is signalled by its continued use of Drones to hammer the Haqqani network in North Waziristan.

Whatever the internal dynamics in Washington, operational US strategy is still at odds with its declared objective of seeking a negotiated end to the war. A ‘pause’ in fighting – effected through a Ramazan truce or by one later – can open the diplomatic space and generate the momentum to speed up peace talks. Escalating special operation missions provide the Taliban an incentive to continue fighting and not abandon it in preference for talks.

The notion that more fighting will force the Taliban into negotiations means pursuing elusive battlefield gains without the assurance that the Taliban will respond to these methods. Bringing military pressure to bear in an effort to soften the adversary’s negotiating stance is a well-rehearsed tactic. But there comes a point when this runs it course and a pause in fighting is essential to pave the way for negotiations. That moment arrived when the Obama Administration declared months ago that it sought a political settlement and supported Afghan reconciliation.

The historical record of peace processes suggests that they start with some form of agreed stand down leading to a negotiated cease-fire. Pakistan has long advocated the need to advance the reconciliation process by peace building measures. It has stressed the importance of properly sequencing the steps necessary to secure a negotiated settlement. In recent exchanges with the US, top Pakistani military officials have said that the concept of ‘Afghan reconciliation’ needs to be turned into an operational plan. This means ensuring that the political strategy determines the military mission and steps taken in that regard advance a political settlement.

Pakistan has argued that a mutual reduction of violence will help to create the political conditions for dialogue. It has proposed a roadmap for an Afghan-led peace process that involves three phases and starts with a reciprocal de-escalation of violence to create the conditions for peace efforts. This is seen as setting the stage to persuade the Taliban to renounce Al-Qaeda – the most important strategic goal shared by the core group. Once this is achieved talks can make real progress. The third and final phase aimed at securing acceptance of the Afghanistan Constitution can follow later in a process in which the Afghan parties can discuss modifications to arrive at a new constitutional consensus.

It remains to be seen how the three parties in the core group are able to evolve agreement on translating the reconciliation objective into an implementable plan. What can give the early stage of this process a decisive impetus is if the US accepts mutual cessation of violence as a necessary starting point. A plausible and credible plan can then be crafted for a peace process that can over time deliver a negotiated settlement.

WikiLeaks damage control

Those who think the WikiLeaks were manufactured by the US to embarrass and defame certain individuals should take a look at the extent to which the US administration is going to take them off the internet. WikiLeaks.org is under attack from all directions. Those who have collaborated with the government include book-selling Amazon which has removed WikiLeaks from its hosting services. But some, like server DynaDot, are under pressure to do likewise. As a result the WikiLeaks.org web address is no longer functioning after an American internet company pulled the plug on the site.

WikiLeaks was taken offline by hosting firm following allegations of massive cyber attacks on the website.

Servers who removed WikiLeaks offered the excuse that they were under severe attack by hackers which endangered websites other than WikiLeaks, forcing them to remove the secret cables. Among other domain hosting companies, Octopuce in France had to remove WikiLeaks after being served a warning by the French government that said that it is unacceptable for a criminal site to be hosted in the country. Relying on a law that bans ‘criminal’ websites, the French industry minister wrote to the body governing internet use, warning that there would be consequences for any company or organisation helping to keep WikiLeaks online in the country.

So WikiLeaks has been inaccessable except through one Swiss domain. Julian Assange – the WikiLeaks founder who was arrested by British police on December 7 on a European warrant issued by Sweden – knows the American government and its collaborators are on a weak moral and legal ground and has struck back saying that the state has privatised censorship to avoid opprobrium: “These attacks will not stop our mission, but should be setting off alarm bells about the rule of law in theUS.” French company OVH, which hosts WikiLeaks, has warned it will consult lawyers to take on the French government, asking the court whether the government has the right to close down Octopuce.

WikiLeaks have done a lot of damage to America’s relations with friendly and unfriendly states alike; and the effort clearly is to foreclose on the leaks that are in the pipeline, some of them relating to nuclear weapons and, therefore, even more dangerous. American action is bound to meet a backlash from within America but the administration would be willing to weather that storm when it comes.

Damage control will, at best, be partial and its success will be judged against secrets that will not be put out for public consumption. Much also depends on how Mr Assange has arranged the storehouse of information in his possession. The leaks can surface again after some time; they are bound to resurface in the long run in any case. The damage done has been considerable, threatening the superpower’s diplomacy in the coming days. Always taking advantage of internal fissures in host countries, American diplomats gleaned crucial information from threatened politicians, pretending to help but practically deepening the rifts.

What has been revealed may not be as damaging to the US as to the leaders reported upon. In the case of Pakistan, it has brought into open the confusion of lack of trust among major players, especially three central figures: the army chief, the government and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif. Politics in Pakistan is a like a jungle where political instincts are centred on the survival of one at the cost of another. Among all kinds of ‘deficits’ in Pakistan, the one that should bother all citizens while facing the onslaught of a formidable al Qaeda is the deficit of trust in the basic tenets of the state.

What may be even more off-putting is the similarity between the conditions in Pakistan and those obtained in Afghanistan. The Americans are supporting President Karzai while talking about his corruption behind closed doors – now doors unlocked by WikiLeaks – and President Karzai leans on friends within Afghanistan who don’t really love him as their leader. This damage will not be controlled easily.

Afghanistan: Why Karzai Is Pushing Back Against the U.S.

By TONY KARON

To some it may seem as if President Hamid Karzai has a death wish. The Afghan leader has lately begun sticking it to the U.S. and its Western allies – the only force protecting him from a surging Taliban, which hanged the last foreign-backed President when it reached Kabul in 1996. Having infuriated the Obama Administration by continuing to drag his feet on corruption – and then cozying up to Iran and China when Washington turned up the heat – Karzai ratcheted up the rhetoric last week. He accused the U.S. of trying to dominate his country, blamed the West for last year’s electoral fraud (which his campaign was accused of masterminding) and made comments that verged on sanctifying the Taliban insurgency as a “national resistance” against foreign invaders. The New York Times reported on Sunday that Karzai even threatened, during a meeting with Afghan parliamentarians, to join the Taliban himself if the West continued to pressure him.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaks at the Independent Election Commission in Kabul

But bizarre as his behavior may seem, there may be a method in Karzai’s madness. For one thing, he has begun denouncing the Western powers in his country because he knows he can – Karzai would have been cut adrift some time ago if there were any other viable alternative on whom the U.S. could pin its strategy. The wily President knows that the presence of foreign forces in his country is deeply unpopular, particularly when civilians are killed in the course of NATO military operations. Karzai, moreover, is humiliated and shown to be powerless when his protestations over such operations are ignored by his Western patrons. So while he may have been installed by a U.S.-led invasion, if Karzai is to survive the departure of Western forces, he will have to reinvent himself as a national leader with an independent power base. He’s obviously determined not to go the way of Mohammad Najibullah, the former Soviet-backed leader who was executed by the Taliban seven years after the Red Army withdrew. So from Karzai’s point of view, he’s pushing back against the U.S. not only because he can, but also because he must if he is to survive politically.
(See “Karzai Talks to the Enemy, but Is the U.S. On Board?”)

It’s worth remembering that Karzai was essentially parachuted into the country in the course of the U.S. invasion, tapped to lead a new post-Taliban government that would be founded largely on the Northern Alliance – the coalition of ethnic Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara former mujahedin warlords who had always fought the Taliban. A chieftain in the Popolzai tribe, Karzai was a prominent leader in Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtun, which is also the social base of the Taliban. Still, his power base was limited, and creating an effective government forced him to cut deals with all manner of unsavory characters. The CIA, it should be remembered, was doing the same thing: the hundreds of millions of dollars in suitcases that the agency took into Afghanistan in the early days of the invasion was not aimed at funding women’s literacy projects; its purpose was to buy off the local warlords who control all the valleys, recognizing the fact that power changes hands in Afghanistan when those warlords switch their allegiances. Karzai probably considers the U.S. political leadership naive for believing that a pro-Western government there can survive without paying off a lot of unsavory characters.
(See a story about President Obama’s surprise visit to Afghanistan in March.)

Karzai also knows that the U.S. commitment in his country is finite, and the need to survive after the Americans leave makes him more inclined to rely on such established hard men as Uzbek warlord General Rashid Dostum and Tajik strongman General Mohammed Fahim – even if that means turning a blind eye to their transgressions. He is also keen to take charge of negotiating a political settlement with the Taliban on his own timetable, and with less of a role for Pakistan than Washington might be ready to concede to Islamabad. Just as U.S. influence in Iraq declined precipitously once its intention to withdraw became clear, so is Karzai’s game plan premised on getting along without the U.S., even though he’ll do his best to keep it there as long as possible. That means going through the motions of satisfying U.S. demands on corruption and reform, without alienating the hard men on whose support he may depend once the Americans leave.

It’s a common mistake for great powers to assume that those whom they engage as proxies to fight their battles or run their satrapies share the same agenda as their patrons just because their interests coincide at a given moment. But not all of Karzai’s enemies in the region are America’s enemies, and not all of America’s allies are Karzai’s allies. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of Pakistan, the original patron of the Taliban, which has also been going through the motions of indulging American concerns while continuing to enable the Afghan Taliban insurgency and identifying Karzai as an adversary because of his regime’s close ties with India.

Like Pakistan over the past eight years, Karzai has been biding his time, positioning himself for the battles and power shifts that will come when the Americans leave, his goal – like Islamabad’s – being to protect his power. And the arrival in Washington of the Obama Administration signaled the onset of the endgame. Driven by a desire to conclude America’s fiscally burdensome wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and alarmed by the downward security spiral in Afghanistan, the Obama Administration put Karzai on notice that failure to tackle the corruption that was deemed to be fueling the insurgency would jeopardize his ties with Washington. And in the weeks leading up to last August’s election, U.S. officials in Afghanistan were widely perceived to be backing rival candidates. Karzai has also noted that key U.S. officials like special envoy Richard Holbrooke have spoken frankly about giving Pakistan a greater role in shaping the political outcome in Afghanistan.

It should come as no surprise, then, that in the endgame, Karzai has revealed an agenda quite distinct from that of Washington – just as Pakistan has done. The premise of the U.S. policy, after all – just like that of the Pakistanis, Karzai, the Taliban and every other player in the game – is that sooner or later, the Americans will leave. And it’s that reality, now more than ever, that is shaping everyone’s game.