Serious question: Does being in Afghanistan give us more or less leverage vis-a-vis Pakistan?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

By "serious question" I mean a real inquiry, rather than a statement offered rhetorically in the form of a question. I do not know the answer to this question, or even if there is a particular right answer since the variables are difficult to define.


Okay... the Bush administration's approach to Pakistan after 9/11 was blanket amnesty. That may have been brilliant, given the options. One can argue either side, I guess. It was primarily a Colin Powell thing, so it wasn't sheer Cheney-fueled madness.

We were attacked by an organization hosted by a political regime in Afghanistan. That political regime was largely installed by Pakistan.

What was called a civil war, to be polite, could as well be called a war by Pakistan against Afghanistan, by proxy. Pakistan wanted the Taliban in charge, just as Russia had wanted a friendly regime in charge.

This would be unexceptional stuff except for the fact that the taliban hosted a group that attacked the US.

Pakistan was also, as of 9/11/01, the world's top clandestine nuclear proliferator.

We struck a deal. You, Pakistan, are the real problem here. You are the strategic power behind the regime that hosted/facilitated an attack on America. You are the nation that developed a rogue nuke program which may be necessary vis-a-vis India, but you started selling the technology to countries hostile to American interests.

But we are offering you a one-time amnesty. Stop supporting the taliban and shut down the AQ Khan network and we will pretend it was all a misunderstanding. (And, IIRC, dropping the sanctions we had on Pakistan for their 1990s nuke tests)

This allowed the US to not go to war with Pakistan, which one Bush doctrine or another would have demanded, but which we couldn't really do as a practical military matter beyond dropping bombs from the air, and couldn't do without blowing up the whole subcontinental situation. (And going down in history as monsters of some sort, which we managed to do anyway in a different country. C'est la vie!)

Everyone saves face! Good deal.

But in the years that followed Pakistan realized that their initial panic that we were going to nuke them (or throw in 100% with arch-enemy India, rather than maintaining some level of neutrality) was just that -- panic. We are not going to nuke Pakistan! We are not going to invade Pakistan or bomb their capital or any of that.

So Pakistan entered into this frienemy thing of supporting AQ (hard to call it otherwise... they knowingly host whatever is left of AQ Classic to protect them from us), supporting the Taliban (on edit: the taliban as potential ruller of afghanistan, not the taliban as internal Pakistani rebellion movement) and generally blowing smoke up America's ass. (We consider the security of Pakistani nukes our top global tactical issue but we do not know where all of Pakistan's nukes are. Why not? Because Pakistan is hiding them from us, not just from India or Russia or China.)

Okay, so back to the question...

Pakistan is supportive of the Taliban (in Afghanistan), even if only in subtle ways. They don't advertise it (would be rude) be we know that they know that we know, etc..

We are at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan in some way.

We need Pakistan's "help" to win that war.

So the question is, to what degree does our being in Afghanistan tie our hands vis-a-vis Pakistan? (By putting us in the position of needing Pakistan's help in Pakistan's own proxy war against the US and/or what we perceive as vital US interests.)

On the one hand, having a large military force in a neighboring country exerts some influence on Pakistan. On the other hand, are those troops essentially hostage to Pakistan's cooperation?

I can see either side of the question.

But when someone on the TV machine said that every troop we send to Afghanistan is more leverage Pakistan has over us it seemed a pregnant question about which some DUers might have insights.

Discuss.

____________

PS: I am on the fence about Afghanistan... I can argue both sides. (With the understanding that the pro-Afghani occupation argument is primarily humanitarian.)

[tekisui]

1. One thing is that Pakistani Taliban and Afghani Taliban

are not necessarily the same organization. They have some overlap. The Pakistani Taliban are regularly carrying out small (a more infrequently large) attacks on Pakistani targets. The Pakistan government is essentially at Civil War with them. But, the Pak Taliban has some support in the ISI and the Pak military.

Pakistan doesn't want an escalation because the Afghani Taliban move into Pakistan when the battles heat up. It compounds Pakistan's instability. It also forces alliances within the Taliban groups, which creates more enemies of the US and more support for those fighting the US.

With the US flying attack drones in Pakistan, regularly, more animosity is generated against the US. We are not bombing US targets, we are assisting the Pakistan in bombing their targets. Our targets in Pakistan go un-dealt with.

The US, however, has to make sure Pakistan remains as stable as it can. That is why we are giving them billions a year and giving them the use of our drones. But, while we are funding their Civil War, they have no real incentive to finish it. That is good money, and the Pak Taliban have lots of friends in the high places of Pakistan.

It does hurt our troops. And, it further entwines us in the region. We will destabilize the region further and get so tangled and co-dependent on each other it will take decades to un-do.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. Excellent points. (I clarified something in response. Thanks.)

Though the two talibans are different and though Pakistan is ostensibly at war with at least one of them, my sense is that Pakistan would prefer that Afghanistan be a taliban-run semi-client state of Pakistan... strategic depth and all that.

(Versus an autonomous democratic country free to make its own international arrangements.)

Does that comport with your sense of things?

[tekisui]

3. I think Pakistan would prefer us not to be there.

We are essentially the power behind government in Afghanistan right now. Pakistan is forced to deal Afghanistan through us strategically. If we weren't there, Pakistan's influence would be stronger.

But, I am not sure there would be that great of a difference between a Karzai government and government run by what is left of the Taliban. The Afghanistan Taliban are being increasingly welcomed into the Afghan government. It is how Karzai stole the election. He made deals with the reasonable factions of the Taliban, and some deals with the less reasonable. In his 'acceptance speech', he called for and welcomed the 'Taliban Brothers' back to Afghanistan.

So, I think Pakistan would really just not want to deal with our presence there.

[The Magistrate]

4. It Is, Sir, One Of Those 'One The One Hand, And On The Other' Sort Of Things

Pakistan's over-riding concern as a state is its hostile relation with India, which is a continuation of the long resistance to Moslem invaders by the populace of the latter. Moslem rule has been thrown off in the south, and driven steadily north. Indian seizure of Kashmir during the Partition wrecked the plan for a contiguous 'cap' of Moslem rule in the north of India, separating Pakistan into West Pakistan and East Pakistan. The latter was over-run by India some years ago and has become the nation of Bangladesh. The view that India intends someday to finish the job and mop up the remnant is not unreasonable from a Pakistani point of view.

Pakistani interest in Afghanistan is as a sort of fall-back position when the 'inevitable' Indian move north across the Indus finally takes place. Political domination of Afghanistan gives Pakistan somewhere to retreat to, some manouvering room, and a base from which to counter-attack, in this projected final emergency.

U.S. domination of Afghanistan could certainly be a threat to this objective of Pakistani state-craft. An Afghanistan that was the client of the United States, or indeed of any power with friendly relations with India, would not serve as a cushioning hinterland in the manner desired. It might well even become more friendly with India than with Pakistan. This is certainly a great potential leverage against Pakistan, and warding it off is the principal reason Pakistani actions regarding Afghanistan itself are more hostile to U.S. aims than otherwise.

U.S. operations aimed at securing Afghanistan, however, do provide Pakistan with a means to pursue another, though more minor, Pakistani goal, namely securing effective rule over the Tribal Areas, whose effective autonomy has long stuck in the craw of the Pakistani authorities. So long as insurgents operating against the U.S. in Afghanistan use the Tribal Areas as a sanctuary, the U.S. will provide assistance to the Pakistani government in 'pacifying' this area, ie., in extending Pakistani control over it.

Maintainance of a U.S. garrison in Afghanistan, however, does give Pakistan considerable leverage over the United States. All supply for such a garrison must pass through Pakistan at present, and could readily be cut-off by the Pakistani government, whether through covert operations of bodies controlled by its intelligence service, or by open declaration and state action. An attempt by the United States either to force a path north through Pakistan, or to withdraw its Afghan garrison south through Pakistan, would be, shall we say, interesting in the extreme....

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. Great post

As you say, Pakistan would probably like us to leave, for reasons of their doctrine of strategic depth, if no other.

Yet our presence makes us somewhat dependent on Pakistani whim and design which (I assume) prevents us from dealing with Pakistan from a position of strength.

Perhaps Pakistan wants us there for a few years and then gone. That's a wish they will probably get.

And then there is domestic politics... Pakistan can make any president a failure by (quietly) facilitating unacceptable US casualties in Afghanistan.

I feel echos of the complexities of Iran's position vis-a-vis the US in Iraq... not direct parallel, of course, but involving similar issues.

[optimator]

6. there is no threat to USA

from the taliban or pakistani muslims.
the end.