The Muslim News - Gaming Afghanistan: McCrystal plan and Pakistan’s security

Issue 247, Friday 27 November 2009 - 10 Dhu al-Hijjah 1430

Gaming Afghanistan: McCrystal plan and Pakistan’s security

By Simbal Khan

The eight year old war in Afghanistan is poised at a critical juncture today. The direction and thrust of the international effort, as well as the internal security and political dynamics inside Afghanistan, are predicated, at the moment, on the policy options confronting the Obama Administration.

US President Barak Obama remains involved in a painstaking process of evaluating broader US objectives against the request of 40,000 additional troops, as demanded by General Stanley McCrystal, Commander US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan. Although the President is yet to announce the final size of the of the troop surge, two important developments on the ground have already defused the significance of the eventual number of troops that Obama is likely to choose and deploy to the Afghan front.

The first of these developments is the discourse and the discordant views thrown up by this intense process of evaluation within the US security establishment. This dissension has found its final expression in the stark discord of views between the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, and McCrystal, over the issue of troop surge and the Counterinsurgency Plan.

However, it is the second development; the flawed re-election and eroded legitimacy of President Hamid Karzai-led Government in Afghanistan, that have raised critical questions, which go beyond the tactical issues, such as the actual number of troops required to implement the McCrystal strategy.

The elections have raised issues regarding the very wisdom of persevering with a counterinsurgency strategy when such a strategy itself has called for an intense partnership with a legitimate and accountable Afghan national government, in order to achieve even a modicum of success. If one thing the election process has revealed, it is that such an accountable and legitimate Afghan national government, will remain a pipe dream, in the near future, at least.

The eight year war in Afghanistan has had a cataclysmic impact on peace and security inside Pakistan. The country today appears preoccupied with an existential struggle; it battles insurgencies on its North-western tribal belt that borders Eastern Afghanistan, where its people reel from almost daily terrorist strikes on soft targets within its cities. No regional or international actor, for that matter, is more likely to suffer the full impact of how the coalition war effort against the Taliban unfolds in Afghanistan.

Two elements of the McCrystal COIN strategy, under review by the Obama Administration, are of critical importance for Pakistan. The first element is spelled out by General McCrystal on the first page of the draft ‘Commander’s Initial Assessment’. He declares: “Our strategy cannot be focused on seizing terrain or destroying insurgent forces; our objective must be the population.” The population-centrism of the McCrystal plan is wedded to the idea that Counterinsurgency doctrine of “clear, hold and build” can only succeed if large population centres in Afghanistan are secured from insurgent activity and the populations are provided security. This in effect means that along with the additional 40,000 troops requested by McCrystal, the US and NATO forces already on the ground in Afghanistan are redeployed, drawing the bulk of them away from FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) and COPs (Command Out Posts) in sparsely populated border zones. Some drawing down of troops from the border zones has already occurred. The US troops have recently vacated border posts from Nuristan and Kunar province in the North and Paktika province in the East.

Some early misgivings have been expressed by the Pakistan military command engaged in battling the TTP (Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan) in South Waziristan, to Gen McCrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, as he made a special point during an unannounced trip to Islamabad after US Secretary of State, Mrs Hilary Clinton’s visit to reassure Pakistani officials of American resolve.

The second element of the strategy that is causing serious concern in Pakistan is the expected increase of around 30,000 troops, to be amassed largely along the Southern Borders; contiguous to Pakistan’s troubled Baluchistan Province. Authorities in Pakistan are concerned that it will inevitably push more Taliban fighters across the border into Pakistani territory and complicate the on going South Waziristan offensive.

Despite these early warnings, the true impact of this strategy on Pakistan’s struggle to establish the State’s writ in its border zones, is yet to be fully appreciated, on all sides. The McCrystal plan which envisages the concentration of US forces into population centres, creating Islands of security, is likely to leave large swathes of Afghan territory under unchallenged sway of the Taliban.

The impact on Pakistan‘s security is likely to be complicated and of varying nature, depending on different trajectories of various conflict zones, lying on the 2500 km long Pak Afghan border. Pakistan’s state and military have different sets of relationships with different groups fighting along the border. The Afghan Taliban groups aligned to the Haqqani network based out of mainly North and parts of South Waziristan, and the Afghan Taliban’s associated with the so called “Quetta Shura”, have a neutral but ambivalent relationship with the Pakistani state and have largely confined their activities to attacking the US/NATO forces inside Afghanistan.

The concentration of forces in the South, as outlined in the McCrystal plan, is designed to put under pressure the Afghan Taliban networks based out of North and South Waziristan, and in Baluchistan’s border regions. At the same time, pressure is likely to increase on Pakistan to launch military operations against the, so far, neutral Afghan Taliban, and their physical infrastructure on the ground on Pakistani territory.

However, certain Afghan Taliban groups based on the Northern borders around Bajaur and Mohmand agencies have closely cooperated with the anti state movements such as the TTP (Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan) and TNSM ( Tehreek e Nifaz Sippah Mohammadi) which have battled the Pakistan military in Swat and Bajaur.

The draw down of US troops from the FOBs in the Northern border regions inhabited by anti Pakistan Taliban, is likely to provide a greater space for manoeuvre for such groups who have been battling the Pakistan military in Bajaur, Swat and Malakand. Some of this has been witnessed in Northern provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, which have recently seen the much publicised return to Taliban rule, under the leadership of Qari Ziaur Rahman, an Afghan Taliban commander battling Pakistan military in Bajaur, early this year. These two Afghan provinces border the troubled Bajaur and Mohmand agencies in FATA, which have recently seen a spike in militant activity, re-engaging the military and the FC (Frontier Corps) in kinetic operations, which had been suspended earlier in the year. Reported contacts with Maulana Fazalullah, the dreaded leader of the Swat Taliban, by the BBC Urdu service, from locations inside Afghanistan, support such analysis.

At this point there is deep scepticism, voiced in all quarters, regarding the likelihood of the McCrystal Plan succeeding in stabilizing Afghanistan, in the immediate future.

However, it is evident, even before the plan actually becomes operational, that if there is one thing that the new McCrystal strategy will succeed in, is the incremental de-stabilization of Pakistan.
Simbal Khan is Director Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad.

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