Challenging
Transitions
“Cold
be heart and hand and bone. And cold be travelers far from home.
They
do not see what lies ahead when sun has failed and moon is
dead.”
- Gollum, Lord of the Rings; The Two Towers
The Afghanistan elections bring with them a turning point
in the region. In
the past three years Afghanistan has witnessed a dramatic change
from the reversal of the Taliban, burst of optimism to the
recent resurgence of the Taliban and the ebbing of jubilation.
Over the past few months, law and order has become an
alarmingly serious problem with violence spreading to the
Northern and Western regions of the country. President Karzai has a narrow support base even among
Pashtuns and competes with the resurgent Taliban.
Outside of Pashtun regions Karzai’s policies seem to
evoke anger, such as the destruction reeked on the UN compound
in Herat because of the dismissal of Ismail Khan and anger among
the Tajiks for not picking former Defense Minister Fahim as his
running mate and leading to the candidacy of his main challenger
Younus Qanooni.
Post election events in Afghanistan are bound to become
more interesting. Election
fraud has been alleged by all 15 of the opposition candidates. There are other reports of voter coercion.
The elders of the Terezey tribe in Khowst province in
Southern Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold, have decreed that
people should vote for Karzai or be socially ostracized and loss
of property. Hazarat
Ali, a warlord associated with President Karzai, and well known
for threatening people by sending them to Guantanamo Bay, has
been involved in encouraging votes for Karzai.
Additionally, the absence of large scale violence
promised by the resurgent Taliban is particularly interesting to
note. The votes of
the refugee populations of Iran and Pakistan will also
contribute to the unpredictability. Furthermore, the future
rulers of Afghanistan should be aware that after elections they
will have to run all of Afghanistan and not just their voter
base, divisive policies may bolster votes today but will reap
dividends of violence tomorrow.
The US wants
Musharraf to help it prevent another Sept 11 style terrorist
spectacular before the US elections, help stablize Afghanistan
for US energy interests, and keep the temperature down with
India. Given the atmosphere of radicalization in Pakistan, and
the vast number of Jihadi paramilitaries on the loose there,
this is an impossible assignment. There are number of
anti-America terrorist cells in Pakistani cities and these pose
a credible threat to the Americans operating in Pakistan.
Whereas there is no concern in the US for the lives of thousands
of security contractors working for the US in Pakistan, there is
considerable worry about an Iran style hostage drama involving
the US embassies and consulates. Musharraf for his part has very
successfully leveraged military aid in exchange for support to
US CI/CT operations. This aid has translated into the steady
modernization of sections of the Pakistan Army loyal and
critical to Musharraf's personal security. Among the recipients
of this aid are the Hostage Rescue (HR) component of the SSG (Musa
Company) and the newly form Joint Operations Task Force (CT).
One is also quite amused to note the sudden appearance of
personal protection gear on police officers serving in the ICT
and Karachi Police.
There is
growing unrest in Balochistan. Several tribes have taken up an
armed struggle to protest the Pakistan Army's heavy-handedness.
The cause of the insurgency is the step motherly treatment meted
Balochi peoples by Punjabi administrators. Gen. Musharraf is not
known for his political skill and has pushed instead for an
increase in the Pakistan Army's presence in the region. This has
alienated elements of the Baloch political spectrum that have
been traditionally loyal to Pakistan. The sense of alienation in
the Baloch middle-class mostly living in the towns of
Balochistan is growing. Pakistani Army operations which seem to
rely on local levies and tribal lashkars have failed to achieve
a containment of the armed revolt. There also appears to be a
complete lack of understanding in the Pakistani sources as to
who exactly is arming these groups, allegations against Iran,
India and the United States have flown fast and thick adding to
the atmosphere of confusion that prevails here.
Confusion is
much in evidence in Waziristan also. Here too there are a number
of opportunistic tribal lashkars working with scouts and levies
of the IGFC organization. The region has been closed off to the
media and the only source of information about the operations
are the body counts trotted out by Maj. Gen. Shoukat Sultan
along with tea and biscuits to correspondents in Islamabad. When
there isn't a Pakistan Army operation in Wana which is killing
"hundreds of suspected Al Qaida", there is some nephew
of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a "second level Al Qaida
leader" who is arrested in Karachi, or Lahore. Of course on
a really slow news day there is the "discovery of an
attempt to assassinate Musharraf" and when all else fails,
and there is really no news to report, we are treated to
regurgitations of the older attempts to assassinate Musharraf.
A rather
amusing struggle appears to have broken out in Musharraf's
"civilian" cabinet. The key players in this round are
Faisal Saleh Hayat, Ch. Shujaat Hussain, and Major (r) Tanvir
Hussain Shah. The struggle aims to gain ascendancy within the
Shaukat Aziz cabinet but the manner in which the moves have been
made speaks intensely to queer nature of the Pakistani polity.
Gen. Musharraf's continuation as Army Chief and President of
Pakistan, is contingent on him securing the approval of a class
of pliable politicians he has himself brought to power in the
various "parliaments" in Pakistan. Unless Musharraf
can stamp out opposition to his continuation, he will have a
serious political confrontation on his hands. The key to
securing approval lies in Musharraf being able to project the
image that he represents a "sincere attempt to clean up
Pakistan", and promises to remove "corrupt
politicians" from access to power. So all any reasonably
opportunistic person has to do is to accuse a member of
Musharraf's cabinet of being corrupt and if one makes enough of
a fuss about it, the western media will catch on, and bring that
up at one of Gen. Musharraf's foreign press conferences. After
that Musharraf has to "take action" against the
"tainted minister". In this way the savvy can rise in
pelf and power at the expense of their political colleagues.
This represents the unzipping of Musharraf's elaborate political
strategy of using alliances of pliable politicians.
In addition to the election issues facing Afghanistan and
Iraq, the American Presidential election will have an enormous
impact on the world and policy in both regions.
In turn, the violence in Afghanistan and Iraq played a
major role in both the public and private debates surrounding
the election. The tone of the Presidential debates can best be summed up as
acrimonious. The
American public seems to be asking tough questions from its
candidates and expecting real answers from future leaders.
Interestingly, while the candidates announce very
distinct policies, in reality, it will be difficult to break
away or significantly alter the set course in the near term.
Rather it would be more prudent to find dependable
regional partners who have convergent interests in maintaining
stability in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At the present rate, the burden of American commitments
in these regions with potential plans for expansion will leave
the rest of Asia vulnerable to a rapidly developing security
crisis.
The surprising appearance of a 2 mile wide mushroom cloud
in a North Korean province near the Chinese border urgently
focused attention towards the heretofore smoldering issue of
nuclearization in the Korean peninsula and wider security
implications in East Asia.
However it is reassuring to note that the explosion was
actually a planned demolition to make way for a power plant.
Now the issue can return to its dormancy until an overt
nuclear explosion heralds a genuine crisis.
In the past month Russia became a victim of terrorism in
Beslan, North Ossetia as terrorists held thousands hostage in a
school. The
standoff ended in a massacre of over a thousand people many of
them children. The
mourning period was marked by a strongly worded speech by
President Putin against terrorism and critical of government
shortcomings. This
alludes to a possible behind the scenes reexamination of
Russia’s anti-terrorism policy and the current security
situation in the Caucasus region which may have wide ranging
implications.
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