Munir Akram, until recently the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations, has urged the incoming US president to understand the difference between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, then focus on eliminating Al Qaeda. Akram writes in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, "We need a realistic approach to the Taliban.
| "It is Al Qaeda, not the Taliban, that threatens the US homeland." |
He suggests that the US should open negotiations with the Taliban. The insurgency in south and east Afghanistan was initially confined to Taliban fighters, he points out, although most Pashtuns there and in northern Pakistan were unhappy at the US-sponsored ejection of the Pashtun Taliban regime by the Tajik-led Northern Alliance.
According to the Pakistani diplomat, the US should resist the temptation to intervene unilaterally against the so-called safe havens in Pakistan. Instead, it should help Pakistan address the militancy itself in its frontier regions. The situation there is extremely complex. US reluctance to provide Pakistan with advanced counter-insurgency equipment and technology, and to share real-time intelligence, enhances a suspicion in some Pakistani quarters that the US or some of its agencies may be complicit with the Afghans and Indians in seeking to destabilise Pakistan. Under these circumstances, unilateral US intervention in Pakistan will intensify tensions between the two countries with potentially dangerous consequences. The US should adopt a positive agenda to secure Pakistan's effective cooperation. A centrepiece should be a $20 billion programme for Pakistan's economic stabilisation and rapid growth and development, as well as preferential market advancement and investment flows.
Policy: Akram writes that Washington should pursue a policy of equity between Pakistan and India. A major impediment to a positive Pakistani role in the region is the growing, if unspoken, fear in Islamabad of the implications of the strategic relationship that is developing between the US and India, epitomised by the recent Indo-US nuclear deal. The US can regain considerable good will and leverage with Pakistan if it adopts a policy of equitable treatment for India and Pakistan on technology, trade and military issues.
According to the veteran Pakistani diplomat, mistakes by NATO forces and the corruption and incompetence of Kabul have combined to alienate the entire population of the region and to transform the insurgency virtually into a Pashtun war of liberation. Foreign forces have never pacified this region and US-NATO forces will not succeed in doing so, either.
The offer made last week by the Afghan-Pakistan Jirga to open talks with the Taliban, and the American willingness to consider this, are welcome signs of realism. While negotiations should be pursued from a position of strength, preconditions and exclusions will doom them before they begin. Akram proposes a commission, composed of respected Pashtun leaders, Islamic scholars and neutral personalities, to conduct unconditional talks with the Taliban and seek an immediate cessation of attacks and suicide bombings. The Taliban will expect to share power and will demand the withdrawal of foreign forces. A reasonable time frame for such withdrawal could be linked to their cooperation in restoring peace and stability and creation of a credible Afghan army, he adds.
Akram argues that aerial bombings which have led to high civilian causalities, should be "the exception, not the rule." NATO garrisons should be deployed in credible strength in a limited number of locations for protective or punitive purposes. Eventually, a credible and genuinely national Afghan Army will enable foreign forces to undertake an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Afghan security apparatus needs to be reformed. The defence, intelligence and interior departments cannot continue to be left in the hands of the Panjsheri faction of the Northern Alliance, which has an anti-Pashtun and anti-Pakistan agenda. The officer corps of the Afghan Army should reflect Afghanistan's ethnic composition, including the Pashtuns, if it is to be a genuine national institution. An effective war must also be launched against drugs, criminality and corruption. Peace, he stresses, will have to be built locally. Throughout history, Afghanistan's tribes have resisted strong central control and agreed to be governed loosely from Kabul. Peace will have to be built region by region through power-sharing arrangements among the most influential people in each area, including tribal and religious leaders.