[Peace-discuss] "We seek no wider war"

[C. G. Estabrook]

[A lie when President Johnson said it and a lie now. The author of the following 
piece might better have referred to "The 'Afghan' War" -- because American 
machinations are of course much wider than Afghanistan, as he explains.  --CGE]

  	U.S. Draws India Into The Afghan "War"
	M.K. Bhadrakumar
	December 25, 2008
	The Hindu

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States armed forces, 
Admiral Mike Mullen, has lent his voice to the incipient idea of a “regional” 
approach to the Afghanistan problem. He said the over-arching strategy for 
success in Afghanistan must be regional in focus and include not just 
Afghanistan but also Pakistan and India. The three South Asian countries, he 
stressed, must figure a way to reduce tensions among them, which involves 
addressing "long-standing problems that increase instability in the region.”

Adm. Mullen then referred to Kashmir as one such problem to underline that if 
India-Pakistan tensions decreased, it “allowed the Pakistani leadership to focus 
on the west [border with Afghanistan].” He regretted that the terror attack in 
Mumbai raised India-Pakistan tensions, and “in the near term, that might force 
the Pakistani leadership to lose interest in the west,” apart from the 
likelihood of a nuclear flashpoint. Interestingly, he gave credit to the 
Pakistani top brass for its recent cooperation in the tribal areas which, he 
said, has had a “positive impact” on the anti-Taliban operations.

The Pentagon’s number one soldier has legitimised an idea that was straining to 
be born — U.S. mediatory mission in South Asia. Adm. Mullen announced that the 
U.S. was doubling its force level in Afghanistan from the present strength of 
32,000 troops. The Afghan war is about to intensify. All this comes in the wake 
of the recent hint by Senator John Kerry that the appointment of a U.S. special 
envoy for South Asia by the Obama administration is on the cards.

The time has indeed come to carefully assess the U.S. motivations in widening 
the gyre of the Afghan war, which commenced seven years ago as a vengeful hunt 
for Osama bin Laden and metamorphosed into a “war on terror.” What is in it for 
India? It is very obvious that the U.S. thought process on a “regional approach” 
to the Afghan problem and the appointment of a South Asia envoy go hand in hand. 
The U.S. design confronts India with a three-fold challenge: it insists that 
India is a protagonist in the U.S.-led war; India-Pakistan relationship is a 
crucial factor of regional security and stability which directly affects the 
U.S. interests and, therefore, necessitates an institutionalised American 
mediatory role; and, it asserts a U.S. obligation to be involved in 
“nation-building” in South Asia on a long-term footing.

Vulnerable to U.S. pressure

Islamabad will be chuckling with pleasure. The parameters of its foreign policy, 
which Indian diplomacy rubbished for decades, are finally gaining habitation and 
name. The heart of the matter is that India has made itself vulnerable to U.S. 
pressure. Of all Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries that are exposed to the 
danger of militancy, India is the only “non-combatant” threatened with a 
spill-over. The Central Asian countries bordering Amu Darya, though much weaker 
than India, have marvellously insulated themselves from the pernicious fallout 
from the Hindu Kush. So has China’s Xinjiang. So indeed has Iran despite robust 
efforts by the U.S.-British intelligence to inject the virus of terrorism into 
its eastern provinces. Certainly, Moscow managed to insulate Chechnya too.

Alas, India stands out as the solitary exception. If diplomacy is the first line 
of national defence, there have been shortfalls. The slide began, in retrospect, 
when the Indian foreign policy seriously erred in 2001 while assessing the 
implications of the U.S.’ march into Afghanistan. Except India, the regional 
powers that took part in the Bonn conference in December 2001 seem to have had a 
Plan B. Our diplomats blithely travelled in the U.S. bandwagon as 
one-dimensional men fixated over Pakistan, comfortable in their assumption that 
the underpinning of a strong “partnership” with the U.S. elevated India from the 
morass of its regional milieu, opening up in front of it a brave new world as 
the pre-eminent power in the Indian Ocean region. They remained sure that 
Pakistan would be a passing aberration in the U.S. regional policy, whereas 
India would be a life-long blissful partner. And all that was needed was for us 
to keep an obscure back channel to Pakistan from time to time.

The cold blast of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai scatters these facile 
assumptions. After all, the accumulated debris of India-Pakistan tensions did 
not go away and the past four years have been a chronicle of wasted time, as the 
relationship is in ground zero. The Mumbai attacks underscore that the Afghan 
war has crossed the Khyber and is stealthily reaching the fertile Indo-Gangetic 
plains. Our opinion still underestimates the gravity of the unfolding crisis by 
visualising it as merely an India-Pakistan dogfight, which it certainly is but 
is far from everything. Adm. Mullen has done a signal service by starkly placing 
the crisis in its setting.

Fortunately, we stopped in the nick of time from plunging into the Afghan 
cauldron via a military intervention from which there would have been no turning 
back. This fortuitous happenstance leaves us some options to incrementally step 
back from becoming part of the lethal brew that the witches are concocting in 
the Hindu Kush.

Way ahead

What is to be done? First, we need to realise that the Afghan war is a classic 
Clausewitzean affair politics by other means. The U.S. has ensured a permanent 
presence in the strategic highlands of the Pamir mountains. Even the current 
highly simulated disruption of transit routes for NATO supplies via the 
Pakistani territory is providing a pretext for the establishment of fresh U.S. 
military presence in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and in the Caucasus for the first 
time ever. While the U.S.’ close partnership with the Pakistani military 
continues intact, the search for new supply routes becomes the perfect backdrop 
for ruthlessly expanding American influence in the Russian and Chinese (and 
Iranian) backyards in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

This signifies a great leap forward for NATO, which is poised to wade ashore 
from the Black Sea into the Caucasus and Central Asia. Also, the U.S. is 
effectively undercutting the raison d’etre of the Collective Security Treaty 
Organisation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In short, the “war on 
terror” is providing a convenient rubric under which the U.S. is incrementally 
securing for itself a permanent abode in the highlands of the Pamirs, the 
Central Asian steppes and the Caucasus that form the strategic hub overlooking 
Russia, China, India and Iran.

We must, therefore, be vigilant about the veiled U.S. threat of reopening the 
“Kashmir file,” which Admiral Mullen held out. It aims at keeping India off 
balance. Plainly put, the U.S. faces a real geopolitical challenge in the region 
only in the eventuality of a coalition of like-minded regional powers like 
Russia, China, Iran and India taking shape and these powers seriously beginning 
to exchange notes on what the Afghan war has so far been about and where it is 
heading and what the U.S. strategy aims at. So far, the U.S. has succeeded in 
stalling such a process by “sorting out” these regional powers individually. 
Indeed, Washington has been a net beneficiary of the contradictions in the 
mutual relations between these regional powers.

If Barack Obama genuinely wants to end the bloodshed and the suffering in 
Afghanistan, tackle terrorism effectively and enduringly, as well as stabilise 
Afghanistan and secure South Asia as a stable region, all he needs to do is to 
turn away from the great game, and instead seek an inclusive inter-Afghan 
settlement facilitated by a genuine regional peace process. The existential 
choice is whether he will break with the past U.S. policies out of principle. 
Surely, as Adm. Mullen’s statements underscore, Mr. Obama will run into the 
vested interests of the U.S. security establishment, the military-industrial 
complex, Big Oil and the influential corpus of cold warriors who are bent on 
pressing ahead. India must, therefore, take note that the war in the Hindu Kush 
enters a decisive phase for the New American Century project.

Independent policy

The need arises for India to revive close consultations with Russia and Iran 
with which we have profound shared concerns over the Afghan problem and regional 
security. We must steer an independent policy towards Iran as a factor of 
regional stability. It is not in the interests of Russia, Iran and India to 
abandon Afghanistan to the U.S.-U.K.-Pakistan-Saudi condominium. They must use 
their influence on Afghan groups to chisel a regional peace initiative. In a 
helpful departure, China also took a differentiated approach to the recent U.N. 
Security Council move regarding Pakistani militant outfits, which we must take 
note of and build on. Finally, of course, while there is a time for everything, 
India must eventually resume the arduous search to make Pakistan a stakeholder 
in good neighbourly relations. The U.S. factor complicates this search, which is 
best undertaken bilaterally.

The wheel has come full circle. Those who sold us the dream of a U.S.-India 
strategic partnership are nowhere to be seen.

(The writer is a former ambassador and Indian Foreign Service officer.)

http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/25/stories/2008122555130800.htm