[Peace-discuss] America's Undeclared War on Pakistan

[C. G. Estabrook]

[At least it calls it by its right name. --CGE]

	America's Undeclared War on Pakistan
	By James Gundun
	Global Research, July 22, 2010

It was a relatively flawless performance. With Washington stuck in its Afghan 
review and Pakistan’s cities under bombardment, Secretary of State Hillary 
Clinton touched down in a hostile Pakistan in October 2009 on a self-proclaimed 
propaganda mission. Greeted with bombs from Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and 
treated with hard questions on the freshly signed Kerry-Lugar bill, Clinton left 
a foul impression after deploying her grating “do more” mantra on al-Qaeda’s 
leadership.

July 2010 would be different. No major explosions signaled her arrival, which 
Clinton attributed to Pakistan’s military success in the Federally Administered 
Tribal Areas (FATA). Drones have lost their controversial potency and US aid, 
always a third rail, grows increasingly palatable to an economically struggling 
Pakistan. Clinton beamed throughout her photo-ops and Pakistani leadership 
reflected the shine. She even managed to accuse someone within the government of 
knowing Osama bin Laden’s location without drawing attention, having landed in 
South Korea by the time her Fox News interview aired.

 From Islamabad Clinton triumphantly landed in Kabul for what she hailed as a 
“turning point” in Afghanistan: a six hour international conference that pledged 
$20 billion in aid and declared Afghan security forces would assume command of 
all provinces by 2014. The choreography went off as planned, which of course is 
the point when the show is too good to be true.

Like a bridge, errors in one part of the span expose other flaws and threaten to 
bring the entire structure down with it.

Though Clinton undoubtedly improved upon her last visit, charm can only beautify 
an ugly reality so much. Promises of aid were automatically linked to a military 
invasion of North Waziristan rather than Pakistan’s current strategy of 
negotiating with its hosts, Sirajuddin and Jalaluddin Haqqani. Clinton 
explicitly ruled out a dialogue with them, tagging US aid as conditional.

Already fearful of military servitude, it doesn’t help that US and foreign aid 
lacks the track record to inspire confidence among  average Pakistanis. The 
Kerry-Lugar bill, President Barack Obama’s celebrated achievement in civilian 
aid, stalled in Congress due to fears of misappropriated funds; a trade bill 
designed for the FATA similarly gridlocked. Pakistan had to jump through hoops 
to receive long-delayed reimbursement from the Coalition Support Fund (CSF), 
while the Friends of Pakistan have delivered only $725 million of $5.6 billion 
pledged in April 2009.

So when Clinton announced “$500 million in several new development programs,” 
funded in part by the Kerry-Lugar bill, the many strings attached cast ominous 
shadows over her smiles. The attitude of Pakistan’s press was straightforward: 
“Given Pakistan's current plight, any assistance from the outside world has to 
be welcomed. The recognition by the US that policy cannot be focused only on 
security issues is also a step in the right direction.”

Whatever the strings and grudges, Pakistan simply isn’t in the position to turn 
down assistance.

But Islamabad’s endgame is roughly the opposite of Washington’s. While the White 
House believes its efficiency in delivering military and humanitarian aid 
determines success in Afghanistan, Pakistanis base success on the effectiveness 
of Pakistan’s leaders. These aren’t the same goals. America needs Pakistan to 
improve and thus assist in stabilizing Afghanistan so that it can remain in the 
region, but Pakistan wants to utilize US aid to regain sovereignty of the state 
and ultimately rid South Asia of America’s military presence.

“The hugely positive tone adopted by the Secretary of State will of course have 
brought smiles to the faces of Pakistani leaders,” wrote The News International. 
“But they must recognize that the relationship between Pakistan and the US is a 
complex one. Many believe it is in fact the root cause behind our militant 
problem and that this cannot be solved until the US withdraws from the region.”

Clinton may have missed this not-so-subtle difference, but the chances of her 
merely ignoring it are higher. While admitting that Pakistani’s negative 
perception of America “wouldn’t change overnight,” she raved about its new 
environment - “I could feel a change” - and Pakistani officials who, “really 
believe that the people are understanding that the United States wants to be a 
real partner to us and that it's not just killing terrorists.”

Pew Research Center listed Pakistani approval at 17% in June 2010, up 1% from 
last year but down from 19% in 2008.The News International warned upon her exit, 
“There is a very real risk that the latest aid offer will be seen as a kind of 
bribe intended to ensure that the fighting continues. The effort to persuade 
people that the war against militancy is Pakistan's has so far been a faltering 
one.”

The Dawn analyzed “Hillary’s iron fist in a velvet glove,” while a less generous 
Nation concluded, “It is time we broke off from the present US stranglehold that 
is suffocating Pakistan to death.”

But Clinton’s most telltale contradiction: passing the blame off to George Bush. 
"Of course there is a legacy of suspicion that we inherited,” she argues, when 
Pakistan is actually one of the Obama administration's favorite words - a “whole 
of government” problem. Anti-US sentiment has ran high for over 20 years and 
spans multiple presidencies, many staffed with the same officials that fill 
Obama’s cabinet and National Security Council. Pew still has Bill Clinton 
clocked at 22% in 1999.

Pakistan’s fate has always be decided by how the foreign chips fall, not how 
they stack up. America may uphold its obligations this time around, it just 
hasn’t before, and Afghanistan repeats the same story. The Huffington Post digs 
up the old bones of past “international conferences” and “turning points.”

Paradoxes in Kabul were equally numerous, for instance the massive quantity of 
foreign aid that may disappear. Karzai called for 50% to funnel through 
Afghanistan’s ministries by 2012, up from 20%, while dutifully promising to 
clean up corruption for Western ears. However, the conference followed a report 
from Integrity Watch Afghanistan that found corruption had doubled between 2006 
and 2009. This story never seems to change, whether before or after Karzai's 
controversial election victory in 2009, and the West’s power to reform this gray 
area remains suspect.

Reintegration prospects are dwindling too. Reconciliation appears a non-starter 
in Washington despite its public support for reintegration, a stance that 
hinders reintegration. On top of UK reports that few Taliban are switching 
sides, the idea of transferring authority to Afghan forces by 2014 implies that 
the West still expects to be fighting the Taliban rather than reintegrating it. 
This tidal wave of uncertainty finally throws the 2014 deadline into upheaval.

When Karzai insisted, "Afghan national security forces will be responsible for 
all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country by 2014,” 
he’s asking for the same three years Iraq needed after its surge.

Given that most deadlines in Afghanistan evaporate, history and the present 
offer no reason to define 2014 as realistic as NATO did. Marjah and Kandahar’s 
time-lines already protracted. Obama’s 2011 transfer deadline, if not postponed 
outright, will amount to a symbolic transition of power, and Vice President Joe 
Biden recently conceded “a couple thousand troops” is the likeliest withdrawal 
option. Clinton desperately tried to counter the slippery slope by arguing, “the 
transition process may be able to begin by the end of this year."

Yet believing in 2014, let alone Clinton’s new claim, makes no sense in a 
country where projects rarely start or finish on time.

The last few days in Afghanistan brought no surprises. The White House in 
particular is facing renewed criticism from the US Congress and media to clarify 
the war’s objectives, and Clinton’s tour was its answer. But instead of leveling 
with the US, Afghan, and Pakistani peoples and shunning unrealistic 
expectations, Washington rolled out more smoke and mirrors to conjure the image 
of success.

Being illusions, the deadlines are likely to vanish one by one and ultimately 
fail to break the West’s cycle of mission drift in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

James Gundun is a political scientist and counterinsurgency analyst based in 
Washington D.C. Contact him in The Trench, a realist foreign policy blog, at 
www.hadalzone.blogspot.com.

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20218