The Afghan labyrinth

Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, successive phases of occupation, including the current US/Nato control of the country, have sucked Pakistan into the Afghan labyrinth. The repercussions now threaten Pakistan's society and state.

Numerous problems confront Pakistan. The main hotspots include the border with Afghanistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the Swat Districts, and further south on the continuation of that border in the province of Balochistan, which is the main concern of the Extra Regional Forces (including those from the US, Nato and the International Security Assistance Force) in Afghanistan. Then there is the spread of Taliban presence towards the settled areas of Pakistan and of their extremist ideology.

The ERF countries, while unable to stabilise Afghanistan, claim a right to advise, almost dictate, to Pakistan on how to surmount the challenges that their occupation has caused and to complain that Islamabad should do more.

Pakistan has not been successful in addressing these multiple threats by following this advice.

There have been three recent developments: the reiteration of charges that Pakistan has been playing a duplicitous role, supporting the ERF, yet helping to keep the Taliban insurgency alive; the Swat agreement to restore Sharia; and plans to send 17,000 more American troops to Afghanistan. We can only understand what these developments might bring if we appreciate the underlying realities.

Afghanistan has always been a decentralised mosaic of nationalities and to ignore this fact, rather than building on it, will not help. Thirteen million Pashtuns inhabit the south and south east of Afghanistan on Pakistan's border. After the invasion they have been treated as actual or potential Taliban. Both the Americans and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are seen as anti-Pashtun. The Pashtuns cannot return to their preeminent position, but have to be given their due participatory role.

Pakistanis strongly oppose the occupation of any Muslim land, be it Palestine, Iraq or Kashmir, and feel strongly about Afghanistan. Furthermore, the 22 million Pashtuns in Pakistan are the kindred of their Afghan neighbours. The 2,640 kilometre porous international border with its difficult terrain has traditionally allowed the free movement of tribes. Two hundred thousand Pashtuns cross the border each day.

As long as the Pashtuns in Afghanistan are in conflict, there will be no peace and the Pashtuns in Pakistan will also remain disturbed. Pakistan cannot afford for this to be the case. Whatever does not empower the Pashtuns in Afghanistan cannot be acceptable to Pakistan, and without Pakistan there can be no way out of the Afghan quagmire.

The Americans must analyse the different shades of those whom they generically term Taliban. Most are nationalists reverting to the Afghan characteristic of opposing foreign occupation. Others tied to narcotic and criminal elements, and a minority linked to Al Qaida and other terrorist organisations, have to be fought. The rest should be encouraged to politically reconcile.

A policy dependent on the use of force, with its collateral damage, which has provoked even Karzai to ask that a time limit be set on the occupation, cannot be the answer. It is even less feasible in Pakistan. If the extra American troops apply more brute force the problem will get worse.

If American military commanders are tempted to use the surge as an excuse to cross the border into FATA, this will alienate Pakistan further and unleash an uncontrollable counter surge of tribesmen into Afghanistan.

What must be developed on the Pakistani side, is clarity on how to meet the differing challenges; from tribesmen wishing to cross the border, those wanting to expand their power base internally, Al Qaida, foreign supported Taliban and terrorists, and extremist ideologies. Only an indigenous Pakistani strategy will have a chance of success. Continuation of a policy seen as dictated by America will not gain any public support.

When this strategy is explained to Western friends and critics, and they see that Pakistan is taking on this ownership and responsibility, and progressively implementing it, they should then understand and support it with the massive economic and military assistance required for sustainability. Currently, assistance for FATA and counter insurgency is totally inadequate and represents a very small percentage of the funds allocated for military operations in Afghanistan.

In Pakistan, there is no "one size fits all" solution. The Taliban in Swat are different from those around Peshawar or the foreign funded Taliban in Bajaur. Within the country, people have the right to their own beliefs and way of life as long as they do not impose it on others, or oppose the writ of the state. Different situations will require different responses. Hence, it would be premature to criticise the nascent Swat agreement. The British never integrated the tribal areas and it is the fault of successive administrations that they did not do so either for the past 61 years. One has to deal with the situation as it is, not as one would like it to be. If the agreement does not deliver, it will be dropped.

Some situations and key individuals will require political accommodation, or financial inducements. That is what the British Army did in Mousa Qila in Afghanistan and what the US and the UK had to do in Iraq.

Others will have to be met by military force, and by targeting recalcitrant individuals. That is what counter insurgency is about. Pakistan hopes for a peaceful and stable Afghanistan in which the Pashtuns are politically and otherwise well integrated, for the over two million Afghan refugees to return home and for the country to no longer be used by India or any other quarter as an excuse to attack Pakistan.

A democratically, economically and militarily strong and confident Pakistan is vital to stabilise not only Afghanistan, but also the region.

Conversely, any attempt to destabilise Pakistan by India, or by the ERF troops, will have a counter-productive effect. America should tailor its expectations and core objectives in Afghanistan and work on a political and military exit strategy, just as it has done in Iraq.

Ambassador Tariq Osman Hyder is a former Pakistani diplomat.