Can Obama's Af-Pak strategy succeed?
A possibility exists that despite the struggle against the al-Qaeda in Afghanistan a day may come when the US will be faced with "Vietnam syndrome" (totally discounted by President Obama in his West Point speech on December 1 on grounds of legitimacy of the Afghan war given by the international community. Unlike Vietnam, the US is not facing a broad based insurgency, and unlike Vietnam Americans were viciously attacked in the US homeland from Afghanistan).
The American people may get tired of young men and women being killed in a war in a far flung area that had for centuries never seen anything remotely liberal, progressive or modern. Hamid Karzai's controversial re-election and Afghanistan's lack of resources to attract Western entrepreneurs would discourage the American soldiers from bunkering down in a God forsaken land.
Professor Rory Stewart, in his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that Obama's strategy of disrupting, dismantling and defeating al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, preventing its capacity to threaten America and its allies in the future, and building a stable government in Afghanistan was impossible because, he thought, it was highly unlikely that the US would be able to build a legitimate state in Afghanistan or defeat the Taliban.
This view contradicts Obama's belief that US "security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicentre of violent extremism practiced by al-Qaeda. And the stakes are even higher within a nuclear armed Pakistan because we know that al-Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons and we have every reason to believe that they would use them."
The question, however, remains whether Obama's Af-Pak strategy will succeed, or indeed if such a policy is at all necessary to safeguard US national interest. One has to consider that since the birth of Pakistan was on religious ground and successive regimes in that country believed that Pakistan was the place of last resort for "distressed Muslims" Islamisation of Pakistan is inevitable, and perhaps this will lead to Talibisation or to a form of extremist Islamic rule.
Under this scenario, Pakistan will pose a threat to international peace and security and become a haven for the Taliban. The possibility of the danger of nuclear weapons in Pakistan falling into wrong hands was extensively explored by Seymour Hirsch in The New Yorker ("In an unstable Pakistan can nuclear warheads be kept safe?"16.11.09. He revealed President Obama's concern over the fragility of the Pak civilian government and the US's concern of transfer of some nuclear assets, not to the Taliban but to extremists in the Pakistan military establishment, through a coup d'etat.
The question would arise as to what should be done even if nuclear Pakistan were to be Talibanised. Should the world repeat Bush's doctrine of preemption with predictable disaster, or remain satisfied with a 21st century version of Chamberlain's Munich Agreement that Hitler reportedly asked Von Ribbentrop to tear up as Chamberlain left for Britain? Since Pakistan is neither Afghanistan nor Saddam Hussein's Iraq it cannot be treated lightly. Therefore, even if Pakistan were to turn to Islamic extremism the world has to tread softly with a combination of hard and soft power.
A Stanley Foundation report points out that "the NPT was never designed to deal with the rising danger of nuclear terrorism,and Al Qaeda has stated that obtaining nuclear weapons is a priority goal. Terrorist organisations have proven that they can operate globally, plan quietly, and inflict devastating damage. Pakistan has been called the most dangerous nuclear state in the world (and) terrorist activity in that country, especially attacks on military personnel and the Rawalpindi headquarters, and in Afghanistan, provides good reason for continuing concern."
The situation becomes serious in the light of a report that Pakistan faces a "demographic disaster" if its leaders fail to invest in a youth population that is disturbingly cynical about democracy. Half of Pakistan's population is less than 20 of age, with two-thirds still to reach their 30th birthday. But they are deeply divided about how the country should be run. Only a third believes that democracy is the best system of governance, one third supports Sharia law, while 7 percent think that dictatorship is a good idea. This inconsonance among the Pakistanis about the war being waged against the al-Qaeda is likely to affect its outcome.
In the ultimate analysis, it is difficult to foresee a victory in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the sense of obliteration of the global terrorist threat. It is difficult to foresee Afghan warlords abjuring poppy cultivation and replacing it with any other cash crop that will nearly compensate their age old earning, as it is to see in Pakistan a civilian government controlling the army and the general people convinced of the moral imperative of the Nato war against the Taliban. This war would be difficult to win.
So the West, and the US in particular, has to strengthen and rely on Homeland Security, give assistance to eradicate poverty in the Muslim world and pressurise their leaders to secularise the education system and pluralise their governance system, while the countries of South Asia, particularly the Muslim majority ones, have to remain ever vigilant against Taliban and Taliban-like terrorists taking roots or getting sustenance within their territorial boundaries.
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