Impact of Trump's Afghan Strategy on Pakistan

[Riaz Haq]

What is US President Donald Trump's new Afghan strategy? What are its key elements? More troops? No deadlines? Partnership with India? More pressure on Pakistan? Is it really "new" or just a rehash of earlier Bush and Obama era strategies?

How will Pakistan respond to pressure? Has similar or greater pressure worked in the past? Is it likely to work this time? Does Trump administration have more or less leverage with Pakistan than Bush and Obama administrations?

What are Pakistan's legitimate security interests in Afghanistan? Why does Pakistan believe India is using the Afghan soil to launch attacks in Pakistan?

What is the way forward in Afghanistan? Can the US military defeat the Afghan Taliban?

What about the emergence of ISIS in Afghanistan? Do Iran and Russia need to be involved in addition to India and Pakistan to stabilize Afghanistan? What will a regional solution look like?

Viewpoint From Overseas host Misbah Azam discusses these questions with special guest United We Reach Chairperson Sabahat Rafiq and regular panelist Riaz Haq (www.riazhaq.com)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAU-88asQU&t=339s



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[Riaz Haq]

Geopolitical revolution as #Pakistan strengthens ties with #China. #CPEC #India #Trump #USA

https://youtu.be/YjRL0JkoSiA via @YouTube

A geopolitical revolution is currently underway in south Asia. With diplomatic relations between the US and Pakistan souring in recent months, Islamabad is inching closer to Beijing. Ties between the two neighbours are set to become even stronger if the multibillion-euro "China Pakistan Economic Corridor" goes ahead as planned. But who stands to benefit the most? Our correspondents in Pakistan report.

[Riaz Haq]

After #Trump’s bluster, #US officials busy in damage control with #Pakistan on #AfghanStrategy. #Afghanistan

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1497013/trumps-bluster-us-hints-possib...

US President Donald Trump’s criticism of Islamabad for America’s military failure in Afghanistan has ruffled Pakistan’s feathers. The country’s top civil leadership and military commanders snubbed Trump’s allegations with one voice amid street protests against the American leader in different towns and cities of the country.

The blistering reaction from Pakistan has apparently prompted the American officialdom to pacify the frayed tempers. The Trump administration is learnt to have approached Pakistan to allay concerns and convey a possible change in policy. “The two countries are expected to engage at a top level to talk out the contentious points,” a source told Daily Express.

US Ambassador in Islamabad David Hale has swung into action for damage control exercise. He met National Security Adviser Lt Gen (retd) Nasser Khan Janjua on Thursday to clarify that that President Donald Trump had not blamed Pakistan for the failure in Afghanistan.

He also attempted to assuage rampant fears in the Pakistani officialdom on an enhanced role that Trump’s new strategy envisages for India in Afghanistan. Lt Gen (retd) Janjua told the US envoy that creation of competitiveness in a campaign and alliance is counter-productive. “We should not go that way,” he cautioned.

Highly credible sources told Daily Express that the US administration has started poring over how to tweak the Afghan policy in order to pacify resentment in Pakistan and address the country’s objections. And the same has been conveyed to Islamabad through diplomatic channels.

Two key global players China and Russia have already rejected Trump’s strategy for Afghanistan and beyond and opposed the American move to pile up pressure on Islamabad. Pakistani officialdom is clear that the country can bank upon Beijing and Moscow instead of Washington.

Trump’s policy has clearly divided the stakeholders in two blocs – one comprising Pakistan, China, Russia and Iran; and the other comprising the United States and India. More countries are expected to join the first alliance, according to sources.

Officials at the Foreign Office say Pakistan is convinced that Trump’s new strategy has failed to garner support in the international community.

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan: A slice of #China in #Islamabad. Growing Chinese footprint. #CPEC @AJEnglish

Restaurants, guesthouses and supermarkets are opening to cater for the influx of Chinese fuelled by the CPEC.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/08/pakistan-slice-ch...

"This year is, as we call it, the year of early harvest," says Lijian Zhao, China's deputy ambassador to Pakistan. "The ultimate goal is to help Pakistan to develop the economy … to help to accelerate the industrialisation process."

The 43 projects that directly fall under the CPEC banner have seen a tripling of the number of Chinese nationals resident in Pakistan to more than 30,000, according to the Chinese embassy in Islamabad. In addition, Reuters reported, that more than 71,000 Chinese nationals visited on short-term visas last year.

As more Chinese engineers, managers and workers flood into the country, Pakistan has seen a mushrooming of supermarkets, guesthouses and other businesses catering specifically to Chinese needs.

Zhao, the Chinese deputy ambassador, says he's a regular visitor to the new Chinese grocery stores, stocking up on traditional ingredients that are just not available anywhere else in the South Asian country.

"I go for those markets. [Even the embassy] cannot bring everything from China," he says.

The aptly named Firstop (a portmanteau of 'First Stop') is one of the largest such stores in Islamabad. The supermarket's shelves are lined with products manufactured in China: everything from noodles to hardhat construction helmets, sea kelp to stationery, spice mixes to industrial meat grinders.

As a Chinese migrant moving to Islamabad, whether you are looking for a quick meal or to procure the equipment and supplies to set up your own restaurant, it looks like Firstop has got you covered. Most of the demand, though, seems to be for food - both ready-made and ingredients - that are not available in typical Pakistani grocery stores, says Zhang Song, a store manager.

"Mostly the food and other seasonings are imported from China," says Song, in broken English. "Only [the cooking] oil is from Pakistan. Others all from China."

Song, a 29-year-old originally from He Bei province in China, says he moved to Pakistan two years ago to take advantage of the boom in businesses aimed at Chinese citizens.

"Most customers are Chinese people," he says.

Pakistanis, he says, seem to be fond of making Chinese food, but the South Asian version of Chinese food - heavy on garlic, ginger and tomatoes - does not necessarily fit the bill of actual Chinese fare.

"[Traditional] Chinese food is too much different from Pakistani food," he says, smiling.

At the Ni Hao Cash & Carry, a few kilometres away, the scene is much the same. The small store is crammed with row upon row of products labelled in Chinese, with an array of spices arranged in open containers near the back wall.

"A lot of [Pakistanis] walk in and are shocked … they see everything in Chinese here, and wonder perhaps if they've arrived in Beijing," says Rizwan Hassan, a manager at the store.

Hassan and business partner Eraj Raza have been working with Chinese nationals on infrastructure projects for the last seven years, and set up this store about six months ago.

"We built the store because we saw CPEC, and all the companies coming in," says Raza. "Lots of investors are coming in. People are opening restaurants, guesthouses, or other services."

About 90 percent of their customers, says Raza, are Chinese, with the rest made up mostly of Koreans, Thais and other East Asian visitors. Ni Hao also operates another store in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and commercial capital, as well as smaller outlets at more than half a dozen CPEC project sites.

[Riaz Haq]

#Indian Journalist Karan Thapar: #Trump’s threats will mean little to #Pakistan. #AfghanStrategy via @htTweets

http://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/donald-trump-s-threats-will-m...


For a start, this won’t be the first time America has threatened to cut aid to Pakistan. In fact, there are at least two occasions in the past when it actually did but that failed to alter Islamabad’s behaviour.

American aid first picked up in the mid-1950s, after Pakistan joined US-led military alliances, touching $3 billion in 1963 and then fell to virtually zero in 1980, in the wake of American concerns about Islamabad’s nuclear weapons programme. However, Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions did not change and this was, therefore, the first time an aid cut didn’t work.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan changed everything and US aid was restored. It was virtually one billion right through the ’80s. But in the 1990s, after the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan and George Bush the elder’s refusal to certify Pakistan did not possess nuclear weapons, American aid collapsed. But, again, Pakistani behaviour was unaffected.

Once again, 9/11 altered everything. Since then Pakistan has received more than $30 billion. But are things likely to be different this time?

No and for one simple reason. America’s Afghanistan involvement reinforces US dependence on Pakistan for its supply lines. As American troop levels in Afghanistan surge Pakistan’s leverage over Washington will simultaneously grow. In these circumstances it’s hard to see Trump cut US aid.


However, for argument’s sake, let’s suppose Trump is determined to act. In that event how much will a reduction in US aid affect Pakistan? Last year remittances from Pakistani expatriate workers totalled $19.8 billion. In comparison, the well-informed Congressional Research Service estimates that US aid amounted to $1.098 billion.

No wonder Pakistan’s army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, responded dismissively to the possibility that Trump could cut financial support. “We are not looking for any material or financial assistance from the USA,” he said. Indeed, it’s quite possible his country could carry on comfortably without it.

The same is also increasingly true of the arms and weaponry Pakistan acquires from America. No doubt the United States has supplied F16 fighter planes, P3 Orion aircraft and AH-IF Cobra helicopters but, increasingly, a preponderant proportion of Pakistani arms are Chinese made. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute believes that nearly 70% of its military supplies between 2012 and 2016 came from China. Once again, US leverage has diminished.

America, of course, has enormous kinetic power which it could unleash. Washington could directly target jihadi bases by using its drones or, even, some repeat of the strategy to take out Osama bin Laden. But this would infuriate the Pakistani army and inflame public opinion. That’s why it’s unlikely to happen while US involvement in Afghanistan is dependent upon Pakistani supply-lines.

Finally, Trump had nothing specific to say about Pakistani terror groups, like the Lashkar and Jaish, which target India. At best, they were covered generically. If he is serious about reforming this prodigal ally we should also question his silence on this front.

[Riaz Haq]

#China, #Pakistan take swipes at #Trump's #Afghan policy. #AfghanStrategy #Afghanistan

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article171957252...

The top diplomats from China and Pakistan took swipes at President Donald Trump's newly unveiled Afghanistan policy on Friday as they called for new talks with the Taliban to resolve the 16-year conflict.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing stood firmly behind its "ironclad friend" Pakistan, even though "some countries" did not give Islamabad the credit it deserved in fighting terrorism, a pointed reference to the U.S.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif's first trip abroad to Beijing this week appeared to highlight how ties between the two all-weather allies have grown even closer while Pakistan's critical relationship with the U.S. is disintegrating amid mutual recriminations and distrust.

Wang and Asif announced that China, Pakistan and Afghanistan will hold a new series of three-way talks later this year in China to push forward settlement negotiations with the Taliban while the U.S. doubles down on its military campaign.

Trump infuriated Pakistan last month when he accused Islamabad of providing extremists safe haven and threatened to withhold military aid. He further raised alarms in Pakistan when he raised the prospect of recruiting archrival India into the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials said this week that $225 million in military aid for Pakistan have been suspended while about 3,500 additional troops will head to Afghanistan to reverse the Taliban's battleground advances and gain leverage in negotiations.

"It's our firm view that there is no military solution in Afghanistan, the focus should be on a politically negotiated settlement," Asif told reporters in Beijing. "China is playing a very constructive role in this regard."

Pakistan has repeatedly rejected U.S. accusations that it is abetting groups like the Taliban-linked Haqqani Network, a position that China has backed.

"The government and people of Pakistan have made huge sacrifices in the fight against terror for everyone to see and the international community should recognize that," Wang said.

The two ministers presented a closely unified front just days after China handed Pakistan an unexpected diplomatic setback at the BRICS economic summit in Xiamen. On Monday, China joined several nations to declare the Pakistan-based militant groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad as terrorist organizations, in a move that was praised by India and the U.S.

Asif did not address the terror designation on Friday but was quoted by Pakistani media before arriving in Beijing as saying that it should not jeopardize bilateral ties. Rather, Pakistan should put its "house in order," he said.

[Riaz Haq]

In the epilogue "Unintended Consequences" of "Charlie Wilson's War" on page 522, the author George Crile explains the emergence of the Taliban and Osama bi Laden as follows:

" By the end of 1993, the six-year-old Cross Border Humanitarian Aid Program--the one sustained U.S. effort to create an infrastructure and blueprint or the rebuilding of Afghanistan---was cut off....There were no roads, no schools, just a destroyed country--and the United States was washing its hands of any responsibility. It was in this vacuum that the Taliban and Osama bin Laden would emerge as the dominant players."

https://books.google.com/books?id=nTtnBA1gbTcC&pg=PA483&dq=...

[Riaz Haq]

US weighs dropping Pakistan as an ally

Trump administration accuses country of housing militants as relations hit new low

https://www.ft.com/content/6a107732-99f9-11e7-b83c-9588e51488a0


The Trump administration is considering dropping Pakistan as an ally as it examines tough measures to quell more than 20 terrorist groups it says are based in the country.

Officials familiar with the Pakistan prong of Washington’s new “AfPak” strategy — which involves an open-ended commitment in Afghanistan and praise for India — say it has yet to be fleshed out. But they have plenty of levers.

President Donald Trump last month promised to get tough on Pakistan, accusing it of “housing the very terrorists that we are fighting”. It was the most public breach yet in an often rocky relationship.

“No US president has come out on American national television and said such things about Pakistan,” said Husain Haqqani, former Pakistan ambassador to the US.

“US policymakers are at the end of their tethers about what they see as Pakistan not helping them while promising to help them.”

The administration has already put $255m in military aid on hold after Mr Trump announced the policy shift. It is eyeing an escalating series of threats, which include cutting some civilian aid, conducting unilateral drone strikes on Pakistani soil and imposing travel bans on suspect officers of the ISI, the country’s intelligence agency. It could also revoke Pakistan’s status as a major non-Nato ally or designate it a state sponsor of terrorism.

The latter options would limit weapons sales and probably affect billions of dollars in IMF and World Bank loans, along with access to global finance.

“Thinking of Pakistan as an ally will continue to create problems for the next administration as it did for the last one,” Lisa Curtis, former CIA analyst who now leads South Asia policy in the National Security Council, wrote in a joint report with Mr Haqqani earlier this year.

Ms Curtis, who works closely with the state department, believes the Obama administration “erred” by relying on personal ties and aid packages to try to change Pakistan’s behaviour.

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Relations are expected to take a further blow from US efforts to forge closer ties with rival India. “We need to respect and trust India — they have not leaked nuclear secrets or shared sensitive nuclear technology with rogue countries,” said Tim Roemer, former US ambassador to India, a reference to Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation.

Pakistan prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said this week it is “unfair” to blame his country for troubles in Afghanistan, adding that the US should have greater respect for its efforts to combat militancy.

Ryan Crocker, former US ambassador to Pakistan in the wake of 9/11, says Pakistan resents the wild oscillations in support from the US.

“They went from our most allied of allies to our most sanctioned of sanctioned,” he said, recalling that the US worked with Pakistan to defeat Soviet Russia during the 1980s Afghanistan invasion but, once it had won, cut aid and imposed sanctions over its emergent nuclear programme.

“Their narrative about us is here today, gone tomorrow and it has deeply affected their strategic thinking.”

[Riaz Haq]

Why Nelson Mandela was on a terrorism watch list in 2008
By Caitlin Dewey December 7, 2013 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/12/07/why-nelso...

Nelson Mandela is being remembered across the world (and political spectrum) for his heroic, life-long battle against apartheid and injustice in South Africa. But with all the accolades being thrown around, it’s easy to forget that the U.S., in particular, hasn’t always had such a friendly relationship with Mandela -- and that in fact, as late as 2008, the Nobel Prize winner and former president was still on the U.S. terrorism watch list.
The sticking point was, in Mandela’s case, ideological. In the mid-'80s, as activists in South Africa and around the world began to agitate in earnest for Mandela’s release, the Reagan administration still saw communism as one of its primary enemies -- and defeating communism as one of its foremost foreign policy goals. That complicated the administration’s take on South Africa.

The apartheid regime, it turns out, had supported the U.S. during the Cold War and had worked closely with both the Reagan and Nixon administrations to limit Soviet influence in the region, as Sam Kleiner chronicled in Foreign Policy last July.

Meanwhile, the African National Congress, which Mandela chaired, was peppered with members of the South African Communist Party. Even worse in the eyes of the Reagan Administration was the ANC’s apparent friendliness toward Moscow: The ANC’s secretary general, Alfred Nzo, bore greetings to the Soviet communist party congress in 1986. That was enough to inspire Reagan to accuse the ANC of encouraging communism in a 1986 policy speech, and to rule that South Africa had no obligation to negotiate with a group bent on “creating a communist state.”

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan says it needs no financial assistance from #US. #USAID #Trump #Afghanistan

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1216696/world

Pakistan’s Foreign Office said on Saturday that the country needs no financial assistance from the US, which it accuses of ignoring Pakistan’s effective operations in the war on terror.
“We do not need any financial assistance from the United States. We do not care about it. If America wants to stop it, we will loudly say go ahead,” Dr. Mohammad Faisal, spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Office, told Arab News in an interview.
“Pakistan receives a paltry amount in terms of Coalition Support Fund from the US, and if the Trump administration withholds it, it will hardly make any difference to a country of 207 million people,” he said.
The Coalition Support Fund is a reimbursement to Pakistan from the US of expenses incurred in operations against militants and compensation for logistical facilities made available to the coalition forces operating in Afghanistan.
As relations between the US and Pakistan have soured in recent months, the Trump administration, according to a New York Times report, is contemplating withholding $255 million in aid to Pakistan as “a show of dissatisfaction with Pakistan’s broader intransigence toward confronting the terrorist networks that operate there.”
“We will insist that Pakistan take decisive action against militant and terrorist groups operating from its soil,” the US said in its National Security Strategy announced by President Donald Trump on Dec. 18.
“The United States continues to face threats from transnational terrorists and militants operating from within Pakistan,” it said. “We will press Pakistan to intensify its counterterrorism efforts, since no partnership can survive a country’s support for militants and terrorists who target a partner’s own service members and officials.”
Dr. Mohammad Faisal, however, vehemently rejects the US allegations, saying that Pakistan’s security forces have undertaken indiscriminate and effective operations against terrorism and extremism in recent years.
“Pakistan is a more stable, peaceful and secure country after these operations,” he said. “We have repeatedly informed the US that no organized structure of any terrorist outfit exists in Pakistan.”
He advised the US to focus on factors responsible for exponential increase in drug production, expansion of ungoverned spaces, breakdown of governance and letting Daesh gain a foothold in Afghanistan instead of pressuring Pakistan to do more.
“We remain committed to protect our sovereignty, territorial integrity and national interest determined by the people of Pakistan,” he said.
Relations between Pakistan and the US soured after President Donald Trump accused the country of providing a “safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror” while launching the US strategy for Afghanistan and South Asia on Aug. 21.
Air Marshal (retd) Shahid Latif told Arab News that the US has been blaming Pakistan for its failure in the war against terror in Afghanistan and is threatening Pakistan with dire consequences — action that is unbecoming of an ally such as the US.
“We will do no more to support the United States in our region,” he said while fully endorsing Pakistan’s attitude toward the US.
“The Trump administration has been threatening Pakistan instead of acknowledging our tremendous sacrifices in the war against terror and this is totally unacceptable to us,” he said.
Ayaz Wazir, a former diplomat, told Arab News that Pakistan is a sovereign country and the Trump administration cannot cow it down through threats of unilateral actions against militants and stopping of financial aid.
“The US has totally failed in restoring law and order in Afghanistan and it wants to make Pakistan a scapegoat by accusing it of harboring militants on its soil,” he said. “Around 22 terrorist outfits including Daesh are still active in Afghanistan despite the presence of the US troops since 2001.”

[Riaz Haq]

How the #heroin #Narco #trade explains the #US-#UK failure in #Afghanistan. #Washington’s massive military juggernaut has been stopped in its steel tracks by a small pink flower – the opium poppy. #Taliban #Trump #Pakistan

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/09/how-the-heroin-trade-e...

After fighting the longest war in its history, the US stands at the brink of defeat in Afghanistan. How could this be possible? How could the world’s sole superpower have battled continuously for more than 16 years – deploying more than 100,000 troops at the conflict’s peak, sacrificing the lives of nearly 2,300 soldiers, spending more than $1tn (£740bn) on its military operations, lavishing a record $100bn more on “nation-building”, helping fund and train an army of 350,000 Afghan allies – and still not be able to pacify one of the world’s most impoverished nations? So dismal is the prospect of stability in Afghanistan that, in 2016, the Obama White House cancelled a planned withdrawal of its forces, ordering more than 8,000 troops to remain in the country indefinitely.

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Despite almost continuous combat since the invasion of October 2001, pacification efforts have failed to curtail the Taliban insurgency, largely because the US simply could not control the swelling surplus from the country’s heroin trade. Its opium production surged from around 180 tonnes in 2001 to more than 3,000 tonnes a year after the invasion, and to more than 8,000 by 2007. Every spring, the opium harvest fills the Taliban’s coffers once again, funding wages for a new crop of guerrilla fighters.

At each stage in its tragic, tumultuous history over the past 40 years – the covert war of the 1980s, the civil war of the 90s and its post-2001 occupation – opium has played a central role in shaping the country’s destiny. In one of history’s bitter ironies, Afghanistan’s unique ecology converged with American military technology to transform this remote, landlocked nation into the world’s first true narco-state – a country where illicit drugs dominate the economy, define political choices and determine the fate of foreign interventions.

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The failure of America’s intervention in Afghanistan offers broader insight into the limits to its global power. The persistence of both opium cultivation and the Taliban insurgency suggest the degree to which the policies that Washington has imposed upon Afghanistan since 2001 have reached a dead end. For most people worldwide, economic activity, the production and exchange of goods, is the prime point of contact with their government. When, however, a country’s most significant commodity is illegal, then political loyalties naturally shift to the economic networks that move that product safely and secretly from fields to foreign markets, providing protection, finance and employment at every stage. “The narcotics trade poisons the Afghan financial sector and fuels a growing illicit economy,” John Sopko explained in 2014. “This, in turn, undermines the Afghan state’s legitimacy by stoking corruption, nourishing criminal networks and providing significant financial support to the Taliban and other insurgent groups.”