India's Wikileaks riddle

Geopolitical game of the US

The highly-combustible Indian imagination has caught fire over the Wikileaks disclosures regarding the curious methods of the Pakistani military in pretending to be the United States’ ally and immensely benefiting out the alliance while at the same time keeping its dalliance with the Taliban going.

But the intriguing part is what the US President Barack Obama said, namely, that Wikileaks hasn’t brought anything new to the table. Which means, Washington knew all along since 2004 how the smart Pakistani generals operate — especially the then chief of Pakistan’s ISI by the name Pervez Kayani — and worse still, kept defraying the latter’s ‘expense account.’

Something obviously doesn’t gel, does it? The Indian strategic community has rushed to judgement that all this happened because the US is in desperate hurry to ‘scoot,’ as a former chief of the Research Analysis Wing told me. But then, that is appalling naivety. Wikileaks disclosures pertain to the period of the second term of the George W Bush presidency when Washington was so snooty about the war that it was utterly convinced it was winning.

No one was talking about an exit strategy at that point in time that Wikileaks disclosures pertain to. The fact of the matter is that the US and the Pakistani generals have been locked into a deathly dance from Day 1 of the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Few will recollect that the first time the US conceded Pakistan’s special interests in Afghanistan was after a visit by the then US secretary of state Colin Powell to Islamabad in mid-October 2001.

Maybe the Indian establishment which conferred the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize on Afghan president Hamid Karzai was innocent — and maybe it still is in a blissful state of innocence — but the US administration and ISI certainly weren’t — that but for the al-Qaeda strike on 9/11 Karzai was all set to be appointed as the Taliban government’s official representative in Washington.

In short, Washington’s decision to pitchfork Karzai into power as the head of the interim government in Kabul after the Taliban regime’s ouster itself was a calibrated move. So indeed was the appointment of Zalmay Khalilzad who used to be a fervent advocate of the Taliban in Washington in the late 1990s, as the US ambassador in Kabul during the formative period that witnessed the disarray of the Northern Alliance — and predictably, the revival of the Taliban.

To go back a little bit more, does anyone recollect today that for a split-moment even the then National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra expressed his sense of exasperation that Washington allowed Pakistani aircraft to evacuate under the very nose of the US Special Forces the Taliban contingents that were besieged by the Northern Alliance forces in the Kunduz region in northern Afghanistan in October 2001?

Combined effort

That is to say, the contrived nature of the ‘ouster’ of the Taliban regime in Kabul by the US in 2001 was never really in doubt. It is plain common sense that the so-called international community should have taken help from all quarters that were willing to help vanquish the al-Qaeda and its Taliban affiliates from Afghanistan. On the contrary, the US consistently turned down, ignored or has been ambivalent about the role regional countries like Russia, Iran and India were willing to play.

Bush was obsessive that Pakistan had to be the US’ privileged partner — ‘non-Nato ally’ — in this war. And, furthermore, let us not forget that it was Musharraf who arranged Karzai’s election victory in 2004 (upon Bush’s request), by delivering the votes of the 3-million strong Afghan refugee community living in Pakistan.

How do these various strands add up? One, the US is not quite the bumbling superpower at the mercy of the Pakistani generals, as the Indian strategic community estimates. Plainly put, this has been a symbiotic relationship. Two, the US never shared the Indians’ one-dimensional view of the Taliban as representing the forces of darkness. The US played a seminal role in the immaculate conception of the Taliban; its strategies were geopolitical and it visualised the Taliban as a potent instrument for bringing about ‘regime change’ in Central Asia (including Xinjiang).

Three, the US is not terrified of the Taliban. On the contrary, the Taliban leaders willingly accepted funding by US oil companies in the past and there is no reason why they — including the Haqqanis — shouldn’t do so again. Fourth, the core issue is that Taliban should be somehow ‘finessed’ to play its geopolictical role — something which Washington is convinced only the Pakistani generals can do.

Fifth, the Nato’s future is involved as well as the US’ trans-Atlantic leadership itself and the US knows that the rising China and the resurgent Russia will never allow the American military presence to be re-established in the strategic Central Asian region if the US forces pack up and leave Afghanistan for good.

A final question: Will the Taliban agree to a Status of Forces Agreement with Nato? Yes, it will — provided the US is willing to reciprocate by accommodating the Taliban’s and its mentor’s interests as well. Let us remember that the Taliban was always willing to dump al-Qaeda provided the US accorded diplomatic recognition to its regime in Kabul.
Therefore, what the Wikileaks reveal is quintessentially that the 3-way US-Pakistan-Taliban equation that has been maturing over time may well be progressing to its final stage.

(The writer is a former diplomat)