Author: Susan B. Glasser and Kamran
Khan
Publication: Washington Post
Date: November 21, 2001
'Strategic Debacle' Leaves Islamabad
With Little Influence Over Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 20 --
More than a week after the Taliban retreat from the Afghan capital of Kabul
and other cities, Pakistan is reeling from the rout of the strict Islamic
militia it helped create.
Pakistan remains the only country
in the world that still recognizes the Taliban and is unwilling to sever
those ties. Pakistan also is not on speaking terms with the Northern Alliance,
which now controls most of Afghanistan.
According to high-ranking political,
military and diplomatic officials, Pakistan has seen its influence in Afghanistan
evaporate as the future of the country is being plotted by the United Nations
and the Northern Alliance, among others. Unable to wield power in Afghan
affairs, Pakistan fears that it is now sandwiched between two hostile countries:
India to the east and Afghanistan to the west. Pakistan's military is on
high alert, fearing trouble and instability along the 1,500-mile border
it shares with Afghanistan.
Although Pakistan enlisted as a
key ally in the U.S.-led coalition to oust the Taliban after the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks, even top officials in President Pervez Musharraf's
government have expressed alarm in recent days at the outcome of the coalition's
efforts. Television screens here are flashing pictures of angry Afghans
shouting "Death to Pakistan!" and Pakistan's regional rivals are advising
the new rulers of Kabul. One senior Pakistani Foreign Ministry official
pronounced his country's policy "a strategic debacle."
A top military official called the
situation a "quagmire" for Pakistan, while several other senior government
figures spoke bitterly in interviews of what they called a U.S. promise
to keep the Northern Alliance out of Kabul -- a promise that was not kept.
The Northern Alliance, made up of
Tajik, Uzbek and other ethnic groups in the northern part of Afghanistan,
grew out of the mujaheddin who fought the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
After the Soviet pullout, the guerrillas fell into a civil war. Pakistan
nurtured and supported the Taliban, whose members are mostly from the large
Pashtun ethnic group in the south, in the mid-1990s. Pakistani officials
saw the Taliban as a counterweight to the fractious, chaotic rule from
1992 to 1996 of the Kabul government, whose members are now largely back
in control of the country.
Despite the enmity, Pakistan has
signaled a willingness to open backdoor communications with the Northern
Alliance through Turkey and Iran, both of which supported the alliance
during its five-year battle to oust the Taliban. The U.S. ambassador to
Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin, said in an interview that "yes, they are reaching
out to the Northern Alliance."
Pakistani sources said top Foreign
Ministry officials have also told Chamberlin they would welcome any U.S.
efforts to help bridge the gap. Musharraf had talks with Iranian officials
in Tehran earlier this month on his way to the United Nations, and then
met with President Mohammad Khatami in New York. An Iranian official visited
Musharraf in Islamabad last week. Musharraf also met with Turkish Prime
Minister Bulent Ecevit in Istanbul last week.
Officially, Pakistan supports the
creation of a "broad-based, multi-ethnic government" for Afghanistan and
says the Northern Alliance occupation of Kabul should be replaced by an
international peacekeeping force.
But Pakistan's diplomatic contortions
in recent days suggest how tentative and confused the government's policy
has become.
On Monday, Foreign Minister Abdus
Sattar told reporters that Pakistan would allow the Taliban's embassy here
to remain open. But he also offered this confusing formula: Pakistan has
not decided on the "de-recognition of the Taliban government," but that
"does not mean that we continue to recognize it." Today, the Foreign Ministry
spokesman announced the closure of two remaining Taliban consulates in
the cities of Peshawar and Quetta, while insisting there have been no direct
contacts between Islamabad and the Northern Alliance.
On Monday, Musharraf proclaimed
vindication for his decision to join the U.S.-led anti-terrorism coalition.
Pakistan is now on the world's "center stage," he told local leaders. "Our
policy will prove useful for the country, and everyone will benefit from
it," he said.
But Musharraf's government was unprepared
for the consequences of ousting the Taliban, according to several senior
government officials and political analysts here. A week after the Taliban
fled major cities in Afghanistan, a new policy toward Afghanistan has yet
to emerge.
"Pakistan has an important role
to play in shaping the future of Afghanistan, but we are losing that role
by virtue of indecision," said Mushahid Hussain, a member of former prime
minister Nawaz Sharif's cabinet, now a commentator here. "We should recognize
the new realities in the region, but instead our policy is reactive. Decisions
are being made on the battlefield and not around the conference table."
A senior Foreign Ministry official
said: "The sheer pace of events jolted each one of us here last week. It
seemed that Taliban settled scores with Pakistan by offering Kabul to the
Northern Alliance on a silver platter. The Taliban knew how much Islamabad
would hate to see Northern Alliance leaders taking full control of the
Afghan capital."
"The very fact that people such
as Abdullah and General Fahim have assumed power in Kabul is enough to
push Pakistan into a strategic quagmire," added a senior Pakistani military
official, referring to the Northern Alliance's foreign minister and top
military leader. "To our displeasure, the Northern Alliance will now remain
a grim reality in Kabul."
Several top officials in Musharraf's
government privately questioned whether the Bush administration had tried
hard enough to prevent the Northern Alliance from taking Kabul.
"The U.S. has rewarded its most
formidable ally by allowing its sworn enemies to capture the seat of power
in Afghanistan," said another senior military officer, who added pointedly,
"What actually happened in Kabul was opposite to what President Bush had
promised to General Musharraf."
Nonetheless, critics also point
to the failure of Pakistan's own Afghanistan policy, which for years backed
the Taliban militia.
"The Americans never promised us
a rose garden. We helped the Americans to oust the Taliban, so we shouldn't
be surprised when the Taliban's principal opponents -- that is, the Northern
Alliance -- are in a better position," Hussain said. "We should stop carping
about it. We should recognize that the government in Afghanistan has changed,
and we helped change the status quo."
But so far, Pakistan has been unable
to even withdraw diplomatic recognition from the Taliban. "It's time,"
said Chamberlin, the U.S. ambassador. "This is the Taliban really on the
skids, and it's my personal view that they should definitively sever their
relationship with the Taliban. At this point, it's really a pro forma thing."
While the political situation remains
muddled, the Taliban's collapse has also reshaped Pakistan's military strategy,
according to interviews with several top officials.
The current crisis along the Pakistan-Afghanistan
border is "most unique in nature," as one official put it, because never
before has the security situation -- not even during the Soviet occupation
from 1979 to 1989 -- warranted extensive deployment of army regulars, heavy
artillery and tanks near the Afghan border.
But now, officials said, about 40,000
regular troops of the Pakistani army, 65,000 paramilitary troops and 35,000
frontier police and conscripts have been put on the highest alert to confront
any emergency near the border.
"Before yesterday, Pakistan's military
strategy and most doctrines almost exclusively focused on an Indian threat
to Pakistan's security," a senior official said. "The normal security situation
on the western borders allowed us to allocate most of our military resources
to the eastern borders."
Correspondent John Ward Anderson
in Istanbul contributed to this report.
