Pak-Afghan Relations: A CFR Report by esteemed Barnett Rubin

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Daily Times, May 21, 2006
Not all Pakistan machinery ‘on board’ in fighting Taliban
By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: A new report released here quotes American officials as stating privately that “parts of the Pakistani state may not be fully on board” in the fight against the Taliban.

The report published by the Council on Foreign Relations and authored by Barnett A Rubin, who was UN special representative Lakhdar Brahmi’s adviser on Afghanistan and is the author of a number of books on Afghanistan, quotes these American officials as arguing that, given President Pervez Musharraf’s “vulnerability,” Washington should stick to a policy of “public support and private pressure” so as to not destabilise his regime. He argues that this approach rests on the belief that stability in Pakistan depends solely on the military, a “self-serving view” promoted by the latter to their American counterparts for decades.

According to Rubin, the US government must recognise that security in Afghanistan hinges on democratising Pakistan. Military domination of the Pakistani state is the problem, not the solution. Elections will not democratise Pakistan as long as the military continues to control state institutions. The US needs to signal at a high level that it wants to see the withdrawal of military control from Pakistan’s civilian institutions and genuine freedom for political parties. It should support Pakistan’s development by immediately lifting restrictions on Pakistani textile imports into the US, as Pakistani business has a strong economic interest in Afghan stabilisation.

Rubin believes that the Bush administration should insist on the Pakistani government’s full cooperation in fighting the Taliban as part of a larger strategy that offers Pakistan benefits other than military equipment. In this component of the strategy, Washington must push the Pakistani government to arrest Taliban leaders whose locations are provided by US and Afghan intelligence agencies; take aggressive measures to close down the networks supporting suicide bombers; end public recruitment campaigns for the Taliban and pro-Taliban speeches at government institutions, including those by former leaders of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate; close training camps for Taliban and their allies, including camps for Kashmiri guerrillas; and cut off housing and pension benefits to retired military and government personnel engaged in supporting the Taliban.

He writes, “Afghanistan will have to respect legitimate Pakistani concerns about the border and an Indian presence … Afghanistan also should refrain from relations with Pashtun leaders in Pakistan that give the impression that the government represents Pashtuns.”

Rubin believes that the US should help Afghans realise that Islamabad will not respect a border that Kabul does not recognise. “In order to launch a long-term programme to stabilise and develop the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, the United States and the UK should sponsor both official and second-track discussions involving all stakeholders in the border region. These discussions should ultimately aim to create a context in which Afghanistan can recognise an open border, the tribal territories of Pakistan can be integrated into and receive a full range of services from the Pakistani state, and the border area can become a region for cooperative development rather than insecurity, extremism, and antagonism.”