Salient features of Obama’s new strategy

Col Ghulam Sarwar (R)

A lot of intellectual effort seems to have gone into the preparation of Barack Obama's new strategy. This study, as spelt out by him, envisages more troops and more money for Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is widely hailed in most of the Western capitals and is rated as realistic and achievable. It will be recalled that in response to 9/11 attack, former President, George B.Bush, had formulated his own policy for this region. His policy was primarily based on steadily increasing the number of American and NATO troops in Afghanistan and pumping more money for rebuilding the infrastructure and the institutions of the war ravaged Afghanistan. Although all major issues have been touched in the recently launched new policy, Afghanistan's nation -building aspect, has surprisingly been ignored.

Instead, greater emphasis has been laid on deploying more troops. As such, as many as 21,000 more US troops are being deployed to confront and then destroy Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Incidentally, to meet this challenge, top military commander, General David Mckiernam, had asked for 30,000 additional troops. It was expected that the US President would also order deployment of 10,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan. Incidentally, 38,000 American soldiers are already deployed in Afghanistan, and if sanctioning of 30,000 more troops, is agreed to, the number would reach 68,000 by the end of the year. Additionally, there are 32,000 other foreign forces, fighting under NATO command and President Obama is planning to seek more troops from the allied countries. If this demand is agreed to, the number of US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan, would swell 100,000 and the number of NATO and allied forces will get closer to the level of 1,20,000. With this force at their command, the US and its allies, have been fighting for about eight years.

However, Victory is not yet in their sight. The US, on its part, has learnt the hard way that in view of Taliban's tough resistance, it was not possible to win war in Afghanistan. However, the US maintains that the war against Taliban could be won only if the state of unstable Pakistan is stabilized and militants are denied sanctuaries in the tribal areas. Hamid Karzai also asserts that the root cause of insurgency in his country is due to the ability of Al-Qaeda and Taiban fighters to operate from the Pakistan's side of the Durand Line as they cross the Pak-Afghan border with relative ease.

Commenting on AF-Pak strategy renowned political analyst, Mr. Rahim Ullah Yousaf zai; asserts that Obama, in all likelihood, would not be overtly concerned if his new policy causes destabilization of nuclear armed Pakistan, while aiming to win the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and save the lives of American soldiers.

Towards that end, no wonder, President Obama is seeking for reconciliation with "moderate" Afghan Taliban. However, by treating the two sets of Taliban, the hard liners and the moderates differently, the US President is seen showing distrust in Pakistan's initiative. Obama's insistence on using the CIA operative drones to target the militant's, hide-outs in Pakistan's tribal area, also sterns for his belief that Pakistan could not effectively do the job. However, the US administration is hesitant to concede its failure to defeat the rag-tag Taliban army, despite being a super power.

Mr Rahim Ullah Yousafzai, further remarks that apart from unstable US policy of making greater use of the pilotless Predators and reapers to kill as many Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants as possible in Pakistan, the new Obama strategy offers substantial non-military aid to the tune of 7.5. billion over a period of five years to Islamabad. Pakistan, no doubt, would thus get its share of the American dollars, but the amount appears to be too meagre. However, notwithstanding this peanut aid from the US side , this time, it is not going to be a "blank cheque" as President Obama mentioned in his speech. He, however, categorized this amount as "down payment" towards securing American's future for terrorism.

Things as these stand today, will not be easy for Pakistan to fully satisfy the demanding Americans in view of the expected escalation of the conflict to neighbouring Afghanistan. The US could , thus, withhold payment to Pakistan and continue asking it to do more to enable to win the war in Afghanistan. President Obama was very unambiguous when he declared that "Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to root out al-Qaeda and the violent extremists within its borders. And we will insist that action be taken, one way or the other when we have intelligence about high level targets.

These words indicate quite clearly that there will be no free lunches this time. Obviously , US resolve is to sort out matters beyond the niceties of respecting the sanctity of international borders of the target country.. In view of these aggressive US designs, Pakistan seems to be in for trouble. May Allah help us!