Robert Kaplan, apparently done with his wonder over those symmetrically-boned Asian girls, has declared the embassy bombing in Kabul to be… Afghanistan’s fault:
In the 1980s, India backed the secular pro-Soviet regime of Mohammad Najibullahn in Kabul, and Pakistan backed the mujahideen guerrillas trying to topple him. Because our own strategic interests were aligned with Pakistan’s, we encouraged the ISI to support the rebels, many of whom would later become allies of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But in 1991 came the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a decade later 9/11. While the world changed for us, the importance of Afghanistan to India and Pakistan remained the same. India still needed to back a relatively secular regime in Kabul, just as Pakistan needed to support Islamic insurgents who wanted to topple it. Thus, our interests are now more or less aligned with those of the Soviets 20 years ago. But rather than repeat their mistakes, we need to strive to prevent Pakistan from turning into the enemy of the American-backed government in Kabul.
Given these realities, you would think that the Bush administration would be coaching the Karzai government not to antagonize Pakistan unnecessarily by cozying up to India. Whatever coaching did happen has failed. The Karzai government has openly and brazenly strengthened its ties with India, and allowed Indian consulates in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-e-Sharif. It has kept alive the possibility of inviting India to help train the new Afghan army, and to help in dam construction in the northeastern Afghan province of Kunar, abutting Pakistan. All this has driven the ISI wild with fear and anger.
One would think somewhere in here would be the idea that maybe, just maybe, Hamid Karzai doesn’t like Pakistan trying to undermine his government and run his country. But what is Kaplan’s solution?
In the first place, we need vigorous shuttle diplomacy between Kabul, Islamabad, and New Delhi to address India’s and Pakistan’s fears about Afghanistan. Only by assuaging the ISI’s fears, while allowing India its rightful place in Kabul, can we get more cooperation from Pakistan in our fight against Islamic extremism.
Right, so we’re wishing for ponies again. I really want everyone to magically get along as well, but we just can’t wish that into existence. Kaplan actually knows about this area—he’s covered it well, and wrote some extraordinary about the mujahideen. Why the simplistic writing here?
Update: Karzai’s trip to India in this context makes perfect sense: India has proven itself a rather benign neighbor and ally; Pakistan has proven itself the opposite. Is anyone, including Bob Kaplan, really surprised that Afghanistan feels its fortunes are better served by India?
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
{ 4 comments }
God DAMN do I hate An Empire Wilderness.
But I do like ponies…
This is entirely the Brit’s responsibility. They created a Muslim state on partition. Is it any wonder Pakistan supports Islamic religious rule? Pull in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and you have a British India reunion party going on.
If Kaplan can’t advocate war, what else does he have to offer other than the hope for the success of negotiation?
Kaplan is a clown. What astounding arrogance does it take to think George W. Bush can or should “coach” Hamid Karzai about the difference between Pakistan’s and India’s interests in his own country? Karzai knows better than we do what is at stake.
Hekmatyar turned against the US because it left Afghanistan in ’89? Or am I completely misunderstanding what Kaplan wrote? I was also under the impression, and I may very well be wrong, that the US dealt with its interests in Afghanistan in the ’80s largely through Pakistani intermediaries like the ISI. In anything it would seem the much more concrete US presence since 2001 has inflamed extremists like Hekmatyar.
Additionally, it seemed to me that Kaplan contradicted himself. Accurately, he describes the populations of of Pakistan and India as lacking a deep antipathy for each other these days. The respective governments have tried normalizing relations, which I hope will be expedited by the resurgent civilian government in Pakistan.
And yet Kaplan ascribes current conflict in Afghanistan as being the result of the “subculture” of Pakistani and Indian intelligence services. Of Indian intelligence, he says little. But he implies, without directly saying so, that the ISI is more or less a rogue entity, behaving as it pleases. So how exactly is “shuttle diplomacy” supposed to solve what amounts to a question of internal house cleaning for Pakistan?