Author: Swapan Das Gupta
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: November 14, 2006
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/141106-features.html
There are few things as demeaning as nation-states
being engulfed in hyphenated relationships. For more than five decades, until
information technology injected a new dimension, India was trapped into a
hyphenated relationship with Pakistan. India's status as the dominant, stable
and democratic power of South Asia was constantly undermined by the strategic
community's invocation of the India-Pakistan problem.
Today, that pejorative hyphenation has yielded
way to a more favourable dash. Projections of the global economy of the next
50 years are invariably bound by both expectations and concern about India-
China.
Yet, nowhere is the distorting effect of hyphenation
more keenly felt than in the deliberations on the war on terror. Five years
after the events of 9/11 triggered a chain reaction throughout the world,
the two great trouble spots- Iraq and Afghanistan-have been bound together
by another disastrous hyphenation.
From the expectantly jubilant mullahs in countless
countries to fulminating Field Marshals in the gentleman's clubs, the Iraq-Afghanistan
mess is the talk of town.
The preoccupation with the theatres of post-9/11
conflict is understandable. Regardless of brave talk of "staying the
course", both the US and UK appear to be propelled into considering exit
strategies by public hostility at home.
Last month, President George W. Bush conceded
in an interview that comparisons of Iraq with Vietnam weren't totally inappropriate.
In Britain, despite Prime Minister Tony Blair's tough talk, Foreign Secretary
Margaret Beckett admitted that the invasion of Iraq might ultimately be judged
a "foreign policy disaster" on par with the 1956 Suez debacle.
The allusions to Suez and Vietnam are revealing.
Harold Macmillan's failure to upstage Colonel Nasser 50 years ago formally
signalled the end of Britain as a great, imperial power. Henceforth, the fortunes
of the erstwhile "mother country" became enmeshed in the fortunes
of the larger community of "Englishspeaking peoples", a face-saving
euphemism for American hegemony.
For the US too, Vietnam was a landmark. From
the fall of Saigon in 1974 till Ronald Reagan's move into the White House
in 1980, Washington retreated into the isolationism which had characterised
the period between 1919 and 1941. Indeed, had it not been for the retreat
from Vietnam, the US would never have passively acquiesced in the Shah of
Iran's overthrow by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.
That the war in Iraq is sapping the moral
and political reserves of the Anglo-American alliance is not in any doubt.
The chilling reports from Basra in the BBC's Today programme reveal Iraq's
descent into sectarian conflict and anarchy and the associated helplessness
of the British forces.
Tragically, the elected government of Prime
Minister Nuri Kamal al- Maliki in Baghdad lacks the political wherewithal
to take on the militias. Comparisons with the Vichy regime of Marshal Petain
are irresistible.
The Anglo-American setback in Iraq is certain
to have two consequences. First, it is calculated to transform Iran into the
dominant regional power, with ominous consequences for Israel. With groups
like the Hezbollah in Lebanon totally beholden to it, Iran will be faced with
the choice of assuming the role of the great stabiliser or using its clout
to trigger further unrest in West Asia.
Secondly, the retreat from Baghdad is certain
to be accompanied by political and moral convulsions in the English-speaking
world. The immediate impact of both these developments may be felt in Afghanistan,
a country unfairly linked by hyphenation to Iraq.
As things stand today, the situation in Afghanistan
is parlous but not irredeemable. Thanks to four years of covert nurturing
by Pakistan, the Taliban militia has regrouped and is posing a serious challenge
to the NATO-led forces in eastern Afghanistan, particularly the Helmand province.
Financed by both Pakistan and the proceeds
of the opium economy, the Taliban has taken advantage of the disillusionment
with the corruption of provincial governors appointed by the Hamid Karzai
Government to re-establish itself all along the border with Pakistan.
In its new jihad against the West, propaganda
has emerged as an important weapon in the Taliban arsenal. Over the past two
months, for example, the Taliban has allowed Western journalists access to
their forces. Coupled with grisly videos of Mullah Dadullah personally beheading
scores of Afghan "collaborators", the thrust of Taliban propaganda
is to frighten the West into believing that it is impossible to win against
a determined guerrilla force: the Soviet Union couldn't do it and neither
can NATO.
Although Taliban propaganda and careful targeting
of Canadian soldiers is having some effect on Western public opinion, the
real problem faced by NATO forces is one of numbers. With the US and Britain
committing the major chunk of their expeditionary forces in Iraq, the anti-Taliban
offensive in Afghanistan is suffering grievously.
For the past three months, NATO has been imploring
member countries to contribute an additional 2,500 soldiers, to supplement
the 31,000 foreign troops already in Afghanistan.
If NATO Secretary- General Jaap Scheffer is
anything to go by, the outcome of the campaign in eastern Afghanistan will
determine the future loyalties of some 70 per cent of Afghans. The battle
for the hearts and minds of the Pushtuns-the other ethnic groups have been
traditionally wary of the Taliban-will not succeed unless the military advance
of the insurgents is checked. This in turn depends on NATO's ability to choke
the lifeline of the Taliban in Pakistan.
However, there is no sign of any action on
this front. "I don't believe", Field Marshal Sir Peter Inge, the
former chief of British armed forces told a think tank meeting last month,
"we have a clear strategy in either Afghanistan or Iraq. I sense we've
lost the ability to think strategically. Deep down inside me, I worry that
the British army could risk operational failure if we're not careful in Afghanistan."
The cantonment strategists in Pakistan are
already salivating over this possible "operational failure" becoming
a reality. For five years, Pakistan successfully maintained the fiction of
being a partner in the war on terror while simultaneously doing its utmost
to regain its lost "strategic depth" in Afghanistan.
Today, as the West falters, overwhelmed by
self-doubt, it awaits the grand prize of its duplicity-the recovery of Afghanistan.
Just prior to the US military action against the Taliban, General Musharraf
had used a historical analogy from 7th century Arabia to justify a strategic
retreat from Afghanistan. The sub-text of his message, which the West chose
to wilfully overlook, was that Pakistan would be playing a double game.
For India, the trends in Afghanistan are life
threatening. India was understandably jubilant when the Taliban over-reached
itself in 2001 and invited American ire. Afghanistan had become the nursery
of the jihad in Kashmir and yet India could do nothing about it. The US undertook
the much-needed fumigation job and earned our gratitude.
Today, with the Taliban back in business,
the wheel threatens to turn a full circle. The consequences of a Western defeat
in Afghanistan on India will be catastrophic. First, it will be the signal
for a no-holds-barred Islamic jihad in Jammu and Kashmir in which Afghans,
Pakistanis and others will be active participants.
Second, the scope of battle is likely to be
enlarged from a territorial battle in Kashmir to subversion in the rest of
India. The spade work of new terror networks manned by locals has already
been done. It is unfashionable to invoke the domino effect. But if Iraq goes
under, Afghanistan is certain to be next in line.
If that happens, India will be the next target
of a resurgent jihad. We can gloat over the present Anglo- American discomfiture
at our own peril.
