bout de papier, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2013) — Winter 2013–14 // Hiver 2013-2014, pp. 17–19
On September 12th Ahmed Rashid spoke to a well-attended and open gathering at CIPS (the Centre for International Policy Studies) at the University of Ottawa (sponsored by CIPS and the Fragile States Research Network). His topic was characteristically sweeping: “Pakistan’s Next Chapter”.
Widely considered primus inter pares among journalists and analysts dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ahmed Rashid is the author of several books that are essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the complexity, severity and geo-strategic significance of militant Islam in South and Central Asia. These include Taliban (2000 and 2010, which sold over a million copies in English alone), Jihad (2002), Descent into Chaos (2008) and Pakistan on the Brink (2012).
In a word, Rashid is deeply worried about the prospects for peace and stability in the entire region in the period leading up to and after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014. He sees the potential for a “Syrian scenario” for much of the region (notably Central Asia) and believes many, if not all, of the elements for it are already there. Granted, evolving dynamics in the region are difficult to predict and so there remains hope for better, but he maintains that key indicators are not encouraging and the West needs to prepare. He focused on Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and China.
The country is in deep trouble. With respect to national security, while it adds rapidly to its costly nuclear arsenal, it faces serious insurgencies in the North West (the Tribal Areas) with the Taliban, in Baluchistan to the west with the separatists, and in Karachi with multiple insurgencies. The latter is now a city of 22 million with between 12 and 36 deaths by conflict a day. Meanwhile the economy is crumbling, the elite refuses to reform, and the ongoing energy crisis means that a great many ordinary Pakistanis face “load-shedding” (power outages) 16 to 18 hours a day. Everyone suffers and it takes a heavy toll on industry and the economy.
Demographics certainly add to the country’s challenges. Not only is population growth very high and unsustainable, socially there are a great many divides. Class is always an issue, but unlike other Muslim states, Pakistan also is home to all Muslim sects and their rivalries. A country that was 23 per cent non-Muslim at birth now only has a minority population of 3 per cent as a great many have left. As the last figure suggests, the state has done little to stop the growth of sectarianism and militancy and, arguably, actually fuelled it.
Mindsets are another issue. Pakistanis, Rashid suggests, blame everyone but themselves for what has gone wrong. The country is full of conspiracy theories. However, he points to three major opportunities in recent years that Pakistan missed that otherwise might have helped prevent today’s predicament:
¢ With the end of the Cold War in 1992 and
with India then unpopular within the region and with the West, Pakistan had a golden opportunity to displace India and recruit Western partnership to further its development. Instead, it used the opportunity to infiltrate jihadists
into Kashmir, with results we all know. e Post 9/11, when the international
community declared war against extremists, everyone wanted to help Pakistan. But it did not follow up. Previously, Pakistan had adopted a practice used by other countries to pay terrorists not to bomb in their territory and pursue their agenda elsewhere. Pakistan continued to support the Taliban in Afghanistan (which spawned the Taliban in Pakistan itself). With international support Pakistan should have reformed education (including the madrassahs), and pursued other reforms but then-President Musharraf’s top priority in dealings with Washington was the procurement of 90 F-16s — not exactly what was needed to fight the extremists or the conditions
that spawn them.
+ President Obama’s 2009 surge in
Afghanistan was deeply flawed but presented Pakistan with another opportunity to play a major role. It didn’t.
There is some good news. The recent elections, that saw Nawaz Sharif returned to power, represented the first time in Pakistan’s history that one civilian government was succeeded by another. But, he added, the key to this government’s success will depend on what kind of relations it develops with the military. The preceding government of Azif Zadari (Benazir Bhutto’s husband) did little or nothing to assert civil authority for key issues including relations with the USA and India and had no control over the immense military budget.
Sharif will have to persuade the military to work together and respect civil authority, temper their demands on the country’s resources (as the cake gets smaller and smaller), accept civilian oversight over the military budget, focus on issues of national security as the civilian government sees them, share intelligence with civil authorities and, in so doing, work with the government in setting security priorities. In short, to behave as the military do in any other functional modern state. A National Security Council that brings together national security issues with other key aspects of nation building also is badly needed if the government is to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to get the country working well.
Expanding on the challenges already identified, Rashid sees another four critical issues: the need for the wholesale rebuilding of relations with India; fighting the pervasive rot of corruption (which in the previous government was part of the larger problem of incompetence); growing a middle class party predicated on the concept of public service (as opposed to personal enrichment); and, zero tolerance toward extremism. On the latter he explained that there can’t be a “good” Taliban and a “bad” Taliban unless you mean that the former bomb your neighbours but leave you in peace. The distinction is an illusion; extremism is the issue, not labels. Pakistan’s Taliban used to attack NATO forces in Afghanistan but today the insurgency in the Tribal Areas is spreading and is perhaps the greatest single threat to national security. Rashid sees Pakistan’s “next chapter” as a long one, fraught with immense challenges and serious implications for the region and the globe.
Afghanistan
Rashid began with the simple assertion that the entire Taliban leadership lives in Pakistan and it necessarily will play a very important role in Afghanistan’s future. He argues that the key issue is not military transition but political transition in Afghanistan, and more specifically whether President Karzai will attempt to rig the next elections (scheduled for April 2014) as he did the last. Afghanistan has not had legitimate government since the fall of the King in 1973 and needs one very badly. The danger in a rigged election is the very real prospect of another war between the Pashtoon and non- Pashtoon in its aftermath.
Will the West ensure an equitable political transition? Not likely: while he appreciates the reality of war fatigue in the US and beyond (given the $1 trillion and many lives spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have accomplished almost nothing), he describes the US intention to withdraw its troops during the elections as a tragic mistake. He believes that without boots on the ground the West will have no tools left to help ensure legitimacy.
Rashid criticizes the West for not helping Afghanistan sufficiently in developing its economy, notably agriculture. The sector has never regained its vitality since the fall of the King (then Afghanistan exported food, now it imports) — which he described as a terrible vacuum — he sees little light at the end of Afghanistan’s tunnel with so little economic hope in sight. To compound matters, he senses that the US Congress is in no mood to offer the country significant financial help after 2014, and aid from other sources also may decline significantly as governments change.
Essential to Afghanistan’s stability, and its prospects for legitimate government, is a regional agreement not to interfere in its internal affairs. However, he sees nothing of the kind on the horizon with US relations with both Iran and Russia fraught with tension, India and Pakistan no closer to cooperation amongst themselves let alone in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia needs to be brought in, and no other regionally significant country is championing the need for one. It needs a third-party broker with credibility (perhaps like Canada), but none has stepped forward.
An agreement between the Afghan government and the “peace lobby” within the Taliban also is essential. Rashid is cautious about suggesting what it might comprise, but he sees the need for at least three elements:
a) a ceasefire with the Taliban (Afghanistan’s
“garrison”’ army post-2014 may be able to keep roads near term open but can’t fight
a prolonged civil war);
b) a dialogue with the government over
power sharing both by region and social
sector; and c) a new constitution as a great many
Afghans do not want their Presidential system as it exists today but prefer a Parliamentary system with a President, PM and real parties. [Responding to the comment that progress thus far achieved on the role of women would be put at great risk in any such negotiation, Rashid agreed. However, he added that a practical negotiation with the Taliban, emphasizing the value of women in the workforce and the huge cost of withdrawing their services (in the education of all children, health services and others) might mitigate some of the
potential damage.]
India and China
Rashid also is not optimistic about strong leadership from the region’s heavyweights. Although he believes that India, as the region’s great democracy and big economy, has a potentially important role to play in Afghanistan and beyond, the renewed nationalist bent of the government offers little hope of constructive initiatives from that quarter. Nonetheless, he hopes that India, Pakistan and Afghanistan can overcome some of their differences, engage in serious military-civil dialogue and generate a lot more diplomacy to create regional peace.
Obtaining Indian cooperation on Afghanistan will not be easy for either party. India must see that it cannot treat relations with Afghanistan as a strictly bilateral matter with Pakistan squarely in the middle, while Pakistan needs to appreciate that if India has given Afghanistan $2 billion in aid, it is not going to be displaced by Pakistan any time soon. Nawaz Sharif, he adds, is strongly committed to improved relations with India but the new nationalist government in Delhi is reluctant to meet with him even on the margins of UN gatherings.
China, Rashid asserts, also should play a major role in creating regional stability but is not likely to rise to the challenge. Despite its huge economic stake in Afghanistan (in resource extraction), he suspects China will take a wait and see attitude in the mistaken belief that if it waits a decade or two things will sort themselves out. Complicating matters is the fact that Islamist Uighur extremists have trained with the Taliban in Pakistan; China may see Pakistan today to be both a threat and an ally and the two countries are not at as close as they once were.
The Road Ahead
Rashid doesn’t think China or the international community writ large has the luxury of a decade or so to sit back and let the region sort itself out. He wonders if we even have five years. He suggests that instability in Pakistan, with its many insurgencies, has every potential to deteriorate further, that Kashmir may re-ignite as militants gather strength, and that the lack of legitimate government in Afghanistan will spur new levels of conflict there.
Moreover, the whole mess could spill over into other parts of Central Asia. Its authoritarian regimes are creating more fuel for the coming fire by not allowing politics while its Islamist militants take on a pan-Central Asian character. He wonders if Kabul will become the next Kashmir, or worse, the whole region another Syria. Food for thought if ever there was, but he insists there is still room for optimism. The CIPS website report by Natalie Brender highlights Rashid’s perception that Pakistan’s military has developed a much greater appreciation of the need to reform civil-military relations and now seems ready to help, in Rashid’s words, “. dig us out of this hole”.
Stuart Hughes is a retired Foreign Service officer and Editor of bout de papier.
Interview with Roland Paris
DOUT: As the Executive Director for CIPS, what do you see as the Centre’s role in foreign policy development in the capital region and in Canada as a whole? PariS: CIPS contributes in four ways. First, we organize 65-70 public events per year on international policy issues, many involving prominent international thinkers and practitioners. Most of these events are free and open to the public. Second, whenever possible, we make our visiting speakers available to government departments for private consultations. Third, the University of Ottawa is home to many international relations scholars who are leading experts in their respective fields and whose research we disseminate through our meetings and networks. Finally, we maintain Canada’s best international affairs blog — and the only one written exclusively by subject matter experts — which often comments on Canadian foreign policy. I would encourage your readers to sign up for the weekly CIPS email newsletter, which provides advanced notice of our events and links to our latest blogposts.
bout: You are helping to educate and train a new generation of Canadians on foreign policy issues, what are some of your priorities for the Centre in terms of education?
PariS: CIPS, itself, does not have a teaching program, but it works closely with degree programs in international affairs at the University of Ottawa, including the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, where I teach as a faculty member. These are exciting days at the University. Our newest teaching programs are very much focused on producing the next generation of policy leaders, including in foreign policy.
bout: The Centre has welcomed a number of associates from DFATD, how can we strengthen that relationship?
Paris: Our links to DFATD are already strong, but could be even stronger. I would like to see more policy practitioners at our events, engaging in our discussions, and visiting or teaching in our classrooms.
bout: Canada’s former Ambassador to the UN, Allan Rock, is President of the University — is the University of Ottawa quietly becoming primus inter pares among Canadian institutions of higher learning dealing with foreign policy issues, or are your sights aimed at a more specialized niche?
PariS: Allan Rock’s tenure as president has been a tremendous boost to institution-building efforts, particularly as they relate to foreign policy programming. He is a great supporter of CIPS and a frequent participant in our events. That said, we could not have propelled the University of Ottawa into the front rank of Canadian academic institutions dealing with foreign policy were it not for a very strong group of academics and senior fellows. Since 2006, the University has hired about three dozen new professors and fellows in public and international affairs. That is a tremendous investment in intellectual leadership.
Readers may watch the session with Ahmed Rashid by going to the CIPS website WWW.CIPS.Ca.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2013) — Winter 2013–14 // Hiver 2013-2014, pp. 17–19. Read the rest of this issue →
