Assessing Obama's Af-Pak Strategy Posted by Patrick Barry

Rather than discuss every aspect of Obama's Afghanistan strategy in one sprawling blog post, I would rather spend some time focusing on individual features of it in a bit more detail.  One dimension of the administration's strategy that cries for attention is the expansion of the regional diplomatic consultation to include all the relevant international players.  It's difficult to overstate how critical it will be to look beyond Pakistan to countries like China, Russia, Iran, India, Tajikistan, and the other Central Asian States.

One advantage of well-executed international diplomacy involving Afghanistan's neighbors is that it confers benefits on simultaneous US efforts to stabilize Afghanistan internally. Afghanistan's diverse ethnic and tribal composition exhibits why this approach is so important.   Similar to Iraq, which is pockmarked by Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds, Afghanistan has many ethnic and and tribal constituencies that exist in uneasy relationship to one another. In most cases, these ethnic and tribal groups also share affiliations or relationships with the surrounding countries - Tajiks with Tajikistan and Iran; Pashtuns with Pashtun communities in Pakistan; Uzbeks with Uzbekistan; etc. - and respond both positively and negatively to  pressure and incentives from those neighbors. A historical example that illustrates how important outside influence can be is the 2001 Bonn Agreement, which re-established the Afghan state.  During these negotiations, Iran pushed Afghanistan's Tajik minority into a political settlement, a move that averted internal political strife.  Without Iran's positive intervention, the country might have plunged into ethnic violence immediately following the American invasion.  Today, with so many of Afghanistan's surrounding countries enjoying strong relationships with Afghanistan's ethnic and tribal populations, coordinating international involvement makes sense from the perspective of establishing an internal equilibrium. 

But regional diplomacy is also important for Afghanistan in terms of how the surrounding countries relate to one another.  You can see this most acutely in terms of Pakistan.  During the last 6 years, President Bush sought to influence the thrust of Pakistan's policy toward Afghanistan by relying heavily on his personal relationship with President Musharraf.  This personalist diplomacy allowed Musharraf to easily pursue a double game, supporting US objectives with one hand, and undermining them with the other.  If instead, the US had developed a better functioning international compact or working group on Afghanistan similar to what the Obama administration now recommends, we might have been able to leverage more pressure from say, China, to use their close trade relationship to further encourage a change in Pakistan's policies. 

There are countless other economic and security issues in both Afghanistan and Pakistan that beg for international cooperation.  The coordination challenges alone are daunting. But I was pleased to see diplomacy feature within the administration's strategy. 

Comments

[Peace]

It appears that Obama faces a Catch 22 when it comes to stablizing Pakistan. Obama says he wants to completely remove AQ presence in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but in order to acheive this goal he will have to use the use military force in Pakistan. The Predator strikes against Paksitan can easliy led to further escation in that country which could result in political destablization. In order to to have a polticall stable Pakistan, Obama needs to stop using military force within the borders of that country. I personally believe that a stable Pakistan is more important than trying to eradicate terrorism. A politcally peaceful Paksitan would help persuade the Iranians to drop their nuclear weapons program. Obama will have to make a difficult decision of whether to have a politically secure Pakistan or eradicationg AQ in Central Asia. I'm afraid that those in the administration believe that they can somehow cut this Gordian Knot.

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Afpak is just another Iraq, another stepping stone in dominance of that region.we have to meet the objection that withdrawal grants victory to the Taliban, and, given the weakness and corruption of the Karzai Government, could lead to the Somalisation of AfPak.

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