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Contemporary South Asia

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Pakistan's Afghan policies and their consequences

Marvin G. Weinbaum & Jonathan B. Harder Version of record first published: 06 Jun 2008.

To cite this article: Marvin G. Weinbaum & Jonathan B. Harder (2008): Pakistan's Afghan policies and their consequences, Contemporary South Asia, 16:1, 25-38 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09584930701800370

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Contemporary South Asia 16(1), (March, 2008) 2538

Pakistans Afghan policies and their consequences

MARVIN G. WEINBAUM & JONATHAN B. HARDER
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ABSTRACT

Pakistans Afghan policies, so consequential for its neighbour, have also had a deep impact on the countrys political landscape and society. This article examines how Pakistan has pursued a two-track foreign policy toward Afghanistan that often encompasses incompatible goals. Pakistans leaders have also frequently ignored the long-term and wider implications of their policies domestically and regionally. The discussion looks at the consequences of Afghan policies for Pakistans national identity and social cohesion. The means by which Islamabad governments have dealt with the challenge of Pashtun nationalism and its contribution to the development of ethnic assertiveness and Islamic radicalism are next examined. The article then describes the role of Afghan policies in transforming Pakistans border regions with Afghanistan and the wider implications for the states legitimacy and authority. It also points out the Pakistan Governments ambivalence in its relationship toward militant extremists. A subsequent section considers the costs and rewards of Pakistans Afghan policies internationally; and Pakistans strategic partnership with the United States, including its impact on the domestic economy and public attitudes, receives particular attention. Finally, the article recognises that, while Pakistans politics have entered a transitional stage, its Afghan policies are likely to continue to affect ethnic fissures, religious radicalism, and the legitimate authority of the state.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan bear the scars of 60 years of unresolved issues over territory and national identity. Conflicting political alliances and ideologies, especially those once associated with the Cold War, have also helped define the relationship. In recent years, the two countries have been cited for their intersecting roles in the global combat against terrorism and their necessary joint contribution for bringing about regional stability and economic growth. Far less appreciated, however, are the domestic consequences of their bilateral policies. This essay, which focuses on Pakistan, contends that on balance its relations over time with its Afghan neighbour have had an adverse effect on state and society in Pakistan.
Correspondence: Marvin G. Weinbaum, The Middle East Institute, 1761 N Street, NW, Washington, DC 200362882, USA. E-mail: weinbaum@speakeasy.net ISSN 0958-4935 print; 1469-364X online/08/01002514 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09584930701800370

MARVIN G. WEINBAUM & JONATHAN B. HARDER

The following discussions first consider Pakistans goals for Afghanistan and how they have helped frame broad national policies. The domestic challenges that these policies have posed for the countrys identity and political cohesion are then examined. The third section looks at the consequences for regime authority and state legitimacy. The costs and benefits to Pakistan internationally of pursuing its Afghan policies are next described and assessed. Throughout, there are indications of Pakistans difficulties in reconciling conflicting aims contained in these policies.
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Pakistans goals in Afghanistan To assess the domestic consequences of Pakistans Afghan policies it is useful to begin by identifying Pakistans perceived national interests in Afghanistan and its major policy goals toward its neighbour. From Pakistans founding, the country has sought means to counter the demands of virtually every Afghan regime for an independent state for Pakistans Pashtun ethnic population. The new state was to be carved geographically from Pakistans northwest and to be known as Pashtunistan. The second goal of policy toward Afghanistan has been to minimise Indias influence and presence in Afghanistan. India is viewed as engaging in activities in Afghanistan intended to destabilise Pakistan domestically and threaten it militarily. A long-sought and perhaps outmoded third goal for nuclear-armed Pakistan has been to see Afghanistan as an asset in providing strategic depth in the event of a wide conflict with India. By ensuring a safe haven for its forces, Pakistan would presumably enhance its survivability and deterrent power. A fourth goal, clearly instrumental to achieving the others, has been to foster friendly if not subservient regimes in Kabul. This has taken form in ways varying from cultivating leaders to supporting insurgencies. Pakistans fifth goal has sought use of Afghanistan to attract the diplomatic and economic assistance of regional and extra-regional powers, most of all the United States. Through alignments with these countries, Pakistan has hoped to strengthen its security and acquire leverage in its disputes, especially with India. In pursuing these goals, Pakistans policies are often viewed by Afghans as overbearing and over-reaching. Having sheltered millions of refugees during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s and civil war of the 1990s, governments in Pakistan took for granted that the Afghans would feel deep gratitude. They came mistakenly to the conclusion that Pakistan had far more power to influence than it actually did because it had also played so important a role in organising the resistance forces and managing the military campaign of the Taliban. Pakistan has, then, repeatedly misjudged their relationship and has engaged in short-sighted policies toward Afghanistan. Perhaps the most serious has been a deliberate effort to exploit Afghanistans ethnic mosaic for strategic purposes through cross-border clientalism. To ensure the dependence of a Pashtun-dominated Afghan leadership on Pakistan, Islamabad stands accused of promoting adversarial relations between Pashtuns and other ethnic groups. 26

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Pakistan currently appears, in fact, to be engaged in a two-track foreign policy toward Afghanistan. At the official level, good relations with the Kabul Government are sought through policies that promote Afghan stability and economic recovery. Islamabad can live with a strengthened central government in Afghanistan as long as it is reasonably friendly and, above all, sensitive to Pakistans security needs. A regime that is pliable or openly pro-Pakistan would of course be preferred; however, Islamabad has little choice at present but to respect the Afghan political process. Pakistans commercial interests in Afghanistan require a stable neighbour. Indeed, a prospering Afghanistan offers opportunities for Pakistani industries and businesses. About 60,000 Pakistanis are believed currently employed in Afghanistan.1 Private investment in Afghanistan shows signs of growing. Pakistans wide-ranging exports to Afghanistan have been as high as US$1.2 billion per year, as opposed to the US$25 million in exports during the Taliban era. Pakistan imports more than US$700 million worth of goods from Afghanistan, mostly fresh and dried fruits and herbs.2 Offers by Pakistan to help improve airports, civil aviation, roads, and highways are all meant to create a better infrastructure for trade. A promised US$200 million development aid package, containing some 20 projects, is also pledged for education, health care, housing, and other social sectors. Also, policies that contribute to Afghanistans reconstruction and rehabilitation would seem to be in Islamabads interest as a means of accelerating the repatriation of Afghan refugees, as many as 2.5 million of whom remain in Pakistan.3 The countrys hospitality to the refugees over the years, however admirable, has worn thin. Finally, the preference toward stability in Afghanistan and efforts to avoid confrontation cannot be understood apart from Pakistans partnership with the United States. With US policies dedicated to defending the Kabul regime and resisting the re-emergence of radical Islam in Afghanistan, a serious falling out between Islamabad and Kabul could have an adverse effect on both. Whatever its differences with Washington, Pakistan has been unwilling to jeopardise military and economic assistance or, as some in Islamabad fear, give the Americans reason to further tilt toward India. There exists, however, a second track in Pakistans policies toward Afghanistan that undermines the first. The actions of President Pervez Musharrafs government toward Afghan insurgents cannot be separated from the way Pakistan has managed its domestic extremists. Many of those radical Islamist groups sympathetic to the Taliban and critical of Pakistans cooperation with the United States on Afghanistan are also ones with which the Islamabad Government continues to maintain close relationships. Militantly Islamist, they were either created or were otherwise indulged by Pakistans security forces as instruments of government jihadi (self-styled holy warrior) policies in Kashmir and Afghanistan. In recent years this jihadi network was allowed to strengthen its working relations with Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. Large majorities in the tribal belt of Pakistan do not view either the Taliban or Al Qaeda as enemies.4 27

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These two tracks in Pakistans Afghan policy coexist uneasily. They reflect deeper tensions between Islamabads conflicting objectives, pressure from the United States, and the perceived need to prepare for different scenarios for a postNorth Atlantic Treaty Organisation Afghanistan. The implementation of policy is also confused as different arms of the state find themselves working at crosspurposes. Domestic groups advocating one approach or the other are left largely unsatisfied, while Pakistans Afghan and American critics doubt its sincerity and commitments.
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National identity and cohesion A legacy of British rule, the Durand Line that separates Afghanistan and Pakistan and divides their Pashtun tribal populations has soured relations between the two countries for more than six decades. No Afghan government has ever recognised the legitimacy of the border. An Afghanistan unwilling to relinquish its irredentist demands thus becomes a security issue for Pakistan and is used to justify interventionist strategies, among them efforts to neutralise and subvert Pashtun nationalist sentiment. These policies, so consequential for Afghanistan, have also had a deep impact on Pakistan. Afghanistans promotion of Pashtunistan has brought retaliation from Pakistan. During the 1950s, Pakistan kept its alliance partner, the United States, from giving military assistance to the Kabul Government, thus leading the Afghan leadership to turn to the Soviet Union for equipment and training. By periodically impeding the transit of goods from the port of Karachi to landlocked Afghanistan, Pakistan seriously impaired the Afghan economy. A trade blockade in 1963 hastened the departure of Afghanistans pro-Pashtunistan Prime Minister Mohammad Daoud. In 1975, Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto lent covert support to an insurrection by Islamist radicals. When it failed, Islamabad gave refuge to several insurgent leaders, who, in just a few years, would command Pakistan-based mujahideen (freedom fighters) groups opposing the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and indigenous communists. Pakistans decision following the Soviet invasion in 1979 to assist Islamic resistance forces, undertaken with massive support from the United States, Saudi Arabia and others, had far-reaching effects on Pakistans politics and strategic planning. It gave new life to the rule of General Zia ul-Haq who, by the late 1970s, faced a serious domestic challenge to his legitimacy following his overthrow and subsequent execution of Bhutto. The jihad (struggle) against the Soviets and Afghan communists and the international support it received impeded any restoration of democratic rule and sustained the Zia regime until the time of his death in 1988. During this period, the United States also suspended its congressionally authorised sanctions originally intended to force Pakistan to reign in its nuclear weapons programme. The progress realised in these years helped launch what would become in the 1990s Pakistans formidable nuclear deterrent against India. 28

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An Afghan resistance sponsored by the regime of Zia and his allies designed to discourage Soviet offensive ambitions in the region and wear down the Soviet army also provided Pakistan with an opportunity to blunt Afghan nationalism. Secular and leftist parties, some of which had championed the idea of a Pashtun state, were deliberately excluded from participation in a mujahideen alliance fashioned by Pakistans premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). By also giving radical Islamist parties effective control over Pakistans large refugee camps, Islamabad hoped to stifle secular Pashtun nationalism rallied around the former king in exile. Were the mujahideen parties to eventually capture power in Kabul, a spiritually not territorially minded Afghan leadership was expected to feel deeply indebted to Pakistan and to have little interest in trying to dismember it. Organisational and ideological mobilisation undertaken to support the jihad in Afghanistan had long-term domestic implications for Pakistan. During the military dictatorships of Ayub Khan and Zia, the ISI became closely linked to the army and remained in many ways the agent of the army in its rivalries with other institutions in Pakistan. Through the 1980s, financial support for the mujahideen was funnelled through the ISI, which expanded organisationally and assumed wide discretion in its activities. ISI military advisors oversaw Taliban military operations during the 1990s and ensured access to equipment and volunteers. In this period of civilian rule, the ISI operated very independentlyoften actively working against the governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. Officially authorised to perform surveillance of Pakistani citizens, the ISI served the military as a means of domestic control. Given wide latitude and ample resources, the ISI encouraged and sponsored armed Islamist groups in Pakistan linked to Afghan mujahideen groups and helped create a string of training camps on the Pakistan Afghan frontier.5 Tribal areas thus became the assembly points for the volunteers to train and fight in Afghanistan and the transit points for the supply of weapons. In an effort to build sympathies for the anti-communist resistance, the ISI facilitated Saudi funding for mosques and madrasas (Islamic schools). These mosques and religious schools, mostly located in the vicinity of Peshawar, Quetta, and Karachi, promoted Deobandi teaching favouring a more political and doctrinaire Sunni Islam. Assisted by Pakistani troops and the ISI, groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harakat-ul-Mujahideen also contributed to the intensified violence against civilians and Indian security forces in Kashmir in the 1990s. For several years after 2001, under directives from Islamabad, the ISIs involvement with Afghans became more indirect and circumspect. Jihadi organisations such as Jaish-i-Mohammed and Lashka-e-Taiba meanwhile assumed a larger role in fund-raising and in the recruitment and training of a new generation of Taliban. Defeat of the Taliban did not dampen the sympathies for their cause in the frontier areas, where social and customary legal practices resemble those of the Afghan Taliban. Years of trying to suppress Afghan nationalism also helped to marginalise Pashtun nationalism in Pakistan in favour of a transnational religious 29

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agenda, and helped to popularise a doctrinaire brand of Islamic law more broadly across the country. It is generally acknowledged that for several years anti-Kabul forces loyal to the Taliban leader Mullah Omar in northern Baluchistan, the Haqqani family in North Waziristan and Gulbuddin Hekmatyars Hezb-e-Islami in the Bajaur agency were allowed to regroup and establish command centres with virtual impunity. They also contributed to radicalising many of those Pakistanis in the tribal agencies who began to call themselves Taliban. Madrasas have played a central role in helping to revitalise the Afghan Taliban and their allies, and in the creation of a Pakistani Taliban. By 2005, these religious schools had become a prime source for recruiting suicide bombers attacking within Afghanistan and Pakistan.6 The ISI is increasingly accused of facilitating, if not directly supporting, these militants. Although it is known to collaborate with US intelligence apparatus operating in Pakistan, ISI officers are believed to retain strong Islamist sympathies. Forging alliances with Islamist parties and their jihadi allies created what has long been a military mullah nexus in Pakistans politics. Zias introduction of conservative religious policies in the country gave a strong boost to this religious military alliance. In return for state support, the religious parties served as open or covert electoral partners, and their affiliated jihadi groups were used as a surrogate force against enemies of the military regime, domestically, and in India and Afghanistan. Afghan policy responsible for boosting radical political Islam expanded an intelligence apparatus that shored up jihadi groups to help the government monitor and, when necessary, stifle its political opposition. Funds that were received from the United States and Saudi Arabia intended to sustain the jihad were diverted in part to strengthen the intelligence infrastructure. The perceived Indian security threat that justifies a large pampered military in Pakistan also helps to explain Afghan policy. The extraordinary lengths to which Pakistan has gone to ensure pliable governments in Kabul shows their constant concern that Afghan leaders will provide opportunities for India to meddle in Pakistan with the intention of destabilising it. In a worst-case scenario, Afghan governments would allow an encircling India to create a backdoor military threat to Pakistan. Islamabad alleges that this has already begun with Kabuls permission for India to open consulates in such sensitive locations as Kandahar and Jalalabad. The recent insurgency in Baluchistan has occasioned further suspicions. Islamabad is convinced that the insurgency has heavy Indian involvement, together with Afghan complicity. Baluch tribal groups are alleged by Pakistan to be aided financially by India. Pakistan has no strong proof of material assistance from India passing through Afghanistan, and exaggerates an Indian presence in the border regions. To allege a foreign hand to cover up internal dissent is, of course, almost routine in South Asia. But there are also long memories in Pakistan of Baluch resistance leaders and thousands of their followers being welcomed in Afghanistan after escaping from federal government forces in the mid-1970s. Pakistans admission of Afghan refugees in Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), mostly Pashtuns, strengthened the ethnic identity and assertiveness of Pakistans Pashtuns. But it also demonstrated how their 30

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nationalism differed from that promoted by Afghan Pashtuns. Rather than separation, Pakistans nationalists aims had always stressed the rights of Pashtuns within a Pakistani state. The frontier provinces leading figure at the time of partition, Ghaffar Khanalthough he had earlier preferred maintaining the unity of Indianever echoed the Afghan call for detaching Pashtuns from Pakistan. His son Wali Khan, heading the Awami National Party, carried on the quest for greater recognition of Pashtun culture and language and a larger share of development funds from the federal budget for the NWFP. Policies toward Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet jihad and the Taliban era that so heavily impacted the border areas had less direct impact and carried lower salience for ethnic Punjabis and Sindhis. Yet all of the country has paid a price socially and economically. Despite Islamabads efforts to keep the large refugee population inside camps, they migrated throughout the country in great numbers, especially to urban areas and notably to Karachi. They augmented Karachis already large Pashtun community that had settled earlier and are blamed for an explosive ethnic mix and breakdown in law and order. The Afghan refugees were believed to have contributed to the easy availability of guns that has been held responsible for a countrywide rise in crime and sectarian killings. Afghans are also accused of promoting drug use among Pakistanis. Increasingly, Pakistan has become a principle drug route for producers inside Afghanistan, both for further transit and to meet domestic consumption. Even with international assistance, the refugee camps have been a long-term drain on the national economy. While the refugees energised some business sectors, notably in the NWFP, their monopoly over transport in the province has brought the resentment of many Pakistanis. An unsecured border has allowed for the smuggling of wheat into Afghanistan that has increased its price in Pakistan. Pakistans difficult relations with the Kabul Government together with a weaker competitiveness of goods have adversely affected Pakistans once fairly lucrative commercial trade with Afghanistan. During 2005 2006, Pakistan lost 36% of its market in Afghanistan, mostly to Iran.7 Tehrans political influence also expanded, especially in western Afghanistan. Legitimacy and authority Pakistan has seen growing challenges in recent years to its legitimacy and authority. These challenges have included a surge in militant Islamism, mounting provincial and tribal unrest, and the weakening of the institutional capacity of the state. All three are apparent in its western border areas, and can be traced in large measure to its Afghan policies. By indulging and supporting extremists as a tool to retain and hold influence in Afghanistan, Pakistan introduced changes that undermined its ability to maintain its writ within its own borders. Policies on Afghanistan that altered traditional power structures in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have resulted in wider domestic instability. Not inconsequentially, the reputation of Pakistans foremost institution, its military, has suffered. 31

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The support for the mujahideen in the 1980s prepared the ground for a gradual radicalisation of the population in the NWFP and tribal agencies, as well as a widening of the differences among Pakistans ethnic groups. The population of the border regions was under heavy social pressure and coercion to support the mujahideen, and opposition was very difficult since the insurgency carried the dual banners of Islam and self-determination and had the backing of the Pakistani state and its foreign partners. Economic and social deprivation of young Afghan refugees made their camps a fertile recruiting ground for the mujahideen. At the same time, the influx of millions of refugees created resentment in segments of the Pakistani public. Punjabis and Sindhis came to view the Afghans, both refugees and mujahideen, as a burden, while many Pashtun nationalists were upset to see their homeland radicalised. This radicalisation also deepened the fissures separating Pakistans religious communities, namely Shia and Sunni, notably in the NWFP. Policies over more than a quarter-century have gradually placed religion in a more central role in Pakistani politics on all levels. As a part of the support for the mujahideen, Zia ul-Haq gave the ulema a more powerful position in the Pakistani state.8 In the tribal areas, the support for the 1980s Afghan jihad and the backing for the Taliban regime in the 1990s resulted in the usurpation by Islamist militants of the traditional secular tribal leadership.9 The old and largely secular system of governance, which was in place in the FATA, was Islamicised. Previously, the malik (secular leader of a village or tribe) was the local political authority. He was elected by a jirga (tribal assembly of elders) in the village, and through an Islamabad-appointed political agent received government funds and handled relations with the state. The local mullah (Muslim religious cleric) was clearly subordinate, and in most cases completely apolitical. From Zias rule onward, the state started to fund the mullahs directly, giving them financial independence. Over the years the mullahs took on an enhanced political role in the community and gradually became more powerful than the malik. With new resources and status, the local religious figures were able to emerge as key political brokers and, very often, promoters of militancy.10 Empowering the mullahs made these border areas more hospitable to radicalised local tribesmen. With the malik significantly weakened it became harder, if not impossible, for disgruntled citizens to protest the presence of the Afghan fighters and foreigners through the malik. What little remained of the malik and political agent system of governance by Islamabad was largely removed by a militarisation of the tribal agencies by the Pakistani army that began early in 2004. The gradual change in the power structure from the malik to the mullah united the people under the banner of Islam, giving less prominence to national and ethnic allegiances. It has coincided with a period of history that has seen a global Islamic awakening, in which the struggle in Afghanistan played a key role. Pakistans mullahs have been able to benefit from this larger cause for which they fought. They connected with a network of militants from all corners of the Islamic world who provided the newly assertive Islamists in Pakistans frontier areas with important financial freedom and military know-how. The local leaders 32

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and their often youthful followers also profited from contacts with foreign fighters who had taken refuge in the tribal agencies after 2001, as well as jihadi organisations in Pakistan and offshoots of the countrys main religious parties. A symbiotic relationship developed among the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, Al Qaeda, and domestic extremist organisations. They have somewhat different priorities and are at times bitterly competitive. Their relationships with Pakistans intelligence services and security forces also vary. Yet they are in agreement over supporting the insurgency in Afghanistan that aims to drive out international forces and topple the current government of President Hamid Karzai. They also share a disdain for Musharrafs rule and Pakistans partnership with the United States. The fighting in the FATA during most of 2004 2006 hurt Musharrafs image in both the border regions and in the country as a whole, and was very costly in terms of military casualties and pride. It soon became apparent that despite the 80,000 troops deployed, trained to fight a conventional war with India, the Pakistan army had very limited capacity for effective counter-insurgency. Its troops lacked the training and equipment and, too often, the motivation. Most Pakistanis failed to see the military actions in the frontier areas as their war and the military felt humiliated by its losses. Anxious to salvage something from their long campaign, in September 2006 the government concluded a trucethe North Waziristan accord. In return for the removal of army checkpoints and troops from the area, the tribal leaders promised to root out the foreign fighters and prevent cross-border infiltration by militants. In spite of the Musharraf Governments efforts to sell the accord as a step towards stability and peace, it was a deal very much on the militants terms. They were handsomely compensated for their losses and allowed to retain their weapons stocks.11 North Waziristan and South Waziristan, always lightly governed, were now virtually ceded to the local power centres. Justice, education and social policies were taken over by the Pakistani Taliban, who practice a strongly conservative form of Islam. Not only was there a failure to halt border crossing by insurgents, border violence increased.12 The agreement that the Pakistani Taliban would not extend their views of Islam into the settled areas beyond the tribal territories was ignored. Their reach has in fact been felt across the NWFP, notably in the northern districts of Swat and Malakand. The extent of the militant Islamist influence became apparent in the standoff and defiance of state authority that brought the armys July 2007 assault against Islamabads Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), many of whose students were from the NWFP. The North Waziristan agreement was only marginally about curtailing insurgents entering Afghanistan. The deal with tribal elders, in reality negotiated with the Pakistani militants, and allegedly approved by Al Qaeda, was primarily intended to halt the contagion of Talibanisation. The Pakistan army planned to use the agreement to neutralise those groups with an anti-government agenda and to reassert its influence using the rivalries among tribal leaders and resentment against resident foreign groups. But even this default strategy suffered a setback when Islamist extremists in Waziristan and the NWFP sought retribution for the 33

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Lal Masjid crackdown by attacking security forces. With its honour and respect at stake, the army has reacted with the aggressiveness that it had long resisted. Even with this new resolve, however, the army lacks the capacity to dislodge the Pakistani Taliban from their redoubt in the frontier, and will have to negotiate another political modus vivendi. The inability of the Musharraf Government to act more forcefully against extremist groups in the tribal border areas and elsewhere in the country is mostly traceable to the dismantling of the old system of governance that removed the areas most legitimate political structures. More broadly, its policy reflects years of catering to Islamist elements that served the militarys purposes during the jihad of the 1980s and the Taliban era. Policies toward the Afghan Taliban can be similarly explained. The Musharraf Government has had little incentive to cripple this largely Pashtun fighting force viewed among its Pakistani ethnic cousins as an ally, not an enemy.13 The future utility of the Afghan Taliban lies in what is foreseen by many in Pakistan to be a not-too-distant post-American, post-North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Afghanistan. In that event, Russia together with its Central Asia surrogates and Iran are expected to carve out spheres of influence in a disintegrating Afghanistan, and seek close ties with India. Afghan Pashtuns will then serve Pakistans interests as a proxy force in creating a Pashtun buffer zone in southern and eastern Afghanistan. Pakistans government also has domestic political reasons for not trying to disband jihadi and other extremist groups that it sponsors, directly or indirectly. By keeping these organisations mostly intact across Pakistan, and their mission alive, the government feels better able to monitor extremist elements and channel their energies away from anti-regime activity within Pakistan. Were jihadi groups to be entirely dismantled, the government has reason to fear that many indoctrinated and armed people would be seeded across the country, stoking further violence in urban areas. While some militant groups enjoy unofficial government protection, others have parted ways with Musharraf, and even targeted him. Pakistans ISI has been largely able to hold groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba in line, but others including Jaish-e-Mohammad and Harakat-ul-Mujahideen often defy the security apparatus. It is arguable that if successive Pakistani governments, and specifically the ISI, had never sponsored these jihadi groups, Pakistan would have been spared many of its law and order problems. The international fallout of Pakistans Afghan policy Pakistans policies toward Afghanistan have strongly affected its relations with a number of countries. Its decisions have deepened suspicions and have occasioned confrontation with some traditional enemies and complicated relations with other states. The crucible of Afghanistan has been for Pakistan a particular source of difficulty for its relations with India, Russia and Iran. Yet Pakistans Afghan policies have at times also enabled it to acquire important allies and benefactors. Maintaining those policies has occasioned Pakistan to make commitments that have left a strong imprint on its domestic politics. The costs and rewards for 34

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Pakistan over the past quarter-century are nowhere better illustrated than in the countrys mercurial relationship with the United States. With no other partnership has there been more domestic controversy or more at stake politically for Pakistan. Many of Islamabads objectives in relations with Afghanistan are viewed through the prism of India. Afghanistan provides an arena in which Pakistan and India compete politically and economically. Pakistans quest for strategic depth against India is only the most obvious driver of its policy. Its determination to ensure compliant regimes in Kabul has always been with an eye toward weakening Indian influence. Sponsorship of Afghan leaders and political groups has regularly calculated their expected or demonstrated partiality toward India. But attempts to intervene have only increased Afghan leaders efforts to offset Pakistans influence by turning toward India and strengthening the impression that Afghanistan would allow India to use its soil against Pakistan.14 The lengths to which Pakistan has been prepared to go toward installing cooperative regimes in Kabul can be illustrated by the political price it was willing to pay for being patron to the Taliban between 1994 and 2001. Islamabad was isolated in trying to justify the Taliban to the outside world. Pakistans Afghan policy appeared for much of the international community as one piece with its support for the Kashmir insurgency and terrorism. That policy poisoned Islamabads relationship with Iran, the Central Asian republics, and Russia. It also created serious complications with other countries, including its traditional ally China. Each of these countries viewed the Taliban rule as giving sanctuary to extremist elements.15 Tehran remained convinced for some time that the Taliban were a Sunni conspiracy hatched and underwritten by Pakistan and the United States. Iran retaliated by helping to arm Shia militants inside Pakistan at war with Sunni extremist groups such as Sipah-i-Sabaha Pakistan and its offshoot Lashkare-Jangvi. The former Soviet Muslim republics represented promising future commercial and cultural partners for Pakistan. However, in backing the Taliban, Pakistan was fostering a group that boasted of its intention to spread radical Islam and topple their Soviet-era rulers. Pakistans policies in Afghanistan frustrated any possibility of improving relations with Indias ally Russia, and the friendship with China was strained by evidence that Islamist insurgents from southwest China were known to be training with the Taliban. The decision to partner with the United States in the jihad against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan and their local communist allies paid handsome dividends for the Pakistan leadership and military. Economic and military assistance that had ended with the military coup of 1977 resumed with the Ronald Reagan Administration, and through the 1980s the United States was largely reconciled to allowing Pakistans ISI to syphon off funds and supplies from those destined for the jihad in Afghanistan. Approximately $5.2 billion in overt and covert aid intended for the Afghan insurgency was passed to Pakistan from the United States during the decade.16 While resources from the United States and others did aid Pakistans economy, most of the gains went to enriching the military. As mentioned, Washington failed to push Zia to keep his promise of restoring democracy and maintained a blind eye to Pakistans nuclear weapons 35

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programme. When the assistance ended in 1990 following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, it became clear that American interest in Afghanistan and in its alliance with Pakistan did not go beyond the Cold War containment strategy. Islamabads grudging support for the military intervention in Afghanistan in the wake of 11 September 2001 revived the United States Pakistan partnership. As during the 1980s, Pakistans reward for its reversal on the Taliban and its cooperation with American counter-terrorism operations accrued disproportionately to the countrys leader and its military. The Pressler Amendment nuclear sanctions were lifted, thus permitting a 5-year, US$3 billion aid programmeonehalf of it directly slated for the military. Roughly an additional US$1 billion a year has gone for funding the armys efforts since 2001 in support of counter-terrorism operations and overall security along the Afghan border. This brings US aid to Pakistan from 2002 to 2007 to an impressive total of US$10.5 billion.17 Pakistan has again qualified to purchase advanced fighter jets from the United States and received compensation for the non-delivery of an earlier consignment of F-16s. A training programme for military officers suspended during the 1990s was revived. On the civilian side, the United States gave a strong stimulus to Pakistans economy by rescheduling US$3 billion in debt and supporting the International Monetary Funds additional US$9 billion in debt relief.18 A large part of the development portion of the 5-year programme has been in the form of budgetary support. A US$750 million development aid programme was sought from the US Congress in 2007, designed to transform the FATA into a more governable region. Yet aid that is so heavily pitched to security and regime stability will do little to ameliorate the social and economic problems faced by Pakistans citizens. Most in the Pakistani public disapprove of the actions of Pakistans military in the frontier and the war in Afghanistan, a sentiment that only intensified with the armys renewed intervention after the breakdown of the Waziristan agreement.19 Cooperation between intelligence agencies that has led United States and Pakistan to apprehend Al Qaeda and Taliban figures has aroused suspicions, and aggressive actions by US Special Forces along the border are viewed as threatening to Pakistans sovereignty. These fears were given greater credence in the summer of 2007 when a US National Intelligence Estimate found Al Qaeda networks to have been reconstituted along the tribal belt.20 It is a widely held opinion in Pakistan that Musharrafs policy is meant to please the United States and to primarily serve American interests, and that the benefits of the partnership with the United States have been one-sided. Popular acceptance of Musharrafs decision to abandon the Taliban in late 2001 was largely due to the expectation that Pakistan would in return earn handsome rewards from the United States. But Washingtons 2006 offer of nuclear cooperation with India and its refusal to consider an agreement with Pakistan are seen as testimony that the United States has cast its lot economically and strategically with India. Washington also is perceived as thwarting Pakistans attempts to address its serious energy requirements by opposing a gas pipeline agreement with Iran. Further sore points are the delay in concluding an investment agreement with Pakistan, and Washingtons refusal to restore previous favourable textile policies. 36

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Islamabad would also welcome US policy that encourages New Delhi to show greater flexibility in the ongoing composite dialogue between India and Pakistan. Overall, Pakistans decision to accommodate US pressures in its policies toward Afghanistan has been a liability for Musharraf. Collaboration with the United States on Afghanistan and the borderlands has been conflated in the public eye with American policies in the Arab Middle East and has been portrayed by many of its critics as anti-Islamic. There is wide opposition to American legislation to condition further assistance to Pakistan on its counter-terrorism efforts. The entire political spectrum, religious and secular alike, has been similarly unified in criticising those in the United States who have advocated using American forces unilaterally to attack Al Qaeda targets in Pakistans border areas. With Pakistan in a state of political transition and Afghanistan an increasing source of friction, the terms and endurance of the United States Pakistan strategic partnership are in doubt. Conclusion Pakistans Afghan policies over the past 30 years, whether pursued for domestic political or strategic reasons or under US and international pressures, have come at the expense of the countrys political stability and social cohesion. These policies carry heavy responsibility for intensifying Pakistans ethnic fissures, weakening it economically, fuelling religious radicalism, and bringing about an attenuation of the states legitimate authority. They have affected the balance of political power within Pakistan, most of all by reinforcing military ascendance. While Pakistans policies toward Afghanistan have attracted foreign resources, this assistance has regularly been a source of domestic controversy and dissent. In formulating its Afghan policies, Pakistans leaders seem often to ignore the long-term and wider implications of their decisions both at home and abroad. Preoccupied with foreign policy goals such as achieving American military aid, gaining strategic depth and avoiding encirclement, Islamabad has turned a blind eye to domestic radicalisation and the impact of this radicalisation on its ability to govern within its own borders. It has acted too often out of convenience rather than conviction in choosing its allies, with the governments credibility among its own people a frequent casualty. Pakistan has also failed to recognise the inherent contradictions of its two-track policy, between reserving a Pashtun card in the event of a failing Afghanistan and normalising its economic and political relations for the benefit of both countries. A series of events that began in March 2007 with the ill-advised attempt by Musharraf to remove Pakistans chief justice set in motion what may be a transitional phase in Pakistans politics. It is uncertain whether a redefinition of the military civilian relationship is at hand, one that allows for a re-emergence of active party politics or the assertion of direct military rule. Whatever the outcome, these domestic political changes can be expected to influence Pakistans policies on its Afghan border and with its Afghan neighbour, and thus its partnership with 37

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the United States. Pakistans national identity and internal unity are also unlikely to escape their impact. Notes and references
1. Barnett Rubin and Abubakar Siddique, Resolving the Pakistan Afghanistan Stalemate (Washington DC: US Institute of Peace Briefing, October 2006), pp 17 18. 2. Ibid, p 18. 3. Rhoda Margesson, Afghan Refugees: Current Status and Future Prospects (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, 26 January 2007), p 3. 4. See poll results reported in The New York Times, 13 September 2007, p 13. For the full findings of the public opinion survey, see hwww.TerrorFreeTomorrow.orgi, accessed 16 September 2007. 5. Shaun Gregory, The ISI and the War on Terrorism, Unpublished paper, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK, p 6. 6. UNAMA, Suicide attacks in Afghanistan, Report of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Kabul, 7 September 2007, pp 11, 28 and 90. 7. Khalid Mustafa, Pakistan suffers huge blow of over Rs 25 bn, The News International, 18 June 2007, hhttp://www.afghanistannewscenter.com/news/2007/june/jun182007.htmli, accessed 25 June 2007. 8. Husain Haqqani, PakistanBetween Mosque and Military (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, 2005), pp 145 146. 9. For a discussion of Pakistans direct aid, including military support, to the Taliban see newly declassified documents published by the National Security Archive, George Washington University, Washington DC, 14 August 2007, hhttp://www.nsarchive.orgi, accessed 1 September 2007. 10. C. Christine Fair, Nicholas Howenstein, and J. Alexander Their, Troubles on the Pakistan Afghanistan Border (Washington DC: US Institute for Peace Briefing, December 2006), p 5. 11. Ibid. 12. David S. Cloud, US reports surge in cross-border Afghan attacks, International Herald Tribune, 16 January 2007, p. Also see Associated Press, Taliban attacks triple in eastern Afghanistan since Pakistan peace deal, US official says, 27 September 2006, hhttp://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/27/asia/AS_GEN_ Afghan_Taliban_Attacks.phpi, accessed 5 October 2006. 13. General James Jones testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 21 September 2006 placed the Taliban command in Quetta, Pakistan. 14. Ironically, when Afghanistan had one of its best opportunities to capitalise on Pakistans vulnerability, it showed restraint. Afghan King Zahir Shah is known to have assured Pakistani President Ayub Khan in 1965 that Afghanistan would not take advantage of its neighbour while it engaged in its war with India. 15. Marvin Weinbaum, Afghanistan and Its Neighbors: An Ever Dangerous Neighborhood (US Institute for Peace Briefing, June 2006), p 9. 16. Larry Goodson, Afghanistans Endless War (Seattle WA: University of Washington Press, 2001), pp 145 146. 17. K Alan Kronstadt, Pakistan US relations, CRS Report to the Congress, 6 June 2007, p 44. The total above represents an extrapolation through fiscal year 2008. Also see Craig Cohen, A Perilous Course: US strategy and assistance to Pakistan (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2007), p 61. 18. Marvin G. Weinbaum, Pakistan and the United States: a partnership of necessity, in Daniel Benjamin (ed.), America and the World in the Age of Terror: A New Landscape in International Relations (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2005), p 109. 19. Op cit, Ref 4. 20. In early testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, then National Director of Intelligence John Negroponte on 11 January 2007 stated that Al Qaeda had established safe haven along Pakistans Afghan border.

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