INDIA ATTACKS PAKISTAN

The February 26 Indian strike on Pakistan is simultaneously a hard strike on Pakistan’s soil and a soft strike on the scenario in which Pakistan’s prospects looked greater than India’s. Kashmir has slipped out of India’s hands for all practical purposes. The favorite collective chant in Indian Occupied Kashmir is; “We are all Pakistanis, Pakistan is ours.” By crossing into Pakistani Kashmir, dropping bombs on Kashmiris in Pakistan and returning without being downed by Pakistan’s air force, India has conveyed a message to Kashmiris on both sides of the border. To the Kashmiri freedom activists, that the Pakistan they are dying to be with is unable to protect the Kashmiris living within its own borders. To the Pakistani Kashmiris, India sends the message that New Delhi can cross over to bomb them like the US bombs FATA. India’s obviously false assertion that it stayed within Pakistan’s airspace for twenty minutes is calculated disinformation aimed at weakening the political affinity Kashmiri people feel with Islamabad.

The 26 February strike has hit yet another target. Imran Khan’s government had just launched a rigorous diplomatic campaign for a plebiscite in Indian occupied Kashmir, in keeping with UN resolution. India has tried to turn the attention of the international community away from the atrocities it is committing in Kashmir to the “terror training camps” Pakistan has on its side of Kashmir.

The attack has obviously not caused casualties in Pakistan’s Kashmir of the kind and in the quantity India asserts it did, (three hundred “trained terrorists” or more) but in Islamabad and Rawalpindi the attack has hit at Imran Khan’s reputation as an assertive, nationalist leader and at Pakistan air force’s image for failing to stop the airspace violation and failing to down any of the planes in the convoy.

Pakistan’s rulers are saying that Moodi’s motive behind the strike is no more than popularity for victory in an upcoming general election. India is scheduled to have election in April. The air strike has certainly turned the domestic tide around for Moodi. Untill the attack, India’s media and India’s civil society were criticizing Moodi at fever pitch for having caused the mess in Indian held Kashmir. The criticism reached a crescendo after the Pulwama suicide attack by a Kashmiri insurgent on 14 February, that killed 41 Indian paramilitary troops on the spot, and injured many more. The young Kashmiri who communicated the Valentine’s Day message to the Indian troops had recently been in the custody of the same troops, and was brutalized during the time. He was consequently transformed from a stone throwing freedom activist to an IED exploding terrorist.

While the timing of the airstrike certainly helped Moodi’ improve on his ratings in the run up to an election, Pakistan would be better off comprehending that the current militarization of Indo-Pak relations by New Delhi is the consequence of a well thought out strategic plan that India has been harboring for more than a decade..

The strike came at a time when Pakistan’s PM, Imran Khan was successfully inviting foreign direct investment in Pakistan. Saudi Arabian crown prince MBS had recently visited Islamabad and committed to investing twenty billion dollars in the China Pak Economic Corridor. Saudi visit was a mutual boost for cash strapped Pakistan and the Saudi monarchy, which found itself suddenly isolated in the wake of the Khashoggi murder scandal. It is expected that Saudi Arabian confidence in CPEC would lead to the rest of the GCC member states also investing in Pakistan. The US is negotiating peace with the Taliban. With peace established in Afghanistan, Pakistan would be able to establish trade ties across Afghanistan into Central Asia. India would be marginalized in such a scenario, that is to say, unless it established peace with Pakistan by resolving the Kashmir dispute.

Pakistan had thus moved into a period of political stability and greater economic prospects, with peace in Afghanistan nearing and the Kashmir issue seeming close to resolution as it was clear to all that Kashmir remaining in India’s custody was no longer feasible.

India threw a monkey wrench into all this by launching a hard attack on Pakistan’s Kashmir and a soft attack on Pakistan’s equilibrium.

What will happen now?

India wants a war. If Islamabad ignored the current aggression, it is likely to be given another cause for action, only in the second instance, the government of Imran Khan and the Pak military will both be much weakened in terms of domestic standing. For now, not just Indo-Pakistan but Afghanistan also is in the eye of the storm whose arrival can only be stopped if both India and USA turn to peace instead of war.

Big Powers’ Endgame in Afghanistan

Published in Pakistan Observer 21/02/19

“Ghani is exercising brinkmanship. He is hoping Islamabad, angered at both the state and the non-state actors in Afghanistan, would be driven to taking expeditious action in Afghanistan against terrorist safe havens because Kabul is “uncooperative.” Armed action on Pakistan’s part will provide India the catalyst to activate her end game against Pakistan.”

Why do the Taliban insist on talking with the US, not the Kabul government? The stance reveals Taliban’s political dexterity. Ashraf Ghani is but a pawn in the US’ endgame in Afghanistan. If the Taliban were to start negotiating with Kabul, the terms will be set by the US through Ghani as their proxy. Should the negotiation end in an agreement between the Taliban and Kabul, it would help endorse the legitimacy of the American venture in Afghanistan as one that concludes in peace. Should the negotiations break down, the resultant violence would appear to be between two factions within Afghanistan, which would make the US a natural arbiter, providing it with renewed political and military impetus to escalate fighting. The Taliban do not want the US to avail the diplomatic pretext of “mediating” to end violence while escalating it.

Conversely, if direct negotiations between the US and the Taliban end in failure, resultant violence would reinvigorate domestic support for the Taliban and unite Russia and China against the US. The ANA will, in such a scenario, cease to exist for all practical purposes. In all out fighting between foreigners and the Afghans, the soldiers would fight alongside their compatriots, and the US would stop arming them.

India is, of course, a party to the endgame in Afghanistan. India would like to see Pakistan ensnared into using hard power to “help establish peace in Afghanistan.” Such a stupidity on Pakistan’s part will fulfill India’s dream of taking its hybrid war against Pakistan to the next level. India plans to dissolve Pakistan in a two front war. India wants mayhem inside Pakistan with latter’s army fighting collective force of the Pak-Afghan Pashtuns and Baluchis, infiltrated by under-cover Indian operatives and allies (a la East Pakistan). In such a scenario, religious activists in Pakistan and the Pakistani 24/7 media will also vilify Pak military as a mercenary force fighting west’s battles, leading to Pak military being bereft of legitimacy within its own borders.

The US will, in the event, withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, though it will continue gun running through proxies to help India against Pakistan. Russia would simply watch the ensuing battles with interest. For Kabul, India is a bigger and better market than Pakistan. New Delhi has been surreptitiously planting the notion in Kabul that joining borders with India would be economically lucrative for Afghanistan, who would enjoy visa free entry to one of the biggest global economies and tariff free trade with one of the biggest markets in the world.

Hence we see Aashraf Ghani deliberately inciting Islamabad through provocations. Late last year, he insisted on giving the body of SP Tahir Dawar to tribesmen in FATA instead of Islamabad, and this year, he tweeted about Pak government treating Pashtun and Baloch activists badly. Ghani is exercising brinkmanship. He is hoping Islamabad, angered at both the state and the non-state actors in Afghanistan, would be driven to taking expeditious action in Afghanistan against terrorist safe havens because Kabul is “uncooperative.” Armed action on Pakistan’s part will provide India the catalyst to activate her end game against Pakistan.

Russia would like to see the US leave now or be defeated in a bloody war in Afghanistan. A military victory for the US in Afghanistan is not in Russia and China’s interest and both will act to make it impossible. If Washington surges troops in Afghanistan at this stage, it risks inviting allied Taliban-Sino-Russian and Irani intervention in Afghanistan “against ISIS.” Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s Afghan envoy, who facilitated the Moscow peace dialogue between the Taliban and the Afghan politicians sans Kabul, has stated bluntly that if the US fails to strike a withdrawal deal with the Taliban, they could stay for few more years but in the end they will have to leave “in disgrace.”

Washington would prefer to see India empowered in the region versus China. Sino-Pak economic cooperation is a thorn in US’s side. CPEC enhances Beijing’s commercial leverage and leaves China with little vulnerability for adversaries to exploit. Both India and the US would like to see Beijing arrive at a position where it has to contend directly with India in regional geo-commercial activities, as this would leave China more vulnerable to adversarial big powers’ maneuvers in matters of both commerce and politics.

Equipping India with greater leverage against China has been US’s preference ever since the end of the Cold War. It is only possible if there is mayhem inside Pakistan. That is why Washington has waged a prolonged and bipartisan hybrid war against Pakistan through Afghanistan. Washington’s do more mantra against Islamabad is focused on weakening Pakistan’s western front, where India is given the opportunity to build substantial hard and soft power since 2001.

If Afghan peace is established through settlement between the US and the Afghans, regional powers are more likely to be able to resolve their respective bilateral issues using the principle of reciprocity. India and Pakistan will have incentive to resolve the Kashmir issue and establish trade corridor across Pak-Afghan territory linking Central Asia and Eurasia to both Pakistan and India in a win -win situation for all regional actors. Pakistan could become a bridge builder between China and India, akin to the role it played in Sino-US rapprochement during Cold War. India and Pakistan could avail both the CPEC and the Irani route to Eurasia and Europe, and Turkmenistan would be able to implement the TAPI project without delay. ISIS, which requires a kinetic atmosphere to survive, is likely to atrophy. Russia could utilize a commercial foot-hold in Gawadar. Iran’s economic isolation, currently harming regional economies, could end as India and Pakistan could exercise their respective leverage to convince Washington to soften sanctions against Tehran.
Despite US’s treatment of it, Pakistani political and military elite has not shown animosity towards the US. Pakistan is therefore likely to facilitate what-ever trade benefit the US can have in the region, if peace is established in Afghanistan. Russia and China are not likely to oppose such facilitation.

Of all the regional and international powers, it is Pakistan that stands for promoting peace between all players in the region. Pakistan’s diplomatic role, and its domestic political stability are, therefore, critical to the endgame in Afghanistan finishing to the region’s advantage.