Obama links Afghan success to Pakistan

[Mairaj Shar]

Obama links Afghan success to Pakistan
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday night sent focussed messages to Islamabad as he announced the expected surge of 30,000 US troops into Afghanistan but also set a deadline of July 2011 for beginning a pullout, leaving Americans and the world more confused than ever before about US AfPak policy and goals.

Caught between a divided Democratic Party not ready to support more troops and a Republican majority not ready for a pullout strategy, Obama in his West Point, New York, speech tried to please every one but sent clear messages for Pakistan and Afghanistan that the days of “blank cheques” were over and US would multiply its covert presence and operations inside Pakistan, despite the Pakistani backlash and resentment.

Reaction to Obama’s speech was mixed and confused and many senators and congressmen, from both sides of the aisle, announced they will resist funding for the troops surge in Congress, which analysts said may force Obama to cross party lines to seek votes, ignoring his own party dissidents.

For Pakistan Obama was specific and almost threatening. “This is the epicentre of the violent extremism practised by al-Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat,” he said.

“In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror. This danger will only grow if the region slides backwards, and al Qaeda can operate with impunity. We must keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region,” he continued making a direct accusation that Pakistan was failing to stop cross border terrorists from crossing over into Afghanistan.

In another direct and categorical statement about US concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear capacity, Obama said: “The people and governments of both Afghanistan and Pakistan are endangered. And the stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them.”

He announced a three point strategy of which the third dealt with Pakistan. “We will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan,” he said. “We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border.”

“In the past, there have been those in Pakistan who have argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight, and that Pakistan is better off doing little or seeking accommodation with those who use violence. But in recent years, as innocents have been killed from Karachi to Islamabad, it has become clear that it is the Pakistani people who are the most endangered by extremism. Public opinion has turned. The Pakistani Army has waged an offensive in Swat and South Waziristan. And there is no doubt that the United States and Pakistan share a common enemy.

Marking a shift from the old US policy he said: “In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. Those days are over. Moving forward, we are committed to a partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual interests, mutual respect, and mutual trust. We will strengthen Pakistanís capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe-haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear. America is also providing substantial resources to support Pakistanís democracy and development. We are the largest international supporter for those Pakistanis displaced by the fighting. And going forward, the Pakistani people must know: America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistanís security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent, so that the great potential of its people can be unleashed.”

Shortly after his speech the influential New York Times reported that quietly, “Mr Obama has authorised an expansion of the war in Pakistan as well - if only he can get a weak, divided, suspicious Pakistani government to agree to the terms...But the Pakistanis, suspicious of Mr Obama’s intentions and his staying power, have not yet agreed.”

The newspaper said in recent months, in addition to providing White House officials with classified assessments about Afghanistan, the CIA delivered a plan for widening the campaign of strikes against militants by drone aircraft in Pakistan, sending additional spies there and securing a White House commitment to bulk up the CIA’s budget for operations inside the country.

The expanded operations could include drone strikes in the southern province of Balochistan, where senior Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, officials said. It is from there that they direct many of the attacks on American troops, attacks that are likely to increase as more Americans pour into Afghanistan, it said.

“The president endorsed an intensification of the campaign against Al Qaeda and its violent allies, including even more operations targeting terrorismís safe havens,” said one American official. “More people, more places, more operations.” That was the message delivered in recent weeks to Pakistani officials by Gen James L Jones, the national security adviser,” the NYT reported.

It said what was making matters worse, was that the president, Asif Ali Zardari, is often at odds with the nation’s powerful military and intelligence establishment.

“The question about Mr Obama’s Pakistan strategy is whether the new commitment of troops and resources can ultimately make America safer at a time of an evolving terrorist threat. Mr Obama insisted that was his central focus.”

ìThis is the epicentre of the violent extremism practised by Al Qaeda,” he said to the cadets at West Point. Many times in the speech he returned to the Pakistani nuclear threat.

The newspaper observed that Obama’s decision to raise the nuclear spectre was notable because a succession of American officials has publicly stated recently that the Pakistani arsenal is secure. In private, however, they have commissioned new intelligence studies on how vulnerable Pakistani warheads and laboratories would be if insurgents made greater inroads, with one official saying recently, “It is the scenario we spend the most time thinking about.”

In other reaction countrywide, the opinion was clearly divided. The Washington Post, in a story hours after the speech, analysed it in these words: “Would you buy a used war from this man? Americans might be seeing their bright, young president in a dark, new light this morning after watching his televised speech Tuesday night centring on escalation of the war in Afghanistan.”

It said Obama adopted the risky approach of both calling for a sizable troop surge — bigger in terms of percentage than the Iraq surge ordered by then-president George W Bush — and outlining an exit strategy in the same speech. That was a clear acknowledgment of the fragile state of public opinion after eight years of conflict in Afghanistan, as well as the political divisions.

Obama’s political standing depends on the military’s ability to successfully implement the new strategy and on his own ability to maintain public confidence through what is likely to be a period of partisan debate and rising US casualties. Democrats worry privately that the escalation, even with talk of an endgame, will demoralise their liberal base and dampen turnout in next year’s elections.

On Capitol Hill, they will face a major fight over funding the war. In the House, as many as half of Democrats may oppose the administration’s request for money to support the surge, forcing Obama to rely on a big block of Republican votes to get the legislation through the House and Senate.

Reactions on Tuesday night illustrated the challenging environment for the president. Liberal Democrats expressed opposition to any escalation, while Democratic leaders signalled their reservations by saying they will take time to study the plan. Republicans applauded the troop increase but almost uniformly warned about sending mixed messages with talk of leaving.

Others in the US had sharper comments. A blogger, John Aravosis from Washington DC, said on America Blog: “I don’t think the speech really changes anything, as Chris Matthews just said on TV, the right is still going to hate him, and the left is still going to be ticked that we’re sending more troops. And the proof, in the end, will be whether things turn around in Afghanistan, or whether the next three years are a continuation of the bad news from a country that’s costing us good soldiers and good money.”

Peter Feaver, a political scientist at Duke University who worked in the Bush White House analysing public opinion on Iraq, said as Obama begins his effort to sell the new strategy, he is in a far stronger position politically than Bush was when he announced the surge policy in January 2007. But Feaver said mixed signals during the decision-making process forced Obama “to do a sharp pivot back” toward escalation, complicating his task of rallying public opinion.

Democrat congressman Ted Poe, from Humble, Texas, reacted: “No nation in history has ever told the enemy their battle plans, except tonight the United States has chosen to announce an arbitrary end to our commitment in defeating terrorism. Laying out our military tactics for our enemies is not only unwise, but poses a significant threat to the security of our country and the lives of the men and women on the battlefield. This new strategy contradicts our commitment to victory in Afghanistan and reaffirms our enemy’s belief that America will lose its will to win.”

On a liberal blog the comment was: “As expected, it was an admirable speech regardless of the questionable content, but, then, we’ve come to expect such lofty rhetorical flights from Obama. The tone was serious, which it had to be, and, on the whole, the president made his case effectively, I thought. But do we buy the case? I do not.”

ìI donít think he will have changed many minds,î said Rep Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, a vocal opponent of the Iraq war. Obama ìgives a great speech,î Woolsey said, but there was ìno news in it.î

Contending that there is no military solution to the Afghanistan situation, Woolsey said, ìWe need a surge of civilians, not combat troopsî to provide humanitarian and economic assistance to the impoverished and long-embattled nation.

The New York Times said making the Pakistan plan even more complex was Mr Obama’s effort to reconcile two seemingly contradictory messages on Tuesday evening. He had to convince the Pakistanis that he was not planning to leave the region — as the United States did 20 years ago, after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan — while reassuring American citizens that after an 18-month build-up, he would begin to head for the exits. The United States, he said, simply could not afford an open-ended war. Unlike President Bush, he suggested, he would not set “goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests.”

Called upon afterward by CBS News anchor Katie Couric, veteran correspondent Bob Schieffer said the speech might prove to be “the defining moment of the Obama presidency” — all while a militaristic rallying cry may have seemed atypical and out of character. Schieffer also noted that Obama “always” makes a “very eloquent” presentation, so that was no surprise.

It was the night Obama “took command of the Afghan war,” Schieffer said. The correspondent added that even if the troop escalation is a smart move, announcing in advance an 18-month time frame — after which the servicemen and women will come home — could be folly. “I just don’t understand the logic of how that works,” Schieffer said.

On NBC, Sen John McCain made a similar point to anchor Brian Williams. “I do support it,” he said of the troop surge. But McCain also said that Obama is “sending the wrong signal” when announcing “that we are leaving on an arbitrary date.”