US Vice president Joe Biden has just completed his so-called one-day secret trip to Pakistan, which, incidentally, was known well in advance to the media all over the world. Biden was in Afghanistan last week to review the military operations against the Taliban and from there flew to Islamabad to meet the leaders of Pakistan, “the key ally of the United States,” in fight against the global terrorism. Biden might have met the Pakistani civilian leadership for protocol purposes, but his real aim was to interact with the chief of Pakistani Army, General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani. Because, all told, the ultimate leader of Pakistan, despite its superficial civilian regime, happens to be Kayani. This column has been pointing out from time to time this unpalatable truth about Pakistan. In the final analysis, whether it is President Asif Ali Zardari or Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, nothing will move in Pakistan, particularly in matters pertaining to foreign and security policies, without the consent of the country’s Army Chief, who at the moment happens to be General Kayani.
Biden’s mission was all about to ensure Kayani’s support towards a respectable withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. Broadly speaking, the Afghan policy of the Obama administration is being influenced by two conflicting schools of thought among his officials, with the American President himself maintaining a neutral position. Biden is in that school which suggests early withdrawal of the troops. Earlier he was suggesting that the withdrawal should take place in 2011 itself. But now he is amenable to the 2014 deadline. In his scheme of things, Pakistan must be appeased adequately to facilitate the American withdrawal because it is Pakistan that has leverage against the Taliban. If Pakistan convinces the so-called good Taliban to cease fighting and join the Afghan government or rule a major portion of Afghan territory undisturbed without troubling the nominal authorities in Kabul, the Americans could have a face-saving withdrawal.
“¦whether it is President Asif Ali Zardari or Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, nothing will move in Pakistan, particularly in matters pertaining to foreign and security policies, without the consent of the countrys Army Chief, who at the moment happens to be General Kayani.
On the contrary, the other school, consisting of mainly the generals, including the commander of the forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, and Pentagon officials, rightly believes that Pakistan is not the solution to but the root cause of the troubles in Afghanistan. In fact, since the release of 90,000 pages of classified US military intelligence on operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan by WikiLeaks, the Obama Administration has struggled to win the media war. The leaks confirmed that the overall portrayal of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence’s (ISI’s) “collaboration with the Afghan insurgency was broadly consistent with other classified intelligence.” The documents showed that the ISI has “acted as both ally and enemy… appeasing certain American demands for cooperation while angling to exert influence in Afghanistan through many of the same insurgent networks that the Americans are fighting to eliminate.”
These revelations came hot on the heels of independent studies arriving at the same conclusion. The first, by Harvard University fellow Dr. Matt Walden, and published by London-based Crisis States Research Centre, interviewed Taliban field commanders and Western defence officials who said that the ISI continues to be “the provider of sanctuary and substantial financial, military and logistical support to the insurgency” as a part of its “official policy” of exerting “strong strategic and operational influence on the Afghan Taliban.”
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