Pakistan-US: US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mullen said on 22 September that Pakistan is exporting violent extremism to Afghanistan by allowing the Haqqani network to act as an "arm" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency."It was a policy choice." We do not just react to a static world in our foreign affairs. We also make choices as to how to view people and respond to events. Pakistan is just trying to protect its interests as it sees them. On the other hand, we have a clash of interests with Pakistan and we need to be looking out for our own interests.♠ Taking the path of least resistance makes sense, as long as our interests are met. A lot of times it looks like our interests are not being met. Perhaps Night Watch is correct and we will see a change in approach under Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. But, that is not a decision that can be taken unilaterally by the SecDef, unless he is looking for a fight with the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor.
Mullen told a US Senate panel that Haqqani operatives executed attacks with ISI support, including the 28 June Kabul hotel attack; an 11 September truck bombing; and the 13 September attack on the US Embassy in Kabul. Mullen said using violent extremism as a policy tool jeopardizes US-Pakistani relations and Pakistan's opportunity to be a respected nation with legitimate regional influence.
Special Comment: Mullen's testimony is important because it signifies the US Defense Department, not just intelligence agencies, now accepts what Mullen has denied in public before. It is unusual because this kind of disclosure should have been made by the head of DIA or the US Deputy Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, not the Chairman, JCS.
For six years or longer Intelligence agencies and NightWatch open source analyses have reported that Pakistan is a state sponsor and active supporter of terrorism in South Asia—Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh—as an arm of national security policy.
For four years Mullen, on behalf of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has advanced the notion that a person-to-person relationship with Pakistan Army Chief of Army Staff General [Ashfaq Parvez] Kayani could change Pakistani hostility to the Karzai government, promote peace on the sub-continent and end Pakistani support for terrorism and for nuclear proliferation.
Today's testimony indicates that such a misguided, well intentioned peculiarly American approach has failed in every category, once again, and is now no longer US policy. Mullen was the architect of this policy and so he is the spokesman for its failure. It has taken four years for this epiphany to take place. [Cliff notes that four years is the normal term for a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—two two-year terms.]
Some might argue that the personal approach helped secure US supply lines through Pakistan to Afghanistan. The counter argument is that in building a logistics system that relied on Pakistan the US taxpayers financed and supported both sides of the insurgency for ten years plus Pakistani trucking concerns.
The hard lesson for some American seniors is the realization that Kayani and his cohorts have never been free agents in the Pakistan system. They are superb representatives and defenders of a system of strategic precepts that India is the enemy; Islamic fundamentalists are Pakistani patriots; the US is an inconstant ally that should never be trusted and that Afghanistan is the battlefield for proxy war to protect Pakistan's western flank from a two-front war by India. That summarizes Pakistani strategic doctrine, minus the Pakistani nuclear doctrine of shooting India before India shoots Pakistan.
Kayani was [Pervez] Musharraf's hand-picked successor and Musharraf despised the US. Kayani has never said anything officially nor made any significant changes to Pakistan security policy that the US wanted during the past four years.
A policy of personal relationship crafted to change the security policy of a so-called ally is manipulative, transparent and never works. Everybody knows this and this was not an intelligence failure. It was a policy choice. Today's testimony indicates the US Defense Department might finally understand that policy towards Pakistan must be based on national interests, not personal relationships. That is how the Pakistanis have manipulated the US for years.
Pakistan is not a US ally, partner, or friend, despite $ billions in arms aid. The US is Pakistan's customer. The US has paid top dollar for what little begrudging assistance it received from Pakistan. Pakistan spent every US dollar to enable it to fight India.
With luck, a new, more pragmatic, clear sighted US policy towards Pakistan should start to emerge under Secretary Panetta.
Regards — Cliff
♠ Part of our interests include close ties with India, Pakistan's enemy. India is our natural ally in the area and in the world at large. India is the worlds largest democracy and in terms of cultural values very closely allied with us. Pakistan, not so much.
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3 comments:
Apparently Hillary has authorized Hollywood Mike to admit to the world that he is either a puppet for the administration that created him, or that he is simply and profoundly delusional. A PFC in a foxhole on the Paki border has been saying Mullen's conclusion for years now.....perhaps as far back as the inception of what has been referred to in a zeal for romanticism "Charlie's War." I mean....it doesn't take even a modicum of military thought process to see the handwriting on the wall about Pakistan.
The only mystery about the entire sordid matter is why on earth the US, knowing full well (again...assuming that "they" are not merely incompetent) that Pakistan is a wolf in a cheap sheep suit, insists on lavishing Billions of dollars on them....each month. It defies even fractured logic. We are, in effect, funding Pakistan to kill our troops. This is PRECISELY the same as sending billions to North Korea so that they can attack and kill Americans in South Korea. The concept is simply mind numbing.
The simplicity of the premise is simply staggering...."Pakistan doesn't LIKE the US, so why are we paying them to NOT like us?"
It is Orwellian.
Due to mis-adventure I showed up at 0800 for a 0900 meeting—they slipped it and I didn't read the EMail. I was going to use the time to update this post, but I found Neal's comment, to play off of.
We have some need of help from Pakistan, including (relatively) safe routes for supplies going into Afghanistan.
So, we pay for this and other help. And, we pay for some small level of access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, in hopes of making their weapons safer and more secure.
We are not going to change the Pakistani ISI. Not with money or force. We have to live with it. But, we should be sober about it, rather than romantic.
Regards — Cliff
The Pakis are just pissed that Obama invited Singh to the first State Dinner.
And since we popped ObL, most of the Arab money must have dried up.
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