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The Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) signed
October 4 by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has assumed
such importance for a number of reasons.
The SPA specifically calls for India “to assist,
as mutually determined, in the training, equipping
and capacitybuilding programmes for Afghan national
security forces.”
Details of the Kabul-Delhi pact have yet to be
worked out. Hence, it is not clear whether, and
how far, the training of the Afghan armed forces
and the police would entail enhanced Indian presence
on Afghan soil.
But there have been age old-ties, and Afghanistan
is regarded in New Delhi as “A Friend Always.”
India’s task under the SPA is noncombatant and
does not require deployment of forces. Indian
officials reiterate that there is no question
of deploying forces in Afghanistan for any combat
role. India has been assisting Afghanistan with
medical facilities and building of basic economic
infrastructure, and that role is indeed set to
be strengthened.
The SPA however is significant as this is the
first such agreement that Afghanistan has signed
with any country, including the United States.
What makes it important is its timing with the
plans of the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(NATO) to withdraw forces by 2014.
The agreement positions India and Afghanistan
for the post-2014 situation when the international
forces are scheduled to withdraw and hand over
security responsibilities to Afghan forces.
The importance of the SPA lies in the fact that
it is coming almost a decade after India initially
proposed training of Afghan security forces in
the post-Taliban phase, but was sidelined by the
world community that met in Berlin to decide on
Afghanistan’s future course of action.
Indian experts like Lt. Gen. (Retd) R K Sawhney
had counseled against disbanding the Northern
Alliance fighters who helped capture Kabul and
win the war against Taliban.
Sawhney has been of the view that an army cannot
be raised overnight and it would not help disbanding
the existing one. This was ignored because the
Northern Alliance fighters were seen as non- Pushtun,
and somehow perceived to be against the majority
Pushtun population.
The most complicating factor in the troubled
neighbourhood is Pakistan, which right after its
birth in 1947, has sought a dominant position
in Afghanistan. It also has been responsible for
preventing India’s peaceful relationship with
Pakistan, and help train its security and administrative
structures for maintaining internal peace.
If the SPA is signed despite this, it is because
there is a definite shift on the Af-Pak front
reflected in the changing stance of the US and
its western allies. As they prepare to withdraw,
and while the talks among various players are
not getting anywhere, they have scored significant
hits on the ground.
The gains are not just in Afghanistan. After
locating and ki l ling Osama bin Laden in Pakistan,
the US has successfully killed several known Taliban
and Al Qaida commanders along the Af-Pak border,
including the tribal areas of Pakistan.
In distant Yemen, there was a significant gain
on impairing the Al Qaida propaganda machine.
Anwar Al-Awlaki, the American-born propagandist,
who converted many to his radical path using English
language, was killed in an American strike.
Also killed with Al-Awlaki was Sameer Khan, an
American of Pakistani origin, who edited “Inspire”
and whose CDs and DVDs helped convert many young
people to radical Islam.
These gains set the mood for the Karzai visit.
It came a week after a statement that Kabul is
‘frustrated’ at talking to the elusive Taliban,
its main adversaries, with Pakistani mediation.
It will now talk directly to Islamabad and collaborate
“with the US, the European Union and India.”
Surely, the Indo-Afghan pact could not have
come about without a nod from Washington that
is blowing hot and cold with Islamabad through
2011.
What Hillary Clinton had been saying for weeks
about Pakistan “nurturing wild elements in its
backyard”, retiring Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs
of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said directly about
the Haqqani network. He was blunt in saying the
Haqqanis had recently attacked the US embassy
in Kabul, and that their terror networks was “a
veritable arm” of the ISI, Pakistan’s notorious
military sabotage and intelligence agency.
Any doubts about the US’s current stance towards
Pakistan were removed by Barack Obama who October
6 said: “There is no doubt that there is some
connection that Pakistan’s military and intelligence
services have with certain individuals that we
find troubling.”
The current American mood and explicit statements
against Pakistan by its leaders may cause some
excitement in India, but they need to be viewed
with deep perspective though.
It would be naïve to think that in seeking India’s
wholehearted support, the US would, or could,
forsake Pakistan. The Indians should only be playing
for advantage, fully conscious of this fact.
Also, there are many layers of decision-making
in the US and Pakistan has traditionally enjoyed
strong links within the American system, no matter
which party or the president is in office. There
are strong voices even within the Obama administration
cautioning against isolating Islamabad or destabilizing
its current domestic dispensation.
While this is the US-Pak situation, the Chinese
interests and Sino-Pak strategic ties also need
to be factored in any dispassionate assessment
of what India will, and can, do in Afghanistan.
A Sino-Pak collusion to counter any Indo-US arrangement
in Afghanistan is almost inevitable.
India’s strategic hawks have termed the Kabul-Delhi
pact a sign of a new pro-active stance. This may
or may not be so, but there would always be challenges
irrespective of what India does. Pakistani military
leaders would ensure this.
Notably, there is a perception that India will
end up taking a part of the task that the US has
left undone due to the risks and limitations that
have been all too obvious. The doubters feel that
India has neither the clout, military or economic,
nor the stomach to undertake risky politico-military
operations well beyond its borders.
THE PAK FACTOR
Pakistan has always viewed Afghanistan as a zero
sum game with India. It is unlikely to accept
the new arrangement and can be expected to make
things more difficult for Delhi.
Worse still, more attacks on Indian offices in
Afghanistan, where at least 35 Indians have been
killed in the last three years. And worst: of
Mumbai-style attacks on the Indian soil.
President Karzai also signed a MOU inviting Indians
to explore minerals and natural gas in Afghanistan
that are estimated to be worth $ one trillion.
This would mean stationing more and more Indians,
who would need protection. A rivalry with China
that is already into mining copper is a possibility.
What seems clear is that India is back as a
full-fledged player endorsed by the world community
that had ignored its legitimate role at Berlin
a decade ago and had reinforced it at its London
conclave in January 2010.
India’s endorsement is an unacknowledged admission
of the failure of the futile quest for ‘good’
and ‘bad’ Taliban by those in a hurry to quit
after declaring some kind of a victory, using
their cheque books.
The global concerns about future prospects of
Kabul sliding back to an isolationist regime that
oppresses its women and children require that
the US and its allies ensure that their second
departure in three decades from Afghanistan does
not create those conditions.
There are also questions as to whether the US
and allies would really leave the area? Simply
put, there is no reason why the US would give
up this foothold-plus -- right in the middle of
an adversarial Iran, a competitive China, a simmering
West Asia and an energy-rich Central Asia.
Nonetheless, India would need a long-term, sustained
effort to forge and strengthen relations with
Afghanistan as well as the neighbours around it.
Peace in the region is worth the effort, as it
will lead to economic prosperity for every one,
Pakistan included.
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