There’s an interesting think-piece in The Atlantic by Robert D. Kaplan, exploring some of the possible reasons for the ISI’s involvement (recently reinforced by American intelligence reports) in the recent Indian embassy bombing in Kabul, as well as an assassination attempt on Hamid Karzai.
Kaplan begins with a historical overview, which I won’t recount (but do read the whole article). What seems like the key argument is the following:
The Karzai government has openly and brazenly strengthened its ties with India, and allowed Indian consulates in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-e-Sharif. It has kept alive the possibility of inviting India to help train the new Afghan army, and to help in dam construction in the northeastern Afghan province of Kunar, abutting Pakistan. All this has driven the ISI wild with fear and anger.
[…] In the mind of the ISI, India uses its new consulates in Afghanistan to back rebels in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan, whose capital, Quetta, is only a few hours’ drive from Kandahar. When India talks of building dams in Kunar, the ISI thinks that India wants to help Afghanistan steal Pakistan’s water. Karzai’s open alliance with India is nearly a casus belli for the ISI. So elements of the ISI have responded in kind; they likely helped in the recent assassination attempt against the Afghan president.(link)
Though Kaplan depends a bit too much on the projection of probable motives and regional alignments (rather than actual utterances from the parties involved), the schematic he describes seems convincing to me.
He also offers a “takeaway” for American readers, namely, you can’t just throw troops and money at Afghanistan, and expect to win:
In the midst of all this, both Bush and Barack Obama talk simplistically about sending more American troops to Afghanistan. The India-Pakistan rivalry is just one of several political problems in the region that negate the benefit of more troops. As in the past in both Afghanistan and Iraq, we are in danger of conceiving of war in narrow military terms alone, and thus getting the politics wrong.
In the first place, we need vigorous shuttle diplomacy between Kabul, Islamabad, and New Delhi to address India’s and Pakistan’s fears about Afghanistan. Only by assuaging the ISI’s fears, while allowing India its rightful place in Kabul, can we get more cooperation from Pakistan in our fight against Islamic extremism. (link)
Thoughts? I like the flavor of this explanation for two reasons. First, while Kaplan’s take does not by any means make the ISI more likeable, in general it makes more sense to see an organization like the ISI as operating on the basis of rational, if short-term, self-interest, not as a mindless agent of violence. Second, it downplays the issue of local religious fundamentalism, which is of course exploited by the ISI, but not the underlying cause for its actions. Pure religious fundamentalism might lead someone to blow up a marketplace full of people. But what motivates someone to blow up an embassy is obviously something much more pointedly political.
Also: see an earlier post relating to the ISI here.
…”not as a mindless agent of violence.”
Really???Phew!!!!!Makes me feel so much better. Guess it was just me thinking ISI as state sponsored brain behind terrorism in Afghanistan & India. So – a rationale discussion about sorting any misunderstanding should make it easier to work with ISI. After all – they are just concerned about Pak’s survival & not much about instigating ‘random’ acts of terrorism.
Thanks Amardeep.
Suraj, you’ve completely misconstrued what I was saying in the post. (Note the part where I said that this analysis “does not make the ISI any more likeable.”)
I am not saying, “so now we can work with the ISI.”
Rather, thinking about their actions as motivated by a clear objective makes it easier to understand them. And it is necessary to understand them in order to defeat them, either militarily or strategically.
It’s an interesting article, Only by scuttling the ISI’s contacts and suppliers can they be defeated. The ISI seems largely to be a funding and logistics support organization leaving the Mujahideen to do most of their wet work.
However, its not clear who, where or what the ISI is as an organic entity. ‘A state within a state’ seems like an accurate description as the question of the month seems to be ‘Who controls the ISI?’. The two options to defeat is to destroy it entirely or diplomatic engagement of the elements it control or elements within itself.
Survival of Pakistani Army Power depends on perceived threat from India. Role of ISI is to maintain this fear and ensure power and funding for the Army. Everything else is a side-show.
My problem with Kaplan’s piece is that he seems to believe that Afghanistan is somehow in the wrong for wanting to improve its security via a closer relationship with India, because Pakistan perceives Afghanistan is its backyard. Pakistan has been interfering in Afghan matters even before the Russians invaded in 1979. It should not surprise anyone that Afghans have grown tired of it.
From Kaplan’s article
This is sheer oversimplification. The assumption is that if we had no rebuilt the region after we used it to drive out the Soviets then ISI wouldn’t have used the money/ammunition that we supplied the Afgan warlords to create Taliban and trouble in the region. Though this is partly true but it doesn’t take into account that there were a lot of so called anti-Islamic (in the eyes of the Islamic world) events that were taking place for e.g. – Iran, Iran-Iraq war, Gulf war, Arba-Israeli struggle etc. in which we were playing a very visble role. You could justify it as in the backdrop of Cold war but nevertheless interference. The end result was Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia and possibly in collusion with ISI went over the tipping point with 9/11. So as much as the blame is on ISI we are also to blame. Now we are just cleaning up the legacy of the joint mess.
You might want to take a look at this critique (by Tom Bissell) of Kaplan’s body of work.
For specific issues relating to Afghanistan, I have always found the commentary over at Registan very informative.
As already pointed out, Kaplan is rather simplistic and clichéd in his analysis.
Amardeep, 1. Most of Kaplan’s article is the projection of motives onto India. He did a nice unintended hitjob on the behalf of the ISI.
The article is completely myopic and devoid of a historical context. Many afghans and Karzai hate Pakistan because they perceive it as the greatest threat to afghan peace and security. Their support for Indian influence is driven by this motive. The taliban was Pakistan’s creation in a Pakistani quest for “strategic depth”, and remains its creature. Currently it is a serious and growing threat to any Afghan govt. (also see comment #5 above).
India’s support to Afghanistan (along with Iranian support) has as its primary objective the prevention of growing Talibani influence. This is because Afghanistan was, and still is, used as a recruiting ground for Pakistani terrorists in India. Pakistani control of Afghanistan will ensure a stranglehold over the opium trade, which is an abundant source of financing for terrorist organizations and networks.
Pakistan’s problems with Balochistan are not an Indian creation. They (Pakistan) have themselves to blame for their internal problems, and are quite capable of destroying their own country without external support. India has not and did not train the people in Balochistan to carry out armed insurgency, the Pakistanis did so themselves. Most of Western Pakistan is slowly falling out of the control of the Pakistani state, and into the hands of the terrorists and monsters that the Pakistani Army trained. This stuff about Balochistan is a very convenient canard, simply because it cannot be disproved (I have not seen anywhere in his article any evidence in support of this, which is highly convenient).
Mr. Kaplan sounds like the democrats he derides so much-trotting out a recipe for an invented problem, which involves lecturing governments in the region. India today is not the India of the 1970’s and 1980’s. It is not going to change its policy in Afghanistan simply because of some shuttle diplomacy, and the United States should be thankful that it does not, because it would be difficult to maintain Afghan stability otherwise.
It is not possible to assuage Indian and ISI concerns simultaneously, for their concerns are completely at odds with each other. Furthermore, this is a failed policy, since this sort of “assuagement” has been tried for a long time now (~3+ decades), and the Taliban was the result. Also shuttle diplomacy aimed at “assuaging” India’s concerns will only annoy Indian govts, since past diplomacy at “assuaging” both India and Pakistan’s concerns have led to a lot of dead Indian citizens at the hands of terrorists from across the border.
Religious fundamentalism is not something that can be downplayed. What you say about the ISI “using” it to make a political point may have been true 15 years earlier, but it is not so any longer. The ISI has been infiltrated by the very ideologies it attempted to “use”. Furthermore, religious fundamentalist groups in Pakistan have an explicit political agenda which cannot be separated from their religious ideology, and the ISI is becoming increasingly aligned with this agenda.
and what might these be? They are ensuring that the military in pakistan does not lose its primacy, making sure civilian institutions in pakistan do not mature and that getting a good share of the foreign aid “halva” that gets offered to pakistan.
If one “gives” the disputed Kashmir territory(PoK for India, Azad Kashmir for PK), then India has a border with Afghanistan. My point in bringing this up is only to point out that Afghanistan can also be India’s backyard (or something very similar to it). Is it any surprise that India would want to have strategic relationship with Afghanistan??
On CNN-IBN, in an interview with Karan Thapar, president Karzai could not stop praising India’s involvement in Afghanistan. Indian foreign affairs office must have done something right to achieve this kind of praise from the Afghans. (Especially after an older India having supported the Russian invasion)
Don’t take away their insanity defense. Its all they have!
I’m keenly familiar with the history/culture of Afghanistan/NWFP/Kashmir. I’ve got quite a few questions about the ISI and what’s going on there in general. I’ll also provide you with some insights.
On youtube, I see many videos – some well-produced – about Waziristan. There’s this one guy by the name of ‘najibullah-something’. He has a 8 minute video chastising the Pakis to leave his homeland. He even says that “Pashtuns do not hate Indians. India’s first President was Zakir Hussain and he was a Pashtun”. But his tirade against Pakistan was very visceral.
Also, I’ve noticed that the Pakistanis have an identity crisis. NOTE: I’m not anti-Paki or some RSS crank. But the Pakis have many missiles named “Ghori”, “Babur” (Turko-Afghani), “Abdali” and “Ghazni” – all were rulers from Afghanistan who, ironically, destroyed much of Pakistan. “Makhdom Raheen, the Afghan information minister, has asked them not to use the names of great elders of Afghanistan on weapons of mass destruction.” Also, many Pakis who are NOT Pashtun claim to be “Pathaan”, which is the Anglicized way to say “Pashtun”. But they’re NOT Pashtuns. To create “strategic depth” into Pashtun identity, they wear “Kite Runner” shirts, I noticed.
Do any of you have any Pashtun friends? If so, what’s your opinion of them?
I think, the necessity of being political correct and elitistically relevant, prevents people from calling a spade a spade many a time in their daily existence…this seems to be one of those
Why bother with the ISI when the SIMI is free to operate in India again?
Lets call it open season on India cities…wabbit season and duck season in one!
The case against Musharraf
By Sanaullah Baloch
IN the last six decades a significant number of so-called state leaders have been prosecuted and brought before various domestic and international courts and tribunals for their official and unofficial crimes against humanity and genocide.
Unfortunately, the most unpopular state leaders have enjoyed lifetime immunity in domestic and foreign courts for their sanctioned and unsanctioned crimes. Many of them enjoyed personal immunity that lasts during their tenure for all unofficial acts such as looting state coffers or murdering political rivals.
After creating political and economic disarray and committing atrocities, the majority of detested world leaders moved to different countries that offered them protection and pleasure. But, including Pakistan’ s former military dictator Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf, a great number of the world’s reviled state heads have remained in their countries, benefiting from their institutional connections, an incapable judicial system and the state’s lack of will to try former and sitting rulers for unlawful and inhuman acts. The lack of legal and institutional capacity and willingness to try dictators and corrupt civil-military bureaucrats has resulted in an endless crisis of governance and trust in Pakistan. Deliberate ignorance by the legal and state institutions have benefited human rights violators, corrupt and criminal prime ministers, presidents, and miscreant dictators to escape justice, to live in cosy retirement, often with wealth dishonestly accumulated.
But internationally a positive change of approach has been experienced, to try rogue leaders for their crimes. Consensus also has been developed among the legal community around the world that all those involved in crimes against humanity must be prosecuted domestically and internationally, because some of these crimes are so disgraceful they can never be considered a part of any leader’s official duties. The statutes of the International Criminal Court and other international tribunals specifically declare that an official capacity or rank by itself is no defence against prosecution.
This month in Poland the country’s former communist leader and head of state, Gen Wojciech Jaruzelski, who is now 85 and in poor health, has gone on trial accused of committing a crime by imposing martial law in 1981. Reading the charges, the prosecutor said the men had violated their own communist constitution when they created what he called a “criminal military organisation†to implement martial law in Dec 1981. Eight other former officials will also be tried for the clampdown against the opposition Solidarity movement, during which dozens of people were killed.
However, there is little hope among the marginalised people and victims of Musharraf’s rule that the former military dictator will be persecuted for looting, treason and grave human rights violations. No doubt, there is a general perception among the marginalised people of Pakistan that ethnically dominant and superior leaders in Pakistan are above any law and protected for all their crimes. This time round there is a need that an ex-army man must be held accountable for his evident and committed crimes.
There is little disagreement among Pakistani citizens that the Musharraf era is marked with state highhandedness against citizens. Undermining the constitution, bombing Balochistan, killing and persecuting Baloch veteran leaders, kidnapping political activists, sacking judges, killing lawyers, promoting centre-province confrontation and corruption are enough to prosecute Mr Musharraf in domestic and international courts.
In the recent past, a number of the world’s errant leaders have been brought before the domestic and international courts for human rights abuses. Some have been convicted, others are on trial.
Internationally there is a growing trend to make all leaders accountable and prosecute rogue rulers. Radovan Karadzic has been recently arrested and shifted to ICC at Hague to face criminal charges. Sudan’s president Omar Al-Bashir has also been summoned by the International Court of Justice for his human rights crimes and genocide in Darfur.
We have an entire history of cases where war criminals and human rights abusers have been brought before tribunals and convicted for their sins. During 1945-49, the Nuremberg trials, the largest in history, that lasted four years, brought the Nazi regime and the engineers of the Holocaust to justice. Major war criminals were sentenced to death. In the 12 other cases that followed, 65 defendants were convicted and more than 20 executed.
In 1948 under the watch of US Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur, an international military tribunal prosecuted and executed Japan’s former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and 28 high-ranking Japanese leaders for war crimes. In 1989 after almost 25 years of communist reign in Romania, President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were found guilty of crimes against humanity by a secret military tribunal. The two were executed on Christmas Day 1989. Rwanda’s former prime minister, Jean Kambanda, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Argentina’s military dictator Captain Adolfo Scilingo (1976-1983) was convicted in April 2005 by the Spanish court (1995-2005) almost 10 years after his alleged human rights crimes. The late Chilean leader Pinochet was prosecuted by the country’s supreme court in 2004.
The UN-Sierra Leone joint tribunal was set up in 2002 to try Liberia’s former President Charles Taylor and those most responsible for crimes against humanity, for war crimes and attacks against UN peacekeepers. Musharraf including his team must be put on trial before domestic and international courts for official and unofficial crimes. All victims must be provided an opportunity to come forth with evidence before the judicial institutions. This process will not only assist the overall failed state system to improve its stained image, it will also strengthen the people’s trust in institutions.
The Supreme Court Bar Council of Pakistan, the HRCP, vibrant civil society and other concerned organisations need to go for a fresh strategy, to discourage human rights violators and take their cases to world bodies. The legal community must activate its professional capacity to surround the high-profile culprits taking them before domestic and international courts of law for their unforgettable crimes.
The writer is a former member of senate.
balochbnp@gmail.com
Related Links:
http://dawn.com/2008/09/22/op.htm#3