Amid criticism from various quarters¶including the U.S. military leadership¶on June 22nd, U.S. President, Barack Obama, announced pulling out 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by September 2012, with 10,000¶mostly non-combat¶troops starting to leave in July. The cost of the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan will touch the trillion dollar mark by the end of this year. In the backdrop of domestic financial crunch that is forcing President Obama to cut costs, the draw-down in troops in Afghanistan was inevitable. The logistics alone cost the U.S. and other NATO countries a whopping four billion dollars a year (CRSS Report).
Afghanistan landlocked location has posed huge logistical challenges for the United States, requiring hundreds of shipping containers and fuel trucks ply every day from Pakistan and from the north to sustain the nearly 150,000 U.S. and allied forces stationed in Afghanistan, about half the total number of Afghan security forces. Supplying a single gallon of gasoline in Afghanistan reportedly costs the U.S. military an average of $400, while sustaining a single U.S. soldier runs around $1 million a year (by contrast, sustaining an Afghan soldier costs about $12,000 a year), reckons STRATFOR (Strategic Forecasting Inc., a global intelligence company). Two-thirds of this cargo¶about 50,000 containers¶transit through Pakistan every month, compared to the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), which runs through Central Asia and Russia (Moscow has agreed to continue to expand it) and entails a more than 5,000 kilometer, expensive rail route to the Baltic Sea and ports in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
Obama speech, therefore, comes across as a mix of multiple considerations and compulsions, triggered by the window of opportunity provided with the death of Osama Bin Laden (OBL)¶one of the stated objectives of the Operation Enduring Freedom. One of the motivating factors behind the decision was the mounting domestic opposition to the war in Afghanistan and the financial cost associated with it, as the president recalled, ‘Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times. We–ve learned anew the profound cost of war — a cost that’s been paid by the nearly 4,500 Americans who have given their lives in Iraq, and the over 1,500 who have done so in Afghanistan¶men and women who will not live to enjoy the freedom that they defended.’ And if the draw-down occurs as per the plan, Obama would have saved at least 33 billion dollars by the time the election campaign is in full swing next year.
Obama also cautioned all those¶more precisely among the insurgents¶who tend to delude themselves with the thought of the U.S./NATO leaving Afghanistan, or crumbling under burgeoning financial burden. On the face of it, permanent US bases in Afghanistan, an issue still stuck in the Afghan parliament, will not only serve as a life-line support for the fragile Afghan government, but also work as deterrent as well as monitoring stations for Iran and Pakistan. And in this context, Obama made no secret of his views on Pakistan, ‘We’ll work with the Pakistani government to root out the cancer of violent extremism, and we will insist that it keeps its commitments ….there should be no doubt that so long as I am President, the United States will never tolerate a safe haven for those who aim to kill us. They cannot elude us, nor escape the justice they deserve.’ The American president left no doubt whatsoever, that despite al Qaeda winding down after bin Laden killing, his administration remains focused on the organization and its ‘safe havens.’
As a whole, the Obama speech reflected the strains and the pains he currently faces at home. But he also used the occasion to underline the American predominance of the world politics, conveying to potential challenges that the ‘US does not forget.’ Given the domestic political situation as well as the combat needs of Afghanistan, President Obama seems to have struck a balanced deal. For countries of the region like Pakistan, it is important to note that the U.S. wants to remain committed in Afghanistan for some time to come, despite the draw-down in troops. Pakistani government and the military shall have to decide in unison the future course of engagement with the United States.
For the endgame in Afghanistan to be effective, the U.S. will have to take the regional players along. If we look at the contradictions of the American policies towards countries such as Pakistan, it is pretty evident that Washington and its mighty military establishment act as the judge, the prosecutor and the defense. Their insistence that militants based in and around North Waziristan constitute the biggest threat to Afghanistan also flows from this self-asserting attitude. Policies scripted in Washington have clearly spelled more violence and instability in this region. Even though they have tried to run down Pakistan, it would be difficult for the American administration to keep Islamabad¶that borders 2,560 km border, and is a conduit for two-thirds of U.S./NATO and Afghan supplies¶out of the reconciliation process.
On the other hand, Pakistan will also have to realize that an omni-present and mighty American security establishment knows the limitations as well as the exploitable weaknesses of its Pakistani counterpart. And the only way Pakistan can extricate itself from the U.S. pressure and the confusion at home is to devise a futuristic, collaborative strategy rather than an exploitative tactical game that is often scorned as blackmail, and thus takes the country nowhere.
Improving relations with India is also of utmost importance for Pakistan. The craving for parity with India is not relevant any more. India, on the basis of sheer size of its population, has moved to a different plateau and any attempt ´ political, military or diplomatic – to match New Delhi will only mean more attrition, and probably greater international isolation .Regardless of what the U.S. does in Afghanistan, Pakistan needs to straighten up relationship with India and follow up on the positive vibes that emanated from foreign secretaries– talks in Islamabad last week. The spirit of reconciliation must continue when foreign ministers meet at New Delhi in July.