Carry On Up The Khyber: Trump's South Asia Policy Could Create New Buffer States Along The Durand Line

Carry On Up The Khyber: Trump’s South Asia Policy Could Create New Buffer States Along The Durand Line

You may do one Mumbai; you may lose Balochistan- Ajit Doval

In  President Donald Trump's world-view, much to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's delight, Pakistan fits squarely into a "counterterrorism narrative".

Particularly now, since there is no US dependence on it anymore.

Successive military-aid cuts, and making the remainder contingent on  its acting against  international terrorist groupings receiving succour from Pakistan,have been driving home this point.

Those who are anathema include the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and other banned or watched terrorist groups that have also plagued India for decades.

But there is a rising frustration in America that not enough is being done, and what is seen to be done, is neither genuine nor effective. This is a fortuitous convergence of views for us.

The Trump administration is currently formulating, and will shortly unveil the unclassified sections of its new South Asia policy, involving Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

And this throws up clear opportunities for India vis a vis Pakistan, now yoked to China. But only if it boldly steps up to the plate.

The usual diffidence towards getting involved militarily in Afghanistan, or how such an action will play in Tehran or Riyadh, is  changing under the Doval Doctrine, of what he calls "defensive-offensive", and, "offensive", quite by itself.

With the provision of several attack helicopters from India to Afghanistan recently, and the newly established air-corridor between Delhi and Kabul, a beginning has already been made, irrespective of Chinese, Pakistani or indeed Iranian disapproval.

If there are to be Indian military boots on the ground next, as may be requested by America, we should respond favourably, but it must be worth India's while.

And this means degrading Pakistan's ability to attack Afghanistan using proxies, and the covert action of the  Inter Services Intelligence (ISI); by the creation of newly independent buffer states between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

By inference, if implemented shortly with US/ Israeli support, it will weaken the Pakistan-China nexus in the Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and the Gilgit-Baltistan region as well.

With every indication, given an apparent meeting of minds, that Vladimir Putin's Russia will not object to  Donald Trump's action in the region, the plan is highly executable.

The only opposition will come from China, already beleagured on several fronts at present, and in no position to threaten the US, given its own disputes with several countries, and its failure to curb North Korea's hostility. An independence movement is something to be celebrated after all, especially if it brings lasting peace to a troubled region.

The American policy review, of course, will be from the perspective of its own involvement in Afghanistan, from where it also watches Iran.

But to solve the intractable problems of cross-border infiltration  into Afghanistan, bold steps are necessary. India and Pakistan are  both bracketed as part of the solution.

The ongoing conundrum, in not-so-far Kashmir/PoK-Gilgit Baltistan, when seen as distance from Kabul, is going to continue to be left to bilateral action between India and Pakistan.

This, even as China has entered the fray, due to its ongoing work and interest in the multi-billion dollar China Pakistan Economic Corridor( CPEC), passing through, what is legally integral Indian territory in PoK.

Afghanistan already has had a long-standing US and Indian presence, though India's has been non-combatant so far.

The history stems from the post USSR occupation era, descending into a Taliban ruled and dominated spell, with Pakistan's active support; and on to its invasion by President George W Bush after 9/11, with Pakistan now running interference.

Earlier the US had to depend on Pakistan when Afghanistan was under Russian domination (in the 1980s).

America spent long years ousting it, using Pakistan’s port at Karachi and its airspace/airports, as well as the safe land routes to Afghanistan.

This, in addition to the Mujahideen created and developed by Pakistan and the CIA for the purpose.

The roles of Pakistan and India in Afghanistan have now been reversed from the US perspective.
India has consistently been an Afghan benefactor by way of contrast.

The present day Taliban, are inheritors of the Mujahideen mantle in a sense, despite the radically changed  political situation.

They are present on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, in  their Pakistani and Afghan factions.

Russia from the conflicted Obama days, Iran,China,and other terrorist financing groups from the Arabian Gulf, are said to be paying and arming the Taliban in a bid for influence.

What is clear however, is that all the Taliban terrorist groups and their associates are opposed to the elected Government of Afghanistan.

The Opium trade, and that in its  derivatives,(Heroin and Cocaine), are an added ingredient to the heady cocktail of money and arms in the region, and its passage across porous borders. It involves many of the influential and mighty, cutting across political and security lines.

But to control all this from the Trump perspective may take more than the Obama policy of using killer drones to eliminate "bad Taliban" holed up in the  Western frontier bad-lands of Pakistan. It may take a different tack from "the mother of all bombs" too.

It might have to give power to the  resolution of problems created amongst the ethnic Pathans of  the region over the last couple of centuries.

Pakistan, in desperation, has dug a pit 3 metres deep, 4 metres wide for 1,100 km. along the Balochistan- Afghanistan border in 2011, to try and control its porosity.

It is currently engaged on  building a fence in the Khyber Pass area that is likely to run on for at least 250 km.

This in an attempt to control infiltration, under US pressure, along the nearly 2,500 km.(2,430) Durand Line, established in 1893, which separated Afghanistan from then British India, and present day Pakistan.

This Durand Line, agreed by the Treaty of Gandamak,signed between Mortimer Durand and Amir Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan, was to have lasted as a de facto border for a hundred years.
But, while it was reiterated in 1919, after the British lost their 3rd and final Afghan War, it was definitively thrown over by the Afghan “Jirga Loya” in 1949, soon after their departure from the sub-continent.

Afghanistan still does not, and says it never will, accept the Durand Line as border.

Its Pakhtun people and those on the Pakistani side are ethnically the same and related to each other. This is true of  the Pashtun tribal areas, and the Baloch enthnicity on both sides bordering Balochistan.

It affects Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Waziristan too, and has been a homeland for ethnic Pashtuns since at least 500 B.C.

The Trump administration could be well served to accept and support the calls for independence from Balochistan and Pakhtunistan. India can help and assist the endeavour.

They could together solve the problem, and act as  buffer  states between Afghanistan and Pakistan, without either country having a common border anymore.

This would put paid to the most intractable of problems that has confronted the Americans in its efforts to help secure peace and democracy in Afghanistan.

As for China's CPEC project, it would have to negotiate with independent countries in addition to Pakistan, as it has to do elsewhere, and indeed as Russia  does with constituents of the former USSR who are now sovereign states.

Notwithstanding all this border talk, the Afpak Taliban  were being supported by several for  being opposed to the now disappeared Islamic State Of Iraq And The Levant (ISIL).

ISIL  has made way for a plain Islamic State (IS),working on its latter-day objective of a necessarily movable Islamic Caliphate.

 ISIL  being routed in Southern Iraq and Syria,various terrorist groups deeply connected with ISI and the Pakistan Army,are regrouping in Somalia and elsewhere.

These include dreaded names like the Al Qaida, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jamat Ud-Dawa, Hizbul Mujahideen and so on.

In the latest situation,  earlier US intelligence distinctions between "good terrorists" and "bad terrorists", based on affiliations, money/arms supply lines are date expired.

It now reflects evolving realities, not only because of its defeat in the Iraq-Syria theatre,but also the despatching of its leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi. And the informal Cease Fire Agreement between Putin and Trump in Hamburg.

It  affords therefore, an excellent opportunity to truly carry on up the Khyber with a new vision.
The reference is to the "Carry On" series, made up of 31 low-budget British films made between 1958-1992, four Christmas Specials, a TV series of 13 episodes and three West End/Provincial Plays.
They were all made to a formula, predictably camp and farcical, but of enduring popularity.

Amongst their number, was one named “Carry On Up The Khyber” involving Afghan revolutionaries shooting at the bumbling representatives of the British Raj, played by the beloved line-up of Carry On comedians, and their bawdy goings on.

But humorous as it was, it reflected, in popular cultural format, the abiding British obsession with Afghanistan,the only part of the sub-continent, that defeated the British three times, decades apart.

The British tried, unsuccessfully, to incorporate Afganistan into its Empire. They failed twice in the 19th century, suffering great humiliations and loss of life, and once again, in the 20th.

The  last time was when  the British, rather typically, were the first to breach the Durand Line. They must have thought Afghanistan  was important enough to try and conquer  one last time, during WWI, only to be beaten back, yet again.

Afghanistan was seen then as that indispensable playing field for the “Great Game”, with Tzarist Russia.

Having it meant blocking access to, and likely domination of, the sub-continent, otherwise firmly in British possession.

Later, after the British Empire was done with, the same “Great Game”, for slightly different reasons, would be picked up on once again.

This time, by the USSR, looking this time, for a warm water port on the Arabian Sea, and the US, determined to prevent any change in the Balance of Power with the Soviets. It was, almost, as it were, without a historical page break.

In India, we know Durand today mostly in terms of the Durand Cup Football Tournament.

It is now largely eclipsed by the far more popular cricket tourneys. And in any case, the Europeans play much better and well-funded soccer, accessed freely via satellite TV.

For: ABP Live
July 19th, 2017
Gautam Mukherjee