In a recent briefing to foreign correspondents, Kayani said that Pakistan seeks a friendly government, stability, and ”strategic depth” (meaning, at the very least, that Kabul is not allied with New Delhi) in Afghanistan.  The Pakistan Army is willing to play by more conventional rules and begin to engage so-called good actors to secure these goals in Afghanistan.  Toward this, Kayani offered to train the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.  Having denied India a strategic pivot into Central Asia and northwestern/western Pakistan via Afghanistan (note India’s minimal role in the London talks and absence from the Istanbul talks), the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment feels more secure to broaden its ties in Afghanistan and engage the current Afghan leadership.

In addition to having been provided an opportunity to diversify its contacts in Afghanistan, the Pakistan Army likely also feels a need to do so.  In my previous post, I speculated that Kayani’s overtures to the Karzai government possibly contained the following “implicit message” to the Afghan Taliban: “you are not our only option, so don’t take us for granted.”  And so the arrest of Baradar is perhaps part of an attempt by the Pakistan Army to induce behavioral change on the part of the Afghan Taliban, and particularly its obstinate leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar.  These desired changes likely include: giving up maximalist goals, such as the re-establishment of an emirate; and clear movement toward the bargaining table with Karzai and away from al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.  And equally important, as Afghans have engaged in a multitude of secret peace talks in the region, the Pakistan Army would like to ensure that it, to the exclusion of India, is part of the glue that holds together any power sharing arrangement in Kabul.  In other words, it doesn’t want the Afghans to make their own peace and shut Pakistan out of the process.  If Pakistan were excluded, then what was the trouble of the past eight years for?

The arrest of Baradar helps bring U.S. and Pakistan policy toward Afghanistan in closer alignment.  The Pakistan Army is willing to work with Afghan moderates and, at the same time, retains significant leverage over the country’s insurgents.  It has the capacity and willingness to engage, if not manage, a broad spectrum of Afghanistan’s major Pashtun actors — both “good” and “bad.”  One would imagine that Pakistani diplomatic, military, and political officials are also engaging Afghan Tajiks and Uzbeks, particularly ex-mujahideen.

With its contacts, geographic location, and new-found “responsible” approach, it’s Pakistan — not Iran, India, or Russia — that is positioned to play the role of stability guarantor in a post-American Afghanistan, especially as it pertains to U.S. interests.  Pakistan has an opportunity to come in from the cold and project its regional influence through more conventional and “legitimate” means.  In doing so, it can secure its interests and the respect and trust of others, while also containing the Taliban contagion infesting its border areas with Afghanistan.

In the briefing, Kayani articulated his Afghanistan doctrine.  Pakistan, he said, seeks a friendly government, stability, and ”strategic depth” in Afghanistan.  He also added that Pakistan does not seek a Talibanized Afghanistan and offered to train the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.

Kayani, like many others in the region, is preparing for a post-American and post-ISAF Afghanistan.  Many actors fear the emergence of a security vacuum in such a context.  Kayani is expressing Pakistan’s willingness (or better put, desire) to fill the void, prevent an outbreak of instability, and even come to support the Karzai government.  His message to Karzai is: if you become our ally (because strategic depth really calls for an alliance, not just friendship) and ditch India, we can help keep you alive and in power.  And, it seems as if there’s an implicit message to the Afghan Taliban — key as both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia try to pull the group away from al-Qaeda: you are not our only option, so don’t take us for granted. 

Kayani’s doctrine is not revolutionary.  Its objectives are no different from Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy from the past thirty years.  But, for the first time, he is publicly demonstrating great flexibility in terms of choice of alliances.  Kayani is essentially a cold realist.  He believes Pakistan has permanent interests, not permanent alliances, in Afghanistan and elsewhere.  And he and the Pakistan Army will do business with the entity that best facilitates achieving those objectives.  Behavior, not personalities, is key.   

Pakistan’s army chief also said that he impressed upon NATO that Pakistan’s “strategic paradigm” needs to be realized.  In that strategic paradigm, India remains a natural, long-term threat and Afghanistan is part of Pakistan’s sphere of influence – the latter being a perspective no different from America’s Monroe Doctrine.  Pakistan’s desire to be the predominant foreign power in Afghanistan is, as I said on a recent radio appearance, a policy that began in the late 1970s with military ruler Zia-ul-Haq.  But the key difference between the two is that the Kayani doctrine is largely agnostic, while the Zia doctrine was heavily religious.

The Pakistan Army’s behavior since 9/11 and India’s isolation from the two recent conferences on Afghanistan in Istanbul and London, demonstrate that Rawalpindi, at the very least, has a veto power on the key decisions regarding Afghanistan’s future.  Pakistan is not simply a nuisance or basketcase, but a regional power that has the capability to leverage a superpower’s depedency on it and check the regional growth of India, a rival, neighbor, and potential superpower. 

In the midst of this high wire act, Pakistan neared bankruptcy.  It has mastered the art of making a dollar out of fifteen cents.  Some would say, it’s done this by getting the United States to pay the remaining eighty five cents.

Here’s a snippet:

“The Arabian and Indo-Australian tectonic plates meet near Karachi, the Pakistani port city inhabited by at least 15 million people. But in recent weeks, Karachi has been reeling from violent seismic activity along its ethnic and political fault lines — not the collision of geological plates nearby….”

Click here to read the rest.

I have been blogging less frequently in the past two months, but you can catch me regularly on the John Batchelor Show, Saturdays at 9:30PM EST (770AM-NY, WABCradio.com, and XM , XM Radio Channel 158).

You can also follow me on Twitter.

Here’s an excerpt of my FP article:

“Afghanistan’s election crisis has temporarily abated, but Pakistan could soon face a volatile political transition of its own. President Asif Ali Zardari is under ever-increasing pressure to resign. His influence and power are dwindling and will likely continue to diminish in the coming months. By this spring, the Zardari presidency could meet its end….”

Click here to read more

“After eight years of US involvement in Afghanistan, a strategic crossroads within Asia, the country remains a deadly conflict zone. In fact, this weekend insurgents attacked two US military bases along the Pakistani border. Helping Afghanistan stand on its own – an imperative for both regional and Western states – is a task that will take decades. But it is increasingly clear that it is not one that the West can perform….

However, a precipitous Western withdrawal from Afghanistan would leave a major void in the state….

Afghanistan is factionalized, pockmarked by ethnic and tribal divisions. Its government’s sole success is an election rigged in its own favor. Warlords run much of the country. The national Army and police are years away from being able to secure the country on their own. Other state institutions lack the minimal human and financial resources to function without external crutches. US and Western troops should leave. But because Afghanistan will remain dependent on international aid for development and security, troops cannot leave without something to fill the vacancy.

The solution? Muslim and regional states must fill the void….”

On Saturday night, I appeared on the John Batchelor Show (WABC Radio, New York, 770AM) to discuss the status of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan following the killing of Baitullah Mehsud.

Audio of the interview is available below:

Arif_Rafiq_JBShow_08_29_09.mp3

Hakimullah Mehsud has told BBC Urdu that Baitullah Mehsud died two days ago.

The BBC also spoke with Wali-ur-Rehman Mehsud, who denied claims of rifts in the TTP. The report also states that Wali-ur-Rehman has been made TTP commander in the Mehsud areas of Waziristan.

So, we have a power sharing arrangement in which Hakimullah heads the TTP, but Wali-ur-Rehman runs the show in the TTP’s heartland. Given that it took the Taliban so long to acknowledge Baitullah’s death, it’s clear that there are some real internal sensitivities. The big question is: Can Hakimullah and Wali-ur-Rehman work together, or will they step on each other’s toes?

Faqir, who has been the TTP’s naib amir (second-in-command) and head of its Bajaur Agency affiliate, said that the organization has not held a shura meeting recently.  So it’s unclear as to how he has become the group’s temporary leader if, as he claims, neither is its permanent leader dead nor has its leadership council met.  Also interesting is that Faqir chose to call the BBC himself, rather than delegating the task to Muslim Khan.

There is indication Faqir is concerned about others unilaterally seizing the mantle of TTP amir.  In response to a question, Faqir stated, “Neither Maulvi Wali-ur-Rehman, nor Hakimullah Mehsud has the power [that would permit them to] appoint themselves as amir without consulting other areas’ Talibans.  Neither can Waziristan’s Taliban do the same.”  But Faqir then went on to laud the Waziristan Taliban for its “sacrifices” and state that Hakimullah and Wali-ur-Rehman are both qualified to lead the central organization, if legitimately selected.

Factional and tribal differences could play a role in weakening the TTP’s cohesiveness.  Faqir is not a member of the Mehsud tribe; he’s a Mohmand from Bajaur (there are also Mohmand tribesmen in, you guessed it, the Mohmand Agency).

If Faqir continues to lay claim to the TTP’s amirship, will the Mehsud Taliban and tribesmen stay loyal or defect?  Can a non-Mehsud really run the show in Mehsud country?  And will other Taliban commanders remain content as subordinates?   Hakimullah, for example, appears to have a highly independent streak.  Last week, there were reports that he appointed a man by the name of Azam Tariq as TTP spokesman, which would contradict Faqir’s announcement of Muslim Khan’s promotion.  And North Waziristan’s Hafiz Gul Bahadur could also be interested in the top spot.  Ismail Khan, Dawn’s excellent Peshawar editor, suggested that Gul Bahadur’s continued aggresiveness against the Pakistan Army could be part of a power play to take over the TTP.

All this is plenty of reason for the Pakistani military-intelligence apparatus to continue its psy-ops campaign against the TTP and make these brutes weaken one another.