AfPak becomes PakAf

Unlike for the Bush-Rumsfeld administration, war in Afghanistan has been a key aspect of Obama’s policy even before he arrived in the White House. For Obama, a pacified Central Asia is fundamental for the new pax romana order. However, that won’t be as easy as many though.

But Obama’s new focus says a lot about how changed is everything. Ok, they are still using the same wild cards as Bush did: more boots on the ground, more money in the Afghan pockets. Obama has added 4,000 soldiers to the promised 17,000 that he announced in February to be shortly deployed. A total of 21,000 more American reinforcements who will join 2,000 British and possibly between 500 and 1,000 Spanish reinforcements by the summer. Other NATO countries have already said that they will increase as well their contribution to the Afghan mission.

Also a few hundred civilian experts in reconstruction will join them. But all this, although is in the right path, may be inefficient -at least at short term- in a country like Afghanistan. Maybe the strategy worked in Iraq, where there is a 74% of literacy between the population, tribal leaders willing to cooperate, has good infrastructures and the average rent is $4,000 per year. But in Afghanistan, the numbers are much worse: two thirds are illiterate, the NATO lacks of strong local allies, there isn’t an only railroad in all the country (and only a decent airport in Kabul) and the average income per year is around $800.

Another change is that bin Laden disappears from the equation. Well, not completely. Officially speaking, war in Afghanistan is against al Qaeda, but there is little left in Central Asia -or any other part of the world- of the original organization that terrorized America on the 9/11.

In fact, is not anymore necessary that organization. The hate crop is germinated. What there is now all over the world are series of local wars aimed to a global goal, quite distant on space and time. It is mostly a conflict between neighbors, carried on locally. Maybe because of that, Obama has already proposed to talk to the Talibans and other local warlords. Sooner or later, they will have to do it.

In fact, the strategy against al Qaeda has changed as well. The army doesn’t talk anymore of smack down the Taliban, but of “disrupt” and “defeat” them.

According to Dennis McDonough, from the National Security Council, important thing is to assure that the terrorist cells are unable to operate in Europe and America. The cells would remain intact, but impotent. That would be the “disruption”. And the “defeat” would mean not only a hard hand against them, but also an ideological defeat. Basically, show the population in Afghanistan and Pakistan that it is not worth to get in business with the Talibans because they are the bad guys.

But the main problem is not al Qaeda, bin Laden or the Talibans. It is Pakistan. US ally suffers from internal -almost- chaos. Terrorist attacks are weekly and they don’t respect anything, from mosques to sport teams. With a military not really devoted to the cause, a radicalized population and a political class corrupt and unable to make its work -as in the north-, Pakistan is about to become a failed state.

Obama’s administration saw that and has elaborated a new joint strategy for both countries since the beginning. Richard Hoolbroke, let’s say, was appointed as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. And in the last speech from Obama about the war against the Talibans, the president talked about operations in “Pakistan and Afghanistan”.

In fact it also significative the change in the order of the words. Up to now it was an “AfPak” issue. Now it is a “PakAf” issue. In the same line, the president launched his strategy aimed to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Not a strategy for Afghanistan with occasional attacks in Pakistan. Nope. Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But Americans are not so willing to go on the ground in Pakistan with troops. Right now there are a hundred of American soldiers in Pakistan in training missions. The attacks on Pakistani soil have been developed always by drones -and that has contributed a lot to destabilize the country. Continuing with the drone experience can be dangerous, and an overthrown from an Islamic radical population of a country with nukes is the last America would like.

But maybe the key is in a third country, neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan: India. Islamabad doesn’t see a threat to his own security in the Talibans, but it does in his south-eastern neighbors. In fact, fueling the radical Muslims -brothers of the Talibans- in the Cachemire region has been Pakistan’s strategy since the beginning. The Talibans have grown inside Pakistan feeded by the army and the secret service in his war against India

Secure a peace between India and Pakistan could mean a significative true involvement of Pakistan’s military in the war against the Talibans. Or at least, the elimination of a safe heaven for the Islamist at the other side of the border. But for now, Islamabad sees on bin Laden Pals their only ally in their fight against the Indians, their truly war.