Foreign Policy In Focus

"Not everyone is outraged by the NATO airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers," I wrote at Focal Points yesterday.

In other words, Pakistani insurgents got NATO, with its helicopters and fighters, to do its work for it and attack Pakistani military forces, as well as sow yet more discord between Pakistan and the United States. 

Others celebrated the attacks too. At the Guardian, Saeed Shah and Jon Boone write that Afghans who in Kunar -- the incident occurred on its border with Mohmand, Pakistan -- "said they were delighted by the strike against the bases, saying they believed Taliban fighters were being harboured by the Pakistani army."

Though

Pakistan says there were no militants operating on its side. … Coalition and Afghan troops believe they received fire from insurgents operating from close to the Pakistani post, which is located 300 metres into Pakistani territory. A senior Afghan official told the Guardian that a combined Afghan-Nato squad had received incoming fire from 'the so-called Pakistani post", prompting them to call for air support. "The most important point here is that they were receiving fire from the direction of that post." … Afghan and coalition officials have accused Pakistan repeatedly in the past of failing to act to stop Taliban militants using its territory.

We'll give the last word to Qari Ehsanullah Ehsan, a Kunar tribal leader, who said "The people of Kunar are happy. We have been telling the Americans for a long time that the Pakistanis are bringing the Taliban to our villages."

Pakistan, writes Spencer Ackerman at Wired's Danger Room, "is making the world a vastly more dangerous place." Is he referring to support by its military and intelligence to the Taliban and the Haqqanis in their fight against Afghan and coalition forces? Not exactly.

Freaked out about the insecurity of its nuclear arsenal, the Pakistani military's Strategic Plans Division has begun carting the nukes around in clandestine ways. That might make some sense on the surface: no military wants to let others know exactly where its most powerful weapons are at any given moment. But Pakistan is going to an extreme.

The nukes travel "in civilian-style vehicles without noticeable defenses, in the regular flow of traffic," according to a blockbuster story on the U.S.-Pakistan relationship in The Atlantic. Marc Ambinder and Jeffrey Goldberg write that tactical nuclear weapons travel down the streets in "vans with a modest security profile."

In short, writes Ackerman, "Pakistan is taking nuclear paranoia to a horrifying new low." It's hyper-alert to the lust that militants experience for its nukes -- tactical, as well as strategic -- right? Again, not exactly. Ackerman explains.

It’s trying to safeguard its nukes from us. The Navy SEAL raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden has made important Pakistani generals think that the U.S. military’s next target is Pakistani nukes. So off the vans go … trying to throw off the scent of the U.S.

As with its failure to rein in the militants that it supports in Afghanistan, never underestimate Pakistan ability to underestimate the terrorist threat on its own soil.

Ackerman writes: "The irony is that the U.S. isn't planning to steal Pakistan’s nukes — but Pakistan's cavalier attitude toward nuclear security is making the U.S. think twice about whether it should." No, not steal Pakistan's nukes, but "revise some worst-case-scenario contingency planning."

Furthermore, Pakistan's skewed nuclear-security priorities might have a trickle-down effect on the West's attitude toward Iran's nuclear program. As if the attitude toward Iran's nuclear plans of many in the United States government and, of course, Israel weren't at least as overwrought as Pakistan's attitude towards designs it thinks that the United States has on its nuclear program. In the end, Pakistan's behavior only adds to the tendency of the West to divide the world into states that we deem of sound enough mind to administer a nuclear-weapons program and those that we don't.

Among the many unlikely elements in a Wall Street Journal article yesterday (October 26):

Vice Adm. Robert Harward, a U.S. Navy SEAL and yoga practitioner who until recently. … headed Task Force 435, a coalition unit that oversees detention facilities housing Afghan insurgents, including the major center at Bagram.

Yoga and Bagram? That's enough to induce a bad case of cognitive dissonance. Also unusual is the heights of cleverness that the Wall Street Journal attained with the title for the article by Don Nissenbaum: For This Yogi, Afghan Peace Plan Needs More Downward Dog.
 
But most unlikely is the central story itself. Former "super model" Cameron Alborzian, who is now an "enlightened guide who would come to your home and serve as a live-in guru reportedly for up to $30,000 per week"

… sat down with Maj. Gen. Phil Jones at the U.S.-led coalition headquarters in Kabul this past summer to discuss a novel way to persuade Afghan insurgents to lay down arms. … Mr. Alborzian presented a bold plan to the British general who oversaw the coalition's effort to lure Taliban fighters from the battlefield: Afghan militants should join Western troops in meditation and yoga, embracing a new spirit of brotherly unity.

With considerably less cleverness than the title of the piece, Nissenbaum writes that Alborzian's "message of peace may seem kooky."

But it has been persuasive enough to get meetings for Mr. Alborzian and his project's Kabul-based representative with senior coalition officers, Afghan ministers and even a onetime insurgent leader. The project also won a sympathetic hearing from Vice Adm. Robert Harward. … And it has opened doors at Afghan prisons, where [Alborzian and his Kabul-based representative] have taught guards at detention centers to do basic, nonreligious Ayurvedic yoga poses. The pair say they have secretly taught a former Taliban commander how to meditate and soothe his militant mind. 

After pointing out that to some Muslims this pollutes Islam with Hindu practices, Nissenbaum presents yet more qualified approval of Alborzian's plan in an article that, despite its platform, is generally complimentary. Apparently states are beginning to realize that convening representatives of religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam can pave the way for détente among warring factions. Canada has been at the forefront of this (hope to post on this as I accumulate more information).

Meanwhile, as we see often in business, it's often those who are constitutionally unable of focusing on the downside -- men and women of all ages who are eternally hopeful to the point of naivete or in denial that they'll be denied -- who succeed with their dreams. His status as a $30,000-a-week yogi coach to the stars aside, more power to Cameron Alborzian and those assisting him.

"Pakistan plans to train over 8,000 personnel to augment the capability of a military unit tasked with securing [its] nuclear arsenal," reports Rezaul Laskar of Press Trust of India. One can be forgiven if one reacts thusly: more opportunities for extremist Islamists to infiltrate Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program and steal away with a nuke.

As Qaiser Farooq writes at the Washington Times:

The primary concern of Westerners is that with a strong Taliban presence in Pakistan, [it] could take over the government … allowing terrorists to access nuclear weapons. … Fears may not be ungrounded.

He cites incidences of collusion between the Taliban and the Pakistan military such as this:

In May, Pakistani Taliban insurgents stormed the Naval Air Station in Karachi and destroyed two surveillance aircraft supplied by the US. According to CNN and other sources, they acted with inside information on the layout and security of the station.  

And, less well-known, these:

In June, the Pakistani military announced that, a few days following the US operation to kill Osama Bin Laden, it had detained Brigadier General Ali Khan for alleged ties to Hizbul Tehrir  … an Islamic militant group. Khan has spent 25 years in the military, serving with UN peace keepers in Bosnia. 

Various media outlets report that Pakistan officials frequently warn militants in tribal areas of imminent attacks, giving the terror suspects time to flee.

Still, Laskar reports, officials said: "The effort to inculcate a 'nuclear security culture' is deeply rooted in the nuclear establishment." In 2009, at Arms Control Today, Feroz Hassan Khan provided some background.

Nuclear security culture evolved in Pakistan after the September 11 attacks. Pakistan improved its supervisory procedure for military and scientific manpower. The security division of the SPD [Strategic Planning Directorate, which controls Pakistan's nuclear weapons] established a reporting system for monitoring the movements of all officials. Two identical programs for employment security were created: the Personnel Reliability Program (PRP) and the Human Reliability Program (HRP), for military and civilian personnel, respectively. A security clearance system of annual, semiannual, and quarterly review was created. Counter Intelligence Teams were created to act as the daily eyes and ears of the SPD. Weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports for the security of all organizations are maintained by the SPD to prevent theft, loss, or accident.

But, confirming our fears about the added forces, Khan writes: "Simply adding more guards and security personnel will not suffice; Pakistan must constantly evaluate its system to detect potential failures." In fact:

The security divisions of the SPD and intelligence services have layers of security and counterintelligence mechanisms for all sensitive sites. They are highly active and alert in updating, monitoring, and keeping a vigilant watch to detect and respond to any undesirable proclivities within the system.

Meanwhile, one wonders if the plans to train 8,000 new security personnel are, in part, intended to reassure the United States and render unnecessary any contingency plan its Joint Special Operations Command might have for attempting to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons in the event they appear vulnerable to Islamist extremist takeover.

Brutal Haqqani Crime Clan Bedevils U.S. in Afghanistan is the unusually colorful title of a New York Times article by Mark Mazzetti, Scott Shane, and Alissa J. Rubin. They write that the Haqqani network -- separate from, but affiliated with, the Taliban -- is "the most deadly insurgent group in Afghanistan" according to "American intelligence and military officials." It's effectively a crime syndicate -- "the Sopranos of the Afghanistan war" according to Mazzetti, et al. Yet it's as brutal as a serial killer: this year alone, for instance, the Haqqanis are responsible for the attacks in Kabul on the Intercontinental Hotel and the U.S. embassy.

The authors write: "They have trafficked in precious gems, stolen lumber and demanded protection money from businesses building roads and schools with American reconstruction funds." In fact, "Over the past five years … the Haqqanis have run what is in effect a protection racket for construction firms -- meaning that American taxpayers are helping to finance the enemy network."

Humiliating, to say the least. To some American officials, though, failing to deal with  the Haqqanis constitutes "a missed opportunity with haunting consequences. … American military officers … express anger that the Obama administration has still not put the group on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations out of concern that such a move would scuttle any chances that the group might make peace with Afghanistan's government."

In fact, even though they're responsible "for hundreds of American deaths, the Haqqanis probably will outlast the United States troops in Afghanistan and command large swaths of territory there once the shooting stops."

Why postpone the inevitable then? Leave Afghanistan to the Haqqanis, as well as the Taliban. Without Western aid, it won't be long before they come down with a severe case of "watch out what you wish for." One reason this is unlikely to soon occur is that the United States is no doubt reluctant to relinquish its original purpose for attacking and invading Afghanistan -- to not only defeat al Qaeda, but drive it out of Afghanistan.

See, according to a report in July by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (as summed up by Washington Post)  the Haqqani network "has been more important to the development and sustainment of al-Qa'ida and the global jihad than any other single actor or group."

After bin Laden relocated to Afghanistan and began making provocative statements against the West … Haqqani allowed the al-Qaeda leader to use its territory in eastern Afghanistan to organize calls for global jihad. … [Recent] events may have brought al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network closer together, their ambitions more in line. With drone strikes on the network's base in North Waziristan, it likely has a sense of shared suffering with senior al-Qaeda leaders. In part because of that shared affinity, the CTC study finds, it would be a mistake for U.S. policymakers to underestimate the impact of Haqqani network beyond Afghanistan's borders."

Them's certainly intervention-extending words. In fact, the CTC concludes that

U.S. efforts to disrupt and degrade [the Haqqani network] today … are just as much about dismantling [al-Qaeda] as they are about degrading the Haqqani network.

Still, who's to say that the Haqqanis aren't open to throwing over al Qaeda for the right price? Let's sit down with them and see.