Key to Peace in Afghanistan: A solution

After 17 years of a dead end military involvement in Afghanistan, the United States of America is learning, like the Russians and British before them, that taming Afghanistan is next to an impossibility. In their drive to defeat the Russians, the US with its Pakistani and Arab allies created the means to arm the seven groups fighting them, being short sighted that after the defeat of the Russians, these seven groups would turn on each other, as indeed they did. A divided war torn country was then introduced to the emergence of the Taliban, initially supported by Pakistan, the US and some of the Arab countries. The introduction of this new military force turned the tide of the seven groups leaving only Ahmed Shah Masood's North Alliance to oppose them.

What then followed in a country still bereft with civil war was a Taliban government with a social and religious agenda that was archaic and brutal in all respects. However, for the average Afghan it was a respite from the civil war and the death and destruction they had faced for over two decades. Events of 9/11, the harboring of Osama bin Laden by the Taliban suddenly changed the situation as the US bombed and then intervened militarily into Afghanistan under the label of the War on Terror. Pakistan, not nimble enough to distance itself from the Taliban were caught between pressure from the US on the one side and their own security fears that Kabul in the hands of anti Pakistan elements would mean unrest in its own northern borders.

Once the retaliation attacks from the Taliban spilled into Pakistan cities and with each bomb blast the consensus emerged that Pakistan had to deal with this terrorism because from an Afghan and US problem there emerged a Pakistan Taliban which was even more militant that their cousins in Afghanistan. However as these militants were targeting both Afghan assets and Pakistani targets, a new dimension came on the scene with the US using drone strikes in both Afghanistan (where they had said they were at war) and Pakistan (where they said they worked with an ally being Pakistan). These drone strikes were limited in their success but more importantly caused collateral civilian casualties; in one case a school being targeted where no militant elements were present.

While the Pakistani government in public condemned the drone strikes, privately they did nothing to ask the US to stop them. One of the major turning points in Imran Khan's political journey was his opposition to these drone strikes with his now famous words, 'we are the first ally in history to be consistently bombed by the US'. His early stance of speaking to the Taliban to arrive at a peace settlement was seen as him being pro militants, and today we forget that both the Afghan government and even the US are speaking directly to the Taliban.

As history has worked out today Imran Khan is the Prime Minister of Pakistan having been elected in a remarkable turn around for his party. While an exhaustive strategy of Afghanistan has not emerged there are enough indications in these first few days to suggest that for one he wants peace in Afghanistan, and secondly he is strong enough now to create the conditions to bring this about.

To achieve any modicum of progress some key stakeholders in this process will need to have a major rethink of their own approach. For one the Afghan assertion that every terrorist attack in their country is guided from Islamabad has to change; after all the Pakistan Taliban are harbored in Afghanistan also. Secondly, the United States will have to realize that Pakistan will be an ally but not one to be dictated too. Thirdly, India's peripheral role in supporting the anti Pakistan rhetoric on the argument of terrorism will need to be toned down and focus shifted to a peace process between India and Pakistan independent of the Afghan policy. Finally, the Taliban must choose whether a strategy of terror will succeed given that now ISIS has become one their enemies within the Afghan landscape.

This last element is interesting as most of the Taliban in Afghanistan are Pushtun's and they see the ISIS as foreign fighters, and thus in a sense is a departure from the thinking of the Taliban in the pre 9/11 era were foreign fighters were seen as brothers in arms. Whether the Taliban and the Kabul government can work out an arrangement of coexistence is up to the Afghans themselves. However, it has to be recognized by the new government in Islamabad that a step towards peace must include the expulsion of all Afghan militant elements from Pakistan and to then work with Afghanistan, and the US for a better policing of the border. The US will have to learn to trust the Pakistan government to deal with terrorist elements within their country rather than taking matters into their own hands with drone strikes.

The US position has been that they had to conduct drone strikes unilaterally because they could not trust the Pakistan intelligence services to do the job! While there may be truth that a decade ago the intelligence service would have had militant sympathetic elements within their ranks, the past three heads of the military have been judicious in cleaning up the image and the rank and file of the intelligence service. With 50,000 Pakistanis having died in this War on Terror there is a sentiment within the military of Pakistan, 'enough is enough', and they would wisely follow the lead of Imran Khan to bring about a peaceful era with Afghanistan.

The biggest problem for the US is that leaving Afghanistan on its own will result in a sudden collapse of the current central government, an creation of conditions of 17 years back and a decade before that when each time Kabul's government collapsed a civil war followed. We also have to consider that with China's investment in CPEC in Pakistan it is natural that they will begin to take a more active interest in peace in Afghanistan. I guess we stand at the unique crossroads where all parties, including the Taliban realize that peace is the only way forward. I do believe that an initiative between Pakistan and Afghanistan under the new government in Islamabad is the best opportunity for the US to exit Afghanistan and do it with grace and leave some framework which both Afghans and Pakistanis would welcome and support in the region.

In terms of specifics the following must be done, not in any particular order;

• A bilateral meeting between Afghanistan and Pakistan followed by a meeting between the two of them and USA. 
• The Taliban be convinced to start bilateral talks with the government in Kabul with a precondition of a ceasefire first. 
• An agreement be reached that none of the parties will arm or support elements in each others country. 
• The creation of a joint intelligence task force which will be mandated to deal with all common threats to the parties. 
• An economic uplift plan in the areas where the war on terror caused the most damage, on both sides of the border. 
• Constant reviews of the peace plan and to take steps early enough to avoid any divergence from the agreed agenda. 

The first step can be taken by Pakistan and it would seem some positive comments have come from the new government. The US and Afghan side should not ignore these initial exploratory forays by Islamabad because they must understand that while Pakistan cannot decide the outcome of events in Afghanistan it can play a key role to achieve peace in the region. Yes it may sound to Kabul that this is the usual rhetoric for peace from any new government in Pakistan, but this is a government that seems to have a better pulse of the nation and taking a step towards them is a good way to put that sincerity to test. For their part Imran Khan and his government should consider a comprehensive strategy towards this peace effort or they will, in terms of their Afghan policy be left on the way side of history. 

Obama Must Bring Middle East to the Table

Obama's biggest mistake would be failing to bring the warring parties in the Middle East to the table. While the Arabs must also show their willingness to trust Obama, and be willing to allow him the time to settle down, they will also have to moderate their position if they want peace. On the Iraq front the conditions for a substantial U.S. withdrawal, even if incomplete, is more likely then ever before. Afghanistan will be a bigger challenge as confrontation has never worked in the long and checkered history of the country, and I am not sure that the Obama camp completely understands the complexities of that tribal land.

The Israeli government has given him the first real test of his foreign policy acumen. This adds to the Bush Blunder of Iraq and Afghanistan, where Obama has already made clear his position of disengagement, albeit with a slightly different approach. While in Iraq he would favor a quick withdrawal, in Afghanistan he would want to build up troop strength to overcome the resistance and 'bring peace' to the country. While policy action on both Iraq and Afghanistan are more within Obama's direct purview as the commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, the situation in Gaza is more a test of his diplomatic determination.

Political observers in the Arab world may be banking too much on the Obama administration, hoping it will immediately seek a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and an end to the hostilities. This might be more a result of military realities. But dealing with the political carnage and the lack of trust in the U.S. as an honest broker in the Middle East are the more pressing issues for the Obama team. The expectation of the Obama administration is not to take sides, but more to be fair and even-handed in its dealing with all parties. Whether the issue is Gaza, Iraq or Afghanistan, the world expects the U.S. to restore confidence and be willing to make hard policy choices to bring peace.

On a broader canvas of foreign policy initiatives, Barack Obama will have to re-engage in serious dialogue all of the world actors whom Bush has spent eight long years alienating. Bush created a world where it was assumed, for example, that all Muslims were hell bent on destroying the United States, one in which the onus was on every Muslim to prove he or she was a 'good Muslim.' This clearly is a distorted view of the Muslim world, and it is one of Obama's most serious challenges. It will not be an easy task and there will have to be serious effort on both sides to find trust to engage in a new social set of principles. The 'War on Terror' will have to be replaced with a 'War on Intolerance', anger will have to be replaced with understanding, force will have to be replaced with empathy and most importantly, all must understand that a disjointed world is not in the interest of humanity.

Barack Obama has won the presidency. In the next six months, he has to win the right to be called a world statesman.

The Mumbai Massacre

The taking of any life, according to my personal belief, is a cardinal sin, and neither war, nor 'jihad' nor anything can justify this to me. The Mumbai Massacre, the 9/11 incident, the killing of Palestinians, Iraqi's, Afghans and anyone in the world all fall within my definition of senseless murder. It is sad testimony that in this day and age we cannot sit across the table and sort things out and have to resort to this mayhem. The Mumbai Massacre will be tainted by many different connotations but none of these will bring back the people who died and their only fault was to be there at that time.

Sadly the terrible incident will be colored in the light of the tense political relationship between Pakistan and India, and people will forget that Pakistani's too face the wrath of this terrible mayhem and any Pakistani who had a sense of empathy will feel the pain of what the Indian nation has gone through. It is a time to heal and it is a time for people to educate themselves on the scourge of this hate that is falsely using the name of Islam, which actually is a very tolerant religion, to spread hate and death.

Terrorism does not have a face and it does not rely on the conveinence of borders, so it does not matter if one or all of the attackers in Mumbai were Pakistani or from wherever. These same people could just as easily have attacked a hotel in Karachi as they did in Mumbai. What people have to understand, appreciate and act upon is a common sense of loss and bring about an understanding of why these people have such hate and what can be done to deal with it.

Indian reaction internally will test their dogma of secularism and indeed some Indian Muslims will become the target of a form of internal exclusion and suspicion that will fall upon them. It would be in the interest of peace that such recriminations are not directed towards the Muslims, Pakistani or anyone in general terms. This was not a communal, religious or state act, it was the work of some misguided people who have been led to believe that their means are justified for the ills they feel they have suffered.

Underlying these sort of events bring about the urgency for people to settle their differences and bring about peace in their communities. People have said this is India's 9/11, I hope India does not react in the way the US acted when the 9/11 act happened to them. It is not the solution that would achieve anything, and while the people behind such an attack should be brought to justice it also implies that a better understanding of how to tackle the mind of these youth is needed. I have argued, even in my book soon to be published, that the battle that is going on is not on battlefields or a war for land, it is a battle for the minds of the next generation of our youth. It is here that we have to win the argument.

Al-Qaeda – the United States' Invisible Foe

The Current Discussion: CIA Director Michael Hayden says al-Qaeda is more or less defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan. Should the Bush administration take credit? How much?

When wars are fought with an adversary who is largely invisible, how can one make the assertion that the war is over? CIA Director Michael Hayden says the war against al-Qaeda is over –“more or less.” Now if ever there was a wishy-washy statement, that is one. The question now is, is it “more” or is it “less”? The entire gambit of media output coming from the Bush Administration on Iraq, Afghanistan and indeed the al-Qaeda is so distorted and mixed up. At the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq there was no al-Qaeda in Iraq. In the ensuing months, as the management of Iraq literally fell apart under the worst public management ever done by Mr. Paul Bremen and others, an insurgency against the U.S. flared up. This was, and is, a domestic movement, nothing to do with al-Qaeda or others. While some attacks have been attributed to and even claimed by the al-Qaeda of Iraq, this was largely a splinter element. Thus, to defeat the al-Qaeda is not consequential in Iraq. What is consequential is the larger issue of managing the country and bringing about order in a country where insensitivity to the aspirations of the people has led to the worsening of the situation.

In Afghanistan, while the al-Qaeda may well have existed and, perhaps, still do, the issue of law and order is more complex. I have no doubt that while the Taliban were hated by the people, the fact they reinstated order and stopped the internal civil war is what the Afghan people remember as more important. Hamid Karzai has had a tremendous task on his hands. Whether he can restore order has to depend on his handling of the tribal and social fabric of a difficult country – hopefully doing it without foreign troops propping him up.

I have always argued that the underlying problems of these societies have to be resolved, not just through cosmetic changes at the top or on the surface. This means bringing economic well-being to a broader spectrum of people, accepting that the aspirations of each might be different from what the U.S. may want. Yes, al-Qaeda may well be a matter of concern for the U.S. Administration, but one has to understand that within these societies the issues are much larger and more acute than they might expect. One has to admit that mismanagement of these societies was going on well before the U.S. intervened. However, if the purpose of the intervention was to make things better, this has been a total failure and the result is clear – we’ve allowed a destabilized society to be exploited by all factions in this invisible war.

Arabs Must Accept Israel

My PostGlobal piece http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/anwer_sher/2008/05/arabs_must_accept_israel.html
The Current Discussion:Israel celebrated its 60th birthday last week. Will it survive to celebrate its 100th?

This may sound shocking coming from a Pakistani living in Dubai, but the reality is that Arabs must learn to accept Israel in their midst. While a great deal is said about Iranian leadership and Hamas wanting the destruction of Israel, if we move beyond the rhetoric, the country is there to stay.

Israel has come so far, irrespective of the controversies that surrounded its creation and its position on the Middle East political map. It will indeed make it to its 100th birthday. What will affect Arab perceptions of Israel is the way the country conducts itself. Yes, there are acts against Israel which are violent, and there are acts by Israel that create the conditions for violence to gain steam. But the issue of forcibly taking Arab lands is real: part of the inherent problem lies in claims that since an Arab farmer does not have proof of land ownership, the State of Israel can then take it.
I am not suggesting that violence on the part of the Arabs is an answer, but there is enough liberal thought on both sides to acknowledge that both have done wrongs and that these need to be stopped and then corrected wherever possible. There is a consensus among most NGOs that Israel's track record on human rights in the Occupied Territories is appalling; its surprising that a people who suffered the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis could themselves treat people with such indignity in their own lands. This is of course not a reason to wish for an end to Israel, but more an appeal to the voices of reason on both the Arab and the Israeli sides, to bring about tolerance, acceptance and fairness into the equation.

Thus, the question is not whether Israel will make it to its 100th birthday, but in what manner will it conduct itself as it does so? In a 2004 report on Israel, Amnesty International claimed:

"…abuses committed by the Israeli army constituted crimes against humanity and war crimes, including unlawful killings; extensive and wanton destruction of property; obstruction of medical assistance and targeting of medical personnel; torture; and the use of Palestinians as human shields."

People will suggest that I am ignoring Arab violence against Israel. I am not. I am merely asking critics be fair and look ahead and see that it takes two hands to clap. I wish Israel well, as I do all its neighbors.

Dear Candidates

My contribution to Washington Posts Postglobal site

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/anwer_sher/2008/01/dear_candidates_equal_attentio_1.html



Dear Candidates: Equal Attention to the World’s Problems
The Question: The U.S. starts to choose a president this week. If you could send the candidates one message, what would it be?

What the world today needs, more than ever, is a world statesman: someone who can guide the world with empathy and compassion, not guns and missiles. The world has been brought to the brink of massive destruction, and while one cannot blame American leadership for all of the problems, America must take responsibility for what it has done wrong.

The demands on your attention will be many, some born out of a moral prerogative, others born from the pressures of the commercial world and leading the world’s largest military power. While I do not expect leaders to be perfect, I do expect them to be fair on the issues of world politics.


We wish to see an American president who is willing to be brave and balanced on the issue of Palestine and Israel, to condemn the Israeli aggression with the same tone as Palestinian suicide bombers are condemned. We wish for someone who will act on world affairs based on reason and fact, not emotion and conjecture, to bring to the forefront the values of fairness that are expected within American societies. There is no doubt that America is a great nation, with some of the finest values of freedom of speech and the rule of law, but its leadership seems to have forgotten these values and these need to be rekindled into the body politic of the nation. It is this that will win the hearts and minds of the people around the world. Asking for democracy in Iraq and and Pakistan is indeed a bold statement, but to ignore China's violations of human rights especially with respect to Tibet, or to take the pressure off of Burma, all show that its current leadership seeks selective democracy.

The world ahead of us needs understanding, not an ‘us and them’ approach. American leaders need to become the 'we', with a true worldly view. At the start of this long road to the White House, which of you will embrace this vision, and more importantly which will carry it into your term of office? The world is watching.

Sher Value: Thought and Action

As the ink on these pages begins to dry out, hundreds of delegates to the Festival of Thinkers will have commenced the proceedings of the gathering, which brings together Nobel Laureates, powerful media personalities and people who have made a difference. While the Festival of Thinkers conjures the image of a hall full of people sitting in exaggerated poses, hand under chin, contemplating and pondering, the reality is that it sets a wonderful stage for bringing together people on a platform from where if nothing, understanding will emerge.

We do live in a fragile world, where issues from global warming to man made political disasters are threatening large populations of humanity. There is a greater effort being made to destroy what humanity has rather than build something for the future. It is therefore all the more important that efforts like this Festival serve not only as a platform for bringing people together for discussions, but also to move the mind set into action, into creating concrete accountable action plans for change.

Today there are hundreds of alliances and foundations for bringing change and welfare to humanity and earth, and they all are carving out a nice, positive role. What we need to consider is to move the envelope of experience further out, and think of such a platform as the Festival of Thinkers to become the aggregator of these alliances under a banner of ‘humane thought’. Such a collective will serve a huge purpose to aggregate alliances, charities and foundations to bring about structural changes in the body of society and economic and eco systems to allow for sustainable recovery. The most vital element today is coordinating the efforts of so many noble minded alliances and charities into a concerted policy of action .

Some years back I recall with the earthquake in Pakistan there were tons of agencies, charities and foundations pouring in aid, and resources to help in the earthquake devastated areas but it cannot be over looked that a large number of these relief efforts were actually duplicating themselves, causing actually a waste in the system of care. The Festival therefore allows people of a diverse range of cultures, educations and attitudes to sit together an work out an agenda of social change which will be followed up and not merely left behind on the delegates tables to be cleaned out the next day.

We live in a world where we need understanding, compassion and empathy. We need to understand why we have, mostly in the past 100 years, undone the quality of life that our future generations could have enjoyed. We have to pause at this moment and create the synergy that is needed between thought, business and compassion. Our model of tomorrow cannot be politically utilitarian; neither can it be economically and socially myopic because the results of these will be catastrophic. A Festival of Thinkers must create an idiom of thought which will force us to make a difference.