Senate Foreign Relations hearing on Terrorist Groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan

 What follows is a special report on Terrorist Groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Assistant Director Jeff Steele has provided a well-written summary of Senate Foreign Relations hearing that begins to answer the question, “What now?” The papers just this morning began predicting our course in Afghanistan will be decided based on fiscal concerns, not long-term military strategy.  This creates much concern for many of our military leaders.

Senate Foreign Relations hearing on Terrorist Groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan

On Tuesday, May 24, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee conducted another in a series of hearings on Afghanistan and Pakistan to examine the current threat posed by Al Qaeda and the Taliban and to analyze the capabilities and intent of other international terrorist groups operating in the region.

The death of Osama bin Laden last month has ignited a debate over the ongoing U.S. operation in Afghanistan. On Capitol Hill, many are questioning whether the mission there is worth the financial and human cost now that bin Laden is gone. The fact that bin Laden had lived for several years and was killed near a key military installation not far from Pakistan's capital will help shape the debate because the endgame in Afghanistan will require the help and cooperation of Pakistan.

Senator John Kerry, who chairs the committee and recently visited the region, said US forces' killing of bin Laden in Pakistan along with "security gains" in the Taliban's historic stronghold of southern Afghanistan "have created some political space."

"This is a critical moment in the war in Afghanistan," Kerry said at the hearing, "It's important that we seize that opportunity. Middle- and low-level Taliban fighters, many of them want to come in from the battlefield. We need to work with the Afghan government in order to make sure that those who wish to lay down their arms can, in fact, do so," he said. President Obama has tripled troops to Afghanistan but hopes to begin a withdrawal this summer and complete the pullout in 2014, some 13 years after the United States led the overthrow of the Taliban regime.

With polls showing that much of the US public is tired of the war, the Obama administration has in recent months played down the prospect of a military solution in Afghanistan and called for a political settlement. But Kerry has said that the United States should be concerned about extremists in Pakistan and the ease with which they cross the porous border with Afghanistan. "It will take adroit and persistent diplomacy to convince the Pakistani military leaders that the real threat to their sovereignty comes not from its eastern border [with India] and not from across the Atlantic [U.S.], but it comes from violent extremists in their own country," Kerry said.

Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking member on the committee, questioned why the United States was spending some $120 billion a year in Afghanistan, where some 100,000 US troops are deployed. "The question before us is whether Afghanistan is strategically important enough to justify the lives and massive

resources that we are spending there, especially given that few terrorists in Afghanistan have global designs or reach. To the extent that our purpose is to confront the global terrorist threat, we should be refocusing resources on Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, parts of North Africa and other locations," Lugar said.

A number of senators expressed deep frustration with Pakistan because the country is playing a double game, supporting – or at least sheltering – Taliban leaders as a means of influencing Afghanistan’s future. In addition, it harbors other extremist groups less well known to Americans for its own perceived national security reasons related to India.

What these series of hearings have made clear is that Pakistan is an extremely unstable and contradictory country. Its leaders hold onto their pathological obsession with India and refuse to recognize the dire threat that the Taliban and other militants pose from within. Furthermore, America is deeply unpopular there and if the government is pushed too hard to break all ties with terrorists groups the risk is the loss of any cooperation, thereby risking the mission in Afghanistan.

But, the hard truth is that Pakistan’s support is essential to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. The primary logistics and supply routes into Afghanistan run through Pakistan and, therefore, America’s entire strategy makes us hostages to the Pakistanis to a degree greater than we would like. At the same time, Pakistan is a recipient of more than $1 billion annually from the U.S., money the country sorely needs.

A recent analysis of the relationship by Stratfor, a private intelligence firm, sums up well the deeply unsettling realities addressed in the hearing:

Ultimately, the United States cannot change its policy of the last 10 years. During that time, it has come to accept what support the Pakistanis could give and tolerated what was withheld. U.S. dependence on Pakistan so long as Washington is fighting in Afghanistan is significant; the United States has lived with Pakistan’s multitiered policy for a decade because it had to. Nothing in the capture of bin Laden changes the geopolitical realities. So long as the United States wants to wage — or end — a war in Afghanistan, it must have the support of Pakistan to the extent that Pakistan is prepared to provide it. The option of breaking with Pakistan because on some level it is acting in opposition to American interests does not exist.

This is the ultimate contradiction in U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and even the so-called war on terror as a whole. The United States has an absolute opposition to terrorism and has waged a war in Afghanistan on the questionable premise that the tactic of terrorism can be defeated, regardless of source or ideology. Broadly fighting terrorism requires the cooperation of the Muslim world, as U.S.

intelligence and power is inherently limited. The Muslim world has an interest in containing terrorism, but not the absolute concern the United States has. Muslim countries are not prepared to destabilize their countries in service to the American imperative. This creates deeper tensions between the United States and the Muslim world and increases the American difficulty in dealing with terrorism — or with Afghanistan.

The United States must either develop the force and intelligence to wage war without any assistance, which is difficult to imagine given the size of the Muslim world and the size of the U.S. military, or it will have to accept half-hearted support and duplicity. Alternatively, it could accept that it will not win in Afghanistan and will not be able simply to eliminate terrorism. These are difficult choices, but the reality of Pakistan drives home that these, in fact, are the choices.