The Battle for Pakistan

by Shuja Nawaz

  As a norm, though, the lead American negotiator with Pakistan was Admiral Mike Mullen, and his principal interlocutor was the Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Both took great pride in their frequent meetings. Kayani recounted that they had met twenty-six times officially during their tenures, plus one last meeting that took place in Seville, Spain, just before Mullen went public with his criticism of the ISI and its links with the Taliban via the Haqqani Network. 3 An interesting footnote to the Mullen testimony was what seemed to have been an end-run by him of the White House. His testimony on the Hill containing the allegation that the Haqqani Network was a veritable ‘arm of the ISI’ was not the text that White House had cleared. He was taken to task for taking this public position at the next meeting of Principals of the NSC at the White House, where the feeling was that this parting shot by Mullen would make it hard for his successor, Gen. Martin Dempsey, to build a relationship with Pakistan. 4 According to a senior NSC official at that time, Mullen said he wanted to clear the deck for Dempsey to craft his own relationship. As later events showed, that did not work.

  Despite the desire to strengthen the civilian side in Pakistan, the US tended to favour contacts with the military, even on wider diplomatic issues. There was a sixteen-hour meeting with a small group of senior US officials in Abu Dhabi that Kayani recalled. He handled them alone, fuelled famously by nicotine. Secretary of State Kerry sought a private meeting with Kayani prior to his own visit to Kabul as the new Secretary of State. Kayani arranged to see him in Jordan in 2011, ‘one on one’. In a set of separate meetings with Kerry and Lute, Kayani recalls Lute asking to ‘help us’. They wished Pakistan to persuade the Taliban to issue a statement that they were prepared to join the talks. Kerry said it would be a miracle if the Taliban issued a statement, recalls Kayani. ‘We delivered it for them!’ Kayani also recalls warning his American counterparts that the Taliban were stronger than before and controlled more territory. In his view, Mullah Omar helped keep control over the Taliban and that splintering them would create more extreme groups. Kayani believed that Mullah Mansour, who took over from Omar ‘has to establish his independence from Pakistan to establish his credentials’. As a corollary, he believed that ‘Talks inside Pakistan [with the Taliban] would create the impression that Pakistan owns the process.’ In his calculation, ‘the US never had a clear, consistent view of the end game’ for Afghanistan. 5

  Yet, the Pakistan military, primarily the army, preferred to deal with its counterparts in the Pentagon, CENTCOM or the ISAF in Afghanistan unencumbered by the protocols and constraints of diplomacy imposed by their Foreign Office colleagues. They preferred the same direct communication with the Afghan leadership. This led to meetings with the Afghan president, and tripartite meetings with the Afghan military leadership and ISAF commanders. The result was a lack of cohesion in the overall Pakistani position and the reduction of the status and capacity of the Pakistani diplomatic corps.

  The military agreed to participate in the strategic dialogue that was initiated between Pakistan and the US to discuss mutually agreed topics ranging from economics and trade to security and technical issues. The Pakistani team was nominally led by the PPP Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and, after he left the PPP government in a huff, by Hina Rabbani Khar. Although, all American eyes tended to shift to the army chief whenever he participated in those meetings.

  Gen. Kayani had a scholarly inclination that was unusual among Pakistani military commanders, who liked to see and present themselves as men of action. Many of them did not read much, relying on the oral tradition more than diligent study. Kayani was a reader. He also paid particular attention to his public image. He mentioned with some amusement and a sense of hurt, an article that had appeared in America after one of his visits that quoted Gen. Jones as saying words to the effect that Kayani talks of what he will do after leaving university! He explained to me in 2010 in his office at GHQ that he was preparing a statement that would present Pakistan’s strategic case to the US in a logical manner. 6 He said he thought Obama was a logical thinker too and this approach would appeal to the American president. Then he proceeded to outline his approach, point-by-point, in cascading order. Those notes became the basis of a talk at NATO headquarters in Brussels. He later put them down into an essay of sorts.

  Various iterations of that paper were handed to the Americans. These are referred to as Kayani 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. The first two papers were long and seem to have relied on a lot of Foreign Office verbiage, so they may not truly be Kayani 1.0 or 2.0 . . . The first one led to the Strategic Dialogue. The second was handed over to the US team in Islamabad in July 2010. It had a letter to Obama’s NSA Gen. Jones signed by Kayani and therefore went to the president, as he intended. 7 The third was the paper he handed to Obama in October 2010 at the White House. The shorter, later versions are more in Kayani’s own voice. 8 They reflected not only his pride in learning the US methodology for research and presentation of ideas on paper but also a desire to couch ideas in terms that the audience wanted to hear. He succeeded for long in playing his American interlocutors to his advantage, even while the actions of his army, intelligence and government were at odds with what the US wanted. He also recounted the salient points of the document he had presented to President Obama in October 2010 at the White House, without divulging their provenance at the time, to visitors from the Atlantic Council in December 2010. I saw then that the notes for the Brussels meeting that he had discussed with me earlier had become a cohesive and important Pakistani document. 9 Nothing reflecting Pakistan’s point of view cogently has emerged since then. Nor America’s understanding of that point of view.

  During a meeting at the White House of the US–Pakistan Strategic Dialogue in October 2010 that Lute had arranged, a pithier version of that Kayani essay, dubbed Kayani 3.0 by Steve Coll, was launched with dramatic effect. Lute had a high opinion of Kayani, seeing him as someone with a ‘nuanced, calibrated, and intellectual approach. A serious professional.’ But he ‘did not wish to promote Kayani as a proxy Head of State’. The meeting that Lute set up at the White House was in the Roosevelt Room, centrally located in the West Wing, a few steps from the Oval Office. The room, named after two American presidents who had led their country during wars, is cosy. No windows, only a little natural light from the roof. It has a table surrounded by comfortable padded brown leather chairs studded with brass tacks, seven across from each other with two at either head of the table. A line of the same stuffed leather chairs extended the length of the room against the wall on either side. Obama would normally prefer to sit in the middle on one side, looking across at a portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to his right on the opposite wall. A painting of Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt on a rampant horse adorned the wall above the mantle over the fireplace to the president’s right.

  Jones was chairing the US team that included Lute and US ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, from that central perch that Obama favoured, when the Pakistani team joined them in the Roosevelt Room. Across from him were Kayani and Qureshi, accompanied by Ambassador Husain Haqqani. The American team had prepared a surprise. Fifteen minutes into the meeting, Obama dropped into the room and Jones relinquished his seat for the President, allowing Obama to take centre stage. As the discussion got under way, Kayani spoke briefly and then leaned over and presented Obama a fourteen-page (1.5-line-spaced) document entitled ‘Pakistan’s Perspective’. This was the ‘logical’ presentation that he had talked about in his office in Rawalpindi many months earlier. Obama said he would read it with interest. Clearly, the Pakistani side was equally surprised by Kayani’s move.

  Lute described the document as written in the Fort Leavenworth style, the approach taught at the US Command and Staff College that Kayani had attended some years ago. Others were less generous, calling it ‘sophomoric’. Regardless, Kayani achieved his effect. It forced an immediate US response, led by Lute’s team and including Holbrooke’s experts. Though ‘immediate’ meant some three-plus
months. The response was carried to Islamabad by Secretary Hillary Clinton in February 2011, by which time the US and Pakistan were well on their way to the worst year in recent memory.

  Interestingly, when the Pakistani team was preparing for this Washington meeting, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had gotten into an argument with the PPP leadership. It was widely believed he considered himself as a better candidate for prime minister than his fellow Multan politician Yousaf Raza Gilani. As a result, he did not participate in a key preparatory meeting just before the team left for Washington, leaving instead for a family weekend in Lahore. Kayani meanwhile had been pressing ahead with the meetings. He called a few meetings at army headquarters, inviting the civilians, both politicians and foreign office staff, to meetings that he chaired. His statement in the Roosevelt Room, however, was a revelation to even his own side. Over time, he had discussed it with his key corps commanders and principal staff officers and the DGMO, Maj. Gen. Javed Iqbal, but not with the civilians. That Kayani paper remains a clear statement of the issues that bedevilled US–Pakistan relations. It was candid and concise.

  What Kayani Said 10

  Kayani’s five-part assessment began by focusing on Afghanistan, the Pakistan–Afghanistan relationship, the FATA, the Pakistan–India relationship, and concluded with Pakistan’s concerns. It made deft use of bullet points and highlighted sections and key points in boldface. Its tone was clinical and sometimes theoretical, relying on the jargon of military schools and presenting Pakistan as a victim of circumstances and the predations of terrorist groups.

  Citing the need for ‘inclusive and lasting peace’, Kayani stipulated that ‘Unless people of Afghanistan consider themselves to be part of the process, achievement of this objective will remain elusive.’ He then talked about shaping the strategic environment in Afghanistan by taking into account Afghanistan’s ethnic mix, and suggested there be no preconditions for talks among Afghans. He suggested sequencing steps: ‘reduction in violence, renouncing Al Qaeda and developing consensus on Constitution’. These should be seen as ‘end’ conditions, not ‘pre’ conditions. He then cited ‘the prerequisite for a strong Central Government’ as one where ‘the Centre is “giving” to the regions. It has strong Armed Forces and a strong federal structure.’ His conclusion: ‘If people of Afghanistan and their coming generations view the US and the Coalition as friends, the war would be won.’ To some extent. Kayani was cleverly trying to second-guess the US policy towards the Taliban and create resonance on how they wanted to shape the Afghan peace process.

  Looking at the Pakistan–Afghanistan relationship, Kayani wrote: ‘For Pakistan, the outcome of the war in Afghanistan is a question of life and death.’ Earlier, he had told another visitor to his office that if the Taliban were to take Kabul, it would be bad for Afghanistan but much worse for Pakistan. He saw Pakistan being at the receiving end of a serious threat led by Al-Qaeda and its ‘conglomerate of terrorist organizations’. He then praised the US as being ‘the most important friend and biggest donor of aid to Pakistan’ and spoke of their effort to forge a strategic partnership, ‘decisively moving away from the transitional nature of the relationship’. (It is not clear if he really meant ‘transitional’ or ‘transactional’.) He then bemoaned the ‘vitriolic and biased coverage of Pakistan in the electronic and print media’ in the US that made ‘support to Pakistan . . . more tentative and future relationship more uncertain’. At the same time, this weakened the cause of ‘those in Pakistan who are supportive of the US–Pakistan strategic relationship’. Most military officers in Pakistan, used to the control of media outlets in their own country, held a strong belief that the US government guided and shaped newspapers in their coverage of overseas issues.

  Kayani then presented a list of US concerns and complaints about Pakistan that was impressive in its comprehensiveness as well as frankness. Most interestingly, this list remains unchanged to this day and could have been taken from even the US–Pakistan dialogues in 2018 or been drafted by his American counterparts! He highlighted the major points in bold type.

  Pakistan provides safe havens to Quetta Shura, Taliban, Haqqanis and other anti-Coalition forces.

  ISI is harbouring and supporting Haqqani Network.

  Pakistan is selective and duplicitous in its efforts against radical forces attacking Coalition in Afghanistan.

  Pakistan is supporting Taliban and keeping them alive as AN OPTION if Coalition fails in Afghanistan.

  Pakistan Army is either unwilling or incapable of tackling those who attack US interests in Afghanistan. It operates against only those who pose a direct threat to Pakistan.

  Pakistan Army is India centric. Its focus on terrorist threats in Pakistan is blurred.

  Al Qaeda lives and grows in Pakistan. All threats to the World security thus emanate from Pakistan.

  Pakistan is a reluctant and unreliable partner.

  He blamed this list for creating ‘a low degree of trust’ and having ‘far reaching effects on the morale and motivation of [Pakistani] troops in the field’. And he countered with Pakistan’s own concerns and complaints. He criticized the US for keeping Pakistan in the dark regarding peace efforts and for blaming Pakistan for ‘each and every act of violence in Afghanistan’. In his view, Pakistan was being made a scapegoat for the ‘inadequacies of the Coalition and overall situation in Afghanistan. All this does not portend well for the future.’

  Kayani saw a direct linkage between the stability and future of Afghanistan and Pakistan. ‘It cannot, therefore, wish for Afghanistan anything other than what it wishes for itself.’ He stated firmly: ‘Pakistan has no right or desire to dictate Afghanistan’s relations with other countries. This includes relations with India.’ This must have been music to the Americans’ ears, but the reality on the ground was at a tangent from this statement of Pakistani policy; Pakistan wanted Afghanistan, at every step, to expunge India’s presence and influence. He extolled the need for development and stability in Afghanistan since it would benefit Pakistan directly. But he also presented the need for Afghan Pashtuns to be ‘accommodated in the political dispensation of Afghanistan’, not realizing that this broke the rule he had established in his own list about Afghanistan being a sovereign state. He went on to add that ‘Pakistan neither desires nor has the capacity to control Afghanistan let alone undertake the imprudence of setting up a government of its choice’.

  He chose not to break the Pashtun prism through which Pakistan views the mosaic of Afghan polity and society. He ended this section by stating: ‘A peaceful, stable and friendly Afghanistan provides us the strategic depth—a concept that is totally misunderstood.’ Kayani repeated this thought in different fora and in private conversations with visitors from the United States. I was at the NDU in Washington DC in February 2010, when he startled his audience by stating point blank: ‘We want Strategic Depth in Afghanistan,’ 11 but then promptly redefined the idea of Strategic Depth as not being physical depth but the presence of a neighbour to the west that was stable and not hostile to Pakistani interests in the region. The defunct and unworkable concept of Strategic Depth continued to enthral and consume Pakistani military thinking. It detracted from Pakistan’s ability to craft an effective security environment built on an educated and empowered population and a vibrant economy.

  The ISI Nexus

  He then segued into a hot issue—the relationship between the ISI and Taliban groups like the Haqqanis—saying that Pakistan was ‘maligned’ by this accusation based on the assumption that Pakistan wanted to retain the Taliban option if the situation merited it after the Coalition draw down. In fact, he posited that the ISI had broken off ‘all contacts’ with the ‘Mujahideen’, as he called the Taliban groups after 9/11, and this was seen by them as dishonourable conduct. ‘Pakistan identifies Taliban and Haqqani Network to be one of the biggest irritants in its relations with US.’ This led to a series of rhetorical questions about the role of extremist militants and radicals and whether Pakistan wis
hed to see them as an alternative to US friendship and as shapers of Pakistan’s polity. His answer was ‘Negative’.

  But was all this verifiable? No. Nor did Pakistan work to make it so. At various times, Pakistan cited the need to maintain contact with such groups though it maintained this did not translate to support for them. Much later, in 2016, Sartaj Aziz, then adviser in charge of the foreign ministry, acknowledged that Taliban leaders and their families were living in Pakistan. ‘We have some influence on them because their leadership is in Pakistan, and they get some medical facilities, their families are here,’ Aziz said, responding to a question about Pakistan’s role in peace talks between the Taliban and Afghanistan government. ‘So we can use those levers to pressurize them to say “come to the table”,’ he said, ‘but we can’t negotiate on behalf of the Afghan government because we can’t offer them what the Afghan government can.’ 12

  US intelligence routinely captured transmissions of communications between what they termed officials from Pakistan with the Taliban as well as relatively unhindered movement of the Haqqani group inside North Waziristan.