US for smaller India role in Kabul-Pakistan pressure to prune consulate footprint in Afghanistan

New Delhi, May 26: The US administration is nudging India to scale down its presence in Afghanistan — including pruning or closing down its consulates — in line with Islamabad’s demands, sources said.

This stand goes against US policy of the past eight years, when Washington wanted India to send troops to Afghanistan.

The US is now hunting new allies to “stabilise” Pakistan and Afghanistan, such as China, Saudi Arabia and Iran that have leverage with Islamabad, as President Obama’s Afpak policy takes off.

Delhi’s role in the rebuilding of Afghanistan, including infrastructure projects and integrated development projects, has not gone down well with Pakistan, which sees India’s strategic interest in its presence.

Islamabad, which is the epicentre of America’s fight against terror in the region, is pressuring Washington to prevail upon New Delhi to reduce its presence in Afghanistan.

The matter was hinted at in talks with India when Richard Holbrooke, the US administration’s special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, was in Delhi recently. The sources said the US would like India to prune or shut down consulates in Herat and Jalalabad.

Other than the embassy in Kabul, India has four missions in Afghanistan — in Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Jalalabad.

Herat and Jalalabad are in regions where the Taliban are active, and Islamabad accuses India of using its consulates there to whip up anti-Pakistan sentiments. While Herat borders Iran, Jalalabad is close to Pakistan.

The Obama administration is leaning towards Pakistan’s friends China and Saudi Arabia as the fight against the Taliban in the country becomes increasingly tenuous. Holbrooke visited China on April 16 and the US has sounded out Beijing on helping Pakistan fight the insurgents, the sources added.

China has an immediate interest in this, having made huge investments in Pakistan, where some 10,000 of its engineers and technicians work. Besides, Pakistani training camps are blamed for the insurgency in the Xinjiang region of China. With Iran too coming into the picture in US policy on Afghanistan, Washington would be keener on shifting its focus on countries that have greater influence on Islamabad than New Delhi.

The US administration is nudging India to scale down its presence in Afghanistan -- including pruning or closing down its consulates -- in line with Islamabad's demands, sources said. This stand goes against US policy of the past eight years, when Washington wanted India to send troops to Afghanistan. The US is now hunting new allies to "stabilise" Pakistan and Afghanistan, such as China, Saudi Arabia and Iran that have leverage with Islamabad, as President Obama's Afpak policy takes off. Delhi's role in the rebuilding of Afghanistan, including infrastructure projects and integrated development projects, has not gone down well with Pakistan, which sees India's strategic interest in its presence... The matter was hinted at in talks with India when Richard Holbrooke, the US administration's special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, was in Delhi recently. The sources said the US would like India to prune or shut down consulates in Herat and Jalalabad. Other than the embassy in Kabul, India has four missions in Afghanistan -- in Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Jalalabad... The Obama administration is leaning towards Pakistan's friends China and Saudi Arabia as the fight against the Taliban in the country becomes increasingly tenuous. Holbrooke visited China on April 16 and the US has sounded out Beijing on helping Pakistan fight the insurgents, the sources added.

the punchline?

The US secretary of state acknowledged on Tuesday that Washington had not been consistent in its dealings with Islamabad. Talking to reporters at the Foreign Press Centre and the White House, Hillary Clinton said 'it is fair to say that our policy towards Pakistan over the last 30 years has been incoherent. I don't know any other word' "US wronged Pakistan for 30 years, admits Hillary"

oh, Hillary? About that 30 years:

Last month, a video of Talibs whipping a 17-year-old girl for adultery upset Pakistanis, who thought it barbaric. It might be, but it is the law. The punishment for married adulterers in Pakistan is to "be stoned to death at a public place" (Ordinance 7 of 1979)... Later in April, the world worried over Pakistan's decision to enforce Shariah law in the district of Swat, being held by the Taliban. But Shariah is already in force in the whole of Pakistan; it is only being implemented selectively. What the Taliban are demanding is enforcement. Pakistanis might fear the Taliban but nobody opposes Islamic law... "Why the Taliban's going to win in Pakistan"

new incoherence:

The US administration has urged China to provide training and military equipment to help Pakistan counter a growing threat of terrorism in the country, a media report said. The proposal is part of a broad US push to enlist key allies of Pakistan in an effort to stabilise the country, the Boston Globe said on Monday. The US is seeking to persuade Pakistan to step up its efforts against militants, while supporting the fragile civilian government and its tottering economy. Richard Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, has visited China and Saudi Arabia, another key ally, in recent weeks as part of the effort. Washington's appeal to Beijing underscores China's importance in security issues. The US considers China to be the most influential country for dealing with North Korea. China also plays a crucial role in the international effort to pressure Iran over its nuclear ambitions... US officials believe China is skilled at counterinsurgency, a holdover of the knowledge gained during the country's lengthy civil war that ended with a Communist victory in 1949. And with China's strong military ties to Pakistan, US officials hope China could help craft a more sophisticated strategy than Pakistan's current heavy-handed approach... China's strategic alliance with Pakistan reaches back to the 1960s. China has sold Pakistan billions of dollars worth of military equipment, including missiles, warships, and tanks... China's ambassador, Luo Zhaohui, said in a speech earlier this month that 10,000 Chinese engineers and technicians work in the country. But China is increasingly concerned about the Pakistani insurgency, in part because Muslim separatists from the northwestern Chinese region have trained in Pakistani camps. Officials in Beijing are also concerned because of recurrent kidnappings and killings of Chinese workers in Pakistan. China has repeatedly pressed the Pakistani government to protect its citizens. "US seeks China's help to quell militancy in Pakistan: Report"

China, yeah, perfect, what a great idea, coming as it does on the heels of the Chinese intervention in Sri Lanka:

India faces a greater threat from China than Pakistan because New Delhi knows little about Beijing's combat capabilities, India's air force chief told a newspaper in an interview published on Sunday. "China bigger threat than Pakistan, says I[ndian]AF chief"

[crowd in unison] Wheel! Of! Fortune!

The United States has pledged more than $100 million worth of humanitarian aid to relieve Pakistan as it wages battle against extremists inside its borders, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said today. About 2 million Pakistanis are displaced as a result of clashes in the country's northwestern frontier province, and the U.S. Agency for International Development has responded by supplying water trucks, meals that conform to Islamic dietary requirements, tents and other relief... Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell expressed support for Pakistan's efforts to stabilize its country, saying at a news conference that the Defense Department has encouraged Pakistan to undertake such actions... Clinton said a U.S. disaster-assistance response team and American personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad are on the ground working with and supporting Pakistani authorities in evaluating needs for shelter, food, health, water and sanitation services. U.S. AID's office of foreign disaster assistance has delivered 30,000 family relief kits, 5,000 tents, FM radios and generators to provide both light and water, she said. The efforts reflect President Barack Obama's pledge to stand by Pakistan's people and the democratically elected government in Islamabad as it works to restore security, Clinton said. The relief comes in addition to the nearly $60 million the United States has provided since August to help Pakistanis affected by the conflicts, and complements other funding the administration is seeking from Congress, Clinton said. In an effort to invest in the Pakistani economy, Clinton said, a significant portion of the pledged food aid will go to buying local crops... The secretary of state added that Americans can donate to the relief effort in $5 increments by texting the word "SWAT" to the number 20222. Contributions will help the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees provide tents, clothing, food and medicine to those affected, she said. "U.S. Pledges More than $100 Million in Relief to Pakistan"

Obama is no Carter -- he's worse. It's "Dumb and Dumber":

Declaring a "qualitatively different" U.S. approach towards Pakistan following three decades of "incoherent" policy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday announced $110 million in emergency assistance for the South Asian nation, including aid for civilians fleeing a military offensive against Taliban militants in the northwest... The surge of IDPs followed the launch of a military offensive in late April. President Asif Ali Zardari acted after U.S. officials stepped up warnings that Islamabad's willingness to tolerate and negotiate "peace" deals with the militants was endangering both Pakistan and the wider region. The latest in a series of peace accords, struck by the NWFP government last February and approved by Zardari in mid-April, permitted the Pakistani Taliban to enforce Islamic (shari'a) law in Swat, in return for an end to its violent campaign there. But Taliban fighters then spilled beyond Swat into surrounding NWFP districts, including an area just 60 miles from Islamabad... She recalled U.S. support for and funding of Islamists fighting the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, saying this had been done in partnership with Pakistan. With the Soviet withdrawal, however, "we basically said, thank you very much" and disengaged... She said while it was fair to apportion responsibility to Pakistan, the U.S. should also ask what role it played in the situation now facing the Pakistanis. Clinton said President Obama's "new approach" was "qualitatively different than anything that has been tried before." ...U.S. aid to Pakistan was first suspended by President Carter in 1979 in response to Islamabad's covert nuclear activities. It was restored after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but again suspended, by President G.H.W. Bush, after the Soviet withdrawal... In fact, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency is widely believed to have helped to establish the Taliban movement which emerged in the early 1990s, defeated other warring factions and seized control of Kabul in 1996, allowing al-Qaeda allies to shelter there. Pakistan was one of just three countries -- the others were Saudi Arabia and the UAE -- to have diplomatic relations with the Taliban "emirate," a policy only dropped under U.S. pressure following al-Qaeda's attacks on 9/11. Even after 9/11 and the Taliban regime's subsequent overthrow by U.S.-led forces, the ISI allegedly retained links with the militants. Regional security analysts say the agency used the Taliban and other jihadist groups as instruments of foreign policy in both Afghanistan and against rival India, especially in Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between Pakistan and India and claimed by both. As recently as last summer, the ISI was suspected -- by the U.S., Afghan and Indian governments -- of being behind the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul. "US Shares Responsibility for Pakistan Crisis, Clinton Says"

Stuck with Pakistan -- but US policy distancing itself from India is stone-cold stupid. Everyone else seems to know this is going to screw up regional politics for years to come, but all of them (except for India) are in favor of this, for obvious reasons.

Shouting "Say no to a war economy," and "No more blood money," some half-dozen placard-waving demonstrators interrupted a testimony by top ranking US general Mike Mullen. They were evicted quickly even as law-makers agonized about throwing US tax-payer dollars at Pakistan without sufficient benchmarks and accountability. India remained the elephant in the room as Senators mulled gravely over the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and its unbridled expansion, the rogue nature of the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, and Islamabad's fundamental insecurity vis-Ã -vis New Delhi, in a hearing that reflected the complex nature of the Af-Pak situation. As with the House legislation, the Senate bill too avoided explicitly mentioning India. But in both cases, sources monitoring the accountability factors expressed satisfaction over the euphemism that will make US aid conditional to Pakistan ceasing terrorist activity against "neighboring countries." More important, sources said, was the addition of the names of terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e- Mohammed to al-Qaida and Taliban which Pakistan has to act against to be eligible for US aid. Lawmakers have also insisted Pakistan spend 75 per cent of the funds on counter-insurgency efforts and scuppered any effort by Islamabad to buy F-16 fighter jets with anything but its own money... But it was Pakistan's runaway nuclear program that engaged law-makers the most. While Senators were briefed on the subject at a closed, in-camera hearing on Wednesday, Mullen publicly offered some clues as to where the US was headed in this matter. "We will continue to support national efforts to counter, limit, and contain WMD and missile proliferation from both hostile state and non-state actors," he said, adding, "We will also team with partners inside and outside the region to reduce vulnerabilities and strengthen regional governments' confidence that we can address the WMD threat." "Protests mar debate on US aid to Pakistan"

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