- Obama administration decision on Haqqani network will affect Pakistan relations
- Debate of effectiveness of terror designation of Haqqani network
- The Haqqani Network and the Pashtuns
Obama administration decision on Haqqani network will affect Pakistan relations
Haqqani network leader Jalaluddin Haqqani in 1998 (AP)
The Obama administration is deeply divided over whether to designate
the Pakistan-based Haqqani network as a terrorist group. A report on
the administration's decision is due to Congress by September 9, and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stated that the deadline will
be met, one way or the other. The Haqqani Network is a Taliban
offshoot that is leading the fight against the government of
Afghanistan and the Nato forces in Afghanistan. A number of US
military commanders have indicated that the Haqqani Network is the
most dangerous and most organized terrorist organization in the
Taliban.
The designation of the Haqqani Network as a terrorist organization
should be an easy call, but there are broader issues. American
officials in the past have accused Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) agency of having ties to the Haqqani Network, and
even of supply arms and money to it. The Pakistanis deny this, saying
that ISI links were cut long ago. And so a designation of the Haqqani
Network as a terrorist organization might once again cause a major
rift in relations with Pakistan, at a time just after last year's rift
was healed and the supply route through Pakistan was reopened, as we
reported in July. Pakistan Observer
Debate of effectiveness of terror designation of Haqqani network
Part of the debate is over whether the terror designation will
actually accomplish anything. A recent report calls the Haqqani
network “an efficient, trans�national jihadi industry” that has
“penetrated key business sectors, including import-export, transport,
real estate and construction in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Arab Gulf
and beyond." Proponents of the designation claim that these business
interests will be undermined, but others in the White House point out
that several Haqqani leaders have already been designated individually
as terrorists, and that hasn't affected their business interests.
Washington Post
The Haqqani Network and the Pashtuns
The Haqqani Network is the culmination of how I've been describing for
years the Afghanistan war in terms of Generational Dynamics theory.
President Obama initiated the "surge" into Afghanistan in
2009 with the intent of duplicating the success of President
Bush's "surge" strategy into Iraq in 2007. However, as I've
written several times in the past, the generational situation
in Afghanistan is very different than in Iraq, and there are
significant differences that will prevent the surge strategy from
working there.
Afghan-Pak-India ethnic map
Iraq's last generational crisis war was the Iran/Iraq war of the
1980s, meaning that Iraq is in a generational Awakening era, not very
interested in war. This was an external war, fought with Iran, that
brought the Iraqi people together against a common foe. When al-Qaeda
in Iraq started operating, they were thrown out by people on both
sides of the Sunni/Shia sectarian divide, since the two sides were
still united. Thus, America's 2007 "surge" was very effective in
helping them eject al-Qaeda in Iraq. From 2007: "Iraqi Sunnis are turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq"
Afghanistan's last generational crisis war was the bloody civil war of
the 1990s, climaxing in 1996. So Afghanistan is at the end of a
generational Recovery era, and is just entering a generational
Awakening era, and from that point of view, the country is similar to
Iraq. But the huge difference is that Afghanistan's crisis war was a
civil war.
During the extremely bloody ethnic civil war that the Afghans fought
in the 1990s, the Shia Muslim Hazaris and the Sunni Muslim Pashtuns
were on opposite sides, and the ethnic groups were torturing and
killing each other within Afghanistan. The Hazari and the Pashtuns
are going to continue to see each other as the enemy, and they will
can never come together and see the Haqqani network as a common
enemy, in the way that the Iraqi's saw al-Qaeda in Iraq as a common
enemy.
Even despite all that, things might settle down in Afghanistan, if it
weren't for one more major problem. The Taliban are Pashtuns. The
Haqqani Network are Pashtuns. The Pashtuns live in a broad area that
spans Afghanistan, Pakistan's tribal area, and Pakistan's northwest,
as you can see from the map above, where the Pashtuns are shown in
green.
The additional major problem is that the Pashtuns in Pakistan are
on a different generational timeline than the Pashtuns in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's last crisis war was Partition, the 1947 partitioning of
the Indian subcontinent into Pakistan and India. So the Pakistani
Pashtuns are deep into a generational crisis era, and the Haqqani
Network are Pakistani Pashtuns, able to move freely across
the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
So we have a situation where Afghanistan is entering a generational
Awakening era, and has little desire for a bloody war. Indeed,
Afghan president Hamid Karzai is a Pashtun who has close relations
with the Hazaris. But the Pakistani-based Haqqani Network wants
a war, and believe that a Pashtun victory will give them
control of the entire region.
I keep reading nonsense that various American officials are hoping
that the Taliban will agree to a negotiated truce with Nato. This
is so absurd that it's laughable. Yes, the Afghan Taliban might
agree to that, but there is no way in hell that the Haqqani
Network or the Pakistani Taliban in general are going to have
anything to do with a peace agreement with the infidels.
Finally, it's worth pointing out again, as I have in the past, that
historically, Hindus have been allied with Shia Muslims in wars
against Sunni Muslims, and this is the current trend in the region.
In the coming Clash of Civilizations world war, it's expected that
Pakistan will be allied with the Taliban (Pashtuns) in southern
Afghanistan, and India will be allied with Iran and with the Hazaris
and other Shia Muslims in northern Afghanistan.
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Taliban,
Haqqani Network, Inter-Services Intelligence, ISI,
Pashtuns, Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq, India, Hindus, Iran
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