Pakistan Welcomes Afghan US Bilateral Security
Pact; Analysts Uncertain
Oct. 2, 2014 By USMAN ANSARI
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s
civil and military leadership has welcomed the signing of the Afghan-US Bilateral Security
Agreement (BSA) and pledged support for the new Afghan
government, but analysts are doubtful of the long-term regional security and
stability.
Government
officials have said a continued Western military presence in Afghanistan to
train and support the Afghan military would be beneficial. This reverses the
previous view that a long-term Western military presence in Afghanistan was
destabilizing.
Gen Raheel Sharif,
head of the Army, was quoted in Pakistani media as saying the deal was “a good
move for durable peace in Afghanistan” during a Corps Commander’s meeting at
the Army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.
Officials hoped the
continued Western military presence could help stop Afghanistan from sliding
into a civil war. The agreement comes as Kabul’s new government has pledged not
to allow Afghan territory to be used against its neighbors.
Analysts are
unconvinced.
“I doubt it will
make any difference at all to Pakistan,” said analyst, author and former
Australian defense attache to Islamabad, Brian Cloughley. “The BSA is just a
formal document required by the US to enable its forces and those of some other
NATO countries to remain in country.”
His views are
echoed by Salma Malik, assistant professor, in the Department of Defence &
Strategic Studies, at Islamabad’s Quaid-i-Azam University.
“The BSA gives
Pakistan a semblance of security that the ISAF[International
Security Assistance Force] or at least the US forces continue their presence
and commitment in the neighboring Afghanistan,” she said.
However, she
questions the level of commitment.
“What we don’t take
into account fully is that the US mentally packed its bags two to three years
back and this is just a cleanup job, compounded by new emerging threats and
problems which compel the US and Western powers to focus elsewhere.”
Claude Rakisits,
nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, however,
is generally more supportive and says it disproves previous Pakistani fears.
“Pakistani
academics, analysts and officials, civilian and military, have been asserting
in the lead-up to 2014 that the US would once again leave Pakistan to its own
devices as it had after the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989,” he said.
“This was never
going to be the case because the two situations are completely different in
time [25 years] and the issues [terrorism was not present and Pakistan is now a
nuclear-armed state],” he added.
Therefore, he
believes “America’s continued presence in Afghanistan, albeit a limited one in
numbers and in time, will be good news for bilateral relations between
Islamabad and Washington.”
Despite the
agreement and the new Afghan government, Cloughley says serious problems
threaten even its short-term stability.
“Afghanistan is
collapsing even further under the weight of Taliban assaults,
while the warlords remain in the background for the moment, reaping the profits
from drug production, kidnapping and general mayhem,” he said.
Even Rakisits
concedes that in this regard the BSA may not deliver additional security for
Pakistan.
“I seriously doubt
that the presence of less than 10,000 US military personnel, the bulk of whom
will be trainers and advisers to the Afghan military, will make much of a
difference to Pakistan’s own security. The limited special forces personnel
based in Afghanistan will be involved in hunting down al-Qaida terrorists
rather than the TTP [Pakistani Taliban],” he said.
“The injection of
$8 billion annually of military aid should help the Afghan security forces deal
with the Afghan Taliban and hopefully the TTP when they cross over into
Afghanistan. How effective the Afghan forces will be is, of course, another
issue,” he said. “The Afghan Taliban have successfully conducted a number of
attacks in Afghanistan recently, and this despite the presence of 40,000 ISAF
troops still in the country.”
“So all in all, it
is doubtful that the TTP and their fellow ideological travelers will feel under
too much pressure from the Afghan military, which will have its own problems to
deal with,” Rakisits added.
“One must not
forget that the BSA is only a temporary and limited military assistance crutch
for three years,” he said.
Ultimately, Afghan
“stability, and therefore security” rests in the hands of the newly appointed
government being able to work together and overcome Afghanistan’s numerous
problems. However, he has little faith in this. Therefore, by extension, the
longer-term security implications for Pakistan are also bleak. ■
Email: uansari@defensenews.com.
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