Russia Stops US on Road to Afghanistan
//////////// ///////// ///////// /
by M K Bhadrakumar
Asia Times
http://www.atimes. com/atimes/ South_Asia/ KA27Df01. html
January 26, 2008
Precise, quick, deadly – the skills of a soldier are modest. But
then, US Central Command chief General David Petraeus is more than a
soldier. The world is getting used to him as somewhere more than
halfway down the road to becoming a statesman. Sure, there may be
warfare’s seduction over him still, but he is expected to be aware of
the political realities of the two wars he conducts, in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
That is why he tripped last Tuesday when he said while on a visit to
Pakistan that the American military had secured agreements to move
supplies to Afghanistan from the north, easing the heavy reliance on
the transit route through Pakistan. “There have been agreements
reached, and there are transit lines now and transit agreements for
commercial goods and services in particular that include several
countries in the Central Asian states and Russia,” Petraeus said.
He was needlessly precise – like a soldier. Maybe he needed to
impress on the tough Pakistani generals that they wouldn’t hold the
US forces in Afghanistan by their jugular veins for long. Or, he felt
simply exasperated about the doublespeak of Janus-faced southwest
Asian generals.
The shocking intelligence assessment shared by Moscow reveals that
almost half of the US supplies passing through Pakistan is pilfered
by motley groups of Taliban militants, petty traders and plain
thieves. The US Army is getting burgled in broad daylight and can’t
do much about it. Almost 80% of all supplies for Afghanistan pass
through Pakistan. The Peshawar bazaar is doing a roaring business
hawking stolen US military ware, as in the 1980s during the Afghan
jihad against the Soviet Union. This volume of business will register
a quantum jump following the doubling of the US troop level in
Afghanistan to 60,000. Wars are essentially tragedies, but can be
comical, too.
Moscow disclaims transit route
At any rate, within a day of Petraeus’ remark, Moscow corrected him.
Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Maslov told Itar-Tass, “No official
documents were submitted to Russia’s permanent mission in NATO [North
Atlantic Treaty Organization] certifying that Russia had authorized
the United States and NATO to transport military supplies across the
country.”
A day later, Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, added from
Brussels, “We know nothing of Russia’s alleged agreement of military
transit of Americans or NATO at large. There had been suggestions of
the sort, but they were not formalized.” And, with a touch of irony,
Rogozin insisted Russia wanted the military alliance to succeed in
Afghanistan.
“I can responsibly say that in the event of NATO’s defeat in
Afghanistan, fundamentalists who are inspired by this victory will
set their eyes on the north. First they will hit Tajikistan, then
they will try to break into Uzbekistan … If things turn out badly,
in about 10 years, our boys will have to fight well-armed and well-
organized Islamists somewhere in Kazakhstan,” the popular Moscow-
politician turned diplomat added.
Russian experts have let it be known that Moscow views with disquiet
the US’s recent overtures to Central Asian countries regarding
bilateral transit treaties with them which exclude Russia. Agreements
have been reached with Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Moscow
feels the US is pressing ahead with a new Caspian transit route which
involves the dispatch of shipments via Georgia to Azerbaijan and
thereon to the Kazakh harbor of Aktau and across the Uzbek territory
to Amu Darya and northern Afghanistan.
Russian experts estimate that the proposed Caspian transit route
could eventually become an energy transportation route in reverse
direction, which would mean a strategic setback for Russia in the
decade-long struggle for the region’s hydrocarbon reserves.
Russia presses for role in Kabul
Indeed, Uzbekistan is the key Central Asian country in the great game
over the northern transit route to Afghanistan. Thus, during Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Tashkent last week, Afghanistan
figured as a key topic. Medvedev characterized Russian-Uzbek
relations as a “strategic partnership and alliance” and said that on
matters relating to Afghanistan, Moscow’s cooperation with Tashkent
assumed an “exceptional importance”.
He said he and Uzbek President Islam Karimov agreed that there could
be no “unilateral solution” to the Afghan problem and “nothing can be
resolved without taking into account the collective opinion of states
which have an interest in the resolution of the situation”.
Most significantly, Medvedev underlined Russia had no objections
about US President Barack Obama’s idea of linking the Afghanistan and
Pakistan problems, but for an entirely different reason, as “it is
not possible to examine the establishment and development of a modern
political system in Afghanistan in isolation from the context of
normalizing relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan in their
border regions, setting up the appropriate international mechanisms
and so on”.
Moscow rarely touches on the sensitive Durand Line question, that is,
the controversial line that separates Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Medvedev underscored that Russia remained an interested party, as
there was a “need to ensure that these issues are resolved on a
collective basis”.
Second, Medvedev made it clear Moscow would resist US attempts to
expand its military and political presence in the Central Asian and
Caspian regions. He asserted, “This is a key region, a region in
which diverse processes are taking place and in which Russia has
crucially important work to do to coordinate our positions with our
colleagues and help to find common solutions to the most complex
problems.”
Plainly put, Moscow will not allow a replay of the US’s tactic after
September 11, 2002, when it sought a military presence in Central
Asia as a temporary measure and then coolly proceeded to put it on a
long-term footing.
Karzai reaches out to Moscow
Interestingly, Medvedev’s remarks coincide with reports that
Washington is cutting Afghan President Hamid Karzai adrift and is
planning to install a new “dream team” in Kabul.
Medvedev had written to Karzai offering military aid. Karzai
apparently accepted the Russian offer, ignoring the US objection that
in terms of secret US-Afghan agreements, Kabul needed Washington’s
prior consent for such dealings with third countries.
A statement from the Kremlin last Monday said Russia was “ready to
provide broad assistance for an independent and democratic country
[Afghanistan] that lives in a peaceful atmosphere with its neighbors.
Cooperation in the defense sector … will be effective for
establishing peace in the region”. It makes sense for Kabul to make
military procurements from Russia since the Afghan armed forces use
Soviet weaponry. But Washington doesn’t want a Russian “presence” in
Kabul.
Quite obviously, Moscow and Kabul have challenged the US’s secret
veto power over Afghanistan’ s external relations. Last Friday,
Russian and Afghan diplomats met in Moscow and “pledged to continue
developing Russian-Afghan cooperation in politics, trade and
economics as well as in the humanitarian sphere”. Significantly, they
also “noted the importance of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
[SCO]” that is dominated by Russia and China.
SCO seeks Afghan role
Washington cannot openly censure Karzai from edging close to Russia
(and China) since Afghanistan is notionally a sovereign country.
Meanwhile, Moscow is intervening in Kabul’s assertion of
independence. Moscow has stepped up its efforts to hold an
international conference on Afghanistan under the aegis of the SCO.
The US doesn’t want Karzai to legitimize a SCO role in the Afghan
problem. Now a flashpoint arises.
A meeting of deputy foreign ministers from the SCO member countries
(China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan)
met in Moscow on January 14. The Russian Foreign Ministry
subsequently announced that a conference would take place in late
March. The Russian initiative received a big boost with Iran and
India’s decision to participate in the conference.
New Delhi has welcomed an enhanced role for itself as a SCO observer
and seeks “greater participation” in the organization’ s activities.
In particular, New Delhi has “expressed interest in participating in
the activities” of the SCO contact group on Afghanistan.
The big question is whether Karzai will seize these regional trends
and respond to the SCO overture, which will enable Kabul to get out
of Washington’s stranglehold? To be sure, Washington is racing
against time in bringing about a “regime change” in Kabul.
The point is, more and more countries in the region are finding it
difficult to accept the US monopoly on conflict-resolution in
Afghanistan. Washington will be hard-pressed to dissociate from the
forthcoming SCO conference in March and, ideally, would have wished
that Karzai also stayed away, despite it being a full-fledged
regional initiative that includes all of Afghanistan’ s neighbors.
The SCO is sure to list Afghanistan as a major agenda item at its
annual summit meeting scheduled to be held in August in
Yekaterinburg, Russia. It seems Washington cannot stop the SCO in its
tracks at this stage, except by genuinely broad-basing the search for
an Afghan settlement and allowing regional powers with legitimate
interests to fully participate.
The current US thinking, on the other hand, is to strike “grand
bargains” with regional powers bilaterally and to keep them apart
from collectively coordinating with each other on the basis of shared
concerns. But the regional powers see through the US game plan for
what it is – a smart move of divide-and-rule.
Moscow spurns selective engagement
No doubt, these diplomatic maneuverings also reveal the trust deficit
in Russian-American relations. Moscow voices optimism that Obama will
constructively address the problems that have accumulated in the US-
Russia relationship. But Russia figured neither in Obama’s inaugural
address nor in the foreign policy document spelling out his agenda.
Last Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov summed up
Moscow’s minimal expectations: “I hope the controversial problems in
our relations, such as missile defense, the expediency of NATO
expansion … will be resolved on the basis of pragmatism, without
the ideological assessment the outgoing administration had … We
have noticed that … Obama was willing to take a break on the issue
of missile defense … and to evaluate its effectiveness and cost
efficiency.”
But Russia is not among the new US administration’ s priorities.
Besides, as the influential newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta noted last
week, “A considerable number of [US] congressmen from both parties
believe Russia needs a good talking-to.” The current Russian priority
will be to organize an early meeting between Lavrov and Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton, and until such a meeting takes place, matters
are on hold – including the vexed issue of the transit route for
Afghanistan.
Thus, while talking to the media in Tashkent, Medvedev agreed in
principle to grant permission to the US to use a transit route to
Afghanistan via Russian territory, but at once qualified it
saying, “This cooperation should be full-fledged and on an equal
basis.”
He reminded Obama that the “surge” strategy in Afghanistan might not
work. “We hope the new administration will be more successful than
its predecessor on the issues surrounding Afghanistan, ” Medvedev
said.
Evidently, Petraeus overlooked that the US’s needless obduracy to
keep the Hindu Kush as its exclusive geopolitical turf right in the
middle of Asia has become a contentious issue. No matter the fine
rhetoric, the Obama administration will find it difficult to sustain
the myth that the Afghan war is all about fighting al-Qaeda and the
Taliban to the finish.
***
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian
Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South
Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait
and Turkey.
i agree with you