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Five Suggestions for Diplomatic Progress in South Asia |
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It’s not fair to criticize escalation in Afghanistan without offering alternatives, so here are the five things I would do instead of escalating:
1. Engage Iran in bilateral talks and make sure they include the issue of how to cooperate regarding Afghanistan. General David Petraeus has suggested Iran could be part of a regional approach to the Afghanistan conflict:
Like the United States, Iran is concerned about the narcotics trade in Afghanistan and the resurgence of extremists there, he said. “It doesn’t want to see Sunni extremists or certainly ultrafundamentalist extremists running Afghanistan any more than other folks do,” he said, while acknowledging that the United States and Iran have “some pretty substantial points of conflict out there as well.”
Working with Iran could help contain the Taliban threat if they re-take power following a NATO withrawal.
2. Convene a regional summit including India, Pakistan, Iran, and the Central Asian states to discuss a post-NATO Afghanistan. The cooperation of these countries will also help contain the Taliban threat.
3. Appoint a special envoy, such as former President Bill Clinton, to help broker a deal between India and Pakistan in the Kashmir crisis. Solving Kashmir would remove a cause of terrorist attacks in the region, help cool down India-Pakistan tensions, and allow Pakistan to focus on internal stability and border security.
4. Encourage the Karzai government to move forward in its talks with the Taliban, and encourage Saudi Arabia’s efforts to broker further talks.
5. Work jointly with other NATO members to devise a responsible strategy for exiting Afghanistan.
In connection with engaging Iran, we would want to make sure that China and Russia also participate in any regional discussions. Russia is strongly victimized by the vastly increased drug trade out of Afghanistan and by the epidemic of HIV which has closely followed the drugs. China is Pakistan’s largest foreign investor and has growing interests in Afghanistan, such as a multi-billion dollar copper-mining project south of Kabul. The drug trade also runs up the Karakoram Highway straight into Xinjiang, as does a wave of fundamentalist Islam which had not been part of Uighur tradition prior to the highway’s opening, but has occurred with greatly increased pilgrimage to Mecca in the last few decades (an opening Beijing may now regret). Russia could conceivably help assure Iranian compliance with non-proliferation goals, and China has ample reason to promote peace in the area so as to facilitate overland trade and cross-border prosperity. If Afghan warlords and other political combatants prove recalcitrant, or if ISI operatives prove intransigent, China will find a way to quiet them I think. It will help if we’ve drawn Beijing and Moscow into that diplomatic loop, which they will want to do if Tehran is at the table.
For one further angle on the need to involve Iran in any effective project for Afghanistan, we ought to look at press reports published Jan. 15 concerning attacks on PKK positions in Iraqi Kurdistan. Both Turkey and Iran were reported to have carried out attacks. Suppression of PKK violence in the north of Iraq is logically linked to preventing such violence in the neighboring portions of both Iran and Turkey, but there are strong rumors of US and Israeli support for covert operations within Iran using PKK operatives. The hope that only Iran will suffer from such violent special operations is not just vain but stupid, and civilian populations across the region — in Turkey, Iraq and Iran — deserve our peacekeeping efforts, not our funding of one more terrorist group in secret. And Turkey has a clear interest in sharing with Iran all the anti-PKK intelligence we provide. We need an accommodation with Iran which will facilitate that sort of sharing, just as we need to encourage the growing trade in cross-border oil and gas and electric grid projects between Turkey and Iran. Doing this will bring Ankara closer to Washington, a worthy goal.
According to Reuters, via its Indian website, the German Chancellor’s conservative party is on board with the need to involve Iran in any effective project for Afghanistan:
http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINLK496720090120
What a quick and welcome validation of this position!
Thanks Greg, good catch. Wrote about this on the front page.