Pakistan's perspective

TARIQ OSMAN HYDER
Despite eight years of occupation, military intervention and developmental funding this year has been the worst in terms of the security situation for the Afghan people and the American, ISAF and NATO forces. General Stanley McChrystal has admitted this, as did President Barack Obama in his West Point address which provides America and its fatigued Western allies with an exit strategy provided that it can get the implementation right. It can provide an opportunity for the Afghans to mitigate their long suffering if they are empowered to resolve their own problems.
The occupation of Afghanistan was suffered rather than supported in the region. It is however now clear to all that this occupation and that of Iraq have increased terrorism and extremism worldwide as Pakistan, the most affected country, has found to its cost.
For Pakistan, the new policy provides a complex challenge, which requires a prompt consensus-backed policy response to transform it into an opportunity rather than an additional liability atop the internal pressures it already faces. The rest of the region is essentially on the sidelines, apprehensive of its inability to effect an outcome with serious implications.
The most important task is clearly framing the issues involved, not in a reactive manner to the still evolving Obama policy but according to the ground realities, in a debate with America on its implications and how it should be implemented.
Obama's latest policy vision is still predominated by the military surge though couched in terms of protecting Afghans. The Afghan people developmental and political reconciliation surges do not yet carry the same weight. There has to be a recognition that particularly with the additional 30,000 to 35,000 troops which will take the foreign forces near to the Soviet troop level, bringing stability to Afghanistan can only be done by Afghans through an efficient army composed of all ethnic groups, less corrupt governance and the use of the traditional Afghan decentralised tribal structure, backstopped by American/NATO forces who will for the foreseeable future keep an over the horizon capacity for targeted military intervention whether we like it or not.
The pivotal role of Pakistan gives it an opportunity of forging a significant relationship with America provided there are no detrimental developments and Pakistan is no longer used as a scapegoat for the failure of the allies' eight year occupation. Otherwise, mounting public and other pressures may force the government to end cooperation on Afghanistan with America whatever the economic cost.