Rattling Imaginary Sabres

Pity the Afghan president. Openly chided for weakness at the Paris donor conference earlier this month, and sent packing with a promise of less than half of the 50 billion US dollars in aid he had been requesting, Hamed Karzai may have been looking for a way to salve his pride.



But the president’s emotionally charged speech on June 15, in which he threatened to invade his much larger neighbour, Pakistan, has provoked a small storm in both countries.



In the two weeks since the warning was issued, the president’s office has flip-flopped on Karzai’s real intentions, the United States has sent out contradictory signals, and the situation on the border between the two countries has gone from bad to worse.



Karzai’s made the statement in reaction to repeated incursions by Pakistani insurgents into Afghanistan.



A June 13 attack on a US convoy in Marko Bazaar in the southeastern province of Nangahar reportedly left at least ten dead, although the numbers were not confirmed.



The “Pakistani Taleban” in the shape of Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan, TTP, led by prominent commander Baitullah Mehsud, claimed responsibility for the attack.



“If these people in Pakistan give themselves the right to come and fight in Afghanistan as was continuing for the last 30 years, so Afghanistan has the right to cross the border and destroy terrorist nests,” said Karzai in his June 15 tirade. “Baitullah Mehsud should know that we will go after him now and hit him in his house. And that other one, that Pakistani Maulavi Umar, should know the same.”



The reference was to the TTP’s spokesman, Maulavi Umar, but it soon had international journalists erroneously reporting that Karzai was issuing threats against the one-eyed Afghan Taleban leader Mullah Omar.



Mehsud had concluded a truce with the Pakistani government, declaring that while he would no longer wage jihad against President Pervez Musharraf’s regime, he would continue the fight in Afghanistan.



In recent days, this agreement has fallen through, but Afghans are still stung by what they see as yet another betrayal by Pakistan.



Afghanistan has a long history of conflict with its much more populous eastern neighbour, dating back even before Pakistan came into being.



In 1893, the imperial power in what was then British India concluded a treaty with the Afghan monarch Abdurrahman establishing the Durand Line, which survives as the current Afghan-Pakistan frontier. Afghans have never accepted what they see as an artificially-imposed boundary, which splits the Pashtun ethnic group down the middle. For decades, some have nursed dreams of a unified “Pashtunistan”, and the tribal links between groups on either side defy any lines on a map.



The only respite in the unremitting hostility between the two countries came during the Taleban regime, when Pakistan recognised and supported the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, one of only three countries to do so.



The Afghan government has long accused the Pakistanis of deliberately fomenting unrest in Afghanistan in order to keep the country off-balance and weak. Fighters and suicide bombers have poured across the border from madrassas in Pakistan’s border regions to join the Taleban insurgents.



The current spat is thus merely the latest installment in a long-running drama of Afghan-Pakistani hostility.



The government of Pakistan reacted to Karzai’s threats immediately. Prime MinisterYousuf Raza Gilani said Pakistan was not interfering in any other country’s internal affairs, and likewise it would not let any state meddle in its own internal affairs.



Pakistan’s foreign ministry summoned Afghan ambassador Mohammad Anwar Anwarzai to issue a formal objection to Karzai’s speech.



Karzai’s spokesman Humayun Hamidzada backed away from his boss’s statement at a press conference a few days later, saying the president’s intention was not to seek war but to send a “strong message” to Islamabad.



“The president wanted to make one thing very clear,” he said. “Pakistan, as an independent country, has the responsibility to prevent its territory from being used against Afghanistan.”



Hamidzada reversed direction a few days later, echoing Karzai’s more abrupt terminology at a press conference on June 24.



“We request Pakistan not to allow terrorist groups to use its soil against Afghanistan, otherwise Afghanistan is obliged to defend its nation and its people,” he told journalists.



US president George Bush stopped short of endorsing Karzai’s warning, but he did concede that a president had the right to defend his population. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, however, told CNN that “it is probably not wise to talk about Afghan cross-border operations”.



Regardless of the wider international ramifications, Karzai’s outburst could provide a match to the powder keg of Afghan-Pakistan relations.



For one thing, Afghans, who have recently seemed to lose faith in their embattled president, rallied round eagerly following his speech. All over the country, tribal leaders and government officials joined with the general population in declaring their support for Karzai.



Parliamentarians also accorded rare praise to the Afghan president.



“Even if what [Karzai] said was emotional, it was right,” said member of parliament Hashim Polad. “It was not planned in advance. What the president said came from his feelings of patriotism and responsibility.”



Pakistan was clearly trying to keep Afghanistan weak and unstable, added Polad. But he was under no illusions that Afghanistan was in any shape to take on Pakistan’s much larger, highly-trained and well-equipped army.



“Our armed forces are not able to fight with the armies of our neighbours,” he said. “It is the international forces’ responsibility to keep this country safe from external invasions.”



The link between Afghanistan’s security and international support is so strong that many Afghans felt that Karzai would not have made his threat unless he had the tacit backing of the United States.



Washington has certainly stepped up its rhetoric against Pakistan in recent weeks, calling for Islamabad to do more to curb terrorism. A new US aid plan would tie generous assistance packages to Islamabad’s success in rooting out Taleban and al-Qaeda forces on its soil.



Pakistan has long been a US client state, but the bond may be weakening.



On June 10, a US air strike killed 11 Pakistani soldiers in the hostile border region.



Pakistani forces retaliated on June 21, firing a rocket at a US base in Khost, Afghanistan. The rocket did little damage, but a second one went astray and landed in a residential neighbourhood, killing a woman and three children. NATO forces also reported that several other rockets were fired at one of their bases in Paktika province the same day, a charge Pakistan denies.



Political expert Ahmad Sayedi suspects Karzai may have been quietly encouraged by Washington to adopt a more robust stance.



“Karzai made the speech with American support,” he told IWPR. “In Paris, the Americans had meetings with Karzai – perhaps they gave him some assurances. I think that neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan is the first or last decision-maker.”



Still, added Sayedi, Karzai should show more tolerance, as well as a better understanding of the limited capacity of his government.



“This problem has to do with the strategies of the British and the Americans, who have a strong desire for power,” he said. “Afghanistan is a victim of their actions.”



But political analyst Qasim Akhgar is sceptical that the United States would take any overt steps against its long-time ally Pakistan.



“Pakistan is of vital importance to America,” he told IWPR. “Unfortunately, the statement was delivered after the United States bombed Pakistan border areas, and after the Paris conference, which may have made Karzai think he had America’s support. This is an illusion.”



Karzai is just acting out of anger and humiliation, said Akhgar. The spectacular raid on a Kandahar prison on June 13, in which the Taleban freed over 1,000 detainees, certainly ruffled his feathers.



“But everybody knows the government cannot do anything,” added Akhgar.



Ahmad Khalid, in the 12th-grade at school, said he enjoyed the performance, but realised the limitations of his president.



“Karzai was like a hero in a movie,” he said. “He thinks that politics is like that – that you can destroy a whole country with no harm to yourself. But Karzai can’t even arrest criminals in his own government, he cries on television, and admits that he cannot deal with the warlords.



“So how does he think he’s going to be able to do anything against Baitullah Mehsud and Maulavi Umar, who have the strong backing of the government of Pakistan? It is really funny.”



Hafizullah Gardesh is IWPR’s local editor in Kabul.