Author: Amin Saikal, ANU

The battleground for President Barack Obama to fight al-Qaeda and its supporters in the Muslim world is wider than that his predecessor faced. Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq are no longer the only main fronts. Added to them are Somalia and Yemen, where al-Qaeda has gained unprecedented strength. The President says he will use all elements of American power to deal with the situation, but what are the implications of this for his desire to improve relations with the Muslim world?

The Afghanistan conflict has now become Obama’s war. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Amin Saikal, ANU

One of the byproducts of the rigged presidential election in Afghanistan is a looming confrontation in the north of the country. If not defused urgently, it could cause greater security problems for the US and its allies than they have experienced so far.

The confrontation is shaping up rapidly between the governor of the Balkh province, General Atta Mohammad Nur, and supporters of President Hamid Karzai. It essentially stems from Atta breaking ranks with Karzai to support his leading opponent in the election, Abdullah Abdullah, his long-standing rivalry with General Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek leader and ally of Karzai, and the Karzai leadership’s resolve to rein in and subordinate Atta to its authority. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Amin Saikal

It is time for President Hamid Karzai to bow out gracefully, even if he is declared as the winner of last month’s election. His regime is tainted by allegations of corruption, maladministration and electoral fraud to the extent that he is no longer capable of leading Afghanistan for another term with an acceptable degree of legitimacy.

Karzai assumed power nearly eight years ago, with more national and international support than any previous Afghan ruler had enjoyed. The Afghan people had suffered from 24 years of warfare, bloodshed and devastation: the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, followed by internecine conflict among various Afghan warring groups and the Pakistan-backed medievalist Islamic rule of the Taliban in the 1990s. A majority of them desperately yearned for a constructive and effective national leader. The US-led intervention in response to the 11 September 2001 al-Qaida attacks on the US, resulting in the toppling of the Taliban regime and the instalment of an internationally backed administration under Karzai, provided a unique opportunity. The US and its allies invested very heavily in the new Afghan leader with an expectation that he would prove instrumental in working with them to generate the necessary conditions for democracy, stability and security – enabling the Afghans to rebuild their lives and their country.

Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Amin Saikal

General Sir David Richards, the incoming head of the British Army and former commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, has predicted that the British involvement in Afghanistan’s state and security building could last for another four decades. His comment, which comes at a time when the number of British troops killed and wounded has dramatically escalated and the domestic support for the Afghan war has evaporated, is bound to invoke further among the Afghans the bitter historical memory of British interferences in their country. This can only assist the Taliban and their supporters to reinforce their claim that the British have come once again to subjugate Afghanistan.

Of course, it was a strategic mistake from the start to deploy British troops in the hotbed of the Taliban insurgency in Helmand Province along the border with Pakistan. The Taliban could not have wished for a better nationality to fight than the British. It has provided them with a very effective propaganda tool to galvanise public support and enlarge their circles of recruitment.

Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Amin Saikal

In regaining control of Mingora city in the Swat valley, the Pakistani military has proved to be capable of taking on the Taliban and giving them a bloody nose. The military’s success could put the Pakistani Taliban on the defensive and help expand Pakistan’s jurisdiction over some of the unruly areas of the Ofree tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan, and thus also deprive the Afghan Taliban of some support from Pakistan. However, by the same token the process could lead to a new dangerous phase in Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s quest for stability and security, unless it is accompanied by urgent structural reform of Pakistani and Afghan politics and social-economic landscapes.

Pakistan’s latest military success against the Taliban is encouraging. It has the potential to generate a great deal of optimism in Pakistan as well as Kabul and NATO’s capitals, especially Washington, which have repeatedly urged the Pakistani Government to take a tougher stand against its religious extremists.

Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Amin Saikal

The region from Pakistan to Palestine to Egypt now constitutes the most volatile zone in world politics. The issues involved include the growing instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan, the out-of-control insurgency in Afghanistan, the nuclear ambitions of Iran, the imminent withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, the political fragmentation in Lebanon and the explosive Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

US President Barack Obama has promised to tackle all these issues, with an emphasis on diplomacy, confidence-building measures and friendship, predicated on mutual respect and interests.

However, the region has historically confounded expectations. One of the underlying reasons is the state-society dichotomy that has come to dominate the Muslim, especially Arab, constituent states of the region. Unless Obama comes up with a strategy that could reconcile his policies with this dichotomy, the chances of him succeeding would be at serious risk.

Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Professor Amin Saikal, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University

The US and several of its main NATO allies have now called for the lowering of any expectation of victory against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Despite Washington’s public opposition to negotiation with the Taliban as a terrorist group, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada, which also have sizable troop deployments in Afghanistan, have openly supported a negotiated settlement with the militia and backed President Hamid Karzai’s efforts in this respect as the best way to end the Afghan conflict. The Taliban have so far rejected Karzai’s overtures and demanded the departure of foreign forces as a precondition for any peace talks. However, there can be no meaningful negotiation with the Taliban unless first the Karzai government and its international backers reduce their vulnerabilities to the militia, especially in three areas.
Read the rest of this entry »