I’d also like to draw your attention to a decent backgrounder on the Afghanistan-Pakistan question in the American Interest and written by Ronald Neumann, former U. S. ambassador to Afghanistan and current president of the American Academy of Diplomacy (hat tip: The Grand Strategy Blog). In the article Ambassador Neumann presents valuable historical background on the situation and prescribes an eleven point solution to problems:
- Both sides must agree that the current frontier is not to be modified without the consent of both governments and their peoples.
- Each side will work to stop hostile cross-border movements of insurgent elements and arrest such elements on its territory.
- Free passage of resident families and people (tribes) in the border area.
- Pakistan must provide direct government of the frontier areas.
- In return for the tribes giving up their historic autonomy, Pakistan must offer residents of the tribal areas the same rights enjoyed by other Pakistanis.
- Pakistan must therefore deliver on its desire to make a hugely expanded economic effort.
- The international community, led by the United States, must guarantee the agreement on the border.
- The United States should lead by making a long-term financial commitment in the hundreds of millions of dollars to both states.
- The United States and NATO must make clear that they will fight as long as necessary to prevail in Afghanistan.
- Cross-border trade must be liberalized.
- We should establish the principle of creating a multilateral commission to investigate charges of non-compliance by either state.
Ambassador Neumann isn’t Pollyanna-ish about the prospects for such an agreement.
One of the points I found most interesting his proposals was that it touches tangentially on a matter that I think is one of the most critical issues facing us today: what is to be done about ungoverned territories? How can their administration be reconciled with what appears to be increasing ethnic factionalism?
I can’t imagine Pakistan wanting to undertake it’s side of the deal and it’s even harder for me to imagine the undoubtedly Democratic Congress in the next session to modify its rhetoric in such a way that it would allow such grand undertakings by the next administration, whether it’s headed by a Republican or a Democrat.
“2.Each side will work to stop hostile cross-border movements of insurgent elements and arrest such elements on its territory.
3.Free passage of resident families and people (tribes) in the border area. ”
As the hostiles and the resident families are all almost entirely Pushtun tribesmen and are not two disparate categories, I’m hard pressed to see how this is going to be accomplished, even if both contracting parties had good will and the means to do so.