Can Obama Restore World Peace -Agha H Amin

Can Obama Restore World Peace ?

How Far will USA fail and succeed-How far can Obama or Holbrooke go


Agha H Amin

9 February 2009

While Obama in personal terms did well and became the first mixed origin man to become US president it is unfair to expect many changes that Obama or his team can bring. Holbrooke may be giant of a man but his stature has to be judged in correlation to the various complicated and often overwhelming forces of history.

Three major foreign policy issues confront USA. The Arab-Israel Issue, the Afghanistan issue and the India-Pakistan issue. In the background is the more formidable albeit more intangible issue of Islamic extremism. The first and last issues above listed include state actors and the Afghan issue is a combination of non state and state actors.

It appears that Obama can only have a semblance of success in the Arab-Israel Issue. That is if he can just pursue the brilliant plan put forward by Rabbi Michael Lerner, pushing into the garbage all nonsense that the state department pen pusher clerk type bureaucrats or the crafty think tanks may try to put forward. In Afghanistan no amount of Holbrookes can succeed. Here the issue is a complex one. With more than 11 states having extreme outlooks about whether the Talibans should be or should not be allowed to rule Afghanistan. The issue is highly complex. In Bosnia the issue was far simpler with Russia far away and Europe extremely divided.

Nor were the mild Bosnian Muslims a threat to Europe. In Afghanistan we have Russia, Iran, India, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kirgizistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhastan, China,
whole of NATO as well as USA against Taliban whose only possible allies are Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Where will poor Holbrooke fit in in this complex game as the magician who had achieved a miracle at Dayton? Afghanistan is and will remain for many decades a catch-22 for the USA. It is not like a Vietnam from which the USA can withdraw. The Vietnamese were a race using an ideology to survive. In Afghanistan its an ideology with multiple races that the USA is fighting. In Vietnam withdrawal was an option. In Afghanistan withdrawal will not lead to a solution but to another more bitter and deadly phase of the war. If the USA withdraws it will lose and if it stays it will continue to suffer with no end in sight for many decades. This is the tragedy of USA's situation in Afghanistan. Even if thve USA withdraws the Afghan civil war would continue and other state actors would intervene, while the USA would lose all allies that it had created in Afghanistan. So if we have to grade USA in Afghanistan the solution is not in sight. Holbrooke will fail.

Now we come to Kashmir. The Pakistani establishment, and I will not call it a state because Pakistan is controlled by a small clique of about 1000 families and a pathetic equation of highly corrupt politicians and respectably corrupt generals. Now these 1000 families which constitute the Pakistani establishment are trying to sell the idea to the USA that when the Kashmir issue is solved the threat to world peace in the shape of nuclear war can be avoided. As an ex soldier I do not think that Kashmir would solve the issue. Kashmir resolved or not resolved the Indo Pak conflict will continue till one party is defeated or both or one of the two disintegrate. Seen in this context what would poor Holbrooke do. He will in the end emerge as a shattered, immensely weakened and totally confused man. In any case in terms of international law Pakistan and India by agreed terms of Simla Accord of 1973 cannot allow a third party to decide Kashmir Issue. So good luck to Holbrooke, a man of substance, from whom too much should not be expected. What he is expected to do is what no single man can achieve.

The Pakistani state should forget about any hope of getting Kashmir through Holbrooke. If Pakistans politicians and generals can preserve what is left of Pakistan, posterity will remember them as heroes. From the type of strategy or more correctly apology of strategy that the Pakistani state is purusing in Frontier and Balochistan, even preserving what is left of Pakistan would be a great achievement.

Lastly with economic depression engulfing USA and the West little should be hoped from USA or Obama or Holbrooke. All would be at a loss and all should be commended if they can retain what they have rather than doing what no one could do. Little good should be accepted. In this age the guiding precept should be Neither Hope Nor Fear.