Does India favor US military bases in Afghanistan?

M K BHADRAKUMAR

In his testimony before the US senate foreign relations committee in Washington on Tuesday, James Dobbins, special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan claimed that Iran is the solitary exception among Afghanistan’s regional neighbors to oppose the US-Afghan security pact.

He said, “President Putin of Russia, President Xi of China, Prime Minister Singh of India and Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan have all personally urged President Karzai to conclude the BSA [Bilateral Security Agreement] in recent weeks.”

Therefore, Dobbins concluded, “Given this coincidence of Afghan public and regional governmental opinion, I see little chance that the BSA will not eventually be concluded.” He blamed Karzai for needlessly causing “anxiety.”

Meanwhile, Afghan government has released the text of the BSA. Even a cursory reading shows that the document is of a far-reaching character. To cite an example, it stipulates that the Afghan armed forces should standardize their “equipment, material, facilities, operational doctrine and institutions” so as to achieve “interoperability with NATO. “

On the other hand, if Afghanistan decided to procure independently any military equipment and material from non-NATO countries, it has to be out of “its own resources.” Of course, Afghanistan doesn’t have any such “resources”. In essence, therefore, the US discourages Afghanistan’s defence cooperation with countries outside the western alliance.

Why is “standardization” and “interoperability” of the Afghan armed forces with NATO so important for Washington, given its stated position that its objective is Afghan armed forces’ “capacity building” to defeat Al-Qaeda?

The BSA provides for US forces exercising all rights and authorities within the “agreed facilities and areas that are necessary for their use, operation, defence, or control, including the right to undertake new construction works.”

Call it “facilities and areas”, or lily pad, isn’t it the same thing — military bases? The BSA goes to great length to detail that in these “facilities and areas” earmarked for the “exclusive use” of American troops, the US will have sovereign rights in every respect.

Even the US military and civil aircraft used in the bases — “to enter, exit, overfly, land, take off, conduct aerial refuelling, and move within the territory of Afghanistan” — will be free of any Afghan control. Similar immunity is extended to the vehicles and vessels used by the Americans to ferry troops and materials or equipment to their “facilities and areas” (bases).

The US contractors who have been held responsible for excessive behaviour during military operations will also enjoy immunity from Afghan laws. These bases will be provided gratis to the US — that is to say, free of any rent.

The American diplomats have done a brilliant job to extract this extent of privileges and unilateral concessions out of the Afghans while negotiating the BSA. The only condition Karzai has set before signing the BSA is that the Americans should not use these facilities and privileges and diplomatic immunity to attack Afghan civilians. But Washington says it will not “renegotiate” the document.

It is unclear from Dobbins’ remark whether PM Manmohan Singh has indeed asked Karzai to sign this document, The probability is that Dobbins has indulged in sophistry by tweaking the broad support in the region to the idea that the international community should remain committed to strengthening Afghanistan’s security and render all assistance in this regard. Washington would know very well that none of the regional capitals — Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi or Islamabad — would go to a war of words with it over Dobbins’ suo moto claim.

The US continues to flatly deny that it has any intentions of establishing “permanent” military bases in Afghanistan. Clearly, it is a mere play on words insofar as the BSA document uses the expressions “facilities and areas” and not “bases”.

Interestingly, the Afghan government released the BSA document following Dobbins’ testimony. Karzai is on record that Dobbins possibly threatened him last week at their meeting in Kabul that unless the BSA is signed, the US would instigate civil war conditions in Afghanistan. The BSA is here.