I have a question on which I would be grateful to have comments from those with expertise on Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In the Fall 2005 issue of Orbis, Vanni Cappelli makes a case for dealing with Pashtunistan as a potential ally (scroll down page of link):

http://www.fpri.org/orbis/4904/

He doesn't go so far as to call explicitly for giving the Pashtuns autonomy but he implies that our difficulties with Afghanistan and Pakistan would be greatly relieved if we did so. He makes the point that earlier Pashtun leaders such as Abdul Ghaffar Khan were progressive and that the Durand Line (the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan) in unnatural.

My question is whether we shouldn't seek the partition of Afghanistan into a Pashtun state to the south and east and a residuary Afghan state consisting of the west, center, and north. A Pashtun state on the Afghan side of the line would encourage the Pashtun areas on the Pakistan side to seek inclusion and would force Pakistan to pay a price for harboring al-Qaida and Taliban forces.

Al-Qaida and the Taliban could take refuge in Pashtunistan. But neither would have any natural base of support in the remainder of Afghanistan, and the possibility that the Pashtun tribes would want to forego American aid to their newly free state by reverting to Talibanism and harboring Bin Laden is not a foregone conclusion. But even if it is, Pakistan would really pay a price in revived Pashtun separatism, and would either become a more thorough ally of ours or would break apart and leave India supreme on the sub-continent.

Why stop at Pashtunistan (Pashta, Patha)? How about sponsoring Baluch separatists in Iran and Pakistan too?

The problem is that the Pashtun are an eternally warring people. No conqueror has ever subdued them, not even the Arabs who forced them to abandon their Buddhist religion and take up Islam instead.

Be careful when you feed the caged tiger.

A bad idea all around. Pakistan uses the Pashtun tribal solidarity (Pakistan's Military / ISI to subvert Afghanistan.

The problem is that Pashtuns are our enemy. We should treat them as such.

What we need to do is inflict such pain on the Pashtuns that they are unable to even contemplate any aggressive action against our interests. IMHO attempts to impoverish them as much as possible are what are needed, not futile and doomed attempts to make them our "friends."

Jim Rockford,

The Pashtuns don't have to be our enemies if we change our policy toward them.

Pakistan is a state composed mainly of the (Pashtun) Northwest Frontier Province along its west, Balochistan and Sindh in the south, and Punjab in the east. To the extent that Afghan Pashtuns are in league with the Taliban and Pakistani Islamists against us, it is because we do not support Pashtun claims to autonomy on both sides of the border.

Pakistan last fall gave the Pashtuns on its side of the border more autonomy, which gave the Taliban and al-Qaida more freedom to fight us. Most American observers took this as a bad sign but it is also a sign of Pakistan's vulnerability in the area. We could raise the ante by granting much more autonomy to the Pashtuns on the Afghan side of the border, withdraw our forces from the border, and let the Pashtuns organize a state or sub-state of their own.

An Afghan Pashtun state could give the Taliban control of a wider swath of territory. But the Taliban would be isolated in two ways.

First, if the Afghan Pashtuns continue to wage war on the Dari and Turkic peoples in what remains of Afghanistan, we would have a much easier time helping these people because they would be more motivated to defend their areas than to defend a greater Afghanistan. Whether the Afghan Pashtuns would support a Taliban offensive to regain control of all Afghanistan is also open to question. Many Pashtuns have bad memories of the Taliban and might be open to offers of US support. At any rate, the Afghan Pashtuns will have more to lose if they do not settle for a state of their own.

Second, an Afghan Pashtun state will be a magnet for the Pashtuns on the Pakistani side of the border. Pakistan will have to grant more complete autonomy or independence to the NWFP and Balochistan or fight more intense guerrilla wars all along its western flank. The resulting tension will force the Taliban to take sides, and whichever side they take will isolate them from critical support.

If Pakistan threatens to break up, a more radical regime could come to power in Islamabad. But more likely, a self-governing Afghan Pashtunistan would force the current Pakistani leadership to choose between territorial breakup, clamping down harder on their own Pashtuns, or reining in Islamists in the ISI and the Pakistani armed forces.

We need to force this choice. Pakistan cannot continue to allow its territory to be used by al-Qaida to attack American forces and to plot terror against American and British civilians. A few high-profile arrests in Pakistan do not mitigate this problem. Unless we act more imaginatively, NATO will lose its enthusiasm for staying in Afghanistan and we will end up losing the entire country back to the Taliban and al-Qaida.

David,

The redrawing of national boundaries in Afghanistan must take into account Afghan nationalism. For all the putative benefits (from the US perspective) there's no reason to believe that the Pashtuns, Hazaras etc would be willing to accept a partition of their country.

Some of the comments above are quite Nazi-Like. "Inflict pain on pashtuns..."
There are 15-20 Million Afghan pashtuns and 25-35 Pakistani Pashtuns.
Do you want US to impose the "final solution" on 50 million strong nation of pashtuns?
This makes them bigger than Kurds, Balochs, Timorese etc.
Also Karzai is an Americanized Pashtun as well as Zalmay Khalilzad. You also forget that there are Pashtuns in the extreme north in Kunduz so there is no clean division of Afghanistan.
As for Pakistan; did you know that Ghaffar Khan was called the "Big Red" as he was a die-hard communist and reviled US. I do not think his political philosophy would help US. Anyway after his death, his legacy is dying a slow death. Pakistani pashtuns are much more integrated into the Army and politics now. They have a real stake in an economy that is growing well with new ports, highways, manufacturing and trade and benefitting them. Why would they leave that and join their impoverished brethren across the Durand in a high, dusty desert where nothing grows except opium and extremism? Once US has decimated Pakistan in this manner, Iran would be emboldened and India would either become unencumbered of US friendship and no longer wish to purchase pricey American war toys or curry favors vis-a-vis Pakistan OR become unstable at its western border as now it would not just be Kashmir. We know Indian Army is not quite upto the job of fighting so many more Islamists!!! Then who would the US depend upon if there is another 9/11, Soviet style invasion etc? Destroying one's own best ally is not very smart you know?

We have 2 milion afghans pashtun and 3 milion pakistani pashtun, totaly 5 milion not 50 milion.