‘The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014’ by Carlotta Gall --- In 2012, I rode in a white Toyota Corolla past upscale villas and cafes to the outskirts of Islamabad, arriving at a hidden complex that was home to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the country’s chief intelligence agency. In my many previous trips to the country, including several in 2010-11 while working at the White House National Security Council, I had witnessed a drastic deterioration in security. This trip revealed a Pakistan under siege by Islamist militants. Militants had recently shot 14-year-old schoolgirl and education activist Malala Yousafzai. Mullah Fazlullah, the Pakistani Taliban commander who ordered the attack, had found safe haven in Afghanistan. The shooting underscored what many Pakistanis increasingly believed to be true: Afghanistan was complicit in Pakistan’s destabilization. -- The driver skillfully navigated through at least a dozen jersey barriers and multiple checkpoints to the building’s entrance, where I met an ISI general who had another take on the crisis facing Afghanistan and Pakistan. He told me that “the U.S. cannot win in Afghanistan” and should look to Pakistan to be America’s guarantor of security there. -- Journalist Carlotta Gall shreds the Pakistani general’s blueprint in her book “The Wrong Enemy” by arguing that Pakistan is “perfidious, driving the violence in Afghanistan for its own cynical, hegemonic reasons.” She writes of a Pakistan that is more an active participant in the conflict than an invisible hand governing by proxy, the more common perception among most of those who have followed the diplomatic wrangling in the region. -- Journalist Carlotta Gall shreds the Pakistani general’s blueprint in her book “The Wrong Enemy” by arguing that Pakistan is “perfidious, driving the violence in Afghanistan for its own cynical, hegemonic reasons.” She writes of a Pakistan that is more an active participant in the conflict than an invisible hand governing by proxy, the more common perception among most of those who have followed the diplomatic wrangling in the region. -- In November 2001, American planes bombed Taliban front-line positions in northwestern Afghanistan while, according to Gall, “hundreds of Pakistanis: scores of military advisors and trainers, members of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence” secretly assisted the Taliban. As many as 3,000 Pakistani troops and advisers were trapped at the Kunduz airfield, a 12-hour drive from the Pakistani border. Pakistani military airlifts evacuated most of them, while “nearly a thousand low-level Pakistani fighters were left to fend for themselves.” -- Gall’s attention to detail partially lifts the veil on the shadowy operations of the ISI, best known for its clandestine support of anti-Soviet Afghan fighters during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. But “The Wrong Enemy” reduces a decades-long national security strategy to a tactical level, oversimplifying the psychology of Pakistan’s relations with the Taliban and distracting from the real question at hand: Why does Pakistan want to influence Afghanistan? --- Gall rightly says that Pakistan supports the Taliban as a hedge against pro-India Afghan groups but neglects to provide important context for such actions. For example, she does not mention major Indian investments in the Afghan economy and the proliferation of consulates in Afghanistan since 2001 that serve to provoke Pakistan. Nor does she consider the cash and arms being exported to Afghan groups by Iran, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region. Thus, she misses the critical role that regional dynamics have played in the 13-year, NATO-led campaign in Afghanistan and most certainly will play in the country’s future. - More, Shamila N. Chaudhary, Washingtonpost, at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-wrong-enemy-america-in-afghanistan-2001-2014-by-carlotta-gall/2014/04/18/1811a10a-c189-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html