Newsweek has dedicated this weeks cover page to Pakistan with a bold title “The Most Dangerous Nation in the World Isn’t Iraq – Its Pakistan” To blame the vacuum created in Afghanistan as a result of ‘US grand strategy to bring USSR down’ on Pakistan is poor read of history and poor journalism.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/57485/site/newsweek/
Pakistan remains one of the most ridiculed and abused ally. In 2002 Gen. Tommy Franks couldn’t mention the country by name without provoking a collective case of gastric distress in the Bush administration. Pakistan, not Iraq, was in the general’s crosshairs. “Pakistan: the New Afghanistan” writes Arnaud de Borchgrave. Pakistan and Afghanistan are among the world’s top 10 most vulnerable states, according to a new study compiled by the US Foreign Policy magazine and the US-based Fund for Peace think-tank – ranked 146 nations according to their viability.
To call Pakistan the new Afghanistan makes a catchy headline and is a good story to evoke misgivings about the nature of the Pakistani state. It is plainly discernible however that who do so fail to grasp the ground realities. A failed nation could not have had halted the advance of the Soviet empire. A rogue military state with the exclusive agenda of implementing Islam would not have been to do that. Serious errors of judgment may have been made by the Western nations when propping Islamic extremism to serve as a counterweight to communism. However even a precursory glance at five decades of contemporary political history reveals that the defining moments have been when people have taken on the forces of evil and grounded their march to a halt. The forces of evil keep on changing colour, size, shape and ideology so does our axis of evil keeps on changing.
One can mentally envisage the geographic location and only marvel at the way Pakistan sits at the apex of the Crescent of Instability. It is situated at the confluence of 2.5 billion people and shares borders with Iran, China, Russia (CIS) and of course India. A stable Pakistan is a must for the north of the Indian sub-continent and with introduction of global jihadists and radical elements its stability is equally important for the House of Saud.
Newsweek in its latest article asserts that ‘Pakistani leaders created the Islamist monster that now operates with near impunity throughout the country. Militant Islamist groups that were originally recruited, trained and armed by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) have since become Islamabad’s deadliest enemies.’
Lets get to the real facts and see who created the loathed ISI in its first place, an organ so detested. One does not need to go to far for the confession statements..
In his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski writes that ” the assistance to the Afghan resistance was a tactic designed to bog down the Soviet army while the United States built up a deterrent military force in the Persian Gulf to prevent Soviet political or military penetration farther south.”
Brzezinski notes in his 2000 book The Geostrategic Triad, :
”The full story of the productive U.S.-China cooperation directed against the Soviet Union (especially in regard to Afghanistan), initiated by the Carter Administration and continued under Reagan, still remains to be told. ISI could have done nothing without the support of the CIA. Brzezinski, known for his hardline policies on the Soviet Union, initiated a campaign supporting mujaheddin in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which were run by Pakistani security services with financial support from the CIA and Britain’s MI6. This policy had the explicit aim of promoting radical Islamist and anti-Communist forces to overthrow the secular communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan government in Afghanistan, which had been destabilized by coup attempts against Hafizullah Amin, the power struggle within the Soviet-supported parcham faction of the PDPA and a subsequent Soviet military intervention.”
Pakistan fought this war as a proxy of US and this cannot be overlooked in any fair analysis. Pakistan is a prime target for media scorn and condemnation for it has the all the ingredients that lend itself as an anathema to the guiding principles of Western civilisation. As a quintessential ideological state, founded for the Muslims of India, it unabashedly calls itself a bastion of Islam. Indeed in stark contrast to democratic India its history is littered with military coups and autocracy. The popular sentiment is that Pakistan, the “failed state”, must be given a thrashing to castrate it and render its national effectiveness to that of a eunuch. Most likely preparations are underway way to classify Pakistan as part of extended axis of evil
What is now Pakistan is the land that contained the invasion routes to India. Khyber Pass and Bolan Pass are not the creation of the Taliban or ISI neither was Bin Qasim nor Mongol Tamerlane or Nadir Shah, Ghauri or Ghaznavi. North of the sub-continent was the lawless land for millenniums and remains so as of today. The heavy weight of the violent North West Frontier province of India by that 1947 partition was bequeathed to a state which was young and created on the concept of homeland of Islam. It was and is tainted with blood. What changed in 1977 was that these landlocked warriors whose forays never extended beyond north of India were put in bed with the most radical elements of the Wahabbi Islam.
The combination of young bin Laden’s with Zai’s and Pushtoons in thousands in a eagerness to bring USSR down brought about a new dynamics of global Jihad. Once this huge apparatus of green turbaned radical Arabs and radical warriors of the Northwest got greed from Russians they make plans to free the house of Islam from the usurpers. Those who brought USSR down should not have been left orphaned in a sign of desperate expediency. 911 was not planned in vacuum, Iraq – Afghan war was a result of political expediency and deserting of key allies. Result a trillion $ and thousand of American soldiers have died as a result of this short sightedness. The peace dividend as a result of fall of USSR should have been shared with these fighters who were renowned only for fighting and nothing else.
The reason Pakistan is not Afghanistan or Iraq is because the historical circumstances differ. Afghanistan was a lawless buffer zone between British Indian and Imperial Russia for the last two centuries. Afghanistan prime contribution to civilisation has been to deposit hordes of invading Turko-Iranian tribes upon the Indian sub-continent. This inherent tendency towards guns, mutual disagreements and Lashkar (Holy War) is integral to Afghani Pashtun culture.
The tribal loyalties which inhibit nationalism, the paucity of functional institutions and lack of a federal security force has contributed to the dysfunctional character of Afghanistan must work on. “Warlordism” is not a new phenomenon and the invasion by the USSR was the last straw on the camel’s back that shattered any coherency Afghanistan might have had.
The Tajik & Hazaras, who speak Dari, with a significant proportioning harbouring sympathy for Shi’ite Iran, are diametrically opposed to the Pusthoons, whose puritan strain of Islam is akin to Wahabism. Not only does Afghanistan suffer from the ethno-linguistic divide it suffers from an ideological one as well!
Without national institutions Afghanistan is bereft of an affluent and intellectual elite, unhindered by parochial loyalties, which would bind these factions into a harmonious modus vivendi. Conversely the Pakistani national establishment are defenders of federalism and foments an artifice like Pakistan into a fledgling state. Although a young state and created ‘artificially’ it has seen similar federations disappearing in thin air like USSR and Yugoslavia.
To compare Pakistan with Afghanistan or Iraq is an absurdity that, under normal circumstance, would merit no retort however given its popular prevalence must be comprehensively answered. One distinction from Iraq and Afghanistan and that has saved this nation from disintegration and disaster is the one which is loathed the most i.e. Pakistan Army. Take this institution out this will become a lawless land, a balkanized piece of geography. Saddam’s Iraq was stable with a strong regimented Army, the biggest mistake of the Allies was to dismember that Army soon after the occupation. Debathification like Denazification did not work. In land of Beethoven it did however in the entire expanse of Islamic world from Morocco to Dar-us-Salam the concept of strong man leading the nations is deeply embedded. The house of Saud is propped on loyal National Guards, Egypt remains stable and quiet as its ex- Air force chief is entrenched in the business of running the country from the power driven by armed forces.
One popular misconception is that the eventual disintegration of Pakistan will be followed by the seizure of its nuclear arsenal by Islamic terrorists. This belief is fundamentally flawed because Pakistan were to have ever collapsed as a nation state it would have been during 80’s when it took on the Soviet Empire and brought them to a halt. Despite overwhelming American aid and support the internal ramification rendered to Pakistani society by the Afghani war was cataclysmic nevertheless Pakistan survived and thrived. If it could successfully withstand an confrontation with the world’s largest emporium then that is a testament to its tenacity as a nation.
Had there been no Pakistan, India would have had to contend with a 300million strong Muslim minority with a keen awareness of their imperial past. Already in Kashmir it requires 700,000 troops to subdue and pacify the regional population, which has not reconciled itself with an imposed Indian identity. Can one truly imagine the consequences of a 300 million strong disaffected minority?
In spite of all this constant flux there are only two nations who have not changed their alliance with USA in the course of the last five decades, Israel and Pakistan. The close relationship between Pakistan and America was even further honed the day before yesterday when I was attending a reception at the London residence of the Pakistani ambassador to the US, the late Agha Hilaly. The excerpts of his diary being read out by his son gave us a poignant insight into the pivotal moments in history. In 1971 when he was ambassador to the States there is a particular photograph of Agha Hilaly sitting in the Oval Office chatting amiably with President Nixon. Overleaf was a personal handwritten letter by President Nixon addressed to the Ambassador showing us pictures with Nixon in the Oval Office but what surprised me the most was a note by Pres Nixon to Hilaly stating how appreciative the former was of the latter’s efforts beyond the call of duty. Nixon may have had an ignominious presidency however it was during his term that the US began the pivotal rapprochement with China through the use of Pakistan as a vital intermediary. The opening of China that has today made 1.4 trillion $’s of Chinese reserve help the corner stone of global capitalism. However now the nation, which had a small role but a pivotal one nevertheless, who brought the Republicans into contact with Chou Enlai is now cast as the new Satan by self-professed pundits like ‘The Newsweek’.
No Pakistan political democracy or military autocracy has even dreamt of undermining Pakistan’s alliance with the United States of America. That is the cornerstone policy of the Pakistani military and political leadership as well as that of America. Failed nations, or those teetering on the precipice of collapse, cannot evolve such fluid and flexible relations with greater powers.
America has a close friendship with Pakistan because it understands the nature of the Pakistani polity. The American army is famed for its use of military historians in interpreting current geopolitics. It has analysed the historical reasons for the disproportional size of Pakistan’s army. The region between the River Jhelum and Peshawar were the recruiting grounds for the British land forces during the British Raj. The British knew the inhabitants as the “martial races” and it was with armies comprised of these peoples that Col Nicholson in 1857 subdued the Sepoy mutiny in India.
The Sepoy rebellion occurred when Hindu-Muslim contingents soldier of Uhud, Jansi and Lucknow restored the Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zuffar, to the throne in Delhi. This was fundamentally a rebellion by India in response to British rule, which was put down by the ancestors of the modern Pakistanis, the Pathans and the Punjabis.
The manner in which they completed the conquest confirmed the historical discipline towards military ethics that had existed amongst these peoples since time immemorial. At the amazing speed of 27 miles a day this army reached Delhi, subdued it and suppressed the rebellion. Whose side were these proto-Pakistani troops were fighting but for the British Empire. There has always been a loyalty amongst the people of this region to the British Empire and especially to its army, a close affiliation that has exists today with the Pakistan remaining loyal to America.
There are fears of an Islamicisation of the army however even when General Zia was pursuing such a course he carefully cultivated relations with America. The history of the 13th Lancer division is a poignant reminder of the loyalty of these people to their allies rather than a pan-Islamic Ummah. This Pathan division was commanded by a British commander and fought the Ottoman Empire (which was considered the Islamic Caliphate) in the Holy Land. For the Pathan to defeat the Ottomans in Palestine is emblematic of the origins of the Pakistan army. The Guide cavalry, the Probyn Horse, Hobson horse, the Baluch tribesmen and Punjabi infantry have had the honour and distinction to serve in the 1st and 2nd World War. Thousands of them lay buried in Sommes, Gallipoli, Suez and these soldiers were cannon fodder for the British Empire and served with distinction.
The reason ‘Militarism’ became so deeply entrenched in Pakistan is that because the British never trusted the Indian south. They realised that Col Nicholson’s men and the martial races were the recruiting grounds for the Indian Union army. This is why the Muslims have had a disproportionately large representation in the British army with the consequences being that the Pakistani army has become a very hierarchical and secular organisation, which takes immense pride in its British past.
The global ramifications of this is that the mutiny of Pakistani army and a bullet through Musharraf head by a dissenting general cannot and will not occur because of the pride the army takes in tracing its roots to discipline. Colonels coup like in Libya or Iraq is a distant nonsense. When General Zia and his entire army command were wiped out in a plane crash there was no coup in Pakistan army, for the next senior most general took over. A counter point can be found in Britain where there is an orderly transition of power between premiers and so conversely in Pakistan there is an orderly transference of power between army chiefs
One can denigrate Pakistan’s lack of democracy however it is incumbent to remember that it has more democracy than other Islamic nations. In this ‘Emergency stint’ ritual condemnation of the general is every day routine. It is categorically flawed to infer any geopolitical analysis by relying on media coverage, for partisan journalists can cast distant nations in a certain light that will create an enduring impression.
The hostile relationship between India and Pakistan is a by-product of South Asian history where for 700 years India was ruled ruthlessly and merciless by the Muslim invaders from the north. The fact that their descendants could be cordoned in Pakistan, the north of the Sub-continent, is a wonderful happenstance for India’s development. In my opinion it had a soothing effect on the Subcontinent for millions of Muslims were able to form a separate nation state without internally disrupting the development of an Indian nation.
There is of course one readily supplied answer and that of Afghanistan. To the north of Pakistan it disintegrated under pressure from neighbouring nations and became a battlefield where rival nations could wage their proxy wars. Indeed it is doubtful whether even many Western nations would have been able to cope with the strain faced by Pakistan. An Indian army of nearly a million faces off Pakistan at the border and in the highlands of the Khyber Pass Pakistan is pitted against the fanatical Islamic terrorist. Instead of helping them to kick them is fool hardy, who else is going to do the job if Pakistan as a federation is condemned?
What could a poor country like Pakistan do. If ‘you’ make a battle, defeat ‘your’ key enemy USSR, get the Berlin wall down and than leave these holy warriors in the ‘safe hands’ of oil rich Wahabbi like Laden? What kind of diplomacy or strategy was this?. Instant gratification and lack of knowledge of history and geography by the US strategists who wage global wars and leave unfinished business was the cause behind 911. Pakistan needs help and the last thing one needs is to create a ‘new vacuum’ by burdening a nation with wild accusations. For Bin Laden and his cohorts the ‘ideal world Jihad’ would be a Pakistan ran by people who can put it on a collision course with USA.
Today biggest political charge against the present government is that why it is pursuing the hunt of the Jihadists? Regretfully the majority considers this as a pro west policy. In an ensuing void post ‘active Musharraf policy of waging a war against the radicals’ we would face a dilly dallying leader who will not be able to call upon the army to clean up the stables.
The reason Mussharaf/Bhutto are so detested by the Laden/Zahwari is a reason we should like them. Sometime I really think what does Mush gets out of his ‘siding with war on terror, he is not trusted and not liked by the west, on his home front he can be the most popular leader if he follows the same mantra preached by Imran Khans and Shariffs. His major fault and reason of unpopularity is to tell the Pakistanis that wake up and come out of slumber of self denial their real enemy is ‘political Islam’ and not the west. He keeps telling them to ‘Learn tolerance and be a part of new culture that is open and acceptable.’ When I hear his opponents, the radicalised media and and compare notes the above is what I make out of everything in nut shell. However, it is he who is damned and his adversaries who are commended as democrats, although they keep bulldozing him with one question only, why is he waging the war in Waziristan? Why are Swat criminals being hounded or why Lal Mosques sanctity was destroyed.
The strategy is simple shift Iraqi theatre to Pakistan; make Pakistan the ‘new Vietnam. ‘ Presidents unpopularity is not for the right reasons but for the wrong ones, his hot pursuit of hinterland is considered as un-Islamic and a western agenda, cleansing Pakistan from hard core terrorists is his biggest crime, it is distressing to see that his biggest help to Pakistanis by making them a part of a civilised world is considered by some myopic people in west as his dictatorial mindset. The fired Chief Justice for whom the western media is crying hoarse had issued that Lal Mosque should be handed over to the family of the terrorists who ran the Terrorists Inc headquarters a mile away from the Presidency and ordered the government to pay compensation to the terrorists who were killed. Is this Justice, for six whole months the entire capital city was a hostage, what could Mush do, he does it he is damned he doesn’t he is damned.
Making a Shah and implanting false democracy led to world largest ‘mullah’ factory in Iran, no one needs such blunders to be repeated. A compassionate Pakistan can only survive with a disciplined force. ‘Democracy’ in Iran led to Khomeini revolution that arouse the Sunnis to have their own Bin Laden Ayatollah, lets stop this non sensible rant of democracy, what we need is a system that ensures a forward looking nation with tolerance and acceptability of everyone else.
It is not a coincidence that Pakistan happens to take the right decisions when it is vital to cooperate with the global community. A successful nation will retain its pragmatism in the face of the global pressures and do its utmost to achieve global acceptance. A failed nation is the exact converse where the nation will retreat into a hostile insularity and elicit condemnation by the hegemonic powers. US shortsighted strategists shoud stop using nations as ‘diapers.’ Look at the track record and than decide who failed who! It was always instant gratification, ‘get your objective ‘and run that was the root cause of 911, more voids and more short-sightedness will result in larger crisis, we need to educate and bring this long lost tribe of humans back into human fold that is our duty and that is the only way to make our world safer.
Paris