FOLLOWING the events of September 11, President George Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell told General Musharraf that they needed Pakistan’s “cooperation” in finding and punishing Osama bin Laden and in penalizing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that harboured him. The general’s recent address to the nation makes it obvious that the American demands were accompanied by threats of punitive action that would result to Pakistan in case it chose to reject them.

The Americans have demanded access to Pakistan’s intelligence resources concerning Osama bin Laden and his organization, and the Taliban-supported terrorist camps. In addition they have demanded the use of Pakistan’s airspace and logistical support for air and land-based raids on Afghan territory. Sharing of information poses no serious problem. Use of airspace may or may not involve use of Pakistani air bases. But what does logistical support include?

Ordinarily, logistics refer to the procurement, placement, maintenance, and transportation of military material and personnel for warlike purposes. According to official Pakistani spokesmen, the United States has not so far specified the logistical help it will require, but Pakistan’s agreement to provide whatever may be needed would cover several types of facilities, including military bases from which raids on Afghanistan may be launched.

As a first reaction, it does seem weird that we have agreed to aid a foreign power in hitting Afghanistan, a brotherly Islamic country, bound to us with historical, ethnic, and cultural ties that go back hundreds of years. No wonder then that the Islamic parties and “Jihadi” groups in the country are agitated at the prospect of our government aiding any American military operation directed at Osama bin Laden and the Taliban regime. Qazi Hussain Ahmad (JI), Maulana Fazlur Rahman (JUI), Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani (JUP), and their counterparts in other Islamic organizations are threatening a mass movement to overthrow the present government if it aids America’s design.

Not unexpectedly, the government is worried. Even though its response to the United States appears to have had the support of the great majority of the Pakistani people, the ulema in opposition do have the ability to disrupt further the already fragile state of public order. They could conceivably bring about a civil war. As compared to the sanctity of their own version of Islam, the integrity of Pakistan means little to them.

General Musharraf, his foreign minister, and other spokesmen have been trying to dilute the domestic impact of their assurances to the United States. They are trying to assure all concerned that they do not want Afghan interests to be hurt, that they will not support any campaign to overthrow the Taliban (even while saying that the Taliban’s days are numbered), and that they will not allow the use of their territory for launching attacks against Afghanistan. At the same time, and somewhat incongruously, they say also that they favour the establishment of a “broad-based” government in that country which, needless to say, cannot happen without the Taliban’s ouster from their present position of supremacy.

Assuming that the government of Pakistan will set aside these ambiguities and place itself squarely on the American side, another train of thought is gaining steam. We are being urged to stand firm and demand an adequate compensation for supporting the American campaign. In their public statements official spokesmen have been coy. They claim that they are acting out of principle, not for reasons of expediency; that they have always opposed terrorism, that their offer to cooperate in fighting it is therefore nothing novel, and that they are not demanding any quid pro quo. Another interesting twist to their position is that they are answering not America’s but the world community’s call for concerted action against terrorism.

These positions misrepresent the reality on the ground. At this time the world community is not doing very much beyond passing American-sponsored resolutions in the United Nations. Great Britain appears already to have committed a small number of military personnel to the American mission, and other NATO members are willing to bolster American efforts. But make no mistake about it: what we are about to witness will be basically an American operation whose scope and specifics will be determined by American officials. They will consult allies, but one doubts that the latter will be able to veto American plans.

That we do not want a quid pro quo may sound noble but it is untrue. Some of us want remission of all of our foreign debt — $35 billion or thereabout — plus more. We can be sure that our government will try to get whatever it can in return for its assistance. But it should be understood that our compensation will have to bear some proportionality to the services we render. That will depend partly on what the Americans ask us to do.

It seems that the United States knows what it wants to do in the very near future, but its medium-term and long-term plans for combating terrorism remain to be made. The immediate focus of its attention is Afghanistan. It will send in persons, trained in this sort of work, to look for Osama bin Laden. It will try to destroy his camps. It will also want to wipe out terrorist training facilities maintained by the Taliban. Lastly, it will want to overthrow the Taliban regime since in its view that regime is, by its very nature, a breeder, promoter and protector of terrorists.

Beyond sharing information about terrorist camps and hideouts, what can Pakistan do to advance American goals in Afghanistan? I doubt that it can do very much by way of locating Osama bin Laden. In order not to infuriate domestic opponents any further, it will probably refrain from sending its own forces to help the Americans in destroying terrorist camps in Afghanistan. For the same reason, it may not join military moves to overthrow the Taliban. What exactly then are the services Pakistan will render for which it will want to be rewarded? Rewards as well as the services may turn out to be modest.

It is possible that, out of concern for its domestic peace and stability, America will not even ask Pakistan for much of “logistical” support. Its military aircraft have already landed in Uzbekistan, which is ready to give it air bases and ground facilities to launch its raids on Afghan territory. Other Central Asian republics have made similar offers. They too expect to be rewarded.

Americans cannot limit their mission merely to finding Osama bin Laden, a mission whose success is, in any case, problematic. They have to go beyond Osama and move to replace the Taliban if they are to be seen as having accomplished something worthy of their status and even remotely commensurate with the damage inflicted upon their own country. If they overthrow the Taliban, they cannot then just depart and once again leave Afghanistan to its own devices. This time they will have to stay on and put together an alternative government.

Will Pakistan have a voice in the fashioning of a post-Taliban regime? It cannot claim a role simply because it knows the lay of the land and the ways of its people. Others too have that knowledge, notably the Northern Alliance and its supporters in Central Asia. Pakistan’s influence on the post-Taliban course of events is not likely to be much greater than its role in the Taliban’s overthrow. Normally, one cannot have it both ways or, as they say, have one’s cake and eat it too.

Much of what is currently being said in our newspapers carries the impression that the United States and Pakistan have once again become allies. Is this anything more than wishful thinking? If Pakistan is not to play an active role in removing the Taliban, what would the goals of this imagined alliance be? And what would its goals be after the Taliban are gone? How can Pakistan help in eradicating terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world? Other countries in each region may be more likely candidates for that role.

The present turn of events in our relationship with the United States may represent nothing more than a transient coincidence of interests. The tendency to regard it as an alliance carries the risk of a trauma to our national psyche. When the American mission in Afghanistan is accomplished, or abandoned, and America turns its attention to other places, leaving us alone, we will once again come to the agonizing conclusion that we have been “betrayed.” Or could it be that our policy makers think America has goals in Central Asia where we can help?

Lastly, one does not expect that somewhere along the line the United States will call upon friendly Muslim governments — albeit quietly — to do what they can to restrain the forces of Islamic fundamentalism. That persuasion is not popular in most of the Muslim countries but, then, nor are their governments. The struggle for the victory of moderation over fanaticism is bound to be long and hard. But of this more later.

THE Afghan conflict has handed down to Pakistan five million addicts and, perhaps, a similar number of warring fanatics. Twenty-two years ago both could be counted in hundreds. The damage done to the economy and politics is no less serious but more easily retrievable.

The American invasion which now only a miracle could avert may inaugurate a new round of civil war in Afghanistan longer and bloodier than the Soviet occupation did with a fallout for Pakistan more damaging.

The United States, hurt and humiliated as it had never been before, is committed to a campaign against terrorism which would obviously include open warfare, subversion and economic sanctions. Mulla Omar, if toppled, threatens to retreat to the mountains with his hordes and fight on. Afghanistan is no stranger to war and anarchy but the portents are that this time it might divide the country. After all, a full generation has grown up fighting or in refugee camps.

The essential element in this statement is that the US backed by NATO and other allies would be able to endure the expense and agony of this multi-faceted campaign, even its reversals, much longer and better than the war-weary, famished Afghans despite their guerillas and mountain defiles. It is an irony of this situation that the Afghan refugees and their local allies after a roaring demonstration and burning of Bush’s effigies on Quetta streets on Tuesday last went home to eat the wheat sent by Bush which their less volatile kins were unloading at that very time.

Mulla Omar calls Afghanistan a fortress of Islam, yet millions have sought safety outside it and the life inside it has become a world metaphor for misery and oppression. In any case no Muslim country recognizes it as such. The last among them which did — Pakistan — too has come round to the viewpoint that Afghanistan is best governed by a multi-ethnic national coalition.

The Afghans may be united in their Muslim faith but the ethnic divisions run deep. The Pakhtoons, whom the Taliban represent, constitute the largest group but are only 40 per cent of the population. The other ethnic groups — Hazara, Tajik and Uzbek — who jointly constitute the majority have not reconciled to the Taliban hegemony over the past five years and perhaps never will whatever the outcome of the American intervention.

Just as the Taliban should know that they can no longer rule Afghanistan with the world opinion and armed forces arrayed against them, the America-led world coalition also needs to know that it cannot catch Osama bin Laden nor eradicate terrorism by invading Afghanistan. Instead, many more new and inspired terrorists will be born to harass and destabilize the South and Central Asia and hit the targets worldwide. The oil-rich but unjustly administered countries of the Middle-East will continue to supply many more bin Ladens to train and finance them.

Afghanistan has been always governed, loosely but peaceably, by the tribal assemblies (jirgas) and chieftains and so will it be in the future. The administration in Kabul draws its limited mandate and authority from those assemblies. A series of rulers backed by the soviets in defiance of this tradition failed, the Taliban militia created and backed by Pakistan is now failing and so must fail any individual or alliance the Americans and British instal after the Taliban are driven to the hills. Only the misery of the people would be greater and consequences for the region, especially for Pakistan, more far-reaching.

The Northern Alliance’s new spokesman Ahmad Wali Masud has already started projecting the view that terrorism will not be rooted out unless the world coalition, after dealing with bin Laden and the Taliban or alongside, strikes at the Pakistan army and the ISI as well. That is also India’s line as a means to enlist the world sympathy in crushing the people’s revolt in Kashmir. It got some credence when a blatant act of terrorism at the Srinagar assembly was thoughtlessly owned by Jaishe Mohammad before ascertaining the facts of the incident in which 38 lives, mostly civilian, were lost. It came handy to India’s Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, who was then visiting the western capitals, in portraying Pakistan as a sponsor of terrorism in his meetings with Bush, Blair and the rest.

So intense and sustained has been the Indian propaganda and equally laid-back reaction of Pakistan that even The Economist has gone along to opine that Pakistan has found in Afghanistan a convenient place to recruit and train guerillas to fight Indian rule in Kashmir.

Now, whatever the nature of Pakistan’s support for the freedom struggle in Kashmir, at this critical juncture it must use all its diplomatic skills and bargaining power to prevent Kashmir from becoming a part of the Afghan problem. The parrot-like repetition that the support is just “political, moral and diplomatic” has become jarring even to friendly ears. The exigencies of the situation call for a forthright statement that if the Kashmir guerillas choose to get trained in Afghanistan or anywhere else to liberate their own territory or if their kins on this side of the line of control go to fight alongside them, Pakistan legally and morally cannot stop them.

In the absence of an agreed legal definition of terrorism it is, as Kofi Annan said, a question of moral clarity. This clarity in the case of Kashmir is not in doubt. Pakistan should not let the freedom fight in Kashmir become a casualty of the world outrage against terrorism. After all, to Ronald Reagan in 1985 the leaders of Afghan Mujahideen were the “moral equivalent of America’s founding fathers” when the former were fighting against the Soviet occupation of their country.

That argument apart, Pakistan as the only country recognizing the Taliban and in communication with their leaders should keep persuading them to make way for a grand assembly (Loya Jirga) in which the moderates among them may participate and the radicals recede into the hills to fight another day.

The Loya Jirga may then deal with the Americans. That might save the Afghan people from the impending disaster. The Taliban cannot.

IF I were Mullah Omar I would be laughing all the way to the mosque right now. What began as an Armageddon, or at least a misnamed crusade, launched with a Bush-fire zealous enough to singe millions of television sets across the globe, has become a silent skirmish within three weeks. It could of course be the most expensive skirmish in the history of warfare, but that is the way of Washington.

On 12 September, after he had recovered from the shock of hiding in his own country, President George Bush sounded as if he had recognized the one error that haunted his father’s strategy towards Iraq, the fact that George Bush the Elder did not confirm his military victory with a change of government in Baghdad. Bush the Younger was searching for the source of terrorism, the infrastructure that protected and trained those who spoke with guns, and demanded that any government that protected an Osama bin Laden was as guilty as the hijackers who flew airliners into the Pentagon and the twin towers of Manhattan.

We forgot, in the tumult of that oratory, that the team that surrounds Bush the Younger is essentially the same as the one that advised Bush the Elder: Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld. The designations may have changed but the men are the same. It is possible that the next fortnight could prove me wrong, but it already seems that, ten years later, these men have no stomach for an American war. They want victory without collateral. They want a proxy war that can only end with the illusion of success. Having, in the anger of the first phase, committed themselves to an objective that demands sacrifice, they are now ready to settle for a political victory instead of any real solution. They want one man now, not the system that makes that man effective.

The war has become a hunt, by special forces using sophisticated intelligence to scour the terrain inside Afghanistan for Osama bin Laden. We should have expected this dilution of American will. Because Afghanistan is really part of America’s domestic agenda, rather than an international crisis. This holds equally true for Pakistan and India. The politics and policies of all three countries are being determined by how much this problem can serve their domestic interests and how the three governments can further their specific interests through this crisis.

The world has never quite known what to do about the Taliban. Pakistan helped create it, so established a lonely vested interest. The United Arab Emirates placed an ambassador out of self-protective instincts; and Saudi Arabia to show solidarity with a government that was avowedly Islamic in its claims. The rest of the world ignored something it could do nothing about. I was as aghast as anyone else at the images that strained the imagination on 11 September.

But far more horrifying than what the Taliban has done to America is what the Taliban has done to its own people, to Afghanistan. For more than half a decade now the women of Afghanistan have lived through degradation and terror that must shame all nations in principle and Muslim nations in particular, for the word that the Holy Quran uses for women is reverence. Surely believing Muslims do not need to be told about the fourth Surah of the Quran, Al Nisa, whose principles govern their personal law.

The opening verse establishes the first principle: “O mankind! Reverence your Guardian-Lord who created you from a single person, created, of like nature, his mate, and from them twain scattered (like seeds) countless men and women. Fear Allah, through Whom ye demand your mutual (rights), and (reverence) the wombs (that bore you): for Allah ever watches over you” (from the translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali).

Is this what the Taliban has done since it came to power? Shown reverence to women? Instead it has brutalized women with a particular venom that has been recorded on film and in print, as and when possible in a closed and terrorised country. The Taliban social philosophy has destroyed education, eliminated (physically) civil society and devastated the country. The worst terror of this regime has been reserved for its own people. Who cared? No one.

Washington itself, prodded by Islamabad, had begun the process of legitimising the Taliban in a quiet, incremental manner, a fact that the State Department will not easily accept just now. Washington understood the Taliban only when the Taliban reached New York and Washington. The United States has, with less subtlety than it thinks, changed its policy. Its war aim has narrowed down to a single point: the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

(Incidentally, much-encouraged myths about him do not add to the cause of credibility. He does not have three hundred million dollars. For him to inherit that much his father would have had to leave six billion dollars in his will, and that sort of money he did not have. Such money did not exist before oil. And the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union did not really need the Laden millions; the CIA had enough. In any case this money-hype misses the point. Those who go out to die do not need bank accounts.)

President Bush presumably feels that a dramatic capture of bin Laden by special units of American and British armies will satisfy the domestic audience, after which the boys can fly back home and warships go back to their bases. The Taliban could stay in Kabul. The only difference would be that the Northern Alliance would be offered a supply line to reenergise a confrontation of many years. This was precisely the policy created by the Cheneys and Powells in Iraq and it ended in the mass sacrifice of Kurds, among other tragedies.

Recent photographs of Northern Alliance troops clearly show that the American dollar has made a dramatic comeback in their lives. They are riding motorbikes, wearing new boots and Nike socks. They look like happy soldiers. The Pakistan administration’s agenda is much clearer and more difficult. It has already won a signal victory by persuading Washington to soften its line against the Taliban. Pakistan would not want to lose an asset it created over the years in a country critical to its interests.

It is axiomatic that any government other than the Taliban would be more hostile to Islamabad. The second, or maybe the first, imperative in Islamabad is survival of the old-fashioned kind. Stay alive, and stay in power. President Pervez Musharraf was poorly advised when he decided to televise his tension, but the comparative calm since then could prove deceptive.

The real problems for the Pakistan government will come if the Americans are unable to storm the Laden hideout and pick him, or if Mullah Omar rejects the compromise being suggested by softliners in the Taliban who do not want their movement to become hostage to a single individual. This would mean real problems for the Bush team as well, forcing them into a battle they do not want. Reluctant armies rarely win. So far the pro-Taliban sentiment in Pakistan has been less farspread than the pictures of American flags burning would suggest, but real shooting could trigger real passions.

The government in Delhi had one obvious motive; that whatever scenario emerged after the dust settled, the world should do enough to eliminate the use of terror from the region. But this would have to be a reasonable and regional package, rather than a unilateral one, and therefore a policy that the world could support.

But the Vajpayee government stopped thinking and retreated into a political marsh called Uttar Pradesh. When you begin life as a single-agenda party, you always return to that agenda at the first glimpse of defeat. The BJP’s visionaries are trying to reach Lucknow via Kabul. Anyone with a compass could have told them that this is an improbable route, but try arguing with the convinced. The Taliban has been converted into a UP election issue. The ban on SIMI, an organisation of Muslim students, may have some justification on its side, but the timing makes it nothing but a blatant effort to demonize Muslims before the UP elections.

This government has been in power for three years; its evidence against SIMI could not have been collected only in the last three weeks. If the charge is fomenting violence then organisations like the Bajrang Dal deserve similar action. Militant groups of this kind have been publicly and proudly offering small-arms training to their cadres. Why are they doing this? To fight militants in the Kashmir Valley? The irony is that in February next year, or whenever the BJP government chooses to hold elections, the Prime Minister and his home minister will discover that the electorate is immune to such exploitation.

The Afghan crisis offered a chance to Delhi to formulate a genuine South Asia policy and then to obtain support for it from both within the subcontinent and the wider world. Every war provides an opportunity for potential peace. War itself is fought in the search for another order from which something unacceptable has been eliminated.

Part of the doubt arises from the wavering resolve of the nation that was provoked, the United States. Then there is the problem of incomprehension: what precisely is in store for this region from Central Asia to the eastern borders of Bangladesh? These two questions are only the beginning of a long and difficult list. The answers demand some serious thinking, and minds have become too narrow for any thought at all.

Unless I am proved wrong in the coming week, it is a world in which Mullah Omar can afford to laugh.