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March 16, 2003
Paying the price
Pakistan’s Afghan policy has cost the country dear. Dr Rifaat Hussain sheds light on the imbroglio Islamabad is trapped in today as a result of its blind support to the Taliban
THE September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States presented Pakistan with a stark choice: either make common cause with Washington in its war against the Al Qaeda network based in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan or persist with its pro-Taliban Afghan policy and, as a consequence, suffer international condemnation for guilt by association. Within a day of being asked to choose by Washington, President Pervez Musharraf announced on September 13 that Pakistan would lend its ‘unstinted cooperation’ to America.
Two days earlier, in his public statement President Pervez Musharraf expressed his deep shock at the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and offered his country’s ‘deepest condolences and sympathy’ to President George Bush, the bereaved families and the American people. Describing the terrorist attacks as ‘barbaric, which will live in memory as the most heinous crime against humanity’, Musharraf assured President George Bush his ‘unstinted cooperation in the fight against terrorism’. After a marathon meeting with top military leaders including the powerful nine corps commanders, General Pervez Musharraf informed Washington that his army-led regime would open Pakistani airspace for American air and missile strikes against landlocked, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, share ‘information and intelligence’, and offer ‘logistical support’ to American military forces including the use of two Pakistani airfields in Jacobabad and Pasni for ‘emergency and rescue operations’.
These decisions marked a paradigm shift in Islamabad’s thinking towards the Taliban. That they now had become a strategic liability rather than an asset was clearly acknowledged by General Pervez Musharraf in his televised address to the nation on September 19. He said:
“We in Pakistan are facing a very critical situation. Perhaps as critical as the events in 1971. If we make the wrong decisions our vital interests will be harmed ... Our critical concerns are our sovereignty, second our economy, third our strategic assets (nuclear and missiles), and fourth our Kashmir cause. All four will be harmed if we make the wrong decision. When we make these decisions they must be according to Islam. It is not a question of bravery or cowardice. But bravery without thinking is stupidity... We have to save our interests. Pakistan comes first, everything else is secondary ...”
To mitigate growing western apprehensions after it became evident that he was facing some ‘internal resistance’ from the military to effectively pursue his new Afghan policy, General Pervez Musharraf introduced a massive shake-up in the top military hierarchy on the eve of the American military action against the Taliban on October 7, 2001.
By distancing itself from the Taliban regime and also agreeing to provide help to Washington in key areas in its impending military action, the Musharraf government courted significant domestic risks. These risks related to the survival of Musharraf’s regime in the face of pro-Taliban sentiments within Pakistan, a deep societal split along the liberal/radical right ideological divide, and possible division within the Pakistani security establishment, especially along pro-American and anti-American feelings.
These risks do not seem unmanageable for the Musharraf government. Despite being an unelected leader, General Musharraf is regarded by the vast majority of Pakistanis as a capable, sincere, and well-meaning person. His grip on power remains firm and because of his consultative decision-making style, there is little room for anyone to harbour an unspoken grudge against him. His well-honed communication skills and his predilection for transparent and ‘loud thinking’ even on the most vital issues are appreciated by his peers in the military. His regime’s relationship with the vocal Pakistani media, especially the influential vernacular press, has been smooth.
None of these positive elements, however, promise General Musharraf easy success if he is faced with a situation of mass agitation mounted by gun-touting mullahs willing to take on the government in the name of jihad.
But this likelihood is remote, if not impossible, for three reasons. First, for such a mass uprising to happen and succeed, one needs a charismatic religious leader a la Imam Khomeini. The religious right in Pakistan does not possess such an overarching figure. It is badly divided along sectarian and denominational lines and politically too inept to be able to throw up such a leader even in a situation of deep crisis.
Second, bearded mullahs have never been role models for Pakistani masses and this is not likely to change regardless of what happens in Afghanistan...
The third factor preventing a mass agitation sparked by Pakistan-backed American military action against the Taliban is the Pakistani’s general acceptance of the necessity of being on the right side of history on the issue of terrorism for national security reasons. General Musharraf’s argument that if Pakistan would not have supported the US-led international community which includes Islamabad’s main ally China and many leading Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan — then Pakistan’s ‘strategic assets and the cause of Kashmir’ would have been endangered, has resonated with informed sections of opinion.
In his meeting with representatives of leading think-tanks on September 18, 2001, General Musharraf categorically stated that given Pakistan’s precarious economic situation and New Delhi’s desire to get Pakistan branded as a sponsor of terrorism, his government felt compelled to side with the world. Any thought to the contrary, he said, would have meant running the risk of taking the country back to the ‘Stone Age’.
Still, by severing its close links with the Taliban regime and reviving his country’s strategic cooperation with the United States, General Musharraf has moved into uncharted territory. All his expected gains from a rejuvenated Pakistan-US entente have yet to become a reality; and these can easily get vitiated if President George Bush overreaches himself by targeting other Muslim countries, especially Iraq and Iran, in his ‘crusade’ against terrorism.
Such a multi-targeted attack will generate a global backlash of Muslim anger, which can fuel the fires of anti-Americanism at the popular level within Pakistan. In that scenario the small streams of pro-Taliban public sympathy might turn into an uncontrollable tidal wave for the Musharraf government.
The Musharraf regime has taken a calculated risk of incurring the wrath of the jihadi elements within Pakistan, to help reposition the country internationally by forging strategic ties with Washington. Its decision to come out on the right side of history has yielded some gains.
Except for the Missile Technology Control Regime curbs, all other American sanctions against Pakistan have been lifted and other key countries such as Japan and Britain as well as the European Union have provided substantial economic and financial relief to Pakistan’s cash-strapped economy.
Having dumped the Taliban, the Musharraf government has intensified its diplomatic campaign to protect its security interests in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Besides demanding the formation of a broad-based successor government in Kabul in which all ethnic groups including the dominant Pakhtoon are represented, Islamabad has made it clear that it would not want a regime in Kabul that might be hostile to Pakistani interests. Islamabad has welcomed the installation of an Afghan interim administration in Kabul as part of the Bonn agreement signed in December 2001 between four major Afghan groups, namely, the Northern Alliance, the Rome Group, the Cyprus Group, and the Peshawar Group. The Chairman of the Afghan interim administration, Hamid Karzai, a moderate Pakhtoon well known to the top Pakistani leadership, visited Pakistan on February 8, 2002 at the personal invitation of President Musharraf.
To underscore its goodwill toward the new regime in Kabul, President Musharraf announced the release of ‘an additional amount of $10 million to Afghanistan’ to help Kabul meet ‘its immediate cash flow needs’. Both sides also pledged to respect each other’s freedom and territorial integrity, and emphasised that their relations would be based on non-interference.
Despite these sentiments of goodwill, Pakistan’s relations with post-Taliban Afghanistan would remain hostage to the vagaries of India-Pakistan ties that have experienced a marked deterioration since 9/11.
Tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi, triggered by the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan, reached an all-time high in May when both countries openly talked of war. Fearing that war with India was imminent, Pakistan withdrew more than 50,000 troops it had deployed along its border with Afghanistan to prevent the Al Qaeda and Taliban from entering its territory. Islamabad also informed Washington that in the event of an India-Pakistan war, it would have to reclaim some of its airfields that had been loaned to the US for military operations in Afghanistan.
To prevent a looming Indo-Pak war from playing havoc with its military campaign against the Al Qaeda, Washington launched a frantic diplomatic campaign to defuse the India-Pakistan crisis. Following Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage’s visit to New Delhi and Islamabad in early June, both countries agreed to pull themselves back from the brink. In response to President Pervez Musharraf’s pledge that he would ‘permanently’ end his country’s support for armed militancy in ‘Indian-held Kashmir’, New Delhi lifted some diplomatic and economic curbs imposed on Islamabad in the wake of the December 13, 2001 terrorist attacks on the Indian Parliament.
President Musharraf’s decision to limit Islamabad’s strategic support for militancy in Kashmir has been greeted with howls of sell-out by Islamic hardliners in the country. To underscore their opposition to his policies, they have joined hands with surviving Al Qaeda and Taliban elements and carried out a string of terrorist attacks in the country, including killing Pakistani soldiers and policemen.
The threat of homegrown terrorism has become the biggest security challenge for Islamabad today. Musharraf’s crackdown on pro-Taliban religious forces in Pakistan and their violent response is the direct outcome of Islamabad’s strategic decision to discard militant jihad as a vehicle to pursue its interests in Afghanistan.
Excerpted with permission from
The Anatomy of a Conflict: Afghanistan and 9/11
Roli Books, M-75, GK II Market, New Delhi-110 048 Email: roli@vsnl.com distributed in Pakistan by Liberty Books
Liberty Books (Pvt) Ltd, 3 Rafiq Plaza, M.R. Kayani Road, Saddar, Karachi
Tel: 021-5683026
Email: libooks@cyber.net.pk Website:
www.libertybooks.com
ISBN 81-7436-253-3
256pp. Rs525
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