The suicide bombing in Karachi killing 14 people, including 11 French engineers working on our Agosta submarine project, emphasizes like nothing else the consequences of siding blindly with the United States in its so-called war on terror.
While the blowback of that policy has begun to hit us, our helplessness is evidenced by our response to this latest incident: an appeal for foreign help (our first reaction in all such cases) and the opening of a website where the public can give information about suspicious people.
Through a newspaper ad, the interior ministry has asked the public "...to keep a special watch on any suspicious foreigner of doubt (sic) credentials in this regards (sic)." If Gen Moinuddin Haider's great law and order ministry can't get the wording of an ad right, what else is to be expected of it?
In Lahore we have seen the slaying of the religious scholar, Dr Ghulam Murtaza Malik. In Rawalpindi two policemen have been shot dead by Afghan 'scavengers'. And from Miranshah come disturbing reports of tribal unrest because of joint Pak-American operations against religious schools. Are these isolated incidents or part of an emerging pattern? If it is too early to say anything firm on this score, this much is for sure: when you play with fire, don't be surprised if your fingers get burnt.
Cutting links with the Taliban post-September 11 was one thing but turning Pakistan into a virtual American fiefdom and allowing American agencies (FBI, CIA) full freedom of action across the land, as in Faisalabad recently, is something quite different. Did we think there would be no blowback, no resentment against these policies? Supporting or opposing terrorism is hardly the point. Other countries have taken a firm stand against terrorism but without turning themselves into virtual American colonies in the process.
From proud nuclear power to obedient client state our descent has been swift. We are now in a league of our own, far removed even from a country as tiny and precariously placed as Lebanon which has shown more spirit in spurning unconscionable American pressure than we dare dream of. At the height of the assault on Afghanistan, the US asked Lebanon to freeze the funds and assets of Hezbollah which the US dubs a terrorist organization. Denying the American charge, the Lebanese government refused. Lebanon has not been wiped off the map. Nor has the US put pressure on it again.
It is mind-blowing even to think that we've allowed American commandos to operate in North and South Waziristan. What do the Americans want from us? For their holy crusade against Afghanistan, we gave them everything they asked for, every assistance in our power to render. Wasn't that enough and can't the Americans now leave us alone? Must they bring their Al-Qaeda war into our midst? But more than them it is the powers-that-be in Islamabad who are past caring about the consequences of blindly toeing the American line.
The recent history of Cambodia should be required reading for every responsible Pakistani, seared into our collective consciousness: of how a peaceful country was brought to rack and ruin as it acceded to American demands and found itself sucked into a conflict whose fallout it was powerless to control.
Please, let us not swallow any more of this rhetoric about the war on terror, a war with an American stamp and being carried out in pursuit of aims wholly American in origin. If the US was so concerned about global violence, it would be looking at Israel's brutal tactics in the West Bank, such as the massacre in Jenin, and asking itself why it's very name is mud across wide swathes of the Muslim world. But doing no such thing, it is bending other countries to its will and putting its own interpretation on global terror. To Pakistan goes the distinction of standing foremost in the ranks of America's readiest disciples.
No wonder, when something like the Karachi bomb blast occurs we are reduced to such desperate and childish devices as opening websites and asking for foreign assistance (steps which might be considered funny if the circumstances were not so tragic). But come to think of it, what else can we do? Having messed up the business of government, we are finding it difficult to tackle even routine problems. Hence the great reliance on foreigners. The army is doing everything except devoting itself single-mindedly to its primary duty of national defence. The spook agencies are playing political games when they should be collecting intelligence and keeping a tab on suspicious characters.
Political theory as falling from Gen Musharraf's lips is way off-track. It is not so much a balance between key power brokers that Pakistan needs as a return to rightful functioning. The army needs to get back full-time to defence and the country to a workable (and constitutional) political order in which each institution does what it is supposed to do without trespassing into other domains.
Anyone would think that after the inspired spectacle of the historic referendum - whose momentous nature is exhausting the fund of adjectives at the nation's disposal - the mood in Islamabad would tend to soul-searching. But what we are seeing is more of the same: failure being reinforced and old wheels being reinvented.
Otherwise why would anyone spend time and energy creating the Great Tonga Alliance of Six Zeros? What's the purpose of this shenanigan and whom is it meant to convince? Hasn't the ISI learnt anything from its history of meddling in politics?
It's hard not to feel sorry for Mustafa Jatoi, the man hastily installed as head of this non-alliance. He's a nice gent whose destiny seems to be to lend himself to such pantomimes. Mumtaz Bhutto's tragedy is that after his fall from grace as talented uncle (to Benazir, who else?) he has been going around in political clothing several sizes too small for him. His very isolation makes him game for such political theatrics.
But Leghari and Professor Tahirul Qadri? If the ISI's finest can come up with no better political material to play around with than them, we are in for some pretty desperate times between now and October. Efforts are also afoot to broaden the base of the Q or Quisling League. To what purpose? After the historic referendum the political scene has shifted and is no longer putty or French plaster in General Musharraf's hands. His cohorts could not manage a one-sided referendum. How will they manage a contentious and contested general election? One, moreover, likely to be dominated by the hated spectres of the PPP and the Nawaz League.
In a world not driven by paranoia or megalomania, a fiasco such as the referendum would call for a re-examination of priorities. But nothing of the sort is occurring in Islamabad. Far from sounding chastened, the general has spoken of a permanent political role for the armed forces while his trumpeters, Memon in the lead, continue to insist upon the transparency and fairness of the referendum. They are even saying the coming elections would be as transparent as the referendum - which is meant as an affirmation of good faith but sounds more like a threat.
In any case, the choices on offer are stark. The original theory was built on Gen Musharraf's popularity: "People tell me that I am very popular. I thought if I am really popular, I must go to the people." These are verbatim Musharraf quotes from an ARY interview. On the coattails of his popularity the right sort of parliament would be elected in October. But the referendum has cast these happy forecasts into doubt. In its aftermath how can "positive results" be ensured?
Tongas on their own can't do it. Nor can the patched-up quilt of a Quisling League deliver the kind of vote the general is banking upon. Thus barring wholesale disqualifications or massive rigging, the military government is left holding the strings of an uncertain future. Of course it can do the right thing by holding proper elections without regard to the outcome. But this is hoping for the moon. If such good sense could prevail in Pakistan we wouldn't be in the mess we find ourselves in.