ISLAMABAD, July 30: Leading security and foreign affairs experts here on Monday ruled out the possibility of direct air strikes by United States inside Pakistani territory and said it was not an easy target for any country.
Speaking at a seminar on “Looming US invasion and options for Pakistan” organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, they, however, underlined the need for unity and broad-based national consensus to deal with the US threats.
Former foreign secretary Riaz H. Khokhar said “the internal situation of the country today is favourable for any foreign aggression.”
He said a national consensus was building in the US to question the intentions of Pakistan in terms of protecting US interests despite substantive financial, military and political support to it over the years.
He said the US was world’s sole superpower and its friendship or enmity were equally bad.
He said worsening situation in Iraq, US insufficient forces and Nato’s half-hearted involvement in Afghanistan and, more importantly, the mounting internal pressure on the US president had compelled Washington to issue such threats to Pakistan.
Former ambassador Tayyab Siddiqui ruled out the possibility of any invasion and declared it an alarming situation based on the so-called recent US intelligence reports, as it had happened in the case of Iraq.
He, however, said the bottom-line of US threatening approach was to target Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
He said the US failures in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worsening internal compulsions for President Bush had compelled the administration to reinforce the threat of terror to convince the American public that the war on terror was not over and required further legitimacy and justification through such so- called intelligence reports.
He also voiced concern over the statements of some Pakistani officials claiming the presence of foreign militants inside Lal mosque and Jamia Hafsa during the standoff. “Such statements serve the short-term purposes but harm the national interest in the long run,” he remarked.
Defence analyst Lt-Gen (retired) Talat Masood called for a greater national consensus and genuine reforms in Fata to deal with the internal and international challenges.
He said following repeated demands urging Pakistan ‘to do more’ over the years, the US was now threatening Pakistan with unilateral strikes inside its tribal areas and had also passed a congressional bill linking future support to Islamabad with its achievements in war on terror.
He hoped that such threats would not be materialised, adding that in case of such strikes in tribal areas it would not remain limited to the target areas but would spread to all over the country creating a massive resentment among the masses and instability in the country and whole region.
Former chairman of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Agha Murtaza Poya said the US policies in the region were aimed at protecting the Zionist state of Israel and destroying all its potential enemies, especially the Muslims.
He said the US could not see a sovereign and prosperous Muslim state and it was handling Muslim countries through such tactics one by one to carry out the process of de-Islamisation, de-neuclearisation and de-militarisation to only strengthen the Zionist regime of Israel.
Citing the several examples including its role in the dismemberment of Pakistan, he said the biggest sponsor of terrorism in Pakistan was CIA.
