Pakistan’s Squeeze
September 30, 2006, 7:11 pm |
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By Andrew L. Jaffee
An Indian investigator on Saturday blamed Pakistan’s spy agency of orchestrating the July train bombings that killed at least 207 people in Mumbai, an accusation that could threaten the already shaky peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
If true, Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, has put President Musharraf in an awkward position, more so than he is in already. Just today, he claimed to be the West’s “main ally,” yet a string of events this week involving Pakistan makes his claim slightly incredulous. I believe that he truly believes that a parliamentary/republican democracy is a goal for Pakistan, that Islamism is the world’s most dangerous problem, and that he fully intends to one day turn over power to the people. But putting these noble goals into practice is a high-stakes game for him because of: 1) the number of radical Islamists in Pakistan; and, 2) and because of the supposed “middle ground” he walks between appeasing the radical Muslims, and at the same time, trying to nudge Pakistan into the 21st century.
This week’s events emphasized point 1 above, that Musharraf doesn’t have full control over his nation’s Islamists — even his own intelligence services. A British report linked the ISI with support for terrorism:
In the leaked report, a naval commander at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) claimed Pakistan’s intelligence service, ISI, had indirectly helped the Taleban and al-Qaeda.
To which he rather boldly responded — to a Western audience, no less:
“You’ll be brought down to your knees if Pakistan doesn’t co-operate with you. That is all that I would like to say. Pakistan is the main ally. If we were not with you, you won’t manage anything,” he said.
“Let that be clear. And if ISI is not with you, you will fail.”
I actually half-way respected Musharraf, but this is too much. The ISI’s involvement with terrorism is nothing new. The Sept. 11 Commission found that:
Former Pakistani intelligence officers knew beforehand all about the September 11 attacks. They even advised Osama bin Laden and his cohorts how to attack key targets in the United States with hijacked civilian aircraft. And bin Laden has been undergoing periodic dialysis treatment in a military hospital in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province adjacent to the Afghan border.
Musharraf’sreaction to 9/11 was to hold a meeting with his top generals:
This time the atmosphere was cold. Gen Musharraf laid out his proposal to support America in the imminent war against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. There was, he told them, simply no other choice. Officially the public was told the officers supported Gen Musharraf unanimously. But now it has emerged that four of his most senior generals opposed him outright. The Guardian has learned that the four openly challenged the president’s pro-US stance. In military terms it was a stunning display of disloyalty.
According to a source close to the military leadership the most angry among the four that night was Lieutenant General Mehmood Ahmed, the religious hardliner who headed the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) - responsible for internal security and covert operations - and was once Gen Musharraf’s closest ally.
President Musharraf “cracked down” on this dissent, but only in a half-hearted way:
His words shook Pakistan’s Islamist network to its core. Within weeks 2,000 militants were rounded up and jailed, including several prominent hardline clerics and militant leaders. …
It is clear the general’s promises are not being kept. Most of the militants have been released without charge, among them the heads of groups listed as terrorist organisations by Britain and the US. Pakistan has allowed militants backed by its own intelligence agency to continue their war in Kashmir even though it threatens to plunge India and Pakistan into a devastating conflict.
A Guardian investigation has uncovered evidence that Pakistani militants are still openly raising funds and training young fighters to cross into Kashmir to fight the Indian army. They are closely watched by their Islamist supporters in the ISI. Despite the purges, several hundred in the core of 2,500 ISI officers remain opposed to Gen Musharraf’s alliance with America.
Yesterday, the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah, had harsh criticism for Musharraf’s claim that he was the West’s “main ally.” Granted, there is a lot of political tension in Kashmir, but there may be some truth in Abdullah’s comments:
“Musharraf is going to do nothing for restoration of peace in the region and it will not be wise on our part to expect anything from him,” Abdullah said …
He said the continued infiltration and raising of anti-Indian sentiments highlighted that Musharraf had lost control of militants and ISI and that he was making every effort to woo the fundamentalist forces within the country.
Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai has recently voiced concerns that Pakistan is not doing enough to stop its Islamists from supporting Taliban terrorists. These concerns have grown into a war of words between Karzai and Musharraf, enough so to cause President Bush to hold a summit between the two leaders. One can only wonder if the meeting between the Afghan and Pakistani presidents made matters worse or better:
“During the dinner meeting with Bush, Musharraf and Karzai first hit out at each other, then came to exchanging hot words at which President Bush had to intervene…”
The Washington Post warns of “Pakistan’s Awkward Balancing Act on Islamic Militant Groups.” But if one looks closely at the actions of Musharraf, it is clear that he has made his choice to side with the West, there’s no going back, and he is beyond the pale of reconciliation with his country’s lunatic Islamists. The scale has tipped to one side. It is time for Musharraf to explicitly say so and do so, as he’ll never appease Pakistan’s radicals. Here’s an excerpt from the Post:
The basic problem for Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is that he is trying to please two irreconcilable groups. Abroad, the leader of this impoverished Muslim country is frantically competing with arch-rival India, a predominantly Hindu country, for American political approval and economic ties. To that end, he has worked hard to prove himself as a staunch anti-terrorism ally.
But at home, where he hopes to win election in 2007 after eight years as a self-appointed military ruler, Musharraf needs to appease Pakistan’s Islamic parties to counter strong opposition from its secular ones. He also needs to keep alive the Kashmiri and Taliban insurgencies on Pakistan’s borders to counter fears within military ranks that India, which has developed close ties with the Kabul government, is pressuring its smaller rival on two flanks.
There’s no way for Musharraf to “please” the Islamists. Let me explain point by point:
- The Islamists tried to assassinate Musharraf twice in the short span of 11 days in December 2003. He survived one attack by a few seconds. Any idea how one would reconcile with one’s own assassins?
- Pakistan and Israel’s foreign ministers met for the first time in Istanbul in September 2005 — a prelude to eventual full diplomatic relations. Musharraf initiated the new dialog. The Islamists surely see this move as an ultimate betrayal. Meeting with the Little Satan?
- Don’t forget that Israel has forged strong strategic ties with India, Pakistan’s arch rival.
- Musharraf has sought to break the ice between his country and India, the world’s largest democracy, and chock full of free-thinking, entrepreneurial apostate Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians. Relations between the two nuclear rivals are better than they’ve ever been since they gained independence from Britain. The Islamists are surely angered by Musharraf’s diplomacy. One only need look at the many Islamist terrorist atrocities wrought against India.
- On On September 17, 2005 Musharraf spoke before the American Jewish Congress. Again, another slap in the face of the Islamic radicals.
- Pakistani intelligence helped Britain thwart a plan to bomb airliners this month.
- There is evidence that Pakistan might not be quite as radical as the politically-correct, hand-wringers of doom claim: “New research is calling into question the prevalence and increasing popularity of religious schooling in Pakistan, with survey data that show previous estimates of enrollment in Islamic madrassas to be far lower than widely reported.”
- Finally, Musharraf’s military, probably his strongest power base, has specifically targeted and killed scores of Islamists and other militants in his own country. A few weeks ago, Pakistan’s military offed one of the country’s major terrorist leaders, Sardar Akbar Bugti (”Bugti, the Sardar or chief of more than 200,000 Bugti tribesmen, was killed along with more than 35 of his followers when the Pakistan Air Force bombed his hideout in the Bambore mountain range in the Marri tribal area.”).
There may be some truth in Musharraf’s claim that the U.S. helped the Taliban come to power by abandoning Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. It would also be unrealistic to expect him to snap his fingers and fix all the problems of a country with a population of 165,803,560. Is Pakistan’s President being realistic when he makes deals with tribal leaders in North Waziristan, one of the country’s most lawless border areas — believing he can win their hearts and minds instead of hunting them down? That’s a tough one to answer, but sounds more like a stalling tactic, or just caving in to Islamists. So making boasts about being the West’s “main ally” is premature — he has a long road to travel before such claims can hold water.
But instead of indulging in an “awkward balancing act,” President Musharraf needs to lay his cards on the table, shut down Pakistan’s virulent Islamist madrassas, crack down on militants, and move the country out of the religious Stone Age into a modern, civilized society. To think that Musharraf could find a rapprochement with radical Islam is like believing Neville Chamberlain’s claim of “peace in our time” in 1938 — a worthless peace of paper signed with Hitler. You know what happened next.
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Categories, Tags: United States, War Against Islamo-fascism, Pakistan, Afghanistan
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