Author: Peter Chalk and Chris Fair
Publication: Asia Times
Date: October 10, 2002
URL: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/DJ10Df02.html
Since the September 11 attacks on
the United States, Pakistan has figured prominently in Washington's global
war on terrorism. Responding to a series of threats and inducements, President
General Pervez Musharraf terminated support for the fundamentalist Taliban
regime it had helped create and foster in Kabul, allowed Pakistani territory
and airspace to be used for Operation Enduring Freedom, and provided important
intelligence data to coalition forces targeting terrorist training camps
on Afghan soil.
Pakistan is expected to play a continuing
role in Bush's plans to tackle remaining Taliban and al-Qaeda elements,
both on account of its geostrategic position in Southwest Asia and the
fact that the best information on these entities currently lies with Islamabad's
own Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate.
In his recent trip to the United
States (September 2002), Musharraf reiterated his commitment to the war
on terrorism and preparedness to cooperate with the international community
in rooting out and destroying extremist Islamist elements. One area, however,
where the president remained noticeably quiet - and where the US has been
conspicuously reticent in terms of pressuring his regime - is the issue
of jihadi terrorism connected to the disputed Indian- administered province
of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).
In two widely hailed speeches delivered
on January 12 and May 27 this year, Musharraf variously pledged that all
militant infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC) would end and that
there would be no tolerance of organizations that openly espouse and propagate
extremist sentiments. In addition, he announced the banning of Lashkar-e-Toiba
(LeT), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) -
the three jihadi outfits at the forefront of terrorist activity in J&K
- and moved to arrest several hundred militants scattered across the country.
Despite these commitments, infiltration
across the LoC is presently close to levels seen this time last year; the
leaders of both the LeT and the JeM remain essentially free to conduct
their activities in an unhindered fashion in Pakistan; asset seizures of
proscribed groups have so far netted no more than a few hundred dollars
in most cases; and the bulk of the militants arrested during the first
six months of 2002 have since been released.
Violence levels in J&K also
continue to rise, with both the LeT and the JeM moving to disrupt the state
elections in September-October that ended this week by systematically targeting
candidates (two candidates - Sheikh Abdul Rahman from the Handwara constituency
of northern Kupwara district and Law Minister and National Conference (NC)
candidate from Lolab constituency Mushtaq Ahmed Lone have been killed thus
far), political workers (84 had already been killed by October 4]) and
party rallies. State government officials have also been attacked, with
a particularly serious incident occurring on September 11 when the J&K
Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Mustaq Ahmed Lone, was assassinated.
In short, extremist Islamist activity
and terrorism in J&K is as prominent as ever - the inspirational and
organizational source of which clearly remains rooted in Pakistan.
To date, the United States has chosen
not to forcibly pressure Islamabad on demonstrably curbing militancy connected
to the Kashmir dispute. Although officials in Washington note that Musharraf
is being privately encouraged to abandon his strategy, they concede that
there has been no move to strongly demarche him over the issue since September
2001, when the global war on terrorism was first instituted. Indeed, American
strategy in the region increasingly appears to be following a two-tier
tract, giving precedence to operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban,
while conspicuously delaying firm action to permanently neutralize Kashmiri
militant activity in and from Pakistan. Given president George W Bush's
post-September 11 affirmation that "'you are either with us or against
us" in the war on terrorism, and that there will be no tolerance for those
that willingly eschew the effort against international extremism, Washington's
reticence is deserving of some explanation.
Undoubtedly the key consideration
underlying US policy is the belief that Kashmir is simply not an issue
that Musharraf can move decisively on. Not only does the liberation of
the state from "repressive" Indian rule constitute the essential raison
d'etre for the army (not to mention the crucial justification for the inordinately
large percentage of the country's GDP that the military consumes), it is
also something that many Pakistanis have been brought up to believe constitutes
the "marrow" of national patriotism. Add to this the existence of several
thousand armed jihadis who could just as easily direct their energies against
Islamabad as New Delhi, and an understanding of Washington's perspective
begins to emerge: pushing Musharraf too forcibly on Kashmir risks fatally
undermining a key ally in the war on terrorism and possibly setting up
a chain of events that leads to the institution of a more divided, if not
extreme regime in Pakistan.
How viable and wise, however, is
the US position? Ignoring the Kashmir dispute certainly risks undercutting
Washington's relations with India - the key hegemonic power on the sub-continent
and a state that already views Bush's war on terrorism as one specifically
geared toward narrow American strategic and national interests. As several
intelligence analysts remarked to these two authors, "Why does the US continually
ask us about Pakistan's involvement with terrorism and yet never do anything
about it?"
Arguably of more importance is the
danger of allowing the emergence of a new "hotbed" of pan-Islamic extremism
for the sake of short term expediencies. It should be remembered that the
groups at the apex of the conflict in Kashmir - the LeT and the JeM - have
always articulated their objectives in a wider transnational context, with
the rhetorical enemy defined as any state that is perceived to be at odds
with their own idiosyncratic Wahhabist- based ideological interpretation
of the world. More to the point, both of these organizations are known
to have forged tactical and personal linkages with al-Qaeda and may now
be moving to facilitate the logistical relocation of Osama bin Laden's
forces, post- Taliban. Securing a stable, moderate and functional state
in Pakistan will be key not only to stabilizing Afghanistan, India and
the general Southwest Asian region but, more intrinsically, to mitigating
the export of the type of unrestrained extremism that culminated in the
September 11 tragedy.
There are also ethical reasons as
to why the United States should make every effort to rehabilitate and "de-jihadize"
Pakistan. It is often forgotten that many of the country's current internal
security problems and seeming dependence on Islamist manpower stem from
America's own policy of exhorting and propagating the international anti-Soviet
mujahideen campaign in Afghanistan. When Washington departed from the region
in 1989, it left a vast underground network for the trafficking of drugs
and arms - which have created huge law and order problems for successive
governments in Islamabad - as well as an extremely sophisticated militant
training infrastructure that has been effectively mobilized for the proxy
war in Kashmir.
Rehabilitating Pakistan is, thus,
not only a question of national security, it is also morally incumbent
given the US's close association with fostering instability in this part
of Asia. Perhaps the most viable ally the Bush administration has in furthering
this effort is the Pakistani population itself, which overwhelmingly supports
a return to the moderate path envisioned by the republic's founder, Mohammed
Ali Jinnah.
It is essential that the US take
these considerations into account in the current formulation of its policy
toward Musharraf. Not doing so is to risk the emergence of a terrorist
operational environment in Pakistan's remote northern regions that could
prove every bit as threatening as the Afghan conduit that preceded it.
(Peter Chalk, senior political analyst,
Rand Corporation and Chris Fair, associate political scientist, Rand Corporation)
