Author: Brahma Chellaney
Publication: The Hindu
Date: May 6, 2011
URL: http://www.hindu.com/2011/05/06/stories/2011050654561200.htm
A fundamental shift in the failed U.S. policy
approach that has inadvertently turned Pakistan into Ground Zero for global
terrorism seems unlikely despite the bin Laden affair.
For the United States, Pakistan poses a particularly
difficult challenge. Despite providing more than $20 billion to Pakistan in
counterterrorism and other aid since 9/11, the U.S. has received grudging
assistance, at best, and duplicitous cooperation, at worst. Today, amid a
rising tide of anti-Americanism, U.S. policy on Pakistan is rapidly crumbling.
Yet Pakistan, with one of the world's lowest tax-to-GDP ratios, has become
more dependent on U.S. aid than ever.
While Americans rejoice over the daring helicopter
assault that killed Osama bin Laden in his hideout in Abbottabad - the cradle
of the Pakistan army - U.S. policy must recognise how its failed approach
on Pakistan has inadvertently made that country Ground Zero for global terrorism.
Rather than helping to build robust civilian institutions there, the U.S.
has invested heavily in the jihadist-penetrated Pakistani military establishment.
After dictator Pervez Musharraf was driven out of office, the new Pakistani
civilian government ordered the ISI - the only spy agency in the world charged
with sponsoring international terrorism - to report to the Interior Ministry,
but received no support from the U.S. for this effort to assert civilian control,
allowing the army to quickly frustrate the move.
No sooner had U.S. President Barack Obama
assumed office than he implemented a military surge in Afghanistan. In Pakistan,
however, he implemented an aid surge, turning it into the largest recipient
of American aid. This only deepened U.S. involvement in the wrong war and
emboldened Pakistan to fatten the Afghan Taliban, even as sustained U.S. drone
and other attacks in Waziristan continued to severely weaken the already-fragmented
al- Qaeda.
Make no mistake: the scourge of Pakistani
terrorism emanates more from the country's Scotch whisky-sipping generals
than from the bead-rubbing mullahs. It is the self-styled secular generals
who have reared the forces of jihad. Yet, by passing the blame for their ongoing
terrorist-proxy policy to their mullah puppets, the generals made many in
the U.S. believe that the key was to contain the religious fringe, not the
puppeteers. In fact, Pakistan's descent into a jihadist dungeon occurred not
under civilian rule, but under two military dictators - Zia ul-Haq who nurtured
and let loose jihadist forces, and Gen. Musharraf who took his country to
the very edge of the precipice.
The bin Laden affair spotlights a fundamental
reality - the fight against international terrorism cannot be won without
demilitarising and de-radicalising Pakistan, including rebalancing civil-military
relations there. Without reform of the Pakistani army and the ISI, there can
be no end to transnational terrorism - and no genuine nation-building in Pakistan.
How can Pakistan be a "normal" state if its army and intelligence
agency remain outside civilian oversight and decisive power remains with military
generals?
According to classified U.S. diplomatic cables
released by WikiLeaks, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari told U.S. Vice
President Joe Biden of his fear that the Pakistani military might "take
me out." And the United Arab Emirates' Foreign Minister told U.S. special
envoy Richard C. Holbrooke in early 2010 that Mr. Zardari had asked "that
his family be allowed to live in the UAE in the event of his death."
In such a deviant setting, the risks that jihadists within the military could
gain control of Pakistan's arsenal of nuclear and biological weapons are real.
History attests that decisive opportunities
rarely repeat themselves. The U.S. let go of one historic opportunity to help
bring the ISI under civilian oversight in July 2008 when, in the aftermath
of a dictator's ouster by people's power, it did not back the new government's
decision. Now, with the military establishment's complicity in sheltering
bin Laden laid bare, the U.S. has a chance to force reforms on the defensive
Pakistani generals by holding out the threat of punitive sanctions and stepped-up
drone strikes.
Yet it is very likely the U.S. will miss this
opportunity too. After all, what is logical may not be practical at the altar
of political expediency.
The U.S. has long been aware of Pakistan's
Janus-faced approach to fighting terrorism, and the discovery of bin Laden's
years-long residence in the shadow of Pakistan's premier military academy
has given Washington fresh evidence of Pakistani duplicity and aroused its
anger but without affecting the fundamentals of U.S. policy. That the U.S.
has little trust in the Pakistani army and the ISI became evident when it
deployed a number of CIA operatives, Special Operations forces and contractors
deep inside Pakistan without the knowledge of Pakistani authorities - a deployment
that triggered the showdown over Raymond Davis but helped open the trail to
bin Laden. Indeed, in a damning statement, the CIA director said the Pakistanis
were given no advance knowledge of the raid because they might have tipped
bin Laden off.
Washington has enough evidence of the terrorist
infrastructure in Pakistan and the cosy relationship between state and non-state
actors there. The problem is that the U.S. policy continues to be driven by
short-term regional interests, in which Pakistan remains central to facilitating
a U.S. military exit from Afghanistan, shaping the post-2014 Afghan political
landscape, and aiding the U.S. squeeze of Iran. In fact, Mr. Obama's narrowing
of the Afghan war goals has made the U.S. only more dependent on Pakistan.
By moving away from the Bush-era counterinsurgency
strategy toward limited objectives centred on political reconciliation with
the Afghan Taliban and ending all combat operations by 2014, Mr. Obama now
needs the Pakistani generals to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.
After all, these generals provide a haven to the top Afghan Taliban leadership,
besides allowing Taliban fighters to use Pakistan as a sanctuary from which
to launch cross-border attacks. A face-saving U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan
is simply inconceivable without Pakistani cooperation.
After bin Laden's elimination, pressure is
already growing on the U.S. and its Nato allies for a quicker withdrawal of
troops from Afghanistan, making the Pakistani generals an even more critical
factor in facilitating America's reconciling with the Taliban. Although the
Taliban was ISI procreation, its birth in the early 1990s was midwifed by
the CIA. This is the reason why Washington fervently believes reconciliation
with an estranged ex-ally is possible. And this is also the reason why - despite
its main foe on the Afghan battlefield being the Taliban, not the al-Qaeda
- the U.S. military never attempted to wipe out the Quetta shura, eschewing
any drone or commando strikes to decapitate the Afghan Taliban.
Significantly, just two-and-a-half months
ago, the U.S. publicly eased its terms for reconciliation with the Taliban
shura, dropping three key preconditions - renounce violence, embrace the Afghan
Constitution, and snap links with the al-Qaeda. What were preconditions were
turned into "necessary outcomes of any negotiation." The U.S. National
Security Council then formally endorsed the new reconciliation strategy, which
offers the Taliban power sharing in Afghanistan. No less significant is that
America's new Af-Pak envoy, Marc Grossman - despite the U.S. outrage over
the bin Laden affair - travelled to Islamabad this week and reached agreement
to set up a U.S.-Pakistani-Afghan "core group for promoting and facilitating
the process of reconciliation and peace in Afghanistan."
Mr. Obama actually believes that bin Laden's
killing serves as a potential catalyst to soften the Pakistani generals and
the Taliban shura so as to clinch a peace deal, besides providing an opportunity
to quickly conclude a post-2014 Permanent U.S. Bases Agreement with Afghan
President Hamid Karzai. Mr. Obama indeed is set to announce a substantial
reduction in U.S. forces starting this summer.
In this light, far from unravelling the remaining
threads in the strained U.S.-Pakistan relationship, the bin Laden affair is
likely to prove a temporary setback, even if a serious one. Some heads in
the Pakistani military establishment may roll to placate Washington, with
the blame being conveniently put (as in the past) on rogue elements within
what itself is a rogue agency - the ISI. Washington may brandish new sticks,
but carrots would still weigh more, with U.S. policy doling out further multibillion-dollar
awards to Islamabad. British Prime Minister David Cameron has candidly said
that it is "in our national interest" not to have "a flaming
great row with Pakistan over this" but rather to "engage with Pakistan."
And Mr. Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser has pledged that Pakistan will
remain a critical partner in the U.S. counterterrorism strategy.
Narrow geopolitical interests thus are likely
to trump the imperative for externally supported Pakistani reforms to help
cut the ISI down to size, loosen the military's vice-like grip on power, rein
in militant Islamist groups, and build a moderate, stable Pakistan.
(Brahma Chellaney is the author of Asian Juggernaut
(Harper Paperbacks, New York) and Water: Asia's New Battlefield (Georgetown
University Press, forthcoming).
