Make no mistake: Pakistan is fighting for its life. The hegemon werewolf is screaming at our front door, the terrorist jackal snarling at the back. How did we get into such a predicament?
We have been walking a tightrope with neither the pole of foresight nor the protective net of wisdom, trying to balance the lies and hypocrisy of our ‘historic’ ally. If we were to fall off, no net will appear from somewhere. We have to make the net. What are the chances that we will? Somewhere between zero and zilch given the quality of our quarrelling political leadership. As an incorrigible optimist, I believe that failure could lead to good. But we must reap the whirlwind first. Otherwise, we will learn nothing.
America has no choice but to be tied to Pakistan in an alliance of necessity – America needs Pakistan for its supply routes and to get its chestnuts out of the Afghan fire. So it keeps Pakistan on board with economic and military ‘aid’, which should now be renamed ‘raid’. Pakistan also has a severe terrorism problem that must be addressed before there is any chance of peace, stability and progress.
America’s real intentions in occupying Afghanistan are:
1. Not to bring Osama bin Laden to ‘justice’ but to take control of its strategic gas pipeline routes, its location and its much-vaunted mineral reserves. 9/11 provided just such an excuse. Mullah Omar’s suicidal intransigence helped. Osama’s purported cold-blooded murder in Abbottabad was not justice. It was revenge: the killing of a non-state terrorist by his creator the state terrorist. Should we now rename the city ‘Obamabad’, from the old imperialist to the new?
2. Maintain listening posts there to cover China, Russia, South Asia, Iran and the Central Asian Republics.
3. Use it as a military and rapid force deployment base.
America’s real intentions in Pakistan are:
1. Defang Pakistan’s nuclear assets so that:
a. No Muslim country is nuclear capable – do I hear you screaming “Muslim paranoia”?
b. Remove any threat of their falling into the ‘wrong hands’.
c. Weaken the growing China bloc.
2. Don’t completely end terrorism; keep enough going to:
a. Justify Permanent Occupation of Afghanistan.
b. Justify Permanent Interference in Pakistan.
c. Keep Pakistan in Permanent Dependence so that it will do America’s bidding.
Now, that they have killed Osama as they claim, will they leave? Not a chance. They will never leave Afghanistan if they can help it. All they will want is to take some of their troops from harm’s way, leaving NATO and some Muslim armies to do the dirty policing for them. Now it’s Mullah Omar. Next it will be Zawahiri.
The criminally manufactured ‘justification’ for the occupation of Iraq proves the point. Why don’t they declare Pax Americana and be done with it? James Caroll says in the IHT. “America’s war on terrorism, up to and including its climactic assault on the Bin Laden compound, has lain bare this superpower double-standard. Washington is simply above the law”.
America has floated two lies about Pakistan:
1. It runs with the hare and hunts with the hound to keep America stuck in Afghanistan and dependent on Pakistan in return for economic and military benefits. Even the demented should see that Pakistan’s best bet is to facilitate America’s departure from Afghanistan because as long as we keep control of our nuclear assets benefits will keep coming to us anyway – but just enough to give us the strength to pick our daily quota of cotton.
2. We might start an accidental nuclear war with India. Balderdash. Our weapons and India’s aren’t deployed, ‘mated’ with delivery systems. Thus, there can be no accident. America’s and Russia’s on the other hand are fully deployed, on hair-trigger alert, ready to go in seconds. That is where the danger of an accidental nuclear war really lies, and there have been many near misses.
Our real problem is our many internal contradictions that will soon make nonsense of any redefinition of our ‘alliance’ with America.
1. The civilian government and the military are not on the same page.
2. The president and prime minister are not on the same page.
3. The three branches of government – legislature, executive and judiciary – are spinning in their own independent orbits without reference to the other, as if they were working in different countries. And, most deadly,
4. The people and the government are not on the same page. They want to have no truck with America and would rather do without American ‘aid’.
The Abbottabad raid was a game changer. America has placed the following choices before us:
1. Do exactly what we say, including and especially:
a. Finish all terrorists and their sanctuaries, especially the Haqqani Network.
b. Allow America all the personnel and logistics and intelligence support that it demands.
c. Accept all IMF conditions (excluding sexually assaulting chambermaids).
d. Forget India’s role in Afghanistan.
e. Forget Kashmir.
f. Distance yourself from China.
2. If you don’t, we will do it ourselves with or without reference to you. This will include:
a. Parachute US troops into Pakistan to ‘protect’ its nuclear missile installations – an obvious US administration leak to London’s Express says. ‘Protect’ or ‘occupy’? I always wondered what trick they would find to take over our nuclear assets. Take control of the delivery and you castrate the bombs. Let them try. Let them just. This is crass psychological warfare, as is Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul’s ‘fear’ that America will ‘occupy’ Pakistan.
b. Bomb all those places that we consider terrorist sanctuaries.
c. Withhold funding; including Pakistan’s own money like the Coalition Support Fund, to bend you to our will.
3. Balkanise you, if necessary.
The choice is yours.
It is our civilian government that is in danger of bending. Time our politicians and media stopped telling lies. Time to behave like Muslims, my dear ‘representatives of the people’ – you ‘men’ without vision in Gucci glasses, ‘women’ carrying Birkin bags in one hand, begging bowl in the other.
The writer is a political analyst. He can be contacted at humayun.gauhar786@gmail.com