Politicians keep springing surprises, though unpleasant they always are. The case of the land grabber legislator who ran away from police custody and the convoluted twists and turns that the leader of the opposition tried to give to a simple case of his children holding US passports had hardly faded from memory that one hears about the initiation of proceedings to declare PML(N) Senator and Punjab government spokesperson Pervaiz Rasheed a proclaimed offender by a banking court in Lahore. The ruling came in a case of default on a loan filed by Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited from the Senator and six others who have till October 22 to appear before the court or face the daunting prospect of being declared proclaimed offenders.
The fact that the accused stalwart belongs to a party that never tires of claiming the high moral ground, it presents a sad spectacle. The expectation that the gentleman would not only cling to his position as senator, but misuse his authority to pave a way out makes a humiliating prospect. But such is the mettle that the traditional political mafias are made of. That’s why Pakistan finds itself confronting a crisis of immense proportions at the hands of the US.
Addressing the Senate Armed Services Committee, the American military chief Admiral Mullen accused the ISI of having used its “veritable arm” (the Haqqani network) for launching an attack on the US embassy in Kabul while Secretary Defence Panetta threatened Pakistan with “operational steps”. He said, “In choosing to use violent extremism as an instrument of policy, the government of Pakistan, and most especially the Pakistani army and the ISI, jeopardise not only the prospect of our strategic partnership, but Pakistan’s opportunity to be a respected nation with legitimate, regional influence. They may believe that by using these proxies, they are hedging their bets, or redressing what they feel is an imbalance in regional power. But, in reality, they have already lost that bet”.
Chilling words, indeed! This came at the culmination of weeks of intense pressure exerted on Pakistan urging it to launch an operation to liquidate the Haqqani sanctuaries. The Pakistan military has consistently denied the allegations as unfounded and has refused to be drawn into opening another deadly front in North Waziristan for its already over-stretched forces fighting its own people on behalf of an ally that, even in the best of times, has proved to be unreliable and undependable.
The US blues emanate from pursuing a policy of establishing hegemony across the globe using its brute fire power and an overblown perception of threat that it faces. They constitute the two extremes of a self-defeating approach that has not worked in the past, and is not going to work now. In the process, the US has been guilty of all the crimes that it blames others for. For one, it accuses Pakistan of having lost ‘credibility’ while this stigma sticks the US more than it would stick anywhere else. No one has yet forgotten the US Secretary of State making a solemn presentation before the UN accusing Iraq of possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) – a stance that led it to wantonly attack another sovereign country in quest of promoting its criminal international agenda. No WMDs were ever found.
Post-9/11 witnessed an attack on Afghanistan to flush out possible threats to the US security, but it has led to an occupation that has been brutal and inhuman. Pakistan was forced to embrace the US war as its war, unleashing a deadly confrontation with its own people. With the sitting dictator running out of steam, the US needed a servile government in Pakistan that would continue collaborating for promoting its sinful designs. That’s when it crafted the NRO, paving the way for turning the country into a client state serving its agenda.
Mullen’s and Panetta’s depositions are a virtual declaration of war on Pakistan’s military and the ISI. I am not including the government because I believe that it is virtually complicit with the US in its designs to weaken the only surviving institution that is resisting its claim to assuming unbridled control in the country. As I wrote some time ago, the military needs to walk out of the long shadow of having contributed to the induction of the incumbent criminal mafia. It is a battle of wits: in cahoots with the US, the political leadership would like the military to remain engaged in encounters that are self-defeating in the short run and may well bring about Pakistan’s ruination in the long run. With no stakes in the country – their properties are abroad, their businesses are flourishing outside Pakistan, they and their children have non-Pakistani passports – they have no interest whether Pakistan stays or perishes.
With a political leadership that neither has the character nor the will to face the US onslaught, it is the military and the ISI that stand exposed to incessant US attacks that have intensified to a point of open declaration of war against these institutions. The spectre of complicity looming large at the highest level, will the judiciary and the military just sit back and watch helplessly the unravelling of the doom’s day that many have been predicting? The writing is there for all to see: the incumbent political leadership encompassing those waiting in the wings for their turn and the state can no longer survive together!
The writer is a political analyst and a member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. He can be reached at raoofhasan@hotmail.com