December’s B-Side
December’s B-side is the final B-side of 2009 and is noteworthy for three reasons. First, it marks the first year of B-side posts published on Other Pakistan and as so is time to take stock of the year and the key issues that Pakistan has faced in the year. Such reflection is the need of the hour and can be done by a re-read of the B-side posts as shown here.
Secondly December’s B-side post is special in that this December, four articles are analysed instead of the normal trio of three. Thirdly the authors of the articles are household names for many a reason and include both the former and current President of Pakistan. December’s B-side contents include:
- How To Mend Fences With Pakistan by ASIF ALI ZARDARI
- The Afghanistan-Pakistan Solution by PERVEZ MUSHARRAF
- A Troop Surge Can Only Magnify The Crime Against Afghanistan by MALALAI JOYA
- Kissinger’s Fantasy is Obama’s Reality by PANKAJ MISHRA
The first article is written by the current President of Pakistan and is a must read especially for the critics of the man that is Asif Ali Zardari.
How To Mend Fences With Pakistan by Asif Ali Zardari
NOW that President Obama has recommitted the United States to stand with Pakistan and Afghanistan in our common fight against terrorism, extremism and fanaticism, it would be useful for Americans and Pakistanis to consider what has brought us to this point — and what the conflict’s true endgame must be.
Despite the noise created by an often hyperactive press in Pakistan (an essential and preferable alternative to the censorship that prevailed during my country’s military dictatorships), and the doubts expressed in America, Pakistan’s democratically elected government is unambiguously on the right path toward establishing a moderate and modern nation.
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and I are working closely with our national assembly and our military and intelligence agencies to defeat the Taliban insurgency and the Qaeda-backed campaign of terrorism. Simultaneously, we are pursuing policies that will re-establish Pakistan as a vibrant economic market and finally address the long-neglected weaknesses in our education, health, agriculture and energy sectors. This isn’t just rhetoric — it is an active policy with new budget priorities and a reoriented national mindset.
Over the last weeks I have moved forcefully to re-establish the traditional powers of the presidency as defined in the parliamentary model on which our Constitution is based. Our Constitution was distorted and perverted by military dictators who usurped the legal powers of Parliament. In accordance with the manifesto of the Pakistan Peoples Party, I am working toward strengthening the separation of powers of the presidency from those of the prime minister. Recently, I voluntarily handed back the chairmanship of the National Command Authority that exercises control over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Contrary to some of the commentary on the subject, this is not a sign of weakness, but rather a demonstration of the vitality of Pakistani democracy.
As President Obama has noted, Pakistan’s military has courageously executed important actions in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan against terrorists who threaten all of us. Pakistan has paid an enormous price in blood and treasure. But this is a price we are willing to pay. Every day across our land, cowards distort our religion of peace, Islam, by slaughtering innocent people. Three thousand civilians, including my wife, Benazir Bhutto, and 2,000 soldiers and police officers have been killed in the last eight years. Just last week 40 people died in a mosque while at Friday prayers, including 10 children. This is our war as well as America’s.
Yet in both countries there is deep suspicion toward the other. Many Americans still wonder, despite our sacrifices, if Pakistan is doing all it can to fight terrorism. Some resent what they believe is an absence of gratitude in Pakistan for American aid. But consider the history as seen by Pakistanis.
Twice in recent history America abandoned its democratic values to support dictators and manipulate and exploit us. In the 1980s, the United States supported Gen. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq’s iron rule against the Pakistani people while using Pakistan as a surrogate in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. That decade turned our peaceful nation into a “Kalashnikov and heroin” society — a nation defined by guns and drugs. In its fight against the Soviets, the United States, as a matter of policy, supported the most radical elements within the mujahedeen, who would later become the Taliban and Al Qaeda. When the Soviets were defeated and left in 1989, the United States abandoned Pakistan and created a vacuum in Afghanistan, resulting in the current horror.
And then after 9/11, the United States closed its eyes to the abuses of the dictatorship of President Pervez Musharraf, providing support to the regime while doing little to help with social needs or encourage the restoration of democracy. For Pakistanis, it is a bitter memory.
Public mistrust of the United States also stems from regional issues, specifically policies concerning India. I know it is the conventional wisdom in Washington that my nation is obsessed with India. But even to those of us who are striving toward accommodation and peace, the long history and the unresolved situation in Kashmir give Pakistanis reason to be concerned about our neighbor to the east. Just as the Israeli-Palestinian dispute cannot be resolved without accommodating the Palestinian people, there cannot be permanent regional peace in South Asia without addressing Kashmir.
The recent upset in Pakistan over the Kerry-Lugar legislation, which President Obama signed into law and which requires the secretary of state to report to Congress on military and civil progress in Pakistan, shows how sensitive many here are to what they see as unfair treatment by the United States. It would be helpful if the United States, at some point, would scrutinize India in a similar fashion and acknowledge that it has from time to time played a destabilizing role in the region.
The perceived rhetorical one-sidedness of American policy often fuels the conspiracy theories that abound here — theories that blame the West for all of our ills. Pakistan’s elected democratic leadership is itself a victim of some of these conspiracy theories, but our American partners must understand their origins and work with us to turn public opinion around.
Although we certainly appreciate America’s $7.5 billion pledge over the next five years for nonmilitary projects in Pakistan, this long-term commitment must be complemented by short-term policies that demonstrate American neutrality and willingness to help India and Pakistan overcome their mutual distrust. It could start by stepping up its efforts to mediate the Kashmir dispute.
In recent days, I have thought often of something my wife, Benazir, wrote in the days before her death: “It is so much easier to blame others for our problems than to accept responsibility ourselves.” Benazir added that conspiracy theories and “toxic rhetoric” were “an opiate that keeps Muslims angry against external enemies and allows them to pay little attention to the internal causes of intellectual and economic decline.”
The free world stands with President Obama in the effort to defeat the extremism that threatens us all. Pakistanis are on the frontlines in this battle.
But we need help. We need the support of our allies in war but also to help build a new Pakistan that promises a meaningful future to our children. We are not looking for — and indeed reject — dependency. We don’t need or want (nor would we accept) foreign troops to defeat the insurgency, and we seek trade more than aid from you in the future. It is an economically viable and socially robust democratic Pakistan that will be the most effective long-term weapon against terrorism, extremism and fanaticism. This is the necessary endgame. And this is how history will judge victory.
Published in The New York Times
WASIM VIEW- Asif Ali Zardari is the current President of Pakistan and like his predecessor is no favourite of mine. However Zardari has pleasantly surprised me in this article in his honest appraisal of Pakistan-US relations over recent decades.
For once, Zardari has presented the Pakistani position with conviction as evidenced by the tenor of the following sentence in his article ‘twice in recent history America abandoned its democratic values to support dictators and manipulate and exploit us’. Zardari mindful of the might of the dollar does of course engage in serenading Sam and his Uncle at times yet delivers many a knockout blow and a harsh truth in this surprisingly impressive article.
Zardari’s article hits a sixer when he refers to Indian evil and tackles head-on the lie of the so-called American conventional wisdom that Pakistan is obsessed with India. Zardari is right and honest in highlighting India’s destabilising role in the region and in reminding America that peace in the region can only arrive when the Kashmir issue is resolved and even asks for US mediation!
On the negative side. Zardari does deliver a cheap shot when he refers to the ‘noise created by an often hyperactive press in Pakistan’ at the start of his article. Such public criticism of the Pakistani press in an article for the foreign media is unbecoming of the office he holds and shows him to be a small man as such trivial issues are not discussed in articles in the foreign media by heads of state.
The second article is written by the war criminal and usurper Pardes Pervez Musharraf. Pardes because the commando general who was so bold and brave is now reduced to only a paper tiger with little bite for he now hides in London after destroying Pakistan yet he has the cheek to offer the pearls of wisdom in the article below:
The Afghanistan-Pakistan Solution by Pervez Musharraf
My recent trip to the United States has been an enriching experience, during which I had a very healthy discourse with the American public and an opportunity to understand their concerns about the war in Afghanistan. One question I was asked almost everywhere I went was, “How can we stop losing?”
The answer is a political surge, in conjunction with the additional troops requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Quitting is not an option.
A military solution alone cannot guarantee success. Armies can only win sometimes, and at best, create an environment for the political process to work. At the end of the day, it is civilians, not soldiers, who have to take charge of their country.
After decades of civil war and anarchy, the Taliban established control over 95% of Afghanistan in 1996. Unfortunately, the Taliban imposed their strict interpretation of Islam on the country. Nevertheless, I proposed to recognize the Taliban regime, in the hope of transforming them from within. Had my strategy been enacted, we might have persuaded the Taliban to deny a safe haven to al Qaeda and avoided the tragic 9/11 attacks.
Another golden opportunity to rescue the Afghan people emerged after the United Nations sanctioned international military operation launched after 9/11. Having liberated Afghanistan from the tyranny of al Qaeda and Taliban, the U.S. had the unequivocal support of the majority of Afghans. The establishment of a truly representative national government which gave proportional representation to all ethnic groups—including the majority Pashtuns—would have brought peace to Afghanistan and ousted al Qaeda once and for all. Unfortunately this did not happen.
The political instability and ethnic imbalance in Afghanistan after 9/11 marginalized the majority Pashtuns and pushed them into the Taliban fold, even though they were not ideological supporters of the Taliban. The blunder of inducting 80,000 troops of Tajiks into the Afghan national army further alienated the Pashtuns.
Meanwhile, Pakistan forcefully tackled the influx of al Qaeda into our tribal areas, capturing over 600 al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban leaders, some of them of very high value. We established 1,000 border checkposts and even offered to mine or fence off the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but this never came to pass. The Afghan government, led by President Hamid Karzai, had no writ outside of Kabul, and the insufficient ground troops of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) allowed the Taliban to regroup. The 2004 invasion of Iraq shifted the focus and also contributed to the Taliban gaining ground in Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda terrorists who fled from Afghanistan came to Pakistan and settled initially in South Waziristan. Through successful intelligence and law-enforcement operations, we eliminated al Qaeda from our cities and destroyed their command, communication and propaganda centers. They fled to the adjoining North Waziristan, Bajur and Swat regions.
From 2004 onwards, we witnessed a gradual shift in the terrorist center of gravity. The Taliban started to re-emerge in Afghanistan and gradually gained a dominant role. They developed ties with the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas, especially in North and South Waziristan. With a grand strategy to destabilize the whole region, the Taliban and al Qaeda established links with extremists in Pakistani society on the one hand and with Muslim fundamentalists in India on the other. They pose a grave threat to South Asia and peace in the world.
We now have to deal with a complex situation. Casualties suffered by our soldiers in the line of duty will not go wasted only if we are able to fully secure our next generations from the menace of terrorism. The exit strategy from Afghanistan must not and cannot be time related. It has to ask, “What effect do we want to create on the ground?” We must eliminate al Qaeda, dominate the Taliban militarily, and establish a representative, legitimate government in Afghanistan.
The military must ensure that we deal with insurgents from a position of strength. The dwindling number of al Qaeda elements must be totally eliminated, and the Taliban have to be dominated militarily. We must strengthen border-control measures with all possible means to isolate the militants on the Afghanistan and Pakistan sides.
The Pakistan military must continue to act strongly. Operationally, we must raise substantially more forces from within the tribal groups and equip them with more tanks and guns. On the Afghan side, the U.S. and ISAF troops must be reinforced. All of this must be done in combination with raising additional Afghan National Army troops, with significant Pashtun representation. Exploiting tribal divisions, we should also raise local militias.
On the political front, we need an invigorated dialogue with all groups in Afghanistan, including the Taliban. Afghanistan for centuries has been governed loosely through a social covenant between all the ethnic groups, under a sovereign king. This structure is needed again to bring peace and harmony. We have to reach out to Pashtun tribes and others who do not ideologically align themselves with the Taliban or al Qaeda. I have always said that “all Talibans are Pashtun, but all Pashtuns are not Taliban.” Pakistan and Saudi Arabia can play pivotal roles in facilitating this outreach.
Pakistan and Afghanistan were shortsightedly abandoned to their fate by the West in 1989, in spite of the fact that they were the ones who won a victory for the Free World against the Soviet Union. This abandonment lead to a sense of betrayal amongst the people of the region. For the sake of regional and world peace, let us not repeat the same mistake.
Published in The Wall Street Journal
WASIM VIEW- The author of the article is not and will never be on my Christmas card list, just like the present President of Pakistan. General Musharraf is a usurper and a war criminal who has destroyed Pakistan and her institutions and this must be stated at the outset.
The Musharraf article can be best summarised as a wasted endeavor of a fallen and a failed general imparting war advice to a failing US army in Afghanistan. Worse the article offers and promises more ignominy for Pakistan with Musharraf favouring the US surge that will adversely affect Pakistan not least Balochistan. That said what can one expect from Musharraf for he is the author of Pakistan’s present position which is close to a living hell. The land of the pure is burning from Bajaur to Bolan thanks to the decisions of one Pervez Musharraf.
In terms of the article I nearly fell of my chair when I read that ‘armies can only win sometimes, and at best, create an environment for the political process to work. At the end of the day, it is civilians, not soldiers, who have to take charge of their country’. Coming from a usurper who took over Pakistan armed with a gun its shocking to see Musharraf’s respect for the political process, how cute! Furthermore it is a shame the commando general never actioned his own advice when he was in office not least in dealing with Nawab Akbar Bugti via the political process as he now advocates, for that death has sowed the seeds of discontent in Balochistan.
The rest of the Musharraf article concentrates on the past, present and future of Afghanistan as seen by the commando general and much of it is an exercise in futility. Most notable is Musharraf’s desire to reach out to the Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan, on that I can agree and not much else.
The third article is writen by an Afghan heroine covered in August’s B-side shown here- it is the one and only Malalai Joya. In the article Joya rubbishes President Obama’s new US policy in Afghanistan with her words worth their weight in gold for Joya represents the authentic and true voice of Afghanistan.
A Troop Surge Can Only Magnify The Crime Against Afghanistan by Malalai Joya
After months of waiting, President Obama is about to announce the new US strategy for Afghanistan. His speech may be long awaited, but few are expecting any surprise: it seems clear he will herald a major escalation of the war. In doing so he will be making something worse than a mistake. It is a continuation of a war crime against the suffering people of my country.
I have said before that by installing warlords and drug traffickers in power in Kabul, the US and Nato have pushed us from the frying pan to the fire. Now Obama is pouring fuel on these flames, and this week’s announcement of upwards of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan will have tragic consequences.
Already this year we have seen the impact of an increase in troops occupying Afghanistan: more violence, and more civilian deaths. My people, the poor of Afghanistan who have known only war and the domination of fundamentalism, are today squashed between two enemies: the US/Nato occupation forces on one hand and warlords and the Taliban on the other.
While we want the withdrawal of one enemy, we don’t believe it is a matter of choosing between two evils. There is an alternative: the democratic-minded parties and intellectuals are our hope for the future of Afghanistan.
It will not be easy, but if we have a little bit of peace we will be better able to fight our own internal enemies – Afghans know what to do with our destiny. We are not a backward people, and we are capable of fighting for democracy, human and women’s rights in Afghanistan. In fact the only way these values will be achieved is if we struggle for them and win them ourselves.
After eight years of war, the situation is as bad as ever for ordinary Afghans, and women in particular. The reality is that only the drug traffickers and warlords have been helped under this corrupt and illegitimate Karzai government. Karzai’s promises of reform are laughable. His own vice-president is the notorious warlord Fahim, whom Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch describes as “one of the most notorious warlords in the country, with the blood of many Afghans on his hands”.
Transparency International reports that this regime is the second most corrupt in the world. The UN Development Programme reports Afghanistan is second last – 181st out of 182 countries – in terms of human development. That is why we no longer want this kind of “help” from the west.
Like many around the world, I am wondering what kind of “peace” prize can be awarded to a leader who continues the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and starts a new war in Pakistan, all while supporting Israel?
Throughout my recent tour of the US, I had the chance to meet many military families and veterans who are working to put an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They understand that it is not a case of a “bad war” and a “good war” – there is no difference, war is war.
Members of Iraq Veterans Against War even accompanied me to meet members of Congress in Washington DC. Together we tried to explain the terrible human cost of this war, in terms of Afghan, US and Nato lives. Unfortunately, only a few representatives really offered their support to our struggle for peace.
While the government was not responsive, the people of the US did offer me their support. And polls confirm that the US public wants peace, not an escalated war. Many also want Obama to hold Bush and his administration to account for war crimes. Everywhere I spoke, people responded strongly when I said that if Obama really wanted peace he would first of all try to prosecute Bush and have him tried before the international criminal court. Replacing Bush’s man in the Pentagon, Robert Gates, would have been a good start – but Obama chose not to.
Unfortunately, the UK government shamefully follows the path of the US in Afghanistan. Even though opinion polls show that more than 70% of the population is against the war, Gordon Brown has announced the deployment of more UK troops. It is sad that more taxpayers’ money will be wasted on this war, while Britain’s poor continue to suffer from a lack of basic services.
The UK government has also tried to silence dissent, for instance by arresting Joe Glenton, a British soldier who has refused to return to Afghanistan. I had a chance to meet Glenton when I was in London last summer, and together we spoke out against the war. My message to him is that, in times of great injustice, it is sometimes better to go to jail than be part of committing war crimes.
Facing a difficult choice, Glenton made a courageous decision, while Obama and Brown have chosen to follow the Bush administration. Instead of hope and change, in foreign policy Obama is delivering more of the same. But I still have hope because, as our history teaches, the people of Afghanistan will never accept occupation.
Published in The Guardian
WASIM VIEW- ‘It is a continuation of a war crime against the suffering people of my country’ is the signature sentence of the Malalai Joya article and it refers to her reaction to President Obama’s troop surge.
What is important about Joya’s article is that its written by an Afghan woman, a daughter of the Afghan soil who knows her country inside out and so when she writes that ‘by installing warlords and drug traffickers in power in Kabul, the US and Nato have pushed us from the frying pan to the fire’, such words are not mere rhetoric but the harsh truth. Joya is right in declaring that Obama’s troop surge will amount to pouring fuel on those flames and is right too in ‘wondering what kind of “peace” prize can be awarded to a leader who continues the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and starts a new war in Pakistan, all while supporting Israel?’
Joya finishes her article with a truth some may say with a warning that ‘instead of hope and change, in foreign policy Obama is delivering more of the same. But I still have hope because, as our history teaches, the people of Afghanistan will never accept occupation’. I echo the sentiments of Joya and recall the fact that Afghanistan remains the graveyard of empires, let the American empire be warned.
The final article is written by an Indian author and is a must read for it is written with an independent mind and concludes that the celebrity President Obama will fail in Afghanistan unless and until he focuses effort on resolving the Kashmir issue.
Kissinger’s Fantasy is Obama’s Reality by Pankaj Mishra
Meeting George Bush at the White House to discuss Afghanistan, the Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid once marvelled at how a “US president could live in such an unreal world, where the entire military and intelligence establishments were so gullible, the media so complacent, Congress so unquestioning – all of them involved in feeding half-truths to the American public”.
The masters of war and delusion are still flourishing. Widening his campaign of extrajudicial execution by drone missiles within Pakistan, Barack Obama seems far from abandoning an anachronistic American faith in superior firepower; the militarism of our new Nobel peace laureate seems constrained only by its steep financial costs.
Unabashed about their cheerleading in Iraq, many mainstream American journalists and columnists continue to resemble court scriveners of the kind the Mughal emperors employed: “intense”, “methodical” and “rigorous” were some of the adjectives used to describe Obama’s protracted decision-making on Afghanistan. As for the decision itself, Fareed Zakaria, fresh from a “small lunch” with the president at the White House, expressed the new liberal-hawk consensus when he exulted: “Obama is a realist by temperament, learning, and instinct.”
Actually, Obama’s idea of sending 30,000 more soldiers to help subdue the Taliban, reinforce the corrupt regime in Kabul, and assassinate more people in Pakistan until the inevitable American retreat, seems a particularly incoherent fantasy. Perhaps Zakaria means that Obama is a “realist” in the same way as Henry Kissinger was praised as one, doggedly pursuing “national interests” through the world’s manifold complexity. After all, Obama invoked Kissinger’s apparently prestigious imprimatur when he proposed to bomb “safe havens” for terrorists in Pakistan during his presidential debate with John McCain last year.
Certainly a more historically grounded realism would acknowledge that Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation with a highly politicised postcolonial population, is not Cambodia – the hapless country Kissinger and Nixon devastated after failing to make Vietnam fall in line with American national interests. Or that the Pashtuns, though never colonised and hardly ever a nationality, have repeatedly proved more effective than the most organised anti-colonial movements in expelling foreign occupiers from their land.
Unleashing greater firepower on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Obama could have learned from the shrewd psychological realism of his early hero, James Baldwin. “Force,” Baldwin wrote during Kissinger and Nixon’s last desperate assault on Indochina, “does not reveal to the victim the strength of his adversary. On the contrary, it reveals the weakness, even the panic of his adversary and this revelation invests the victim with patience.”
The Taliban, predictably resurgent as a result of Nato’s blunderbuss tactics, may now choose to lie low for a while. The general respite from violence may even prove long enough for Obama’s intellectual courtiers to declare that the surge in Afghanistan has “worked”. As in Iraq, a new cycle of suicide bombings may then begin; but America, and its media, will have already turned away.
The realism of American foreign policy, it seems, can only be selective and ephemeral, as American elites endlessly calibrate their national interests – invading, bombing and abandoning vast regions as they please, leaving other people to pick up the pieces.
Obama’s long speech on Afghanistan barely mentioned Pakistan, which in 2005 suffered a single suicide attack and now – after the intensified American-led or directed assaults on Afghanistan, Swat and Waziristan – suffers several such outrages in a week. In the same speech Obama did not refer even once to India, with which Pakistan has fought three wars over Kashmir, and whose military occupation of the Muslim-majority valley remains the biggest recruiting tool for jihadists in Pakistan, such as those who led the terrorist attack on Mumbai a year ago. (Not much exaggeration is needed to indoctrinate them: an Indian human rights group last week published evidence of the mass graves of nearly 3,000 Muslims allegedly executed over the last decade by Indian security forces near the border with Pakistan.) Obama will of course speak of Afghanistan’s neighbours when another jihadi assault on India, which is very likely, brings India and Pakistan closer to war, endangering America’s campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida. But it is also true that the historical and geopolitical relationships between India, Pakistan and Afghanistan may be too fraught for American foreign policy realists to reckon with.
In 1971, India facilitated the secession of Pakistan’s easternmost province (now Bangladesh), provoking Pakistan’s humiliated army and intelligence officials to pursue a policy of creating “strategic depth” against India by seeking Pashtun clients inside Afghanistan. In the 1990s, Pakistani officials who helped supply the mujahideen during the CIA-led anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan turned to fuelling the popular insurgency in India-ruled Kashmir, which since 1989 has claimed more than 80,000 lives. Throughout the decade, Pakistan’s highly secretive intelligence agency, the ISI, trained and financed militant Islamist groups for jihad in Kashmir – even as it settled on the Taliban as its proxy in Afghanistan, which had been abruptly abandoned by the US following the Soviet withdrawal.
Obama himself identified Kashmir as the rusty nail in south Asia’s body politic a month before he was elected. Discussing the situation in Afghanistan, he told Joe Klein of Time magazine that “working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve the Kashmir crisis in a serious way” were “critical tasks for the next administration”. But, assuming the presidency, Obama inherited other, more strategic as well as lucrative national interests.
The Bush administration had wished to build up India as a strategic US ally and counterweight to China in Asia. Encouraged by an assertive Indian-American lobby, and American arms manufacturers, Bush offered an exceptionally generous civil nuclear agreement to India – which, unlike Iran, has long refused to sign the non-proliferation treaty. India is now finally an open market for US defence companies: Lockheed Martin alone hopes to cut deals worth $15bn over the next five years.
Of course, as China increasingly underwrites the American economy, notions of “containing” the Middle Kingdom through pro-America allies now look like some idle cold-war game-playing in Condoleezza Rice’s state department. But the Bush administration’s decision to legitimise India’s nuclear status, and to help project the country as a rising superpower, has stoked an old paranoia in Pakistan (and indeed in China, which, breaking from its policy of befriending previously hostile neighbours like Vietnam and Mongolia, has recently assumed its harshest stance towards India in decades).
American officials often complain that Pakistan’s security establishment is “obsessed” with India. Seen through the perspective of American national interests, the obsession seems purely irrational, a frustrating diversion from the urgent task of combating anti-American extremists. But Pakistan sees India as gaining “strategic depth” in its own backyard, using Afghanistan – where India has poured over a billion dollars in aid since 2001 and has four consulates in addition to its embassy in Kabul – to support secessionists in the troubled ¬ Pakistani province of Baluchistan.
Pakistan’s leaders – who are convinced that America will abandon Islamabad just as it did Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 – will play the same charade with Obama that General Musharraf’s foreign minister once frankly described as, “First say yes, and later say but”. They may well launch a few token crackdowns on militants but are unlikely to abandon the possibility of allowing some to remain in order to unleash them, at a later date, on India-ruled Kashmir. As always, the road to stability in Pakistan and Afghanistan runs through the valley of Kashmir; and in making south Asia’s primary conflict disappear, Obama now seems yet another exponent of that exhausted genre of magical realism.
Published in The Guardian
WASIM VIEW- Mishra’s article is well-written as you would expect from an author. It is also hard-hitting and truthful, take for example his condemnation of US drones referring to them as a ’campaign of extrajudicial execution’. More words of wisdom that I concur with include ‘Obama’s idea of sending 30,000 more soldiers to help subdue the Taliban, reinforce the corrupt regime in Kabul, and assassinate more people in Pakistan until the inevitable American retreat, seems a particularly incoherent fantasy’.
I was not surprised or startled when Mishra opines that ‘Obama’s long speech on Afghanistan barely mentioned Pakistan, which in 2005 suffered a single suicide attack and now – after the intensified American-led or directed assaults on Afghanistan, Swat and Waziristan – suffers several such outrages in a week’. The US impact is no longer measured in simple proofs of the legendary taste of the pudding anymore but in the blood bowl of innocents that die daily as Uncle Sam asks Pakistan to ‘do more’.
Mishra’s views on Kashmir and India as a proud Indian are a breath of fresh air and prove that honest individuals reside on the eastern side of Pakistan’s border. On Kashmir Mishra is only too right in whose military occupation of the Muslim-majority valley remains the biggest recruiting tool for jihadists in Pakistan, such as those who led the terrorist attack on Mumbai a year ago. (Not much exaggeration is needed to indoctrinate them: an Indian human rights group last week published evidence of the mass graves of nearly 3,000 Muslims allegedly executed over the last decade by Indian security forces near the border with Pakistan.) I concur entirely.
On India, Mishra revisits history when he says that ‘In 1971, India facilitated the secession of Pakistan’s easternmost province (now Bangladesh), provoking Pakistan’s humiliated army and intelligence officials to pursue a policy of creating “strategic depth” against India by seeking Pashtun clients inside Afghanistan. In the 1990s, Pakistani officials who helped supply the mujahideen during the CIA-led anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan turned to fuelling the popular insurgency in India-ruled Kashmir, which since 1989 has claimed more than 80,000 lives. Once again I concur.
Mishra is right in reminding the celebrity President Obama that ‘working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve the Kashmir crisis in a serious way were critical tasks for the next administration’. In his final conclusion Mishra writes that ‘as always, the road to stability in Pakistan and Afghanistan runs through the valley of Kashmir; and in making south Asia’s primary conflict disappear, Obama now seems yet another exponent of that exhausted genre of magical realism’. Once again I concur with the brilliant and true words of Pankaj Mishra who has proved in this article that Indians like Pakistanis can speak the raw truth on Pakistan, India and Kashmir and hats off to him for doing so.
