US, Pakistan torn apart over terror
By Tariq Mahmud Ashraf
Recent events in Pakistan have raised critical issues concerning the
continuation of Pakistan's support for the United States-led "war on terror" in
Afghanistan.
Commencing with the enormous backlash in Pakistan in the aftermath of the raid
by US special forces on Angoori Ada in the tribal area of South Waziristan on
September 3; the disclosure by the New York Times that President George W Bush
issued secret orders allowing US special forces to undertake operations inside
Pakistan without prior notice; and the aggressive statements of several
Pakistani leaders, the entire country has been gripped by a wave of
anti-American sentiment which the country's top civilian
and military leadership has also been quick to echo.
Although disagreements between Pakistan and the US have persisted since the
latter invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and president General Pervez Musharraf
engineered the abrupt somersault in Pakistan's policy towards the Taliban to
bring it in line with US dictates, these have seldom assumed serious
proportions or created apprehensions as they do now.
Recent events indicate that a major recalculation might be in the offing in
Islamabad with regard to Pakistan's support for the "war on terror". Even the
militants seem to have recognized the weakness of the regime in Islamabad and
have conveyed a powerful message to it with the recent attack on the Marriott
Hotel located in the heart of Islamabad.
A diverging alliance
The recent furor over aggressive US unilateralism surfaced immediately after US
special forces undertook their first-ever operation on Pakistani soil inside
South Waziristan. The September 3 "snatch-and-grab" raid by an elite US Navy
SEAL team resulted in the death of nine to 20 individuals.
While the Pakistan government lodged an immediate and forceful protest with the
United States over this violation of Pakistan's sovereignty, Pakistan's
chief-of-staff, General Ashfaq Kiani, alluded to the implications of the
cross-border raid by saying "such reckless actions only help the militants and
further fuel the militancy in the area".
What was disturbing about the special forces incursion was the failure to
provide any advance information by the US military or government to their
Pakistani counterparts. This was despite the fact that there were numerous
military-to-military meetings in the preceding weeks, including visits by
chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen to Pakistan and
the secret August 27 "military summit" between Mullen and Kiani aboard the USS
Abraham Lincoln. In addition to these meetings, the regular established
channels of communication between NATO/International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF) in Afghanistan authorities and the Pakistan military were available to
inform each other of any new developments or operations, but these were not
brought into use.
Kiani's discomfiture over having been kept in the dark even by those US
military commanders with whom he has been in regular contact was evident from
his statements after the incident. While Mullen was telling Congress that
Pakistan had to be convinced to help "eliminate [the enemy's] safe havens",
Kiani was strongly criticizing the US for leading NATO forces on a series of
cross-border raids on militants within Pakistani territory, insisting there was
no deal allowing foreign troops to conduct operations there.
More explicitly, he reiterated that the sovereignty and territorial integrity
of the country would be defended at all costs and that no external force was
allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan.
The national clamor inside Pakistan for the government to respond to this act
of overt and unwarranted aggression led to a short-lived decision to stop the
movement of US military supplies through Pakistan en route to Afghanistan. The
raids were the major issue discussed at the 111th meeting of the Corps
Commanders at General Headquarters in Rawalpindi on September 12-13.
The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) began mounting combat air patrols over Pakistan's
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) for the first time since the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan. At the government level, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza
Gilani's National Security Advisor, Major General (retired) Mehmud Durrani,
formally wrote to his US counterpart, Stephen Hadley, on September 5, warning
that Pakistan would not allow any foreign forces to operate on its territory.
This candid warning was issued to the George W Bush administration a day before
Asif Ali Zardari was elected as the president of Pakistan.
On the same day the United States was remembering the events of 9/11, the
Pakistan army was ordered to retaliate against any action by foreign troops
inside the country. The Pakistan ambassador to the United States received
assurances that the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan would not operate
inside Pakistan or launch any strike. However, the same night, coalition forces
launched another missile attack on Miranshah, killing more than 12 people. The
escalating attacks by coalition forces inside Pakistan have forced policymakers
in Islamabad to seriously revisit Pakistan�s policy on the "war on
terror".
An American government official quoted in a US military newspaper described the
Pakistani backlash to the September 3 special forces raid:
[The raid
was] an opportunity to see how the new Pakistani government reacted. If they
didn't do anything, they were just kind of fairly passive, like Musharraf was
... then we felt like, okay, we can slowly up the ante, we can do maybe some
more of these ops. But the backlash that happened, and especially the backlash
in the diplomatic channels, was pretty severe
Once the Pakistanis started talking about closing down our supply routes, and
actually demonstrated they could do it, once they started talking about
shooting American helicopters, we obviously had to take seriously that maybe
this [approach] was not going to be good enough. We can't sustain ourselves in
Afghanistan without the Pakistani supply routes. At the end of the day, we had
to not let our tactics get in the way of our strategy ... As much as it may be
good to get some of these bad guys, we can't do it at the expense of being able
to sustain ourselves in Afghanistan, obviously.
An editorial
in Islamabad's The News best encapsulated the frustration of Pakistanis:
There
is an escalating sense of furious impotence among the ordinary people of
Pakistan. Many - perhaps most - of them are strongly opposed to the spread of
Talibanization and extremist influence across the country: people who might be
described as "moderates". Many of them have no sympathy for the mullahs and
their burning of girls' schools and their medieval mindset. But if you bomb a
moderate sensibility often enough, it has a tendency to lose its sense of
objectivity and to feel driven in the direction of extremism. If America bombs
moderate sensibilities often enough, you may find that its actions are the best
recruiting sergeant that the extremists ever had.
In another
development, tribal elders met in Miranshah and announced their whole-hearted
support for the Pakistan government in any action it takes to face up to
attacks by US/coalition forces on Pakistani soil.
While welcoming the presence of PAF combat aircraft, which reportedly led to an
unmanned US drone withdrawing into Afghanistan territory, these tribal leaders
vowed to fight alongside the Pakistani forces against all foreigners. The
tribal leaders threatened to go further: "If missile attacks and bombing of our
houses and markets do not stop, a tribal lashkar [militia] will launch a
counter-attack inside Afghanistan."
Other than the combat patrols being undertaken by the PAF to thwart any ingress
by American Predator drones, Pakistani security forces fired in the air to
discourage a group of US soldiers from crossing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border
on the night of September 14-15.
Seven US helicopter gunships and two troop-carrying Chinook helicopters landed
in the Afghan province of Paktika near the Zohba mountain range. US troops from
the Chinooks then tried to cross the border. As they did so, Pakistani
paramilitary troops fired into the air and the US troops halted their approach.
The firing lasted for several hours, local people evacuated their homes and
tribesmen took up defensive positions in the mountains.
The reaction of the tribesmen indicates the adoption of an aggressive US policy
could well widen the insurgency by uniting the tribesmen with the Taliban -
something that Kiani has also alluded to. The Pakistan government downplayed
the event, saying the firing from the Pakistani side was carried out by the
local tribesmen and not by Pakistani security forces.
Mutual suspicions
The checkered history of Pakistan-US relations is well known. The two countries
have had the most unstable of ties ever since Pakistan first allied itself with
the US by joining the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO, 1955-79) and becoming
the recipient of US military hardware.
Pakistan's disillusionment with the US commenced with the imposition of the US
arms embargo during the 1965 India-Pakistan war and was further crystallized by
the hands-off stance of the United States during the 1971 India-Pakistan war
which saw Pakistan dismembered and the creation of Bangladesh.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 once again brought the two countries
together, only to see the US depart abruptly, leaving Pakistan to clean up the
mess. A distrust of the US and its intentions permeated the Pakistan national
psyche, a situation which was played on by politicians and religious leaders to
further their own agendas.
Musharraf's decision to align Pakistan with the US-led "war on terror" once
again brought the two countries together. Notwithstanding the imperatives that
forced Musharraf to join the US bandwagon, his decision created enormous
controversy throughout Pakistan and was one of the factors that precipitated
his eventual fall from power.
The uneasiness in the alliance stems from a number of causes: the differing
motivations of the US and Pakistan in waging the "war on terror"; the fact that
Afghanistan lies in Pakistan's backyard and has long been considered by its
military leadership as bestowing strategic depth on Pakistan; the ethnic,
linguistic, cultural, social, tribal and religious affinities of the Pashtuns
on both sides of the Durand Line; the persistence of the US leadership in
forging relations based on individuals who are in power; the growing alienation
of the Pakistani populace with US policies and the creeping perception that the
"war on terror" is just an excuse for a campaign against Islam with the
underlying theme of controlling the resources of mineral-rich Central Asia
while containing China.
For this alliance to survive, both countries need to understand that
continuation of the military campaign is in their own national interest. It is
vital, therefore, that the US shed the cloak of unilateralism to wage this war
together with Pakistan rather than alienating it by violating the latter's
sovereignty.
If the US persists with its aggressive military unilateralism, it might be seen
as following in the footsteps of the Soviets, whose ignominious retreat from
Afghanistan in 1989 spelled the demise of the USSR. If this happens, the US
could well be confronted with another Vietnam-like situation with no easy exit
available.
Interestingly, the aggressive stance of the Pakistan army has been tempered by
a more conciliatory attitude from Islamabad, with Defense Minister Ahmed
Mukhtar stressing the need for the issues imperiling US-Pakistan relations to
be addressed in a pragmatic manner without bringing the two allies to a state
of undesirable military confrontation.
Conclusion
The "war on terror" consists of two separate battles: the first being waged by
the US and coalition forces against the Taliban inside Afghanistan and the
second being waged by the Pakistan military against the extremist militants who
have made FATA their base of operations.
To bring this war to a successful end, the efforts being expended on these two
battles need to be coordinated and integrated, taking into consideration the
apprehensions of both Pakistan and the US while satisfying their respective
policy objectives. Only then can this troubled, albeit necessary, alliance
survive the test of time.
The US must also take into account the fragility of Pakistan's democratic
government in dealing with this situation and endeavor to strengthen rather
than weaken it, since the failure of the nascent democratic dispensation in
Islamabad could create an opening for the country's military to step in once
again. This is completely undesirable since democracy in Pakistan would be put
on the shelf for at least another decade if not more, leading to further
instability and a possible failure of the country as a viable nation-state.
Tariq Mahmud Ashraf is a retired air commodore from the Pakistan Air
Force. A freelance analyst on South Asian defense and nuclearization issues, he
has authored one book and published over 70 papers and articles in journals of
repute.
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