Trouble ahead in Pakistan's new US
phase By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ISLAMABAD - Relations between the United
States and Pakistan are at a "make or break"
stage, John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate
foreign relations committee, said during his
fence-mending trip to Pakistan on Monday.
For now, a break appears to have been
averted with the opening of a "new phase" of
American operations in the region under a fresh
agreement between Washington and Islamabad for the
routing of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In a joint
statement issued in Islamabad, the countries
agreed on Monday to work together in any future
actions against "high-value targets" in Pakistan.
Details of the accord, like all past
accords, are unwritten. What will happen though is
that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
and the US envoy for Pakistan
and Afghanistan, Mark Grossman, will soon visit
Pakistan to make the political environment
conducive for the next phase.
Relations
between the two nations were severely strained at
the beginning of the month when US Special Forces
assassinated al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in
the military town of Abbottabad, 60 kilometers
north of Islamabad. Pakistan was embarrassed and
angered when the US claimed sole responsibility
for the operation in defiance of an agreement
between the countries.
Contrary to all
previous rhetoric by the Pakistani military
establishment and briefings they delivered to a
joint session of the Pakistani parliament last
week, Monday's joint statement proved that
Pakistan had always been onboard to work with the
US and that statements issued by the military
establishment were posturing.
Last Friday,
General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani and the Inter-Services
Intelligence head Ahmed Shuja Pasha appeared in a
historic joint session of parliament, the first
time in 63 years that an army chief and the top
man of the ISI had presented themselves before the
legislature.
The joint statement pointed
out that "all tracks of US-Pakistani engagement
need to be revisited to assure that the countries
can continue to cooperate on counter-terrorism",
yet deeper problems remain, most notably among
middle cadre of the military.
This was
emphasized by Kiani, who told Kerry that there
were "intense feelings" in the military over the
raid to get Bin Laden, according to a statement
issued by the army.
Many in the army still
want alliances with Sunni Islamist elements in the
region as leverage against India and Iran. As a
result, a backlash within the military
establishment against the forthcoming new phase in
the war against the Afghan Taliban is inevitable.
Once again, Pakistan will be caught in the middle
between the US and militants, with interests on
both sides.
Kerry is one of the initiators
of the Kerry-Lugar bill that envisages US$1.5
billion yearly in aid to Pakistan for five years.
Pakistan has already received $14.6 billion in
economic and military assistance from the US since
2005. Kerry arrived in the Afghan capital Kabul on
Sunday with a clear message that a conclusive war
against Islamic militancy is wanted, and all his
statements reflected this decisive theme and
uncompromising stance.
"Yes, there are
insurgents coming across the border," he said at
the US Embassy. "Yes, they are operating out of
North Waziristan [tribal area in Pakistan] and
other sanctuaries, and yes, there is some evidence
of Pakistan government knowledge of some of these
activities in ways that is very disturbing," Kerry
said.
The senator also pointed a finger at
the presence of the powerful Haqqani network in
North Waziristan as one of the key drivers of the
Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan. The US
tried to tighten the noose around the network when
it slapped sanctions on leader Jalaluddin
Haqqani's younger son, Badruddin Haqqani, last
week. His name was added to the list of Specially
Designated Global Terrorists that allows the US to
freeze his assets, prevent him from using
financial institutions and prosecute him for
terrorist activities.
Kerry said there
were "deep reservations" among some American
lawmakers about whether Pakistan shared
Washington's goals in the region, but said,
"Pakistan has supported our efforts to diminish
the capacity of al-Qaeda over the last several
years. Pakistan has allowed us to have
intelligence personnel operating in Pakistan in
ways that helped us to capture Osama bin Laden."
Opening of the next phase Now
that Bin Laden is dead - the pinnacle of the
American-led war against militancy - the next
logical targets inside Pakistan include his deputy
Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, Taliban leader Mullah Omar
and Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani as well as
other top militants.
However, after the
Abbottabad incident, the role of the nuclear-armed
nation's military establishment is a real question
mark, both domestically and internationally. The
fact that statements by the armed forces during
the briefing to parliament last week were rigged
with contradictions does not help their image.
On Saturday, parliament condemned the Bin
Laden raid and termed it an attack on Pakistan's
sovereignty and urged for an end to unilateral
action within its borders, including attacks on
suspected militants by US drones. It said
logistical support for North Atlantic Treaty
Organization troops in Afghanistan could be
withdrawn if the strikes continued.
Even
as the armed forces were briefing the joint
session, US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
predator drones struck North Waziristan again and
parliamentarians questioned the top brass over not
doing enough to prevent drone attacks inside
Pakistan.
It was reported that the
closed-door session was told that drones flew from
Pakistan's Shamsi air base in Balochistan
province, but that this facility was owned by the
United Arab Emirates. This armed forces statement
contradicted an ISI official spokesperson's
statement published last month that Pakistan had
closed Shamsi to drone flights. Later, when the
strikes continued, an ISI spokesperson said the
drones were coming from Afghanistan.
Some
parliamentarians then objected that even if
Pakistan did not own Shamsi, the drones were still
using Pakistan's air space and should therefore be
shot down.
"Pakistan has the capacity to
strike down CIA predator drones, but then the
government and the parliament should order us [to
do so] and also make a commitment to stand behind
the armed forces when the fierce American reaction
came," air chief Rao Qamar Suleman reportedly told
the joint session that continued for 10 hours.
During the session, ISI head Pasha, the
person blamed for most intelligence failures,
insisted that it was a collective failure of all
the civilian and military law-enforcing agencies
and the ISI should not be singled out. However, he
offered that if parliament and the government
demanded, he would resign.
What has become
clear in the past few weeks is that the US wants
results in a short space of time, and Pakistan has
no option but to collaborate in the hunt for
Taliban bigwigs hidden in Pakistan.
This
would be the beginning of real fireworks within
the military establishment should mid-level cadre
- rogue elements - aligned with Sunni militants
instigate attacks along the lines of the militant
assault on the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008 that
resulted in the deaths of more than 150 people.
(See Al-Qaeda
'hijack' led to Mumbai attack Asia Times
Online, December 2, 2008.)
After the
September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, Pakistan's
top brass took a policy turn and joined in the
US's "war on terror", but a large chunk of
officers took retirement and with serving
colleagues they helped the Taliban. This changed
the dynamics of the Afghan war theater (see
Military brains plot Pakistan's downfall Asia
Times Online, September 26, 2007).
This
collection of former and serving officers was
responsible for a number of attacks on the
military, including on military headquarters in
2009 and against ex-president General Pervez
Musharraf.
Kerry's visit to Pakistan was
made to open a new phase of the war in South Asia
and the whole exercise of the Pakistani armed
forces appearing in front of parliament was not
intended to show accountability but to pave the
way for this stage.
This is also the time
when a nexus of serving and retired soldiers could
become active again to revive regional operations,
in addition to a possible mutiny against the top
military brass.
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