MOMENT OF TRUTH FOR PAKISTAN, AND INDIA

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    After seven years of close cooperation in the War on Terror with the Pakistanis, the Bush administration has finally understood that unless Pakistan ends its double-speak and double-game on the issue of Islamic terror groups, Pakistan's own survival as a modern nation state will become impossible. In an interview to Financial Times, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has acknowledged that if the Pakistani state fails to take on the extremism and terrorism in that country, it will be consumed by these forces.

The problem however is that wisdom has dawned on Ms Rice a little too late in the day. Quite expectedly, no one in Pakistan is paying any attention to observations being made by an official of a lame-duck administration. What is worse, it is highly unlikely if the incoming Obama administration will derive any benefit from the wisdom which Bush administration has gained at so much cost. Chances are that like every new Indian prime minister who imagines going down in history as the man who made peace with Pakistan, the Obama Presidency will make all the mistakes of the Bush administration, plus their own, by taking a benign view of Pakistan's perfidy and buying the spurious logic of adopting a 'regional strategy' that seeks concessions from India on a range of issues including Kashmir to appease Pakistan.

Of course, this woolly-headed approach is not going to do anything to stop Pakistan's from coming under the sway of the Taliban. Already the Pakistani state looks helpless before the jihadist militias, who in collaboration with elements in the security services, are effectively able to sabotage the stated policy of the state both on the Western front with Afghanistan and Eastern front with India. Equally, if not more, serious is the steady wresting of control over large tracts of territory within Pakistan. Until the Mumbai terror attacks, it was the loss of territory to Taliban in the trans-Indus Pakistan – namely, the Pakhtun dominated Tribal Areas and the NWFP – that manifested the growing influence of the Islamists. But post-Mumbai, the utter inability and unwillingness of the state authorities to crack down hard on terror groups like Jamaatud Dawa, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Harkatul Mujahedin in Punjab and Sindh should set alarms bells ringing all over the world.

Clearly, the apologetically cosmetic nature of the curbs that have been imposed on the Jamaatud Dawa, and that too after the UN mandated such action, stand testimony to the immense power and influence that the so-called non-state actors wield inside Pakistan. Many Pakistanis are candid enough in admitting that the fear of retaliation by the Jihadist organizations prevents the state from taking any action against them. They say that the authorities in Islamabad don't want to open a second front in Punjab against the jihadists, especially when the state forces are unable to make any headway against the Islamist insurgents in NWFP and FATA. The magnitude of the problem facing the formal state structure in Pakistan gets further amplified by the fact that these non-state actors are virtually running a parallel state structure, not only in terms of the fire-power at their disposal but also in terms of their deep penetration in replacing the official state in providing social goods like education, health and even justice to the people. The official state has become so completely dysfunctional that the coercive apparatus of the state rather than serving a law and order function, operates as nothing more than an extortion racket.

    There is then little doubt that the capability and capacity of the Pakistani state in taking on the jihadists has been severely compromised, and to a large extent the state is afraid of precipitating its own collapse by initiating action against the jihadists. But clearly, inaction is not going to defeat the jihadists, much less isolate or marginalise them. In fact, every minute that action is delayed, it strengthens the non-state actors and makes it even more difficult for the state to restore its writ by purging these militias.

The trouble is that the Pakistani state and society is still unable to decide who the real enemy is – India or the Islamists? If Pakistan's enemy are the radical Islamist groups, then why is Pakistan defying the world by protecting jihadists responsible for the Mumbai carnage, so much so that it is willing to risk military confrontation with India for the sake of these terrorists? And if the enemy is India, then who and what is Pakistan fighting in Bajaur, Swat, Waziristan and rest of the Pakhtun belt?

Ideally, if Pakistan was serious about fighting the Taliban, then it should have done everything possible to ward off any possible threat from India in order to concentrate on the war on its western borderlands. Pakistan should have gone into an over-drive to satisfy India and the world on its commitments to not allow any terror group to operate on Pakistani territory. Instead of brazen denials of the Pakistani origins of the sole surviving terrorist, which seem to raise suspicions of the complicity of the current government or state agencies in the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistani authorities would have initiated its own investigation into the charges being levelled by India. Using its own national means and agencies, Pakistan could have easily cooperated with the civilized world to get to the bottom of the mass murder that was committed in Mumbai, and punished its perpetrators and planners.

 

But Pakistan's threat to disengage in the west to fight in the east against India obviously means that it does not see the Islamists as an existential threat to the Pakistani state. The certificates of patriotism that the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, has given to terrorists like Baitullah Mehsud, and the readiness of Baitullah to fight India on the side of the Pakistan army reveal the reality of the 'phony war' being fought between the Pakistan army and the Pakistani Taliban. That the Pakistan army doesn't take the danger posed by the Taliban seriously suggests that it is fighting the 'phony war' only to keep on the right side of the Americans and ensure that the flow of funds from the US doesn't stop.

    Pakistan has probably gone too far down the jihadist road to now make a U-turn and set its house in order. It is now only a matter of time before the control of the Pakistani state passes from the pseudo-Islamists (which include the military, the mullahs and the politicians) into the hands of the hardcore Islamists. Nothing, not even massive doses of US aid, is going to prevent this from happening. US aid will come with strings attached. If this means that Pakistan has to end the 'phony war' and show results against the Taliban, then Pakistan will face a civil war, which the Islamists will win with the help of the Islamised sections of the army. On the other hand, if the Americans accept a role for the Taliban, then the Islamists will simply slide into power in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Therefore, rather than waste time on ensuring compliance from a 'failing' state, India needs to invest all its energies and national power to put in place military systems and security alliances that insulate and protect Indian citizens from a 'failed' Pakistan on its borders. Any complacency or wishful thinking on this count will be disastrous for India, which will face the brunt of the fallout of a nuclear failed state on its borders.

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    <1250 Words>                    24^th December, 2008

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KASHMIR IS NOT THE KEY TO KABUL

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

Anyone who has ever wondered why India has been so obstinate in its refusal to allow third-party mediation on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir should have got their answer in the linkage that the next US president Barack Obama and his foreign policy aides have drawn between Afghanistan and Kashmir. The incoming US administration wants to play an active role in resolving the Kashmir issue, not out of altruism but because it thinks that a 'satisfactory' solution of the Kashmir issue will help in the achievement of US security interests in Afghanistan. Needless to say, Pakistan will be satisfied with nothing less than a solution of Kashmir that is substantially if not entirely according to its wishes, which in turn means that the US implicitly expects India to sacrifice on Kashmir to satisfy Pakistan. Not surprisingly then, India is deeply suspicious of the US desire to play an honest broker on resolving the Kashmir issue, and will find it impossible to accept US' good offices in settling its problems with Pakistan.

Clearly, the Americans see Kashmir as the missing part of the puzzle on not only defeating the al Qaeda/Taliban inspired Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan, but also ensuring the unstinted cooperation and compliance of the Pakistan army in fighting the Islamist guerrillas. The guiding logic of the argument linking Kabul with Kashmir is seductively simple – give the Pakistani state something to show on Kashmir, which in turn will make it easier for Pakistan's army and its politicians to sell to their people the idea of cooperating with the Americans in the War on Terror. The Americans believe, somewhat naively, that by 'satisfying' Pakistan on Kashmir, they will be able to end Pakistan's policy of running with the jihadist hare and hunting with the American hound. What is more, normalisation of relations between India and Pakistan will free the Pakistan army from its engagements on the Eastern front with India and enable the deployment of the bulk of troops on the troubled Western borderlands.

Unlike the US officials and academicians, India knows that any argument linking Kashmir with Kabul is totally specious and self-serving. There are broadly two dimensions to the Kashmir imbroglio. The first is the bilateral Indo-Pak track in the search for a mutually acceptable solution to the problem. The second is the International dimension of the insurgency in Kashmir, which is inextricably linked to the jihadist ideology and radical philosophy that is afflicting Islamic societies around the world. Unless both these dimensions are understood, quick-fix solutions advocated by campus radicals and neo-liberal think-tanks will end up creating a problem far worse than the one that confronts the people of the region and the world at present.

    The terrorism in Kashmir is nothing if it is not part of the international Jihad being waged by disparate Islamic groups in different parts of the world. Centred on the Islamist identity of Kashmiri Muslims, the basic DNA of the separatist movement in Kashmir is Jihadist, only it is packaged in nationalist hues. Although the so-called moderate separatists try to agitate and win support by bandying more liberal labels, the real ideologues of the separatists – people like Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Syed Salahuddin – make no apologies for the Islamist underpinnings of their demand. Since the jihadists, both Kashmiri and Pakistani, see Kashmir as a part of the larger international jihad, their success in Kashmir will not bring an end to Islamic militancy in either the region or the world. Instead a victory for the jihadists in Kashmir will only serve as a shot in the arm for Islamic radicals and give a tremendous boost to violent jihad in other parts of the world by attracting ever more recruits to their millenarian war against both Muslim and non-Muslim societies.

    The argument that once Pakistan's concerns Kashmir are addressed the Pakistani state will be in a better position to take on the Islamic militias rests on the heroic assumption that the Pakistani state remains strong enough to eradicate the menace of Islamic militancy. The facts on the ground suggest that this assumption no longer holds true because the Pakistani state is no longer dominates the radical groups that operate inside that country. There are enough pointers that the Pakistani state has lost its monopoly over the coercive apparatus that enables a state to impose its authority over recalcitrant elements. Today the Pakistani state is almost reduced to being a minor player, surviving on the sufferance of both non-state and statist Jihadist militias. The bottom-line is that instead of the Pakistan army exercising control over its jihadist assets, the army itself has become an asset of the jihadists. This means that even if Kashmir is solved entirely according to the Pakistani wishes, the Pakistani state will not be able to put the jihadist monster back in the bottle. In fact, victory for the jihadists in Kashmir will sound the death knell of the Pakistani state structure and put it at the mercy of the Islamists.

    There is, in any case, very little that will be achieved by any international mediation that is aimed at hustling India into making concessions on territory or sovereignty or both only to address Pakistan's neurosis that emanates primarily from its refusal to accept that Kashmir is a part of India. Quite aside the fact that Munich type agreements, based as they are on appeasement of irredentism, have never brought peace, it is an entirely fallacious argument that tensions with India prevent Pakistan from taking effective action on its Western border.

India has until now done absolutely nothing to exploit Pakistan's discomfiture on its Western borders. For nearly five years now, India has scrupulously observed the ceasefire along the Line of Control, and this despite Pakistan's repeated violations of it. The peace process between India and Pakistan has made a lot of progress, both in the official dialogue as well as in the back-channel. Imaginative and out-of-the-box solutions were being actively considered by both countries to solve the Kashmir issue to the satisfaction of both sides. The Confidence Building Measures already in place in Kashmir – bus service, travel across LoC, opening up of trade across the LoC, meeting points for divided families – were unimaginable a few years back. In fact, ever since the peace process commenced, border tensions between the two countries were practically non-existent. And yet, if during this entire period, Pakistan's capacity and capability to take on the Islamic militants has declined, then surely the reason for that isn't India but something that is seriously wrong inside Pakistan.

The Obama administration will be making a terrible and very costly mistake if it tries to reach Kabul and Kandahar through Kashmir. Instead of being a short cut to winning the war in Afghanistan, this will be a path that will bring with it the worst of both worlds. Not only will the US end up strengthening the Islamists, it will also lose the support and trust of India in this widening war. Unfortunately, imperial hubris will ensure that the US embarks on this disastrous road. The only hope is that things don't reach the point of no return before the Americans realise the mistake they have made.

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    <1200 Words>                    19^th December, 2008

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PUT PAKISTAN UNDER INTERNATIONAL RECEIVERSHIP

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    The Parliament has unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the Mumbai terror strikes and backing all necessary measures by the Government to safeguard national security. The Prime Minister has apologised for not preventing the attacks. The home minister has been sacked and his successor in the hot seat is promising to set in place systems that will plug the loopholes in the security architecture of the homeland. The political class and the chattering class have expressed their anger and outrage from every available forum. The media has fought its own war on the air waves with its counterparts across the border and has come out on tops on the sheer strength of evidence. It has also discussed the various military options which could be exercised theoretically but will never be exercised practically. The international community has stepped in to ensure that things don't spiral out of control and has gone a step further this time by banning the organisation that perpetrated the Mumbai carnage. In short, all that could realistically be done has been done and after a decent interval it will be business as usual – Mushairas, candle-light marches, CBMs, Composite Dialogue, Cricket, and what have you – until the next attack takes place.

    Part of the problem is, of course, that India has simply not built the overt and covert leverages, capabilities and capacities that will allow it to not only deter terrorist strikes by state and non-state actors in Pakistan but also exact a heavy price if such attacks take place. But the more fundamental problem is how to put pressure on a state that is itself on the verge of collapse and is probably in no position to deliver on its commitments to the international community, much less clean up its act at home. It's no longer about pressure on the civilian government paving the way for another round of military rule in Pakistan. The struggle today isn't between the civilians and the military; the fight is between the state and non-state actors. Worse, the non-state actors seem to be winning this war, with a little help from elements within the state who sympathise, if not openly support, the non-state actors' ideology and world-view. If truth be told, the crux of the problem is that the state of Pakistan has never been as fragile as it is today. The danger is that if the pressure crosses the tipping point, then even the last vestiges of state authority could crumble, practically overnight.

    No, this is not an argument in favour of letting Pakistan get away scot-free for export of terror from its territory. Nor is this an attempt at providing an alibi for Pakistan's inability to crack down on terror groups so that the peace process is not derailed, even though one of the objectives of the Mumbai attacks was precisely this. But unless the limitations facing the Pakistani state and the very precarious position it is in is understood, the medicine being administered might lead to the death of the patient. The dilemma for India and the international community really is how to force compliance on a state that is losing control over the situation at an alarming rate. Ten years back, when the Pakistani state was still in a position to deliver, the sort of pressure being applied now might have worked. Today, the Pakistani state is merely biding its time, almost as though it is waiting for the inevitable collapse.

At a time when the Pakistan army is fighting with its back to the wall against the Islamists in trans-Indus Pakistan, the last thing they would want is to open a second front in Punjab against the Jihadist militias. More than the ISI or the 'ISI within the ISI', the real state within the state is the jihadist network in Pakistan's hinterland, Punjab. Therefore, no one should be surprised if despite the ban on organisations like the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and arrest of Jihadist leaders, no meaningful action is taken to disband and destroy their terror infrastructure. Chances are that some sort of understanding will be reached with these outfits, which share a symbiotic relationship with the Pakistani security agencies, to lie low and let the storm pass after which they can re-appear in a new incarnation. If however such a deal is not reached and the jihadists decide to resist, the Pakistani state will find itself stretched to break point.

The Americans perhaps understand the seriousness of the situation and don't really want to push Pakistan over the edge just yet. Also holding the American hand is their involvement in Afghanistan. Until the US gets an alternative route to supply its troops in Afghanistan, it will push Pakistan only enough to ensure that hostilities don't break out between India and Pakistan and the Pakistan army remains engaged on its western border against the Taliban and other Islamist insurgents. The bottom line is that at this point in time the Americans can do nothing more than make the right noises demanding action from Pakistan against terrorist groups, and hope that the Pakistanis comply. Let alone economic pressure, even military pressure will prove infructuouse simply because the Americans have still not worked out how to live with a 'failed' Pakistan.

As far as India is concerned, the fact is that India's conventional superiority over Pakistan is not of a sort that allows it the option of using military force. It is one thing to debate military options on TV chat shows, and quite another to exercise these options. Launching military strikes against Pakistan is a little more serious than a game being played on Xbox or Playstation. In any case, what will be achieved by these strikes? What is the end-game? Taking out a terrorist camp or compound is all right for chest thumping and a great ego massage, but it really doesn't add up to anything in terms of dismantling the infrastructure of terror. What is worse, if things escalate, it could lead to all-out war. Even if you win the war, you will end up with a failed state on your borders, which in turn will have disastrous consequences for national security.

The dilemma for India and the international community is clear: on the one hand if the pressure being put on Pakistan is not carefully calibrated, it will lead to state failure; on the other hand if Pakistan is allowed to continue with its double-speak and double-game on terrorism, the control over the state will continue its inexorable slide into the hands of the non-state actors. Clearly then, cosmetic measures like a few billion dollars of economic aid and restoration of democracy have run their course and will not help improve matters. The time has come for the international community to prepare an action plan for rescuing Pakistan from itself.

One way this can be done is by putting Pakistan under international receivership for a few years, with an international administrative and security force that rebuilds the security services, refurbishes the state structures, revamps the educational sector and social goods sector and initiates economic development projects that improve the lives of ordinary Pakistanis. Indeed, if the international community is serious about dousing the flames being lit by Jihad International from Afghanistan and Pakistan, then recreating a Pakistan that is at peace with itself, its neighbours and rest of the world, is unavoidable.

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    <1232 Words>                    12^th December, 2008

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