CHANGING THE ZERO SUM GAME

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement in Parliament clarifying his position on the Indo-Pak Joint Statement issued at Sharm-el-Sheikh has laid out both his vision for the region as well as his frustration in dealing with Pakistan. Much of what Dr Singh said in Parliament is unexceptionable. Not only did he lay out a tentative roadmap for future relations between India and Pakistan, he also stuck to the basic policy framework that India had devised after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. The only problem is that the text of the Joint Statement runs counter to everything that the Prime Minister said in Parliament. But rather than splitting hairs over this disconnect between the spoken and written word, perhaps it makes more sense to try and see how Dr Singh's vision can translate into something tangible.

    The biggest obstacle to peace in South Asia is the deep hostility and hatred for India among very influential and powerful sections of the Pakistani military, bureaucracy and political establishment. While this self-created and self-serving perception of India as the enemy has little, if any, basis in reality, over the years this manufactured sentiment has seeped into the minds of the common people of Pakistan who harbor enormous distrust and suspicion of India. One glaring manifestation of this is that the Pakistan army and people are being motivated to fight the Taliban for no other reason except that the Pakistani Taliban are alleged to be agents of India! Even in the restive province of Balochistan, a similar tack has been adopted to mobilize public opinion against the Baloch nationalists and separatists. Clearly, the Pakistani establishment feels that nothing unites their country more than hatred for India, which can then be easily exploited and channeled into an unquestioned public support for any military operation.

Interestingly, just as Pakistan perceives India as a mortal enemy, Indians too have a very lurid image of Pakistan. Like most Pakistanis, who instinctively believe that India has not accepted or reconciled to the creation of Pakistan, the Indians are equally convinced that it is in fact Pakistan that has been indulging in a strategy of 'death by a thousand cuts' to grievously damage, and if possible destroy, India. According to the Indians it is Pakistan that refuses to reconcile to the existence of India, and not vice-versa. The big difference in the common perceptions that the peoples of the two countries have of each other is that while India has been experiencing malevolence emanating from Pakistan in the form of terrorism, Pakistan is hurling nothing more than manufactured accusations of a similar evil intent on part of India.

Given these mutually hostile perceptions that exist in both countries, it is no surprise that relations between the two South Asian neighbors have been structured as a zero-sum game. The zero-sum game is reflected even in the idiom that is used by the two countries. For instance, the Pakistanis often say that durable peace is not possible without a solution to Kashmir. But surely, it is not only India that desperately wants peace because if this is the case then even if Kashmir is solved, there will be no peace; and if Pakistan too has a stake in peace then it must evaluate if it is willing to wait for peace until Kashmir is solved or whether it values peace enough to put Kashmir on the backburner.

This zero-sum game is the reason why all attempts made in the past to normalize bilateral relations failed quite miserably. And the future state of bilateral relations will end the same way unless there is a change in the way in which the people and establishments of the two countries see each other. That is to say, unless the zero-sum game changes into a positive sum game in which the success of one country is also the success of the other country and both have a stake in each others' success, all the noble intentions and sentiments that both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Asif Zardari have been expressing will come to nought.

Of course, changing the game from zero-sum to positive sum is easier said than done. At this point in time it is probably nothing more than a utopian idea. But if this idea has ever to be realized, then the first step in that direction is a strategic dialogue between India and Pakistan. This is a dialogue that goes far beyond the rather desultory composite dialogue that has been underway for the past few years and is currently suspended. Despite its seemingly comprehensive nature, the composite dialogue process has run its course and served its purpose, which was to start a sort of structured dialogue between the two countries that would include all issues and matters of interest and dispute between them.

While there is no harm if the composite dialogue is resumed sometime in the future, it would be unrealistic to imagine that something substantial can ever emerge from this process. If truth be told, the composite dialogue cannot ever work simply because the paradigm under which it is operating militates against any serious search for middle ground to resolve disputes, much less provide any incentive for resolving issues. Under this paradigm the objective is to get something without giving anything i.e. zero-sum game.

What is needed therefore is to take the dialogue process to a higher level, where politicians from across the political spectrum of both countries (excluding the loonies) engage each other in a strategic dialogue which focuses beyond immediate disputes (even core disputes) and seeks to first lay down the framework of ties between the two countries. In other words, the political leaderships in the two countries need to work out the basis of their relationship, where they want to go in their bilateral relationship, how do they see their bilateral relationship develop over the next fifty years, and what are they willing to do and how far are they willing to go to ensure that such a relationship becomes a reality.

Chances are that in looking at the larger picture, territorial disputes and/or ideological barriers will tend to lose their salience and hence become more amenable to solutions. At the same time such a dialogue will also try to ensure that both countries become sensitive to the concerns of each other. This means that India doesn't have to undercut Pakistan in Afghanistan nor does Pakistan have to feel threatened by Indian presence in Afghanistan. Similarly, Pakistan doesn't feel the need to use Nepal or Bangladesh to sponsor trouble in India or try to counter India by using China.

This is where it will become imperative to have alongside a political dialogue, a parallel military level dialogue as also a regular interaction between the intelligence agencies and the two foreign offices. This becomes even more important because unless the strategic worldviews of both countries are brought into conjunction, and they are ready for a grand strategic bargain, it is highly unlikely if they will ever be able to normalize their relations. To be sure, there will be a lot of resistance to the armies and intelligence agencies interacting with each other. There will also be major setbacks. But at the end of the day the political and permanent establishments are far more relevant people than do-gooders who masquerade as civil society but actually count for nothing in terms of their ability to deliver anything.

(The writer is consultant to the IDSA)

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    <1250 Words>                    30^th July, 2009

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FOR PAKISTAN, TALIBAN STILL NOT TOXIC

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    If ever there was any doubt in anyone's mind about Pakistan having finally realized the folly of using medieval and barbaric Islamists for fulfilment of strategic designs, these doubts now need to be put to rest. The answer is clear: for the Pakistan army, the real enemy is India; the Taliban remain a strategic asset. The interview of the Pakistan military spokesman, Maj Gen Athar Abbas to CNN a couple of weeks back was the first open acknowledgement of the deep links and continuing contacts between the Pakistan army and the Taliban leadership. The subsequent denial by his office of some of the remarks attributed to him turned out to be hollow after a background briefing given by the ISI to New York Times reporters in which the Pakistani officials made it clear that they "consider India their top priority and the Taliban militants a problem that can be negotiated." And yet there are some people in India who continue to live in cuckoo land by insisting that 'Pakistan is changing'. Yes, indeed, Pakistan is changing, but the problem is that the more it changes the more it stays the same.

    It should have been clear long ago to anyone who does not want to live in a make-believe world that Pakistan's real government (read military) had kept the Taliban card up their sleeve even after they publicly broke their association with the Taliban after 9/11. At that time, Gen. Pervez Musharraf tried very hard to sell to the Americans the concept of 'moderate' Taliban; only the Neo-Cons in the Bush administration didn't bite. Today, the nomenclature has changed from 'moderate Taliban' to 'reconcilable Taliban'. Not surprisingly, there are enough woolly-headed liberals in the Obama administration who are receptive to the idea of opening a dialogue with that strange animal called 'reconcilable Taliban'.

No one has, however, bothered to ask what will be the basis of reconciliation with the 'reconcilable Taliban'. Normally reconciliation can take place if one party is able to impose its agenda on the other; alternatively, reconciliation comes about as a result of a give-and-take deal between the two sides. If in the case of Taliban, reconciliation is to be the result not of capitulation but negotiation, then the question arises as to what the Taliban will want and what will they concede. At the very minimum, any reconciliation with the Taliban will tantamount to an acceptance of their worldview. While the US can probably afford to walk away from the region by declaring victory after 'reconciling' with the Taliban, Pakistan and rest of the region will have to contend with the devastating fallout of a radical Islamist regime in the neighbourhood. But perhaps the Pakistanis won't be too averse to living in a Talibanised environment.

Right from Day One of the so-called War on Terror, the Pakistani policy was "don't touch the Taliban, don't spare the al Qaeda". As a result, while Pakistan was able to flaunt the arrest of quite a few high profile al Qaeda operatives, not a single Taliban commander of any significance was ever apprehended by the Pakistani authorities. Clearly, the Pakistanis were playing the waiting game, having correctly calculated that it was only a matter of time before the Americans would pack up and quit Afghanistan, outsourcing it to the Pakistanis, who in turn would get the best of both worlds – enormous amounts of money plus the 'strategic depth' that they always sought inside Afghanistan. The icing on the cake is, of course, what Gen. Abbas told the CNN: in return for any role as a broker between the United States and the Taliban, Pakistan wants concessions from Washington over Islamabad's concerns with long-time rival India.

The strategy that the Pakistan army has adopted on Afghanistan – keeping the Taliban option alive even as it participated as an ally in the US' War on Terror – has obvious contradictions and dualities. This has confused Pakistan's allies who cannot seem to decide whether the Pakistan army is part of the problem or part of the solution. While hardly anyone disagrees that Pakistan has legitimate interests in Afghanistan, the question that confounds everyone is that if Pakistan's interests are served by keeping the Taliban option alive, then what sort of a war is Pakistan fighting against the Taliban?

On the one hand, the Pakistan army is engaged in military operations against the Pakistani Taliban and is classifying them as the biggest threat to the Pakistani state and society. But on the other hand, the same army is providing support and sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban using the disingenuous argument that there is a difference between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. If anything, the Pakistani Taliban are clones of the Afghan Taliban and have done nothing that was not done by the Afghan Taliban against their adversaries. Even the most purblind know what the Taliban - both Afghan and Pakistani – stand for: a medieval, brutal, tribal interpretation of Islam that is incapable of tolerating any dissent or living in peace with any other people who don't subscribe to their worldview.

The question is how come the Taliban are acceptable to the Pakistanis in Afghanistan, but not in their own country? A simple answer to this question is that the Pakistan army doesn't really have any problem with what the Taliban stand for. In fact, many in the Pakistan army subscribe to the Taliban worldview. The reason why the Pakistan army is fighting the Pakistani Taliban, rather a section of them, is because they were no longer playing the role assigned to them by their military masters. Not only did the Pakistani Taliban start to disobey orders, they went even further by carving out their own Emirates and displacing the Pakistani state in areas they controlled. It is this, and not their barbarism, that the Pakistan army could not tolerate.

Indeed, if the Pakistan army had a problem with the Taliban version of Islam, it wouldn't have propped up groups like the Abdullah Mehsud group to take on Baitullah Mehsud. Nor would the Pakistan army tolerate a terrorist 'ideologue' like Hafiz Saeed. According to the ISI officials who spoke to the New York Times "there would be no effort to imprison [Hafiz] Saeed again, in part because he was just an ideologue who did not have an anti-Pakistan agenda". Clearly, Saeed's handlers in the ISI don't consider 'anti-Pakistan' either his objective or his efforts to impose on the people of Pakistan the hard-line and barbaric Wahabbi version of Islam!

By all accounts the diabolical policy that Pakistan has followed on Afghanistan has been motivated in large measure by its unrelenting enmity towards India. It is a different matter that in its quest for attaining 'strategic depth', Pakistan has ended up creating a 'strategic black-hole' that could one day devour it. Even today, the Pakistani strategic thinking is centred on what Gen. Abbas called "an over-involvement of Indians in Afghanistan". According to him "an over ingress of the Indians into...[the Afghan] government, their ministries, their army. The fear is, tomorrow what happens if these Americans move out and they're replaced by Indians as military trainers? That becomes a serious concern." 

It is to address precisely these concerns that the Pakistanis have selected an demonic instrument called Taliban, which they are confident will never be well disposed towards India. But the bankruptcy of Pakistan's blinkered strategic vision is evident from two simple things: one, regardless of the inroads India makes in Afghanistan, it can never replace the natural influence that Pakistan will always exercise in that country; second, after all the investment Pakistan has made and all the cost it has borne in raising and nurturing the Islamist militia in Afghanistan and allowing it to operate with impunity inside Pakistan, today Pakistan is reduced into making a spectacle of itself by accusing India of backing the Taliban! The irony of it all is both funny and tragic.

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. <1335 Words>                    23^rd July, 2009

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DECONSTRUCTING THE JOINT STATEMENT

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    Diplomatic and political naivety, coupled with enormous pressure from a clueless America helplessly flailing its superpower muscle in the Af-Pak region, and of course that old disease that all Indian Prime Ministers' suffer – a sense of manifest destiny to normalise relations with Pakistan – has led to a Joint Statement by the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers in Sharm-el-Sheikh which is full of concessions, compromises and climb-downs by India.

Although the heavens are not going to fall on India after this joint statement, its one-sided nature is not going to prove very helpful in improving Indo-Pak relations. Nor is the blatant tilt in favour of Pakistan by the US going to do anything for the US-India relations, or for that matter, assist the US military operations in Afghanistan by ending the anti-Americanism sweeping Pakistan.

If anything, the joint statement sends very wrong and misleading signals to Pakistan, which believes that by leveraging its pivotal role in the War on Terror with the US, it can force concessions out of India without having to give anything in return. Eventually this will mean that there will be no incentive for Pakistan to dismantle the infrastructure of terror, much less change its policy of using terrorism as an instrument of state policy against India, a policy that has in large measure been responsible for the situation that Pakistan faces on its western borderlands. A continuation of such a selective approach to terrorism and Islamic radicalism will only give a fillip to the process of talibanisation of the Pakistani society, destabilise the Pakistani state and finally end up creating a far bigger problem for the US, Pakistan, and also for India, than what these countries face at present.

Notwithstanding the terribly bad English in the joint statement – almost as if it was drafted in Punjabi and then translated into English – there is really only one positive thing, albeit very uncertain, to emerge from this statement. By going out on a limb and conceding a lot to Pakistan without getting anything substantial in return, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has in his own way given a big boost to the civilian government in Pakistan. The comparison between the tough approach of India towards the Musharraf regime and the extremely accommodative approach towards the Zardari-Gilani civilian regime is too stark to miss. The civilian government of Pakistan has managed get more out of India than what a quintessential Pakistan army general like Pervez Musharraf could ever get.

But how much this helps or strengthens the civilian government of Pakistan in its dealings with the Pakistan army, and whether or not the Pakistani politicians can flaunt their success at Sharm-el-Sheikh to wrest control of decision making on foreign policy issues from the army is something that only time will tell. It is of course quite another matter that this is not the first time that the Indian leadership has fallen hook, line and sinker for the line peddled by the Pakistani politicians of giving them something to go back with and show to their people – remember Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Shimla 1972. For some inexplicable reason, the Indians are always willing to place their faith in the 'private assurances' given to them by their Pakistani counterparts, which the Pakistanis feel free to violate as soon as they get the chance. In any case, an interpretation of what was said during talks (as is being done by the Indian side as part of the damage control exercise) doesn't matter as much as what is finally put on paper and signed by the two sides: while the former is subject to subjective interpretation by either side, the latter is an immutable reality.

Interestingly, while the Indian prime minister has tried to send out a bold and imaginative signal to Pakistan by reiterating "India's interest in a stable, democratic, Islamic Republic of Pakistan", it would perhaps have been in the fitness of things if a similar expression of interest in a 'stable, strong, prosperous, secular Republic of India' had come from the Pakistani side. In fact, security analysts in India often point out that while India always says that a stable and friendly Pakistan is in India's interest, not a single Pakistani of any consequence has ever expressed a similar sentiment about India!

The spin that Indian officials have sought to put on the exclusion of the word 'Jammu and Kashmir' from the joint statement and project it as an accomplishment of Indian diplomacy is frankly quite ridiculous. Why should India be so chary of mentioning the 'K' word? After all, India has a very strong case on Kashmir. What is more, unless India has already signed off on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, India has a strong claim on these areas and there is no reason why India should not press this claim with Pakistan. As for the disturbances in Kashmir, these are the result of the jihadist policies of the Pakistani state and surely the human rights violations by the Islamists in the Indian state should be a matter that India must raise with Pakistan.

The agreement between the two PMs that "the two countries will share real time, credible and actionable information on any future terrorist threats" is, to say the least, vague. If there is seriousness and sincerity on both sides to share intelligence to pre-empt, prevent or prosecute terrorists and if promises intelligence sharing are not reduced to mere statements of pious intentions, then this could be the start of a paradigm shift in the relations between India and Pakistan. But past experience, especially with the Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism that was created with such fan-fare but ended as a damp squib, suggests that an agreement on intelligence sharing is not worth the paper it is written on. According to Dr Singh, the Pakistani prime minister assured him that "if India had any information it must share with Pakistan which will then take action". However, the formulation on intelligence sharing in the joint statement is not in conformity with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's remarks on the same issue because the joint statement seems to suggest that the Pakistanis too will inform India of any terror threat. If only India is to share information with the Pakistanis then obviously this is a one-sided deal, a deal which could compromise Indian intelligence assets inside Pakistan.

Probably the most bizarre and also objectionable part of the joint statement is the inclusion of the threats that Pakistan faces in 'Balochistan and other areas' (the latter being a euphemism for Swat, FATA). According to Dr Singh, India has nothing to hide and is not afraid to discuss these issues. That might well be the case, but then why shouldn't the same standards of transparency be expected from the Pakistani side especially over the involvement of Pakistani intelligence agencies in sponsoring and supporting terror groups not only in India's north-east but also in many other parts of India through the use of Pakistani diplomatic missions in third-countries like Nepal and Bangladesh? This is imperative when we consider that while Pakistan has so far not produced a shred of evidence of Indian involvement in Balochistan or FATA, India has loads of evidence of Pakistani involvement in acts of terror in various Indian states – Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat.

Quite aside the fact that terrorism is only one of the major threats facing India and is by no means "the main threat", the Indian side seems to have made a major mistake by reducing the entire issue of terrorism against India emanating from Pakistani soil to a single point agenda – 26/11 Mumbai attacks. It is almost as though there is no other subversive activity that is taking place inside India which can be traced back to Pakistan. Until Sharm-el-Sheikh, the Indian side had insisted and the Pakistanis had conceded that Pakistan will not allow its territory or any territory under its control to be used for spreading terror in India. Now, however, the Indian side has given up its insistence on this issue. This could be because some in the Indian camp have convinced themselves that Pakistan is now seriously going to join the fight against terrorism, more so since Pakistan is itself suffering the effects of the Jihad factory that has been working in that country for over three decades now.

There are however two major problems with this assessment of the Indian leadership: one, the terror that is affecting Pakistan is the outcome of 'strategic assets' turning toxic, while the terror that is effecting India is the result of 'strategic assets' remaining 'strategic' and under control; two, India is judging possible Pakistani responses to Islamist terror groups from the standpoint of India's rationality. In other words, the Indian side believes that had India suffered what Pakistan is suffering it would have used all its national power to combat and eliminate the terror groups. But what the Indian side is forgetting is that Pakistanis are a different people, Pakistan is a different country, and the trajectory of social and political development of the two countries has only increased the distance in the way they perceive things.

Finally, by delinking the dialogue process and terrorism, India has made a huge compromise, one that it will find unsustainable and untenable if another major terrorist attack takes place in India, something that cannot be ruled out in the future. Exactly a similar understanding was reached in April 2005 when Gen. Musharraf visited India. Such an assurance provides the dialogue process virtual immunity from terrorist attacks which may or may not be state sponsored. While it is true that a dialogue is as much in India's interest as in Pakistan's, surely jaw-jaw and war-war cannot proceed apace. By conceding on this issue, India has accepted that it will continue to negotiate even if there is a gun pointed to India's head.

Having accepted that "dialogue is the only way forward" what is then the sense in holding out on resuming the composite dialogue process. After all, the dialogue process is not only for the benefit of Pakistan, but also because it served India's interests. If India thought it has something to gain from the peace process then who is India trying to punish and what does it hope to gain by refusing to resume the dialogue process? After pushing through the joint statement down the throat of the country, isn't it disingenuous to now say that "the starting point of any meaningful dialogue with Pakistan is a fulfillment of their commitment, in letter and spirit, not to allow their territory to be used in any manner for terrorist activities against India".

Clearly, there is a lot that's wrong with the long and badly drafted joint statement, particularly from India's standpoint. Perhaps a short, crisp joint statement that signalled the tentative re-starting of bilateral engagement would have been more in the order of things. But a sort of desperation on the part of India, probably to please her 'strategic partner', has led to India to concede a lot more than it should have. These then are the wages of entering into a 'strategic partnership' with a superpower.

TALIBAN STORM: PETERING OUT OR DECEPTIVE CALM

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    Going by media reports, most of which emanate from the public relations wing of the Pakistan army, it would appear as though the Taliban are on the run and the Pakistan army is going about its job of re-taking control of territory from the Islamists with clinical efficiency. Apart from a few skirmishes and a couple of pockets of fierce resistance, the army has not faced any major obstacle in ousting the Taliban from the areas they held in the Malakand division, albeit at an enormous human cost in terms of the millions of internally displaced people and devastation of their villages, towns, homes and hearths. And yet, not many people in Pakistan are entirely convinced by the positive spin that the army is putting on the entire operation.

One major reason for this is the failure of the army to capture or kill a single one of the top Taliban commanders, something that has given rise to doubts about the objectives and intentions of the army in conducting the military operation against the Taliban. But even if it is accepted that there is no double-game being played by the Pakistan army and that the military establishment has undertaken a paradigm shift, which has been articulated by President Asif Zardari when he declared in an interview that military "operations would in the future target the figures who were the military's 'strategic assets'", there remains adequate reason for a deep sense of disquiet in the people's minds. After all, the Taliban have not ceased to exist; they are lurking somewhere and probably looking for a suitable opportunity to strike and reclaim lost ground.

According to the Pakistan army spokesman, around 2000 Taliban have been killed in the latest military operation that commenced in May 2009. But in a new, path-breaking book, a Pakistani journalist, Aqeel Yusufzai, has estimated that the strength of the Pakistani Taliban in the seven tribal agencies of FATA and frontier regions of settled districts of NWFP is around 120,000. In just Swat alone there are believed to be around 11000 Taliban fighters. These figures don't include those Taliban who are active in the other districts of NWFP, in the Pashtun belt of Balochistan, or in urban Sindh. Yusufzai writes that the strength of the Pakistani Taliban is about the same as that of the Afghan Taliban which means that the combined strength of the Taliban fighters on both sides of the Durand line is over 200,000. This number doesn't include Taliban sympathisers and supporters. According to Yusufzai, even if one were to knock down these figures, the number of Taliban in Pakistan would be above 50,000. (Talibanisation by Aqeel Yusufzai pp 78-82).

Clearly, if Yusufzai's figures are correct, then the claims being made by the Pakistan army of having broken the back of the Islamists need to be taken with lot more than a pinch of salt. This is so despite reports that suggest that the Pakistani security agencies are getting their act together in ferreting out and breaking Taliban networks in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and even parts of NWFP. Apparently, the law enforcement agencies seem to be getting actionable intelligence which has enabled them to pre-empt attacks by Taliban soldiers, supporters and sleeper cells in cities like Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Sialkot etc. It also looks as though the preventive security measures against suicide bombings are working and are able to at least limit the damage caused by these human bombs.

On the military front too, there appears to be better operational coordination (as in the case of the hammer-anvil tactics being adopted after the Americans launched Operation Khanjar in Helmand) and intelligence cooperation (the sharing of information and on selection of targets for drone attacks in both north and south Waziristan) between the Pakistan army and the Americans. There are reports that suggest that the Taliban (both Afghan and Pakistani) are finding their space for manoeuvre getting somewhat constricted. The militants increasingly seem to be getting boxed in by the new military posture and movements on both sides of the Durand line. Perhaps for this reason the Afghan Taliban are trying to impress upon their Pakistani counterparts to try and cool matters down with the Pakistani authorities. On their part, the Pakistani Taliban are trying to expand the area of conflict inside Pakistan to ease the mounting military pressure on them.

The big question however remains: what has happened to the Taliban? Will they go back to their pre-Taliban lives or will they put up a fight? Will they make a final stand (in which they stand no chance) or will they resort to a prolonged guerrilla warfare that will sap the military, economic and political force that the state is able to muster up against them? What is the reason that the retaliation that was being expected has not been forthcoming so far and whatever little has come, including the bombing of Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar, is not of a nature that will bring the Pakistani state on its knees. If anything, it would appear that the people are now taking these blasts in their stride. In order to make an impression, the Taliban will have to hit newer and more audacious targets with the intention of causing maximum damage, both physical and psychological. That they have failed to do so could be because of the intercession of pro-Pakistan Taliban like the Haqqani militia and according to some analysts, even Mullah Omar. Or it could be because the security architecture devised by the Pakistani authorities is working on the ground.

It would however be very premature to start celebrating victory. Chances are that given the millenarian ideological mindset that gave rise to the Taliban, this monster is not going to disappear overnight. At the very least, Pakistan is likely to face a very long war of attrition. A low level insurgency is however something that the Pakistani state can live with. If anything, such a situation will be extremely helpful for the army to retain its primacy on both security and foreign policy issues as also for the government which can use this to continue looking for handouts and bailouts. But this is only the best case scenario.

There is also a worst case scenario, one that holds the possibility of the Islamists waiting for an opportune time and launching their own version of the Tet offensive that the Viet Cong used to such devastating effect in Vietnam against the Americans. Fears of something like this taking place have been expressed in the past both by officials and by analysts. If the Islamists, using their countrywide network, deploy 10-20 men teams and carry out Mumbai-style fidayeen attacks in 8-10 cities simultaneously, they will shatter whatever little confidence the military operation has managed to restore in the ability of the Pakistani state to fight the Taliban successfully, more so if such an attack is carried out in cities like Karachi (which is already a tinder box), Lahore, Rawalpindi, Quetta etc.

In the event, the Pakistani authorities will be forced to spread their forces thin in order to prevent such an audacious attack taking place again. This will suit the Taliban just fine because the gaps this will create in the security grid can be used by them to inflict a few major reverses on the Pakistan army. The danger is that a few major setbacks could easily break the spirit of the people and the army and create a domino effect that could catapult the Taliban into the corridors of power in Islamabad. And no, this is not the figment of a creative imagination, nor is it wishful thinking. The Taliban tactics and strategy is being guided by former officers of the Pakistan army, some of whom are experts in covert warfare and are trying to replicate tactics used by the Viet Cong some 30 years back against the same enemy.

The situation in Pakistan is still very precarious and there is a long way to go before the bubbly can be popped to celebrate the defeat of the Taliban. Whether or not Pakistan has the staying power and commitment to tread this bloody path, it has the military and financial support that the Pakistan state requires from the international community to stay the course, and it has the vision to effect unavoidable reforms in its system of governance, its education system, its public and social goods sector, the basic idea of what the idea of the Pakistani state, only time will tell. If Pakistan has all this, it has a chance of rescuing itself. If it doesn't, then sooner or later the curtains will drop on the Pakistan we know.

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    <1460 Words>                    8^th July, 2009

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MOOLAH FOR THE MUJAHIDS

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    It is still not clear whether Pakistani analysts, politicians, 'embedded' journalists, officials and even ordinary people are trying to fool themselves or rest of the world when they first wonder from where the Taliban are getting the funds and weaponry to fight the war and then in the same breath, and without a shred of evidence, level wild allegations against India, Israel, America, and every other imagined 'enemy' of Islam and of Muslims for pumping money and munitions to prop up the war effort of the Taliban. Perhaps, if opinion and policy makers in Pakistan did a little self-introspection, displayed some intellectual honesty, jogged their memory just a little bit (especially on the jihadi infrastructure that has been set up in their country) and, most of all, perused reports in their own media, they would be in a better position to inform the Pakistani public about the source of funds and weapons for the Taliban.

An even easier way out is for the people of Pakistan to ask from where organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiba/Jamaatud Dawa, Jaish-i-Mohammad, Harkatul Mujahideen etc. get their funding and weapons. Chances are that the Pakistanis will discover the inconvenient truth that the source of funds and weapons for their 'strategic assets' (LeT, JeM, HuM, and of course the 'good' Taliban) and their 'toxic assets' ('bad' Taliban and al Qaeda) is more or less the same. What is more, answers to such searching questions will save Pakistani officials, ministers and parliamentarians from getting into a ridiculous situation in which they first insinuate a 'foreign hand' (a euphemism for India) behind the Taliban insurgency, and when pressed to drag India before the court of international public opinion, these same people say that they still don't have any evidence to substantiate the charges they are levelling against India. In other words, they are blaming India not because they have any proof but only because they have convinced themselves that India would almost certainly exploit every opportunity to give Pakistan a taste of its own (jihadi) medicine. That India has nothing to gain and much to lose with the ascendancy of the Taliban inside Pakistan is something that is not even taken into consideration.

Blaming India for propping up the Islamist insurgency probably helps the Pakistani state rally its people against the Taliban. But, at the same time it also distracts and deflects attention from the very real and serious nature of the internal problems and challenges that Pakistan confronts in combating the Islamist insurgency. The facts on the ground suggest that the insurgents neither need too much money nor ultra hi-tech weapons to fight against the combined might of the Pakistan army and the NATO military machine. Compared to the Pakistan army, the insurgents are essentially a highly mobile light infantry, armed with mostly assault rifles, rocket launchers, some light machine guns, mortars, grenades, and a handful of sniper rifles. The Pakistan army however claims that the Taliban possess 'modern' weapons which even the army doesn't have, though what these weapons are remains a secret.

The sorts of weapons that the insurgents are using are more easily available than wheat flour is in many areas of Pakistan. Indeed, the entire Af-Pak region is awash with such weapons, so much so that Pakistanis often used to boast that practically every Pashtun is armed with such weapons. There are also innumerable reports of tribes using heavy weapons – anti-aircraft guns in ground position, light artillery, heavy machine guns etc. – against each other during clashes, and this was happening even when there was no insurgency in these areas.

A flourishing cottage industry was manufacturing many of these arms in precisely the areas experiencing the insurgency today. What is more, sophisticated smuggling networks with links with arms dealers and other merchants of death around the world were either set up, or patronised by the Pakistani intelligence agencies in pursuit of strategic objectives in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Many of these networks are still in business, reaping the rewards of a surge in demand for their merchandise; only, they are now probably operating below the radar screen of the Pakistani spooks.

No doubt, you still need money to buy the weapons and equipment. But two important points need to be made here: one, the money required for funding an insurgency is a fraction of what is needed by the state to combat an insurgency (no one knows this better than the Pakistani intelligence agencies!); two, the utilisation of money by the insurgents is far more efficient and effective than by the state (of course this presumes that the insurgents are not spending it on the good life).

To take the second point first, there is nothing so far to suggest that the Islamists are blowing up money on anything other than what they are collecting it for. By all accounts, the utilisation of resources by insurgents is extremely efficient, as compared to a conventional army that despite wasting time and money by following lengthy procedures of procurement are almost never able to prevent money from being siphoned off through commissions and kick-backs. Apart from efficiency, the insurgents use the money very effectively, producing maximum bang for the buck.

For instance, if manufacturing a suicide bomber costs a few thousand dollars, the impact – psychological and financial – that every such blast has on the adversary runs into several multiples of what was spent. Equally important, a suicide bomber is a very inexpensive 'smart bomb', especially when compared to the cost of munitions, fuel and maintenance of jet fighters and gunships of a conventional army. Moreover, unlike a conventional army that spends enormous amounts to maintain its lines of communications, its logistics, its colonial style administrative and training facilities, and the systems needed to protect not only the battlements but also the hinterland, the insurgents incur no such costs.

Allegations made by the Pakistani authorities that the insurgents are paying their foot-soldiers double of what security force personnel earn from the government, are only that because many of the Taliban cadre actually work for free, for the glory of God and their religion and for rewards in the afterlife. Add to all this the cost of collateral damage caused by the conventional army, that too in a country on the brink of bankruptcy and fighting the war by borrowing money which it has no hope of ever repaying, and the sums work entirely in favour of the insurgents.

    As for the source of funds, this too is not a secret. A network of charities and wealthy individuals (local and foreign) is an obvious source of funds. There are also the collections made in mosques and madrassas and in the form of animal hides collected after Eid. Narcotics are another lucrative source of funds, one which the ISI too has used in the past to fund its operations. Then there are the contributions made by the various mafias – timber, transport, smugglers etc. – who pay protection money to the insurgents to carry out their business with impunity. In addition to contract killing (for instance through use of suicide bombing), there is also a huge extortion and kidnapping business that is being run by the insurgents to collect funds. In the areas where they dominate, the Islamists were levying taxes on the people. They also receive funds from hawala operators and recently there are reports that the company of a serving minister in the federal government was involved in organising funds for the insurgents. The combined earning from all these sources runs into billions of rupees, enough money to fund the war effort of the Islamists.

Both the source of funds as well as their utilisation is an open secret, one on which the Pakistani press itself has been reporting from time to time. And yet, instead of cracking down on these sources, the Pakistani authorities are busy constructing conspiracy theories to pin the blame on their pet objects of hate – India, Israel, USA. Perhaps the authorities don't crack down on these sources of terror finance partly because they are unable to, partly because they want to use these funding channels for future dirty wars, and partly because some of the officials might actually be taking a cut from those who run these rackets. Whatever the case, if the state of Pakistan is serious about combating the Islamist insurgents, it must stop pointing fingers and start to act against financial underground that is sustaining the Taliban.

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    <1410 Words>                    2^nd July, 2009

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