The Hindu Business Line : Power dynamics in Pakistan

There seems to be little appreciation of the fact that it is Gen Ashfaq Kayani and not President Asif Zardari who dictates policy in Islamabad. Gen Kayani is anti-Indian and regards the LeT and the Afghan Taliban as “strategic assets”. This is the message Dr Manmohan Singh has to firmly convey to Washington, says G. PARTHASARATHY.

Developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan will figure prominently when the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, visits the White House on November 24. The Obama Administration has handled events related to the recent re-election of Mr Hamid Karzai as President of Afghanistan in a crude and insensitive manner. By publicly humiliating Mr Karzai, Washington has only weakened a leader set to play a crucial role in emerging developments in that country.

Moreover, the prolonged period that the Obama Administration has taken to review its policies on Afghanistan has given the impression of dithering and uncertainty on the most crucial foreign policy challenge that Washington faces today.

This has confused countries such as India that have sought to complement Washington’s efforts to strengthen Afghanistan internally. These developments are also encouraging the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to believe they will succeed in their efforts to promote terrorism globally.

The US Vice-President, Mr Joseph Biden, reportedly advocates action against Taliban and Al Qaeda hideouts in Pakistan and, even as Mr Obama pondered over what to do next in Afghanistan, the Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, paid a well-planned visit to Pakistan, intended to reassure Pakistanis of American commitment to their welfare, stability and prosperity.

The visit came at a time when the army establishment, led by Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, had joined forces with the opposition Muslim League led by former Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, to undermine President Zardari, by voicing reservations and calling for rejection of the Kerry-Lugar Act. Under its terms, $7.5 billion was pledged as assistance to Pakistan at a time when the country’s revenues cannot even meet the cost of the Government’s administrative expenditure, with economic growth having plummeted to 2 per cent in 2008-2009.

Not surprisingly, both Senator Kerry, who had visited Pakistan earlier, and Ms Clinton bluntly told their Pakistani interlocutors that they were welcome to reject the economic assistance on offer, if they were as displeased as they claimed to be.

Hillary Clinton’s visit

Aware of the power dynamics within Pakistan, the longest meeting Ms Clinton had in Islamabad was not with President Zardari or Prime Minister Gilani, but with Gen Kayani and ISI Chief, Lt. Gen Shuja Pasha, with whom she spent three hours.

Something in the otherwise calm and composed Ms Clinton appears to have snapped, after the meeting with the Army brass. Irked by the orchestrated criticism of US policies, which echoed what she heard in Islamabad, Ms Clinton publicly voiced her misgivings, while in Lahore, about continuing support by Pakistan’s military establishment for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

On October 29, she said: “Al Qaeda has had a safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. I find it difficult to believe that nobody in your Government knows where they are, and couldn’t get them, if they really wanted to”. Cautioning Pakistan on the cross-border terrorism it promotes in India and Afghanistan, Ms Clinton asserted: “If we are going to have a mature partnership where we work together, there are issues that not just the United States, but others have with your Government and your military security establishment”. There is nothing to suggest that the Pakistani military, or its political allies, were unduly perturbed by Ms Clinton’s public admonition.

While the military continues its operations against the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) in South Waziristan, primarily because the organisation challenged the army’s writ within the country, the ISI continues to back the Taliban military commanders in North Waziristan led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, who have relentlessly staged terrorist attacks within Afghanistan, including on the Indian Embassy in Kabul and on Indians in that country.

Moreover, the Taliban political leadership (popularly known as ‘Quetta Shura’), led by Mullah Omar, remains comfortably ensconced in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.

While reviewing policies on Afghanistan, the Obama Administration will sooner or later have to decide whether it can realistically contain the Taliban, or its Al Qaeda allies in Afghanistan, without exercising the “Biden Option” of striking at their bases in Pakistan, across the Durand Line. Recent revelations by the FBI of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) links of two Chicago residents of Pakistani origin, who were plotting a terrorist strike on targets in Denmark and India, establish that Pakistan-based terrorist organisations such as the LeT, now have a worldwide reach and, like the Al Qaeda, a worldwide agenda of terrorism.

Agenda of terrorism

The terrorist strikes in Denmark were to avenge the allegedly blasphemous cartoons in a Danish newspaper. The terrorist attacks planned on India were to be a continuation of earlier terrorist strikes in Mumbai and elsewhere.

The prime accused, Daood Gilani aka David Headley, was in touch with Ilyas Kashmiri, a former Pakistan army commando of the country’s elite Special Services Group (SSG).

Kashmiri was used by the ISI in the 1980s for training the Afghan Mujahideen and in the 1990s for its “Jihad” in Jammu and Kashmir. He escaped after being captured by Indian forces in Poonch in 1994. Interestingly, while Kashmiri was later charged with an attempt to assassinate President Musharraf and for the assassination of a former Commander of the SSG, Major Gen Faisal Alvi, in 2008, he was allowed to get away and seek refuge in North Waziristan alongside Afghan Taliban military commander, Sirajuddin Haqqani, whom Gen Kayani reportedly considers a “strategic asset” of the ISI.

The LeT was reportedly planning to attack the National Defence College in Delhi and elite schools in northern India, reminiscent of the attack by Chechen terrorists in Beslan, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of school children. Chechen terrorists have long-standing links with the Taliban, Al Qaeda, the LeT and with political parties in Pakistan such as the Jamat-e-Islami.

Warned over more attacks

Both the Home Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, and the Indian Army chief have warned that future terrorist attacks will not go unpunished.

The establishment’s reaction in Pakistan to Dr Manmohan Singh’s, speech in Kashmir was brought out by former Senator and Muslim League leader, Mr Mushahid Hussain, who has long-standing links with the Pakistan army and the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Mr Hussain asserted that the Prime Minister’s readiness for dialogue while visiting Kashmir was because of the growing fears in India about Maoist violence, insinuating that the offer of dialogue was because of India’s internal weaknesses.

India has continuously misread the internal dynamics of Pakistan. Even in late 2007 our High Commission in Islamabad and luminaries in South Block believed that Gen Musharraf remained strong and virtually invincible. And now there seems to be little appreciation of the fact that it is Gen Kayani and not President Zardari who determines and dictates policy in Islamabad.

Anyone who knows Gen Kayani’s approach to relations with India, even from the days he commanded the Twelfth Infantry Division in Murree, should realise that he is pathologically anti-Indian and regards the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Afghan Taliban as “strategic assets”. This is the message Dr Singh has to firmly convey to Washington, while responding to calls for revival of the composite dialogue process.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)

More Stories on : Politics | Foreign Relations

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Of ethics and regulation

Pitfalls in transition to new legislation

Look beyond MSP

Power dynamics in Pakistan

Case for a global wage floor

A remedy not apt for the disease

Zero-till can add to the till

Who should bell the cat?

Plan now