Establishmentality G Parthasarathy / May 28, 2011, 0:25 IST
Bruce Riedel advised four US presidents on foreign policy. G Parthasarathy reviews his book on the America-Pakistan relationship, and says there are no good guys
Unlike parliamentary democracies like India and the United Kingdom, the United States does not have a politically neutral and permanent bureaucracy. When Democrats and Republicans alternate in the presidency, there is a virtual musical chairs played out in the higher echelons of the bureaucracy in the White House and in all government departments. But Bruce Riedel, a long-term CIA official, has the distinction of having served four American presidents — Republican and Democrat — as a specialist on West Asian and South Asian Affairs. As Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad, I was fascinated to note that when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif rushed to meet President Bill Clinton on July 4, 1999, to get the Americans to provide him a face-saving exit strategy from his Kargil misadventure, Riedel was the sole official from either side present at the Clinton-Sharif summit.
Riedel’s book Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of Global Jihad gives a fascinating insight into an American insider’s view on developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the tensions and suspicions between Pakistan on the one hand and its neighbours, Afghanistan and India, on the other. But above all, it gives a detailed insight into the circumstances leading to the Pakistan military establishment’s fatal attraction for radical Islamic groups. The establishment wants to make Afghanistan a client state ruled by the internationally reviled and isolated Taliban on the one hand, while seeking to wrest Jammu & Kashmir from Indian hands by using radical Islamic groups like the Lashkar-e Taiba and the Jaish-e Mohammed on the other. Riedel bluntly identifies both these groups as being responsible separately for the attack on India’s Parliament in December 2001 and the 26/11 terrorist outrage in Mumbai. He dwells on the role of Chicago-based David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana in the 26/11 outrage and hints at ISI complicity in the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July 2008.
US President Barack Obama recently denounced Pakistan’s “obsession” with India and called on Pakistan to seek normal, good-neighbourly relations with its eastern neighbour. The propensity of prominent Pakistanis, especially those linked to the country’s military and nuclear establishments, to demonstrate pathological animosity towards India and Indians is best described by Riedel in the book’s preface. He quotes a statement of alleged nuclear proliferator Dr A Q Khan just after the Pakistan army’s ignominious surrender in the 1971 Bangladesh conflict. Khan averred that “when the Pakistan army surrendered in the then East Pakistan and faced utmost humiliation, Hindus and Sikhs were beating them with shoes and their heads were being shaved in concentration camps. I saw those scenes with horror.” But Khan was then living in Belgium. How he could have witnessed such scenes (which, in any case, never took place) in the days before live television coverage is a mystery which he has never clarified.
There is one attribute in Riedel’s portrayal of events from the days of the CIA-ISI honeymoon, when General Zia-ul-Haq was President, which needs critical evaluation. Like all CIA and Pentagon officials of the Cold War era, Riedel seems to have a soft corner for both the Pakistan army and the ISI, despite recognising that it has been the paranoia, unrealistic ambitions and arrogance of the members of these two institutions that has led Pakistan to the quagmire in which it now finds itself. Riedel acts as an apologist for the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment when he describes the terrorism that it has fostered and spawned as the work of “elements” or “rogue elements”. Riedel deliberately ignores the fact that, despite all its failings and follies, the Pakistan army is a disciplined force functioning through a rigid command structure. The ISI is an extension of the army, with the ISI chief directly under the control of the army chief. No junior officer or “rogue element” can undertake covert operations, like the attacks on US forces in Afghanistan or terrorist strikes in India, without the approval of the highest levels of the military leadership. But perhaps Riedel can be forgiven for this transgression; even Indians in high positions often seek to similarly let the ISI off the hook.
Riedel contradicts himself by acknowledging, on the one hand, that Pakistan is the epicentre of “global jihad”, with unrealistic ambitions of “parity” with India, while at the same time asserting that Washington should “forcefully encourage New Delhi to be more flexible on Kashmir”. What makes this assertion seem ludicrous is his earlier revelation that President Pervez Musharraf called his corps commanders in early 2007 to endorse the draft package of proposals that he had reached with New Delhi, aimed at resolving the Kashmir issue. He later acknowledges that “the conversion of Line of Control into a permanent, a normal international border”, which is “permeable”, so that people on both sides can lead more normal lives, is the only realistic solution to the Kashmir issue. It is now widely acknowledged that this was the fundamental basis for the package of proposals that Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to in 2007. There is no reason to believe that any sensible Indian would be averse to honouring the agreement reached in 2007. It is General Ashfaq Kayani, Musharraf’s successor as army chief, who forced President Asif Zardari to disown the agreement. Why Singh has not revealed the terms of the 2007 agreement to the people and Parliament of India also remains a mystery.
Riedel’s book covers the entire range of American policies that have played a huge role in making Pakistan and Afghanistan into the epicentre of global terrorism today. Sadly, the Americans appear to have learnt nothing from the disastrous results of unquestioningly backing a fundamentalist military dictator like General Zia-ul-Haq, while deliberately condoning his quest for nuclear weapons. If the Clinton administration looked benignly upon the Taliban dispensation in the hope that oil company Unocal would play a lead role in the exploitation of Central Asian gas, the George W Bush and Obama administrations are guilty of overlooking the jihadi propensities of Kayani and even forcing Zardari to give him a three-year extension in service. A perceptive reader will thoroughly enjoy reading about the US’s Deadly Embrace of forces which ultimately brought down the Twin Towers in New York and drew the Americans into a costly and prolonged conflict against the forces of “global jihad” — forces that have brought misery and suffering to the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan and promoted global terrorism.
DEADLY EMBRACE
Pakistan, America and the Future of Global Jihad
Author: Bruce Riedel
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 180
Price: Rs 499
No comments:
Post a Comment