The shadow over Pakistan- Ayaz Amir
The Soviet pullout from Afghanistan in 1989 was a triumph for our
military establishment. The ISI and the Zia regime, while not solely
responsible for that outcome, had helped bring it about. But the
American pullout from Afghanistan, now underway and to be completed in
about a year’s time, far from being any kind of triumph looks set to
be a disaster...one for which we are wholly unprepared.
Afghanistan in 1989 was a simpler proposition, the highs and lows of
it etched in black and white. Afghanistan in 2013 is a place
infinitely more complicated and dangerous...not just for itself but
for us as well. This is because of one vital difference. Afghanistan
then was a country contained within its borders. Afghanistan now, to
our misfortune, is stretched across the Durand Line. Ask yourself two
simple questions: (1) Are the Taliban based in FATA more loyal to
Mullah Omar or to the state of Pakistan? (2) Is North Waziristan, in
real terms, more a part of Pakistan or Afghanistan?
When the American pullout is complete these facts will become starker.
Does anyone in his right mind think that in a year from now Amir
Hakeemullah Mehsud – amir of the semi-independent Islamic Emirate of
North Waziristan – will come down from the mountains and lay down his
arms before the army command in Rawalpindi?
The Afghan ‘mujahideen’ in 1989 exulted over the circumstance that
they had defeated one superpower. Now they can lay claim to a far
bigger triumph. Forget about the Afghan Taliban. Does any fool think
that when the Americans have drunk fully from their cup of
humiliation, the Pakistani Taliban will be in a more penitent mood,
ready to settle for modest or moderate terms with the hapless
representatives of the Pakistani state? What world of fantasy and
make-believe are we living in?
We can fit that old proverb to our circumstances: with friends like
the United States who needs enemies? The Americans made life difficult
for us by coming to Afghanistan in 2011. They will make life more
difficult for us by leaving the job they came to do not just half-done
but utterly undone. The Taliban before were just an Afghan phenomenon,
a curiosity to be observed from afar. Thanks to our American friends
they are now just as much a Pakistani phenomenon. And we will have to
deal with this phenomenon not in the remote future but in a year’s
time. When President Obama first said that American troops would be
out by 2014, it seemed such a distant date. Now it’s upon us and, far
from being prepared, we are seeing to it that we bury our heads deeper
into the sand, with sundry paladins saying we must talk peace with the
Taliban without being at all clear what this would entail.
Forget for a moment the modalities of peace talks, whether in the
mountains or Doha or wherever. Can the knights proposing talks with
the Taliban just spell out the terms of a likely settlement? We need
some clarity here, not woolly statements...specific outlines of a
settlement that would be good for Pakistan. If capable of this
clarity, they should not waste a minute. If not, then perhaps it would
be best not to brandish olive branches which can only encourage the
Taliban and confuse our own forces risking their lives in the killing
fields of Fata.
There has been no greater apologist for the Taliban than Imran Khan.
Yet when he wanted to march to North Waziristan the Taliban would not
allow him. Maulana Fazlur Rehman is a self-appointed mediator for
talks with the Taliban. Yet the Taliban, in so many words, have made
it clear they want to have nothing to do with him.
Do we take the Taliban to be a bunch of kids? They have been fighting
the Pakistan army and air force for the last so many years. Having
held out for so long will they settle for any kind of lollipops when,
across the Hindukush mountains, vindication is so close at hand for
their brethren under Mullah Omar from whom they derive their
inspiration? And from whom besides inspiration they will derive more
physical strength once the Americans are out of Afghanistan.
Are we in a position to dictate terms or negotiate from a position of
strength? Quite apart from the balance of military forces, is there
any internal cohesion on our side? If there are elements in Pakistani
society hostile to the Taliban, there is no shortage of elements
sympathetic to them. The Taliban suffer from no such confusion. We
need no videos from the Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, to tell
us that they are united in their aim: the recasting of the Pakistani
state along lines prescribed by their own version of Islam.
What Swat was under Mullah Fazlullah, what North Waziristan is under
Hakeemullah Mehsud, what the Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan
will be under Mullah Omar, is what they would like the whole of
Pakistan to be. And don’t forget that their support network in the
form of friendly seminaries and friendly religious parties is now
spread across Pakistan.
The MQM may have its own sins to answer for but it is not crying wolf
when it says that spreading areas of Karachi are now
Taliban-dominated, with their own jirgas to settle local disputes.
Indeed, the Taliban are stepping into the shoes of the Awami National
Party. And the MQM while not without its own power will, in times to
come, be no match for these veterans of multiple jihads. So the
dynamics of the national situation are changing and we remain
blissfully unaware. This is strategic depth in reverse; not
Afghanistan our depth but Pakistan with its religious parties and
Taliban sympathisers becoming, oh scary thought, an extension of
Afghanistan. Does this sound too apocalyptic? But then could anyone
have imagined in 2001 that in a few years’ time North Waziristan would
become a no-go area where our military boots would fear to tread? Or
that the spectre of Vietnam would come to haunt Afghanistan?
Afghanistan is only living up to its reputation of being the graveyard
of empires. But who told us to play with fire there? Now it’s just not
our fingers that are being burnt but much more.
Come to think of it, through our folly we are reversing 200 years of
history. Once upon a time most of the territories now comprising
Pakistan were part of the kingdom of Kabul. Then on these territories
Maharajah Ranjit Singh established his kingdom and, as a measure of
his power, wrested Peshawar from Afghan hands. With the Maharajah’s
death his kingdom fell on evil days and it was not long before it was
defeated and then annexed by the British.
Of this tangled skein we are the luckless inheritors, successors of
course to the British but, at a remove, successors also to the kingdom
of Maharajah Ranjit Singh. His was a secular kingdom but let’s not get
into that minefield here. More to the point, he kept the Afghans at a
distance. We have been less successful than him in our Afghan policy.
Our military commanders talk strangely of training Afghan troops. Our
own house in disorder, we have the hubris to offer free advice to
others.
And as the Americans prepare to leave, forget all the hogwash about
their continued interest in our affairs. A skeletal relationship will
of course survive but we will be largely on our own, with the rupee in
free-fall and the Taliban on the march, in spirit if not otherwise.
This about sums up our predicament.
That is why 2013 is so crucial for us, for the governing arrangement
that emerges from the coming elections will be the stewards of our
discontent when the Americans are out and the Taliban are dreaming of
duplicating in Pakistan their victory that side of the Durand Line
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