The recent visit to Pakistan by the U.S Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke and Admiral Mike Mullen highlighted the growing differences between Pakistan and the United States on how to tackle the threat of Pakistani Taliban. At another level, their visit also signified an emerging consensus between Pakistan’s political leadership and security establishment that it can not afford to give in to the U.S. demands and need to chart a different course.
As a recent Dawn editorial noted, the visiting U.S. team was taken aback by the tone of Pakistani officials. Instead of arm-twisting Pakistan into agreeing to joint military operations in the tribal areas, they were confronted with a barrage of criticism and the visit ended with a rare and public acknowledgment of the differences between the two sides. While the PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has been forceful in his opposition to these attacks for quite some time, it appears that the Prime Minister Gilani, President Zardari and the COAS Gen. Kiyani has finally thrown their weight behind this argument. Also a recent report from the bipartisan National Security committee condemned such attacks in the “strongest possible manner”.
Ironically its the Americans that deserve most of the “credit” for causing this convergence of thinking in Pakistan. A sustained campaign of charges in the U.S. press against the ISI for its alleged links with militants led by the senior U.S. Generals coupled with the threat of an expansion in drone attacks to cover Baluchistan and settled parts of Pakistan has finally convinced the national leaders to come out against the U.S. plans. Pakistan is also frustrated at the United States for its failure to make Pakistan’s strategic interests in Afghanistan a part of its new strategy for the region.
While it is too early to know if Pakistan can put up enough resistance to stop these attacks by unmanned aircrafts, it is good to see the change in nation’s attitude. Sovereignty is something that you either use or loose and in the case of Pakistan, we have opted for the later for the past 8 years. No one can deny the emerging threat of Taliban emanating from Pakistan’s tribal belt yet no sovereign country can allow such attacks by a foreign power. The western media often cites the killing of high-level Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders to justify such tactics but they often fail to recognize the impact of such attacks at the strategic level: in addition to the backlash caused by the civilian casualties, these attacks put Pakistan government and army in an impossible situation that they can’t possibly cope with. They have also caused the Taliban to move eastwards into the more settled areas where such attacks are not possible due to population density. A recent report in the Foreign policy magazine summarized the situation as follows:
The US administration justified the drone attacks by claiming it would deny the militants a ‘safe haven’ in Pakistan.‘This line of argument sounds persuasive, but it falls apart on closer examination. For starters, it is not clear that al Qaeda requires a safe haven to do damage, especially since the original organisation has metastasised into smaller groups of sympathisers.’
The magazine pointed out that only a large-scale invasion could eliminate al Qaeda from the region but such an invasion was impossible and therefore there was little reason to continue the drone attacks.
‘US military strikes in Pakistan —even limited ones —tend to undermine the Pakistani government and increase the risk that Pakistan will become a failed state,’ the report noted.
the only way to stop the bloodshed and utter chaos in the country is to first stop the drone attacks and then go after the ‘taliban’, ‘al-qaeda’, ‘extremists’ or whoever they are.
drones are the problem not the solution.
TARIQ ALI: … what is quite staggering is that in order to sustain the occupation of Afghanistan, a country of 30 million people, the United States is now seriously considering destabilizing Pakistan, which is a country of 175 million people. And they don
Given the choice between the drones violating our airspace and the thousands of foreign terrorists and their local hosts blighting our land, I will happily opt for the former…
These people who cry hoarse at the odd civilian death that also takes out AQ operatives, do not bat an eyelid when the terrorists kill dozens in our cities… hypocricy, thy name is [insert name of your favorite rightwing group here]… how many demonstrations did [insert name of your favorite rightwing group here] take out after the last suicide bombing that TTP owned up to?
The “civilians” who die are those who knowingly provide shelter to terrorists who either violate our territory or are criminals waging a war against their own country… “civilians” they may be by some convoluted definition, but the “innocent” modifier appended before “civilian” is just not correct…
Let them die in these drone attacks… why shed tears for them when they kill us without remorse…
Ideally, it should be our own forces that should be doing the killing… since they have been unable and ineffective, the federal and provincial governments spineless and the vast rightwing opposition so hypocritical, I will swallow my pride and cheer the deaths of the terrorists who die in the drone strikes…
@morbid fascination
You Indians would better get your point across if you weren’t so patronizing and insulting as well.
For your information, all the “Islamic” parties and clergy opposed Jinnah and the creation of Pakistan, because its founders wanted a state where Muslims and minorites could practice religion freely and without fear.
Hence the Taliban etc. violate the basic premise of Pakistan. Islam doesn’t automatically mean mullah rule, flogging, women mistreatment etc.
Pak Army has not adopted a single, standard counter insurgency tactic in all this time.
How can they cut down what you have so tenderly raised?
The people are so blinded by their religiosity and bigotry, that the army has no fear of any political pressure developing urging them to fight;
Gentle Reminder: The Islamic Republic of Pakistan was a state created on the bedrock of religion. Expecting it to morph into a secular democracy because Jinnah envisioned it as such won’t make it so. Why cry foul now that the Age of Consequences has dawned?
Pakistan’s neighbors need to gird for the virulent spawn of the moribund State of Pakistan. Frightening thought.
Why weren’t these people protesting about Marriott, or Chakwal, or Wah, or Lahore High Court (ignoring the scores of attacks in Peshawar and other towns of NWFP)… or any number of attacks by the terrorists on our people? Why not say “khudkush hamlay roko ya hakoomat chhorro”, or “Stop Draculean Terrorist attacks, resulting in bloodshed of innocent Pakistanis”? This is worse than apathy. This is sickeningly mad.
Why protest only the Drone attacks? How many times more innocents have the terrorists killed than the Drone attacks? How many terrorists have the terrorists killed? How many have been killed by the Drones? We hate Americans more than we love our own children?
“Army must be willing to put personnel on streets, towns and villages and conduct active patrolling to ensure security for civilians and civic institutions. The American approach of sitting in secure bases, and using air power and heavy weaponry is not going to work at all.”
Pak Army has not adopted a single, standard counter insurgency tactic in all this time. Half-heartedly lobbing shells in the general direction of a village, town or mountain not only kills civilians, it exposes the Army’s lack of will. The Army obviously does not wish to fight this menace. It has other ideas. Or do the Taliban have an airforce and heavy artillery and cannot be approached?
Saying that we are only fighting this war under the threat of being bombed in to the stone age, confuses our people and soldiers. The real turnaround would be if we owned up and said it was all because of the suicidally stupid tactics of ‘strategic depth’ and using jihadis as a proxy paramilitaray. Of turning our own youth in to jihadis. Other countries too aid and encourage militias and troublemakers inside enemy countries. But we ingeniously created and encouraged religous and sectarian militias within our own society, to be used against the ‘enemy’. But the Army does not have the courage to own up. Yet, without owning up.. the confusion, equivocation, ambivalence and the same policy will continue.
The people are so blinded by their religiosity and bigotry, that the army has no fear of any political pressure developing urging them to fight; and fight the way any professional army fights an insurgency inside one’s own country… with insurgents hiding amongst one’s own countrymen. It’s nothing new nor impossible. It has been done, and done successfully in other parts of the world.