Pygmies can't fight this war

BY NASIM ZEHRA (Vantage Point)

9 August 2008

The diplomatic deadlock that had followed Delhi's totally justifiable
Indian outrage against the deadly attack on its Kabul embassy may have
slightly eased after the Colombo Saarc summit.

Yet the meetings in Colombo between the Pakistani Prime Minister and
his Indian and Afghan counterparts could not have addressed the
growing distrust between Pakistan and its western and eastern
neighbours.

Together they have pointedly accused Pakistan's intelligence agency
the ISI of masterminding the Kabul embassy attack. Pakistan's repeated
call for evidence has prompted Washington to share the text of a
telephonic conversation between two Afghans planning the attack
referring to ISI's support the attack.

The Americans also claim that they have in their custody an ISI agent
captured operating in Khost. In its subsequent meetings with its
Islamabad-based CIA counterparts have asked for more "substantive
evidence." Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani also requested the Afghan
President Hamid Karzai for more evidence on the alleged involvement of
the ISI in the Kabul bombing. In Colombo Gilani also met US Under
secretary Richard Boucher the third of the key player on the
Afghanistan scene. Boucher again advised Gilani on how best to
internally battle terrorism.

More bilateral meetings between Pakistan and its neighbours are on the
cards but more such diplomatic exchanges are unlikely to address the
more difficult dilemmas related to the growing militancy problem.

These dilemmas that cover the regional dimension of militancy have
surfaced more clearly in trilateral response — of Delhi, Kabul and
Washington — to the Indian embassy bombing in Kabul. At least three
are noteworthy.

One, there is a trilateral consensus between Kabul, Delhi and
Washington on Islamabad alone being the primary and near exclusive
trouble maker in Afghanistan. While the nature of the functioning of
national intelligence workings, some of ISI's past track record and
the nature of antagonism that prevails between the regional countries
means ISI's involvement cannot be ruled out but the quick pre-
investigation conclusion lead by Kabul followed by Delhi and
Washington that ISI alone is behind the bombing illustrates this anti-
Pakistan consensus.

Two the historical Islamabad-Delhi adversarial relations are now being
played out in Kabul. Delhi for obvious reasons is on the ascendance
while Islamabad is on the defensive.

How Kabul and Delhi conduct their bilateral political, economic and
diplomatic relations is the prerogative of the two countries but how
the relationship effects the security of Pakistan's own border and
internal security will be of legitimate concern to Pakistan. There is
enough evidence available on Delhi's use of the Pakistan's Balochistan
difficulties, through material support to angry Baloch elements
residing in Afghanistan, to destabilise Balochistan, the home of
Pakistan's Baloch and the strategically important province. This
India and Afghanistan dimension having to some extent contributed to
the emergence of a siege mindset within Pakistan's security
establishment.

The Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies, in a pincer move, are
engaged in undermining Pakistan's security from two fronts. They are
busy using the Baloch card and the militant card, created initially
through the blunders of the Pakistani State. Now our neighbouring
intelligence agencies are effectively exploiting these weaknesses.
Many alienated Baloch including Sardar Akbar Bugti's grandson Bramdagh
reside in Afghanistan while Indian funding is made available to
various groups.

On the LoC, the July 27th Indian military move to establish a forward
post inside the LOC on the Pakistani side of the LOC was projected as
Pakistan going into Indian Held Kashmir. This pincer movement,
involving India and Afghanistan, will only aggravate matters.

Three, while within Pakistan there has been a genuine rethink of a
decades old short-sighted security strategy, evolved in partnership
with the US a similar rethink within other states to deal with the
growing problem of militancy is not in evidence. The Washington-led
international approach of putting Pakistan alone in the dock flows
from deep-seated suspicion, prejudice and willful attempt to weaken
the security apparatus of a State, which the US and others in the
region do not entirely trust.

This is a convenient position for countries, which like ostrich are
unwilling to view their own weaknesses. The fact that while US and UK
generals and men with boots on the ground met in UK, as they have done
in July, they acknowledge categorically the huge problems with the
Karzai regime, but find it difficult to state the same publicly.

Reports of London meetings trickle in. They suggest the generals
recognize that maybe achieving success is a long haul affair, it will
take their staying in Afghanistan for 30 years but know staying that
long is not possible. Their national politics will not allow them.
Conscious of the remoteness of achieving success they want to leave
now.

For the Americans their national politics will not allow them too. But
for the UK their 'special relationship' with the US will not allow
them hurried exit. The same is true of the Europeans and the Canadians
too. Their is talk among UK generals that they must stay on in
Afghanistan as a "US auxiliary.' The Germans, especially their
defence professionals maintain in private that have been demanding a
Pakistani way forward on the tribal area issue. They are hesitant to
go the starkly blundering US way. From Washington reliable reports
indicate that " the generals, they are distressed, and angrier with
Karzai than with Pakistan."

It is time for Pakistan to categorically state: enough of Pakistan-
bashing, enough of vacuous Kantian moralising in a Hobbesian world,
enough of the do-more mantra, enough of double standards in talk and
in practice. A world struck by the growing militancy problem in
Afghanistan and in Pakistan's tribal areas has been on the offensive
against Pakistan.

On the home front and the army plus ANP are struggling to deal with
it. It's a long drawn out struggle. Gradually there is increase in the
application of force because the Swat deal, pushed by the ANP with
input from intelligence agencies, has fallen through. In the tribal
areas the use of force is now ascendant.

In a purely Hobbesian world of inter-state relations it is naïve of
the world to expect Kantian behaviour from a State and a society,
which is being 'pushed to the wall.' Pakistan will play 'as clean as
the world around it.' This is the reality. Take it or leave it. There
is no 'going it alone' on the victory dais for any of Pakistan's
neighbours. We are in this mess together. The way out lies only in

working together; divided we all drown. That is the message of fast
spreading militancy which, with every new subversion move that anyone
from the neighbourhood induct against the other, gets more and more
deadly and uncontrollable.

The region will unravel if the governments in the area and those
involved outsiders like Washington do not make it a common cause to
jointly work to address the causes of growing militancy. The answer
lies in a regional solution. We need to give up historical suspicions,
current score-settling and status hang-ups to work create a more
trusting environment within which a more cooperative security approach
is evolved. It is a tall order. So is the challenge we face. It's not
one that pygmies can deal with.

Nasim Zehra is an Islamabad -based national security strategist


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