PAKISTAN'S FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS || Pakistan and the War against Terrorism

Pakistan Institute of International Affairs

Pakistan and the War against TerrorismAuthor(s): Syed Muhammad Ali ShahSource: Pakistan Horizon, Vol. 60, No. 2, PAKISTAN'S FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS (April 2007),pp. 85-107Published by: Pakistan Institute of International AffairsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41500065 .

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Pakistan and the War against Terrorism

Syed Muhammad Ali Shah

All governments in Pakistan, whether military or civilian, have tried to cultivate constructive relations with the US, and the current political dispensation, led by President Pervez Musharraf, is no exception to the rule. Since the 11 September 2001 attacks, owing to its geographic proximity and diplomatic recognition of the Taliban regime, Pakistan has been thrust into the international spotlight as a front line ally of the US in the war against terrorism.

Although it has played a pivotal role in the US-led war against terrorism, there are doubts among policymakers in the Western world, especially in Washington, as to whether in this war against terrorism, Pakistan is part of the problem or of the solution. Some of the issues that have dominated debates both in policy circles and academia regarding the current engagement with Pakistan are terrorism and its connection with Pakistan; the role of madressahs and extremism; the resurgence of the Taliban and their cross-border infiltration; religious militancy and the future of democracy in Pakistan.

Historically, Pakistan-US relations have experienced either period of cooperation or discord, due largely to the convergence or divergence of US global strategy and Pakistan's regional concerns. After 9/11, their realignment and the enlisting of Pakistan as a key ally in the war against terrorism initiated another phase of cooperation. Every now and then, US officials commend Pakistan for its cooperation with the international community in general and with the US in particular, but intermittently, criticism is also voiced that Pakistan is not doing enough and must do more.

This study aims to analyze the critical role Pakistan has played as a front line ally of the US in the war against terrorism, taking into account

Syed Muhammad Ali Shah is Assistant Research Officer at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs.



86 PAKISTAN HORIZON

Pakistan's policy objectives, strategies and the regional considerations. It focuses on three main issues:

• Measures taken by Pakistan to capture al Qaeda operatives • Madressahs in Pakistan, and their connection with extremism

• Resurgence of the Taliban and Pakistan's multiple dilemmas

Pakistan and the hunt for al Qaeda

For the US, the 9/11 attacks were not only world changing but, more importantly, world view changing events. With terrorism emerging as the first order threat to US interests, its security paradigm has shifted from erstwhile focus on great powers with large militaries and huge industrial bases to the failing or dysfunctional states. Now its immediate concern is the least developed, almost isolated and militarily insignificant state of Afghanistan, which was considered both as a state sponsor of terrorism as well as a state sponsored by terrorists. 9/11 had made it amply clear to the Americans that foreign policy, which used to be an exclusive prerogative of the sovereign state since the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, could now be part of the agenda of rogue outfits like al Qaeda.

It was in this backdrop that, while mobilizing its robust military juggernaut in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, US President George Walker Bush made it unequivocally clear to the world that although the war against terrorism had started from Afghanistan, it would not remain confined to it. He declared that 'Afghanistan is the beginning of our efforts and no group or nation should mistake America's intentions. We will not rest until terrorist groups of global reach have been found, stopped and defeated and this goal will not be achieved until the entire world's nations stop harbouring and supporting such terrorists within their borders.... No nation can be neutral in this conflict, because no civilized nation can be secured in a world threatened by terror'.1 Defining the target, President Bush maintained that 'our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.'2

Since Pakistan was one of the countries that had diplomatic relations with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan - the host of al Qaeda - it was with Islamabad that Washington's most intense negotiations ensued. As

1 Remarks made by President George Walker Bush at the Warsaw Conference on Combating Terrorism, 6 November 2001, www.whitehouse.gov

2 From an address delivered by President Bush at a joint session of Congress and the American people, Washington D.C., 20 September 2001, www.whitehouse.gov



WAR AGAINST TERRORISM 87

President Bush was categorical in his words and intentions, President Musharraf had a hard time persuading the US that it was joining the coalition against terrorism because it itself was the victim of this menace.

What 9/11 brought to the Pakistan-US strategic equation was a cover of legitimacy to President Mushrraf s military regime, although still not an outright one. Prior to 9/11, Pakistan was receiving less military aid from the US than Estonia or Panama,3 chiefly because of the sanctions imposed as punishment for acquiring nuclear weapons and for having deposed a democratically elected government from power through a military coup.

In the wake of 9/11, Pakistan's U-turn towards the Taliban brought about a reversal in the US sanctions regime. The Glenn, Symington and Pressler sanctions were waived by President Bush under Brownback II. Furthermore, Congress also voted to allow President Bush to waive democracy-related sanctions, which have since been waived annually.4 Their economic relations took such a boost that some began criticizing the aid packages offered to Pakistan, especially in the context of Coalition Support Funds (CSF), a post-9/11 Defense Department programme, for 'grossly overcompensating Pakistan'.5

For the US, Pakistan's geostrategic importance became evidently clear as it prepared to launch Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), with the aim to destroy al Qaeda and to topple the Taliban regime. Pakistan's logistical support and opening of its military bases proved critical to the success of OEF, as it started in October 2001.

According to CENTCOM, until 2002, to meet the requirements of the US/coalition forces, Pakistan provided five airbases and even allowed the landing of coalition planes anywhere in Pakistan in case of an emergency. It also provided, on average, 0.4 million litres of fuel per day to US forces, resulting in the flight of 57,800 sorties. It provided two-thirds of its airspace as an air corridor and, in doing so, redirected many of its commercial flights. Its naval facilities were also provided, as coalition forces landed at Pasni. As commended by the US Marine Corps Gazette of June 2002, the coalition naval operations at Pasni were the largest amphibious operations in size, duration and depth that the US Marine

3 Nathaniel Heller, Sarah Fort and Marina Walker Guevara, 'Pakistan's $ 4.2 billion blank check for US military aid,' www.publicintegrity.org

4 Ibid. 5 Ibid.



88 PAKISTAN HORIZON

Corps had conducted since the Korean War.6 In the operation, 8,000 Marines, 330 vehicles and over 1,350 tons of equipment were offloaded at the beach and later flown to Kandahar from Pasni. It was because of effective security arrangements by the Pakistan authorities that not a single lapse of security occurred around the bases during these operations.7

Besides that, the arrest of several top al Qaeda leaders has taken place with the help of the intelligence provided, and operations conducted by Pakistan's security agencies, along with the help of CIA and other intelligence agencies of coalition countries. Within one year, Pakistan made 99 raids, apprehended 420 foreign nationals and handed over 332 of them to the US and 34 of them were extradited to countries other than the US.«

In the war against terrorism, the first major operation conducted by Pakistan was in December 2001. It established 'the Tora Bora neť, which facilitated the capture of 240 al Qaeda operatives, belonging to 26 different nationalities.9 Thus far, it remains the largest catch in a single anti-terrorism operation conducted anywhere in the world since 9/11.

Until now, the most high profile capture by Pakistani agencies was that of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, known as number three in the al Qaeda hierarchy, a real tour de force for the anti-terror operation. He was one of the most sought-after terrorists, who featured prominently on FBI's 'most wanted' list. As Osama bin Laden's 'Military Operational Commander', he was responsible, not only for 'the organizing, planning, follow-up and execution from A to Z' of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, but, according to his own account, also for the 1993 attempt to blow up the World Trade Center; the murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl; the attempt by the shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a plane; the murder of two US soldiers in Kuwait; and bombings in BaU, Mombassa and Turkey.10 Other al Qaeda leaders caught by the Pakistani security agencies were Abu Faraj Faij al-Libbi, Zain-ul- Abideen, Ahmed Khalifan Ghailani, Hassan Masoom, and Samarkand.

6 www.centcom.mil 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Free Press, 2006),

p. 264. 10 Niall Ferguson, 'Terrorist's confession exposes dark side of US'

www.telegraph.co.uk




Pakistan has provided more support, captured more terrorists, and committed more troops than any other nation in the Global Counterterrorism Force (GCTF) operations.11 It had sealed off its western border and made its naval bases, air force bases and its airspace available to US military operations. According to Pakistan embassy officials in Washington D.C., Pakistan conducted more than 38 major successful operations to capture foreign terrorists until 2005. 12 In addition to that, more than 700 army and paramilitary troops of Pakistan have been killed and a larger number has been injured, accounting for more casualties than any other US ally in the war against terrorism. The country has also banned or placed on watch list a number of sectarian and militant organizations and has enforced a number of anti-terrorism laws, and frozen 32 bank accounts suspected of belonging to terrorist organizations, by the end of 2005. 13 Besides creating a national criminal database, Pakistan was the first country to successfully install PISCES, a terrorist-interdiction programme established at seven Pakistani airports.14

In return, Pakistan has received assistance in the economic and military spheres. The US rescheduled billions of dollars of debt, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a series of loans and also agreed to substantial debt rescheduling, chiefly due to US approval.

Statistically, in the first three years after 9/11, US military aid to Pakistan soured to 4.2 billion dollars as compared to 9.1 million dollars in the three years before the attacks, boosting Pakistan to the top tier of countries receiving such funding. Between 2002 and 2004, Pakistan received 2.3 billion dollars of aid from CSF, a total that surpassed three billion dollars. By 2005, it not only earned number one rank among nations receiving CSF money, but Pakistan's take was nearly four times as much as that of all the other countries combined.15

Madressahs and extremism

Madressahs in most Muslim countries exist as part of a broader educational infrastructure. The private education sector provides what is

11 Christine Fair, The Counter Terror Coalitions : Cooperation with Pakistan and India , quoted in Touqir Hussain, US-Pakistan engagement: The war on terrorism and beyond', Special Report, no. 145, United States Institute of Peace, August 2005, pp. 5-6.

12 Touqir Hussain, ibid., p. 6. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Nathaniel Heller, et al., op. cit.



90 PAKISTAN HORIZON

considered to be a quality Western-style education, to those who can afford it/ One of the most contentious issues that Pakistan had to come clean about in the wake of 9/11 was the alleged connection between the rise of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the support structure that Pakistani madressahs provided to them. Although Islamabad has tried to clarify to the international community, in general, and the US in particular, that the overwhelming majority of these Islamic educational institutions have nothing to do with jihadi culture or its growth in the region. The Western media, every now and then, have portrayed them as 'mujahideen producing factories/ threatening not only the regional peace but also destabilizing international order. Madressahs have attracted added attention as it became known that several Taliban leaders and al Qaeda operatives had developed their radical political views at madressahs in Pakistan, some of which were built and financed by donors in the Persian Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia. Although it has also been reported that these religious schools have been unfairly blamed for fostering anti-Western and anti-US sentiments, in the case of Pakistan, the controversy still continues.

An historical overview

To understand the role madressahs have played in the context of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, it is imperative that their development in the area is contextualized in historical terms. The subcontinent was the main source of religious training after Iran became Shiite in the 16th century and the gradual domination of the Central Asian region by the Russian Empire.16 Afghan ulema used to go to the main madressah of Deoband , in India, after 1867. Unfortunately, Afghanistan itself never developed its own network of high-level madressahs. Going to India was a common pattern followed by the ulema wanting to achieve higher studies. However, after the Partition, the Afghan mullahs stopped going to the infidel state of India and, instead, preferred studying in Pakistan. Worried by this connection, the political elite of Afghanistan, haunted by the tradition of tribal revolts headed by religious leaders, tried to establish a 'state clergy* through the faculty of Shariah created in 1951 and started sending its students to Jamiah al Azhar in Cairo. The ulema trained in Pakistan were not recruited by the Afghan government. But, eventually, this Afghan policy of bypassing Pakistani madressahs backfired as the ulema, who came back from Cairo became close allies of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was allied with the Pakistani religious

16 Olivier Roy, 'The Taliban: A strategic tool for Pakistan', in Christophe Jaffrelot (ed.) Pakistan : Nationalism Without a Nation? (New York: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 152-153.




party, Jamaat-e-Islami. The connection between the religious strata of Afghanistan and Pakistan was re-established.

With the Afghan government's failure to create its own class of clergy, the ulema trained in Pakistani madressahs acquired a more fundamentalist and scripturalist conception of Islam. Incrementally, the bulk of the madressahs in southern Afghanistan developed links with a religious movement, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, in Pakistan, itself a political expression of the Deobandi movement.17 This later crystallized into the Taliban movement under the leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar, who launched his struggle to Islamize Afghan society in August 1994.

Politicization of madressahs

It is also important to put into context the politicization of madressahs. It was in 1979, the year when the Iranian revolution and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan occurred, that the institution of madressah, particularly in Pakistan, was politicized and infused with the doctrine of jihad. As Iranian mullahs managed to overthrow the Western-backed government of Reza Shah Pahlavi and took power, it undermined the basic tenet of secularism that religion and politics should be kept apart from each other if a society is to function properly. With religious education again playing a vital role in state affairs, Muslims throughout the world drew inspiration from the Iranian revolution as an alternative to capitalist or communist models of the time. Although Iranians belong to the Shiite sect of Islam, their madressahs have always been more political in their outlook than those of their Sunni counterparts. The image of men in turbans and robes running a country provided a powerful demonstrative impact on madressahs in the Sunni world.18 Considering their monarchical order under threat, Iran's Arab rivals decided to fight this Shiite fundamentalist threat with their own version of Sunni fundamentalism, instrumentalizing madressahs to that end. One key difference; however, between the Islamization of the Iranian state and the subsequent Islamization of Afghanistan was in the context of its leaders. The Iranian revolution was spearheaded by leading Shiite ulema from their seminaries in Iran, whereas the Taliban regime was a product of madressah students, hence the term 'Taliban', which simply means

17 Ibid. 18 Commentary on Husain Haqqani's views on 'Madrassah schools resistant to

change/ www.parapimdit.com



92 PAKISTAN HORIZON

students. Thus, unlike Iran, the Afghan movement was led by students rather than their religious teachers.19

Pakistani madressahs

The links between Pakistani madressahs and the regime of the Taliban, as well as alleged connections between some madressahs and al Qaeda, have led some observers to suggest that reforming the madressahs in Pakistan and Afghanistan is an important part of the strategy to counter the threat of terrorism. While recommending increased US attention to actual or potential terrorist sanctuaries, the 9/11 Commission's final report had singled out the role of madressahs in Pakistan as a particular concern, citing reports that some madressahs have been used as incubators of violent extremism.20 Concomitantly, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in September 2006, had also called on Pakistan to do more to prevent the use of madressahs by extremists and terrorists.

Another reason why madressahs gained notoriety is the coming to power of the religious parties in the October 2002 elections in Pakistan. Their emergence at the political landscape is due primarily to President Musharrafs strategy to ban the leaders of two mainstream secular political parties from coming to Pakistan - Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. Their marginalization at the national level has presented enough political space to the religious right to capitalize on. For the first time in Pakistan's history, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six major religious parties, won seats in two western provinces bordering Afghanistan, and vowed to Islamize the state and society through Taliban-like policies. MMA managed to win nearly 70 seats in the National Assembly, in contrast to the elections of 1997, when they had won only four seats.21 Their political campaign was chiefly based on three demands: support for jihad in all Muslim states, particularly in Afghanistan and Kashmir; expulsion of all US forces from Muslim lands; and the implementation of Shariah in Pakistan.

Additionally, some reports have called for urgent attention to the situation in madressahs, since one of the four suicide bombers that carried out the July 2005 terrorist attacks in London had spent time at a

19 Even the leader of the Taliban movement Mullah Mohammad Omar never graduated from any madressah. For details, see Husain Haqqani, 'Islam's medieval outposts', www.foreignpolicy.com

20 The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004), p. 367.

21 'Pakistan: The mullahs and the military/ International Crisis Group Report, no. 49, March 2003, www.crisisgroup.org




Pakistani madressah having alleged links to extremist organizations.22 Statistically, however, it is important to note that public schools in Pakistan educate about 70 per cent of Pakistan's students, which means that the overwhelming policy focus on madressahs is slanted. For if madressahs educate anywhere between 0.7 and five per cent and public schools educate about 70 per cent students, it is obvious that the policy focus on madressahs is somewhat misplaced and needs a thorough review.23

Still, Pakistan's over 12,000 madressahs are a cause of constant concern for the US administration. They are depicted as a monolithic structure perpetuating or spreading the menace of radicalization in Pakistani society. There is little evidence that madressahs contribute substantially to the recruitment of militants or terrorists. There is a small number of madressahs which are involved in the actual training of militants.24 But, it is also a fact that their role is blown out of proportions in this regard. A researcher, who has surveyed 130 families who had lost at least one son to militancy in Kashmir or Afghanistan, has found no evidence that madressahs are a principle place of their recruitment. In fact, research shows that a terrorist tends to be more sophisticated, that is, more educated and accomplished than a usual madressah student.25 Given the general dearth of secular subjects, madressah students are unlikely to be desirable to many terrorist groups, especially when higher quality recruits are available and high technical operations are to be carried out.

To counter the threat of militant madressahs, the government's attempt to reform, register and regulate madressahs; however, is likely to fail since these reforms are ostensibly promulgated from above under duress rather than generated from below by those who fundamentally benefit from the madressah system. Furthermore, to some observers these measures will backfire because they do not recognize a fundamental aspect of parental choice. It is observed that Pakistani parents are increasingly dismayed by the government schools, which neither impart quality education nor contribute to making their children 'good Muslims'.26 Additionally, American and Western pronouncements in this regard have undermined the very effort of registration and regulation of madressahs. For madressah officials claim that the

22 Christine Fair, Islamic education in Pakistan', www.usip.org 23 Christine Fair, 'Confronting the Pakistan problem', www.pbs.org 24 Christine Fair, Islamic education in Pakistan', op. cit. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid.



94 PAKISTAN HORIZON

Pakistan government is trying to de-Islamize the country's religious and mainstream education under Western pressure.

Another important factor which needs to be highlighted is the phase of the 1980s, when madressahs were lavishly funded and radicalized by monetary contributions from the Gulf States. Another neglected dimension in the issue of radicalized madressahs is the role the US itself had played during the 1980s. Back then, the US strategy to jihadize the madressahs in order to create uncompromising mujahideen against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan had a downside to it as the textbooks filled with radicalizing jihadist overtones were distributed among the Afghan students. These jihadi textbooks were underwritten by US grants. In fact, one of the responsibilities of the mujahideen-operated Education Centre for Afghanistan (ECA) was to write, print and distribute jihadi textbooks. The ECA was funded by the Education Programme for Afghanistan at the University of Nebraska, under a 50 million dollars grant from USATO (a US government agency), which ran from September 1986 through June 1994.27

These Reagan-era textbooks, first distributed when Afghanistan was mainly a problem for the Soviet Union, became in the post-Soviet era, the Taliban's schoolbooks of choice.28 America's books were widely ušed in Afghanistan but remained unnoticed until 23 March 2002, when The Washington Post broke the story of the Reagan Administration's strange plan to 'educate' a generation of Afghan youths. Since it was USAID that gave 50 million dollars in grants to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies to develop these texts that preached jihad and the glory of weapons, nobody at that time realized that this programme also violated US constitutional prohibition on government money being used for a religious purpose.

Ever since the events of 11 September 2001, the US has declared that the US war against terrorism extends to all those who harbour, aid and abet terrorism.29 The question is, how should those who aided and abetted terrorism during the 1980s, be treated. One flaw in the anti- terrorism strategy is that it takes 9/11 as its point of departure, without realizing how much the US has, wittingly or otherwise, contributed to the current wave of worldwide extremism.

27 Craig Davis, 'A is for Allah, J is for Jihaď, www.worldpolicy.org 28 Martin Schram, The United btates and madrassas , ¿1 September zUUo,

www.theglobalist.com M Ibid.




Resurgence of the Taliban and Pakistan's multiple dilemmas

It has been more than five years since the Taliban regime was toppled in Afghanistan and yet the situation there is far from stabilized. Hardly a day goes by without the news of attacks and counterattacks by the Taliban either on the coalition forces or the Afghan National Army (ANA).

Pakistan: Part of the problem ?

The most commonly accepted notion to account for what has gone wrong in Afghanistan is the Ъ1ате Pakistan theory.' It propounds that it is the support, sustenance, training and safe haven that the Taliban are receiving in the tribal areas of Pakistan that has primarily caused the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Several analysts have even tried to put the whole blame squarely on Pakistan. For instance, Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation asserts that 'the key to the resurgent Taliban can be summarized in one word: Pakistan'.30 Others like Selig S. Harrison of the Center for International Policy have also contributed to the blame Pakistan theory by claiming that 'Musharraf sees the Taliban as a pro-Pakistan counterweight to Indian influence in Afghanistan and wants to keep it strong in case President Karzai is overthrown and Afghanistan collapses into chaos'.31 But if Pakistan is responsible for the re-emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, then why these so-called proxies of the Pakistan government have killed more than 700 Pakistani soldiers, their alleged masters.

The theory contains some element of truth where it claims that there is support for the Taliban in the tribal areas of Pakistan, something which even the Pakistan government concedes. But the flaw of the theory lies in the fact that it exclusively focuses on events in Afghanistan or on events which are connected with the US. For instance, a suicide bomb attack during US Vice-President Robert (Dick) Cheney's visit to Afghanistan grabbed the attention of the whole world on the Pakistani connection, without analyzing the event in its broader context. The week preceding Cheney's trip to Afghanistan was one of the bloodiest for Pakistan. The country was the target of seven suicide attacks within one week.32 This can hardly be a list of events which can support the blame

30 Lionel Beehner, 'Musharrafs Taliban problem*, www.cfr.org 31 Ibid. 32 Husain Haqqani, TJS policy towards Pakistan'. The paper was presented before

the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, United States House of Representatives, 21 March 2007, www.internationalrelations.house.gov



96 PAKISTAN HORIZON

Pakistan theory. What it, at best, suggests is the fact that Pakistan is itself becoming increasingly the target of terrorist and extremist forces due to being part of the international coalition to eliminate terrorism. The figures of terrorism-related incidents in Pakistan also belie the claim that Pakistan is behind all the terrorist activities happening in the area. For instance, a compilation of public figures of terrorism-related casualties show that 1,471 people were killed in Pakistan in 2006, up from 648 terrorism-related fatalities in the preceding year. In the year 2005, 430 civilians and 137 terrorists were reported to be killed but the number of security forces losses was relatively low at 81. 33 This incremental increase in the terrorist attacks in Pakistan can be described as the state's incapacity in tackling this threat but can hardly be a proof of the state's capitulation, let alone state patronage of terrorism.

The Pakistan-Afghanistan border

There is much debate about the importance of taming the tribal areas of Pakistan, if any concrete progress towards defeating the Taliban is to be achieved. Given the complex social milieu of the area in question, and the historical and cultural background of the Pakhtuns as an ethnic group, Pakistan and Afghanistan have trouble finding a permanent modus vivendi about the issue. The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Durand Line, is one of the main spots under the international community's radar screen since it is assumed that due to its porousity, the neo-Taliban phenomenon has come to the fore, threatening the very survival of the new Afghan administration of President Karzai. It is said about the area that one could not have designed a more challenging terrain to pursue a fugitive than the area straddling the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is a land that favours the hunted not the hunter.34

The border in question is 2,430 kilometres long and its porousity is acknowledged as the most daunting threat to the stability of the region. Most agree that completely sealing the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is neither desirable nor possible. But allowing al Qaeda and the Taliban to own the border region is also not acceptable.35 Those who know the area claim that sealing or securing the border would require 'a Berlin Wall style construction and a half-a-million strong army to patrol

33 Ibid. 34 Bruce Berkowitz, 'The great game and the end game in Afghanistan', Orbis

(Philadelphia), vol. 51, no. 1, Winter 2007, p. 165-166. 35 Kathy Gannon and Bill Roggio, ťIs Pakistan doing all it should to secure its

Afghan border?', Council on Foreign Relations, 2 March 2007, www.cfr.org




it 24 hours, seven days a week'.36 A proposal by Pakistan to fence and plant landmines along the border, aimed at preventing insurgents from using Pakistan as a springboard for attacking Afghanistan, has led to angry protest by the Afghan leaders. They maintain that mines would endanger innocent travellers and divide tribal lands, whose inhabitants do not recognize the border. The Afghan government has never officially recognized the Durand Line as an international boundary between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Interestingly, the Durand Line is the only Afghan border that came into existence as a result of direct bilateral negotiations between Afghanistan and Britain. Otherwise, all the northern borders of Afghanistan were bilaterally determined by Russia and Britain, without Afghanistan's participation in the process.37

Due to the Durand Line issue, the two states have failed to cultivate genuine cordial relations. Afghan accusations in different forms have continued to this day, with different pretexts. In December 2006, President Karzai made a string of accusations which has, to a large degree, poisoned relations with Pakistan. For instance, while addressing school children in Kandahar, he asserted that Pakistan is not only 'the boss of the Taliban' but also wants 'to make slaves out of us'.38 Moreover, President Musharrafs claim that 'the problem lies in Afghanistan and the solution lies in Afghanistan',39 has only exacerbated Pakistan- Afghanistan relations, of late.

Pakistan, no doubt, has not been successful in its strategy to secure its side of the border completely, despite posting more than 80,000 troops and making attempts to tame the tribal areas. However, in this connection, a major misconception is the alleged Pakistan-Taliban link which is widely shared among international observers, that the Taliban were and still are a strategic tool of Pakistan. The facts on the ground do not fully substantiate any such claim. The Taliban regime's policies on national, regional, and international levels were opposite to that of Pakistan. Firstly, their extremist interpretation of Islam was unacceptable to most Pakistanis. Their treatment of women, religious

36 Ibid. 37 Ahmad Shayeq Qassem, 'Afghanistan-Pakistan relations: Border controversies

as counter-terrorist impediments', Australian Journal of International Affairs (Canberra), vol. 61, no. 1, p. 70.

38 President Karzai asserted that 'if we resolve difficulties with Pakistan, the question of the Taliban will go away automatically'; see, Dawn (Karachi), 13 December 2006.

39 Text of President Musharrafs press conference with the national and international media, 2 February 2007, www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk



98 PAKISTAN HORIZON

minorities and foreign nationals, as well as their attitude towards different communities within Afghanistan, was simply anathematic to most Pakistanis. Furthermore, the refuge provided to the sectarian organizations' fugitives wanted by Pakistan was another thorn in the perpetuation of friendly relations between Pakistan and the Taliban-led Afghanistan.

At the regional level, by extending support to extremist elements against Central Asian governments, the Taliban had also frustrated Pakistan's regional plans to develop a peaceful gateway to the energy rich region of Centra^ Asia. So much so that, during the ECO meeting in May 1997, Pakistan was accused of destabilizing Central Asia through the Taliban.40 The Taliban's internationally unacceptable behaviour had soured Pakistan's relations with Russia, Turkey and Iran. Even today, they are still not completely cordial due to that legacy.

The reason why Pakistan tried not to antagonize the Taliban was its strategic compulsions. From Pakistan's perspective, its security dilemma has compelled it to maintain friendly relations with all Afghan governments because it already faces a constant threat from India. After having lost half of its territory due to Indian intervention in 1971, Pakistan suffers from a 'never again' complex. History and Indian policies have played a vital role in Pakistan's strategic thinking. After dismembering Pakistan in 1971, the Indian armed services had embraced the doctrine of 'offensive defence' or even preemptive strikes, and had concluded that 'the next war with Pakistan would be the last: Pakistan's major armed forces would be defeated once and for all, one way or another'.41 Even now, Indian strategic planning, poses an existential threat to Pakistan.42

Pakistan, as a bifurcated state, has learned the lesson that it could not strategically afford to have two enemies bent on dismembering it further. The potential threat of further division has dominated Pakistan's geostrategic policies and to cultivate good relations with Afghanistan has been a key part of its foreign policy. Although the Afghan jihad provided Pakistan with a chance to expand its strategic base into Afghanistan, even the concept of 'strategic depth' was essentially defensive in nature. Hence, Pakistan's relations with the Taliban were, for all intent and

40 Gilles Dorronsoro, 'Pakistan and the Taliban: State policy, religious networks and political connections', in Christophe Jafïrelot, op. cit., p. 173.

41 Stephen Philip Cohen, US-Pakistan security relations', in Leo E. Rose and Noor A. Husain (eds.), United States-Pakistan Forum : Relations with the Major Powers (Lahore: Vanguard Books, 1987), p. 22.

42 Ibid.




purposes, based on the notion of securing itself rather than threatening others.

The Pakhtun question

Historically, the Pakhtuns' tribal mindset has played a dominant part in constructing a multifaceted identity of their ethnic group. Their complex overlapping identity was aptly summed up by the Pakhtun leader, Wali Khan: 'I have been a Pakhtun for several thousand years, a Muslim for over a thousand years, and a Pakistani for only 50 years'.43 This layered- identity on the part of the Pakhtuns, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has led to an uneasy situation between the two countries.

In correlation with the Durand Line issue, the Pakhtun factor has been another source of tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghanistan has never recognized the Durand Line as an international border. The return to Afghanistan of the Pakhtun areas, situated along the Pakistani side of the Durand Line, has always been and still remains an Afghan demand.44 The Afghan governments have always upheld this position, irrespective of who was in power in Kabul; all have maintained the old Afghan claim of Takhtunistan'45 The current Afghan government of President Karzai has been no different. He had for months sent signals to Islamabad that it too had nuisance capabilities in Pakistani territory and could use the Pakhtun question for its own benefit.

The Afghan claim is simply unacceptable to Pakistan as it would jeopardize its very existence. NWFP accounts for 20 per cent of Pakistan's territory, and ceding it to Afghanistan would open a Pandora's box and raise, once again, doubts about the viability of Pakistan. Given the ongoing nationalist insurgency in Balochistan, the argument is particularly sensitive today.

Changing the border by incorporating all Pakhtuns in Afghan territory would create a demographic imbalance in Afghanistan and exacerbate other groups' resentment of Pakhtun political dominance. If only Pakhtuns are incorporated in the Afghan polity, other ethnic communities will be heavily disadvantaged and would prefer to join their

43 Stephen Philip Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Washington D.C.: Brookings, 2004), accessed through www.brookings.edu/press/books 44 Frederic Grare, 'Pakistan-Afghanistan relations in the post-9/11 era', Carnegie Papers No. 72, South Asia Project, October 2006, p. 8, www. carnegieendowment . org

40 Ibid., p. 9.



100 PAKISTAN HORIZON

ethnic communities in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, spelling the end of the Afghan state.46

Given the demographic disproportionality, and the jeopardizing threat it poses to the region, it is a strategic imperative for Afghanistan to accept the international border if it is to survive as a respectable member of the international community, without threatening the territorial integrity of any other state.

US and the myth of democratic Afghanistan

Although Pakistan has been blamed for the Taliban's resurgence, to get the real picture, the role of the US in the post-9/11 Afghanistan needs to be put in its proper perspective. One reason the state of Afghanistan is in turmoil is the fact that Washington's partners in the war against the Taliban are the likes of Abdur Rasul Sayyaf, Mohammed Fahim, Atta Mohammed and Rashid Dostum, who are foremost human rights violators, patrons of the drug trade, command militias of their own, and wield considerable power.47

These are the men who brought Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan in early 1996 and gave him refuge when Sudan forced him to leave under the US pressure.48 When they last ruled Afghanistan, terrorist training camps at places like Darunta, Farmada, Tora Bora, and Khost all flourished under their patronage. It was not the Taliban who brought Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan or started the terrorist training camps; they inherited them from the warlords who are back in power today. Their reincorporation in the power structure by the international community and freedom to pursue their unruly ways has frustrated ordinary Afghans, particularly Pakhtuns. It has dampened the Afghans' faith in their own government and in the international community which supports it.49

In this regard, one fundamental point to remember is the situation, which originally gave birth to the phenomenon of the Taliban. It was the prevalence of warlords that led to the emergence of the Taliban

46 The seven million Pakhtuns inside Afghanistan are outnumbered by 12 million in Pakistan; the 3.5 million Tajiks in Afghanistan are outnumbered by six million in Tajikistan. The 1.3 Uzbeks are a fraction of 23 million in Uzbekistan. See The Nation (Lahore), 4 July 2004.

47 Kathy Gannon and Bill Roggio, op. cit. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid.




movement. With Afghan society back into the hands of the warlords, the Taliban are making a comeback.

When OEF was launched, the US only had a topple Taliban policy but no Afghanistan policy. Ironically, the very idea of democratizing Afghanistan was something of an afterthought for the US. As President Bush's first envoy to Afghanistan, James Dobbins, has admitted that the White House did not believe that democracy had any functional value in Afghanistan. At the Bonn conference that established international legitimacy for the new Afghan government, 'the word democracy was introduced at the insistence of the Iranian delegation'.50 Thus, the very democratic standing of President Karzai can be questioned. According to BBC , before voting began for the candidacy of Hamid Karzai for the presidentship, 300 elders of the Terezay tribe in Khost had publicly announced that the houses of members of the tribe who did not vote for Karzai would be burned down.51

Another major fault of the strategy pursued in Afghanistan is the failure to acknowledge the fact that it has been the majority Pakhtun community which has historically ruled Afghanistan. It was only with the Soviet invasion that other ethnic groups - Tajiks and Uzbeks - started accumulating political and military clout to assert their part in the political set-up, which ensued in the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal. With the civil war of the 1990s getting worst, it was the Taliban (who were mainly Pakhtuns) who stabilized the Afghan society to a large extent. Although not all Pakhtuns were Taliban, all the Taliban were Pakhtun. This fact was to complicate the situation for the US as it befriended the Northern Alliance which is exclusively dominated by the Tajiks. They managed to marginalize the Pakhtuns. The US policy of 'zero percent Taliban government,' despite Pakistan's suggestion to the contrary, destabilized the Afghan government. As it was, under the garb of de-Talibanizing the Afghan scene, the Northern Alliance effectively de- Pakhtunized the new political set-up.

In the post-Taliban political set-up, all the power ministries (defence, interior and foreign affairs) were held by members of the Northern Alliance. The emergency Loya Jirga held in June 2002, which was expected to install a more broadly representative and legitimate government, also ended up reinforcing the Northern Alliance monopoly over the central government's security institutions, though it included

50 Sidney Blumenthal, 'Afghanistan situation: A barely managed chaos', Dawn, 22 July 2005.

01 Mahir All, Ballot boxes m the battlefield , Dawn , 6 October 2002.




Pakhtuns in some key financial institutions.52 Furthermore, when the 'Zahir Shah option' was floated, the Northern Alliance leaders warned that, ťIf the (former) King stands as president and is elected that will mean civil war'.53 Hence, it was the Northern Alliance which dictated the terms of the new political dispensation in Afghanistan. At the Bonn conference, they managed to rubber stamp their hold on power, as they had already appointed their ministers of defence, interior and foreign affairs, in November 2001.54 This led to Pakhtun resentment as no room was given to the former regime components to reincarnate themselves in the new government. More importantly, of 38 generals whom the Minister of Defence Muhammad Fahim appointed, 37 were Tajik and one was an Uzbek. In this winner take all approach, three-quarters of Afghanistan's population was completely shut out of the top military command.55

In the longer term, it was this policy which led to the inbuilt instability of the new Afghan regime. Even in the case of Japan and Germany after the World War II, the purges of former regime supporters were much more superficial than originally planned. For instance, in Germany, only a thousand permanent civil servants were dismissed and even they were later reinstated, due to dire need for qualified administrators. And in Japan, wartime economic bureaucracy survived virtually intact and went on to lay the basis of Japan's economic progress. The important factor in these policies was not that some were given a chance to join the government but the impression that former regime supporters could still have a stake in the new political dispensation.56

In the case of Afghanistan, the former regime was given no stake in the new set-up but the option to fight back to get what they had lost to their enemies. The Taliban have managed to portray their fight as for the rights of the Pakhtuns, and hence systematically won over the sympathies of Pakhtuns on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan

52 'Afghanistan: The problem of Pashtun alienation', International Crisis Group Asia Report, no. 62, www.crisisgroup.org

53 A. Davis, 'Karzai struggles to consolidate Afghanistan's fragile peace', Janes' s Intelligence Review, vol. 14, no. 8, August 2002, p. 20, quoted in Andrew Cottey, 'Afghanistan and the new dynamics of intervention: Counterterrorism and nation building*, SIPRI Yearbook, 2003, p. 185.

54 Andrew Cottey, ibid., p. 183. 55 Fredrick Starr and Marin Strmecki, 'Unwelcome warlords', The Nation , 8

March 2002. 5b Francis Fukuyama, Stateness nrst, Journal oj Democracy к w asmngton u.uj,

vol. 16, no. 1, January 2005, p. 87.




border.

War against terrorism: An appraisal

Apart from the debates about the rationale behind the war against terrorism, it is evident that it is not progressing as was anticipated by most, even by the US. Regardless of the contribution Pakistan has made in the war against terrorism, relations between Pakistan and the US are deteriorating. With a Democrats-led Congress at the helm, the Bush administration is hard pressed to put pressure on Pakistan to do more with regard to terrorism and extremism or else face conditions on aid to its cooperation against terrorism. Although both states consider each other to be Indispensable,' there is an obvious downward spiral in their relations, of late. At home, critics of President Musharraf have caricatured Musharraf-Bush relations as ť ask not what America can do for you, say what you can do for America .' With the deterioration in Pakistan-US relations, it is becoming hard for President Musharraf to convince the already sceptical public about the benefits of his association with the US.

Amidst possibility of attaching conditions to aid by the US, Pakistan National Assembly's Defence Committee Chief, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, has declared that 'Pakistan should curtail or completely stop its cooperation with the US' if the proposed US bill, designed to link US aid to Pakistan's success in the war against terror, is passed.57 Some have maintained that conditioning of aid to Pakistan has a record of failures and would be counterproductive.58

In the broader context, even the semantics in the war against terrorism are confusing. Terrorism is a tactic against which hardly a war can be waged, particularly since the word has successfully eluded a universally accepted definition. The focus of the war against terrorism is misconstrued. The Bush administration has maintained that al Qaeda and its affiliates want to destroy American democracy and freedom. However, not even once in any statement has al Qaeda or any other Islamist organization ever said so. Western publics are told that Islamists are offended by the Western world's democratic freedoms, civil liberties, intermingling of genders, and separation of the Church and state. It is important to note that no Islamist leader has fomented jihad to destroy

57 'The future of Pakistan-US relations', www.carnegieendowment.org 50 K. Alan Kronstadt, Pakistan and terrorism: A summary, CRS Report for

Congress, 27 March 2007, p. 6, www. fpc.state.gov




participatory democracy in the West. The organizations termed by the US as terrorist have themselves participated in elections and some have even been elected at national levels, becoming part of their national political systems. Hamas and Hizbullah are two notable cases in point. With regard to al Qaeda, it would be pertinent to summarize the policy goals it has outlined in its various statements. Its main goals are to remove the US forces from the Arabian peninsula, Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim lands; the end of US aid to Israel and the ultimate elimination of the state of Israel; the end of US protection for repressive, apostate regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, and other Muslim lands.59

Factually as well as rhetorically, Osama bin Laden has been precise in telling the reasons why he was waging a war against the US. None of the reasons has anything to do with American freedom, liberty or democracy, but has everything to do with US policies and actions in the Muslim world.60 For instance, in Afghanistan, by putting in power warlords, drug lords and worst human rights violators, the US and the international community have destabilized Afghanistan and the wider region. Due to strategic short-sightedness and economic expediencies, the Afghan project has, from the very start, outsourced into the hands of those who have little interest in the betterment of ordinary Afghans. These policies have not only problematized the Afghan scene but also complicated Pakistan's geostrategic environment.

In retrospect, it is apparent that terrorists are the product of America's own propaganda and its own myopic policies of the past. When CIA in the 1980s, enjoying active support from the White House and Capitol Hill, mounted the largest covert operation in US history by assisting and training the Afghan mujahideen, weapons worth billions of dollars were funnelled through Pakistan's tribal areas under the auspices of General Zia-ul-Haq and ISI. In the war against communism, the jihadis of Afghanistan were hailed as the 'moral equivalent of America's founding fathers' 61 by the then US President Reagan. Unsurprisingly, the architect of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh, considers himself and his ilk at par with the founding fathers of America. Describing the greatest of the

59 Anonymous, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror (Karachi: Potomac Books, 2004), p. XVIII.

60 Ibid., p. X. 61 No one thought at the time that these guns in hand, battling Reagans evil

empire, will be the biggest threat to the next American generation, as President Bush will fight the reincarnation of this evil as terrorism. See Eqbal Ahmad, Terrorism: Theirs and ours/ The paper was presented at the University of Colorado, Boulder, 12 October 1998, www.sangam.org




American founding fathers George Washington as his role model, the operational Commander of al Qaeda, an Afghan jihad alumnus, has said in his testimony that: If now we were living in the Revolutionary War era and George Washington had been arrested by Britain, for sure... they would have considered him an enemy combatant.62

Furthermore, since this war was about winning hearts and minds in the Muslim world, the reports of atrocities, mistreatment of prisoners and reluctance on the part of the US to grant protection under the Geneva Conventions to the Taliban and al Qaeda operatives have seriously undermined US claims that it is fighting this war in the name of justice. The reports of torture and brutalization of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib jail, Bagram Air Base, and the massacres at Mazar-i-Sharif, Kandahar, Falluja and Karbala have seriously undercut US credibility in the Muslim world. Because of the US conduct in this war, the trend towards moderation in the Muslim world has been thoroughly reversed and the Muslim masses have been, to a large extent, radicalized.

Another aspect worth mentioning with regards to this new threat can be discerned by analyzing the top brass of al Qaeda's command structure. The high command of al Qaeda tells us more about the nature of the threat than anything else. Osama bin Laden (Saudi Arabian), Ayman al- Zawahiri (Egyptian), Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (Pakistani) and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (Jordanian) incidentally all belong to states which have two things in common. First, they have been allies of the US and secondly, they are not democracies. In fact, one major reason why they are not democracies is the very fact that the US has, for a long time, propped up non-democratic forces in these states. The idea that democracy in these and some other Muslim societies will bring to power forces that will threaten the US, is flawed. In reality, it is the denial of democracy in these societies that has given rise to such forces there.

In the case of Pakistan, although the army is portrayed as an obstacle to democracy, it is also considered as 'the principal barrier to political extremism'.63 After 9/11, the view in Washington was: 'Musharraf is deeply flawed, but Thomas Jefferson is unlikely to be his successor'.64 It is primarily during military regimes that the forces of extremism have gained ground in Pakistan. To take the current situation as an example, Maulana Fazlur Rehman is symptomatic of what has happened in

62 Niall Ferguson, op. cit. 63 Stephen P. Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan, op. cit., p. 317. 64 'Pakistan: Ally or adversary?', www.theatlantic.com




Pakistan. With his religious party gaining an unprecedented number of seats in the Pakistan parliament, as the opposition leader he is symptomatic of what has happened in Pakistan. Since the leaders of two secular parties were banned from elections in Pakistan, the religious alliance has managed to fill the vacuum. As a result, Maulana Fazlur Rahman has emerged at the national political scene. He considers Osama bin Laden to be the greatest jihadi who ever lived and counts Mullah Mohammad Omar as one of his closest friends.65 *

In Afghanistan, with all the warlords, drug lords, human rights violators legitimized in the war against terrorism, the Afghan political structure is only surviving due to the presence of international elements. It will collapse into civil war the moment international forces leave the country.

By constructing the veneer of democracy in Afghanistan, the US has only disguised the turmoil there, and found a way to absolve itself of the responsibility of rebuilding the Afghan society. Pakistan has been portrayed as the real source of trouble in Afghanistan.

Peace cannot be imposed by marginalizing the majority community in a state like Afghanistan, no matter how robust the military means are employed. Only proportionate representation of the Pakhtuns in the Afghan political set-up can stabilize the deteriorating situation there, and it is only through democracy in the long run that it can be achieved. For that, an comprehensive approach is required to pacify the Pakistani tribal areas populated by Pakhtuns, whose allegiance to their brethren in Afghanistan supersedes all other loyalties.

Hence it is high time that the US, instead of giving priority to its short-term economic and tactical concerns, helps the Muslim world by promoting democracy in its real form instead of merely paying lip service to it. For that, Afghanistan is the key and as the former Secretary- General of NATO, Lord George Robertson has warned, 'either we go to Afghanistan or Afghanistan comes to us'66

The US has not only made friends with non-democratic forces in this war, but has itself started to lose its own democracy. With a robust military machine at its disposal, there is a discernable shift in the US towards the politicization of the military, which augurs ill for the future of democracy in the US itself. The situation has come to such a pass that

65 Mary Anne Weaver, 'Ground zero: Pakistan', www.pbs.org 66 Lord George Robertson, 'True social justice in a disorderly world , 9 April zUU4,

www.theglobalist.com




General Tommy Ray Franks has implied that, if another catastrophic event like 9/11 occurs in the US, the Constitution could be scrapped in favour of a military form of government.67 If that were to happen, the terrorists would be the winners in this war. It is imperative that the US should recommit itself to the principles of democracy at home and abroad, and help the world realize a democratic future rather than support undemocratic forces, and in so doing, itself become undemocratic.

67 Jonathan Metcalfe, 'Executive tyranny*, www.cassiopaea.org



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