Pakistan sees India when they see SWAT

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124823898093171403.html
What goes around comes around. A fundamental learning that Pakistan seems to have forgotten as they allege “Indian Links” to militant activities in their country. Reproducing Mathew Rosenburg article in Wall Street Journal: Pakistan sees India when they see WSJ.

Surrounded by aides and fellow officers, a large map propped up behind him, Maj. Gen. Sajjad Ghani lays out the battle plan for Pakistan's Swat Valley. He details how the Pakistani army swept in from the south and north in a "double pincer." He motions his pointer at the towns and villages where the fighting was fiercest and explains how the militants eventually melted away in the face overwhelming firepower.

Most of this is a well-worn narrative of the battle for Swat until Gen. Ghani, the commander of the northern half of the valley, turns to the alleged Indian role in the fighting.The Taliban, he explains, is "being directed, commanded and controlled by some of our hostile intelligence agencies being controlled by our neighboring country."

In case you didn't get it, that's code for India. And he doesn't stop there. He calls the town of Matta, a major Taliban stronghold in Swat, the "Benares of terrorism," using the old name of Hinduism's holiest city, Varanasi.

To outsiders, such comments are easily dismissed as the unscripted remarks of a conspiracy-minded soldier who has spent a lifetime preparing to fight his country's larger and more powerful rival.

But spend enough time in Pakistan, and you'll hear it expressed over and over again by everyone from street-side tea vendors to university students to senior officials. Most who offer up the theory seem to genuinely believe it. They see the Taliban's advance in Pakistan as part of a larger Indian conspiracy to encircle the country by building ties to the U.S. and Afghanistan, never mind that the Taliban is fighting U.S. and Afghan forces.

"Some circles believe that the Indian consuls in Afghanistan, fully supported by the U.S., are creating mayhem and sabotaging peace in Pakistan," wrote the Daily Express, an Urdu-lanaguage newspaper, in a June 30 editorial. "The Pakistani army should come down hard on anyone who is playing in the hands of foreign powers, including Baitullah Mehsud," the nominal leader of the Pakistan Taliban.

Rarely is any evidence proffered or India directly named. The comments usually come off as ham-handed attempts to deflect from Pakistan's own failures, as India itself often is quick to blame a "foreign hand" in atrocities before there has even been time to gather evidence. (Sometimes, of course, the foreign hand is at play – witness Mohammed Ajmal Kasab's confession Monday in Mumbai.)

Ironically, Pakistan's blaming India for its problems in Swat may actually, and unintentionally, have served a useful purpose in the broader anti-Taliban push. The idea that fighting the Taliban is tantamount to fighting India appears to have helped drive a massive turnaround in Pakistani public opinion, giving the government and the army the backing it needs to aggressively fight the militants.

"We've externalized an internal problem," says a senior Pakistani official who's often been critical of the government's ambiguous relationship with Pakistan's myriad Islamist militant groups.
The official doesn't believe predominately Hindu India is backing one of the world's fiercest Islamist movements, calling the suggestion "nonsense." And he says there's no organized effort to paint the Taliban as India's proxy even though many officials and generals "really believe it."
Still, "it's helped at a time when we really need the help," he says.

Some of the shift in public sentiment away from the peace accord with the Taliban signed in February undoubtedly is due to the Taliban's brutal rule of Swat. One widely circulated video showed the militants flogging a teenage girl accused of having an improper relationship with a man.

The Taliban also began to move into neighboring districts, raising alarms among Pakistan's urban middle and upper classes, some of whom sympathize with the Taliban but few of whom want to actually be ruled by the militants.

But anti-India sentiment has clearly played a role in rallying the Pakistani public and, perhaps more important, the deeply nationalistic military to support a broad anti-Taliban offensive. Such sentiment, however, also suggests that Pakistan won't lead a full-scale clampdown on all the country's myriad Islamist militant groups, many of which had long been used by Pakistan as proxies in Afghanistan and India's part of Kashmir. It's not all Islamist militants that are the problem, the thinking goes, just those being used by our enemies.

That helps explain why many Pakistanis opposed the Taliban in Pakistan yet at the same time support, to some degree, the Afghan Taliban, which is seen as distinct. It also explains why the Afghan Taliban and its allies still rely on safe havens on the Pakistani side of the border.
In fact, ask a Pakistani civilian or military official what the biggest problem in the region is, and only the rare few tell you it's the Taliban. Most say it's the presence of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces next door.

Taliban: Loosing its Social and Idealogical base

In an earlier post http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/is-terror-political-problem.html, i had discussed terror and militancy being a social problem foremost. It is only when the conditions in the society favour radical thought do people and societies favour such radical and exteremist steps. Thus, weeding out terrorism involves striking at its social and idealogical roots to make an impact. It is a commonly accepted fact, that Taliban and Al Qaeda have recieved the patronage of the peoples of the frontier provinces in Pakistan and Afghanistan that has blunted the effects of the US, Pakistan and NATO forces. However, relentless fighting, harsh Sharia laws, belligerence and intransigence and relentless blood shed of the Taliban has started eating into its own social base amongst the people in FATA. Mathew Rosenburg and Zahid Hussain (Wall Street Journal) cover the tribes' dissent and anger with the Taliban.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- When the Taliban began filtering into Gul Khan Mehsud's town along the Afghan border nine years ago, residents offered food, shelter and ammunition.
"How could we turn them away? The Americans were killing them. We wanted them to fight," says the 38-year-old from South Waziristan, one of the tribal regions that border Afghanistan and arguably the Taliban's most important stronghold in Pakistan. "We thought the Taliban would help us."

People carry a man injured in a suicide bombing at a mosque Friday in the Upper Dir district, west of the Swat Valley in Pakistan. Military leaders in the country say they are hoping anger among residents at the Pakistan Taliban will help fuel an anti-militant campaign and a coming offensive.
Instead, Mr. Mehsud was forced from his home in South Waziristan earlier this year after the Pakistan Taliban, which grew out of the militants who fled the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, accused one of his cousins of helping the U.S. plot missile strikes from drone aircraft.
Mr. Mehsud now lives with nearly two dozen relatives in two rooms in this city, the gateway to the tribal borderlands. "I didn't want to be shot," he says.
With Pakistan on the brink of taking its anti-militant campaign to the tribal areas on the restive border with Afghanistan, civilian and military leaders in Islamabad are banking on growing anger with the Pakistan Taliban among tribesmen such as Mr. Mehsud, whose Pashtun ethnic group straddles the frontier and lives in the core of the insurgency in both countries.
Popular support for the insurgents has undermined years of attempts to subdue the border areas, where the Taliban hold sway and al Qaeda operates openly. Residents who have fled report an intensifying reign of terror. The region is largely off limits to outsiders -- foreigners and Pakistanis alike -- and there are signs of growing disgust with the Taliban's hard-line tactics.
Pakistan's military hopes to channel that disenchantment behind its coming campaign in North and South Waziristan, which is likely to be grueling. An estimated 15,000 militants from the northwestern mountains of Pakistan and parts of eastern Afghanistan have massed in the area before an offensive expected to begin in the next month or two.
Anger at the Taliban in tribal areas mirrors a broader anti-Taliban sentiment across Pakistan that backed the military's recent offensive in the Swat Valley, a onetime vacation area overrun by the Taliban in the past two years.
The military launched its assault in Swat, which is roughly 100 miles from Islamabad, about a month ago after the Taliban violated a peace agreement that gave them control of the area.
Pakistan's top brass say the army has cleared militants from most of Swat, but there still are pockets of resistance in the valley and sporadic violence in areas around the region. On Friday, a suicide bomber killed at least 30 people attending afternoon prayers at a mosque in the Upper Dir district, a remote area to the west of Swat. According to Pakistani officials, there was no immediate claim of responsibility, but one local government official blamed the Taliban, saying it was likely in retaliation for the Swat offensive.

The tribal areas -- remote, mountainous and untamed by outside authority for centuries -- represent a far greater challenge. Pakistani intelligence officials say the top leaders of the Swat Taliban have retreated, along with hundreds of followers, to North and South Waziristan.
North and South Waziristan are part of the so-called Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a rugged region cut off physically and politically from the rest of the country. Unlike Pakistan's four main provinces, the region has historically been under only loose federal government control.
There still is broad popular support in the area for militants fighting U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan. And the Pakistan Taliban hasn't lost its allure among the tens of thousands of people whose relatives were killed or homes were flattened in military attempts to reassert authority in the tribal areas.
"Each time there is badly aimed artillery firing or the Americans fire missiles, if one person is killed, all his brothers and sons and cousins join the Taliban," said Hazrat Muhammad, 36, who last year fled fighting in the Mohmand tribal area near South Waziristan.
Even among those, such as Mr. Muhammad, who say they now oppose the Taliban, there's deep distrust of the government, which has done little for the tribal areas since Pakistan was created six decades ago.
In social and economic indicators, the region trails the rest of Pakistan. Per-capita annual income is about $500 -- roughly half the national average -- and literacy hovers under 20%.
Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former official who served as top administrator for both Waziristans, said the people "don't want the Taliban. But they don't want the army. They want to go back to their old ways."
The old ways allowed Islamabad to govern through a network of moderate tribal elders, known as maliks. Pakistani law didn't apply to the tribal areas, and the army stayed out of the region.
The system, which originated more than a century ago when Britain ruled the subcontinent, was upended by the Taliban and al Qaeda after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Hundreds of maliks were killed or forced to flee, and the few government officials in the region brought to heel.
The army sent in soldiers in 2003, but they did little to restore civilian authority. A new generation of Taliban warlords filled the vacuum, banding together in 2007 to form the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and fight Islamabad.
The group's most powerful commanders are based in the Waziristans. Among them: Baitullah Mehsud, the nominal leader of the Pakistan Taliban.
In one indication of the growing anger at the Pakistan Taliban, a rival from within Mr. Mehsud's tribe is gathering fighters to challenge the commander.
"The government is an enemy," said Gul Khan Mehsud. "First the Taliban must go. Then the army should go," he said. Asked who would then govern the tribal areas, he replied, "We can work that out ourselves."

Why the Taliban’s going to win in Pakistan

Reproducing Aakar Patel's commentary on Sharia and Islam being the cornerstone, which will lead Taliban's Societal onquest of Pakistan, even if it is beaten Militarilly.
http://www.livemint.com/2009/05/21211703/Why-the-Taliban8217s-going.html

The Taliban cannot defeat Pakistan militarily. The Taliban will win because what they want is already being implemented by Pakistan

The Taliban will win in Pakistan. They are on the right side of the law. They are also on the right side of history. Last month, a video of Talibs whipping a 17-year-old girl for adultery upset Pakistanis, who thought it barbaric. It might be, but it is the law. The punishment for married adulterers in Pakistan is to “be stoned to death at a public place” (Ordinance 7 of 1979). Unmarried adulterers are to be “punished, at a public place; with whipping numbering one hundred stripes”.

Later in April, the world worried over Pakistan’s decision to enforce Shariah law in the district of Swat, being held by the Taliban. But Shariah is already in force in the whole of Pakistan; it is only being implemented selectively. What the Taliban are demanding is enforcement. Pakistanis might fear the Taliban but nobody opposes Islamic law. Speaking against the “ideology of Pakistan” means 10 years in jail (Penal Code 123a).
In Pakistan, defiling the Quran means life in prison. Speaking against the Prophet is an automatic death sentence (Penal Code 295c).
Under laws that president Zia-ul-Haq introduced, the maximum punishment for theft is amputation of hands. Muslims caught drinking face 80 lashes.
Under prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, founder of the liberal Pakistan People’s Party, parliament apostatized the entire Ahmedi sect, a group of Punjabi Muslims.
An Ahmedi “is not a Muslim for the purposes of the constitution or law” (Second Amendment, 1974). If Ahmedis refer to themselves as “Muslim”, or their prayer house as “masjid”, or recite the azaan (call for prayer), they shall be imprisoned for three years (Pakistan Penal Code 298B, 298C).
What happens to Pakistan’s liberal politicians when these laws are passed?
They have to disappear.
Also Read Aakar’s previous Lounge columns
Bhutto’s finance minister was the socialist, Mubashir Hasan. Every year, he leads the candle vigil at Wagah. His book, The Mirage of Power, is a detailed account of his four years as minister but makes no mention of the apostatization of the Ahmedis. He skips over the episode. Why? He is afraid to communicate his opposition because he might be lynched.
It is difficult to be secular in Pakistan. The man whose party surrendered at Swat was Asfandyar Wali, grandson of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi.
The Taliban cannot defeat Pakistan militarily. The Pakistan army will rout it because the Talibs have neither armour, nor artillery nor aircraft.
The Taliban will win because what they want is already being implemented by Pakistan.

On 23 December 1999, Pakistan’s supreme court banned the charging of interest on loans, deciding it was not Islamic. Effectively, this would shut down the banking system and switch off the economy. Pervez Musharraf, then president, got the court to appoint a committee to decide how to implement this ban. This has delayed the destruction of Pakistan’s economy, but not avoided it. In 1998, prime minister Nawaz Sharif moved the 15th Amendment to enforce Shariah. This would designate him Amir-ul-Momineen, commander of the faithful, like Mullah Omar. The Bill was passed by the lower house before being blocked in the senate by the small party of Bihari-UP migrants from India, the Muhajirs.
Urdu-speaking Muhajirs form the only secular party in Pakistan. Their base is Karachi, where they are up against four million Pashtun immigrants. Who are the Talibs? Ethnically, they are Pashtun, 15% of Pakistan’s population.
Many were students of a curriculum designed at Deoband, a school in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district. It was set up after the war of 1857, seen as the end of Muslim rule in India. Its purpose was to revive Islam by ridding it of the corruption of Hindu influence. It recognizes the jurist Abu Hanifa (who died in 765). The Jaish-e-Mohammad follows the Deobandi ideology.
Pakistan was founded by a man who didn’t really understand Islam. Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a South Mumbai Gujarati who spoke no Urdu or Arabic. He was a constitutionalist who did not understand the nature of the state he had founded. He was a Shia of the Sevener Ismaili Khoja sect. They are talented businessmen and good citizens, but Sunnis regard them as heretics. To widen his appeal, Jinnah converted to “regular” Twelver Shiism.
But that wasn’t good enough.
When he died in 1948, a year after Partition, his deputy, Liaquat Ali Khan, had him buried as a Sunni with a Deobandi maulvi leading his funeral prayer. Six months after Jinnah’s death, on 12 March 1949, Khan introduced the Objectives Resolution in the Pakistan assembly, which was legislating the new constitution. Pakistanis, Khan declared, would enjoy democracy, freedom and equality “as enunciated by Islam”. These words alarmed the assembly’s Hindu members, all Bengalis from East Pakistan. They said this was not what Jinnah had promised them. But Jinnah had been vague. And the Muslims in the assembly were able to point to instances where Jinnah had spoken clearly of Shariah law. The committee voted 21:10. All Muslims voting for; all Hindus against.
Khan assured the Hindus that they would not be discriminated against. He was assassinated in 1951. The discrimination would be written in later, incrementally and over time.
By law, only a Muslim may now be Pakistan’s president (Article 41-2) or prime minister (Article 91-4). Not that there are many non-Muslims left.
Pakistan is today 96% Muslim and unable to think on secular lines. Why are Pakistanis doing this to themselves?
B.R. Ambedkar speculated about this in 1946. “The Muslims have no interest in politics as such. Their predominant interest is religion” (Pakistan: The Partition of India, pages 232-233). All that the Muslim voter cared about, he wrote, was that the candidate “replace the lamps... (and) provide a new carpet for the masjid”. He added: “None of the secular categories of life have any place in the politics of (the) Muslim community and if they do find a place—and they must because they are irrepressible—they are subordinated to one and only one governing principle of the Muslim political universe, namely, religion.” Months later, Ambedkar began work on India’s secular constitution, which took force on 26 January 1950.

Till last year, Nepal was the only Hindu state on earth. The Chhetri (Kshatriya) dynasty ended with the republic of 2008.
Why was it a Hindu state? Because executive power flowed from a warrior king, as prescribed in the Hindu code, Manusmriti. But Nepal was Hindu only to that extent. Nothing else from Hindu texts could be applied because most of it is against the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, just like Shariah is.
The religious state is utopian, and demands perfection. If we obey God fully, He will look after us. This is not the view of just the bearded Talib of Swat: the justices of the supreme court of Pakistan expect that blessings will be showered on their country after they skewer its economy.
Pakistan is in religious ecstasy. Like Iran, it will have to go through the process of full Islamization.
After this it will learn that there is no other way to run a modern state than as a secular democracy.

The Countdown to the end of Pakistan

7 months after my first story on Pakistan (2nd October 2008) and 13 posts later, its time for the final countdown to begin on curtains to the nation state of Pakistan. At the outer limit, experts give Pakistan 6 months before it calls in international troops to help control the fundamentalist Taliban from running over the state.

To quote David Kilcullen, adviser to David Petraeus, commander of the US Central Command (that oversees operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan):
Pakistan is today a nation without a political gyroscope. Its political leadership is at war with itself and its army thinks India is top enemy while the Taliban steadily inch towards territorial control. In fact, its army elite are inclined in favour of the Taliban. When the radicals do take over the reins in Islamabad, it would be a unique example of a nation handing over the levers of state power to non-state actors.

The spectre is fearsome for India and the international community with around 100 nuclear war-heads within reach of the Taliban forces. Taliban have violated peace agreements with the Islamabad governments at will and have extended their run from FATA to Swat and Burner, which is 100 miles away from Islamabad. There is no doubt that Taliban advances are focussed on running over the whole state of Pakistan. Only if you are an individual called Asif Ali Zardari (AAZ) would you be hallucinating “all’s well in Pakistan”.
On one end, AAZ is talking about military and economic aid to the tune of $30 billion to finance his “efforts” against “war on terror”. On the other, AAZ effectively ratified the government's deal with the Taliban Monday by signing a bill that imposes Islamic law in Swat on 13th April 2009. Pakistani officials have touted the deal, reached in February, as a way to restore peaceful order in the bloodied region -- which lies just a few hours' drive from the capital -- and halt the Taliban's advance. Striking peace deals with some Taliban factions is part of Pakistan's broader strategy to counter the militants. The government's logic is that such accords can exploit the groups' fractious nature; one enemy can be neutralized with a peace deal while another is defeated on the battlefield. The deals also have been struck when the army has struggled to overcome militants. In Swat, about 3,000 militants pushed four times as many soldiers out of the valley in 18 months of fighting, leaving some 1,500 people dead.Nearly all the peace accords reached in the past few years in areas near the Afghan border, where the Taliban are strongest, have collapsed. Often they have left the militants more powerful. A similar deal in Swat fell apart last year after the Taliban renewed attacks on Pakistani forces.

The deal was counter productive if anything and served in strengthening the militant’s base for war in Swat Valley. The number of militants in the valley swelled to double the number at the end of last year. The Taliban's actions since the new peace deal was unveiled have alarmed Washington, where officials fear that Swat will become an effective launching pad for expansion into Pakistan's more densely populated plains. "This is a rest stop for the Taliban, it's nothing more," said a U.S. official in Washington.

On the ideological plane, the idea of Pakistan has ceased to be meaningful; it is a failed state led by reckless elite who could not care less. The fate is sealed more or less and the way it looks from here is that Taliban would run over the plains of Pakistan and establish a parallel government in the country-sides while the federal government would be confined to cities. Suicide attacks, terror training camps and bombings would increase as militants would find their first legitimate lands where Sharia laws would be imposed. A US-International attempt at purging Pakistan would result in a bloody civil war. The ISI- Pakistan Army loyalties would be tested and eventually Pakistan would emerge as a war devastated economy which for other political reasons would have to be split into three countries. The first would be the confederation of states NWFP, FATA and parts of Balochistan. In spirit, this would be exactly like Afghanistan and would continue to be the hot bed of terrorism. The other two states would be Punjab and Sindh. As far as AAZ is concerned, I see him to be a victim of an assassination much like his late wife. History would forget and forgive him for failing his opportunity as the last president of Pkaistan who could have altered the fate of the country.

'Pakistan in danger of fracturing into Islamist fiefdom'

Reprint from Times of India's article by the same name.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pakistan-in-danger-of-fracturing-into-Islamist-fiefdom/articleshow/4412829.cms

With extremist elements gaining ground every passing day, Pakistan is in an imminent danger of disintegrating into a fiefdom controlled by Islamist warlords, having "disastrous" implications, a media report has said.

"It's a disaster in the making on the scale of the Iranian revolution," an unnamed intelligence official with long experience in Pakistan was quoted as saying by the McClatchy newspaper.

There is little hope to prevent nuclear-armed Pakistan from disintegrating into a fiefdom controlled by Islamist warlords and terrorists, who would then pose a far greater threat to the US than those in Afghanistan, intelligence officials keeping a close watch on the situation in the region told the paper.

They said Pakistan's government is in the danger of being overrun by Islamic militants and the development of such a situation could be dangerous not only for the US but also for the entire region.

"Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaida sitting in two-thirds of the country which the government does not control," David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency consultant to the Obama administration was quoted as saying.

"The implications of this are disastrous for the US," he said. Unlike Afghanistan, which is a backward, isolated, landlocked place, officials said Pakistan is a developed state with a major Indian Ocean port and ties to the outside world, especially the Persian Gulf that Afghanistan and the Taliban never had.

Another Pentagon advisor told McClatchy that Pakistan's government in the next 10 years would be overrun by Islamic militants.

"The place is beyond redemption," he was quoted as saying. "I don't see any plausible scenario under which the present government or its most likely successor will mobilize the economic, political and security resources to push back this rising tide of violence," the advisor said.

"I think Pakistan is moving towards a situation where the extremists control virtually all of the countryside and the government controls only the urban centers," he said.

The report said such a pessimistic view of Pakistan's future has been bolstered by Islamabad's surrender this week of areas outside the frontier tribal region to Pakistan's Taliban movement for the first time.

Growing militant infiltration of Karachi, the nation's financial centre and the industrial and political heartland province of Punjab, in part to evade US drone strikes in the tribal belt, also strengthens the view, it said.

Zardari's begging bowl

In over 11 previous posts, I have written on the central issue plaguing Pakistan- An inept and corrupt leadership (sans influence and control) playing puppet to army/ISI powers playing puppet to a larger and high orthodox Islamic order (Taliban being one of the faces of this front). It is indeed a shame that the world watches as Pakistan deteriorates into an Islamic Anarchy. The human, economic, trade and infrastructure indexes in the Pakistan are retrogressing to put it mildly. For a long tiem now, it has been running on IMF and American aid. However the spends have not shown any "developmental" returns.

While Zardari goes about begging for aid from the developed economies, there is little he can show as real time development during his 1.5 year tenure. Forget the state, a justice for his wife's assassination is pending. Zardari has proven to be a very weak and vacillating leader of a country, which at this time needs a visionary, dare- all statesman leader more than anything. The greatest acheivements that Zardari can talk about is his tenure as far as Pakistan is concerned is the success of his aid accumulation efforts. US has aided him, so has the IMF, so has China and now Japan. $1 billion aid to Pakistan has been promised by Japan and US to support economic reforms and developmental assistance.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/US-Japan-pledge-1bn-each-to-Pak/articleshow/4412576.cms
Furthermore, Zaradari has set claims to such aids as a measure (pay back) for Pakistan aiding the "war against terror" on its soil. According to Zardari "If we win, you win. If we loose, you loose" can be construed as a thinly veiled persuation tactic.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Zardari-seeks-aid-like-Marshall-Plan/articleshow/4412121.cms
On a subject such as winning and loosing, Zardari prefers silence on why he would agree to sharia laws and let Taliban "rule" a part of the Pakistani territory. It only proves a complete breakdown of the security systems in Pakistan and the helplessness of Islamabad in managing this muck that they have gotten themselves in.

As if a $7.5 billion civilian aid and $3 billion military assistance is not enough, Pakistan’s envoy to the US Husain Haqqani has sought $30 billion under Marshall Plan to fight Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.$30 billion is far less than the current stimulus packages being doled out to banks and other US companies. “Despite the economic issues that the world is facing, the cost of a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan is going to be minuscule (compared) to the bailouts being given to American car companies and AIG (American International Group),” Haqqani was quoted.Kerry-Lugar bill has proposed tripling of the non-civilian aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year, he said Pakistan needs $5 billion a year for the next five years from the US and its allies to build local law enforcement of about 100,000 men, strengthen counterinsurgency against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and persuade average citizen that the US-led war on extremism is Pakistan’s war and essential for the country’s survival.

It is baffling as to how such huge aid moneys are routinely routed to Pakistan, even while western states express shock, anger, grief and admonishment at Islamabad's mis-governance.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6898150&page=1. As of 8th April 2009, Taliban broke the "peace deal" between themselves and the government that was drawn in March, 2009. As of 10th April, Taliban fighters were barely 60 miles (97km) north-west of Islamabad.
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090090259
http://www.zeenews.com/South-Asia/2009-04-09/522070news.html
http://www.livemint.com/2009/04/10000833/Time-distance-and-Taliban.html

It is time for the international forum to see beyond Islamabad's diversionary tactics and be satisfied with the aid lumpsums that they deliver to Islamabad. There is a real problem out there and it is for the average Pakistani citizen that the international community now needs to react and call for a broader military action in Pakistan. Else the whole country is in a real danger of descending into lawless fiefdoms, much the same as Afghanistan fate.

Pakistan on edge

The power struggle between Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz sharif threatens to paralyze the government in Islamabad and distract the army from its fight against Taliban militants operating along the Afghan border. (Pakistani army has always fancied distractions that reduce its Focus from US aided war on Taliban. Earlier, the distraction was a belligerent India and now the distractions are the polticial forces within.)

So then, it was Zardari who started it all by dismissing Shahbaz Sharif's Punjab government (Shahbaz being Nawaz's brother) over convictions dating back to an earlier chapter in Pakistan's political history. Coupled with a mess of reinstatement of (Musharraf Sacked) chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhury, which has piqued lawyers and judicial authorities and a no show at being able to keep Taliban at bay, Zaradari's inconsistency and inability has been attacked by Nawaz Sharif. Not only has he violated the state imposed house arrest, he also has a few brownies from the Long march to Islamabad. Ceeding to pressures all around him Asif Zaradari has now thrown the towel in.Iftikhar Chowdhury restoration to the chief justice position has re-instated Nawaz Sharif's stature as a viable alternative to Asif Ali Zardari. This also has de-escalated a political flashpoint that was looming large on Islamabad.

With no control of Army and Intelligence, Asif Ali Zardarai seems to have now lost the high moral grounds of presidency after he had to reinstate Iftikhar Chowdhury. The public sentiment for him is worse than that of Musharraf in his time. The US is clearly according the army chief Gen Ashfaq Kiyani more importance than Zaradri and his PM, Gilani.

For everything after all, it seems that Asif Ali Zardari's step down time is near.

The disarray in Pakistani Leadership

Pakistan's Men of Power: Top Left Gen Ashfaq Kiyani (holds the key to Army and ISI); Top Right Yusuf Gilani ( Prime Minister); Bottom Left Asif Ali Zardari (The president) and Bottom Right Nawaz Sharif (Former PM and eminent Leader)

The formation of a democratic government led by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, was seen as the beginning of better times after 9 years of dictatorial rule by Musharraf. The move to Democracy appears to have become one of regression. The state of Pakistan has markedly deteriorated in the last year or so. On hind sight, the choice of Zardari to represent Pakistan has been a wrong one.

Zardari's inabilities have been manifold.
1. Surrendering a large swathe of federal provinces to Taliban and Sharia law is his biggest undoing.

2. Inabilities to cope up with Terrorist attacks in Pakistan, India and elsewhere (featuring the attack on Sri Lankan Cricket team) have earned condemnation in all international forums.

3.The charges of promoting followers, family and friends in government contracts and deals will probably attract investigations in the next regime.

4.The world has also taken note of the removal of charges on nuclear proliferator and renegade scientist Abdul Qadir Khan.

5.Banning former Prime minister Nawaz Sharrif and his brother Shahbaz Sharrif from contesting in elections and holding office will in hind might prove to be the undoing of Zardari.

6.As the political leader of his state, Zardari has not given an impression of control on internal matters and has often vacillated under pressure from various stake holders.

7.The failure to reinstate chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhury has seen outbursts from the members in the judiciary.

8.The move to censor Geo TV from certain parts of Pakistan implies subversion of free speech. Geo TV has been extensively covering anti government protests.

In the face of so many problems and a loose intent to address them, US has initiated a move towards addressing issues through army chief Ashfaq Kiyani is a significant one. US is now trying to engage and influence one who has some control over the army and intelligence. The all powerful Jack of cards (Kiyani) is more handy than the inept King and Ace ( Zardari and Gilani). The jack has now started triumphing the king and the ace. Kiyani has asked Zardari to clean up the 'Mess'. Well, it looks as he some one atleast has a measure of control in Pakistan.

Article Chronology:

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/03/is-pakistan-dividing-again.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation_17.html
http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/02/did-obama-force-zardaris-hand.html
http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation.html
http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation_20.html
http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation_18.html
http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation.html
http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/next-terror-attack-on-us-will-originate.html
http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/11/us-suspects-kashmir-based-group-behind.html

Is Pakistan dividing again

Over the last 5 months, i have written about 8 posts on Pakistan emphasizing that the current turn of events are only stages of what could be the end of the nation state of Pakistan.

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation_17.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/02/did-obama-force-zardaris-hand.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation_20.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation_18.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/next-terror-attack-on-us-will-originate.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/11/us-suspects-kashmir-based-group-behind.html

This post is a reproduction of an article by Shaun Gregory, former British high commissioner to Pakistan.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sunday-TOI/All-That-Matters/Losing-integrity-Is-Pakistan-dividing-again/articleshow/4206486.cms

There is a school of thought which has long argued that the creation of Pakistan in 1947 was a geographical, ethnic, cultural, economic, and political artifice sewn and held together only by the weak thread of a questionable religious homogeneity, and that consequently the project of Pakistan would eventually be torn apart by its own contradictions.

History may well record that the abject surrender of Swat in a phoney ‘peace deal’ marked an important stepping stone on the path to Pakistan’s destruction. 

While the weak and hapless Zardari/Gilani government continues to waste precious political capital on PPP infighting and avoidable confrontation with Nawaz Sharif, to the west of the Indus river dynamics are unfolding which have placed Pakistan’s integrity once more in question.

Since 2001, the Pakistan Army and ISI have been playing a dangerous game in providing sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban in the Pashtun areas of Northern Balochistan and in the FATA, in the expectation that Mullah Omar would orchestrate a comeback in Afghanistan, displace the Karzai regime or any of its western-backed successors, force NATO from the region, and reverse India’s growing influence in Afghanistan.

 In early 2009, this strategy appears to be working. The Afghan Taliban are influential across all but the most northerly areas of Afghanistan and a peace deal of some sort with Mullah Omar is predicted this year or next. 

Pakistan has, however, entered a Faustian pact with Mullah Omar and the Quetta Shura, and the darker implications of that bargain have only now begun to dawn on Pakistan’s ruling elite. 

As the Afghan Taliban have regained power and momentum from sanctuaries in Pakistan, they have also created and driven the context for the emergence and evolution of virulent forms of Pakistani militancy and terrorism, both in Pakistan’s Pashtun areas and across Pakistan. 

These dynamics have been reinforced by the Pakistan army/ISI’s continued embrace of Punjabi terrorists, and by the military focus of the US-led war on terror which has fuelled radicalisation on both sides of the Durand Line. 

In this context tribal armies in the FATA have mutated into new forms of radical extremist groups such as Baitullah Mehsud’s TTP and Fazlullah’s TNSM. Al-Qaida has re-emerged and re-established something of its global reach, foreign fighters from as far as Algeria, European diasporas, western China and the Philippines have once again poured into the region, and the huge expansion of largely Saudi and locally-funded madrassas has ensured a continual supply of young Afghans and Pakistanis ready to die for the militant cause. 

The Pakistan army and ISI have presided over this rising tide of terrorism and religious extremism in the expectation that they could achieve their aims in Afghanistan through the Afghan Taliban while keeping control of Pakistani militancy and terrorism on their own side of the border. 

In the wake of the bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad in September 2008, and of the escalation of terrorist violence in Pakistan’s cities which preceded it, that calculation has proven disastrously wrong. 

Given the perilous situation in which the Pakistani state now finds itself, the question of why the Pakistan army/ISI has still not thrown its lot in with the US and NATO and unleashed the full force of the Army and the ISI against the Afghan Taliban, the tribal militants, and al-Qaida, requires an answer. 

Only two arguments make any sense: either the Pakistan Army-ISI is unwilling to do so or it is unable to do so. If the former, then that can only be because the Army-ISI still believes it can contain the militancy and terrorism within Pakistan. 

If this is the case, then one wonders why the Army-ISI continues to think that and how many more Marriotts on the push side, and what western incentives on the pull side will it take before the Army and ISI make a decisive break with past policy? 

More gravely for Pakistan, for its neighbours, and for the West, the other possibility is that the Pakistan Army and ISI may genuinely have reached the practical limits of their ability to control militancy and terrorism. 

Pakistan has committed up to 120,000 troops to the FATA region and since September 2008 has not been able to make a substantive impact in Bajaur and Mohmand Agencies. 

Mullah Omar and the Quetta Shura is understood, through a decentralised command structure and with the support of al-Qaida, to broadly control the tribal militants in Pakistan, such as the TTP and TNSM, which pose the most direct threat to the state of Pakistan. 

Mullah Omar and the Pakistan Army-ISI are, thus, locked in a fearful stalemate: Mullah Omar checks the power of Pakistan’s militants and holds them back from escalating violence against the Pakistani state, and in return the Pakistan Army-ISI continues the support and protection of Mullah Omar and the Quetta Shura and pays lip-service to western demands for tough action against the Afghan Taliban. 

Either way, the Pashtun areas of Pakistan are beyond the reach of the Pakistani state and it is difficult to see that they can be recovered. 

The situation in Swat, thus, stands as an expression of a larger crisis of state legitimacy which for all practical purposes will likely see another piece of Pakistan break away. 

Why wont Pakistan make it as a nation (Part V)

I suppose i should now change the headline of this series of posts. Over the last 3 months, i have in a series of blogs stressed upon the dire straits that Pakistan is in today. By all means it is a crumbling nation imploding under its own fanatic religious idealogies.

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation_20.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation_18.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation.html

Two days back, Pakistan Government has ceeded the control of Swat valley to Taliban. The mechanics include introduction of Sharia laws (Islamic Laws) in the beleagured Malakand area and a temporary suspension of military activities in the region. The direct accruals out of this development:

1. Taliban now have a safe haven/province, a sanctuary for Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. For the first time, we have a terrorist state on the global map!

2. Taliban is discomfortingly close to Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is well within a hands lenght of the Taliban Extremists!

3. Even as Taliban celebrate this event by rallies around Swat, this is Pakistan government's deepest and darkest hour when they are no longer able to retain control of their provinces.

4. Islamabad's faltering military campaign (which US pays for) is tentatively put on hold and Taliban have agreed for a tentative ceasefire.

According to the terms of the agreement, "all non-Shari'a laws" have been abrogated in Malakand. Security forces "will only act if fired upon by militants." And if the "writ of the state is restored," the army's 12,000 troops will be withdrawn from the valley. The agreement, enjoys the support of President Asif Ali Zardari.

To quote Time magazine on a source within the Pakistan Government, " government's acceptance of the [sharia] courts was an attempt to blunt efforts of the Taliban to woo Swat residents frustrated by the ineffective judiciary. The Taliban was trying to take advantage of the local movement and desire for a judicial system". Thus by putting the Sharia into prcatise the goverment is trying to appease its citizen in the valley, who have been frustrtade by Pakistan's venal courts and judiciary systems. This appeasement would stear the suppoorters away from the jihadist, isolate the militants and with the help of local leaders restore peace.

Under the Islamic laws, bombing of girl schools, subjgation of women, public beheadings, assassinations and Taliban courts to dispense justice would now be the order of the land in Malakand province. This follows a break down on the judicial system to dispense justice to citizens in the province. Sources with Malakand provinces have been quoted saying Islamabad
does not have sufficient force to defeat the Taliban and foreign fighters based in the autonomous tribal areas along the Afghan border and thus needs to negotiate with local militant groups in nearby areas like Swat to isolate the renegade hardliners in the tribal sanctuaries.

Once a popular tourist destination, Swat has over the past two years seen more than 1,500 people killed, close to 200 schools destroyed and girls' education banned, scores of beheadings and kidnappings, and more than 100,000 people driven from their homes.

Analysts and Observers say that this is a dangerous gamble and specially so with Islamabad which has limited control on its own defence establishments! Allowing Taliban a breather would allow them to regroup and push more at a later date which would not only endanger Pakistan but also have grave implicatiosn for India, US and the world.

My belief is that this is the beginning of the end game for Pakistan. Under US and iunternational pressure, Pakistan may have to take military action against the Taliban in the province. By allowing Taliban to regroup now, it will face a stronger foe. Chances are the situation will implode from within and Taliban will take a lot that is "Pakistan" down with it. An "Afghanistan" fate awaits Pakistan in the near future and the recent gambit has irrecoverably put Pakistan on the one way to destruction.

Did Obama force Zardari's hand?

There are Republican views in US, that Obama's opening few days havent been any great success. This is to do with the $800 billion stimulus plan that Obama has been trying to push forward. There also is some confusion about a few members in Obama's Cabinet.

However, i give Obama a high score in the first 20 days in office. In terms of action in the subcontinent, Obama has gone about the task clinically, forcing Pakistan's admission on the 26/11 case. From a state of denial ("non state actors") to "stop and go" action (house arrests, crack down on terrorist camps) to vacillating stand points (we also trust China) to a full burst anti Taliban stand (taliban is trying to take over Pakistan); the leadership of Pakistan has given the world a myriad full screen matinee script worth digging discussions after discussions. However, the latest stand taken by Asif Ali Zardari in admitting Pakistan inability to restrict Taliban's power on its soil and a "mea culpa" (with conditions and demands of evidence) is the sign of hard diplomacy paying off. While India mounted the heat on Pakistan in terms of diplomacy (directed to ostracism of Pakistan); one feels that a major reason behind the Pakistani turn around was growing US pressure. Interestingly the game of twisting arms was played on one simple plank: economic aid. It is plain and clear that the economy of Pakistan today lives by the US aids and a failure on this part would have plunged Pakistan into civil unrest and turmoil.

Zardari on his behalf has probably taken the first significant step in what should be seen as purging Pakistan of the Taliban Carcinogen. We also know that the drone attacks on Taliban, which were being opposed by the Pakistani leadership, was actually happening from Pakistani airbases and under the leadership's knowledge. Todays newspaper speaks about a missile attack killing 10 Talibanis. It is becoming increasingly clear that Obama is under no mood to relent as far as wiping Taliban is concerned! Under pressure to support the economy and its survival, Zardari now tows Obama's lines.

If Zardari is able to get American aid to exorcise Taliban Influence on its lands, he would be doing Pakistan's future a great deal of good. I sincerely hope, that he is able to travel the distance without falling to the traggic fate of his wife. Somewhere between Obama, Zardari and Taliban lies the fate of Pakistan.

Why wont Pakistan make it as a nation? (Part IV): A Failed State

I did not quite expect that i will be writing a part 4 to this series of blogs about Pakistan. Reality is that i am not a Pakistan basher, but then as a state, it is under such a mess that one cant help but ruminate Pakistan's Course: Its present and its Future.

Stratfor (short for Strategic Forum, a US think Tank) has warned in its report Jihadism in 2009: The trends continue, that Pakistan could become a failed state if if it failed to take action against the terror elements and establish government control over ISI, the “rogue spy agency”. Even as Asif Ali zardari, the president of the state, publicly bemoans the death of Benazir, there is no sign of any activity to bring the perpetrators of the Benazir conspiracy to courts of law!

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Radioactive_Pak_may_turn_fissile_Stratfor_warns_of_a_failed_state/articleshow/4061306.cms

With a dash of irony, i find this report very insightful. Especially if a search: Failed state + Pakistan reports 504000 hits on Google! The only interesting allusion is to teh nuclear warheads in Pakistan. That, is the bigger picture they have tried to complete. An irresponsible and fragile state gurading a nuclear stockpile. That no good news for India. It isnt for good news for US as well, especially since US is Enemy no 1 on the Jihad campaign!

Back to Pakistan and its Failed state status. Fund for peace, a washington based non profit research organization releases a Failed States index every year basis 12 indicators which are social, economic and political in nature. Here’s how the Fund for Peace defines a failed state:

A state that is failing has several attributes. One of the most common is the loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Other attributes of state failure include the erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, and the inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community. (Conditions sound familiar! dont they???)

Read the Failed state index reports in details here: http://www.fundforpeace.org/web/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=99&Itemid=140

Pakistan fares high on that list. No 9 in the failed states around the world. Only Afghanistan amongst the Asian countries is above it! Pakistan's inability of governance of the FATA (Federally administered Tribal Areas) and its more recent loss of Swat valley to Taliban show the democratic government has lost physical control of its territory. That Pakistan has three heads of state: the Prime Minister + President, the Army Chief and the ISI Taliban nexus is a clear-as-daylight fact. The ISI and the army are mostly autonomous in the way they work and thats quite been the way it is since a long time (about 1977 when Zia came to power). Its public services and law and order situation are in doldrums even as one gets to hear that the number of civilians killed in terror/militant activities is 6700 for the calendar year 2008! Click here for casualities for terrorist violence in Pakistan http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/casualties.htm

As far as the international community is concerened, no one doubts that absolute anarchy rules Pakistani and there is not enough political will to fight the extremist forces to give law, order, peace and development a chance!

The question remains an inconvenient truth: Is the Pakistan leadership doing enough to save their nation? Or is another Afghanistan in the making?

Why wont Pakistan make it as nation? (Part III)

When i wrote the Part1 and substaantiated it with Part II, i had not known that my thoughts would so quickly be validated by IRI survey on Pakistan.
http://www.dawn.com/2008/12/20/top3.htm
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=HomePage&id=807e81c1-73ef-43b2-b40e-3a4dffff1c06&MatchID1=4856&TeamID1=6&TeamID2=2&MatchType1=1&SeriesID1=1223&MatchID2=4873&TeamID3=1&TeamID4=3&MatchType2=1&SeriesID2=1229&PrimaryID=4856&Headline='Most+Pakistanis+want+Nawaz+Sharif+as+Prez'

88% of the population believes that Pakistan is not headed the right way! 67% believe that democracy has not made any difference to their well being and 59% believe that they would be worse off next year compared to this year. 78% Pakistani's feel less secure in the current circumstances. These numbers are worse than the times of Pervez Musharraf in his days.
Such a high degree of pessimism and discontent is the forbearer of Doom and thats putting things extremely mildly. 67% of the population have lost all faith in democracy as an ideal. Disaffection, discontent, disillusionment run rife amongst the citizens if that is one headline that this survey should emblazon.

These are the same people, who elect governments, pay taxes and are nations top most priorities. If ever, the Pakistani leadership has to learn a lesson and more importantly act on it, it has to be now...

It will require "biting" the "proverbial bullet". I would assume the following points of action for Pakistan:

1. Pull the plug on the army - ISI - Jehadi nexus. Funds that could be well used in developmental projects get syphoned into the terror network. The Pakistani armed forces would have to be neutralized from the extremist poles. Governance and policies should lead the militray and not the other way round for Pakistan. (If required, the president should have the guts to call for an international effort to weed the nexus, which could also mean deployment of UN forces.)
2. Need to clean up the house. All terror bases dismantled completely with all terrorists taken out to the law. This one is tough act as long as the generals and ISI rule the governing machinery.
3. Time Bound action plan to kick off the developmental and infrastructure projects. This will initially mean more debt in a debt laden economy but this time the money has to be well used.
4. Involve Private and international investors to invest and partner in growth (the way it has happened in India). Requires a judicious mix of thought and action. Too much too soon can over - expose the economy. Too less can reduce the pace of change.

But will the Zardaris or the Sharrifs of the world have the conviction, determination and courage to lead Pakistan out of the cesspool they find themselves and Pakistan to be in at this moment. If a call for action now doesnot happen, then Pakistan is pretty much destined doomed.

Why wont Pakistan make it as a nation (PartII)

An interesting article on Business Week about the state of Pakistan. This further extends my initial blog on Pakistan http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2008/gb20081020_947596.htm#readerComments

Pakistan's Economic Crisis

•Even though Pakistan's financial crisis isn't directly linked to Wall Street's credit crunch or to subprime mortgages, the country's leaders seem confident that Pakistan will get its own bailout. President Asif Ali Zardari has spent the last month mending fences with India and playing nice with Washington. Zardari is now in China, where he will ask for a soft loan of as much as $1.5 billion. Why is he so confident Pakistan will get the money, when only recently Iceland had to go begging to Russia? Here are the reasons.

War on Terror

Effective or not, Pakistan is the U.S.'s closest ally in the war on terror. Since 2001, the U.S. has given Pakistan nearly $10 billion in military aid and has taken a keen interest in maintaining some semblance of stability in Islamabad. Even if the U.S. is not in a position to hand over cash right away, it wields influence with Pakistan's creditors and over such common allies as Saudi Arabia

Nuclear Weapons Power

As long as Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons, it is unlikely that foreign governments will allow serious political or economic upheavals that could undermine control of those weapons. There's little danger of Pakistan selling weapons technology for foreign exchange (though this has happened in the past), but a weak central government is worrisome.

Foreign Investors

The Karachi Stock Exchange is barely functional, with onerous limits and artificial price props. But for most of the first half of 2008, it was one of the world's few moderately sized markets that seemed immune from the subprime taint. Foreign investors rushed in, pushing the KSE up nearly 40% by midyear. Now they must wait alongside Karachi's irate small investors to extract their money.

The Friends of Pakistan

Later this month, Pakistan will hold a donor meeting in Abu Dhabi with an informal group called the Friends of Pakistan. There, President Zardari hopes Saudi Arabia will help deal with his country's oil import needs while other nations assist with its debts

China's Friendship
This week, Pakistan has a new friend—China, which Zardari is visiting for four days. With nearly $1.9 trillion in foreign exchange and a decade-long policy of supporting Pakistan as a counterweight to India, China might just prove itself to be the all-weather friend Zardari keeps calling it.

Pakistan on the Brink

Last week, Pakistan's credit rating slipped to second worst in the world, just a step above that of Seychelles. With less than a month and a half of foreign exchange reserves and no more than 10 days of oil supplies at hand (down from 21 days earlier this year), Pakistan truly stands at the brink of bankruptcy.

Foreign lenders

If Pakistan opts to default, creditors stand to lose huge sums at a time when lending markets are already in cardiac arrest.

Why wont Pakistan make it as a nation?

(I had written this article around October 2nd, 2008 on a vacation. Had not been able to publish it for reasons of connectivity)

The reasons for failure of Pakistan as a nation state. ( At this time, i have genuine doubts whether Pakistan has a future as a political entity.)

1. Born out of a significant "anti India" stance, Pakistan as a state has focussed more and most on its defence and military overtures. It really never had an agenda in development as a nation except India bashing. 6 decades later, Pakistan as a society is impoverished, undernourished and under-developed with no signs of looking better in the future.
2:It was an American ally (during cold war), a Taliban ally (during Afghanistan- Russia conflict) , a Chinese ally, an Azad Kashmir proponent, a Nuclear power, an Al Qaeda base and many more. Pakistan army, its defence forces and its secret service, ISI have held its governance ransom to their demands in many ocassions. Military expenditure as a part of the total National GDP in Pakistan has been extremely high because of the war and arms-idealogy that was in the fore-front of the national interests.
3: Its fledgeling democracy never really got going in real terms. In its history from 1947 till date, the prime ministers office was occupied for 32 years, which is about 50% of the total time. The other 50% of the time, the country had been run under presidential rule or martial law.
4: Since as far as i remember, Pakistani economy has only survived off US and world bank aid. There is zero foriegn investment in the country and reliance on international creditors for hard currency inflows has been on the upswing mostly through the decade.
5: With no real social economic development, the citizenry has plunged into destitution and poverty. The poor human development indicators support this arguement. Thus they have taken refuge in the arms of what we call "radical Islam": The idealogical birthground of terrorism.
6: With the military and ISI who were hand in hand with the terror organizations in India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, this decade's "American war of Terror" has been the cause of Pakistan's undoing.
7: Pakistan is now caught between a deadly cross fire. On one end is the anti terror American axis, which is the only support that Pakistan as an economy really has. On the other hand, Pakistan cannot wipe out its murky past where it has been and still is an active harbour for terrorists. The ISI Army nexus pledge themselves to the Jihad. US of A, the greatest anti thesis and the prime target of Jihad, is Pakistani economy's biggest aid provider.
8: If Pakistan is seen politically all over the globe as a state abetting terrorism, it risks sanctions and loss of support. Withdrawal of that support can plummet Pakistan into a civil war which its society can ill afford. Its social and economic structures are too delicate to be able to breathe without the US respirator.
9: Hardcore elements in the governance will ensure that any process that tries to move away from Radical Islam is quickly stubbed off. The 26/11 Mumbai Terror plot was followed by a very real "coup and military take over" scenario in Pakistan. How ever hard the extremists and supporters of Radical Islam support their faith, they cannot over look the US respirator thus bringing them to a dead lock.
10: Thus Pakistan is in a stalemate where its external relations with US and tottering economy wont let its internal factions act decisively in terms of taking over. On the other hand, these internal factions will not allow the friends of Pakistani Democracy (assume Asif Ali Zardari to be one of them) to do much against the war on terror (accept perhapos Lip service and token arrests).
11. Which ever way it is, the choice is between the devil and deep sea for Pakistan. Whether Asif Ali Zardari would like to accept it or not, Pakistan UN intervention to get hold of things in their country. The sooner the better for him for the way i see it for him, an assasination attempt is not too far off in the present scenario.

On a sign off note, there is this small caricature that i chanced upon in 2002, which really depicts the US - Pak - Al Qaeda - Terror nexus very aptly.

Next terror attack on US will originate in Pakistan, your thoughts?

My views of the non challant and myopic views of The US government in dealing with the terror crisis.
http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=51584&discussionID=658312&sik=1228546149185&split_page=1&report%2Esuccess=PdmtybENV2mnc3t3p8JpWuFiB1ZhaD9OnKUphCsu7LRNRYTOK1wrHHO_rcDN0rVBb1wuxUyPL-SZ
http://digg.com/world_news/Next_terror_attack_on_US_will_originate_from_Pakistan

US's myopic views of the world is a substance of cartooning and folklore. The last count, US had spent 1 trillion dollars on its "war against terror" with little to show as results. A few hundred missiles, a few thousand corpses and a handful of terrorists killed is how the report card reads even today. It is singularly frustrating as to why would the policy makers blind themselves out on the larger picture. The threat today is Radical Islamic movement (not to be confused by Islam, the religion). While US marines try to nuke out the western province of Pakistan searching for Al Qaeda rats, the "radical islam" movement has augmented itself into agencies in the heart of Pakistan and elsewhere, where the idealogies of radical islam find blind supporters. As such stamping of AL Qaeda will not be an end to terror. AQ has already spawned many more cells which will take the "jihad" to the next frontier. Coming to the subject of Pakistan: Clearly the Army and the ISI hold all the chords of a puppet democratic government. As a state, 60 years post its making, Pakistan remains to be a failure. Its economy and society in tatters, this is state on the brink of anarchy, how ever hard the Pakistan government tries to supress the facts. Lawlessness and anarchy rule this land. No wonder then that Osama, Dawood, Azhar and other terrorists continue to live under the government/ISI patronage and operate freely from this land. In such conditions, the next terror attacks whether be London, New York or Mumbai are destined to originate here. Thus instead of state visits like that of Rice (i wonder what benefit does it bring to either India or Pakistan), the international community would have to bargain for a strike at identified Pakistani locations to purge it from these perpetrators of terror. One might have to factor in wholesome elimination of ISI as well. As long as this hard bullet is not bitten, US may choose to spend another trillion (which its own economy needs so badly) and yet be way off the mark in striking terror out forever. Dont expect the lame duck Bush to be doing anything more to help this. Am pinning my hopes on Obama.

US suspects Kashmir-based group behind attacks: Official

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/US_suspects_Kashmir-based_group_behind_attacks_Official/articleshow/3774358.cms#write
I wonder just how many more 9/11s and innocent lives will it take for US and the international community to understand that it is the Al Qaeda and LeT which have perpetrated the terror. I wonder when the sense will dawn on the inetrnational community that Pakistan is under anarchy and is being run by a cartel of extremists, ISI and terror organizations. Pakistan will never be able to fight this cancer. It will take an international effort to get rid of this. Do we want more of such attacks happening at Paris, London, Brussels and other trade centres or can the civilized world move towards a definitive and coordinated attempt to get rid of this?