How many times will we be fooled by the US?

Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Shireen M Mazari

So Senator Kerry has come to do the usual doublespeak to the Pakistani people through its already confused leadership! Like the other US leaders before him, his understanding of Pakistan ran skin deep at best as he tried to justify the drones by declaring that terrorism existed in Pakistan before these attacks. Oh what a revelation Senator; but we all know qualitative difference between the pre- and post-9/11 status of terrorism in Pakistan. And, while some elitist part time residents and drawing room analysts (the very group that they seem to decry) of the capital may see drones as merely red herrings, the fact is that drones have killed almost 900 innocent Pakistanis between 2006 and 2009 and only 10 Al Qaeda targets. The growing instability in the country as well as the IDPs from the drone-hit areas are testimony to the fact that drones create space for future militants; as well as to the fact that the military option has not only failed to stabilise the area but also failed to deny space to the militants. And, no one buys the Pakistani state's whining to the US against the drones as authentic anymore since, if the leadership was truly opposed to these drone attacks, they would simply claim back Bandari air base. Remember also that perception is at least as critical as the reality.

Senator Kerry also talked about his cosponsored bill relating to aid to Pakistan that will be introduced – or may have been introduced – in the US Senate through its Foreign Relations Committee. He declared that there would be no conditionalities and he feigned – because I refuse to believe that a seasoned Senator like Kerry would be so ill-informed on the issue especially when he knew he was travelling to Pakistan – total ignorance about the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement Act of 2009 already introduced into the House of Representatives by Representative Howard Berman, Democrat from California. The bill, if passed as is, would be as humiliating for Pakistan as the US-bulldozed Platt Amendment of 1903 was for Cuba.

There have already been some comments of this Act in the Pakistani press and some of the clauses are so insulting that any self respecting Pakistani government would begin voicing its outright rejection of any aid tied to these conditions – but there is a deafening silence from our leaders and their diplomatic reps in the US. As for the billions we spend on lobbyists, apparently Ambassador Haqqani has rendered them ineffective.

Coming back to the Berman bill's clauses, there is a truly absurd India-specific clause J which requires Pakistan "not to support any person or group that conducts violence, sabotage, or other activities meant to instil fear in India". This assumes that the Pakistan is indulging in such activities which in itself are unacceptable. Or is the US going to get a similar undertaking from India given the dangerous games RAW is playing within Pakistan? In any event, is Berman truly ignorant – as many US legislators are about foreign affairs – about the existence of a bilateral Pakistan-India anti-terror agreement or is he simply playing to the Indian lobby? Either way, for Pakistan the message is clear.

Clause K is equally humiliating, with a barely veiled effort to target Dr AQ Khan again. It seeks access for US investigators to "individuals suspected of engaging in worldwide proliferation of nuclear materials," and requires Pakistan to "restrict such individuals from travel or any other activity that could result in further proliferation". Berman would have been more useful to his country if he had sought to clarify the US role in proliferation to Israel or to seek more light on the nuclear agreements India signed with Iraq and Iran! In any event, the US has to get over its trauma of Dr A Q Khan and Pakistan's nuclear capability, just as it finally seems to be getting over its Iranian revolution trauma!

The hand of the Indian lobbyists is all over this Bill including in Clause H which requires Pakistan not to provide any support (could also include political and moral since it is open-ended), "direction, guidance to, or acquiescence in the activities of any person or group that engages in any degree in acts of violence or intimidation against civilians, civilian groups or governmental entities" – target being the indigenous freedom struggle in Indian-Occupied Kashmir. Of course, given how the US is intimidating civilians in FATA with the drone attacks, shouldn't our government tell the US this may include them also! If only our leaders had such guts and gumption but all we see them do is fawn and fall all over the US regardless of the impact it has on the country.

Clause I focuses on the Taliban but again with the onus on the Pakistan government, with the underlying insinuation being that it is the Taliban's survival and nurturing is all at the hands of the Pakistani state – this despite the fact that the Pakistani state has lost thousands of its personnel in fighting these forces. If Pakistan's detractors would study history they would realise that asymmetric conflicts for hearts and minds are never won through military means but who can talk sense to a super power that is still subject to irrational behaviour as a result of 9/11 – so much so that it has also forgotten that the perpetrators of 9/11 were rich, westernised Arabs living in Europe and the US.

The Berman bill's title itself – with the acronym PEACE – is a cruel joke on the people of Pakistan and now Senator Kerry has been trying to tell us that his bill will have no conditionalities. That is nothing but a pack of lies; in any case it is irrelevant because now that an earlier bill relating to aid to Pakistan has been introduced in the House, Kerry's bill in the Senate, along with the Berman bill, will eventually go before a conference committee of Congress comprising equal members from the House and the Senate's relevant committees and one bill will be moulded from the two. Given the effective Indian lobbying and the animus that prevails in the US political circles against the nuclear Muslim state of Pakistan, the conditionalities of the Berman bill will not be removed – certainly not all of them. Yet, from Pakistan's perspective, even one of the present conditionalities makes the aid bill humiliating and unacceptable to any nationalist, self-respecting leadership endowed with courage and a sense of history.

Does our leadership fit that bill? Certainly not so far but perhaps a greater reliance on parliament may give them some courage. After all, President Zardari also turned to the same parliament that he had been ignoring in the context of the issue of terrorism, to gain courage on Swat. But Parliament cannot be used selectively and one hopes it will now be more assertive of its powers.

Meanwhile, the US has begun to send drones into Swat to undermine an agreement that has parliament's sanction. The detractors of the peace agreement should realise that while the agreement was certainly signed from a position of weakness, once it is enforced action can be taken against the criminals violating women through acts of flogging and destroying education through burning of schools. After all, amongst the "secret" 14 conditions, are conditions that the Taliban will not prevent women from working or studying, will cooperate in the anti-polio drive, will desist from attacking barber and music shops, will denounce suicide attacks and so on. Given the paucity of the writ of the state, such an agreement, if enforced, can being peace to the local people especially with the army withdrawing and the Taliban agreeing not to display weapons in public and accepting a ban on raising militias. This is not the end of the problem but merely a beginning.

If the state wants to have a better negotiating position it needs to provide security and justice to the people while dialoguing and negotiating with all Pakistani stakeholders backed by, but not unleashed, coercive power of the state. This is the only way to isolate diehard militants. This is also a beginning to deny space for future militants, but that also requires the "adopt a madressah" approach mentioned last week, to go to the roots of the problem. The term Af-Pak has made us a "legitimate" war zone for the Americans with all that that implies. Unless we create space between ourselves and the US, we cannot move to reclaim the lost space of the moderate majority that is the Pakistani nation.



The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com

Ignorance and intolerance confusing the issues

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Shireen M Mazari

Hysteria, intolerance and ignorance are certainly not solely the hallmark of the Taliban, as I discovered last week when I defended the actual Nizam-e-Adl Regulation on television in terms of its content. Immediately, choice abuses – ranging from comments about by girth to the need for me to seek employment in Swat – were unleashed through the internet by the ignorant, hysterical and intolerant self-appointed "liberals". It was all these apologists for western "secularism" could do to stop themselves from actually telling my spouse that I was wajib-ul-qatl in their "liberal" eyes! But then I have a thick political skin, having survived the Left-JI alliance at Quaid-i-Azam University for 16 years!

More important, I firmly believe that there is nothing adverse in the Adl Regulation that was first agreed to in 1994 and then again in 1999, but was never implemented, and to which the ANP has only made two very positive additions. The first is section B and C in Article 1 providing for the Supreme Court and High Court benches; and, the second are Article 8 and 10 dealing with timelines for FIR registrations, challan presentations and court decisions. Beyond these, there is nothing new or discriminatory relating to women. Article 14:2 protects the rights of non-Muslims. So there is nothing that has been included in this at the behest of the TTP.

Also, Schedule I gives a list of 94 laws of Pakistan that remain in force within this Adl Regulation, while offences in Schedule III, dealing with offences punishable under the Pakistan Penal Code and "pertaining to deviations of licenses and permits under relevant laws applicable to the said area, are to be the exclusive purview of Executive Magistrates. Appointments for Illaqa Qazis are also to be made from judicial officers of NWFP.

Perhaps the most crucial piece of the regulation is Article 9:1 which states that for proceedings to be dealt with in accordance with Shariah: "The Qazi and Executive Magistrate shall follow the established principles of exposition and interpretation of Quran Majeed and Sunna-e-Nabvi (PBUH) and, for this purpose, shall also consider the expositions and opinions of recognised Fuqaha of Islam. And let us remember that we have a controversial Hadood Law already in operation across Pakistan and every time the police registers' a case they can do it either under this or the traditional law.

It is not the Adl regulation that is the real issue but the inability of the government to establish its writ and even enforce this regulation properly. In fact, even the agreement it made with Sufi Mohammad is not being enforced in terms of disarming the Taliban and making them live up to their own commitments in terms of accepting the writ of the state and so on. If the TTP leadership is reneging on its commitments and contravening the law of the land as well as committing contempt of the higher judiciary, the state needs to act. One man's public decrying of the Constitution, the legislature and the judiciary cannot go unchallenged by the state. Otherwise, as elsewhere in the country where feudals and tribals take advantage of a diminishing writ of the state to carry out excesses against the oppressed, especially women, the Taliban will also continue to take advantage of this vacuum. The issue is political and the provincial government, with the backing of the full power of the state, needs to assert its writ to implement the law and protect its people. The reason why the ANP government's deal with Sufi Mohammad is being seen as capitulation by so many within Pakistan and outside is because the ANP seems to have taken dialogue and negotiation to mean abdication of state authority.

Unfortunately, the manner in which the state dithered over the regulation provided time for the TTP to gather strength and fill a political and legal void that prevailed in Swat in the interim period; and the provincial government's delay in implementing the regulation after its signing seemed to show a lack of political determination to be assertive once again. The "devil" so to speak lies in the perceived lack of a will on the part of the government, not the regulation itself. So it is ignorance on the part of the critics to decry the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation as it confuses different issues and only serves the cause not only of the Taliban but also of the other major threat confronting us – that is, the US, whose policies have now become part of our terrorism problem, rather than its solution.

The problem in Pakistan is one of a long-standing corrupt state that is unable to deliver justice and security to its people so that non-state actors are able to fill the void – as the Taliban did in Afghanistan. The writ of the state has always been challenged by the powerful to oppress the marginalised people; but now the Taliban are challenging the writ of the state and appealing to these marginalised people seeking judicial and socio-economic relief. There are many fronts on which the state has to act and with determination but it can only do so with the support of its people – not merely US dollars. In fact the latter are a hindrance as they distort national agendas and priorities. Even more seriously, they create a hostile operational environment for the state of Pakistan which is seen merely as acting as a surrogate for the US. In order to alter the operational environment into a positive one, the Pakistani leadership has to distance itself from the US, including closing the Bandari drone base handed over to the US in Balochistan.

A successful strategy against militancy using religious extremism as a tool, needs this favourable environment. From here a three-pronged strategy has to be implemented: One, asserting the Nizam-i-Adl effectively in Swat – and this is neither a parallel legal system nor unconstitutional as there are specific constitutional arrangements for PATA (provincially administered tribal area) – while taking to task all those who continue to defy the state institutions and especially those who refuse to abide by their own agreement with the ANP government. Here the Federal government must give full support to the provincial government, including paramilitary support. But the army needs to be withdrawn so it can undertake tasks for which it is trained – which does not include fighting against one's own people. The British army could not do it successfully in Northern Ireland, to cite just one example. The US and Pakistan's detractors are busy in undermining the professional standing and morale of the Pakistani security forces and intelligence agencies through insidious propaganda while the Pakistani leadership seems directionless in terms of a cohesive indigenous policy on combating militancy and extremism.

Second, as stated earlier in these columns, the madressas have to be tackled across Pakistan as they are potential sleeper cells for militants since they comprise the marginalised population. These institutions need to be brought into the mainstream by involving the private sector (with tax breaks etc.) rather than foreign money, through an "adopt a madressa" programme with financial inputs, mainstream education and employment opportunities. There are thousands of madressas with no resources and under 500 students that could be brought in first. Otherwise, we will find these being overrun by militant extremist groups. The process has already begun with the Jaish-e-Mohammad armed men storming into a Sunni seminary and taking it over in Bahawalpur.

Third, the mosques need local ownership and control. This is enforceable in the urban centres where each locality should have control and ownership of the local mosque through a group of local elders who select their prayer leader or custodian of the mosque. We claim that most Pakistanis are 'moderate' Muslims leaning towards Sufism but we have to reclaim our religious space in our own country. That cannot be done by decrying everything with an "Islamic" label, but rather by engaging in ijtihed and what better place to begin than the local mosque, where women should also have their own space? If we take control of our lives at the micro level, with supportive legislation from the state, perhaps our leaders will have the courage to reclaim the sovereignty they are losing to the US and the militant extremists.

The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com

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Why military action is not the answer

Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Shireen M Mazari

The chaos following the Swat deal and the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation have been reflections of the failure of the writ of the state to actually enforce these arrangements. This has allowed the Taliban to go beyond the terms of their deal and assert a 'give-more' mantra similar to the US 'do-more' mantra we have been afflicted with in the face of an increasingly weak state and government that shows absolutely no signs of wanting to govern. The net result is an expansion of the Taliban efforts to seize power in the surrounding areas of Swat and the renewal of military operations with all the chaotic fallout of displaced persons fleeing the fighting. Clearly, such desperate military action is not a desirable or valid long-term solution to the threat of extremist violence confronting us today. Already, we have seen the military-centric approach cause more chaos and suffering for our people – not to mention the deaths of thousands of innocent people caught in the crossfire of the Taliban, the security forces and the US drones. We have also seen the growth of the suicide bomber and as has been pointed out in earlier columns the Pakistani suicide bomber comes from the marginalised population with no hope or opportunity to improve his family's lot.

Many solutions have also been discussed not only in these columns but also by a wide-ranging and divergent group of people to deal with our multi-dimensional threats from terrorism – ranging from the religious extremist variety to the sub-nationalist. While the latter really is a matter of righting political wrongs, in the context of the former, the urgency of the situation requires a quick but long-term strategy to deny space to more extremist militants. A beginning has to be made by altering the operational environment in the state's favour and that can only be done by distancing ourselves from the US, for it has now become part of our own terrorism problem. That is why US dollars are not the answer but an aggravation of the problem given the perception of the US within all levels of Pakistani society. There is no middle-class Pakistani majority that wants drone attacks – regardless of the claims made by a few Pakistani 'advisers' to the US who say what the US wants to hear.

Beyond that, we need to focus on the sleeper cells for the obscurantist militants. These are the madressahs spread across the country. Already, a move has begun by the militants to take over madressahs in southern Punjab, but one has to actually see the scope of the problem in numbers to realise why military or other violent action by the state is not even the beginning of a solution.

Just take the case of southern Punjab and the madressahs that operate there. Some are large with adequate resources, but there are also the small ones with barely any resources and these are highly susceptible to being taken over by the militants who have the resources. The data discussed below is part of the data collected for three districts of southern Punjab during 2006-2007 and details sought ranged from the sect, number of students (and their age groups) and teachers, the level of mainstream education in addition to Islamic education, the political affiliations, funding sources and general reputation – for instance, jihadi, non-jihadi etc.

In Dera Ghazi Khan (DGK), taking both its tehsils, there are 185 registered madressahs of which 90 are Deobandi (with a total of 324 teachers), 84 are Barelvi (with a total of 212 teachers), six are Ahl-e-Hadith (107 teachers) and five are Fiqah-e-Jafria (10 teachers).

Of the Deobandi madressahs, only the Jamia Atta-ul-Uloom in DGK, with 200 boarders and 20 day students ranging from 5-25 years and eight teachers, which receives donations from Kuwait as well as from private local and religious trusts and is affiliated to the JUI with a reputation of belonging to the Hezbul Mujahideen, offers education up to matric. Another madressah, Jamia Darul Rehmania in DGK tehsil, with the same credentials, offers education up to middle and has 350 boarders plus 230 day students and 28 teachers. Four Deobandi madressahs of DGK offer primary education but the bulk only offers what is termed 'Islamic' education. The bulk of this sect's madressahs are locally funded, are regarded as non-jihadi and are medium to large, with only a few containing less than 50 students. The total number of Deobandi madressah students in DGK district is 11,535. Interestingly, in this category, it is the large madressahs linked to the JUI and the Hezbul Mujahideen that receive foreign funding which in the case of DGK district is almost solely from Kuwait. In fact, funding from Kuwait also goes to non-jihadi Deobandi madressahs.

Of the 84 Barelvi madressahs of DGK district with a total of 7,335 students ranging from 5-25 years, only the Madressah Alia Mehmooda Mehmoodia receives foreign funding from Saudi Arabia and is the only one with a fair number of teachers (18) offering education up to matric. Of the rest, only one offers middle level mainstream education while six offer primary education. None of the Barelvi madressahs are known to have political party or jihadi affiliations. Also, barring the madressah mentioned above, all of the rest have two to three teachers while the Deobandi teacher average is around four per institution with some exceptions for the larger ones.

All the six Ahl-e-Hadith madressahs, which seem to be only in DGK tehsil (none in Taunsa tehsil), with a total of 1,610 students, receive funding from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait. Three of them are linked to a political party, Jamiat Ulmae Ahl-e-Hadith while four are regarded as non-jihadi. Two are reputed to be part of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa and they are part of the three that are funded entirely from donations from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait. These three have a large number of teachers (60 in one, 30 in another and 11 in the smallest one) and offer the most mainstream education including computer and vocational training, with one of them offering education up to BA while the other two offer up to matriculation. One other madressah in this sect offers matriculation also while the remaining two offer only Islamic education.

The five Fiqah-e-Jafria madressahs have a total of 300 students (from 5-20 years). They are all funded locally and only offer Islamic education.

The data for Rajanpur and Rahim Yar Khan is equally interesting and almost on the same patterns – with a few local variations but paucity of space prevents a detailed discussion on that data. However, certain patterns can be deduced – that most of the madressahs are poorly equipped for any form of education at all given the terrible student-teacher ratio and the vast age range of the students – who come from the marginalised poor of the area. The foreign funding may not be as ominous as it looks but it needs to be established whether it comes from private zakat or other charitable donations or official sources. In some cases, like three of the four non-jihadi-reputed Ahl-e-Hadith madressahs, Anjuman Markaz Al Touheed, Markaz Umer Ibne Khatab and Markaz Umer Bin Khitab, the main donor is transparent and identified as being Abdullah Salfi, Kulyat ul Banat.

The main point that has been raised for some time in these columns now is that in order to remove the three main issues of madressahs in Pakistan – that is, the marginalised poor students, the lack of mainstream education and therefore lack of any future prospects and problem of transparency of funding – can only be removed by bringing in the private sector to pump in funds, provide mainstream education alongside the religious education which the various madressah boards can continue to supervise, and offer employment opportunities so that the very poor do not need to offer their children as suicide bombers and cannon fodder for violence. Let the Pakistani nation take up the challenge because the state has failed miserably and time is running out. All the state can do is to offer incentives for what I refer to as the 'adopt-a-madressah' scheme alongside the necessary legislation.

When one sees the human figures involved the massive scale of the problem becomes all too evident for it is these deprived youth that will keep the extremist violence continuing within Pakistan just as the marginalised Muslim youth of Britain are the future terrorist threat for that country despite the British leaders' inability to do introspection rather than indulge in a convenient blame game. Military action can never resolve this issue – how many of our people will we kill? The solution lies in justice and restoration of dignity alongside a future of hope for the dispossessed.



The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies in
Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com

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Kerry-Lugar Bill: still seeking control over Pakistan

Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Shireen M Mazari

This column was going to be a continuation of the issue of Madressahs and the origin of Pakistan's suicide bombers, and why a non-military fast track approach is required by galvanising Pakistani resources, but that will have to wait for another week. The much awaited (in some Pakistani quarters) Kerry Lugar Bill has now been presented and it certainly moves away from the ridiculous Howard Berman Bill that was presented to the House of Representatives. However, once again, we are seeing the doublespeak so aptly describes by fellow columnist Anjum Niaz. At the end of the day, what may emerge in the Congressional consensus is a mix of the two bills, and the final shape will depend on how effective the Indian lobby has been and how critical the US regards our national submission to Indian interests. Be that as it may, the Kerry Lugar Bill (KLB) itself is problematic, even though it appears angelic compared to the Berman Bill – although the amounts and time lines are similar - $1.5 billion per year authorised for five years and a similar amount advocated for the following five years! The KLB delinks security or military assistance from non-military assistance but has conditionalities attached to both.

In terms of security, the assistance is on a year-by-year basis, and the US president has to certify that Pakistan's security forces – that is the military which effectively means the army – are making concerted efforts to prevent Al Qaeda and "other terrorist groups" from operating in Pakistani territory! Given how even the loss of over a thousand security personnel has failed to convince the US that our military is doing its best under trying circumstances, the US continues to put forward the mantra of "do more", such certification would put our security forces under US pressure and "control" for a decade at least. And for what? For weapons systems that we have done without adequately for many decades. As for getting US training in counter terrorism, that is a laugh given how inadequate the US itself has proven to be – whether it was Vietnam, Latin America, Iraq or Afghanistan.

There is also the required certification that the military is preventing Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan from where attacks against Afghanistan can be launched – as if the whole burden on preventing cross-border movement and attacks is the responsibility of the Pakistan army, not of the NATO forces or Afghan military! Once again, the US continues to focus on a military-centric approach and has a punitive policy towards the Pakistan military.

The latter is reflected also in another requirement relating to security assistance: the US president has to certify that our security forces are not interfering in the political and judicial processes of Pakistan. While all Pakistanis wish to see this, is it the place of the US to dictate this as a conditionality? What has this got to do with military aid and fighting "terrorism"?

To add further insult to the state of Pakistan, the US secretary of state, after consulting the secretary of defence and the director of national intelligence will also be submitting to Congress an annual report on the "progress" of Pakistan's security forces. The "progress" is not defined categorically so it could include demands for revelations of our nuclear assets locations, security systems and so on also. Is our military so desperate for US weapons that we will compromise our nuclear assets? Already there is concern over the "sensitive" briefing allegedly given to US and some European diplomats relating to our nuclear assets. How far will we go just for dollars and some weapons systems that we do not really need? And what if "progress" also refers to cuts in our nuclear weapons' spending – something that the Zardari government has already begun to time "coincidentally" with his US visit, although some of us had written about this danger many months earlier!

Then there is a very ominous phrase relating to the presidential evaluation and that is a reference to the roles of "Pakistan local, regional and national institutions". Does regional here offer an indirect intrusion of India somewhere or does it merely mean provincial institutions – and which institutions?

Even with non-security or civilian assistance, there are conditionalities which are highly intrusive and relate to democracy, independent judiciary, rule of law and so on. All laudable, but why should we need US supervision or intervention financially on these counts? After all, on these issues, it is not money that is needed but political commitment and internal reforms which the senior judiciary has already initiated. Incidentally, on one count the US has understood the Pakistani penchant for bowing before dollars: the KLB also provides a regular $5 million for the US ambassador to Pakistan to provide "critical need development or humanitarian assistance" – an open-ended provision for buying loyalties and providing the US ambassador in Islamabad with more interventionist powers within Pakistan's domestic polity.

As for the democracy agenda, what happens if the Pakistani people elect a group or party that is anathema to the US and its interests? Will they do with our democracy what they did to Allende and Chile and what they are doing to Hamas? As for rule of law, if the US was seriously interested in this, it would come clean on the "Disappeared People" issue and close Guantanamo Bay.

Ironically, Kerry while introducing the Bill, kept referring to the US positive experience during the earthquake when the US provided humanitarian assistance. But he has forgotten that it took many critiques in the Pakistani press for the NATO transport planes and helicopters present in Afghanistan to be galvanised into playing a humanitarian role – while resource-limited Cuba and our friend Turkey gave immediately and without any publicity-seeking dramas.

The point that needs to be considered is: what are the long term costs of the US assistance to Pakistan and can we do without it? Certainly, if our leadership tightened its belt, cut out its foreign trips and perks and privileges, and actually governed effectively, our resources could be generated from within. Let the parliamentarians, most of who are economically prosperous, refuse to take their bloated pay and perks packages and redirect them towards education and health in their areas. Let the wheat and sugar mafias and smugglers be apprehended and so on. And let the military continue to rely on its indigenous weapons systems and nuclear deterrence.

As for fighting terrorism and extremism, the military is only a last option with tremendous negative long term fallout – especially as long as we are seen to be doing US bidding or acting under US pressure. We now face a threat not only from the militant extremists from within us, but also from the US. Yes, the writ of the state has to be asserted, but there has to be a political road map and a holistic approach not the military being sent in to fight in a political vacuum – simply because the US and its many apologists in Pakistan and in foreign-funded NGOs abroad, have decreed so.

The US leadership with its multiple histrionics, beginning with Obama, has made its negative Pakistan agenda clear: it is eventually seeking control of our nuclear assets and we are playing into their hands. On the one hand, the militants are threatening the fabric of Pakistani society and on the other hand the US is creating violent dissensions within Pakistan not only amongst civil society but also between the military and civilian structures. It knows that unless it destroys the military institution, it cannot achieve its goal of targeting out nuclear assets. So, it is demanding a role for the military which will undermine its morale, bring it into conflict with its own people and create further unrest.

Bangladesh, the various military actions in Balochistan and the murder of Akbar Bugti should be important reminders of the costs of military operations against one's own people. We have terrorist courts and paramilitary forces – isolate the militants by providing security and justice for the locals and bringing the terrorists to face the law – not simply creating more IDPs. After all, how many will we kill through military power? Militaries are never a solution to political problems and where the civilian government has lost its writ it should declare an emergency and move to re-establish it. Of course, if our leaders actually took time off from their foreign forays to visit their own troubled areas, it could offer solace and support to those caught in the military-militant crossfire. As for the US agenda, what part is still not clear to our rulers?

The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com

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History repeats itself -- at great cost to our nation

Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Shireen M Mazari

The Americans have finally got what they wanted thanks to the pusillanimity of our leadership - both civil and military – and all for the sake of temporary-relief dollars, five helicopters and a few other expensive military toys which we should not need since we have a nuclear deterrence in place at the strategic level. As for fighting asymmetric warfare within one's own polity, it is not military hardware that one needs as much as leadership and institutional credibility, ability to assert the writ of the state, human intelligence and stamina to win hearts and minds through effective counter-ideological based strategies. If mere heavy artillery, aerial bombardment and helicopter gunships could win the fight for the state, the US would have been victorious in Vietnam, in Iraq and in Afghanistan and the Pakistani state would have succeeded in what was then East Pakistan and in Balochistan in 1973 and 2006. But history tells a different story and unfortunately we have learnt no lessons from our past.

Military action against one's own people has never worked – certainly not for Pakistan. Even when our militants were clearly supported by external players, military action aggravated the situation – most amply reflected in the 1971 East Pakistan debacle. Our army was sent to fight the militants or "miscreants" who were openly being abetted by India as a Pakistan government White Paper on the East Pakistan Crisis (August 1971) stated, including the infiltration into East Pakistan by India's Border Security Force "Nos 76, 81, 83, 101, 103 and 104" from March 1971. Reports in the Western media also indicated India's role in the crisis. Just two examples: On 28 April 1971, AFP, in a despatch from New Delhi confirmed that "10,000 ex-servicemen are being organised to fight in East Pakistan." On 2 June 1971 The Times (UK) reported that "the concept of Bangla Desh is being kept alive by the Indian Government". Despite all this, when the Pakistan army began its military actions inside East Pakistan, people there were alienated and we lost half our country. Of course there were many political factors at play both within the country and externally, but the military action acted as the necessary catalyst.

Not that we learnt any lessons. In 1973 we saw military action against the Baloch and the resentment has prevailed and become aggravated since then and after the killing of Akbar Bugti in August 2006 the Baloch resentment against the Pakistani state has grown phenomenally and presently there is a total rejection of any display of Pakistani nationalism in that province. Of course, foreign elements are exploiting the situation and giving physical and monetary support to many Baloch leaders. But have we learnt any lessons yet? No. There is no serious political and economic effort so far to seriously deal with the Baloch grievances; nor to take Karzai and the US to task for openly giving succour to Baloch leaders preaching the breakup of Pakistan. While our leaders play political musical chairs, Balochistan burns and our enemies gleefully add the necessary fuel.

Now we have a full scale military operation going on in Pukhtunkhwa province resulting in hundreds of dead and over three hundred thousand displaced citizens. This time the fight is against the "Taliban" or militants who are now being seen as having within them many foreign and criminal elements. Many supporters of the military action declare that this time it is different; but every situation has been different with the results being the same – disaster following a military operation.

Meanwhile, as is usual with military interventions, indiscriminate fire power is resulting in large scale deaths and destruction so that even the survivors will have nothing much to go back to. Yes, we know those miracle dollars will resolve everything if we are to believe our dollar-obsessed political leadership – although so far nowhere in the world has this happened. It is amazing to see how we are being told daily that 400 or 700 militants have been killed – as if the dead have "militant" or "Taliban" inscribed on their bodies or do they die differently?

It is also interesting to see how gung ho everyone is in support of military action that will not resolve the issue, will create more space for future militants and will eventually undermine the institution of the army which is what the detractors of Pakistan want. This has nothing to do with supporting the "Taliban" but it has everything to do with not seeing the military option as a viable one against one's own people. If the state can so easily identify locations of militants and their dead bodies, why could the military not have surrounded the militants only and taken out there leaders instead of a heavy-handed military operation in which civilians are the main victims? Frankly, it seems more likely that the so-called Taliban may have actually fled away and it is innocent people whose body count is being shown to the US as proof that the army is serious in countering terrorism. The US has prevailed and the nation is the loser.

Supporters of army action claim that this was the only option left but this is never a viable option in such circumstances. As for the writ of the state, it is ironic that today the same people who decried using military force to exert the writ of the state are now cheering this impending debacle by the state. For instance a Lahore-based English daily (owned by the present Punjab governor) in an editorial on August 29, 2006, in the aftermath of the Bugti killing titled "Musharraf's misplaced concreteness about 'writ of the state' concluded that "if an effort to establish the writ of the state actually leads to more chaos, then surely there is something wrong with the approach behind it." Ambassador Haqqani's article in another Lahore-based English daily, on August 30, 2006, titled "Violence against Politics" made the same point on use of military force against one's own people. An earlier editorial (August 29, 2006) in the same paper wisely declared that "the writ of the state is best established by winning consent, not ramming it down people's throats by force." How quickly the US makes some of us change our perspectives! On August 28 2006 Musharraf had also given his justification for military action in Kohlu in terms of "the writ of the state".

In fact, so many of us were also focused on the "writ of the state" issue in the case of the Lal Masjid issue with demonstrations and articles; although some of us (including this scribe) did point out to Musharraf and the cabinet in early February at a JCSC meeting that timely action through normal law enforcement was needed to prevent a snowballing effect if the issue was allowed to fester. In the end, the early support for strong action dissipated in the face of revelations of the brutal way the military ended the operation. But most significant was the fallout especially in areas like Swat, but also within society at large. So public opinion alters as it receives more information but by then the damage has been done to civil-military relations. This was a sobering learning experience for many of us, but the state has not imbibed any lessons from this incident either, especially the turnaround the media did in the immediate aftermath.

Now the same history is being repeated and stories are already coming out about how the military did not give enough time for people to leave; how civilians are being killed indiscriminately (The News', 11 May, of the young girl whose whole family fell victim to an army mortar shell) and how no arrangements exist for taking people out of the military operations areas. More such stories will follow and eventually the tide support for the operation will fade away and disgruntlement will set in because the problem has simply been relocated not resolved by this military action.

We are told there were no other options. There are always other options. For instance why could the ANP or federal government not have used paramilitary forces to arrest the leaders of the "militants", charge them and try them in the anti-terror courts? Or, actually physically isolate these militants even if the army had to be involved in this action? At least it would not have resulted in the full-scale military action. But then that did not suit US interests since the Americans know the only way to get to Pakistan's nukes is to destroy the institution of the military.

The issue has been further compounded by the government not developing a national consensus through an APC before commencing the action – but doing it under US diktat just as President Zardari signed the dangerous US designed MoU on transit trade simply to save his seat – or so he seems to have perceived. As for PM Gilani's words, "finish them off" – they could have come from a military dictator. You do not "finish off" your own people, even criminals. There are terror courts and laws and due process – that is what distinguishes a state from non-state actors. The writ of the government actually is already over if the army is sent in and that is what has happened once again in our dark political history. Already the external vultures like the US are eyeing our nuclear assets as every province is being deliberately destabilised from within and a disinterested ruling elite either willy nilly or by design gives in to the negative US blueprint for Pakistan.

The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com

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Of lies, media spins and the US targeting our nukes

Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Shireen M Mazari

To learn firsthand how reality loses its relevancy in the media-spin age has been an experience which explains why so many news reports eventually reveal themselves as having not an iota of reality about them. For me the reports on the APC called by Prime Minister Gilani were an interesting study on how what really happened can be totally lost sight of if the government can offer a fast spin and has compliant listeners in the media. Not that that helps the government's cause in the long run since it creates more distrust and makes it difficult for the government to replay the exercise the next time round. As someone who was present throughout the deliberations – which clearly did not seem to be off the record as may have been understood at the time – the final outcome reflected the non-consensus on the military operation with the leaders divided over the timing, the use of the option itself except as a last resort and so on. However, since the die had already been cast, all that most leaders could do was not to rubber-stamp this decision of the government – and that included the PML-N. So it was surprising to find one newspaper declaring that once the PML-N had endorsed the military operation all opposition voices were silenced! Nothing could have been farther from the truth and if the resolution had simply been the starting point of understanding what really happened in the APC, the truth would have been visible only too clearly. In any case, the APC itself was a welcome move because it allowed the government to put its case forward and also to hear different viewpoints, including the strong consensus that Balochistan was continuing to be neglected at great peril. This column is not intended to repeat the APC proceedings which have been covered extensively, one way or another, in the media already.

Nor is it the intent to clarify one's position that doubting the efficacy of a military operation, especially one taking place in a political policy void as the present one – since the APC meeting did reveal the lack of a political strategy that would follow when the military operation ended (that in itself is presently open-ended) – does not mean supporting the criminals and militants being targeted by the state.

Far from it. In fact, the fear is that military operations can create a severe backlash and more space for the militants as has been the case in our past. The East Pakistan and Balochistan military operations (1973 and 2006) were also presented as re-establishing the writ of the state and all forms of tales of violence filled the media but in the end the results flowing from these operations were costly and negative – with a civil-military divide that haunts us even today and is played upon by all our external detractors when they seek to undermine the institution of the military.

However, time will eventually expose the realities. After all, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, some of us had pointed out that the US had intentions of undermining the Pakistani state in order to target its nuclear assets. In order to accomplish this end, the US would increase the instability in Pakistan from within. There are those who even today insist that since we cannot threaten the US directly with our nukes, why would they want to take them out or control them. That is too simplistic. After all, that logic should also apply to Iran, yet the US is targeting its nuclear programme. The fact is that as a Muslim country, our nuclear weapons cause discomfiture in the west and Israel plays on this. Recall the words attributed to the first leader of the Israeli state, Ben Gurion: "The world Zionist movement should not be neglectful of the dangers of Pakistan to it. And Pakistan now should be its first target, for this ideological state is a threat to our existence... this lover of the Arabs is more dangerous to us than the Arabs themselves". (Jewish Chronicle August 1967)

Let us not forget the continuing relevancy of the US-Israel linkage. Now US designs are overt – from the US media raising questions about our nukes, ever since the US succeeded in shifting the centre of gravity of the war from Afghanistan to Pakistan to the US officials raising the bogey of threats to our nuclear command and control.

We have seen Obama's pronouncements on this count becoming more direct with his latest statement where he declared that as commander-in-chief he had to keep all options open in terms of our nuclear assets. The choice of the C-in-C designation rather than president is significant, as the US would eventually use a military option in this regard – given how our constantly tried and tested friend China would be an impediment to a UNSC resolution perhaps. The parts of the game plan seem to be in place now and well-orchestrated moves are being made.

The first was the appointment of the new US army chief in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, a Special Ops man along with a US media leak that Pakistan had already agreed to hand over its enriched uranium – a technology we acquired with great cost, not the least the cost to the person of A Q Khan – to the US. President Zardari then makes a unilateral and authoritarian decision that Pakistan will not make any more nuclear weapons – despite the fact that to keep the nuclear deterrence viable weapons have to be improved and added to – and revelations in the Pakistani media abound over how damaging budgetary cuts have been made in our nuclear and missile R&D programmes (something that was highlighted months earlier in these columns). Another crucial part of the game plan to take over our nukes was the declaration that US counterinsurgency trainers will move into two locations in Balochistan to 'train' our army – despite General Kayani's welcome declaration that we do not need training. So who is allowing US trainers access into sensitive military areas in Balochistan? If the Pakistan army says it does not need these trainers – and the US record on counterinsurgency is dismal in any case – who is forcing them on us and why?

Eric Margolis did an interesting analysis on the US stirring "a hornet's nest in Pakistan", on May18, where he declared that "Pakistan finally bowed to Washington's angry demands last week by unleashing its military against rebellious Pashtun tribesmen of North-West Frontier Province – collectively mislabelled 'Taliban' in the west." He expressed the fear that "the real danger is in the US acting like an enraged mastodon (an extinct mammal), trampling Pakistan under foot, and forcing Islamabad's military to make war on its own people. Pakistan could end up like US-occupied Iraq, split into three parts and helpless." Of course, such a situation can only come to pass if our leadership plays along and dupes this otherwise vibrant nation into losing its strategic assets. Is that what is happening?

This week commenced with three important moves: first there was the already cited Obama statement. Alongside we had President Zardari's declaration that the Swat operation was simply part of a larger war – which means that instability will be heightened in Pakistan with an increasing exodus of people and more suspicions of militants moving with the innocent. This will bring more rationalisations from the US about the threat to our nukes. The third move was the interior minister's declaration that the Taliban are "eyeing our nuclear weapons" – a statement he denied having made, but given the proclivity for untruths that I have witnessed firsthand now it is hard to believe the half-hearted 'clarification' in some of the media. This will make the US work overtime like nothing else even though it makes no sense for militants to acquire these weapons which are difficult to handle and are not needed in counterinsurgency. (Incidentally, extremists in Israel, India under the BJP and the US under Christian fundamentalist Bush have all had their finger on the nuclear button.) Why would Rehman Malik give such statements when our concerned quarters have already declared that our command and control is safe?

Seymour Hersh, in a conversation with this scribe recently from the UAE, hinted that compromises by our political leadership had already been made on the nuclear programme. But the US also knows that as long as the Pakistan army remains a strong, cohesive organisation, our nukes cannot be accessed. That is why we need to ensure that this institution does not fall prey to US machinations, including getting bogged down in internal military operations that suffer the same fallout as has happened in all earlier operations in our history. How much more do we need to go through before our leaders see that the threat from the US is equally grave as that from the militants?

The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com

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Crises that loom beyond the military action

Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Shireen M Mazari

Despite the very effective censorship on the media regarding the military operation in Swat, tales of despair are coming through – especially of those who have lost their families in the artillery and aerial bombardments and of those over two million still trapped in the war zone. Then there are the images of wheat crop lying unharvested and interviews that do manage to find their way into the electronic media of IDPs in schools receiving absolutely no official aid despite having registered themselves. Perhaps the most lamentable fallout has been the reaction of the Sindh government to the IDPs alongside the PPP spokespersons like Fauzia Wahab who brazenly displayed her ignorance by comparing the IDPs to the Afghan refugees. Is she truly not aware that Swat has been a part of Pakistan for many decades and the IDPs are Pakistani citizens with the right to move freely (without registration) throughout Pakistan? Clearly the Sindh government is trying to push through a policy of racial profiling on one pretext or the other.

Such shameful treatment of our own people by the state shows the sharp contrast between the nation and its massive support for the IDPs and the state with its "ifs and buts". At this rate we will be confronting a mass of IDPs growing more frustrated and angry with each passing day – so they will present ideal breeding grounds for the extremists who prey on the dispossessed and marginalised segments of our society. But the rulers never learn and the operation has been expanded to FATA, so more IDPS will continue to flow without any provisions having been made properly for their accommodation by the state. That is one major reason why the military action will have a socially and politically negative fallout in the long run. The question is whenever the military action ends in Swat and the FATA region, what then? Will the Taliban have been finished off? What is the political strategy that the government has formulated to takeover where the military action ends? Somehow there seems to be no visible clarity on any of these counts, which again undermines the viability of the military action especially in a political vacuum.

Meanwhile, with all attention focused on the ongoing military operation, Balochistan seems to have been pushed onto the back burner which will cost us dearly. We do not have the luxury of time in dealing with Balochistan and the sense of deprivation amongst the Baloch people. The solutions for Balochistan are political and are more a matter of political will than money resources – although the latter will be required if locally-centred development is to be pushed. But it is the political will at the Centre that is lacking and sending the negative signals.

Coming back to the issue of religious extremism, one fallout of the military operation is going to be a dangerous coalescing of this brand of extremism with the political and economically marginalised segments of our society – the numbers now growing because of the manner in which the IDPs are being treated by the state and its various entities. Unless there is a qualitative change in the state's approach to this issue of violent extremism, we are not going to rid ourselves of militancy – whatever label it is given. The military action does not resolve the issue of good governance and justice. Nor does it solve the issue of the marginalised population with its youth seeing no life for itself beyond the madressah – which offers them no gainful employment. A few weeks ago, I gave details of the madressahs and their students in just one district of southern Punjab – D G Khan. And I stated that the numbers and details for Rahim Yar Khan and Rajanpur districts were on a similar fashion. That is why, in order to deal with the issue of bringing in these marginalised youth into the mainstream, the private sector would have to be involved through an "adopt a madressah" scheme. Or must we wait till the situation reaches crisis proportions and the state simply throws up its hands and sends in the military – which is no solution in the long term?

My contention is that it is not so much that all the madressahs are "jehadi" – they are not – but that the student population in most of the madressahs in these outlying areas is the poorest of the poor with no hope of a future at all. So they can be exploited as they are being already to come into the militant fold willy nilly. In a television discussion one of the leaders of the Wafaq ul Madaris was simply not prepared to accept that madressah students were ready fodder for extremists, especially in terms of suicide bombers. However, the little data that I have managed to collate from official sources, shows that it is exactly these poor, marginalised youth often from ordinary non-jehadi madressahs who are taken and brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers.

For example, the profile of Mohammed Siddique of the Karachi Nishtar Park bombing of 11 April 2006 shows that he was 21 years old, with no formal education, but having been in a madressah could read and write Urdu, and read the Quran in Arabic without understanding it (Nazra Quran). He lived in Karachi and worked as a helper in a bookstore near Binori Town Mosque while his family cultivated five kanals of lands in Mansehra. While most of his family lived in Mansehra, one of his brothers worked as a labourer in Rawalpindi. Simple-minded, far from home and family, he was vulnerable and poor and thereby an easy prey for brainwashing. The case of Sana Ullah, resident of Akora Khattak, Nowshera, who carried out the suicide attack on Ameer Muqam on 9 November 2007, is similar. His brothers were labourers in Peshawar and Taxila and his formal education was till 4th grade in the government primary school in Kati Maina, Nowshera. Then he left school to become a Hifz-e-Quran at the Madressah Tahfeez-ul-Quran in the same village but in 2004 he moved on to Madressah Dar-ul-Uloom Rehmania in Swabi and then in 2006 he went on to Turangzai Madressah in Charsadda and finally left even his madressah studies and returned home temporarily. He returned to Swabi and was part of the planned suicide attack on Ameer Muqam. Once in Swabi where he met up with "friends", he told his father he had found employment in Bannu.

More information is always collated by the authorities from suicide bombers who are caught before they can carry out their attacks. One such bomber was Sohail Zeb from Khano Kal'e, Tehsil Sarokai, Tank. Born in 1979, he was one of the few bombers who was college-educated (FA) and was associated with Sipah-i-Sahaba and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi along with his Mehsud friends. He went through their organisational structures and was motivated to join the Taliban by Abid a resident of South Waziristan and went through formal training at the Kiza Phange camp in South Waziristan where the Pesh Imam was an Uzbek. From all accounts the camp was formally organised with proper martial arts and weapons trainers. Again, as in the other two instances, the potential bomber was cut off totally from his family and familiar surroundings.

Then there was the only bomber who left a simple video behind – an exception to the Pakistani pattern of young brainwashed suicide bombers. This was Abdul Kareem, 20 years old, involved in the Allama Hasan Turabi case. He was enrolled in Hanfia Madressah, Moosa Colony Karachi but left in the middle. His family had migrated from Bangladesh and was extremely poor – father was a pushcart vendor – and wanted him to become a Hafiz-e-Quran. The guilt built in him and in his video he declared that since he had failed his family on this count, he had decided to blow himself up and kill "infidels" so he could go to heaven.

These are just four case studies but there is a pattern – madressah-educated, poor families and, apart from the last case, away from families and familiar surroundings. All these add to the vulnerability; but what is the state doing? Will the state simply wait for things to reach a crisis point and then send in the army? Can such action actually rid us of the menace of extremism? No. There has to be a more rational approach to winning back our lost people, especially the youth.

The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com

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Nuclear compromises -- connecting the dots

Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Shireen M Mazari

It has now become routine for the US to focus on Pakistan's nuclear weapons whenever there is trouble within the country. Clearly, the US has not recovered from its trauma of seeing a developing Muslim state acquire nuclear capability. Moreover, as one of the greatest proliferators since 1945 to Israel, the US has always maintained hypocrisy over its non-proliferation stance and this has now been fully exposed with its 123 nuclear agreement with India.

Nevertheless, the US has continued to be relentless in targeting Pakistan's nuclear assets in one way or another. What has been of growing concern to some of us has been the seeming weakening of the Pakistani resolve on sustaining the credibility of our nuclear deterrence through constant improvement and increase in the nuclear arsenal – especially post-9/11. If individual incidents are collated together, the dismal picture unfolds more clearly.

First there was the bizarre and totally unnecessary victimisation of Dr A Q Khan. While the Musharraf regime thought that would end the focus on our nuclear programme, many of us at the time stated the apparent – that capitulation on this count would only send the wrong signals to the US and our other nuclear detractors as they would take this as a sign of our weakness. And that is exactly what has been happening since.

The incarceration of Dr Khan was followed by our voluntary sending of old centrifuges to the IAEA – despite the fact that each nuclear power's centrifuges reveal the unique design of that country's nuclear weapon. Some of us had critiqued this decision at the time but we were told that these were old centrifuges and our designs had moved on. That was true but having the original blueprint could allow one to configure the path of these improvements. However, the real issue was why we had made this move when we were not required to under any of our international obligations. Incidentally, on the whole Dr Khan issue also, it needs to be constantly reiterated that he had not broken any of Pakistan's international treaty obligations as we are still not members of the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG).

From the centrifuges issue we watched silently as the US moved towards its strategic nuclear deal with India. Despite the deal contravening US NPT and NSG commitments, we did not move diplomatically to counter this impending deal on a ridiculous assumption that the US may offer us a similar deal – despite the US having constantly reiterated that this was not going to be the case, even though American logic on this was heavily flawed given how India had nuclear agreements with Saddam's Iraq and with Iran and Indian scientists had been found at the Bushehr plant (India's detailed proliferation record has been published earlier in these columns).

Belatedly our able diplomats sought to counter US efforts for a country-specific exception for India in terms of safeguards in the IAEA and export waivers in the NSG. We tried to argue that instead there should be a criteria-based approach and, ironically, in the NSG, Israel also pushed forward a non-paper arguing the same point. When India sought its special safeguards agreement with the IAEA – which is unique in its exit loopholes for India – Pakistan's Foreign Ministry (MFA) finally began an aggressive diplomatic campaign which was getting positive results. Pakistan had already sent a letter to the IAEA Boards of Governors (BoG), asking for a vote in the BOG on this issue – something the US and India wanted to avoid at all costs. There were two valid reasons behind Pakistan's move: One, to expose those member states that had been holding forth on non-proliferation but would go along with making an exception for India; and, two, to see how many of Pakistan's Arab allies, who were members of the IAEA Board would vote. In addition to a letter from Pakistan's ambassador to Austria and the IAEA, as part of the MFA's strategy on this issue, the foreign secretary also wanted to send a letter to the NSG states asking them to adopt a criteria-based approach for sensitive technology transfers rather than country based exceptions. The third leg of the MFA strategy was to send an envoy – preferably a seasoned diplomat – to our ally China to get them to lend support to the Pakistani approach vis a vis the IAEA and the NSG.

Unfortunately, as soon as the Pakistani letter was sent to the IAEA BoG, the US got moving and contacted their Pakistani point man (story had come in The News last year) and a cable was duly sent to the MFA strongly recommending that the MFA stop all activities meant to counter India-US moves on safeguards and technology exports at the IAEA and the NSG respectively. So, all diplomatic efforts by Pakistan came to a grinding halt and the special envoy's mission had to be aborted midway.

The compromised did not end here. President Zardari unilaterally declared a no-first-use policy despite the fact that we had deliberately, like NATO kept our position on this ambivalent while India had effectively abandoned this position in its nuclear doctrine. Then we saw research and development funds being cut in the nuclear sector and President Zardari declare that we would not be producing any more nuclear weapons. Taken together this meant that our nuclear arsenal would not be kept updated and would eventually comprise of outdated weapons – thereby destroying the viability of the strategic deterrence.

Meanwhile, the centre of gravity of the war from Afghanistan was successfully transferred to Pakistan and this was accompanied by the US cacophony of how our nukes could fall into wrong hands and so on. Issues were raised about our command and control despite the fact that so far only the US has displayed a total collapse of command and control of its nukes (the B52 incident). There were rumours of the US having gained some access to our nuclear sites and security codes, especially when Obama declared that "I'm confident that we can make sure that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure…." There has also been the disturbing news that Pakistan may have agreed to send its enriched uranium to the US and now we have seen India restart a campaign against our nukes, seeking US help to cap our arsenal.

Meanwhile our Strategic Plans Division continues to function under a strange logic that by giving more access to foreigners – including journalists (even Indian), analysts and one assumes foreign officials also – somehow the deep-seated anti-Muslim prejudices that underlie the anti-Pakistan-nuke stance will be mitigated. Unfortunately, the reality has proven otherwise with those granted such access writing highly negative reports on our nuclear assets. Not that that has stopped the highly public posturing of what should be a low-profile largely covert set-up. Only recently an SPD official declared that 10,000 security personnel guard our nuclear arsenal. What was the need to reveal this information? Has India or the US or even France ever made such disclosures?

Meanwhile the latest "revelation" about our nuclear programme has come from the Congressional Research Service and it has much in it to cause concern for us. The information itself could not have been acquired without some inside assistance. It bemoans our continuing development in the nuclear field although we are under no international legal obligation not to do so. It also highlights US efforts to target us on the nuclear issue by referring to the continuing focus on Dr Khan through conditionalities put into two pieces of aid legislation.

Most disturbing is the information given that our "nuclear weapons are stored unassembled, with the fissile core separated from the non-nuclear explosives. These components are stored separately from delivery vehicles." If true, this means that Pakistan has given in to US pressure that was being used even before 1998 of making us adopt "non-weaponised deterrence" – where the nuts and bolts are kept separate so that in a crisis you cannot actually have a viable nuclear device immediately – while the enemy would. We assumed our leaders had withstood the pressure. Clearly that does not seem to be the case. Perhaps the highly visible SPD should be clarifying this point rather than telling us how many security personnel guard our nukes! While our political leadership talks of outmoded and absurd military concepts of "total war" and "total victory" and keeps the military embroiled in situations where it has abdicated political responsibility, has it also moved us further down the slippery slope of total nuclear compromise?

The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com

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The endgame target: a weak nuclear defanged Pakistan

Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Shireen M Mazari

First, a brief comment on the Obama address, since much has already been written about it. Certainly, for a US president, the address was a major shift in approach but it was sad to see how he referred to the 3,000 plus innocent victims of 9/11, but not a word about the well over one million Muslim deaths as a result of the Bush-launched retaliatory war stretching from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nor was Obama willing to concede that the 9/11 attackers were Saudis and not from this part of the world. It was also sad to see rhetoric accepting that force would not resolve Pakistan's problems but the reality of continuing use of force through drones.

The one major positive substantive policy shift – beyond mere rhetoric – was the reaching out to Iran for talks without preconditions. This should be an eye-opener for the servile past and present leadership of this nation – Iran stood by its nationalist posture and brought the US to where it wanted: a dialogue amongst two sovereign powers. On the Middle East one has to wait and see what actually happens on the ground since Obama also seemed unwilling to accept the electoral success of Hamas – which led him to state the bizarre claim that Hamas has "some support amongst the Palestinians!"

But there is little positive for Pakistan that one can expect from the US even under Obama. But then when we have a continuing compliant leadership willing to do all that the US bids, why should Obama adopt a healthier and more positive approach to Pakistan? The sight of the president and a mere ambassador, Holbrooke, standing side by side at a press conference really said it all. International beggars and grovellers – our leaders have stripped us of all national dignity. The cowardice of our leadership was exposed by Holbrooke when he revealed that the Pakistani leadership had not taken up the drone issue with the US leadership at all. It is in this context, that many of us are concerned over the chief justice's meeting with Holbrooke – now held on what can only be termed as terrible advice from the Foreign Office. Was it a deliberate ploy by the government to adversely impact the public perception of the chief justice? Was it simply coincidental that this meeting was advised by the government when the chief justice had made a reference to the NRO?

Meanwhile, with an unabated spread of violence across the country, and the renewed negative focus on our nuclear assets, we need to continue to connect the dots and realise the serious targeting of these assets and of those who will in the final analysis ensure their safety. Coincidences are becoming the hallmark of so many developments across the national spectrum, that there is also a need to see whether there is a deliberateness involved or are the timings truly coincidental. For instance, is it a mere coincidence that the ethnic battle is going on unabated in Karachi just when the nation is focused on the now-widening military action from Swat to FATA? Is this part of the overall plan to keep all parts of the country ignited so that the instability paradigm being plugged by the US and our other foreign detractors continues to sound credible and prepares the ground for taking control of our nuclear assets?

As for the military operation, it is becoming ever more evident that this may be open-ended since there is still no overarching political strategy for the post-military scenario. One sees no effort to build the civil capacity for taking over from the military. It appears as if the civil government has simply handed over all responsibility to the military and has gone into a state of mental paralysis instead of ensuring that local governance and security capacity is created within the civil administration.

Is it a mere coincidence that our military is being propelled into endless operations within the country at a time when India has begun a campaign against the Pakistan army? According to a Times of India report (May 16), Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has told Obama that some of Pakistan's nuclear sites are already in 'radical' hands! Reaching out to anti-nuclear lobbies in countries like Japan, Indian analysts like Brahma Chellaney (closely linked to the Indian establishment) have begun a campaign declaring that it is Pakistan's 'military insiders' who are a threat to the country's nuclear assets. Probably basing his erroneous assumption on the fact that the Indian military has become increasingly Hindutva-oriented, he asserts that the Pakistan army has been infiltrated by a jihadist culture and both "Islamists (Jehadi, Islam, Islamists – all these terms are randomly used interchangeably by Chellaney) and US-sponsored generals" are labelled as threats to international peace and security. This theme is played out to its ridiculous conclusion that the US must take over Pakistan's nukes!

Chellaney is just one of a handful of Indian and US analysts who periodically revive the campaign against Pakistan's nuclear weapons. The leader of the pack is David Albright whose histrionics against Pakistan have become so absurd that Peter Lee, a businessman who has been writing on Asian affairs for over thirty years, felt compelled to write an article entitled, "The world does not have a Pakistan nukes problem -- it has a David Albright problem" – the title says it all. Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter not only exposed Albright's claims to being a UN weapons inspector in an article "The nuclear expert who never was", he also pointed out that "Albright has a track record of making half-baked analyses derived from questionable sources seem mainstream. He breathes false legitimacy into these factually-challenged stories by cloaking himself in a resume that is disingenuous." Incidentally it was Scott Ritter who also wrote that Holbrooke was the wrong man for the job when Holbrooke was appointed as special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan and many of his arguments are now becoming more evident.

While one expects external detractors to play the anti-Pakistan nuke game, is it a mere coincidence that some of our local papers have suddenly become full of locally written articles full of forebodings regarding our nukes? Is it a mere coincidence that one of the leading native critics of our nuclear weapons, a physicist, has simultaneously appeared in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists alongside physicist Albright for some years now? There is a two-pronged strategy that is now becoming obvious in relation to Pakistan's nukes: externally the drummed-up scare over our command and control – despite the fact that it is the US that has revealed the disarray of its own command and control – and internally using local critics of Pakistan's nuclear weapons to sow doubts regarding the relevancy of atomic weapons (although if this was the case why the US is pursuing a programme for mini-nukes, etc) and to create a falsehood that such a capability is a liability for Pakistan.

Why is there such renewed attention on our nukes? It would appear that we have moved beyond India in certain critical developments. We already had the uranium enrichment advantage (India's was a plutonium-based weapon); now we have managed the plutonium-based skills also. Our delivery systems have moved from trial tests to training tests, and second strike capability is on the horizon also.

No wonder our foreign detractors are desperate to gain access at all costs. A new, third prong has been added to their strategy – the floating of trial balloons of offers of civil nuclear assistance kept deliberately vague to see how much access can be gained through non-US sources that may have more credibility in the country. The talk of French nuclear assistance is part of this game – we had begun to reach out to France during the India-US nuclear deal negotiations; now Sarkozy, a close ally of the US, has moved on this front and there is a deliberate ambivalence that is still being maintained. A story was also leaked of a US offer of civil nuclear assistance – but insiders have denied this.

This is a dangerous game that is being played with Pakistan. Of course, if our leaders had the gumption, they would insist that our new impending safeguards agreements with the IAEA should only be on the Indian model. Our leaders should ask France and the US to support us in our move to demand that the IAEA give us the same country-specific safeguards agreement given to India for civilian facilities. Otherwise, all offers on nuclear cooperation are suspect and should be refuted – but that requires a major shift in our rulers' prevailing subservient mind set.


The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com

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Reflecting the overindulged mindset

Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Shireen M Mazari

The budget revealed the continuing disconnect between the rulers and the ruled despite the advent of civilian rule and apparent democracy. Why else would the government have put even more burden on the poor through growing indirect taxation and actions that will make the basics of survival ever more expensive? The carbon surcharge is going to make Pakistanis pay more than any other citizen in the world for POL and CNG – despite the temporary freeze on POL prices imposed later! But then, Shaukat Tarin is clearly living in his own world with no connect to the reality that is Pakistan.

Why else would he have suggested, Marie Antoinette style, that "the masses (he did not say we Pakistanis) should use the fuel efficiently and rationally," including travelling on buses? What a cruel joke, since if there had been a proper public transport system everyone would be using it! But, then, Mr Tarin, in his tinted-glass, official gas-guzzling vehicle and its escort, would hardly know that there is no proper public transport system; so people are compelled to risk their lives by carrying the whole family on motor bikes, by riding atop overloaded buses, and so on. Tarin's statement only reflected the overindulged decaying mindset of the rulers. After all, why raise the pays of MNAs, MPAs and the cabinet? Even more questionable is the need to have a huge cabinet that really gives little inputs into decision-making at a time of economic crisis. Again, why raise travel allowances of our leaders when they achieve little on their foreign trips that they cannot do through their diplomats or through inviting the foreign leaders to this country? In any case, why not cut the travel allowances and compel the leaders to stay in cheaper accommodation when abroad? Even the hosts are often scandalised by the display of opulence by our leaders in foreign lands.

The assumption that this is an agriculture-friendly budget is laughable, since agriculturalists are being deprived of water and basic electricity for 10 to 12 hours a day, so tube wells cannot be used at all. Moreover, water from the canals is still not being distributed fairly and southern Punjab continues to find itself deprived of its share of this water. So, with no water, how will agriculture survive? Would it not have been more rational to divide the power cuts more equitably between the rural and urban areas? As for the increase in the BISP, it will be countered by the increase in cost of living, especially of basic foodstuff, as a result of the indirect taxes and the carbon surcharge – despite a temporary retreat on that count two days later. So what "relief" the government is supposedly giving to the poor with one hand, it is taking away with the other.

All in all, the budget has no "human face" to redeem it – although it has shown the human face of our politicians and their ingrained lotaism when Ms Khar went on to rubbish the very same economic policies she had supported while a minister in the Shaukat Aziz government! What was truly offensive was Mr Tarin's arrogant conduct at his press conference. But to understand Mr Tarin, one needs to look closer into where he is coming from. It appears that there is an interesting linkage between our present ruler and Citibank bankers Tarin and Salim Raza, now governor of the State Bank of Pakistan. The linkage is described in detail in "The US Senate's Minority Staff Report for Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Hearing on Private Banking and Money Laundering: A Case Study of Opportunities and Vulnerabilities," Nov 9, 1999. Amongst other things, the Report makes an interesting reading of the way multinational banks work in developing states. On checking up, it seems that Shaukat Tarin was the Dubai banker not mentioned by name in the Report while Salim Raza is mentioned by name. Now, a man like Mr Tarin cannot be expected to have a genuine interest in the poor people of Pakistan when he is occupying the position he is in purely as a reward for services rendered earlier.

Why blame Tarin, though, when our civilian leadership continues on its merry way, bloated cabinet and all? Bullet-proof cars continue to find space in the budget as do the over-stuffed bureaucracies. Ministers battle each other and their bureaucrats, many of whom are accused of working for "foreign friends" – as was revealed by the prime minister's adviser on petroleum and natural resources in connection with the Iran pipeline issue. Fifth columnists loyal to the US and some of our Arab friends are desperately seeking to destroy this strategic agreement, but who will take them to task? No wonder there seems to be no governance at all visible to the person on the street.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in relation to the ongoing military operation in Swat, which has now expanded to the FATA area – timed with the impending US military surge in Afghanistan. With no political strategy visible, the military is effectively being left on its own to clear and hold areas as well as hunt out the militants, while the civil order continues to abdicate its responsibility. While the military leadership goes to the front to sustain the morale of the soldiers, the political leadership seeks continuing jaunts abroad – giving legitimate nightmares to the professional diplomats of our whimsical leader straying off the script. As for the provincial leadership, it is also barely visible in the troubled areas – or in "cleared" areas.

So the military operations continue with no timelines in the offing, the indiscriminate strategy of heavy bombardment and aerial attacks is also revealing the growing civilian destruction and, despite a self-imposed media censorship, some accounts are filtering through, such as the woeful lament of Shahryar Khan of Lakki Marwat. Such accounts will increase over a period of time, especially when one sees no effort by the civil authorities to immediately move in with a well-planned strategy immediately after an area has been "cleared" by the military, so that a conducive environment is created for the displaced Pakistanis to return to their homes – at least what is left of them.

Now that the state has declared its intent of taking out the TTP leadership, specifically Baitullah Mehsud, a more discriminatory and targeted strategy for FATA relying on more effective human intelligence and local tribal support would not only be more effective in the long run but would have more sustainability and less negative fallout in terms of civilian casualties and material destruction – all of which have their own long-term debilitating impact. Already we are seeing the spread of terrorism across the country with an increasing intensity as well.

We also need to ensure that the growing number of displaced Pakistanis should not become a tinderbox of ethnic conflicts for the future. After all, it serves no purpose to rid ourselves of one group of brutal militants and their leaders only to find a new breed arising from the disaffected and angered amongst the populace. According to a report doing the rounds on the Internet, more than 130 Pakhtoon students of Sindh University in Jamshoro have had to leave because of violence, abuse and life threats by Sindhi ethnic parties, some of which stormed the Allama Iqbal Hostel where the Pakhtoon students were staying. May 28 was the deadline given to these students to leave. The majority of students who were forced to leave the university were from Swat, Dir and Buner.

Meanwhile, as to the puzzling question of why Baitullah Mehsud has survived for as long as he has, could it be old US links, especially through his spokesman Muslim Khan, who spent eight years in the US and still has relatives there? And is there now a deliberate attempt to fan sectarian violence and intra-Muslim hatred within Pakistan through brutal acts of terrorism and threats to Shia imambargahs across the country at the behest of Baitullah Mehsud and his followers – similar to what the US did in Iraq? There are strange linkages between our militants, criminal elements and our external detractors who seek to spread instability across the country – which is what is happening if we see the situation even in Karachi where the nature of the threat is political fascism rather than religious extremism. We are confronting a multiple-headed monster of terrorism which requires a subtle, multi-faceted strategy, not simply indiscriminate military action being conducted in a political void. For the short term, the terrorised population will go along, but in the long run such a strategy, functioning in a political vacuum, cannot be sustained without a growing backlash. With a dysfunctional government, a mindless economic tsar cosseted from the ravages of terrorism and budgetary hardships, the people of Pakistan face a long hot summer filled with mirages of public transport.

The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com

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