PAKISTAN Special

BY: SOBIA ADIL

Pakistan today experiences an increased level of conflict and a perception is being built to undermine its military capability.

In this context, America's approach needs to be seen in the context of its long-term strategic interests in the region, which forces it to engage with Pakistan. However, to achieve this it pursues a policy of controlled chaos enabling it to keep the option of political and military intervention alive.

In the case of Pakistan this shifting of conflict and creation of chaos serves the interests of most of the regional stakeholders and power-brokers operating inside Afghanistan. The coalition finds benefit in reduction of military operations on its side. Afghanistan finds it beneficial because the world's attention is diverted towards Pakistan. India is obviously happy, and so is Russia, while Iran is content since because its potential economic competitor – Pakistan – is handicapped by persistent security concerns.

In this regard the worrisome aspect is that while the US can pinpoint even a needle on the ground from space, it never finds sufficient evidence of miscreants hostile to Pakistan. One never reads about any Predator strike in terrorist sanctuaries in Swat and Bajaur. Neither has one heard of any blocking position by coalition and Afghan forces opposite Bajaur, where the militants flee and find sanctuary. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the conflict in FATA and elsewhere in the NWFP is being aided and abetted by Washington.

Another contributing factor is the increased presence of US Special Forces in the region and the presence of mercenaries in the garb of contractors and representatives of NGOs operating on both sides of the border. These elements provide security to individuals/organisations. They are reported to be extensively employed in conjunction with SOCOM (Special Operations Command) and the CIA. These former soldiers are mercenaries not constrained by any rules of engagement. Around 30,000 work in Afghanistan and many operate near and around FATA.

Yet another contributor worth evaluating is the arrangement of sustaining coalition forces in Afghanistan. On average, around 2,000 trucks travel every month through Pakistan and this operation is managed by the US Embassy through private contractors. The contents of these trailers are not known to Pakistan. The arrangement is a security hazard, to say the least.

The solution to extremism is not a military one and instead requires a long-term approach which can change hearts and minds. Of course, this requires patience and resources – America doesn't have the former while Pakistan does not have the latter.

Those who advocate more vigorous military action in FATA should understand that this will only complicate matters. The Karzai government and the coalition have of late sought to engage with the Taliban in Afghanistan and we must try and do the same on our side of the border. To win peace we should undertake selected operations against hostile foreign elements, and that too only if the coalition gives us matching support from the other side of the border.

By no means is one advocating any disengagement with America, for it is a relationship that is significant and must be pursued. However, what is needed is critical evaluation of the relationship and the drawing of a red line, so to speak, which Pakistan should refuse to cross since it will be at the expense of its own national and security interests. Furthermore, the engagement should not be limited to one with a primarily military nature and should be extended to cooperation with civil society, Pakistani think tanks, political institutions, the media and in the form of increased people-to-people contact.

By: JOHN GRAY

Our gaze might be on the markets melting down, but the upheaval we are experiencing is more than a financial crisis, however large. Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably. The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over.

You can see it in the way America's dominion has slipped away in its own backyard, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez taunting and ridiculing the superpower with impunity.

The setback of America's standing at the global level is even more striking. With the nationalization of crucial parts of the financial system, the American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained overall control of markets have been vindicated. In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed.

Ever since the end of the Cold War, successive American administrations have lectured other countries on the necessity of sound finance. Indonesia, Thailand, Argentina and several African states endured severe cuts in spending and deep recessions as the price of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which enforced the American orthodoxy.

China, in particular, was hectored relentlessly on the weakness of its banking system. But China's success has been based on its consistent contempt for Western advice and it is not Chinese banks that are going bust.

Despite incessantly urging other countries to adopt its way of doing business, America has always had one economic policy for itself and another for the rest of the world. Throughout the years in which the US was punishing countries that departed from fiscal prudence, it was borrowing on a colossal scale to finance tax cuts and fund its overstretched military commitments.

Now, with federal finances critically dependent on continuing large inflows of foreign capital, it will be the countries that spurned the American model of capitalism that will shape America's economic future. The dire condition of America's financial markets is the result of American banks operating in a free-for-all environment that these same American legislators who have been debating a bail-out created. It is America's political class that, by embracing the dangerously simplistic ideology of deregulation, has responsibility for the mess.

In current circumstances, an unprecedented expansion of government is the only means of averting a market catastrophe. The consequence, however, will be that America will be even more starkly dependent on the world's new rising powers. The federal government is racking up even larger borrowings, which its creditors may rightly fear will never be repaid. It may well be tempted to inflate these debts away in a surge of inflation that would leave foreign investors with hefty losses.

In these circumstances, will the governments of countries that buy large quantities of American bonds - China, the Gulf states and Russia, for example - be ready to continue supporting the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency? Or will these countries see this as an opportunity to tilt the balance of economic power further in their favour? Either way, the control of events is no longer in American hands.

The fate of empires is very often sealed by the interaction of war and debt. That was true of the British Empire, whose finances deteriorated from the First World War onwards, and of the Soviet Union. Defeat in Afghanistan and the economic burden of trying to respond to Reagan's technically flawed but politically effective Star Wars program were vital factors in triggering the Soviet collapse. Despite its insistent exceptionalism, America is no different. The Iraq War and the credit bubble have fatally undermined America's economic primacy.

The US will continue to be the world's largest economy for a while longer, but it will be the new rising powers that, once the crisis is over, buy up what remains intact in the wreckage of America's financial system.

There has been a good deal of talk in recent weeks about imminent economic armageddon. In fact, this is far from being the end of capitalism. The frantic scrambling in Washington marks the passing of only one type of capitalism - the peculiar and highly unstable variety that has existed in America over the past 20 years. This experiment in financial laissez-faire has imploded. While the impact of the collapse will be felt everywhere, the market economies that resisted American-style deregulation will best weather the storm.

The irony of the post-Cold War period is that the fall of communism was followed by the rise of another utopian ideology whereby in America and Britain, and to a lesser extent other Western countries, a type of market fundamentalism became the guiding philosophy. The collapse of American power that is under way is the predictable upshot. Like the Soviet collapse, it will have large geopolitical repercussions. An enfeebled economy cannot support America's over-extended military commitments for much longer. Retrenchment is inevitable and it is unlikely to be gradual or well planned.

Meltdowns on the scale we are seeing are not slow-motion events. They are swift and chaotic, with rapidly spreading side effects.

Consider Iraq. The success of the surge, which has been achieved by bribing the Sunnis, while acquiescing in ongoing "ethnic cleansing", has produced a condition of relative peace in parts of the country. How long will this last, given that America's current level of expenditure on the war can no longer be sustained?

An American retreat from Iraq will leave Iran the regional victor. How will Saudi Arabia respond? Will military action to forestall Iran acquiring nuclear weapons be less or more likely?

China's rulers have so far been silent during the unfolding crisis. Will America's weakness embolden them to assert China's power or will China continue its cautious policy of "peaceful rise"?

At present, none of these questions can be answered with any confidence. What is evident is that power is leaking from the US at an accelerating rate. Georgia showed Russia redrawing the geopolitical map, with America an impotent spectator.

Outside the US, most people have long accepted that the development of new economies that goes with globalisation will undermine America's central position in the world. They imagined that this would be a change in America's comparative standing, taking place incrementally over several decades or generations. Today, that looks an increasingly unrealistic assumption.

Having created the conditions that produced history's biggest bubble, America's political leaders appear unable to grasp the magnitude of the dangers the country now faces. Mired in their rancorous culture wars and squabbling among themselves, they seem oblivious to the fact that American global leadership is fast ebbing away. A new world is coming into being almost unnoticed, where America is only one of several great powers, facing an uncertain future it can no longer shape.

BY: SHIREEN M MAZARI
The big picture for Pakistan should be more visible now in terms of what the US agenda is for this country. But that agenda has been carefully operationalized since the opportunity presented itself to the US in the form of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 – in which, by the way, no Pakistani was involved. Some of us have been highlighting that agenda for some years since, and also pointing out how complicity of our leadership was a requirement for that agenda to continue moving ahead. And what is that agenda?

Clearly, it involves the US creating space within the tribal areas to move in militarily and eventually restructure the whole Muslim nuclear entity of Pakistan. Attacking civilians and thereby creating chaos and panic which would inevitably lead to a mass displacement and add to the pressure on the central government in Islamabad. Also, knowing full well – after all if we can conclude that such killings will create more space for extremists and terrorists, one can assume the US analysts and advisers must have done the same – that by unleashing a war against our tribals and abusing our sovereignty they will create more space for the terrorists; and thereby more reasons to further destabilise us from outside while we face increasing attacks from our home-grown terrorists. Let us not fool ourselves – the US is no friend but a powerful enemy and its ultimate aim is to defang us in terms of our nuclear assets. Already the statements have become more honed in terms of our nuclear assets – both directly, in terms of a bizarre fear that our nukes will fall into "terrorist" hands even though it is the US that seems to have a problem of loose nukes (remember the US planes flying with such weapons only last year?); and, indirectly, by having their politicians and some international agencies build up a crescendo of Pakistan being the most dangerous country in the world and a new "war zone".

That was the first phase of the plan for Pakistan. As the US war on terror has unfolded in our part of the world, we have suddenly seen the emergence of a Tehrik-i-Taliban, Pakistan and countless other militant groups – some of whom were raised and funded by the CIA in earlier years and may well have sustained that linkage. The most aggressively loyal Pakistanis of the tribal belt have now been turned into challengers of the writ of the Pakistani state. Is it not worth understanding why and how? We are being forced into accepting the US war now as "our war" although in reality while we are facing a severe threat from extremists and home grown terrorists, our fight against these forces has to be different from the US war on terror. That is still not our war but is in fact fuelling and aggravating our terrorist problems.

Now the US has moved to phase two where it is actually seeking direct intervention on the ground before it finally puts international pressure on us to hand over our nuclear assets – showing the world how Pakistan has indeed become a "war zone" in which the international community must intervene to take charge of the nuclear assets. Of course, the US would then offer to head such a mission. Seems far fetched? Then recheck what has been happening in terms of US policy vis a vis Pakistan since 9/11 and the statements emanating from the US at the official and media levels.

As for us Pakistanis, we are being confronted with a two-front war: against a qualitatively new terrorist threat in terms of suicide bombings and the growth of a violent extremism; and, against an indirect war being conducted by the US against our long term survival as an independent nuclear state. But, as I stated at the beginning, none of the US agenda would be feasible without the support of the Pakistani rulers. Unfortunately this support has been there from the start but now it has reached new proportions.

During the Musharraf government we were given many briefings to the effect that the US and NATO/ISAF could only intrude aerially into our space with our permission. As a perturbed pilot informed me the other day, he was shocked to learnt that apart from the UAVs flying into Pakistani air space, NATO and ISAF aircraft are flying round the clock tactical missions in Pakistan. Apparently, they have been cleared by our controllers' to fly tactical in FATA, "Pukhtunkhwa" and Balochistan. The Musharraf government had also given unprecedented access to the US in terms of bases and intelligence. But our democratic leadership has gone even further in affecting unilateral compromises, including it now appears permission to hit and kill our own people, which impact our very survival as an independent nuclear entity.

Regardless of how our own Goebbels tries to explain away the Zardari interview to the Wall Street Journal, the quotes speak for themselves and nor has a correction been sought or offered on either side. First there is the absurd style of reference President Zardari uses when talking of Pakistan and its institutions as his personal fiefdom, "my F-16s", "my security personnel" (that is the military) "my war" and so on. And of course he wants the world to "give me" $ 100 billion!

More damaging though is his declaration that not only is he "an American friend" but that the US is carrying out Predator missile strikes on Pakistani soil with his government's consent. His logic for insisting the US support his government also undermines Pakistan because he seeks to show that if he falls our nukes will fall into terrorist hands. Is this how he protects our national interests? Now if his wish of accessing our strategic institutions with his cronies and the like is fulfilled, we may as well hand over all our assets to the US – and now, by default, given the Indo-US strategic partnership, to India.

But then, they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and it seems our president has no understanding of our history since he declares grandly, "India has never been a threat to Pakistan". Please, Ms Rehman, at least teach him some basic history and you do not have to use Pakistani sources either! As for his comment on the Indo-US nuclear deal – which even more rational US analysts have decried as a factor in upping the nuclear arms' levels in South Asia, our ignorant President sees it merely as the "largest democracy" in the world "getting friendly" with the "oldest democracy" in the world!

In fact, he sees his own country simply as a backyard to serve Indian development. As for the poor Kashmiris, they have been labelled "terrorists" for seeking liberation from Indian occupation! To our shame, a Pakistani ruler's effigy was burnt for the first time since 1979, in Baramulla town in Occupied Kashmir with 400 Kashmiris defying curfew to express their anger at the Zardari labelling of the Kashmiri freedom fighters as "terrorists". So far, Zardari has certainly been good news only for the US and India!

If Musharraf was forced to compromise with the US – although now his compromises appear miniscule when compared to what the present government is giving to the US – to ostensibly sustain himself in power then what is our present leadership so worried about in terms of the US? Are there still some dangerous skeletons despite the NRO that the US can utilise to keep the democratic dispensation in line with its eventual goal of ending the nuclear Pakistani state as we know it?

If the present trends continue we may well eventually confront a civil war across the country. This is exactly the situation the US is seeking to come in fully and set up its own quisling set up. As we and the US know, there have always been many in our leadership only too willing to play that role. As for the present leaders, their embarking on the road to power may well have been prepared in Washington, but it is Pakistan's realities that will ensure their stay in or removal from power. Can they manage to get out of the US embrace to see their own realities?