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Pakistan:
A rogue state with a rogue army
Saturday December 04, 2010 12:32:38 PM ,
Amulya Ganguli
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Perhaps the most disturbing piece of
information available from the latest Wikileaks disclosures is the
United States' realisation about the durability of the links
between the Pakistan Army and terrorists. As Anne Paterson, the US
ambassador in Islamabad, has noted, no amount of aid from
Washington will make the army cut its ties with religious
extremists.
Equally upsetting for India is its belief that closer Indo-US ties
will increase Pakistan's paranoia and make it move closer to the
"Afghan and Kashmir-focussed terrorist groups". The hint in this
assertion that it may be advisable for the US to cool its
relations with India is not unlike the earlier observations by
General Stanley McChrystal (who has since been dismissed for
insubordination) that the growing Indian influence in Afghanistan
will "encourage Pakistani counter-measures".
Again, the implicit suggestion was that India must terminate its
"development efforts" in Afghanistan so that Pakistan will not
embrace the terror groups more closely. This weird logic of
Patterson's and McChrystal's analyses negates the time-honoured
concept of dealing with terrorists, which is not to submit to
their demands since it will only encourage them to persist with
their anarchic lawlessness.
Yet, in the case of Pakistan's now widely acknowledged bonhomie
with the militant Islamic fundamentalists, the argument of at
least a section of the US establishment is that Pakistan will
continue to boost terrorism unless India stops even its
humanitarian and development efforts in Afghanistan.
So the good guys must be criticised in the mistaken belief that
this will induce the bad guys to behave. But the obvious
counterpoint is that any such abject retreat before a blackmailer
will only persuade the latter to up his demands. Indians are
likely to see in this curiously indulgent American attitude a
continuation of the pro-Pakistani and anti-Indian policies dating
back to the former US secretary of state, John Foster Dulles,
during the cold war.
This biased attitude was discernible even after the horrendous
Mumbai massacres of Nov 26, 2008, when the US ambassador in New
Delhi said there was "no clear evidence" of the involvement of
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the attack and the
US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand refused to enter
the "blame game" between India and Pakistan. Continuing in this
vein in 2009, Hillary Clinton opposed any "premature
dissemination" of Pakistan's role in the carnage.
It is not impossible that this insouciance towards such a grave
tragedy was based on the belief that India, rather than the West,
will remain the primary target of the terrorists. The apparent
weakening of the Al Qaeda and the fact that the US has been able
to prevent a repeat of 9/11 seem to have persuaded the West that
it is now safer than before.
Since its current seeming invulnerability has been ascribed to
improved intelligence and preventive measures, the US and the four
other countries sought to blame the failure of Indian intelligence
for the Mumbai outrage rather than Pakistan.
It is noteworthy that by leaning towards Pakistan, the US is
ignoring its own Kerry-Lugar legislation linking US aid to the
assertion of civilian supremacy in Pakistan and the reduction of
military influence. Although the army remains so much of a
dominant force that it was thinking of toppling yet another
civilian president, as a Wikileaks document has revealed, there is
no reduction in the quantum of American largesse.
From the earlier turning of the blind eye by the US to Pakistan's
complicity in terrorism to the present resigned acceptance of this
inconvenient fact, it is obvious that India will have to devise
its own solutions to the menace.
The threat is apparently greater than any other in recent history.
For a start, it is for the first time ever that the army of a
country is openly in collusion with the terrorists with the rest
of the world not only unable to break this sinister alliance but
even to condemn Pakistan in unequivocal terms.
The danger is worsened by Pakistan's stockpiling of nuclear
weapons, including - the most chilling of all - tactical
battlefield nuclear armaments evidently for use in the event of an
India-Pakistan war. This eager compiling of the so-called doomsday
weapons is probably the result of India formulating the so-called
Cold Start doctrine, which is said to envisage a swift military
response to another Mumbai-type outrage.
The belief in Pakistan apparently is that the possibility of such
an operation leading to a nuclear conflict will scuttle the Cold
Start project.
Apart from the familiar fear of the subcontinent becoming a
nuclear flashpoint, a greater apprehension in the US and Europe is
the possibility of the weapons-grade material being pilfered by
those sympathetic to the jehadi cause to enable the terrorists to
build a "dirty bomb" to target the West.
As a Russian document put out by Wikileaks has said, "there are
120,000 to 130,000 people directly involved in Pakistan's nuclear
and missile programmes...there is no way to guarantee that all are
100 percent loyal and reliable".
Apart from the admission of US helplessness in the matter of
stopping Pakistan from using terror as a foreign policy tool,
there is nothing new in the latest leaks. But what is unnerving
for India is that as its hostile and seemingly demented neighbour
comes increasingly to be recognised as a rogue state with a rogue
army, its sense of humiliation, intensified by despair at India's
rise and rise, may force its military to take to a nihilistic path
of widespread destruction.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be
reached at aganguli@mail.com)
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