Re-orienting Pakistan

[Neo]

Re-orienting Pakistan​

Analysis by Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi

The generation entering professional life towards the mid and late 1990s was uni-focal on Islam and conversant only with Islamic discourse on politics, society and global affairs. They had a natural affinity with Islamic radical elements like the Taliban

The September 20 suicide attack in Islamabad was the deadliest so far by Islamic militants based in the tribal areas. It was a carefully planned and executed operation, on a day when the Pakistani leadership was in Islamabad for President Asif Zardari’s first address to parliament. It seems that the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda want to undermine the government to further their political and ideological agenda in Pakistan, Afghanistan and, if possible, elsewhere.

Such a massive act of terrorism has not unified Pakistan on the need to counter terrorism. All are not convinced that the Taliban constitute a threat to Pakistan’s internal order and stability. There is a clear divergence in the responses of different groups, influenced by their partisan political considerations, ideological blindness, affinity with Islamic militancy and disposition towards the United States. The various responses to the blast include:



1. The ongoing war on terrorism is Pakistan’s war because its survival as a political and constitutional entity is threatened.

2. It is America’s war thrust on Pakistan and it hardly serves Pakistan’s national interests.

3. Pakistan is playing America’s game in the region, acting as a mercenary.

4. Pakistan should stop all military operations in the tribal areas. Why should Pakistan’s security forces kill their own people?

5. Suicide bombings are a reaction to Pakistan’s military operation and periodic US attacks in the tribal areas.

6. The Taliban are not against Pakistan; they are fighting against American troops that have occupied Afghanistan. They retaliate against Pakistan for its support to American troops across the border.



There is a problem of ownership of the war on terrorism in Pakistan. The present elected government is the first to publicly own counter-terrorism and declare that it serves Pakistan’s national interests. The key leaders — the president, the prime minister and cabinet members — have openly defended Pakistan’s role in countering terrorism and have repeatedly vowed to meet the challenge with full determination.

The NWFP government, led by the ANP has also publicly vowed to counter the insurgency. Similarly, the MQM has taken an unambiguous stand against religious extremism and violence.

The present government’s policy is different from the days of General Pervez Musharraf. He owned the war on terrorism but his PMLQ government shied away from publicly supporting the effort. Some in Musharraf’s official circles sympathised with, if not supported, the Taliban and other Islamic hardliners. Despite Musharraf’s strong rhetoric against terrorism, his civilian and security personnel gave enough space to extremists to carry on with their activities despite periodic military action.

However, they face difficulties in defending the war on terrorism because this strategy conflicts with the general orientation of Pakistani society, which is pro-Islamic orthodoxy for a host of reasons, to be discussed later. Islamist parties, including the JUIF (one of the PPP’s coalition partners), have not categorically condemned the suicide bombing in Islamabad, and most religious groups view Pakistan’s current predicament as a consequence of its pro-US policy.

The Jama’at-e Islami holds similar views and some of its leaders consider the US agenda in the region to be the real threat to Pakistan instead of the Taliban. A number of other parties on the political right extend varying degrees of support to the Taliban and other hardliners.

Partisan political agendas shape the orientations of the PMLQ and the PMLN; both seem to derive a grudging satisfaction from the government’s problems caused by increased internal security pressures and American demands to do more. The leader of opposition in the National Assembly, belonging to PMLN, described counter-terrorism as a war thrust on Pakistan by the US. The PMLN chief, Nawaz Sharif, declared that the dream of “liberation” from the US has not been realised.

The PMLN’s refusal to support the government on counterterrorism is shaped mainly by its on-going political wrangling with the PPP. The PMLN is annoyed by the PPP’s refusal to reinstate all deposed judges of the superior courts to their pre-Nov 3, 2007 position. Further, the PMLN’s refusal to support military action in the tribal areas aims at winning over conservative voters who often vote for Islamist parties.

The softer disposition of the Pakistani society towards Islamic militancy can be traced back to the days of General Zia-ul Haq. In the 1980s, the Pakistani civil and military establishment projected religious orthodoxy and militancy as the favoured political discourse. This process continued even after the death of General Zia because the military and the intelligence agencies continued to use militancy as an instrument of foreign policy in Afghanistan and Indian-administered Kashmir.

Starting from the junior and high school levels in the state education system, the government shifted the emphasis from the concept of Pakistan as a nation-state to Islamic orthodoxy, militancy and a universal Islamic identity that recognised armed struggle as a legitimate method to advance Islamic causes. There was no effort to inculcate the notion of Pakistani citizenship among children. They were taught the features of an Islamic society rather than features of Pakistani society or responsibilities of a Pakistani citizen. This generation was also influenced by the veterans of the Afghan war whose thought process was frozen in the Afghan experience, and who wanted to replicate that experience elsewhere.

The generation entering professional life towards the mid and late 1990s was uni-focal on Islam and conversant only with Islamic discourse on politics, society and global affairs. They had a natural affinity with Islamic radical elements like the Taliban and Al Qaeda and entertained anti-India and anti-US dispositions against the backdrop of the American decision to withdraw support for Islamic militancy in the 1990s.

Such a skewed orientation and an emphasis on Islamic discourse continued during the Musharraf years because he developed a reluctant partnership with Islamist parties to sustain him in power and deflect the political pressure generated by the PPP and the PMLN. Further, MMA rule in the NWFP made it easy for the Taliban to extend their influence in the settled districts as they shared the MMA’s vision of an orthodox Islamic society.

These people express sympathy for the Taliban and endeavour to defend them by blaming the US or India (at times the Zionists as well!) for Pakistan’s current troubles, especially terrorism. Even the suicide bombing in Islamabad is attributed to the presence of foreigners (read Americans) and their equipment in the hotel.

The government faces an uphill task to re-orient Pakistani society. Any comprehensive approach to counter terrorism must include re-orientation of the agents of socialisation in Pakistan, especially the state educational system. Young people should be socialised into multiple and plural discourses on socio-political and cultural issues and an earnest effort should be made to revive the moderate and tolerant vision of Islam that characterised Pakistani society up to the mid-seventies.

Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi is a political and defence analyst

 

[Spring Onion]

i would not comment much but Hasan Askari is too much old enough to represent the he kind of generation he had described in this piece as the generation of 90s does not fall under the discription he had drawn here.

Nor the generation of 90s rather any generation so far had ever been having any command over politics of true Islamic era or even Muslims.

 

[Munir]

Pakistan is partly responsible for creating this by consuming Talebanism and for decades orienting towards religous strugle while they should have invested in education. It behaves as indeed a invaluably "ally" while it should act as a wise nuclear power. Just look how pathetic the F16 history is... Every Pakistani knows how we have begged for this outdated plane. We know it will be part of boycot and yet we go in again with a sense of stupidity. Our pilots should be treated as valuable assets not as a game. Our forces acting as political backup and out political force is brain dead. The education level is hardly any power so we can skip the next decade to become wealthy. The foreign secret services are openly playing a simple game to destroy the nation. And what can we expect froim this lost nation yet? Where are people like Imran that barked on every occasion when Musharraf made though choices? They are dead.

 

[pkpatriotic]

Pakistan struggling to root out a problem it helped create
By Dexter Filkins Published: September 28, 2008
Hours after a truck bomber killed 53 people on Sept. 20 at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan's interior minister laid responsibility for the attack on Taliban militants holed up in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, the remote, wild region that straddles the border with Afghanistan.

"All roads lead to FATA," Interior Minister Rehman Malik said.

If the past is any guide, Malik's statement is almost certainly correct.

But what Malik did not say was that those same roads, if he chose to follow them, would very likely loop back to Islamabad itself.

The chaos that is engulfing Pakistan appears to represent an especially frightening case of strategic blow-back, one that has now begun to seriously undermine the U.S. effort in Afghanistan.

Tensions over Washington's demands that the militants be brought under control have been rising, and last week an exchange of fire erupted between U.S. and Pakistani troops along the Afghan border. So it seems a good moment to take a look back at how the chaos has developed.

It was more than a decade ago that Pakistan's leaders began nurturing the Taliban and their brethren to help advance the country's regional interests. Now they are finding that their home-schooled militants have grown too strong to control. No longer content to just cross into Afghanistan to kill U.S. soldiers, the militants have begun to challenge the government itself. "The Pakistanis are truly concerned about their whole country unraveling," said a Western military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

That is a horrifying prospect, especially for Pakistan's fledgling civilian government, its first since 1999. The country has a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons. The tribal areas, which harbor thousands of Taliban militants, are also believed to contain Al Qaeda's senior leaders, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

It is all the greater a paradox, then, that the Taliban militias now threatening the stability of Pakistan owe their survival - and much of their present strength - to a succession of Pakistani governments that continues to the present day.

The origins of the present predicament date to 1994, when Pakistan, unnerved by the bloody civil war that had engulfed Afghanistan after the Soviet Union's departure five years earlier, turned to a group of fierce but moralistic Afghan tribesman who had won a string of victories. They called themselves "the students" - in Arabic and Pashto, the Taliban. Sensing an opportunity, the Pakistani government, led then by Benazir Bhutto, threw its support behind them. Aided by Pakistani money, supplies and military advisers, the Taliban swept across Afghanistan, entering the capital in 1996.

Which brings us to the current crisis. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, then-President Pervez Musharraf publicly promised to break with the Taliban. For that, Pakistan was rewarded with nearly $10 billion in American aid. But over the years, something else happened: Whatever Musharraf said in public, the military and intelligence services over which he presided demonstrated every intention of strengthening the Taliban, who fled en masse to the borderlands after their expulsion from Kabul in November 2001.

The most glaring example came last July, when operatives of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence, or ISI, were said to have helped fighters under Serajuddin Haqqani, a Taliban commander, bomb the Indian Embassy in Kabul. An Indian defense attaché was among 54 people killed, and U.S. officials said there was overwhelming evidence pointing to ISI involvement. "It was sort of this 'aha' moment," a U.S. official said.

The single most persuasive explanation for Pakistan's continued involvement with the Taliban is the country's obsession with India.

Pakistan and India have fought three major wars since they broke with the British Empire in 1947, and the rivalry lives on. India has allied itself closely with the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai.

But while the Pakistanis have been primarily interested in using the Taliban to exert their influence inside Afghanistan, the Taliban have expanded their ambitions to include Pakistan itself. A turning point came in the summer of 2007, when Pakistani troops stormed the Red Mosque, where Islamic militants had gathered in the capital. The gun battle killed nearly 100 people. Taliban militants began a wave of suicide bombings around the country, and Baitullah Mehsud formed Tariq-i-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella organization of several Taliban groups, and declared war on the Pakistani government.
NOTE: Its is now proved that, Baitullah Mehsud is supported by US & India.

Which brings us, finally, to the Americans. Concerned about the growth of the Taliban inside Pakistan - and about the growing losses of American soldiers in Afghanistan - U.S. officials have pressed Pakistani leaders to crush the militants in their bases inside the tribal areas. The Pakistanis have begun a series of offensives, and all of them have ended with the militants stronger than ever. It may be that the Pakistani Army is too inept to destroy the Taliban, but there is abundant evidence suggesting that at least some elements of the army do not want to do that.

"I would not rule out the possibility that explicit deals were made by the military," the U.S. military official said.

With the arrival of Pakistan's new civilian government in February, the situation seems more intractable than ever. The government, led by Yousaf Raja Gilani, is still hugely dependent on America. The Bush administration, in turn, has continued to press Gilani for military operations against the militants in the tribal areas.

And there's the rub. Each time Gilani has sent troops into those areas, he has succeeded only in sparking the outcries of his fellow Pakistanis, who are growing increasingly bitter toward what they see as the Bush administration's overbearing ways.

Meanwhile, as the Taliban has grown stronger, the Bush administration has stepped up its own military operations inside Pakistan, taking the extraordinary step this month of landing helicopter-borne soldiers in a village in South Waziristan to strike a suspected militant hideout. The military strike set off tremors of anti-American anger; Pakistani officials, buffeted by domestic criticism, have promised to use force against any future U.S. incursions.

What does the future hold? Some American analysts worry that the fledgling civilian government in Pakistan will not be able to survive the cross-currents of American pressure and the anti-American anger it stimulates.

One thing seems a good bet: that the fires and deaths that consumed the Marriott on Sept. 20 will not be the last. ???

Taliban strike back in Bajaur
Islamic militants have mounted multiple counterattacks on security forces fighting to regain control of Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, The Associated Press reported from Islamabad on Sunday, citing an official.

The Pakistani Army has been fighting in Bajaur, which has become a bastion of Taliban militants, for nearly two months.

Iqbal Khattak, a government official in Bajaur, said militants attacked security forces in three places overnight. He said the troops repulsed each attack, killing 11 fighters, but declined to give details of casualties on the government side.

International Herald Tribune

 

[pkpatriotic]

Is this really look like "war on terror" or a some kind of multi - purpose stratigical issue???
If its really WOT, then why US and its favorit allies INDIA, engaged in support to the elements in taliban to creat chaos in Pakistani areas???
Why USA forces didn't action upon accurate information of Baitullah Mehsud movements, provided by Pakistani Agency???
The links of India agency RAW had been confirmed when 10 dead body exposed as non-muslims at the time of their last bath before funerals, who were fighting as Talibans, and killed during a clash with Pakistani forces in North Waziristan at he end of July 2008. (I have already reported the incidant in an artical posted at forum)
Its shows not only the double-standards, but its obvious conspiracy against Pakistan could be for several known or unknown reasons.

 

[maqsad]

What nonsense, Pakistan did not create any terrorists that were against itself. All these players are new and based out of Afghanistan and funded and managed by the CIA/RAW. All these lying sneaky reporters just keep repeating "created by ISI" to hide the fact that the CIA, RAW and others are engaging in warfare against the state of Pakistan.

 

[third eye]

i would not comment much but Hasan Askari is too much old enough to represent the he kind of generation he had described in this piece as the generation of 90s does not fall under the discription he had drawn here.

Nor the generation of 90s rather any generation so far had ever been having any command over politics of true Islamic era or even Muslims.

Not having any Idea of the background of the author, I cannot coment on his antecedents.

Some of the points to ponder over are :

1. Does Pakistan wish to continue like this , in a state of near permanent flux ?

2. If not, than which are the immediate areas of concern that can be addressed without causing too much turbulence among the Maj players , i.e The Army, The Mullahs, the Taliban & the economy?

3. While anti India posturing was possibly necessary & relevant in the 1st 25 yrs to foster a sense on nationalism in the new nation & to amalgamate those who came from across, how much longer should it continue ? Does it need to be toned down to a level wherein the national interests are not compromised but the roots of the nation are not damaged as is happening now ?

4. Resolving border disputes with both India & Afghanistan may help divert resources to other relevant fields such as Education, Health, jobs, Infrastructure etc which in turn will act as a bulwark to the inroads the fundamentalists are making into the society resulting in poor confidence levels in the investors.

5. Improving national image .

There are so many other issues such as democracy etc but nothing can come about till public sentiment is not galvanized to get a hold of the nation first.

 

[muse]

Starting from the junior and high school levels in the state education system, the government shifted the emphasis from the concept of Pakistan as a nation-state to Islamic orthodoxy, militancy and a universal Islamic identity that recognised armed struggle as a legitimate method to advance Islamic causes. There was no effort to inculcate the notion of Pakistani citizenship among children. They were taught the features of an Islamic society rather than features of Pakistani society or responsibilities of a Pakistani citizen

.

These people express sympathy for the Taliban and endeavour to defend them by blaming the US or India (at times the Zionists as well!) for Pakistan’s current troubles, especially terrorism. Even the suicide bombing in Islamabad is attributed to the presence of foreigners (read Americans) and their equipment in the hotel.

The government faces an uphill task to re-orient Pakistani society. Any comprehensive approach to counter terrorism must include re-orientation of the agents of socialisation in Pakistan, especially the state educational system. Young people should be socialised into multiple and plural discourses on socio-political and cultural issues and an earnest effort should be made to revive the moderate and tolerant vision of Islam that characterised Pakistani society up to the mid-seventies

An excellent analysis, persuasive, except where Dr. Askari-Rizvi suggests attempts to "revive" the moderate and tolerant version of Islam that characterized society till the seventies.

While Dr. Askari-Rizvi, as is now de riguer, paints the Fauj as a partnership with the religious parties, he fails to acknowledge Which political party it was that put Pakistan on the Islamist path - which Pakistani Political party first satisfied the appetite of the religious bigots by practicing Takfir? None other than the PPP and Z.A. Bhutto.

There is no reviving something dead - there is creating - Create a moderate and tolerant version of Islam by teaching it in schools and by condemning the intolerant version of it -- remember the intolerat version was Created and inculcated by being taught in schools.

Another area which Dr. Askari-Rizvi avoids delving deeply in, is the Pakistani system of politics, the the JUI, JI and ML-N have not condemned terrorism, suicide bombings and the like, is because the game of politics in Pakistan rewards players for negative actions. Why is it that these political parties and politicians have and can get away with not condemning ideology, actions and behaviours that have put the teritorial integrity of Pakistan at risk? How have they managed to get away with not supporting the armed forces? Why is it so difficult to build consensus on any issue in Pakistan? Why is every issue a political issue in Pakistan, from the provision of electricity to garbage collection, to the elimination of terrorism and it's affiliation with what is asserted to be Islam? The Constitution of the Republic, it's basic law, needs to be revisited.