Inevitable When Unnatural

Both the United States and Pakistan have dismissed last week's clashes and exchange of firebetween their troops as a 'misunderstanding', and high level interventions have sought to undo the damageinflicted by two incidents of friction - one of which ended in a five hundred pound bomb being dropped on anabandoned madrassa in Pakistani territory, killing two Pakistani soldiers who had taken shelter there.

These incidents, by themselves, do not constitute a major crisis in relations between thetwo countries and their 'cooperation' in the war against terror; allied forces often have frictionalconfrontations in the field in other theatres of warfare as well. In the Pakistan-US case, however, theincidents are symptomatic of a deeper malaise, a fundamental conflict of interests and underlying ideologiesbetween the two nations.

What is in evidence here is, in fact, the gradual emergence of inevitable fissures in whatwas, from its very inception, an extraordinarily unnatural alliance. To the extent that this is the case, anescalation of tensions between US and Pakistani armed forces on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is aninevitability, though matters have been kept from going out of hand in the immediate future. It is clear,moreover, that US troops on the ground are getting impatient with Pakistan's duplicity, and are increasinglyresentful of the visible support and accommodation that the Al Qaeda and Taliban survivors are receiving onPakistani soil.

Impatience, however, has another face as well. As one commentator in the Jung Group's The NewsInternational expressed it, "Hatred against the US is all time high in Pakistan these days"(sic). That hatred manifested itself in a rash of demonstrations right across the country - in Islamabad,Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Karachi, Quetta, Lahore, Bajore, Hyderabad, Kohat, Mansehra, Naushahro Feroze,Mirpurkhas, Larkana, Sukkur - after Friday prayers last week, as the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), thecoalition of fundamentalist parties that cornered an unprecedented 53 seats in the National Assembly in thedubious November 2002 elections, called upon 'the people' to wage jihad against America 'to haltinterference by imperialist forces in the affairs of the region.'

In Islamabad, Maulana Samiul Haq, head of the notorious Haqqani madrassa thatspawned the Taliban, intoned, "the more they suppress us, the more we will rise," and warned thatAmerican action against Iraq would "trigger a serious backlash from religious forces." In Lahore,Hafiz Hussain Ahmad of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JuI) declared, "Even before the attack on Afghanistan,we maintained that the US concern was neither Osama bin Laden nor Mullah Omar, but the Ummat (the worldcommunity of Muslims). The preparations for an attack on Iraq substantiate that claim. The world should restassured that the next US target would be Iran, followed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan."

There is an entrenched lobby at Washington which has a deep - at times personal and vested, at other timesprofessional, though erroneous - interest in keeping America's unnatural alliance with Pakistan alive at anycosts, and this group will underplay these trends. Nevertheless, these threats are real, and are broader andfar more compelling than a few flashes of fire along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border suggest. The risinganti-US public demonstrations and protests mirror a mounting hostility within the Pakistan Army to theAmerican 'war against terror' agenda.

Crucial in this is the fact that it is immensely difficult for soldiers who have beensystematically indoctrinated on a steady Islamist fundamentalist diet for over two decades now, and many ofwhom have fought shoulder to shoulder with the Taliban in Afghanistan, to suddenly abandon convictions thathave become deep-rooted and go to the very heart of their notions of personal and national identity.

At the higher levels of military and civilian leadership, where there is greater'sophistication' of thought and perspective, compromises and readjustments conforming to the imperatives ofthe situation are possible. Even here, though, there are many senior generals who are simply incapable ofmaking the necessary ideological transition, and at least some of these have dominated the long standingcollaboration between the Pakistani Army, its Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, and the jehadi-fundamentalistforces.

Moreover, General Pervez Musharraf himself has actively exploited Islamist sentiments toexecute military and quasi-military campaigns, both in Afghanistan and against India, and when he seeks,suddenly, to distance himself from such a position, or to purge the military leadership of Islamist elements,he sows confusion and loses credibility among his officers. At the middle and lower levels, however, whereresponses are more emotive and less analytical, the anti-Taliban - anti-Al Qaeda campaign is deeplydistressing, and tensions can only be expected to rise, both within the Pakistani Forces, and in the Pakistanistreet.

In Afghanistan, consequently, US troops are now getting only the foretaste of what has been an everydayoccurrence in India - terrorists operating out of Pakistani soil, executing operations across an internationalborder, and then running back into Pakistani sanctuaries, with the authorities denying their existence andasserting an uncompromising sovereignty to obstruct any legitimate punitive action.

It is this 'deniability', and the international collusion manifested in a pretendedignorance of a reality that is widely known, that has allowed Pakistan to create and nurture the jehadisover the decades, and to employ them as their primary strategic force to pursue geopolitical ambitions thatare entirely disproportionate to the country's resources and capabilities.

Clearly, however, playing this game against India is one thing; against the US, it mayprove to be entirely another. What we are witnessing, consequently, is the emergence of a dynamic andinexorable process, with Pakistani duplicity, intransigence, and the collusion of its armed forces andintelligence agencies with the jehadis - including the remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda - provokingharsh US reaction; and US reactions feeding the street anger and the resentment in Pakistan's security forces.

Countering this process will require a radical reassessment of American policies and orientation on Pakistan,as of the course and character of the 'war against terror' since 9/11. The conciliation and appeasement of'moderate Islamist extremist' forces - if such a formulation is conceivable - has been integral to the USpolicy on Pakistan. America winks continuously at the sustained support to international Islamist radicalismand terrorism by Pakistan, as well as at the persistence of a vast terrorist infrastructure on Pakistani soil,as long as these are not seen to be directed against American targets, or to be currently engaged with the AlQaeda - Taliban combine.

This is myopic in the extreme, and has created the space precisely for the 'plausibledeniability' that has allowed the Al Qaeda and Taliban survivors to relocate themselves in Pakistan, for thecountry to grow into the most significant centre of Islamist terrorism, and for these forces to increasinglydirect their resources and attacks against Western targets. Much of this orientation has been based on amiscalculation regarding the risks of political collapse and anarchy if the 'indispensable' Musharraf 'losescontrol'. The spectre of anarchy and collapse in Pakistan, however, is the more real if current trends inappeasement and the consolidation of the forces of Islamist extremism and terror persist.

If these processes are to be neutralised, the hard option will have to be seized, and aclear obligation placed on those who claim to 'rule' Pakistan: that they bring the conduct of their affairs inconformity with international norms; dismantle and destroy the infrastructure of terrorism; and ceaseprovocation of, and support to, extremist activities within the country and across international borders.

Failing this, the fullest force of international sanctions and direct military interventionshould be brought to bear on a lawless nation that now not only jeopardizes the future of the South Asianregion, but the possibilities of peace in the world at large.

The author, after his long career with the police, is currently, among other things,President, Institute for Conflict Management. © South Asia Intelligence Review of the South AsiaTerrorism Portal