Will It Work?

On a trip to Pakistan a few years agoI was talking to an ex-General about the militant Islamist groups in the region.I asked him why these people, who had happily accepted funds and weapons fromthe United States throughout the Cold War, had become violently anti-Americanovernight. He explained that they were not alone. Many Pakistan officers who hadserved the US loyally from 1951 onwards felt humiliated by Washington’sindifference.

‘Pakistan was the condom theAmericans needed to enter Afghanistan’, he said. ‘We’ve served our purposeand they think we can be just flushed down the toilet.’

The old condom is being fished out foruse once again, but will it work? The new ‘coalition against terrorism’needs the services of the Pakistan Army, but General Musharraf will have to beextremely cautious. An over-commitment to Washington could lead to a civil warin Pakistan and split the Armed Forces. A great deal has changed over the lasttwo decades, but the ironies of history continue to multiply.

In Pakistan itself, Islamism derivedits strength from state patronage rather than popular support. The ascendancy ofreligious fundamentalism is the legacy of a previous military dictator, GeneralZia-ul-Haq who received solid backing from Washington and London throughout his11 years as dictator.

It was during his rule (1977-89) thata network of madrassahs (religious boarding schools), funded by the Saudiregime, were created.

The children, who were later sent tofight as Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, were taught to banish all doubt. The onlytruth was divine truth. Anyone who rebelled against the imam rebelled againstAllah. The madrassahs had only one aim: the production of deracinated fanaticsin the name of a bleak Islamic cosmpolitanism. The primers taught that the Urduletter jeem stood for ‘jihad’; tay for ‘tope’(cannon) , kaaf forKalashnikov and khay for khoon (blood).

2500 madrassas produced a crop of225,000 fanatics ready to kill and die for their faith when asked to do so bytheir religious leaders despatched across the border by the Pakistan Army, theywere hurled into battle against other Muslims they were told were not trueMuslims. The Taliban creed is an ultra-sectarian strain, inspired by the Wahhabisect that rules Saudi Arabia. The severity of the Afghan mullahs has beendenounced by Sunni clerics at al-Azhar in Cairo and Shi-ite theologians in Qomas a disgrace to the Prophet.

The Taliban could not, however, havecaptured Kabul on their own via an excess of religious zeal. They were armed andcommanded by ‘volunteers’ from the Pakistan Army. If Islamabad decided topull the plug, the Taliban could be dislodged, but not without serious problems.The victory in Kabul counts as the Pakistani Army’s only triumph. . To thisday,the former US Secretary of State, Zbigniew Brezinski remains recalcitrant:‘What was more important in the world view of history?’ he asks with morethan a touch of irritation, ‘the Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? Afew stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of theCold War?’

If Holywood rules necessitate a short,sharp war against the new enemy, the American Caesar would be best-advised notto insist on Pakistani legions. The consequences could be dire: a brutal andvicious civil war creating more bitterness and encouraging more acts ofindividual terrorism. Islamabad will do everything to prevent a militaryexpedition to Afghanistan. For one thing there are Pakistani soldiers, pilotsand officers present in Kabul, Bagram and other bases. What will be their ordersthis time and will they obey them? Much more likely is that Ossama Bin Ladenwill be sacrificed in the interests of the greater cause and his body dead oralive will be handed over to his former employers in Washington. But will thatbe enough?

The only real solution is a politicalone. It requires removing the causes that create the discontent. It is despairthat feeds fanaticism and it is a result of Washington’s policies in theMiddle East and elsewhere. The orthodox casuistry among loyal factotums,columnists and courtiers of the Washington regime is symbolised by Tony Blair'sPersonal Assistant for Foreign Affairs, ex-diplomat Robert Cooper, who writesquite openly: 'We need to get used to the idea of double standards'. Theunderlying maxim of this cynicism is: we will punish the crimes of our enemiesand reward the crimes of our friends. Isn't that at least preferable touniversal impunity? To this the answer is simple: 'punishment' along these linesdoes not reduce but breeds criminality, by those who wield it. The Gulf andBalkan Wars were copy-book examples of the moral blank cheque of a selectivevigilantism. Israel can defy UN resolutions with impunity, India can tyranniseKashmir, Russia can destroy Groszny, but it is Iraq which has to be punished andit is the Palestinians who continue to suffer. 

Cooper continues: 'Advice topost-modern states: accept that intervention in the pre-modern is going to be afact of life. Such interventions may not solve problems, but they may salve theconscience. And they are not necessarily the worse for that' Try explaining thatto the survivors in New York and Washington. 

The United States is whipping itselfinto a frenzy. Its ideologues talk of this as an attack on 'civilization', butwhat kind of civilization is it that thinks in terms of blood-revenge. For thelast sixty years and more the United States has toppled democrat leaders, bombedcountries in three continents, used nuclear weapons against Japanese civilians,but never knew what it felt like to have your own cities under attack. Now theyknow. To the victims of the attack and their relatives one can offer our deepsympathy as one does to people who the US government has victimised. But toaccept that somehow an American life is worth more than that of a Rwandan, aYugoslav, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Japanese, a Palestinian...that isunacceptable.

(By arrangement with Zmag)