Pakistan Crucial to Handling of Taliban

By M.M. Ali

Images of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers crumbling in New York and gaping hole in the Pentagon outside Washington, DC sent a shock wave through Pakistan, where this writer was on Sept. 11. As did the rest of the world, Pakistanis reacted with distress and disbelief to the stark reality of a seemingly invincible power’s vulnerability to sneak attacks by 19 suicidal maniacs.

The resulting loss of life was undoubtedly horrendous, and the aftereffects will be felt for a long time to come. It is important to realize, however, that these were acts of individual misguided, evil renegades, rather than a declaration of war by a sovereign enemy nation. True, Washington must go on a war footing to protect Americans against further such vile attempts and find and hold accountable those responsible for planning and committing such attacks. At the same time, the U.S. response should be in keeping with our international status and proportionate to the size of the threat.

The Osama Factor

The United States has identified Osama bin Laden, the exiled millionaire Saudi dissident accused of financing previous attacks against American interests, as the “prime suspect” in the Sept. 11th attacks. Osama reportedly lives in Afghanistan under the protection of the extremist Taliban regime, which at this writing has declined to hand him over unless the U.S. provides “proof” of his involvement.

Given the current level of the U.S. military build up geared toward Afghanistan, Osama, in all probability, either will be captured or killed by an assassin’s bullet. Unfortunately, however, this will not eliminate terrorism from the world, because Osama bin Laden is not the only source of this scourge. In recent years terrorism has taken on different aspects in different countries. It may be perpetrated through official agencies and state apparatuses, through above-ground as well as clandestine groups, and even by individuals. The list is long and varied. There is no fixed target and no one location from where a campaign against terrorism can be effectively launched. As President George W. Bush has indicated, the war against terrorism will be a long, drawn-out one. Most crucially, for the war to be won, not only the symptoms but also the causes of terrorism must be addressed and eliminated.

Afghanistan, a rugged land north of Pakistan and south of Tajikistan, has been identified as the breeding ground for terrorism, with training camps for terrorists bankrolled by Osama bin Laden.

Afghanistan has been ravaged by war for the last 22 years, since the 1979 Soviet invasion. There over 26 million people live in abject poverty and, for more than four years now, have been teetering under the extreme religious regime of the Taliban (“the seekers of truth”). TheTaliban occupy almost 90 percent of the country and its government is recognized only by Pakistan—Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates having withdrawn their recognition the week after the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S.

Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan is over 1,200 miles long. In the 1980s the United States enlisted Islamabad in the fight to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. Military training camps and madrassas, or religious schools, were set up inside Pakistan to train the Afghan mujahedeen (freedom fighters), and different Afghan factions were financed and equipped to fight the Soviets. During the decade of Soviet occupation Pakistan was home to more than five million Afghan refugees, whose homeland was ravished in the struggle to expel the Soviet occupiers.

The U.S.S.R. vacated Afghanistan in l989, after sustaining a humiliating defeat. Soon thereafter, the U.S. also packed up its bags and left, leaving behind an internecine civil war between tribal groups of the north and south. The ensuing 10 years were a decade of anarchy in Afghanistan. In l997, young Afghan zealots calling themselves the Taliban, tired of the country’s continued strife, rose up in arms and swept through the whole of the south, capturing the capital, Kabul. Only a small area in the north remains under the control of anti-Taliban forces known as the Northern Alliance. Its leader, Ahmed Shah Masoud, was killed Sept. 10 by two assassins posing as journalists. While the Alliance has received limited help from some of the bordering Central Asian republics, many of Afghanistan’s tribal leaders have sought refuge in neighboring Iran.

Make no mistake, it has not been easy for Pakistan to live beside an unstable, volatile neighbor. Neither the Taliban nor their predecessors have given any comfort to Pakistan. Many of the problems emanating from Afghanistan’s years of instability have trickled into Pakistan as well, characterized by the “drug and Kalashnikov culture,” which has caused serious internal law and order problems for Islamabad. More significantly, a gradual but growing wave of right-wing religious fervor has spread throughout Pakistan, symbolized by thousands of madrassas which teach only the strictest religious doctrine to the young. Not surprisingly, several of these madrassas subscribe to the same philosophy as the Taliban.

As a result of the fallout from the 1980s and mismanagement during the l990s, Pakistan’s economy today is in dire shape, bedeviled by a huge internal and external debt. The country’s situation is exacerbated because of the difficult neighborhood in which it lives. India, eight times larger than Pakistan, wastes no time in adding to Islamabad’s woes, either by keeping the fire burning in Kashmir or by continuing with its nuclear and conventional weapons race. No wonder New Delhi rushed to offer its land bases to the U.S., urging it to avenge the Sept. 11 disaster by attacking Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.

In spite of its own problems, Pakistan is the only country that has maintained active diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime and provided a passage to international relief agencies to help the starving Afghan population. Today, the Taliban use their embassy in Islamabad to talk to the rest of the world.

It was no easy decision for Gen. Parvez Musharraf to agree to assist Washington in finding Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda group, especially given the unknown nature of any U.S. military response. Islamabad has embarked on a high-risk path—a difficult, but perhaps the right road under the circumstances. Acting, perhaps, on a new theory—that my enemy’s friend need not be my enemy—Pakistan has demonstrated its willingness again to trust a former ally.

Strengthening Musharraf’s Hands

Washington’s quick decision to withdraw economic and other sanctions imposed on India and Pakistan following their nuclear tests in l998 will strengthen Musharraf’s hands a little. In order for Musharraf to silence the mounting opposition from the religious right, however, and muted dissent reported to exist in some sections of the army, several other sanctions against Pakistan must be lifted as well. Similarly, the country’s heavy debt burden will have to be reduced if Musharraf is to operate with a greater degree of freedom.

Given its physical proximity and intimate knowledge of the Afghan geopolitical landscape, Pakistan alone can provide the logistical and other support that the U.S. will need to carry out its proposed campaign to oust terrorism. The least that Washington can do is handle Pakistan with care. A destabilized Pakistan would create a much larger problem not only for the region, but for the entire world, for a long time to come. Current indications are that the Bush administration appreciates Pakistan’s tenuous position.

There has been talk in recent months of bringing about a political change in Afghanistan, perhaps by bringing back King Zahir Shah, now 86 and living in exile in Italy since 1973. Whatever solutions are considered, they must include an end to civil strife in Afghanistan. If and when a military operation is used to rid the country of the menace of terrorism, therefore, the civil war between the north and the south should not be allowed to resume. Afghans have suffered enough. But all this can wait. First things first.

The Taliban itself is not a solid unified regime. In 1997 the young rebels were welcomed as a relief from the country’s feuding tribal leaders. Four years of Taliban rule, however, have left a sizeable section of the population disillusioned. Many will welcome a change bringing peace and, especially, economic relief. An effective approach to root out one evil (terrorism), then, should work to usher in a greater objective.

Prof. M.M. Ali, a Washington, DC-based consultant and specialist on South Asia, recently returned from a visit to the subcontinent.