bout de papier, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2011) — Fall/Winter 2011 // Automne/Hiver 2011, pp. 31–33
I have an affinity for Canadians. Close members of my family live in Canada, I have known many of your High Commissioners and I was a guest of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service a few years ago for a conference on security and South Asia. I am also a founding member of the “Ottawa Dialogue”, a very useful Track 2 effort that brings Indians and Pakistanis together with Canadian support to promote peace and strategic stability in South Asia.
Canadians must wonder what was accomplished in Afghanistan and the region now that you have withdrawn your troops from Kandahar. As you reflect on your experience I hope that you will think about the impact of that conflict on Pakistan. I also hope that our traditional friendship remains healthy despite difficult times and the misunderstandings that inevitably come with them.
There is so much that the West fails to see about the aftermath of 9/11. It begins with the fact that Afghanistan and Pakistan are very different countries but also are like “Siamese twins”: what happens to one has huge consequences for the other. Treating the two countries in isolation is shortsighted, for the West and for ourselves. Perhaps the same can be said for Pakistan and India, you can’t de-hyphenate them even if you want to.
In our part of the world things also turn upside down in no time. Osama bin Laden’s presence in Afghanistan was once welcomed by the Americans during the Jihad in the West’s battle against communism. What a pity he returned to Afghanistan — it is a tragic irony that not a single Afghan or Pakistani was involved in 9/11, and yet it is Afghanistan and Pakistan that have been the worst affected in the aftermath.
The war was a mistake in many ways. The main reason — not understanding the region — was summed up by Henry Kissinger: “America discovers a country after it invades it”. He is very correct. Perhaps the conflict should never have been declared a “war”: Al-Qaeda was never a state actor. Elevating what should have been a massive international police and Special Forces operation to a war against terrorists and whole nations was bound to create problems. Afghanistan also was so tribal and so devastated by conflict by the time the Americans invaded that even thinking of it in terms of traditional nation states was an error.
Mullah Omar and the Taliban of Afghanistan were acting in the classic Pashtun and Afghan tradition of hospitality, never turning over a guest even if it means spilling blood. It was a war precipitated by ancient tribal customs that few 21st century Westerners would have understood. The invasion pushed bin Laden into Pakistan and, as Pakistanis see it, the poison of that war bled into our country.
Occupying the country presented more problems. Liberation and occupation are different, the euphoria of one gives way to guerrilla war against the other. America also tried to reinvent Afghanistan in an image of its choosing, but real social change comes from the ground up — think of the Arab Spring — and not from ideas imposed from above — think of Iraq. Egyptians, Tunisians and Libyans (unlike Afghans) “own” the changes they brought about themselves.
Big opportunities were missed: the vexing problem of drugs was not effectively addressed. It gave rise to a mafia, an informal and huge criminal economy with strong centres of power outside the state. It corrupted the political leadership and bureaucracy. Of course, the drug mafia in Afghanistan has taken root in Pakistan too, including among the millions of Afghan refugees we now host.
Complicating matters, while the US and the West failed to resolve the issues that gave rise to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the US diverted its attention to Iraq. The Taliban re-emerged in Afghanistan as the people saw little or no improvement in their lives. Conflicts that had been tribal-based were now militia-based, largely fuelled by the drug industry (it may be advantageous to producers, but also can be as cruel to ordinary people as it is pervasive).
That brings me to the situation in Pakistan. Our Tribal belt is a mirror image of the devastation next door. The Durand Line that separates the two countries runs through traditional boundaries among the Pashtun. It was never recognized by the Afghans; every attempt to enforce the boundary (most recently with biometric identity controls) has been fiercely resisted by people on both sides. That Pakistan should “seal” its border is completely unrealistic.
Prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were self-contained, self-reliant, largely autonomous and generally peaceful. Pakistan changed little in the management of this huge portion of our territory after inheriting it from British India. It was a mistake: we failed to bring FATA into Pakistan’s political mainstream or address FATA’s economic and human ins resource needs. Smuggling remained Ar central to its informal economy making it or an easy target for the drug lords and their cri allies among the militants. An opportunity IS] to raise educational standards and build a ex: sense of belonging to Pakistan was missed ° that might have helped prevent such intense radicalization against the presence of the US and its allies in Afghanistan.
The growth of militancy in FATA is largely a legacy of the US-supported Jihad against the Soviets. That helps explain why militants there have participated more in fighting the US than in fighting the communists. The vacuum the West left in Afghanistan after defeating the Soviets created political space for the militants.
those who don’t like to face up to t
in troubled times.
They became seasoned fighters with strong sanctuaries on both sides of the border, they created parallel structures to governments, and they continue to challenge the writ of two states.
The occupation of Afghanistan stirs much anger in Pakistan towards the US and the West. Even if there is a huge disparity in power between the two, it does not mean that you can ignore the pride of a people (no matter how low they may be in that phase of their history). Superpowers also tend to compartmentalize issues rather than deal with relations as a whole. Pa Pakistanis do not understand that and wi confuse compartmentalization, and the to] conflicting signals it produces, with ad conspiracies. Conspiracy theories, as we rel know, are especially popular with those to who don’t like to face up to their own ne responsibilities in troubled times.
The problem of compartmentalizathi tion gets worse when you publicly demon-we ize a country — even if you are right on co some issues — or debase it and humiliate su its people. That creates a defensive climate ou in relations that will fail to get the best out Pa of both countries. But if you must demonasl ize, get it right. The most demonized —< nstitution in US-Pakistan relations is the Army’s Inter-services Intelligence agency yr ISI]. Of course, there may be plenty to titicize and I am not the one to defend the SI, but let’s try to be objective. Take three
The West would like it to be transparent — but a “transparent” intelligence agency is an oxymoron — is the CIA transparent? How could it function if it were?
The ISI should be accountable — but few institutions in Pakistan are truly accountable. The Army “answers” to Parliament, but we know that the Foreign Minister is effectively accountable to the Army for relations with India
and the US. Pakistan is moving to their own responsibilities
greater accountability, but it will take time and support to strengthen such
democratic practices.
’ The ISI “must have known” that bin
Laden was in Abbottabad — yes, it was a serious failure of intelligence on our part, but Pakistan did alert the Americans a year earlier that there might be a high value Al-Qaeda target there. If the ISI was sheltering bin Laden, why draw attention to Abbottabad? It makes no sense.
If others need to stop demonizing, we 2akistanis must learn to deal differently with a superpower. It has a different and ‘op-down mentality; the key is to take advantage of what superpowers can offer so ‘elations are not one sided and we are seen 0 benefit from that cooperation. We also reed to end the use of proxies in our strugzle with India and in Afghanistan (something I have advocated for years) because we become hostages of our proxies in such zomplex circumstances and, worse, then suffer from “blowbacks”. But whatever yur shortcomings, the vast majority of Pakistanis have concluded that superpowers ask more of us than they do of themselves
– and want us to fight their wars.
The West sees duplicity but we see double standards: when the US and its allies moved to clear the militants and their IEDs from the border areas, they failed; in fact the many countries that have been part of the coalition in Afghanistan have not been able to control any part of the country. Yet Pakistan somehow must control its side on its own. Both sides face a similar problem: for tribal militants death means little, it is a transitory phase of life and you can’t win against that, you can’t break their will if that is how they see life.
The West needs to understand how much damage the conflict has inflicted on us. Every major effort to uproot militants on our side of the border has resulted in greater instability. The conflict over the Lal Masjid mosque in Islamabad in 2007 did enormous damage to President Musharraf’s regime. It made “martyrs” of miscreants in the eyes of many Pakistanis. Action in South Waziristan, the Tribal Areas and Swat (near Islamabad) produced more deadly attacks all over the country including Lahore and Karachi. Three million Afghan refugees settled in Pakistan over time (some analysts put it at five million at the peak of the conflict). Many were in camps that encouraged more radicalization. They changed the demographic balance in Baluchistan, in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, and even in Karachi.
Economic damage is difficult to gauge but some government analysts insist it has reached $35 billion. Over 35,000 of our citizens have died in clashes since the American invasion, many of them our troops and innocent civilians. All were coreligionists killing each other, a deeply troubling issue for conscientious Muslims. Incredibly, some Western friends believe Pakistan wants to destabilize Afghanistan. Do we need more refugees or have more people killed? We are nearly bankrupt and face power shortages daily. We need no new economic setbacks. Despite strategic divergences with the West, there is no military logic in the idea that Pakistan wants instability in Afghanistan, it’s quite the opposite.
While the two countries are “twins”, India and Pakistan also are interlocked. Partition did not put us on different continents. Kashmir remains unresolved and it COMMENTARY / COMMENTAIRE seems no one in the West today has a word to say about human rights violations there. We carry the enormous burden of the backwash of the war next door but no one pays heed to our concerns about Indian influence there or does much to allay our fears of an Indian threat on two borders. Let’s not forget that some 80 percent of India’s military might is pointed toward Pakistan. That brings me back to the issue of compartmentalization — by not taking a comprehensive approach to relations with us in the context of South Asian tensions, the West creates the impression that it is acting with India and against the interests of a vulnerable Pakistan.
Meanwhile, India enjoys a special relationship on nuclear matters with the US and others while we do not — and in Pakistan that is seen as discriminatory. Add to that the immense unpopularity of American drones killing people on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border and the inevitable collateral damage that comes with them, throw in the effect of CIA agents like Raymond Davis on our streets, and you have the makings of badly fractured relations with Pakistanis — fuelled by media that love a good conspiracy theory.
Regrettably, we face another great challenge: our democracy is quite fragile after a decade of General Musharraf and previous “military” regimes. Authoritarian rule, civil or military, always undermines state institutions. So when great pressure is brought to bear on weak governments and faltering institutions, do not expect too much — especially if we think you are not seriously addressing some of our key concerns — notably India and Kashmir. You do not help yourselves if you put an already weak democratic government on the defensive.
What both sides should see clearly is that the West needs Pakistan and we need you. Both sides need to stop demonizing the other. Both the West and Pakistan need a stable, secure and prosperous Afghanistan. Both need a long-term commitment to build a better future in a South Asia where tensions are greatly reduced. I am convinced that many Canadians already understand that. We all have a lot of work left to do before 2014 and beyond.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2011) — Fall/Winter 2011 // Automne/Hiver 2011, pp. 31–33. Read the rest of this issue →
