Edge of a precipice? – Part 3

The tables turned in Afghanistan as the trail of attack over World Trade Center and elsewhere on 9/11 was traced back to Taliban regime in Afghanistan and to OBL’s Al-Qaeda sheltered by them. The US prepared to reinvade Afghanistan and needed Pakistan again as the launch pad but with a reversed role, that is to oppose Afghan Taliban this time around.US had got us and itself into an unenviable position to declare its past allies, the Afghan Mujahideen as terrorists and attack them. India was sitting on the jump seat should Pakistan decline the request .This was a real military-diplomatic dilemma which required great statesmanship and vision, so dismally absent in Gen Musharraf and his close colleagues. They opted for an inexplicable compromise which could be partially described as hunting with the hounds and running with the hare. This compromise was typically done with little strategic thought, scant care for the consequences and very cheaply too. The country was made available for US military campaign against Taliban, simultaneously trying to preserve those factions which seemingly favoured Pakistan. It was naively hoped that such an exercise would not be uncovered or at the least not misread by the US. Musharraf did not know the famous Pushtoon dictum that an Afghan keeps the secret till the money lasts.

US invaded Afghanistan with the local help of Northern Alliance who had parted ways with Afghan Mujahideen and soon the Afghan Taliban foot soldiers and left over command structure began to pour back into Pakistan under pressure from the advancing US forces. Kabul had fallen. They renewed their old local support infrastructure and this time began a two front guerilla war against the US Forces in Kabul and Pakistani Forces at home. Musharraf also compounded our internal disharmony by incompetent and thickheaded handling of Lal Masjid uprising in Islamabad; a truly Deobandi hornet’s nest. It provided casus belli to TTP for the massive murder and mayhem campaign that they unleashed upon Pakistan for the next 10 years where thousands of civilians, LEA personnel and soldiers were killed and immeasurable damage was done to property. Horrendous Army Public School Peshawar massacre 2014 was the nadir of TTP’s undiluted savagery which shook even the most placid of them all, the sitting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Stutteringly Pakistan Army was given the go ahead to wipe out TTP terror hide outs from South Waziristan. Thus began one of the most successful counterterrorism kinetic operations in the world so far. It was also the most fiercely contested by the terrorists where Pakistan Army ably helped by PAF wrote superlative tales of bravery, selflessness and comradeship. We lost the flower of our youth, the best officers and men in this unforgiving combat but rid our country of that savage menace completely.

The surviving terrorists expectedly escaped to Afghanistan as US and Afghan forces refused to seal the border while Pakistan was surrounding and eliminating terrorists in FATA. Fugitive terrorists are fed, equipped and sheltered by Afghan NDS in conjunction with RAW in neighboring areas of Nangarhar, Paktika, Kunar and Nooristan. These renegades are their terror assets who act as agent saboteurs when launched inside Pakistan. Of these Jamat-ul-Ahrar is the leading and the most belligerent ex-Pakistan fugitive outfit based in Nangarhar, Afghanistan. Core ISIS fighters when faced with annihilation in Iraq were airlifted to Afghanistan in unmarked helicopters by the US and transplanted along Pakistan border at the flank of CPEC and in Urzugan in the northwest just under the belly of BRI. That should indicate the strategic intent behind this exercise and also who really controls ISIS. It was also part of the strategic design to plant a force in being which could be used as a counter weight to check expanding Taliban influence in Afghanistan, checkmate Ashraf Ghani should he have ideas and keep Pakistan’s western border hot as a measure of coercion.

All said and done, the very presence of ISIS in Afghanistan provides an insurance to US for its continued force deployment in one form or the other. Thus be able to reasonably fix China, radiate sufficient threat to Russia from this land base and finally reasonably reign in an intransigent Pakistan. ISIS’s insertion into Afghan theatre proved to be a God sent tool for India to twist Pakistan’s tail from that country. NSA Doval flew to Baghdad to co-opt and coordinate ISIS leadership in his intelligence plan to synchronize their terrorist efforts with TTP to create a synergy against Pakistan. He got them together near Kandahar and worked out modalities of joint operations. Later he went on to induct Baloch dissidents into this evil alliance. Thus what we see in Balochistan today, in particular, is a direct consequence of Indian machinations which operationalise greater US strategy to set up a controlled chaos in that region so as to retard CPEC progress and eventually tame Pakistan to sit by the sofa leg. Lately Indians have bankrolled to create a singularity of command among various factions of TTP fugitives in Afghanistan and encouraged PTM to mount a nastier discrediting campaign in ex FATA and KP against Pakistan Army.

Musharraf was ousted in 2007 and the musical chair of national power this time was occupied by Zardari who had taken over PPP after Benazir’s very suspicious looking assassination and its inconclusive, open-ended investigation. This time he came into his own and dug deep into national treasury, typically planted his cronies on key government positions and let US undercover men and women flood Pakistan unhindered. His ambassador at Washington DC Husain Haqani is reported to have issued thousands of visas to such people in a day without the mandatory clearance by the country’s intelligence agencies or the interior ministry. Hundreds of houses in Islamabad alone were hired by notorious Blackwater agents.US was allowed to build the largest Embassy compound, possibly in the world, in Islamabad. He was succeeded by Nawaz Sharif at the Hill as agreed among the robbers.

Sharif padded up for his third inning with a vengeance and surrounded himself with a strange legion of anti-army, India-centric media men and retired bureaucrats and highly dubious financial scammers. This was a puzzling potpourri of men and women that placed Sharif in grey shade right from the start and he seemed to know what he was doing. Therefore without wasting time he plunged into scrounging out whatever he and his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, the Chief Minister Punjab, could from the national treasury. This family’s loot is immense, immeasurably heartless and massive in scale done with the Lord Clive like abandon just as he looted Murshadabad treasury after the fall of Nawab Sirajudaula. His excesses were uncovered by the Panama Leaks which became his undoing and eventually the Supreme Court disqualified him for life and unseated him. He went on to be convicted by the accountability court too, feigned sickness , bribed the doctors, court and hoodwinked the system to fly out to safety in UK from where he has no plans to return. Meanwhile the country’s high court have declared him an absconder from law and issued his permanent non-bailable arrest warrants. This is a travesty of political sense and ethical sensibility of uniquely Pakistan variety where a three times prime minister is a convict and a fugitive from law. It also is a proof how he corrupted the entire system and electoral process repeatedly to befool electorate and the law. Nawaz Sharif eminently deserves a place of honour in the world gallery of rogues.

He has been defeated at the ballot and succeeded by an enigmatic Imran Khan and his PTI cohorts. There are a number of dichotomies in PTI governance which cannot be explained away by merely saying those were electioneering slogans and if not, then the newcomers are too proud or embarrassed to admit they were either wrong or over ambitious. Foremost is their lukewarm resolve as the state to take on and reign in the powerful but corrupt elites as opposed to their avowed declarations from the street.

This has resulted in a terrible loss of face and credibility among the people. This administration is characterised by its sputtering governance performance, talks through their hat by the federal ministers, a disgusting tendency to repeatedly reverse vastly impacting policy decisions, inability to control inflation and its pinion rider run away commodity prices and how to equate with the provocative political opposition. Add to their fits and starts type writ the very embarrassing scandals of sugar, petroleum and wheat shortages where Imran Khan’s close associates are implicated.

The latest is the typical but again diplomatic faux pa where a federal minister announced ECC decision to import sugar and cotton from India and next day PM turns it down. That was a terribly foolish stroke which resulted in a rare mutual loss of face with the federal cabinet and rightly became a butt of jokes locally and internationally.

This sad saga goes on and on regardless of which colour of the party flag flutters before the PM house. Imran Khan has to step away from his confrontational style of politics and begin to behave like a seasoned confident politician. He must speak in a different genre and on a superior moral plain. His talk and actions must reflect statesman like vision, a feel for the people and a genuine concern for the nation’s wellbeing. There should be poise and grace in his speech and body language both. He must relearn to relate to people and that authority and agitation together are a sign of incompetence.

We have been mugged on the Mall and our ramshackle ark pirated in the midstream. We have been time and again blindfolded and led by the ear to the slaughter block for either national security, jihad, sectarian purity or even loan repayment and cheated every time .We have been robbed and disrobed to be beggars, destitute, peasants tillers and durbar hall attendants of petty chieftains, crime lords, centurions and sardars holding their own courts all over the country. Those who were to dispense solace and peace of mind led us from their pulpit into the holy abattoir of faith, chopped it into pieces and refashioned them into blood thirsty sectarian monsters, militancy and murder. We do not deserve the way we have been treated over the years particularly at the hands of those whom we are supposed to have elected or allowed to rule over us. Enough is enough and it must stop now, but will not till people of Pakistan stand up and demand the respect our due and the rights we deserve.