By A.H Amin
ccun.org, September 27, 2007
There appears to be a strong evolving consensus in the USA as well as
its NATO allies that Pakistan is the centre of gravity of the
Islamists in the ongoing so called "war on terror." This idea gained
currency in various high US policy making circles as well as think
tanks around 1987-89 and then assumed a solid shape in the decade
1990-2000.After 2001, it was adopted as a policy and concrete albeit
top secret planning was started to deal with Pakistan which at the
ulterior level was seen as part of the problem rather than a solution.
When the Spaniards landed in Mexico, their main collaborators were
indigenous Mexicans themselves ! In Pakistan also the USA made use of
indigenous collaborators ! Generals whose sons had US passports !
Bankers who were US nationals but also dual Pakistani citizens ! Thus,
these leaders justified collaboration with the USA after 9/11 on the
grounds that what they did was the only guarantee for the survival of
Pakistan !
The Pakistani military junta in 2001 was isolated internationally, so
it was very easy for the USA to overawe it with one telephone call !
The typical career army officer's life consists of aiming to get a
good annual report from his boss ! Pakistan's military leadership
grasped this opportunity to get a good pat from their geopolitical
strategic boss, the US president, and with open hands provided
airbases and all logistical support to the USA ! This was a short term
measure so that Pakistani military junta's survival in power was
ensured ! It had no connection with survival of Pakistan as a state !
Compare how Iran is surviving as a state despite defying the USA since
1979 ! Later on a fiction that USA threatened Pakistan with bombing it
to the stone age was invented ! Thus irresolution was rationalized as
supreme strategic brilliance ! Ironically some so called media men who
are also running private businesses were in the forefront in praising
this strategic timidity as strategic brilliance !
What happened in " Real Strategic Terms" was that with Pakistani
military junta's active collaboration i.e. logistical support and air
bases the USA was able to occupy Afghanistan very cheaply and with
minimum casualties ! This was no mean strategic achievement as it
placed the USA right below the soft underbelly of China as well as
Russia ! More significantly it reduced the flying as well as striking
time to the Pakistani nuclear as well as missile installation. Close
proximity to Pakistan also enabled the USA to conduct intelligence
operations inside Pakistan in a far more optimum manner than ever
before.
It was theorized in secret sessions of the highest level US decision
making circles that although the Islamists fighting the USA had no
fixed centre of gravity which could be attacked and eliminated,
Pakistan with its sympathetic pro Islamist populace and nuclear and
missile assets was at least a provisional centre of gravity of the
Islamists. Note that US feared , not the ISI , not the tinpot
Pakistani military junta , but the sentiments of the vast bulk of the
Pakistani populace and its arsenal of nuclear warheads and missiles !
Thus, Afghanistan was seen as a potential US base to carry out a 5
minutes over Islamabad or Kahuta just like the Israelis with US
cooperation destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 5 minutes over Baghdad
in 1981.
In 1945 the USA had bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki not for any direct
military purpose but to overawe the USSR that no one could match US
military might. The USSR had faced the challenge and developed a fine
nuclear arsenal to counter US aspirations to control the world. Later,
China also emerged as another challenger of USA ! Thanks to USSR help,
many South Asian countries as well as African countries fought and won
wars of liberation ! The Arabs were able to confront Israel only
because of Soviet aid till the collaborator Sadat sold his soul to the
USA and Israel !
The USA was all set to reduce Pakistan to size in 1977 when it
financed the anti Bhutto agitation in 1977 ! This plan was delayed
because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan from 1979 till 1989 when
the USA had but no option other than using Pakistan as a base for
assisting the anti-Soviet War in Afghanistan.
Change of posture came very quickly when after 1990 the USA started
talking that Pakistan is a terrorist state or was on the brink of
being a terrorist state. This was basically a war of nerves the
decisive point of which was one telephone call which made Pakistan's
tinpot military junta take the so called " brilliant strategic
decision" of collaborating with the USA !
After the disintegration of the USSR , strategically speaking the US
military targets were the littoral states of the Indian Ocean .Thus
the Iraq War of 1990 , the Invasion and capture of Iraq of 2003 and
the invasion of capture of Afghanistan in 2001.
Interestingly Iraq and Afghanistan were not ultimate objectives of US
onslaught but merely initial bridgeheads. This was only Phase One !
Phase Two may include Pakistan and Phase Three may include Iran !
Phase Four being Chinese Singkiang and/or Central Asian Republics !
Somewhere the Americans call it Orange Revolution whose first good
example was the anti-Bhutto agitation that they financed in 1977 in
Pakistan ! Sometimes they call it a war on terror or war against
weapons of mass destruction !
History has proved that generals fail as statesmen ! In 1936 all of
Hitler's generals opposed his decision to march into Rhineland ! This
is so because generals think only in tangible terms ! They do not
appreciate the value of intangible factors like resolution etc ! Thus
after 9/11 when Pakistan's tinpot junta wargamed being invaded by USA
it only thought in military terms ! It failed to appreciate that the
USA was humbled in Vietnam and in Iran in 1979 ! In the process they
allowed and facilitated the USA to occupy Afghanistan in very cheap
military terms ! Pakistan shall pay a heavy price for this ! Whether
Armitage said it or not , the USA will bomb some parts of Pakistan to
the stone age in order to denuclearize Pakistan.
Pakistan is in a strange strategic situation ! It is led by a military
dictator whose sole aim is to stay in power ! Its number two the so
called prime minister is a US citizen and in case he dies naturally or
unnaturally his successor i.e. the Chairman Senate is also a US
citizen ! So politically the USA is dominant in Pakistan ! But this
does not make the Americans happy ! Their aim is denuclearization and
complete submission of Pakistan !
Imagine the following scenario ! Pakistan's military dictator is
killed in a mysterious air crash or assassinated by a common soldier
on duty like Indira Gandhi ! The USA immediately issues an ultimatum
that it fears that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal may fall in the hands of
extremists ! A surgical nuclear strike is launched on Kahuta and
Islamabad !Another general takes over power in Pakistan and
capitulates to all US demands dismantling the Pakistani nuclear
arsenal and its missiles ! Rationalising this on the ground that if he
did not do so the USA would bomb Pakistan to stone age ! In next ten
years Pakistan is Balkanised with an independent US supported
Baluchistan and an independent puppet Pashtun state in NWFP and
Northern Pashtun majority districts of Baluchistan ! An independent
Sindh in the South , an independent Kashmir and Northern Areas with US
bases for future operations against Singkiang on the Deosai Plateau
and only Punjab left as Pakistan ! No nukes , no missiles , no resolve
! Just like the Christians reduced the Muslims to Granada in Spain and
finally eliminated even Granada in 1492.
This is not a pessimistic view of things but a hard strategic reality
! The writing is clear on the wall ! Airfields are being developed,
not against the Taliban or against the Al-Qaeda but for 5 minutes over
Islamabad !
In strategy everything moves very slowly and it is the greatness of a
statesman and military commander to assess what will happen in next 5
or ten years ! Here in Pakistan we have a situation where our military
leaders are overawed by just one phone call ! From leaders of such a
caliber little resolution or strategic insight can be expected !
From 1979 to 1988 Pakistan's military junta after seizing power
through the backdoor , provided the USA with an active base to
destabilize and destroy Afghanistan's de facto government . All
infrastructure of Afghanistan was destroyed as well as all its
institutions between 1979 and 1992 .Now if the Afghan state allows the
USA to do so it should not be a surprise ! And why did Pakistan's
military junta of 1977-88 support the so called Afghan Jihad ! So that
General Zia stays in power ! The characters were different in 1979 and
2001 , but the motivation was the same !
Someone may skeptically view the above presented scenario ! The
following arguments support the presented scenario ! If Saddam was
destroyed on the mere suspicion that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass
Destruction why is Pakistan not a perfectly legitimate target for USA
, because it is a Muslim country and possesses WMD without any doubt !
Saddam was more secular than any Muslim leader in modern history yet
his country and he himself were targeted and destroyed ! What is the
aim of this so called enlightened Islam espoused by Musharraf ! To act
as anesthesia for USA and destroy all resistance power of the
Pakistani nation ! If not strategic brilliance at least we have good
anesthetists at the top ! In war surprise is the key so the USA will
not politely announce its intentions before it reduces Pakistan to
size ! Musharraf , Benazir and any other general that may emerge are
merely pawns in the game which can be removed by air crashes or
assassinations ! Waziristan , Al-Qaeda and terrorism are merely hollow
slogans ! The Pakistan Army is being forced into Waziristan by the USA
not to attack the Al-Qaeda but to create an internal divide in
Pakistan ! There have been many cases of desertion of soldiers in
units in Waziristan as well as cases of refusal of officers for
carrying out duties seen as against their conscience ! What can be
expected from leaders whose sons are US citizens or who consider USA
safer for their families to live than Pakistan ! What can be expected
from US citizens now enjoying high political office in Pakistan after
having a good time in Bank of America or CITI Bank ! What respect will
the army jawans have for leaders more distinguished for deciding not
to fight a battle after one telephone call or more interested in
privatizing the PSO , PTCL or the Steel Mill !
5 Minutes over Islamabad is a distinct possibility ! This is the irony
of a nation who supplied many pilots who were blood brothers of
Syrian, Iraqis and Jordanians in downing many Israeli aircrafts over
Golan , Amman and Iraq ! Today the Pakistani leaders are practicing
sycophancy with Israel to gain a good pat from USA !
The conclusion is that Pakistan is led by collaborators who will go to
any extent to survive while its nuclear and military assets would be
destroyed with partial or active cooperation of its own leaders ! Fear
made men believe in the worst but here in Pakistan we have a scenario
in which Pakistan's leaders are trying to sell the idea that timid
strategic collaboration is strategic brilliance ! A secret clause of
Vision 2030 propaganda of Pakistani sitting leadership is that by 2030
Pakistan would be a Balkanised state with no nuclear and missile
assets and kicked by all its neighbours ! Good luck to vision 2030 !
