US Foriegn policy is Imperial policy : Al-Qaeda/OBL gives full marks to Bush
A man condemned to punishment was given a choice between eating a hundred onions or receiving a hundred strokes on his back. He settled for the onions, taking this to be the easier option. But when he could no longer stand the onions he shouted for the slippers. When he could stand the slippers no more, he once again wanted the onions. He ended by eating all the onions and receiving all the strokes.
Something of this higher wisdom has been evident in so called Pashtun proxy leadership backed by CIA. At the end of day, Pashtun establishment will be forced to do: talk to Taliban (Clutural/religious kins of Pashtuns) on their own. They should do this themselves without looking toward CIA, US and NATO and save for themselves a great deal of trouble and wounded dignity. Pashtun establishment are trying to do it only after their hands were forced, by a combination of public pressure and subtle prodding of CIA. This is being hailed as 1st step toward peace in troubled Swat region although it is never safe to take things at face value in all those region ruled through CIA proxies.
The peace in the whole Indo-Pak, in any case, is far from complete. Drone attacks on Pakistan (mostly on innocent Pashtuns Woman, Childern) and carpet boming Afghanistan remains unsettled and there are many colonial, imperial, internation and regional knots to be untied. Still, one might be tempted to think that everyone is learning a lesson from past eight years full with Pashtun/Muslim blood across the Durand line. But this would be to discount the subtleties of Pashtun proxy politics through CIA.
Take CIA's man in Kabul, Karzai -- who played no small part in getting USA and NATO into this mess in the first place -- who gives every indication of not resting until, walking in his master's footsteps, he too has had his full share of onions and slippers (although the word slippers does no justice to the Urdu word, chittar, the leather device in all self-respecting sub-continental colonial police stations used as the first, although by no means the last, resort of criminal investigation).
US puppet rule in Kabul will have to go sooner rather than later and the Pashtuns will have its own leadership but not before Pashtun Establishmnet (Charsada, Peshawar and Kabul) learns a few more political lessons. In any event, they are turning into a novel Pashtun expert maintaining, against the clear provisions of the Pashtun-wale, that they will settle political rivals through US fire power and CIA drug money.
Karzi, as US's creature, can't be doing what he is doing without directions from the CIA. Which puts the USA in an odd light. Has it learnt nothing from its ordeal in whole and Muslim world? Full marks to Bush imperial policies, however, for achieving what the USA enemesis like Al-Qaeda/OBL (if any such thing really exist), Osama Bin Laden, could never do: mortally cripple the empire of USA through its imperial policy (Fareed Zakeria consider US Foriegn policy as imperial policy).
Bush credibility,during his tenure was always close to ground zero but the USA deserved better at his hands. Leading USA look dazed and downcast, as they have every reason to be, given the wholly unnecessary tribulations through which the USA has been marched on imperial campgians in Muslim world.
A bit of Chinese-style self-criticism is also in order. I thought that as long as CIA/RAW are in the region; Iran, Russia, China veiw on Afghanistan would never be considered by USA or West. And I did think that Taliban resistance will take a little longer by itself to shake US and NATO along with their proxies. I may not have been all that wrong about the Taliban resistance which left to itself might not have made much of an impression on the Drone Attacks with which CIA has ringed Pashtun area. But what I, and perhaps no one else had anticipated, was recent meeting between the leaders of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan the popular outpouring, that is what is going to tip the scales.
But even this would not have happened if US/NATO had not, with his hard-to-explain actions, ignited this crisis in the first place. Bush inexplicable folly thus was an essential ingredient of regional still half-cocked velvet revolution. In a sense then we should be grateful to Bush. When will we start concentrating on the real problems facing the region since the colonial days? The answer is pretty obvious. Not until all the onions are eaten and all the gluttons for self-punishment have had their fill.
