WHAT do the Americans want? What was the wish list, or threat list, Dick Cheney brought with him? You don�t need to be a seer to answer these questions. The Americans quite simply want the Pakistan army to be embroiled once again in Waziristan, the way it was last year and the year before.
They want the Pakistan army to be seen fighting the Taliban, no matter what it takes, no matter what casualties it suffers. We lost nearly 700 men, no mean number, when under Yank pressure, and without much thought or preparation, army units were pushed into Waziristan. They suffered a severe mauling. The foolishness of that ill-considered offensive was unsustainable. Only for that reason did second thoughts prevail and an agreement was signed with the �militants� on Sep 5, 2006.
One misunderstanding should be cleared up. It was not that the army was averse to fighting its Muslim brothers, its own kith and kin. Such qualms have never stood in its way in the past, a conclusion easily arrived at if we remember East Pakistan, and, if that be too distant a memory, Balochistan recently when Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti was �taken out� although he was no Taliban and no challenge to the state.
Waziristan was a different story because Pakhtoon resistance was too hot to handle. Had the army not suffered a severe mauling, you can bet your life the operation there would not have been called off and no peace agreement with the �militants� would have been signed. Necessity was the mother of those second thoughts.
This serves to illustrate Pakistan�s predicament, the nutcracker in which it is caught, the Americans with their foolish demands on one side, the Taliban on the other.
It�s not that the Generalissimo Musharraf is playing some kind of a double game with the Americans, as elements in Washington would like to believe. It�s not that he is not earnest about the Taliban elements holing up in the tribal areas. He would take them on if he could, for America�s sake and his own. And for Pakistan�s sake as well because the Taliban represent a problem we could do without.
Trouble is he simply can�t. The army went in before and saw its illusions shattered. From its top echelons to the ranks below there is no wish to repeat that experience, generals not easy to find who would be eager to wear the mantle of Lt Gen Safdar Hussein, the then Peshawar corps commander, who led the Wana (or Waziristan) operation and boasted of how soon it would be over. Send the Pakistan army to Bosnia and it will gladly go, to Liberia and the contingents selected will be counting in advance the higher pay they will be likely to receive. But taking on the Waziris and the Mahsuds once again? For this cruel course of action there is no stomach at all. This is one line in the sand which has been firmly drawn.
This is not all. The militants have conclusively demonstrated that their ability to strike now goes well beyond Waziristan. After the recent missile strike on the village of Zamzola in South Waziristan, Commander Baitullah Mahsud, veteran of countless engagements against the army, vowed revenge. He was as good as his word. Within days a wave of suicide bombings hit parts of the Frontier and, more alarmingly, Islamabad. Previously the few foreigners -- Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks, etc -- who were known to be in Waziristan, remnants of the first CIA-sponsored Afghan �jihad� of the 1980s, lay low, avoiding exposure.
The Waziristan operation may have been aimed at them but its effect was to stiffen Pakhtoon resolve in general and bring more supporters to the Taliban cause. A replay, although on a smaller scale, of what�s happened in Iraq: misguided force promoting a culture of defiance and resistance.
The Waziristan problem (and no one is denying it was a problem) was containable before, amenable to traditional methods of controlling the tribes. Thanks to American pressure, and the army�s heedless plunge into uncharted terrain, it has got out of hand and is now in no one�s control.
We thus face a bizarre situation. When the Americans, increasingly embattled in Afghanistan, ask us to do more, little do they realise that they are preaching to the deaf. And when Generalissimo Musharraf says, as he did once again in Larkana two days ago, that �foreign terrorists� hiding in Pakistan�s mountainous tribal belt must leave or face �stiff action�, he is punching into the air, for �stiff action� is no longer an option for him to exercise in Waziristan.
The Pakistan army was worsted in combat there. No logic is more implacable than that of combat. The Americans should know this from their own experience. Why did they get out of Vietnam? Because they were defeated. Why, despite the recent �surge� in troops, is Baghdad not to be pacified? Because Baghdad is no longer in their control and will not be no matter how many troops are brought in. So what are they expecting us to do in Waziristan? Get more of our troops killed just because they are finding a hard time of it in Afghanistan?
Afghanistan is not a land which has been kind to foreign invaders or occupiers. The British were defeated there, as were the Russians. Now the Americans want to rewrite Afghan history. Good luck to them. But we have to look out for ourselves. We can�t be responsible for Afghanistan. Even if we wanted to, we can�t put out the fires the Americans have lighted there. We can help them and we are doing that, but what America is asking us to do is to unleash once again the dogs of war in Waziristan. We would have to be fools of the highest order to do that.
Let us never forget the plight of Cambodia which was brought to ruin in the 1970s when the Americans dragged it into the Vietnam War. It has still to recover from that experience. Will the Americans lose much sleep if, following their advice, we get burned once again in our tribal areas? Not likely. We should help the Americans where we can. We are their friends and it is in our interest to have good relations with them. But our first duty is to Pakistan, just as America�s first duty is to itself.
In roundabout ways we are now being threatened with an aid cut-off. If this happens it will hurt us, American aid having been crucial for the economic take-off of the last few years. There shouldn�t be any illusions on this score.
At the same time, however, cutting off aid is easier said than done because it will mean reduced if not zero leverage in a country important for the mess America has created in this region. After Iraq and Afghanistan, and the gathering crisis over Iran, it will need stupidity of a high order to cut links with Pakistan. But even if the worst comes to the worst and aid is cut off, the Towers of Jericho will not fall. We should have greater confidence in ourselves.
We need firm leadership. We also need leadership able to curb an unfortunate tendency towards verbosity. The rationed word, the measured word, that�s what we need in these circumstances, especially when there is no knowing what the Bush administration might be up to with regard to Iran.
All the same, our external dangers we can master. They are not insurmountable. We can even get the measure of our American friends and, without rubbing them the wrong way, tell them what is possible and what isn�t. But ending the malaise which is eating into the spirit of the nation and making it listless, that�s our real problem.
We need to close ranks and stop portraying a picture of a house divided and almost at war with itself. For this the army leadership has to get out of its self-created shell and reach out to the nation. Again, this is easier said than done. The Generalissimo, the pivot around which this system revolves, is a prisoner of his political preferences, his fears and prejudices. Can he re-invent himself at this late hour?
It would also help if Pakistani journalists given to parroting the American line on Afghanistan (friendship deterring me from naming them) were to stop insinuating that elements within the Pakistani intelligence community are helping the Taliban. If they are helping the Taliban, there would have been no need to get 700 of our soldiers killed in Waziristan.
Currying favour with foreigners is a time-honoured Pakistani pastime but it shouldn�t be carried to the extent where it begins to harm the country. Let the New York Times and the Washington Post say what they will. We should be more careful about our own utterances.
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