Pakistan’s Existential Crisis

By S.P.SETH

Pakistan’s conundrum remains the same. Which is to define how it sees itself? Since it was created out of India in 1947 as a secure homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims, it hasn’t stopped seeing India as its enemy.

Lately, there was some hope that its government might be starting a process of re-evaluating this assessment. Faced with an imminent threat to its survival from the Taliban rebels penetrating deep into the Swat Valley and the adjoining areas (while its tribal belt continues to shelter the al-Qaeda leaders, like Osama bin Laden, and the Baluchistan province is harboring some of the top Taliban leadership of Afghanistan), President Zardari reportedly said that India was no longer a threat to Pakistan’s security.

He felt that Pakistan’s biggest threat was from terrorism and the Taliban militancy. And it appeared that his military establishment concurred with this revised view.

But this was too good to be true. It is now reported that Pakistan is not happy with the enhanced US military activity against the Taliban in Afghan provinces adjoining Pakistan. Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence Agency fears that the US push against the Taliban in Afghanistan will push them across the border into Pakistan, putting further pressure on Pakistani military already engaged with its own Talibans in the tribal belt and North-West Frontier Province.

The reports suggest (quoting anonymous Pakistani intelligence), that they do not like the idea of withdrawing some formations from the Indian border to face greater Taliban activity from added American military pressure.

And there is the same old argument. Which is that in the event of American withdrawal from Afghanistan at some stage (as happened with the Soviets), since the Afghan war is unwinnable, a Taliban regime in Afghanistan would be a strategic asset against India.

There is an expectation that by maintaining a neutral position vis-à-vis the Afghani Taliban (indeed, sympathizing with them and seeking a formal understanding with them as distinct from the al-Qaeda), Pakistan will be able to exercise greater control over them. Pakistan eventually hopes to become a conduit between the Afghani Talibans and the US that will exclude the al-Qaeda.

The fact, though, is that Pakistan has tried all these stratagems with different groups in its own territory and across the border with disastrous results. Which required it, for instance, to wage a war against them in the Swat valley and in the tribal belt.

Indeed, the line between the Afghan Talibans and their Pakistani counterparts is now so blurred that Pakistani establishment’s espousal of possible deals with militants is becoming increasingly suicidal for the regime.

The steadfast belief that Pakistan can use these militants against India after American withdrawal (which is taken for granted at some point of time) is so pernicious that Pakistan’s governing elite, especially its military establishment, is willing to bet its own existence for the sake of a phantom settling of scores with India.

This is the crux of Pakistan’s existential crisis. And unless this is re-evaluated and the emphasis shifted to building a civil society, there is no long term hope for Pakistan and no solution for the terrorist menace which is developing deeper roots in this country.