Pakistan's long term game

It saddens me to say that there is a lot of truth in reports which say that elements of Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) are working with the Taliban. For years now, Pakistan's reputation in diplomatic circles has suffered from this accusation and it continues to be a thorny issue. With the recent release of American military documents that chronicle the Afghan war, this charge has found renewed support and officials in Pakistan and the US are both suffering a major blowback. As a person who would like to see nothing more than peace in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir, these accusations are like daggers and their truth is a sinking poison to me.

Without being an apologist for such disgusting tactics, I must say however that their is a method to this madness. Pakistan's relationship with the mujahideen that gave birth to the Taliban dates back to the Reagan days when it trained, supported and handled the mujahideen cause on behalf of the Americans. It funded them financially in America's quest to conduct a proxy war against Afghanistan for years. During this time, many members of the ISI formed strong bonds with their mujahideen friends and those bonds have lasted for many years. But then the Americans stopped funding the cause, they walked away cold turkey and in their absence was a void which had to be filled by someone. That void led to the rise of warlords, of the militia which needed tactical support and yes, funding. The ISI was the only game in town and its covert nature fit the bill. Suddenly, the ISI found itself more powerful than ever before. Fast forward to present times and you have a situation where Pakistan is precariously trying to hold on to its regional strength. It is trying to play a long term game in which it knows that America will not be a player for long.

Today, Pakistan is battling many elements at the same time. People forget that more Pakistani soldiers have died battling the Taliban within its borders than NATO forces have lost combined in the war's nine year history. Add to that a growing insurgency in Pakistan's eastern province of Balochistan, and mix that with the drone attacks being used in Pakistan's northern territories and you can see why the Pakistan government and the ISI is wary of letting go of its ties with the Taliban. For all their evils, the Taliban's vast network of soldiers can be used as mercenary pawns to Pakistan's benefit in fighting proxy wars, in maintaining control in lawless territories and exerting pressure on a historically non-cooperative Afghan government.

In turn, the US is paying nothing more than lip service to such accusations. It can only strong-arm Pakistan to a degree. Pakistan is NATO's only ally in this war and it is doing its part admirably; its army is conducting major operations against the Taliban and has handed that Taliban major defeats in the field, much more severe than anything NATO has done in nine years. This fact is not lost upon the American military and neither in diplomatic circles, no matter how much their vilify Pakistan in the media. But elements of the ISI continue to the help the Taliban in some ways and uprooting these elements from positions of power is very hard to do. Firstly, you are dealing with a group of people that are experts at covert operations– this is their life and their passion. When you create a beast, you need to create a kill switch to destroy it if things go wrong. There is no such kill switch. How do you find these people? How do you take action against them? You need a whole new intelligence unit with contacts on the ground to handle such a task, and how do you do that? On top of that, all this needs to be done while you ask the ISI to provide essential services to the nation? This is an impossible task and no matter how strongly Pakistanis feel about it, it is virtually impossible to see a scenario when this will happen.

It is important to understand that Pakistan still functions like a country forced into democracy. In fact, for all intents and purposes, democracy does not exist in Pakistan, or at best, it exists in certain parts only. Take for example a small village miles from any major city in Pakistan. This small village works off the land and for a landlord who owns enough land to employ not only this village but the twenty that surround it. This landlord (zameendar) is the only employer in the area. He owns everything, resolves disputes in the area, taxes the people of the area and even has his own militia to battle neighboring landlord. Now, when election time comes around, this powerful landlord already has his political affiliations picked out. Some political figure has paid him or promised him something in return for which the landlord rents buses and trucks to transport people living on his lands to go and vote. Now, who do you think they will vote for? They will vote for his man of course. This is the face of modern democracy in Pakistan and when almost 350 million (of around 800 million in total) of your country live in such conditions, you can imagine what that does to a country's democratic system. Add to this the fact that these people are poor, uneducated, have almost no health services and no prospect of wrangling themselves free of the situation and you can see why it is that Pakistan is a nation battling numerous wars at the same time- internally, economically, politically and covertly. There is a chess board, but none of the pieces function as they should. Its complete chaos.

So what do we do now? There is no clear solution I am afraid. This scenario will only work out over time, perhaps decades. But there are some basic steps that can be taken to get the process started. As I see it, the whole world needs to help Pakistan deal with the problem. There is a severe lack of trust to start with, that needs to be addressed first and moving on from there:

• The world needs to help Pakistan procure arms which can be used against the Taliban within its own lands, most importantly, night-vision weapons. There is a tactical advantage to be had in the field at night and at this time, Pakistan's vast army is unable to utilize this advantage. It is just as blind after dark as the Taliban are.
  
• Show Pakistan that is a valued part of the solution and not viewed as the problem. This cannot be done with one speech by Ms. Clinton, it will take time. Building trust is central to getting Pakistanis on side. Most Pakistanis are under the impression that America has designs on Pakistan's land, that they want to break up the country into pieces. How can you expect people to help you when they view you as the enemy?
  
• Help Pakistan stabilize its own economy. Only when you have functioning public works, jobs for a young generation and stability for businesses can you expect the country to see a better life for itself in peace and harmony. Until that happens, the whole nation is functioning with individuals looking to make sure that they do well no matter what happens to the rest of the country. How can this be remotely healthy?

I don't mean to say that we should all give Pakistan a chance, that we should trust Pakistan because it is our only option. That is not the way to do this either. What I am trying to say is that we need to support and enable those elements of the country which are looking towards its betterment. But paying lip service to these elements will never do the job. At the end of the day, an MP or political party has to go back into the elections and get votes from a populace that still sees them not having achieved anything. What we need to do is support them and help the country handle its own problems democratically. My mother always said that it takes twice as long to clean a room than it does to dirty it up. The same is true here. For thirty years, Pakistanis have been used and abused by world powers that have left it politically stunted and economically failing; now, its time to invest money and effort into fixing the problem and its not going to be quick or easy. But it needs to be done because a democratic economically viable Pakistan is a much better option than a Pakistan mired in internal wars and facing the gauntlet at every international meeting.

If there is one thing that is abundantly clear, it is that Pakistan is an important ally in every sense of the word. It is placed in a geopolitical location which is central to many different interests- from oil, to trade, to transport, to militancy. Alienating such a country is stupidity at best and downright lunacy at worst. Only when you help Pakistan stabilize over time will you be able to reap the benefits of its alliance. Until then, all measures will fall short of the ultimate goal, which should be propping up a full-functioning democracy that respect the rights of its own people, the sovereignty of its neighbors and provides a safe environment for its own citizens. At this time, none of the measures undertaken by powers inside or outside Pakistan aim to achieve any of these goals.

In the absence of an International plan on how to deal with the growing problem if Islamic militancy in the AfPak region, and in the absence of broad-range support for Pakistan's actions, Pakistan has developed a clear long term plan: to fight Islamic militancy as best as it can within its own territories while also holding on to as many of the chess pieces as possible to utilize them as needed over time to secure Pakistan's interests, interests which no one else is looking after except Pakistan. What the world needs to do is work with the Pakistanis to assure them that their interests are important to the world. Only then can we call ourselves allies to Pakistan and only then can this long road to the stabilization of Pakistan and the region in general work. Till then, we are as much to blame for our selfishness and short-sightedness as Pakistan is for theirs, I am afraid.