INSIGHT AND FORESIGHT

KHAN’S NOUVELLE PAKISTAN

2011-11-06T04:58:00.000-08:00

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf (Retired)

Like an ocean moving inland with tremendous force and fury, they swept inland beyond imaginable expectations in waves of green and red Bumper to bumper, every road, bypass and short cut was crowded. I saw Fauzia Kasuri standing in a float with extra voluminous speakers chanting motivational themes leading the way from Gulberg. This was the same all over. These were the so called and satirically dubbed ‘the mummy daddy generation’ taking to roads in Land Cruisers, BMWs, Hondas, trolleys and rickety buses. They were flanked on the sides by motor cyclists, rickshaws and cyclists waving the red and green. Like a filled kaleidoscope, all roads choked with traffic and pedestrians led to Minar-e-Pakistan. The most heartening symbol was a ten year old boy doubling on a bicycle with a younger colleague all the way from Liberty to the venue. As he sweated and paddled the long distance, he added the icing to the day that was 30 October 2011.

Just as I was leaving, my two daughters and a nephew jumped into the car. I could not refuse them. These were youngsters who were hell bent on breaking the taboo; and change forever the complexion of what is described as Dirty Street Politics of Pakistan. The age of Pakistan’s nouvelle generation had arrived with a Big Bang. This sea of emotions wants a paradigm shift lest it becomes a destructive energy. It demands a new social contract as nothing will remain the same anymore.

At the park, the fortunate and early birds poured and sank like a whirlpool around the historic monument, colouring the huge public park green and red. Those who could not find space turned on their lap tops connected to flat screens and watched the hysteria on jam-packed roads. Shop keepers put their televisions on the roadside for public display. This was no show of desperation, anger and hate, rather a brightened landscape with a hope that the winds of positive change were not afar. Unlike a tsunami that wreaks destruction, this high tide is to set the stage to remove debris from Pakistan’s charred political landscape. Each one of them wanted to be counted as Pakistan led by Imran Khan was turning the corner.

Unlike the doom that surrounds the country with successive tragedies, the faces were lit brightly; reminiscent of a closely contested victorious cricket match with the captain going for the kill. They reflected the mood that Pakistan needed to move on and that, enough was enough. Amidst a depressing scenario underlined by a lack of national worth, as also true to his leadership traits, such were the rallying points built tediously in the past fifteen years by Imran Khan; to build courage when valour seems to fail; to regain faith when despair abounds; and to create hope when it is forlorn. Unlike Benazir Bhutto who had been blessed with a legacy, Imran was a silversmith who had to sit in vigil for a very long time.

It was in 1940 that Lal Din Sharaf, my father had recited a poem before the historic event under the leadership of Jinnah. In the interim Jinnah created a space called Pakistan which we denied him for the next sixty years. So instead of going on the stage and joining the leadership, I stood in the front ranks of the audience with my children. I wanted to have a drift of how it must have felt to my father; with the faith that I was to view a historic evening that would begin the process of reclaiming Jinnah’s Pakistan. I also had a score to settle because my father had died resisting the invasive forces that truncated this vision. This was my revenge.

That day, even the local police looked bigger than we normally see it. They were disciplined, diligent, kind and yet forceful. For sure the elixir had also invigorated their body language.

Pakistan over the past has had its share of leaders but none as unadulterated as Imran Khan. Dreamers are impulsive and sprint to every ray of hope. Yet in his long vigil, Khan learnt and applied correction courses. Certainly it needed much more than a self centred and attention seeking individual to roam the wild for over fifteen years and yet be as persevering and resilient as him. In the process he took flak from all directions but did not budge from his principled views. His family life became a victim of malicious and frivolous propaganda but failed to drop his gloves. His allies used him for his charisma and then discarded him. Beset with successive challenges, the fighter in him got sturdier and stronger. As an icon, he mentored a new generation of Pakistanis with pride, patriotism and self belief. He taught them how to face adversity and emerge stronger at successive impediments. Most he taught them how to conquer fear and utilise adrenaline induced emotional intelligence positively. Pakistan’s Khan has arrived with a vengeance of a striker playing within the rules of a game.

As I stood in military fashion to the National Anthem being played, the dam of emotions burst not only in me but in every Pakistani there. Everyone joined the choir with tears rolling down the cheeks like an oozing wound delivering elixir.

So what does this mean? Indeed it shifts a heavy responsibility on our shoulders to deliver and see the flock home. In the interim, we must win hearts and minds through our compassion, human values and neat political conduct. Each Pakistani is expected to become a building block of La Nouvelle Pakistan.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

GOJRA: IN THE NAME OF RELIGIOUS HONOUR

2011-08-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

Standing before the Charred Bodies

It is two years since Christian localities in Faisalabad were ransacked and burnt by a mob dispensing instant justice. Reportedly, on 18th July 2009, intelligence agencies had issued a warning to the Government of Punjab of likely incidents of terrorism in which some enclaves of Non Muslims Pakistanis could be targeted. Rather than pay heed, the provincial government deemed it fit to act as it did. After much carnage, it took the Government of Punjab three days to move belatedly. Chief Minister Punjab repeatedly postponed his visit to the city citing security reasons.

Two years ago on that fateful day, I reached Gojra while the ambers were still glowing. The town had been tense after the Korian incident. Contingents of Police had been positioned. A local land grabber with political connections had decided to exploit religious sentiments in the backdrop of Korian and ransack a Christian colony in order to grab the land. In the early hours of the morning, the arson and carnage began. Nine people including women and children were burnt alive. The hordes ransacked homes, set alight furniture, desecrated churches and burnt schools that included Islamiyat books. The police standing as bystander moved in only after the hordes had retreated in an organised manner. Organised rumour management using loudspeakers angered Muslims. The stage was set for a communal riot.

The Federal Minister for Minority Affairs had camped himself in the local church but found it difficult to convince the provincial and district administration to act decisively. Next evening, on intervention of agencies the process of registering an FIR began. It was a half baked document providing deliberate loop holes for a counter FIR. As a result, more Christians than criminals were rounded up by police, tortured and threatened. Ultimately, much of the compensation money ended in the pockets of the custodians of law. Mindful of their vote banks, no political party barring MQM and PTI made any attempts to bridge an artificially created divide.

Punjab, for the past many years continues to witness such incidents with alacrity. The entire trail from Jhang to Gojra, Mian Channu and Shantinagar is littered with similar incidents of religiously fanned hatred spearheaded by banned militant outfits. There is always a familiar pattern to these crimes; police inaction or atrocity, involvement of dons related to land grabbing, petty personal disputes, violence, delayed police reaction and fence mending. The story does not end here. Compensations lead to police extortions and the affected remain doomed. I often ask myself, why such crimes and pattern endemic to Punjab? Is Punjab Government vulnerable to pushes and pulls that haunt it? Is it the result of over centralisation? Or is it a policy of appeasement before the militants and the religious right that let events take the course. It is perhaps a bit of all? In most cases, the underlying motive invariably turns out to be personal rather than spiritual.

The case of Robert Masih was no different. Loud speakers were used to fan religious hatred. He was tortured to death in the Police Station in Sambrial. The boy was refused burial in his home town. Amidst the scare created by looming communalism, no one was apprehended or punished.

This dispensation of ‘justice in rage’ is not limited to Non Muslims. The drama repeated itself in Sialkot when two young boys of a respectable family were lynched to death under the supervision of Police. Political undercurrents soon became apparent and the gory drama recorded ‘on camera’ was soon forgotten. Nor can we forget the attack on a peaceful Eid E Milad procession in Faisalabad.

A similar act of militancy was to repeat itself in Faisalabad. Two Christian brothers were gunned down in broad daylight in the court premises for alleged blasphemy. The court was to later acquit both posthumously while the local authorities never investigated the actual culprits.

A year back, the Chapel of Gordon College Rawalpindi was attacked and occupied by armed gunmen. Timely action by the local police and civil society had the premises vacated. However, the land grabbers with active backing of local political bigwigs reoccupied the premises with false property papers. The Federal Minister Mr. Shahbaz Bhatti finally managed to prove that the church was Auqaf property. During the entire process, the Punjab Government remained inactive tantamount to criminal negligence.

Aasia Bibi’s case resulted in the murder of the Punjab Governor Salman Taseer. Most religious leaders refused to condemn the incident while lawyers were seen showering petals on the assassin. In the same sequel, Mr. Shahbaz Bhatti, the Federal Minister for Minorities was gunned down brutally in Islamabad.
Very recently scores of Christians in Gujranwala were detained by police under protective custody for alleged blasphemy. They were tortured and extorted. The allegations proved false and malafide when the intelligence agencies discovered that three Muslims with eyes on women and properties had trumped up false evidence against the Christians. The criminals confessed to the crime and the FIR was withdrawn. The irony is, that the same people who were demanding public justice, lynching and death against alleged Christian blasphemers readily forgave those who had actually committed the offence.

Such atrocities bring a very bad name to Pakistan. They also add to the misery of people who have an unblemished record of patriotism and sacrifice to the country and who distinguish themselves wherever justice, fair play and chivalry are essential. It also forces fringe elements of the society to recluse themselves into ghettos that become both a refuge and easily identifiable targets.

It is high time to re-evaluate why the road map that All India Muslim League had followed from Aligarh to creation of Pakistan is in contrast to the political landscape of what are now Muslim Leagues; an anti thesis of the notion adopted by the founding fathers. Political elites, contrary to the spirit, have time and again placated the religious right to marginalise and exclude Non Muslim Pakistanis and push them to the fringes.

It appears that nothing will improve. To compound the situation, 18th amendment will be debated for the many compromises it made on the basic complexion of the constitution. One amongst them is the devolution of the Minority Affairs to the provinces, a subject prominent in the Lahore and Objective Resolutions. This amendment will hit hard on the lucrative Evacuee properties opening flood gates to land grabbers and acts of violence. With no federal oversight, the provinces will do as they have done in the past.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.
Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com
1 August 2011

The Daily NATION for which I am a columnist, declined to publish this explicit OPED

PAKISTAN’S LEADERSHIP CRISES

2011-07-19T00:32:00.000-07:00

Within the context of National Power, idiosyncratic notions like Leadership, National Character and Morale are elements that can propel a nation. History has repeatedly recorded how the two have combined in prohibitive conditions for socio-economic revolutions. National leadership is not about making fiery speeches and hallow promises; least a game of scoring brownies in meaningless talk shows. It is a serious and delicate business of managing the destiny of a country through vision, selfless devotion, mental resilience and team building.

Abraham Lincoln was a self educated person with no physical charisma. A novice in military strategy, he taught himself the subject during his presidency; he could guide his generals leading a technically inferior army. The American Civil War is a splendid case study of Leadership. To begin, Lincoln was actually a one man lonely team swarmed by experts who wished to capitalise on his popularity. Towards the end, he had nurtured his own team to finish the job.

Charles De Gaulle, a loner, brilliant French military strategist was denied his day in preparations against the Germans. He fled France the day Paris fell and was sentenced to death for desertion. He was back in the middle of Normandy Landings. To begin, he just had two other men in the team and had to struggle through many years to deliver. He led and inspired France to become a great nation once again.

Japan and South Korea; two countries rose within a few decades to become global actors. Societal ethics and character aside, both were fortunate to have an occupational administrator like General Douglas McArthur. Like a true leader, McArthur went through reverses, defeats, victories, criticism and resurgence to fulfil a promise he made to his defeated soldiers in battle. He won the war both from military and economic perspectives.

Though much has been written on the Chinese Revolution, China actually turned the corner under Chairman Deng. His policies with a small team in due course transformed the country into an economic juggernaut.

Malaysia is another success story. Dr. Mohhatir was able to infuse a new spirit and ironically exploit the same Chinese Social Capital that once fought an insurgency against the state.

Post Qaid e Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s leadership crises are perennial. Fate denied Jinnah time to forge an efficient team for nation building. He himself referred to his team as Khota Sikkas (worthless coins). His 11 August Speech to the Constituent Assembly was completely blacked out by vested interests. Muslim Leaguers who inherited his party were never die hard and ideological members. The merry go round alternating between military dictatorships, civil rule and sometimes joint suzerainty over Pakistan (we do ours, you do yours) with bureaucratic oversight did not work. Within 25 years, Pakistan was reduced by half. What remains has remained in turmoil, insurgencies and militancies. This Achilles heel is like an octopus’ tentacles that never allowed Jinnah’s Pakistan to grow (Pakistan’s Achilles Heel. Nation 10 January 2010).

Bhutto could have turned it round. He was young, educated, charismatic and a visionary rebel. Lamentably, he was a product of the system. Despite his vision and charisma, his nationalisations, isolation of the sub nationalities and political victimisations became his stumbling blocks. Justice, sincerity and good governance were never the forte of the first or later PPP dispensations. The lesson leant was that a true vision if adulterated is no vision.

Nawaz Sharif was a handpicked blue eyed. He could never grow out of the biases induced in him. Being a successful industrialist, people expected him to deliver with single minded devotion to development. He chose foraying into systemic changes and played into the hands of elites and power politics. Nothing has prevented his party from showing Punjab as a model of development and good governance. Yet, unlike his previous tenure, Shahbaz Sharif has been constrained and tentative in his imposing demeanour.

The present dispensation is a domestic cum international political compromise based on a shady agreement never made public. Having ceded initiative on major policy issues, there is nothing worthy of the credentials to describe it.

So who can steer Pakistan out of the crises towards a strong, self reliant, economically prosperus and a proud Pakistan?

First, all successful leaders have been men of intense concentration. They have spent years in the wilderness before their time came. They commanded charisma, demanded attention and earned respect. They were adorable, imbued with sincerity, integrity, selfless devotion and a doer attitude. This leader unlike the past has to be a new one; unconventional, with proven personal character traits, ability to resist praise, down to earth, visionary and nurtured in the wild rather than the establishment.

Secondly, the leader must internalise the Lahore Resolution and Jinnah’s speech to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan as flawlessly as Jinnah did. He has to be acceptable to the entire range of diversity inside Pakistan. Such a leader must possess the twin attributes of knowledge and wisdom, proud that he has learnt so much, humble that he knows no more.

Thirdly, this leader must seize the moment to inspire his people.

For long I have been an advocate of a new social contract. I take the liberty to indicate such a leader from within us.

For a long time, he remained an in-out member of his team. He used the time of his exclusions to concentrate and meditate. He was never considered leadership material and was handed the captaincy when no other alternative existed. He rallied an army of aging men, unproven youngsters and fearless boys into a world winning combination. His leadership skills still dominate the captaincy debates world over.

He visualised a hospital and accomplished much more. He visualised a university and it became the best education environment in Pakistan. He went into the floods and returned with a bumper wheat crop. Despite no parliamentary strength, he is dominating air time and headlines world over. Four successive international surveys have declared him the choicest for Pakistan. He has remained establishment’s wonder boy for over 15 years but has resisted the devil’s temptation.

Even his personal foibles have not deterred his resolve. He knows he is vulnerable on his off stump but has taken his guard determinedly against some very hostile bowling. Like ever, his team is a blend of experience, youth and vigour. He knows that he is the indomitable KAPTAAN with traits to steer the country out of troubled waters.

Is Imran Khan the Godot we have been waiting for?

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

PAKISTAN UNDER SIEGE

2011-07-05T00:39:00.000-07:00

The international and national media are speculating events that would lead to the end-game in Afghanistan. Commentators world over are drawing different scenarios on how USA would hedge its interests in the region against Al Qaeda, its affiliates and nuclear proliferation (declared) and its political economy (China, Central Asia and Pakistan, undeclared). This debate was energised by the US operations that killed Osama Bin Laden followed by the decision by President Obama to reverse the ORBAT of 33,000 US surge troops Embedded within these debates are deliberate leaks to coerce Pakistan into pliability.

The debate is also a rationale for an existential victory (disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda) and an elusive victory (secure Afghanistan within the context of Great Game). Also tucked between the failure of the Third Surge and the Victory Speech is Obama’s AF-PAK Strategy, a sticky mess that will not allow USA to let go; with the potential to sink the entire region with it. Perhaps, these events and the change of US Command in Afghanistan also bring into contention, the superimposed COIN Strategy (a lesson learnt from Iraq) and McChrystal’s painstaking JSOC Strategy. This strategy was framed under the tutelage of Dick Cheney to pursue objectives framed by the elitist group of US strategists including Henry Kissinger to control the region and tame Pakistan. Though JSOC covert operations began much earlier, it was officially given space to operate in Pakistan in 2007. This is precisely why I had written in an article titled ‘Time to eat Grass’ in 2008 that instability of Pakistan was the key to a successful US strategy.

It also brings into sharper focus the debate between the military experts and counter insurgency experts in the USA on how best to ensure US interests (not peace) in the region. Nothing can stop USA from declaring victory in a war fought for its own interests; and who cares if millions of Afghans and Pakistanis are left to contend with the mess left behind. But will US withdraw after having followed a plan relentlessly at a very high cost and intrigue?

Let readers not be misled. This is not the truth. The truth is that US is here to stay for an indefinite period. The corollaries of the plan secretly compartmentalised from each other for over a decade are now piecing together. The US game in the region has entered its most dangerous phase.

The State of Pakistan is equally responsible for the mess it allowed to be created within its regions. Unlike USA that has always had a flexible, well thought narrative to shape the environment, Pakistan has never cared or bothered to evolve a proper cohesive plan? The entire operation in the past ten years has been reactive and the sole domain of the Army. I do not think that the establishment ever evaluated alarm bells being raised by both Pakistani, foreign analysts and writers. It seems that having remained in constant touch with USA through military diplomacy and foreign office, the ability to think clearly was eclipsed by being an insider and exclusivity syndrome. Sermons by US ambassadors, visiting dignitaries and the façade of aid also played its part in lowering the guard. Hence, step by step, Pakistan allowed the entire backwash of US operations to be pushed into Pakistan under a misperceived strategic concept and false assurances.

On the political front, the US compliant Pakistani government ensured the meltdown of Pakistan. It never took the basic measures to prevent the economic collapse, squandered opportunities arising out of natural disasters, ensured that energy crises persist in all its forms and manifestations, and keeps the political landscape destabilised. The rulers never gave an impression that the country faced serious challenges to its existence. Rather they have presided to a point wherein a complete melt-down becomes a possibility. Pakistan’s decision to roll back the Tethyan Copper projects and reluctance to resolve the Balochistan crises also fits the same plan. We now have a situation where the army is sucked into a difficult situation; a political dispensation that does not care for national interests.

If readers flash back to my article ‘The Wilting Obama Surge’ I wrote, “It appears that the ambitious third surge had a multi directional approach towards a military exit from Afghanistan based on half facts and assumptions derived from institutional biases. The hypothesis was too simplified through exclusion of both hardcore Taliban and Pakistan. Based on a misleading premise, it led to the logical”. In the next article titled, ‘The AFPAK Strategy’, I wrote “Nothing had worked as per the plan; neither the carrot, nor the stick nor stacks of cash for the breakaway Taliban…It was indeed at the heels of this failure that USA decided to co-opt Pakistan in the Strategic Dialogue diplomacy. Guns and Roses were offered to win over Pakistan’s military establishment towards a US driven operation in the region… but as events proved, Pakistan resisted the trap. US could not have its way and a new strategy became inevitable’. Rather than the military, the USA next chose to rely more on its civilian counter-part. I also explained that this strategy was based around JSOC, drones, CIA covert and sting operations. Already Raymond Davis, Kakul raid, Mehran Base and many incursions into Pakistan from Kunnar have come to pass. This is only the beginning and Pakistan army will be ultimately sucked into fighting its internal front.

In tandem with this destabilising strategy is the latest US NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2012 that sanctions military operations beyond Al Qaeda and the Taliban to any associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States. Counter proliferation efforts are also part of this Act. It also sanctions assistance for such operations to allied and friendly nations (India, Afghanistan and Pakistan). At a first glance apart from what is enunciated, the Act is also an implied threat to Pakistan. It is this pressure that USA will leverage with Pakistan to force the Taliban into negotiations on a timed continuum to extract the maximum dog-fighting from Pakistan Army. Further destabilisation will enhance US prospects in the region.

On the diplomatic front, USA made considerable progress. Tripartite talks in Tehran had US approval. The bulk of logistic traffic is already shifted to Iran and Central Asia. UN has been re-engaged in the peace negotiations in Afghanistan. Consequently the troops that would ultimately be withdrawn will not be the all the surge element but rather logisticians and its protective detachments, intelligence analysts and non essentials.

The lines across the Hindukush range will be kept secure with the Northern Alliance, New Afghan Security Forces, ISAF, Indians and maybe even Iran backed warlords. The South comprising Pashtun areas will be left open for attacks from the air, drones and selective military operations from fortresses at Bagram, Kandhar, Kost, Jalalabad etc. It is also ominous that USA has already abandoned large parts of Kunnar, Laghman and Nuristan where the anti Pakistan Taliban and Al Qaeda are based. These elements have already launched attacks in Mohmand, Bajaur and Dir.

As Pakistan destabilises, this intensity and frequency will increase. Ultimately, drawing borders with blood, USA could have a corridor through Balochistan with twin objectives to contain Iran and tap the resources.

But will the US be able to achieve all these objectives?

No one including USA have all the cards to bring stability to Afghanistan. If history is an indicator, they will not.

First, the Pashtun resistance in Afghanistan called Taliban will not allow any US bases in Afghanistan even for the sake of peace. History tells us that they will fight on. As Pakistan destabilises further, so will its resolve to gel with the forces fighting foreign occupation.

Secondly, other state actors in the region will also exploit these sentiments to advance their interests. These actors include India, Russia, China and Iran.

Thirdly, for nearly four decades, the Pashtun resistance in Afghanistan is emotionally tied to Pakistan. They cannot be used against Pakistan. However, the notion of a separate Pashtun state after the practical division of Afghanistan may materialise into a security threat to Pakistan.

Fourthly, nuclear capitulation of Pakistan will have to be a surgical procedure. Given the capabilities of JSOC, this is not possible. As a prelude, USA and UN will have to reach some agreement with the Pakistani establishment. But the moment such intentions become visible, Pakistan will explode. Military revolts and large scale insurrections cannot be ruled out. The WOT will over flow the brims of Pakistan.

USA would have paid the price of its open ended narratives in AFPAK.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Opinions/Columns/05-Jul-2011/Pakistan-under-siege

SENSATIONALISM: THE UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL

2011-06-20T07:03:00.001-07:00

In the past two months the armed forces, ISI and law enforcement agencies have been a target of unprecedented bashing and criticism. If one were to believe the twitters and blogs, the entire security apparatus of Pakistan is discredited, disgraced and hanging by tenterhooks. Private TV channels are playing both sides and keeping their bets hedged either way. The informal social media, a revolution of sorts, have become vitriolic. Even positives are being tainted with sarcasm and pun. A certain responsible journalist spewing venom each day finds Fauji Fault with the rescue of the besieged crew of My Suez. The entire drama is akin to a punching bag. The US stands tall to spar the face; our very own take on the proverbial ‘below the belt’.

The US is talking of the much expected withdrawal at the heels of three failing surges from Afghanistan with a new mission statement that replaces Afghanistan with Pakistan. As the events unfold so does my thesis written in 2000 and published in a National Daily in 2007, “Pakistanis need to understand that in the US scheme of things, the degradation of the army is a key plank in the objective to rid Pakistan of its nuclear capability”. What could be a better shaped environment than a collapsed economy (the real GDP excluding inflation a lowly 1.3), energy shortages close to a blackout, discredited political institutions, rising poverty, and an army fighting the militancy and the media bashing.

The parallels with the Battle of Plassey (Nation 9 May 2010) where men of elastic conscience abetted the mercantilism victory are beyond symbolic. The puzzled crossword has reached a point where a sane normal Pakistani is bound to ask whom to trust and who not. More than the trust deficit that exists between USA and Pakistan, I am worried at the direction in which the national debate on the credibility of the armed forces is headed. Pakistan’s security apparatus is the worst thing that ever happened to Pakistan is the local informed war cry.

So let us begin where it all started.

As written by me repeatedly, the Kakul Operation to kill OBL had complicity from within. As events unfold and arrests of fifth columnists become public, there is much more than appears to the public eye. I may not be surprised if sooner or later, this complicity links to high quarters. Indiscriminate visas, container scandals, free movements of US operatives and souring of the Army-State Department relationship in the past year are all indicators of a division within the establishment. Lack of assertiveness on part of the army also links to the extensions. The surprise and consequent paralysis put the armed forces on the defensive An army not knowing how to duck, hook or evade this barrage of short pitched deliveries. It was a script it was never prepared for and a hypothesis it was always shy of discussing.

This was followed by the Mehran Base raid. As asserted by me, too little was known to the public. Sensational investigative journalism added to the second barrage. As events are proving, new revelations will become public adding more twists to the theories.

The Mehran issue inevitably links to the murder of Syed Saleem Shahzad, a lone ranger investigative journalist who operated outside the domain of Pakistan’s media czars. The fact that his murder was brutal cannot be ignored and must be investigated to bring the culprits to the book. Having followed his reports on the web for the past fifteen years, I found them sensational and repeatedly falsified by events. He was a young, ambitious and romantic journalist who loved to link a known fact to his inter twined knowledge of the militant groups and Al Qaeda, invariably giving a false sense of reality and inside knowledge. Much of what he reported can also be found on the Indian South Asian Analysis Group website that extensively reports on the terror trails, militant groups and ISI linkages with terrorists. Saleem Shahzad despite his best intentions had a shortcoming that sprang from his romanticism. He had built a cognitive construct of jungles, rugged mountainous HinduKush Range from where the phoenix of Al Qaeda would ultimately rise to defeat USA. It was usually this construct that he fine tuned with bits of authentic information and propaganda in vogue that served both the militancy exaggeration and US propaganda. He was always in quest for a new story with a new angle; sometimes he was also spot-on.

As early as 25 March this year, he reported that USA had finally traced the whereabouts and movements of OBL and some operations would follow. Unfortunately amidst the many yarns that he spelled, this accurate information went unnoticed. Who knows what else he knew and what contacts on this subject he was making after the killing of OBL? Now that all intelligence agencies of Pakistan are on the trail of his killers, truth will come out. As an analyst I find the motives of getting rid of him more on the OBL count than the contacts of militants in the security establishment. The media showed no urge to investigate beyond the obvious.

The rangers shooting is another case in point of unjustified military bashing. Rangers are a federal and civilian law enforcement agency under the Ministry of Interior. All military officials posted in Rangers are deputed to the Ministry of Interior and paid by them. Their services under the prevailing law can only be requisitioned by the Nazims/Administrators/DCOs functioning under the Chief Secretary and Provincial Home Departments. Their deployments are to be covered by administrative representatives and the judiciary. They fire only on orders of the civilian representatives. The chain of military command never comes in except where these forces are put in the operational control of the army like in FATA. However, in this case, without resort to the legal and functional positions, the media chose to single out the military leadership on a gory incident for which it was never responsible.

This entire gossip is a start up to the vicious anti military campaign. Readers must beware that many more stories, more sensationalism and events will take place with fingers apparently pointing towards the army and ISI. Many Pakistanis considering themselves moderates will join the mill. The military will be demoralised. It will question its missions. A dissent that never existed could set in. At the same time the US Psychological Warfare and Propaganda machinery will keep providing new leaks to its media. The objective will be to discredit the army and plummet it to its lowest morale levels. Combat stress and fatigue will set it. The final objective is to bring the organisation to its knees to achieve the ultimate objective; rid Pakistan of nukes.

To avoid this, the military has to be more transparent. It has to become more proactive through the ISPR. It also has to become more assertive with USA and make the government realise that it cannot fight a war in isolation. The Politicians and Civil Society have to realise that a lopsided National Power equation is doomed to fail. As poverty rises so will the crime and militancy. Economic emergency has to be declared; and renewed effort launched to jump-start the economy. If this not happen in a few months it is they themselves to blame for the ugly turn of events that may ensue.

Amidst all this confusion we must not ignore some good news. Another in a series of endemic attacks from Kunar has been beaten back. Pakistan Navy, over ruling the orders of the International Task Force in the Aden Corridor has rescued the besieged crew of My Suez. The resilient Pakistani Captain of the ship Syed Wasi is proudly bringing his flock home. Can our leaders learn something from him?

Amidst all the disinformation, Pakistan has once again done it.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

OF NARRATIVE, STRANDS AND STRINGS

2011-06-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

Recent events in and around Pakistan have widened the fissures within a fragmenting Pakistani society. Sensationalism combined with opaqueness in policy has contributed to speculation and rumours mill tearing at the seams. If tweets, blogs and views of an educated liberal class of Pakistanis are a measure, the events are certainly taking Pakistan to the gallows with testimonies from our very own.

Nothing more highlights the absence of an informed internal debate on the calculus of the National Power/National Interests or the pressing issues of national well being and nationism. At the governmental level, nothing positive and redeeming is happening. The war cabinet has never been commissioned. Defence Committee of Cabinet is ineffective and marred by divisions. The leadership environment in crises is nonexistent. Ruing such initiatives, I had written in ‘Rising Pakistan: A New Narrative’ that the media would soon relish an opportunity of sensationalism never witnessed before. It happened earlier than I expected.

As regards Kakul, it is yet to be ascertained if there was complicity from within. As a combater it is impossible for me to believe that Strategic Military Surprise had the nation confused for 24 hours. Refuelling arrangements at Kala Dhaka lend credence to my complicity theory.

The attack on Mehran Base was a bombshell with insufficient explanations. How was it possible that the terrorists achieved surprise? Did the local security in its rush cut off the route of withdrawal and trapped some militants while many others firing rockets into the aircrafts managed to escape undetected? Have the crossing points on the stream used by the militants been examined for any signs leading to a rendezvous? And have all the empties of rockets fired at aircrafts been collected? Why were the terrorists allowed to pin down security forces for 17 hours and why ground combat troops held back? Where was the Joint Staff Headquarters with all its coordination? Unless these facts are known, the nation will continue to speculate and divide within.

The murder of Syed Saleem Shahzad, the one man team of investigative journalism needs to be investigated to meet the ends of justice and punish those who killed him most brutally. The incidence has provided the much needed impetus to the propaganda and media tirades of a certain segment who see the military and intelligence establishments of Pakistan as enemies and use the propaganda unleashed by the western media against its own establishment as gun powder.

Lack of ‘need to know transparency’ at the ends of the armed forces and intelligence are providing space to both well meaning and ulterior motivated criticism of the armed forces. Why is it that suddenly the western media, White House critics, Pentagon, segments of political parties and some Pakistani media also join the same chorus?

A national army cannot remain divorced from the events that take place around it. Inasmuch as the nation, the events narrated above must have definitely dented military morale crucial for a battlefield. They realise that unlike Swat, the entire nation is not behind them. Amidst this mist of events, half truths, rhetoric and disinformation, they need a cause worth fighting for. In the backdrop of over 7000 casualties, many would be questioning if it was ever worth it and to what purpose. This is a most unsuitable environment to throw an army into large scale counter insurgency operations when other pre requisites emanating from the civil sector are totally missing. In any army, soldiers fight through motivation and that is just what the army needs.

Barawal Valley in Dir has been under constant conventional attacks launched from Kunar Afghanistan in the past few days. Earlier too, this sector had witnessed large scale organised attacks. Why is this pressure being brought on the Northern Flank of Mohmand Agency again facing Kunar? What have the NATO Forces and Afghan Military done so far to stop such incursions and who keeps supplying these insurgents with reinforcements and logistics. It is no coincidence, that when the security forces carried out search and clearing operations in the past, the NATO Forces failed to provide the much needed anvil. The militants were able to escape from one side and enter from another. The same is also true of the South Waziristan Operations followed by the usual accusations from CENTCOM that Pakistani security forces lack the holding capacities in areas that they secure. Will future operations in FATA and PATA witness the same levels of coordination? If they do, it means nothing.

Both USA and the Pentagon need to realise that in the military strategy the credibility of intent, clarity in mission and professionalism in execution cannot be over ruled by intelligence intrigues. All operations executed by Pakistan to first set its own house in order are to be supported through intelligence and the military anvil.

It appears that none of the Politicians in Pakistan realise that the country is fighting a war against its own attrition. Grateful to an NRO that puts each one of them in power in some capacity, they are content to play their familiar politics and wait for the time when the security apparatus is decimated enough to give them absolute power. The President and the Prime Minister neither seem to share the security concerns of the establishment nor willing to visit the embattled field formations. The economic and other policies being implemented do not indicate that Pakistan is passing through its worse crises, nor enough to arrest the momentum of constant attrition. With the economy effectively rolled back, factionalism proliferating, growing urban terrorism and the defence establishment constantly embarrassed, the scene will inevitably shift to the heartland Punjab and expanses of simmering Balochistan. To stop this we all have to become Pakistan’s Pakistanis.

It appears that the military leadership too has run out of ideas, primarily because its security narrative based on a two front war was deficient in addressing the issues arising out of militancy and US cooperation. The narrative lacked vital sociological inputs for a long drawn conflict. The assumptions that formed the important plank of the counter insurgency strategy were faulty. Having ceded initiative early on, it was never in a position to seize initiative crucial to a conflict. Its tactical military successes were never backed by viable and credible socio-political initiatives. In a faulty socio-politico-military calculus, there never was that civil backup to take over from where the military left.

Given that the same dispensations are likely to continue, so will the attrition. Much will depend on how USA treats Pakistan and how Pakistan’s leaders react.

On its part, Pakistan must insist that it first needs to put its own house in order by defeating the militants within. This will take the form of selective operations based on accurate intelligence. The cost will be urban terrorism and heavy loss of life and infrastructure. At the same time it must prevail upon Afghan groups amenable to it to negotiate peace. However, this part can only be ensured if the entire nation is united under a new national narrative.

The recent budget has indicated that there is none.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

WAS PAKISTAN READY ON 11 MAY 1998?

2011-05-27T08:50:00.000-07:00

When Narasimha Rao, the Indian National Congress Prime Minister called for snap elections in 1996, it was time for Pakistan to brace itself for the events particularly if BJP came to power. BJP had posed serious challenges to the INC coalition on charges of corruption and was poised to electioneer on issues that were most endearing to the philosophy of BHARAT VERSHA. Pre election opinion polls indicated that BJP was most likely to emerge as the single largest party. The most challenging question for Pakistan’s security planners was; would BJP follow its rhetoric of nuclear testing if it came to power?

As destiny would have it, I was the only officer in the General Staff with sound academic credentials in Nuclear Proliferation and Strategy. Though the study was simultaneously being carried out by many concerned branches, the ultimate responsibility of carrying out the final analysis for the General Staff in GHQ fell on my shoulders. Destiny placed me in the footsteps of a great Pakistani diplomat, Mr. S M Burke, who had been most instrumental in procuring Pakistan’s first nuclear reactor from Canada.

To carry out an accurate study, it was time for an in depth appraisal of known Indian nuclear capabilities and development. The first step in the study was to pin point the deficiencies in India’s technical nuclear capabilities and what were they most likely to do to address them. Within a week, my team had read through and sifted extremely important findings about the Indian Nuclear and Space Development Program.

1. We knew that the explosion in 1974 was a conventional 1950 design and needed to be fine tuned for confirmation and miniaturisation.

2. We knew that based on decay rates, India needed further data not only to confirm its previous testing but also calculate the life of the war heads.

3. We knew that though India was already refining plutonium, the fissile material had never been tested in an explosion and the subsequent data crucial to war head designs.

4. We knew that the war head designs had to be compact so as to be placed in the tips of the delivery systems. Boosted weapons and miniaturisation were therefore a necessity.

5. We understood that the quest for Bharat Versha would be incomplete without India boasting thermo nuclear devices.

Simultaneously, through the recently introduced internet, we got a special connection and hooked on to a satellite that transmitted pictures of Pokhran with a 48 hours delay. Initially there was no activity but by February 1998, we began noticing track marks and considerable activity. We estimated three months before India could resume nuclear testing.

At the same time we continued receiving inputs from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, diplomatic chatter and the intelligence agencies of Pakistan. These bits and pieces were accurately fitting into our knowledge base and the photography. By mid February, the analysis was ready and subjected to an in house discussion in the General Staff Branch after which it was put before the COAS, General Jehanghir Karamat. The preparations in Pakistan began.

Due to India’s limited capability in enriching uranium and processing plutonium, we had reached the conclusion that India will conduct the following explosions.

1. A repeat of 1974 design for confirmation.

2. A boosted weapon system based on a plutonium design.

3. A two stage thermo nuclear testing with the first stage based on a conventional design or a boosted weapon to produce the heat necessary for a nuclear fusion.

4. We were of the opinion that cognisant of depleting fissile material stockpiles, India would not carry out more than three tests but at the same time test warhead designs without the fissile material.

I was on a physical workout on 12^Th May 1998 when Director General Military Operations Major General Tauqir Zia called me to inform that India had carried out some nuclear explosions. Glued to the ZEE News, we saw the breaking news. There was no surprise and we worked for the next 48 hours. These 48 hours in the planning room were the best I had amongst senior officers. There was indeed urgency but no air of typical military seniority. We were all one, taking turns and handing out refreshments to each other irrespective of our ranks.

In days to come, the accuracy of our study was vindicated. The graphs of our monitoring stations indicated three major bangs, the last one flattening out. The first was a fission reaction of considerable yield. The second indicated a smaller yield confirming it was plutonium based boosted weapon. But the flattening out of the third explosion indicated that the second phase of the thermo nuclear device had fizzled out.

For my team, it was a moment of extreme satisfaction, pride and humility. Based on research, conclusions drawn through empiricism and important intelligence gathering, we had ensured that Pakistan was not caught napping. We had given enough lead time to our scientists to prepare and conduct a series of nuclear testing as a credible and befitting response. All this would never have been possible without the confidence that senior officers reposed in us and the guidance of Dr. Zafar Iqbal Cheema, the Chairman of the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, Qaid e Azam University Islamabad.

With technical issues left to our scientists, engineers and logisticians, it was now time to carry out an in depth appraisal of the international reaction and budgetary consequences for Pakistan. It was also time to lay the foundations of a Nuclear Policy and Doctrine that would ensure a durable peace in the region and foresee a negotiated settlement of all disputes with India.

One of the most important conclusions of our study was that the post nuclear Pakistan had to be more responsible. The message went unnoticed by the political establishment. General Jehanghir Karamat had proposed a Committee of Defence and National Security (CDNS) as the single competent forum to pull Pakistan out of its political and economic crises. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif saw it as an affront to the political establishment and a precursor to praetorianism. Being a gentleman that he was, General Karamat resigned and with him the vision of a peaceful, self reliant and strong Pakistan.

With the new COAS, Pakistan soon changed course and the coterie plunged Pakistan into its deepest crises one after the other. I wonder if it would ever be possible to put back the clock.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

RISING PAKISTAN: A NEW NARRATIVE (The First Line of Defence in a Long War)

2011-05-21T05:34:00.000-07:00

The Kakul news buster is relegated to distant memories of many? Some who see nothing positive coming through a corrupt and conceited dispensation; some happy for the knock it gave to the maligned Ghairat Brigade, a term used for anyone who argues against unilateral US intervention in Pakistan’s affairs. Much that I wrote in ‘Pakistan’s Long War has begun’(http://www.opinion-maker.org/2011/05/pakistans-long-war-has-begun/)a fortnight ago has proven correct as also vindicated by the latest spate of Wikileaks. Unfortunately, the priority of the media was to debate sensationalism rather than conduct an informed and sane discourse on the events and how Pakistan should brace itself for the future.

In reality nothing has gone unnoticed by affected parties. The media would soon relish an opportunity of sensationalism never witnessed before, while USA equipped with a trove of information will become a bigger bully. The Presidency will smile away while the ISI and Military are pushed back. Meanwhile the non state actors have begun to strike with vengeance. If true, the appointment of Saif al-Adel as the new Al Qaeda leader will rekindle Saudi-Iranian rivalry on Pakistan’s battle fields. All this will come to pass in an environment where the State is not in control.

In the dirty and cantankerous wargame of intelligence agencies, deceitful verbal demarches revealed only by Wikileaks, proves that the Government and Military General Staff has run out of ideas and lacks vision to seize the initiative crucial to a conflict. To rub salt to injury, they also lack ideas in totality. Pakistan, as in the past appears best prepared to oversee its own attrition.

The much hyped Joint Session of the Parliament proved one of the many jokes played with the nation through a media sullying on Breaking News devoid of intellectualism. The quick Kerry visit ensured in the interim, that the nation does not galvanise over national security, and rather sow suspicions and doubts. His sprint to the Army house even before he had seen the President and Prime Minister ensured that he projected sufficient compliancy to make high politics smoother. On return, according to a renowned Pakistani journalist, he announced that he had managed to cajole Pakistan’s Military and Intelligence leadership into commitments for concise, accurate and verifiable military actions. It meant that the Joint Resolution was a still birth whilst ensuring that all domestic ire will be deflected towards the Military and ISI to the fulfilment of US objectives. As written by me in ‘US War of Attrition’ (http://sharafs.wordpress.com/2009/04/) in April 2009, “In the background and away from the eyes of observers, the dirty game of intelligence and counter intelligence operations will continue with ferocity and mutual betrayal. Politicians ready to sell their mothers will be engaged and mutual erosion of the state of Pakistan will continue”.

Even though the nation has been continuously fed lies, the unending façade has made everything readable and transparent. Had the policy planners war-gamed the entire scenario since 2001 half as accurately as my articles, Pakistan could well have been on the road to prosperity and a valued commodity on the international scene. The ways the country and its affairs have been run ever since are conspicuous by the absence of the aspirations of the people and development. With such negativity and plummeting socio-economic conditions, conflict is inevitable. However, common man well aware of the conceit continues to hold back in hope of a just universal franchise to bring a change.

So, what is the way forward?

The Myth of Tied Trade and Aid

I belong to the same school as Dr. Ishrat, Dr. Ashfaq and Yusaf Nazar that considers US aid to Pakistan as dispensable. Blessed with skilled labour, efficient white collar force and abundance of resources, Pakistan’s economy is capable of bouncing back within a year, particularly when the agriculture sector and overseas work force are capable of giving that jump start for the first two years. Pakistan’s economists and social scientists must prepare a detailed and comprehensive study to analyse the effects if US and IMF aid and loans are cut off? In 1998 Pakistan absorbed the shock and despite all mismanagement, the signs of growth were positive by 2000. Remember, in the past Pakistan lived through 13 years of sanctions with inflation and consumer price index in check.

A Constitutional Gap: National Security through Elements of National Power

As I wrote in, ‘Challenges to Pakistan’s Nuclear Stability’ in Nation, the limbo lacks the political credibility to handle a nuclear deterrence regime. Private armies, illegal immigrant terrorists, USA and NATO all violate Pakistan’s territorial integrity with impunity. There is undeniably a constitutional gap in Pakistan’s security management. The military oversees the strategic aspects while social and economic security aspects are relegated to the Babus. There is no infusion of the public aspirations in the security paradigm of the state. Much that Pakistan tries to safe guard on the strategic front is lost tamely just because the elements within the paradigm of national power are not synchronised. Pakistan’s Policy Planners and Researchers must sit together and formulate a new National Security Policy that truly reflects and implements the aspirations for a progressive, self reliant, credible and peaceful Pakistan.

Role of Parliament, Media and Researchers

Oblivious of the larger canvas, the Parliament and media of Pakistan are talking tactical matters. Let aside identify, they have not dilated on the irritants and concords in Pakistan-US relations. There is no debate on how to handle relations with USA in future or what should be Pakistan’s role and contribution to this conflict; most importantly the diverse strains of militancy and Al Qaeda. The Parliamentarians, establishment, media and opinion makers of Pakistan have to find snap and correct answers to these questions in days.

Handling US Contractor Recruitments

Of late hundreds of soldiers and officers particularly from the Special Services Group have joined private US contractors. The Ministry of Defence must recall all these individuals, scrutinise their activities and formulate a policy subject to Military Law that ensures that these retired personnel do not work against the interests of Pakistan.

Handling of Remittances from Abroad

From 2000-2006, Pakistan’s banking system was deluged with remittances that the Central bank failed to handle, something I analysed in my series of articles ‘Pakistan’s Economic Hitmen’. This resulted in a windfall of trillions of rupees that added to inflation, consumerism, defaults and bubbles. Pakistan’s economic revival plans must ensure sound policies to tap this huge national resource of expatriates for national development that is productive, sustainable and growth oriented.

Regulation of NATO-ISAF and Afghanistan Traffic

Like the contractors of India in World War II, a class of dirty rich suppliers and contractors is growing in Pakistan; courtesy supply chains for NATO-ISAF. Most of this traffic is unregulated, dubious and highly corruptive. Over 22,000 containers have disappeared purportedly hundreds with sizable military arsenals that can be both used by militants and US agents to pre position hardware for Cold Start Type Operations. The government should immediately call a national security conference over this issue and adopt a policy duly ratified by the Parliament on the following lines: -

1. All container traffic should be shifted to Pakistan railways. The cost of fencing and security of the railway system should be met by NATO-ISAF. This will also save the road network of Pakistan from further deterioration.

2. Custom Clearance at the ports of entry should be detailed, intrusive and all containers must be scanned by thermal imagers.

3. The railway should operate this container traffic with a high speed battery system while the Ministry of Interior should ensure all safety measures.

4. Pakistan Customs must verify containers at the port of exit.

5. All containers must be tagged with GPS and satellite tracking to ensure they reach their destinations. This tagging should be a joint and shared activity of the Ministry of Interior, Railways, Customs, NATO-ISAF and Afghanistan.

A new Social Contract

As reflected by Election Commission itself and the complexities of the NRO, the present political dispensation is a farce lacking representative credibility. Following the Supreme Court orders on revision of electoral rolls, the country must immediately proceed towards snap elections that are free, fair and efficiently managed.

Last but not the least, Instability in Pakistan is an important plank of shaping of environments by USA in the region. Notwithstanding veracity, the timed release of Wikileaks has to be viewed with circumspection. Another rumour calls on the ISI chief to resign under US pressure. Why must USA be interested in his removal if he is compliant to their policies? Or are we witnessing a last battle at an individual level by a patriotic Pakistani?

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

THE CONFLICT OF GEOGRAPHY

2011-05-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

Published in NATION Pakistan on 25 Dec 2010

The message being sent to Pakistan in the post Wikileaks scenario is ominous and bereft of diplomatic dignity. “We will continue to insist to Pakistani leaders that terrorist safe havens within their borders must be dealt with,” said President Obama. Retired Gen. Jack Keane, put it more bluntly: “Don’t just put a finger in their chest, put a fist in their chest.” As predicated in my columns, USA is expanding the drone war into Pakistan while our national leaders continue to put a façade of protest in the backdrop of tacit compliance.

If USA is adamant in pushing its own interests in Afghanistan and remains insensitive to Pakistan’s security, ethnic and other social concerns, Pakistan is well within its right to pursue its own ends of policy. After all it was these objectives that formed the basis of Pakistan’s cooperation with the US in the war against USSR and allowed free access to Afghans for over two decades. More than 70% population of Afghanistan is ethnically, linguistically and culturally linked to Pakistan. Despite the Durand Line, the ethnic Pashtuns and Gujjars have been flowing to and fro for centuries. The Powindas, as we call them, have rights to grazing meadows, encampments and movements as if it was their own country. Cognitively they are as much Pakistani as those living on this side of the divide. A deliberate effort is now being made to label this cross border movement as sanctuaries and lump the blame for failures on Pakistan.

Pakistan’s objectives have been consistent and USA was aware of these sensitivities once it embarked on its Shock and Awe in Afghanistan. To expect Pakistan to forego these historic, cultural, family and religious linkages to the chagrin of its public sentiments and long term interests is tantamount to asking Pakistan’s surrender.

Agreed, that within the big power play, small countries enjoy little freedom of action, but as the war of non state actors expands, the lesson is clear; it is possible to resist and defy super powers with a cause that has public appeal. Non State Actors like Al Qaeda, Taliban and the Wikileaks have proved so and Nation states backed by its people must do so as well.

On the systemic spectrum of national power, these idiosyncratic notions of leadership, national character, morale and ability to seize fleeting opportunities is what all successful nations of the world have capitalised on. Many have reinvented themselves in crises. Vietnam, Sri Lanka, China, Germany, the Balkans, Iran, Venezuela and the people of Afghanistan poignantly demonstrate what national will and character can accomplish. Amongst these, countries have achieved indigenous self reliance while challenging the international equilibrium through prolonged struggles based on inherent motivations, dignity and self respect.

USA too went through this phase during the American Civil War but forgot the sociology of a conflict when it shifted its national purpose and strategy to the use of Long Arm for global dominance. As more economic centres to balance the US Global Dominance will emerge, the competition will stiffen and tensions heighten. Hence before this multilayered balance of power stabilises, USA seeks to permanently entrench itself in the region to reap resource benefits and dominate the underbelly of Russia and China. In the bargain, it also establishes a strategic presence in the Islamic Heartland that it perceives as a future threat much beyond the non state actors.

In this quest to seize the global resources of the future, US in the short and medium term will not hesitate to use its Long Arm through fanning, prolonging and expanding conflicts in the zones of strategic importance. The entire arc from West to Central Asia is one such zone of conflict in which USA factorises Israel and India to act as two important citadels on the flanks. Pakistan and Afghanistan are in the eye of this storm.

This entire zone lacks democratic credentials. Most of the countries in the region are Muslim with dictatorships and kingdoms supported by USA. The publicly acclaimed US slogan of bringing democracy is a farce to say the least. It supports dictators and divisive religious policies to cement its presence in the region to the extent of interventions at the micro levels. USA calls all the shots.

First in line are the dictators and kings who need a US umbrella for their survival and reciprocate the services by allowing their sovereignty to be nibbled. The Saudis will not hesitate to request USA to bomb Iran to pulp or choose to look the other way if Israel does so. Egyptians and Jordanians will look the other way when Israel kills and maims Palestinians or constructs illegal housings.

Then there are countries vacillating between dictatorships and sham democracies with weak institutions, dependant on US/Arab support for economic and political survival. These countries are also exposed to the strings of International Financial Institutions whose controls lie in Washington and represent another dimension of non state interventionism. Pakistanis will permit micro management of its affairs and look the other way when US drones kill more innocent than Al Qaeda. Afghans will play sides and stack away millions of dollars just in case they have to make the run once they are ousted.

Third are the sea of emotions of deprivation, political marginalisation, betrayal, strong feelings of ethno-religious identity and surviving on the fringe. Their political leaders in power do not represent their feelings. These are the neglected lot whose emotions overflow the brim; who can act violently to preserve their national identity whilst some could fall victims to the extremist agenda. These are the downtrodden that hold the key to the fleeting opportunities of national character and morale.

It is time to admit that the resistance to US occupation in Afghanistan is as much indigenous as it was during the British Afghan Wars and the Soviet Invasion. It is not led by the Taliban alone but also comprises politically and ethnically diverse groups such as Younis Khalis, Gulbadin Hikmatyar and Haqqanis. As the resistance increases, in Kanduz and northern Afghanistan, it also indicates that despite a decade, the fire of Afghan pride is conflagrating. If USA does not resort to engagement methods other than the long war, it assures that it will meet its biggest defeats at the hand of rag tags for the second time after Viet Nam.

It is high time the US Policy Makers realise; once bitten, twice shy.

PAKISTAN’S LONG WAR HAS BEGUN

2011-05-07T22:53:00.001-07:00

(1/5 was not Pakistan’s Day)

For Pakistanis, this is not time to feel embarrassed and to hang heads in shame over the simplicity and quickness of the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. It is rather, a time for a long overdue bugle cry that Pakistan is at War. 1/5 was not Pakistan’s Day inasmuch as 9/11 exposed the vulnerabilities in USA’s homeland security.

Writing in Nation in December 2009, I had assessed the next eighteen months and beyond as crucial for Pakistan and reiterated it in my article ‘Pakistan Must Reassert Itself’ on 20 February. I had written, ‘the next 18 months and beyond will test Pakistan to the verge”.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=483438749046

Between the 14^th and 17th months we have witnessed the Raymond Davis Case, a drone attack on a peaceful jirga, a fully fledged conventional multi directional night attack on a border outpost in Dir, a border skirmish at Anghoor Adda and now the operation to kill Osama Bin laden.

Writing earlier in Nation in November 2010, ‘Pakistan a Rudderless State’ I had cautioned the security planners of Pakistan to beware of Cold Start Type operations from across the Durand Line. I had also written about the heavily fortified US and ISAF citadels in Afghanistan that would be used as pivots of such operations against Pakistan. No one in Pakistan’s security establishment and the media took notice of the warnings.

2009-2010 had been remarkable years of Pakistan’s fight against militancy. During this time, joint intelligence operations led by Pakistani had resulted in elimination of numerous prized targets both from TTP and Al Qaida. The efficiency of information gathering was such that many high value targets deemed missing believed killed had been brought back into focus and neutralised, some amongst them US nationals. But by mid 2010, this cooperation began to wane due to the direct influx of CIA agents into Pakistan. This influx was not part of the working agreements between ISI and CIA. Pakistan’s security establishment felt that they were being stabbed in the back.

Counter security efforts on part of Pakistan indentified hundreds of locations in Pakistan in which US agents had located inside Pakistan covertly. Some of these locations were heavily fortified and the activities inside them were always dubious. After much rallying, Pakistan was able to force the closure of some of these locations but not all. Meanwhile, the network of CIA’s local informers was spreading, a reason why CIA forced budgetary reallocations for its operations in Pakistan. With huge funds to play around, CIA could now buy off anyone including Al Qaida agents whose data Pakistan had shared with USA. They put tags on many such targets and monitored all their movements and places of visit. Consequently, what they have been able to track with their superior technical resources and heavy monetary disbursements is a trail of redoubts within Pakistan where militants have contacts and hiding places. Then came the Raymond Davis shooting and some issues became public.

There is definitely a trove of very important information that USA has extracted from shared sources and double crossing. One such is the hideout of Osama Bin Laden, his courier trails and much more. The biggest vulnerability that Pakistan faces is that some of its own assets within this Al Qaida trail may have been exposed, or double crossed and could be used to blackmail Pakistan into coercion.

With all this information coming from electronic chatter, media and social websites, I was able to piece a MOST DANGEROUS HYPOTHESES that predicted covert sting and intelligence and overt JSOC operations inside Pakistan that subsequently became the theme of my articles on the subject. Having been vindicated, this does not end here.

I have followed the information about the Kakul raid on a real timeline with startling conclusions.

According to information available on twitter and TV Channels, the explosion and helicopter crash were successively reported before mid night on 1 May 2011.

The call to President Zardari came well past midnight implying that it was made much after the operation had been completed. I am also sure that Zardari was told by President Obama to ask PAF not to interfere in the flight path of the US aircrafts.

Concurrently, by the time Pakistan Air Force scrambled, the US troops were well outside Pakistan’s air space.

As an operational planner, I am wary of the fact that Pakistan’s surveillance system on the Western Front did not respond. The systems are deployed in layers in multiple redundancies to ensure that some elements of information do manage to beep through. The electronic systems are reinforced with human resources wherein even a section commander in a border post is trained to immediately report a violation/activity in real time. Why such a credible system was forced into passivity should be the subject of an inquiry and a story of the future. Surprisingly, much credible chatter emanated when the US helicopters made the exit.

I am also aware of the safety layers in US military procedures and purely on technical grounds feel that this operation was carried out by at least four or even more helicopters including transport versions, with credible fool proof backups all along. Simply put, the operation had a sizable operational and logistical trail.

Already information is available that the operation had ground, intelligence and pathfinder support from US assets very close to the target area.

Does this also imply that there was some sort of complicity by Pakistan to facilitate such an operation? Does this mean that US helicopters did not enter Pakistan’s air space on the day of the raid and were pre positioned for such an operation? However, what can be concluded with accuracy is that CIA agents have penetrated every nook and corner of Pakistan under the eyes of Pakistan’s counter intelligence, a fact that will be vindicated in the near future.

Reaction of Pakistan’s Defence Forces to the raid was slow in coming. Complicity at the cost of such a disgrace appears a bad bargain and unrealistic. The Army and Air Force cannot absolve themselves. The reaction of ISI that will never become public is perhaps that of betrayal by USA. Many of its intelligence assets that it had shared with CIA have now double crossed and as Shaukat Qadir says made Al Qaida richer.

My analysis leads me to conclude that some levels of selective complicity existed, and it is this that combined with pre positioning of US assets inside Pakistan.

Foreign aircrafts have operated in Pakistan with impunity during the earthquake in 2005, floods, training missions etc. It is nigh possible that these flights were also used to dump hardware at secret locations that could subsequently become pivots for such operations. Troops for such operations could move into Pakistan under the garb of training, diplomatic staff and travellers coming to Pakistan from USA/ Europe, and local recruitments. Remember that some US soldiers as reported by the media spoke fluent urdu in a Pakistani accent.

Then there is also the much hyped issue of CIA contractors in Pakistan. Many of them have since returned but not before completing the ground work for an effective CIA presence in Pakistan all through the Long War.

The retired CGS of GHQ, Lt. Gen (R) Shahid Aziz had once claimed that he himself had reported evidence of US amphibious landing on the Balochistan Coast with the trails leading to interior Balochistan. If these landings indeed took place, where did these forces ultimately go; or where did they dump and move their cargo?

There is also the case of over 22,000 missing containers. Even if a mere hundred of them carried military hardware and knocked down helicopters, where has all the cargo gone and has anyone noticed it. The theory gets credence from a fact that in one of the ambushes, a container had a complete disassembled Blackhawk helicopter of the type used in Kakul.

My hypothesis is that from 2010 onwards, USA had built up a considerable covert military presence in Pakistan facilitated through visas bypassing the standing operating procedures, indiscriminate entry of containers into Pakistan, holding back of scanning equipment to scan these containers and bribes offered by the container operators from Karachi to the Afghan Border. Even the NLC was foxed into this in the name of business. As a military professional, I know that you do not need huge radioactive machines to scan these containers. A good thermal imaging device abundant in Pakistan can do the trick.

It is these reasons that put the Government of Pakistan and the Defence establishment at odds, something like a reverse replay of Kargil. While President Zardari like ever will use the occasion to push the army and ISI back, shore up new alliances to hedge his government, the security establishment may fight back in the name of national Interest. If this happens, it will set a confrontational environment with re alignment of strange bedfellows. As Pakistan will be destabilised further, Obama’s war in Afghanistan would be over and the Long War in Pakistan begun.

The writer is a retired brigadier and a political economist. Email: Samson.sharaf@gmail.com

ARE RULING ELITES WILLING TO EAT GRASS?

2011-05-07T22:51:00.002-07:00

It appears that after over a decade of writing on the Afghan Conflict, I have run out of ideas. During the course of my active involvement and as an analyst, much that was predicted has come to pass; and much that could have been accomplished in high politics has been denied or deliberately squandered. Lamentably, a nation with abundance in talent, resources and mismanagement still waits for a Godot to steer the vessel home. During the past ten years the clock has turned full circle and the country is back to square one. Eight years to say the least are a decade of failing statecraft. Pakistan is still being asked the same questions that it was, as a prelude to the unstinted support. The fissures between Pakistan and its overbearing ally USA are widening as the situation gets from bad to worse.

While the political establishment continues to make discredited statements over issues it has no control on, the military at least in public, for the first time appears to have locked horns through the ISI-CIA tangle. The military oft acclaimed the custodian of all frontiers is left badly exposed by the Panetta, State Department and Mullen tirades over its overall management of the. The statement of GOC 7 Division in favour of the accuracy of drone attacks is fodder for critics who maintain that these attacks manifest a behind the door agreement that has the military as one of the major actors.

The country lacks political credibility towards governance and has willingly plummeted into an economic quagmire. Despite major national crises, the squabbling politicians have displayed no purpose, sensitivity and ability to address issues over which they enjoy full control. Playing second fiddle to the inflexible foreign policy, they are content to keep the masses misinformed through unimaginative and purposeless soap operas. Lacking self belief and solid commitments, they are unwilling to cut themselves off from that umbilical chord that sustains them through the NRO while plummeting the country into darkness each day.

Away from the high dramas of Islamabad, the resilience of Pakistanis is visible. Field commanders, young officers and soldiers continue to wade through the explosive minefields of FATA at an unprecedented heavy cost, a sacrifice gone unnoticed by the international community and Pakistani leaders. Despite indiscriminate drone attacks, the suffering people of FATA continue to swear allegiance to Pakistan. Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf’s Dharna in Peshawar was an indicator of this resolve attended by people of all shades that included tribesmen, Baloch, retired government servants, common men of all descriptions, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians.

Amidst the trauma of an earthquake and unprecedented floods, the proud Pakistanis continue to pick up shreds and piece life together. This year Pakistan expects a bumper crop; thanks to the seed distribution programs and on farm advisories initiated by Imran Khan, his workers and some NGOs in the flood affected areas. The barter system is once again replacing the cash economy as a hedge against the rising double digit inflation. The unregistered and unregulated sector of Pakistan’s economy is coming to life to ensure that Pakistan survives the artificial poverty crises.

The message is loud and clear. Common men will tailor life to survive. Undeterred by the stigmas of bad governance and corruption, life will go on. The societal diversity considered as fault lines by sceptics are proving a strength .Pakistan will refuse to fail. All that the government and the establishment need to do is to back its people through friendly policies.

Eight year into its failures, the US policy in the region has begun to talk peace and withdrawal. Unfortunately, in Naseer Ullah Babar and Imam, Pakistan has lost two very credible individuals who exercised clout with the Afghans. While Babar died a natural death, Imam’s murder was treacherous and leaves many questions unanswered. A few days before his capture, he had confided in me his ability to broker a sustainable peace with Mullah Omar. However, he was weary that like the 1996 Accord of Benazir Bhutto in which he and his mentor Babar were major negotiators, USA may not support it. If at all, he was killed in cold blood immediately after the Raymond Davis fiasco?

In memory and as a tribute to these two visionaries, Pakistan must relentlessly pursue the same blue print in the best interest of the people of both Pakistan and Afghanistan; a broad based, diverse government in Afghanistan within a federation guaranteed by all affected international actors. As per my study and analysis of the conflict, the peace would start becoming a reality within 100 days.

Pakistan’s political and establishment negotiators also need to understand that Afghan Taliban need to be used as an asset for a universal durable stability in the region. They are also required to dispel the misperception that Pakistan considers them a strategic asset against India and a tool to blackmail the world. The strategic advantages of such a policy far outweigh the misnomer of Strategic Depth in that the objective of all conflicts in DIGNIFIED PEACE.

So is this two prolonged policy of building with people and pursuing credible peace possible?

At the home front, the government has to initiate a Fast Track Socio-Economic Program aimed at stabilisation, jump start to economy and productive GDP (not consumer based but based on ability to produce and consume and a precursor and agitator to exports ie GNP). To make the policy sustainable all issues of the Baloch people will have to be addressed with an out of the box strategy for herein rests the promise of a developed Pakistan. In my studies, Pakistan will experience a socio economic turn round within a year and keep growing.

On the Afghan front, the government, its establishment and USA have to revisit the drawing boards and initiate sustainable and mutually beneficial trust and confidence building measures to bring a viable solution to Afghanistan. Pakistan must demonstrate its ability at tough and persuasive negotiations against drone attacks and ability to rehabilitate all factions that agree to end militancy. Pakistan also needs to develop a rehabilitation program geared towards harnessing this tremendous notion of romanticism towards positive nation building.

Once the two prolonged policy is realised and implementable the government must move to the next step of devolution. Too early a step, will spell disaster for the federation tantamount to moving into the enemies’ trap.

This two prolonged strategy looks too simple. As history proves, all practical and implementable plans are invariably simple. However, this simplicity is belied by the necessity of good governance, tough and objective negotiations and peace as primacy. Within the grey of intentions, perceptions and image theories are valleys full of vested narrow interests and peaks cordoned by sharp cliffs. The difficulty factor is the major challenge to this simplicity. Though the nation is, are our ruling elites willing to eat grass?

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

WHY PAKISTAN CANNOT REASSERT

2011-05-07T22:51:00.000-07:00

An Absence of a National Narrative

Pakistan makes an intriguing study of paradoxes and contradictions in each sinew of its politic body and in every sense of the word. At one end is its rich history and struggle of a Muslim Identity morphing through the Mohamadan Education Conference to All India Muslim League that distanced itself from the rebellion of 1857 to the Khilafat Movement. Both are now the salient of our invented history in just the opposite sense. The metamorphosis of a small Aligarh Movement to All India Muslim League was fire-balled through compulsions of the political economy; yet we witness each day the idea becoming an anathema to those who rule the street through radicalism. Pakistan was created on democratic principles of a modern nation state; yet the true journey is obscured through surgical procedures carried out by butchers. It has resulted in a false sense of historic greatness responsible for a mindset of vulnerability and denial that breeds confrontation and unidirectional development of national aspirations. Religion wherever expedient, has been selectively used to sustain this narrative. This is the centre piece of the mindset that prowls the country and society.

The people of Pakistan are repeatedly led to concede that the Security of Pakistan is a paradigm centring India and the cantankerous Hindu Mindset (fitting the religious divide theory) notwithstanding the grief and indignity we cause to the Hindus in Pakistan who have played an outstanding role for the country they chose to live in. Equally important questions of national security like socio-economic development, education and developmental economics are best left vague and unanswered.

In the past sixty years, the distribution of the annual national budgets empirically alludes to this argument. However, more conspicuous than this unequal distribution of incidental national resources is the glaring absence of a strategy towards development of the social capital and national resource. Given that Pakistan’s security perspectives warrant a strong and efficient defence establishment, what stopped the national planners from making and implementing plans to boost the gross domestic and national products to ensure that equally important, other elements of national power did not suffer at a cost? Had they planned so, the entire burden of foreign debt and defence expenditure would have been dwarfed by growth in a country rich in natural resources, entrepreneurship, skilled labour and business adventurists.

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s economic paradigm was successively built around a Dependency Paradigm through loans, tied aid and trade, and budgetary shortfalls. External and internal borrowing, lopsided taxation measures and unwillingness to expand the tax net were the short term solution to bridging deficits. The past sixty years of budgetary figures empirically support this argument. This has led to a scenario wherein Pakistan a nuclear state though militarily strong is economically dependent and fragile. As a result we compromise national interests for economic sustenance and repeatedly shoot ourselves in the foot. What use is our gold if the country rots?

This massive disconnect and the glaring absence of a broad based National Narrative provides the conducive environments for a select group and coterie to seize and exercise political clout; something I frequently refer to as “The Mindset of 1935: Pakistan’s Achilles Heels” (Nation 10/1/2010).

At the core of this mindset is the defence establishment that took over and evolved a security state through both direct and indirect military interventions. The security perspectives in this threat assessment ignored other elements of national power and relegated them to a bureaucracy that was trained on the Harvard Model. The defence and intelligence establishments also followed suite on the lines of CIA and Pentagon; an explanation why India and Pakistan took different courses in post 1947. Romantic revolutionaries who formed the vanguard of Pakistan movement were replaced by turn coats and fly by night reformers who were more accommodative of this idea. This coterie drew additional strength from the strong US handshake briefly disturbed by the populism of the 70s. As a result all politicians who have ruled Pakistan are insiders who have been groomed at some stage by this coterie.

As a direct consequence, Pakistan’s overall development has been lopsided and unsustainable. The overarching mindset has curtailed the evolution of all other elements of national power. This imbalance has less to do with the uneven distribution and more with total apathy and disregard to indigenous policies of home led growth-consumption and competitive exports. The policy is also sustained through the absence to undertake fast track national development projects (an anathema to the Economics Affairs Division), exploiting the skilled and white collar work force, exploring national resources and technological interfaces.

Pakistan’s budgetary figures evidence this argument. As a result Pakistan looses far more in economic sovereignty than it gains through an efficient war machine and nuclear deterrence. To the contrary, this economic fickleness and dependence makes nuclear nuisance irrelevant as proved by the Drone and Raymond theories. Pakistan is the only nuclear armed country of the world where outside interventions in all forms and manifestations are a daily chore exercised with impunity, where the state provides security to foreign criminals and where the state is ever-ready to take over missions of outside powers.

Within this mindset, political elites have little space left to them; and they choose to play second fiddle. While some of them have been in cahoots with the establishment, the more revolutionary over a period of time have bleached themselves of their true colours and adapted within the system that rewards allegiance through corruptions. They have also developed an elastic conscience to pick and choose what is right for them. This pathetic state of affairs over the past ten years has morphed into a fine tuned political system in which every political party has a stake in power in some nook and corner. The entire state apparatus including the election commission, electoral laws, constitutional amendments and procedures are adapted to sustain the status quo. With so many stake holders, national consensus appears the logical conclusion. In reality it is not so because these stake holders have diverse and often opposing interests and cancel out each other.

With a system such as this in place, it is futile to be talking of national honour and dignity. This establishment has the full backing of the voters who put them in power. Those who cry foul and criticise, neither turn out to cast their vote nor are willing to come out on the streets. Drones and Raymond Davis will continue to happen and Pakistani establishment continue to play to the familiar tune.

The narrative cannot change if this silent majority is not ready to take to the streets and brave suicide bombings, lathi charges and long stays in the dungeons.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

TIME FOR PAKISTAN TO RE ASSERT

2011-02-20T06:13:00.001-08:00

Raymond Davis’ firing spree is no surprise. This was the unsaid message of Obama’s third surge and comes to pass with alacrity like many other violent incidents in Pakistan; drones escalation to the use of banned sectarian outfits and undercover sting operations.

This incidence is a tip of the proverbial iceberg and can be made a case study to convince the rulers that it is better for the nation to pass through a river of fire, than be plunged into an abyss where history is forlorn. It is time Pakistan uses this opportunity to reassert itself as a sovereign, stable and independent nation.

From the various versions of the event that led to the killing of two Pakistanis and the crushing to death of a bystander by a US Consulate Land Cruiser, it appears that the entire operation was premeditated, deliberate and cold blooded. It had a purpose.

The motorcyclists had been trailing the Land Cruiser and Raymond’s Honda for over an hour. Raymond’s camera with photos testifies his activities. Chased by a motor cycle, the peak traffic hours made it impossible to achieve a clean break. As in sting operations, at some point it was agreed that Raymond would kill the motorcyclists and in the confusion thereof, the land cruiser would get away with its high value occupants. In this extra ordinary situation, Raymond complied. However his escape was prevented by the highly charged and emotional mob that gathered at the scene. Confident, that the US influence and pressure will ensure his safety and exit, Raymond showed remarkable cool in his line of duty. In Pakistan one could get away with anything. On two previous occasions, he had managed his way.

However, this was not to be. The quick media reporting and public anger forced the police to escort him to the Police Station. The conflicting reports of identity coming from Raymond himself, US Consulate, Embassy and the White House Spokesperson lent credence to the suspicion that perhaps the US State Department Staff and the US embassy neither knew the true role of Raymond Allen Davis nor his real identity. A quick check of his company on the web raised doubts.

As arrogance and contempt for the law of the land becomes more apparent by the US Consulate’s refusal to hand over the Land Cruiser and its occupants to the local police, so does the intent and purpose of US covert operations in Pakistan. Some reports suggest that the valued cache of the Land Cruiser is already in USA.

The operation gone awry was so important that John Kerry, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee had to make a dash to Pakistan. Meanwhile the urgency was so grave that before Kerry could land, President Obama censured and demanded Pakistan to release the assassin. At the same time a segment of the liberal media in Pakistan portrayed Kerry as a friend of Pakistan; ironically a man who played the crucial role in closure of BCCI and who as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee always exercised an elastic conscience.

The Federal Government of Pakistan desperate to free the killer indulged in naïve tantrums. It also deemed it opportune to address the 10 points agenda of PMLN to sack Shah Mehmood Quraishi, the impediment towards an unprecedented favour to USA. Seymour Hersh is convinced that Zardari sees the lives of Pakistanis as a disposable commodity.

It is beyond doubt that Pakistan’s landscape is littered with hundreds of gun totting covert operators issued indiscriminate visas by the government of Pakistan. This contempt of law is visible on daily basis on the roads of Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi. The purpose of this article is not to discuss legal semantics but rather seek a deeper understanding of why USA keeps meddling in Pakistan’s internal affairs.

Instability is a Plank to Confrontational Environments being shaped by USA

Stability in Pakistan would be the biggest hurdle to the Long War-Long Arm US Strategy. Confrontational objectives need an unstable Pakistan under siege by non state actors in a regressive economic environment. I am reproducing excerpts from my column ‘Pakistan’s Cross word Puzzle’ I wrote in the Nation.

“Pakistan’s overall security situation in terms of law and order, economics and its fallout on society is precarious. It tends to reinforce international perceptions that Pakistan’s internal dynamics situate an international threat… Caught in this kaleidoscope of conflicting demands, a conclusion is foregone. Pakistan will plunge from a fry pan into the fire. There are countries directly or indirectly funding militancy. Rise of militancy in Pakistan serves this game plan … Pakistan as an independent sovereign state armed with nuclear systems needs to do what is best in its own interests… The least our leaders can do is decide on a minimum national agenda and then pursue it relentlessly”. They never did.

Writing on Obama’s surge I wrote,

“What lies undisclosed is high intensity sting and covert intelligence operations conducted by CIA and the dreaded JSOC. The message is unambiguous. Pakistan will have to face a surge of expanded drone attacks by both JSOC and CIA, and a cruel spate of covertly sanctioned illegal assassinations (political leaders), sting operations and anarchy generated by contractors with leaks capable of breaking hell in Pakistan…The next 18 months and beyond will test Pakistan to the verge”.

That was fourteen months ago. Raymond’s act is just a glimpse of what could happen in Pakistan.

Agents under cover of contractors, sub contractors and businessmen have been active in Pakistan for some time. Some are busy training security forces in equipment training while others direct drone attacks through their networks. The most lethal are ones who have established contacts with militants and sectarian outfits to conduct operations against the security installations within Pakistan and assassinate national and nationalist leaders to keep the instability pot on the boil.

Pliability

Discussing Political Absolutism, I had written,

“The strategy creates a ‘coercive strategy of compellence’ forcing Pakistan to cede its lesser interests in order to preserve a larger one. They bend minds; give leads for the future while the covert arms move around to prove just that”.

I have painstakingly followed chatter emanating from various blogs, social sites, facebook and myspace to help make a picture and the most ominous hypotheses for Pakistan’s security. The research has helped me make accurate and timely assessments.

On one such occasion, the chatter even mentioned a significant event in October 2009, the month GHQ was attacked.

It also leaves a trail from Daniel Pearl to Benazir’s assassination, Marriot, attacks on security installations and assassination of nationalist and sub nationalist leaders. It amuses me when Firdaus Ashiq Awan slurs Shah Mehmood Quraishi for being upset for Pervez Musharraf’s.

Sectarian outfits initially raised and patronised to contain a revolutionist Iran are being patronised to destabalise Pakistan. In the interim, these organisations played their role in Eastern Europe and Chechnya as also mobilising India and Pakistan to the brink of war. Some chatter suggests that with Jundallah’s support, Iran could be next.

While this dirty game continues, the ruling junta and USA are covering each other’s backsides; as are some segments and anchors of the vitriolic media. Each one doing what they are supposed to in the role crafted for them.

The accuracy of my assessments thus far has never invigorated debates. Anyone who matters in Pakistan lives in a bubble of idiosyncratic notions. There is a total lack of conspicuousness towards a healthy dialogue on Pakistan’s security in the Parliament, media and political parties. It is time the citizens of the country start re asserting themselves.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

KASHMIR: THE LINES DRAWN WITH BLOOD

2011-02-20T06:12:00.001-08:00

The story of Kashmir is a Greek Tragedy with successive lines drawn in blood. The struggle of the aspirations of the people aside, it is also an endless tale of betrayals, geo strategic intrigues and cantankerousness. The intrigues within, Nehruvian biases, Patel’s Machiavellism, the Kashmiri uprising followed by the tribal invasion, Radcliffe Award, the divided riparian, accession of Bikaner, Tibet, the Ceasefire Line and now the Line of Control.

If Narendra Singh Sarila the ex ADC to Lord Mountbatten is to be believed, all this was the fallout of the British geostrategic designs to contain a communist Russia and China. He goes on to write, “In agreeing to Jinnah’s project, the British also managed to whittle down Jinnah’s territorial demands to the minimum required for Britain to safeguard its defence requirements”. Plan for smaller Pakistan was not worked out by Mountbatten in 1947 as generally believed but by Lord Wavell in 1945”

Tragically, Pakistan’s unstinted support has been shadowed at crucial moments by the same overbearing allies. When I hear slogans like, ‘Kashmir runs in our Blood’, I often take it a prelude to forgetting the Kashmiri People and putting Pakistan’s interests first. But beyond the true aspirations of the people it also demonises those who played a role to stir the freedom struggle, amongst them, the Progressives of Lahore.

The late Professor Samuel Martin Burke, a founding member of Pakistan’s Foreign and Nuclear Policy understood the Congress and AIML mindsets. His books on framing of Indian Policy elucidate just that. He wrote that accession of Kashmir was crucial to Nehru’s dream of a rediscovered India of antiquity. A Muslim majority state suited his concept of secularism. Fabian socialism held a romantic appeal for the progressives, amongst them Faiz, Mian Iftikharuddin and Khan Abdul Qayum Khan who were also the Congress points men for Sheikh Abdullah, the symbol of resistance to the rulers of Kashmir. The division of Punjab ensured that India retained a land route to Kashmir, control of rivers and important head works in East Punjab. Bikaner, the State with biggest ammunition depots of united India ceded for these waters. In the days of Hind Chini Bhai Bhai and enamouring a socialist agenda, Nehru-Patel even traded off Tibet for Kashmir. These facts blow holes through Sarila’s belated revelations that undermine the struggle for Pakistan.

But the progressives of Lahore once the pride of Congress knew and challenged these motives. The trio of Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Dr. MD Taseer and Mian Iftikharuddin enjoyed close relations with both GM Sadiq and Sheikh Abdullah. Later Hafiz Jullundri and Maulana Daud Gaznavi also made efforts to win him over to the AIML. This is precisely why Indian historians label these gentlemen as shameless intriguers of Pakistani left and a blot on the history of left movement in the Indian sub-continent. But these stalwart leftist Muslim Leaguers were also a pain in the neck for the feudal Unionists who were to later become the power base of Muslim League in Punjab. Close to the partition and later, they effectively insulated Qaid e Azam from these leftists and later drew their blood through military regimes.

Radcliffe had hit Pakistan’s interests in multiple ways. The Indian plan for annexing Kashmir was obvious. It is debatable if Jinnah knew of the invasion plans. What is definite is that Dr. Taseer and Mian Iftikhar travelled repeatedly to Kashmir to galvanise support in favour of Pakistan. They found an ally in Prime Minister Liaqat Ali who after the aborted visit by Mr. Abdullah in October 1947 gave the go ahead for the invasion. The invasion plans were a secret shared only with Khan Abdul Qayum Khan, Mr. Aslam Khattak, Khurshid Anwar and General Akbar. Some researchers write that an understanding to levels of over confidence existed between Jinnah and the Maharaja of Kashmir and that Jinnah was sure that Kashmir would join Pakistan. Ultimately, India managed to scare him to submission. Some opine that the tribal invasion was the catalyst.

A careful reading of the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharajah Hari Singh is convincing to the minute legal details. It is a deliberate, well drafted and a sound document seeking to secure the immediate and long term interests of the Kashmir-India Nexus. In no way does it appear to be a document prepared in a hurry when Lashkars from Pakistan were knocking at the doors of Srinagar and Sheikh Abdullah threatening a local uprising. If we carry out an analysis on the amendments in the Constitution of India as regards Kashmir, it is revealed that the progression of amendments is chronologically congruent to the points enunciated in the Instrument of accession in that progressively all control ultimately shifts to India.

Field Marshal Manekshaw’s own memoirs challenge the Indian version and describe the confused state of mind of the Maharaja when he flew to Srinagar with V P Menon to get the Instrument of Accession signed. He writes,

“We went to the palace. I have never seen such disorganisation in my life. The Maharaja was running about from one room to the other. I have never seen so much jewellery in my life - pearl necklaces, ruby things, lying in one room; packing here, there, everywhere. There was a convoy of vehicles. The Maharaja was coming out of one room….Eventually the Maharaja signed the accession papers and we flew back in the Dakota late at night”.

If this be the state of the Maharaja’s Palace, how could he be logically expected to write such a fool proof document? It is most probable that Sardar Patel and VP Menon with the help of some jurists first made amendments to the 1935 Act (a contravention of the Partition Plan) and finalised the Instrument of Accession.

Manekshaw’s memoirs also contradict the Indian assertion that the Maharaja wrote a letter on 26 October 1947 to the Government of India, the same day that Menon and Manekshaw landed at Srinagar. He also narrates that the entire entourage of Kashmiri Leaders led by Mr. Abdullah and those who later supported India were present at the Srinagar Airport lighting the runway with pine torches to see off Menon. This proves that these elements acted on the beck and call of Sardar Patel and Nehru to scare the Mahraja into submission and that Jinnah was right in ignoring them as double gamers.

The amended Government of India Act of 1935 provided in Section 6 that “a princely Indian state shall be deemed to have acceded to either of the dominion on the acceptance of the Instrument of Accession executed by the Ruler thereof” as a logical heir to the British Crown was legally misconceived. In the case of Madhav Rao, the Supreme Court of India found it strange that India should have claimed that the Government of India inherited any aspects of the paramountcy exercised by the British Crown. Again the Indian Supreme Court in Premnath Kaul and the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, in Magher Singh, observed that with the lapse of the British paramountcy, the princely Indian state became an independent and sovereign state in the fullest sense in international law a stand also taken by Pakistan. As the Governor General, it was Mountbatten’s duty to ensure that clauses of the Independence Act of 1947 should not have been changed by India in the 1935 Act and therefore declare the Instrument of Accession illegal. He did not do it and troops were airlifted to Kashmir within minutes for a pre determined occupation.

To be continued………

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

SAMUEL MARTIN BURKE: PAKISTAN’S BLITZKEIGING DIPLOMAT

2011-02-20T06:10:00.001-08:00

A TRIBUTE

It is impossible for students of foreign policy to carryout research on the formative phases of South Asian Foreign and Kashmir Policies without referring to Samuel Martin Burke. His books ‘Pakistan's Foreign Policy: An Historical Analysis (1973)’ and ‘Mainsprings of Indian and Pakistani Foreign Policy (1974)’, provide an analytical insights into the dynamics that led to the partition of 1947, and understanding of the Indian mindset that prevailed in the Radcliff Boundary Award and occupation of Kashmir. These books also provide students with the genesis of Pakistan’s Security Perspectives and how the policy thereon evolved.

It is my experience that research on Pakistan’s Foreign Policy cannot go wrong if it has Burke’s Theory as its Start Point; a reason why my research papers and articles on Pakistan’s security perspectives and Indian assessments have always been accurate. Half a century hence, after having played his role as a formidable diplomat, impact of Burke’s assessments and contribution to a modern Pakistan remains enduring. A historian by qualification, he has stamped his place in Pakistan’s history whether someone acknowledges it or not. True to his name Burke, he was and remains, Pakistan’s Blitzkeiging Diplomat.

Though he was equally proficient in descriptions of the Mogul Empire and the advent and decline of British Raj, his enduring contribution remains the deep insight into the Indian political mindset always dismissive of Pakistan.

As a magistrate who presided over the Election Petition Commissions of 1945, he showed proficiency and insight in passing historic judgments as also enrich his grasp on the Congress and Nehruvian machinations. This experience as a civil servant was to hold him in good stead amongst the foreign policy fraternity of Pakistan and contribute to a nascent Pakistan in some of its worst times.

His assessments of Nehru’s Kashmir Policy, Fabian Socialism, Secularism, Non Alignment and Panchsheel are theories that have withstood all challenges of time and events. It is unfortunate that as Pakistan plummeted from the notion of welfare to security state; Pakistan waned from fully exploiting these fault lines to push itself towards self reliance and full blown sovereignty.

Had Pakistan not been a nuclear power, the instability and the great game dynamics in play would have dismembered and gobbled it years ago. Thanks again to Burke, who as Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Canada, convinced USA and Canada of Pakistan’s need of nuclear reactors, setting up a nucleus of research that was to result in indigenous nuclear capability.

It has remained my quest to know who this gentleman is. Professors at the University told me that he was a British civil servant who chose to become a naturalized Pakistani and had since migrated. It was only recently that Raymond Durrani a friend from Canada having read my article told me that Mr. Samuel Martin Burq was in fact a Punjabi from Martinpur, Faisalabad and a die hard Pakistani on all counts. Cognitively, he was a Jinnah admirer much before 1947 and continued to serve the interests of Pakistan from 1945 to 9 October 2010 till he died in UK at the age of 104.

He was also amongst the close aides of Liaqat Ali Khan and Sir Zafar Ullah who laid the foundations of Pakistan’s foreign policy, a founding member of Pakistan’s Foreign Office, an accomplished diplomat cum historian and one who left an enduring foot print on Pakistan’s Defence and Nuclear Development.

His father Mr. Janab Khairuddin Barq was an educationist, a Persian cum Urdu poet and also the Headmaster of the School in this Christian village.

Samuel was born on 3 July 1906. He was named Samuel Martin after the Christian Missionary who established the village and later BARQ (Burke) as his surname after the nom de plume of his Persian and Urdu writing father. It is unfortunate that this Pakistani despite his services to the country is little known in his motherland. Had the British and Indian newspapers not written his obituaries he would have remained obscure to many Pakistani bloggers who have now started paying tribute to him.

It is my endeavour to take on the noble task of paying tributes and write an obituary to this son of the soil; a man of rare intellect, foresight and perseverance who lived and died for Pakistan. At a time when sectarian and religious bigotry threatens to shake the foundations of Jinnah’s Pakistan, it is also a reminder that Pakistan is to be equally shared with religious minorities who have served it well despite odds.

Hailing from an educated native family of Faisalabad, Samuel shifted to Government College Lahore on a scholarship to study science. Being a sportsman and member of the College Cricket Team, he found the long laboratory hours in the college in conflict with his sporting passion. As destiny would have it, he shifted to Persian, Urdu, English and History to secure honors in BA and a 1^st Division in Masters in History. Later his knowledge of history, Persian and Urdu held him in good stead to write historical chronicles on the Mughal Empire and also provide an insight into the Hindu political and military mind. Till his death, he held to the opinion that it was in fact Gandhi and not Jinnah who began use of religion as an instrument of politicking to introduce communalism in politics.

He appeared in the Indian Civil Services Examinations that he qualified with top merit and proceeded to England to do courses in administration and Law. On return, he joined the district administration and later became a magistrate who as head of the Election Petition Commission of Panjab 1945 passed many fair judgments in favour of the Muslim League fighting for an independent Pakistan; to the chagrin of Congress and Sir Khyzer Hayat’s Unionists who wanted a United India. Yet, he was so transparent that never once was he accused of bias.

Before partition, he resigned from the Indian Civil Service to prove that his judgments were never biased. Both Congress and Muslim League offered him lucrative positions. He declined and after partition chose Pakistan as his native country. Rather than act as Liaqat Ali’s minister of Minorities on a narrow canvas, he chose to broaden his role as a Pakistani and joined the Pakistan Foreign Office, where along with Sir Zafar Ullah, he laid the foundations of Pakistan’s foreign policy.

During the food shortages of 1953 he and his British wife Louise traveled all over USA canvassing for a modern and plural Pakistan. He came back with US food aid that in the 50s became the foot print of every poor Pakistani household followed by economic aid that became the marvel of industrialization in the 60s.

Burke was an articulate speaker, a scholarly writer and a pleasing diplomat. As the Pakistani ambassador to Scandinavia, the Commonwealth heads of missions in Stockholm chose him to escort the Queen during her walkabout.

When appointed as High Commissioner to Canada, he negotiated the sale of a research nuclear reactor to Pakistan that was to later transform into a robust nuclear deterrence.

Burke retired from Pakistan’s Foreign Service to take up a new chair in South Asian Studies created for him at the University of Minnesota where he also created a Burke Library. He continued to write and dialogue on Pakistan’s behalf both in his private capacity and on behalf of the Pakistan Government. He secured the sale of military hardware from USA to Pakistan in 1970 despite strong objections from the US ambassador to India.

His books include: Pakistan's Foreign Policy: An Historical Analysis (1973); Mainsprings of Indian and Pakistani Foreign Policy (1974); Akbar, the Greatest Mogul (1989); Bahadur Shah, the Last Mogul Emperor of India (1995); The British Raj in India: An Historical Review (1995); and Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah: His Personality and his Politics (1997). He also helped compile a Historical Atlas of South Asia.

Samuel Martin Burke of Martinpur Fasisalabd, born 3 July 1906; died 9 October 2010 leaves behind a legacy of three daughters, nine grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

JINNAH’S PAKISTAN: IS IT IMPLODING?

2011-02-20T06:09:00.000-08:00

Like most Pakistanis, I was stunned in disbelief to see the breaking news of the late Salman Taseer’s assassination; Not that I am a fan but rather, the direction in which Pakistan is headed. Like every citizen of this country who believes in Jinnah’s vision, I was disturbed and saddened by events that followed.

None could have articulated our feelings and the direction that Pakistan is headed, better than Imran Khan. In his interview to CNN he related this unfortunate event into a causative equation, “In fact Pakistan is imploding. This country is going down.” Rather than his usual dynamic and imposing demeanor, he appeared tense, grim and somber. His face reminiscent of the first loosing matches of 1992 world cup reflected the concerns of every Pakistani; Betrayal of Jinnah’s vision of a plural, progressive and communitarian society.

This article is not an obituary of an assassinated Pakistani politician, but instead assess what lies ahead for Pakistan It critically appraises the future course of Pakistan’s politic body. Hours after the assassination, I formulated a hypothesis and posted it on Facebook and Twitter. As Events have unfolded, my worst fears are coming true.

“Salman's assassination is beyond symbolic. This is the start point of a struggle between the forces that bank on the establishment and mullahs for power and the true democratic forces within Pakistan. Does it bring an end to the era of the Punjab Progressives like Faiz, Mian Ifthikhar and Dr. Taseer, or will the pyre burn?”

Aisha Sarwari articulates my fears when she wites, “He had come to be the only man who defined the fight that is the only fight worth fighting – between the mullahs and the progressives. Before him, no one had dared vocalise the fact that there remains an ideological divide in Pakistan.”

Notwithstanding that the event is a criminal act I am more concerned at the trends that this assassination is leading to.

The religious right spearheaded by political parties has taken a position on the incident declaring the assassin a hero and the dead governor an infidel who deserved no funeral.

During the entire run up to the assassination, all political parties distanced themselves from the slain governor and left him isolated with few civil activists, minority leaders and opinion makers to face the wrath of the right. Even the ruling PPP hierarchy distanced itself from the slain governor and stalwarts like Babar Awan and the Prime Minister publically distanced themselves from the infidel politician.

A large segment of the Rawalpindi Bar Association has put its weight behind the assassin, garlanded, kissed and hugged him.

The governments in power at provincial and federal levels have failed to take action against those who are justifying the assassination on religious grounds or offering head money on those condemned under PPC 295C. There are no measures in sight to contain this fervor.

The internet media is flooded with admiration of the assassin. Facebook has numerous profiles and communities portraying him a knight.

Elements of the government in power are screaming helplessly that Police investigations are being interfered with.

The security apparatus in Pakistan has shown its low motivational state, lack of training, commitment and non seriousness in security of VVIPs.

But all this has not happened overnight.

The story began with Jinnah’s plural Pakistan which was systematically replaced with political manipulations of religion to sustain the emerging political elites and the establishment. It began with Jinnah abandoned on the roads of Karachi grasping for fresh air followed by insertion of the religious identity in the constitution. A time has now come when even educated Pakistan term Jinnah’s address of 11 August a figment of fiction.

Religious forces that supported the Khilafat Movement under Gandhi and opposed the creation of Pakistan slowly began to overawe the Muslim League that created Pakistan and had opposed the Khilafat. As time passed, numerous Muslim Leagues that were created to suit the establishments dishonored Jinnah’s Pakistan. They proceeded into short term expediencies that have now resulted in intolerance, violence and lawlessness; all in the name of religion.

As this trend spread, many members of the minority communities who worked in cahoots with Qaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah elected to either move back to India or to other countries. Even many war heroes who served Pakistan in its two wars emigrated. As Raymond Durrani puts it:

“When it comes to win a game, whether that game is in a sports match, in politics and or in democracy, the winner requires only one extra point over its opponent. In the game of creation of Pakistan, that one point (actually 4 points) came from the Christian MPs and the Speaker of the House of the Punjab Assembly who happened to be a Christian to make Pakistan a reality. Do the masses of Pakistan Muslims know who and where those members of the Christian Pakistani Nation are? “

Similarly, the uprisings in Kashmir had the intellectual, material and political directions from men like Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Mian Iftikharuudin of Progressive Papers Lahore and Dr. Taseer and those who spent long hours with Jinnah and Iqbal. Pathetically, these heroes of the Kashmir struggle were thrown into cages by the dictators for conspiring against Kashmir and we in schools were forbidden from reading Faiz’ poetry.

In yet another Shakespearean irony, a man who earned and paid honest taxes to Pakistan in its worst times, and one who turned anything he touched in business to gold and whose father acclaimed and buried Alim ud Din Ghazi in Lahore, himself fell to bullets as a purported infidel.

Ever since, this trend has grown.

Pakistan was chosen as an Islamic Containment Bulwark against a so called godless Russia during the Cold War. USA called Pakistan to an international Jihad against the infidel Soviets during the occupation of Afghanistan. The West and many Arab states created the sectarian outfits to fail Iran’s Revolution. Tragically, at each occasions military dictators seeking legitimacy obliged and plunged Pakistan deeper into the militant syndrome. The present WOT serves to air and ignite these violent trends with the conclusion that any moderate who speaks up for Jinnah’s Vision is called an enemy agent, infidel and traitor.

Jinnah’s Pakistanis are fast loosing space and relevance. Is there one to challenge these forces of regression?

I agree with Imran Khan when he says, “Pakistan is imploding. This country is going down”

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

CHINA-US DIPLOMACY AND AF-PAK

2011-02-20T06:07:00.001-08:00

A Silver Line for Pakistan

The visit of the Chinese President Hu Jintao to USA will not live in memory for the declarations that were made in the joint press conferences and the press releases. They are more significant in what has not been said. In the backdrop are diplomatic flurry, pre visit co ordinations and concessions from either side. In this calculus of mutual diplomatic conceding, inasmuch as China did not mention Kashmir, AF Pak and India, USA in quid pro quo refrained from mentioning Pakistan’s growing nuclear cooperation with China, WOT and the much trumpeted Long War.

Though irritants, suspicions and differences were not highlighted publically, they nonetheless formed the perspective in which this diplomacy was framed. Cognisant of the upcoming elections in USA and the support that Barak Obama needs from the right, Philip J. Crowley the State Department Spokesman was quick to assert that ‘there's no change in the US policy.' On a question, that references to irritants and suspicions were dropped as a policy to appease India, he evaded the issue and responded, 'I think it's a manifestation of the nature of our discussions here… that we have ongoing with China. But, no, I wouldn't read anything else into it.'

This sums of the exploratory and confidence building nature of this high profile visit to USA.

In light of the constraints faced by President Obama and the State Department in addressing issues that in fact destabilise South Asia, Afghanistan and the surrounding regions, rhetoric was low key. Following the Democrat traditions of resolving issues diplomatically, this establishment is handicapped by a somewhat lame duck President, Pentagon that calls all shots on strategic and security issues and the desire to co-opt India for its long term objectives in Central and South Asia.

In contrast, though the Chinese President too faces his elections, he appears to be fully backed in his diplomacy and can go back and claim that he has made significant economic and diplomatic success. He also spared US the diplomatic spar by not mentioning that China had already begun reducing its exports to USA, that USA was causing international financial destabilisation by printing out dollars and its human rights record in Guantanamo Bay and rendition centres. More so at the heels of aggressive diplomatic visit by Vice President Biden and Mullen’s mantra to do more, it was also for the first time that Pakistan was not in the head lines as a punching bag for US failures in Afghanistan. Though India feels happy at its diplomatic clout and staying on the right side of State Department diplomacy, no mention of Pakistan caused much dismay in its thinking circles.

Economically, in face of a 275 Billion Dollar trade deficit, conceding exports deals to a tune of around 45 Billion Dollars is not significant. In addition, China also agreed to give US contractors proximately to 88 Billion Dollars contracts and an order for 200 Boeing aircrafts worth 19 Billion Dollars creating jobs for a starved US work force. In return, China will get access to the lucrative US locomotive market and joint manufacturing facilities with General Electric (GE) that in a few years will help Chinese Locomotive industries to elbow out GE just as it has done with the German, French and Japanese locomotive manufacturers in the past.

But the irritants remain. China is the direct recipient of the US LONG ARM-LONG WAR Strategy. Both eastward expansion of NATO and the bases in Afghanistan affect it directly. China realises that US is unhappy about Chinese presence in Pakistan and Balochistan. It also knows that Baloch separatist movements that are particularly anti Chinese have sponsors with US blessings. Then there are issues of US arms sales to Taiwan, Dalai Lama, Kashmir, India and support to Pakistan. The fact that this visit avoided such real issues reflects multiple connotations.

First, The Chinese have displayed remarkable cognisance and insight of the constraints faced by the Democrat administration. They have provided the US administration with enough economic concessions to carry to their vote banks in the next presidential elections and return with the people’s verdict. Then the road to economic engagements will be more promising and may lead to a matrix whence economic compulsions will over shadow military concerns.

Secondly, the Chinese see the Democrats far better diplomatic partners than the Republicans who represent the right, are militarily adventurous and more aligned to the Pentagon. Hence the Chinese have decided to bet on them for peace in the region.

Thirdly, this also raises a question whether China has managed to avert an extra ordinary escalation in AF-PAK at the heels of the Biden’s visit and Petraeus’ Plan. If it has, then roads to a diplomatic and negotiated settlement of the afghan issue will be wide open.

Fourthly, it brings back North Korea to the negotiating table. This also impacts Chinese bilateralism with Japan and South Korea, crucial to Chinese economic progress.

In case the Chinese achieve these objectives, then the regions around Pakistan are likely to see a graduated de-escalation, return of diplomacy as an instrument to negotiate peace and improved Pakistan Afghan relations.

This would also open doors to India and Pakistan to resume peace diplomacy boost trust and confidence building measures across the entire spectrum of irritants, particularly along the Line of Control. Peace along the divided frontier of Kashmir will give a much needed respite to the people of the region, permit them to interact, carry out mutual trade and reduce force levels pending the resolution of the question under UN auspices.

The success will also provide Pakistan to concentrate more on its domestic issues, challenge the forces of intolerance and give breathing space to the armed forces to play a pro active role in national development in the post conflict, post earth quake and post flood scenario.

Readers may be surprised at my assertion, but it is a fact that the Pakistani system lacks the wherewithal to absorb and deliver on the significant aid flowing into Pakistan. It is time that as in the 50s and 60s, the armed forces play their role in national development as the most viable and constitutional instrument to absorb and deliver these projects rather than the shady NGO Mafias aligned with the corrupt officials and politicians of the governments.

Just like Algeria faces a people’s revolution, Pakistan is not far behind. If that happens, then the forces of intolerance will unleash themselves against the entire system. The government must realise that far too much time has been lost to political tantrums and it is time they deliver honestly. The only democratic options are to either perform or call for immediate elections. The slide and rot must be stopped and arrested.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.

email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com